Work Text:
“None for me.” (I’m fine.) “Working.”
There is nothing wrong with me – there is everything wrong with me. The human mind isn’t supposed to work the way mine does: not even Mycroft’s does, and certainly not those of ordinary people. Regardless, mine does work, it does The Work, and that is all that matters.
I say digestion slows me down. It is a lie that is also true. When I don’t eat, my mind slows enough for me to catch it.
My mind never stops. It races, devours, and ferments. It’s never quiet, never still.
When hunger pains distract my transport, I can focus; I can think. There is a clarity that comes when my transport is preparing to consume itself. I can finally see what should have been obvious.
I’d never actually starve myself; I require sensory input to acquire data, or my mind will have nothing to analyze. I require working limbs and adequate muscle mass, or I’ll be unable to outmaneuver criminals. I may wish to be pure thought, but until technology makes it possible for a mind to interact with the world without the intermediary of a body, I’m stuck in this miserable cage of physicality as long as I wish to continue My Work. It would be imprudent to damage myself carelessly: I am meticulous in tracking my calorie intake and expenditure, though I’m careful to never admit to it. Everyone misunderstands.
I am not a foolish teenage girl trying to fit an arbitrary ideal of beauty. I don’t care how I look; that is not the shape of my vanity. While I’ve found my appearance can be convenient for manipulation, I’m confident I could achieve the same ends using other means, if necessary. It is not an eating disorder, or an image problem, or any other ridiculous pop-psychological term the world would glibly apply if I tried to explain. I am not damaged, I am not doing damage, I know exactly what I’m doing to myself, and it is for my own good. It facilitates The Work. I am healthy, I am fit, I am not insane; I am the pinnacle of reason and stability. I am driven by logic in an over-emotional world. I am completely in control.
And, when my vision starts to tunnel, when the world starts to go grey, it’s always (only) when a case has gone badly. When I should have seen, should have known… when it wasn’t enough, and someone else paid for it.
Not much carp, this caring lark. But it is; it’s a wound to my professional pride when I fail to save them. When I fail to see, in time, what was right in front of me. When I didn’t push hard enough. So, if I push a little harder, it’s because I was too lenient with myself in the first place. If I push further than I normally would, it balances out.
If I push far enough, maybe my mind will finally clear for good, and work at a pace that I can keep up with, and that can keep up with the data, so I’ll have the answers when I need them, and I won’t have to push anymore.
And if it hurts, it’s just transport. (If it hurts, at least I can feel something.)
(If it hurts, maybe there is something wrong with me, but if there’s something wrong with me, then I can’t be fixed, because I’m not like anyone else, so who would know even where to start? So, there’s nothing wrong with me, because I do the Work, I’m not broken. There’s nothing wrong with me because even if there was, there’s nothing to be done.)
I have another day, maybe two, before I need to eat again. ‘None for me, yet.’ I’m just (not) fine.