Remembering to Feel Chapter Six

Chapter Six
To Whom it May Concern,
Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life. Sherlock was completely unresponsive and panicked for a straight two hours yesterday, and when he finally snapped out of that, he was only shouting the same four words over and over until he finally cried out a new word. "Bear". He said the word bear, I can't figure out why. I tracked Sherlock's severe panic attack back to just one word. One word I will not say around him again--flower. Why though? What was so wrong with the word flower? Maybe it wasn't the word in of itself, maybe it was something that the word brought up for him. It haunted me. It frightened me. What other words would flip a switch for him? I wouldn't know until it happened again, and I didn't want it to happen again.
"Good morning, Sherlock," I said as Sherlock's eyes slowly flickered open. He glanced over at me and repeated the word "good", a weak grin on his tired face.
"That's right," I chuckled, "it's a good morning."
Sherlock's eyes were puffy and red from his nearly six hour long crying fit yesterday, and that brought down my mood. His red eyes reminded me of how awful those hours were, and his tired face was a recollection of his frustration and confusion. All I wanted was to help my friend in any way I could, but I had no idea what he needed, and I wasn't entirely certain that he knew what he needed. On a sheet of paper sitting beside Sherlock's lamp, I had started a list of words he had said and the possible connections and significance they held. He had never actually said the word flower, but it was definitely a significant word. I had written it down, then scratched it out, the word "NO" written largely beside it. The words yes, no, and good were just simple little words with no importance, but the word bear caught my attention. When he said it, he looked at me with pleading eyes, as if he was expecting something from me. But, what? He was more closed off than usual, and this time it wasn't his choice. It broke my heart how I couldn't help him, but I could do nothing until I understood what he needed.
"Sherlock," I breathed, writing "bear?" on the paper. "About yesterday..."
"No," Sherlock cut in, pulling his blanket up to his mouth and hiding half of his horrified face behind it.
I hesitated, then simply said, "Bear."
After I said this, his eyes quivered sadly and he sucked his blanket into his mouth. As he chewed on it, I noticed his lower lip trembling again. I could not stand to see Sherlock cry again. I just couldn't do it, so my body put itself in instant panic mode.
"Sherlock, you're okay," I said, my words frantic and rushed. I scooted closer to him and continued, "you're good, Sherlock. I-I just want to know about the bear. What did you want to say about bears, Sherlock? I'm just curious, a-and..." Sherlock's face was all scrunched up with sheer puzzlement, and his eyes had started to water again; they had begun to look like miniature greenish oceans again, swimming in emotional turmoil.
"Oh God," I murmured, placing my face in my palm. "I'm so sorry, Sherlock."
From behind the cottony comfort of the blanket, Sherlock muttered, "Bear?"
I perked up.
"Yes! Bear! Good, Sherlock!"
He too perked up and begun to smile. He slid upward a bit so that the back of his head was resting on the wall and he had removed the blanket from his mouth. That agonized, pleading expression in his eyes had been replaced with child like excitement at the mention of the word "bear".
"Okay, do you like bears, Sherlock?" I asked him, trying to only ask yes or no questions for him.
Sherlock nodded and said, "Yes. Bear."
"Just one bear?" I asked him, narrowing my eyes.
Sherlock sighed hopelessly, "Yes."
At this point, I was completely lost. We stared at each other for a moment, exchanging mutually confused expressions. Just one bear. That didn't make a lick of sense until I really thought about it. Finally, it clicked and it was quite a shocking discovery once I understood.
"Sherlock, are you talking about..." I hesitated, then finally said, "....A stuffed bear?"
If Sherlock was in his right mind, he would probably have punched me in the mouth. But, since he wasn't, he looked at me miserably then buried his face in his blanket. Behind the cotton, he murmured, "Chewy Bear."
My stomach sort of dropped and I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I wanted to ask him what a "chewy bear" was, but he wouldn't be able to answer, so I simply stood up and smiled down at Sherlock.
"You want this..." I paused, feeling like I was talking to a young child, "...Chewy Bear?"
Sherlock shoved the blanket back into his mouth and nodded fervently, indicating his frankly hysterical approval.
"Yes. Chewy Bear," Sherlock murmured, his eyes locked hopelessly on me. He was so desperate, so tremendously impatient for what ever item he was referring to. There was one man who would possibly understand what Sherlock was talking about, and it was the one man I tried to avoid like the plague.
"Okay, Sherlock. Is it okay if I leave for a little while?" I asked him, leaning down so I was looking him straight in the eyes. The look on his face was very innocent, very childish and it forced me to remember the crayon drawing on Sherlock's bedroom wall; the one with the word INNOCENCE crossed out in red ink. The look in his eyes in that moment told me that somewhere in the coldness of heart, he still possessed at least a small bit of innocence, even if it was just residual.
"No," Sherlock said, spitting the blanket out and hastily grasping my arm. That was a very stunning moment for me. I had never known Sherlock to touch people voluntarily, or just for security. I always just assumed that Sherlock's only escape from stress was solitude and an entire pack of cigarettes. As I thought about Sherlock's smoking habit, an idea suddenly came to mind.
"Sherlock, I know you don't want me to leave," I said, leaning over nonchalantly to grab his hospital bag. "Are you afraid or nervous about me leaving?"
Sherlock tightened his grip on my arm and he muttered miserably, "Yes."
I unzipped the bag and took out his nicotine patches. With a smile on my face, I showed him the patches. His reaction was exactly what I was hoping it would be. His eyes widened with curiosity and he poked the package with a cautious finger.
"Good?" He questioned, his nose wrinkled up with puzzlement.
I nodded and placed a patch on his arm. He gasped with delight and released my arm so he could examine his new accessory. I couldn't help but chuckle a little at his childlike satisfaction.
"Yes, these are good. These are good patches, Sherlock. They'll keep safe while I'm gone, okay?" I told him, tapping the patch on Sherlock's arm.
"Good patch?" Sherlock murmured, an impressed look of sheer bewilderment on his face.
I chuckled and advanced toward the door.
"Yes, Sherlock. Good job."
I felt bad about leaving him, but I knew that I needed to retrieve this "chewy bear" for him, what ever that was. I figured if anyone knew what it was, it would be Mycroft Holmes. I took out my phone and found his number, then I hesitated before dialing his number.
"John, what could you possibly want?" Mycroft groaned as soon as he picked up.
My face heated up with anger.
"I need to stop by your place today, if its not too much trouble," I retorted, a bit more nastily then I had originally intended.
"Of course it's not too much trouble," Mycroft replied with an annoyingly sarcastic syntax. "Nothing's wrong, John? Hmm?"
I sighed, thinking sadly about Sherlock.
"Well that's something else we need to talk about."
About an hour later, I was arriving at Mycroft's house. It was an impressive piece of work, his place was, but he was much better off than Sherlock was when it came to money. But, when it came to his mysterious amount of likable anti-friendliness, Sherlock had the lion's share. Mycroft was waiting outside when I got there, wearing that stupid false grin yet again. He greeted me by taking my coat, then he walked me into his marble foyer.
"Be careful with the floors," Mycroft said as we walked through the foyer.
"Oh, are they new?" I asked, examining every glittering detail of his home with wide eyes.
"No, they're just expensive," Mycroft replied, beating his cane once against a plush, white couch.
We took a seat together and he poured me a cool glass of brandy.
"So, what is this about?" Mycroft asked, swallowing some sparkling brandy.
I sipped some of mine, then said, "it's Sherlock. He's a bit...under the weather."
Mycroft threw his head back against the couch and groaned, "I always knew this would happen. He kept saying that he'd be fine, but repression can only last so long, ya know?"
"Repression!?" I cried, almost excitedly. "Mycroft, that's not what I meant, but what the hell are you talking about?"
Mycroft's eyes got very wide, as if that was a topic that nobody ever brought up. He gulped down the rest of his brandy, then he freshened my glass.
"Perhaps, we shouldn't discus that today," Mycroft said hastily, his dumbfounded look fading away. "What were you saying, John?"
It wasn't too easy for me to just let that go, for he had just used a term that had come up in my thoughts a lot lately. I tended to assume that about Sherlock, but what was he repressing? That had been my mission, but it was interrupted. Mycroft was my key to the mysterious repressed world of Sherlock, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it.
"Well," I started, putting my crystal glass down on the coffee table. "He had a little...accident, and he's in the hospital."
Mycroft put his glass down next to mine and stared at me in bewilderment. For once, he actually appeared to care about his brother, and perhaps he always had on some level.
"What happened to him?"
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, then I said, "Well we were working a case, and he pissed someone off. So, he got a heavy box dropped on his head. The doctors are calling it a traumatic brain injury. He's really not himself at all."
Mycroft fixed his eyes on the floor, and I could detect some real emotion in his face. He looked like his heart had just broken into a million pieces, which was shocking to me because I never thought he cared for Sherlock on any level at all.
"Will he be alright?" Mycroft asked, wringing his hands.
I honestly could not give him a straight answer, and I knew he could see right through me if I lied, so I simply told him I didn't know. Mycroft then spent the next twenty minutes asking me if there was anything he could do to help, and he wouldn't stop talking long enough for me to tell him what Sherlock really wanted. Finally, I asked for more brandy, solely to distract him and get him to stop chattering ceaselessly.
"Mycroft, there was one thing he needed," I started to say. I paused because I was unsure of how Mycroft would respond to Sherlock's childish desire for this "chewy bear", what ever the hell that was.
"What is it? I'm sure I can give it to him, being his older brother and all," Mycroft said very proudly.
My level of irritation rose a bit more and, biting my lip, I said, "H-he's sort of...regressed, at the moment, and he's made many mentions of a certain 'chewy bear'. Would you happen to know anything about that?"
With silent complacency, Mycroft rose from his seat and advanced slowly toward a closet that stood closed and locked near the entry way to the kitchen. He took out a little silver key, then as he unlocked the closer door, he called me over to join him.
"I've kept this closet for him for years," Mycroft sighed, tapping the door open with his cane. "I never thought he'd actually ever ask for anything out of it."
The closet was the only messy and disheveled part of the entire house, probably because everything inside of it had once belonged to Sherlock. And, it showed. Everything had the harshness of Sherlock's use forever engraved into its scent, it's texture, it's visual appearance--everything about everything in the closet screamed Sherlock's signature. Along the shelves sat used up old books, dirty shirts, dead flowers, stack upon messy stack of old drawings and photos, every item somehow important enough to keep, but prioritized low enough to be locked up in a chilly closet. Toward the very back of the closet sat a brown heap of worn out fabric, still barely shaped as a bear. It was missing an arm, and it's right ear was so worn down and so demised with years of use that it was nearly completely gone. The thing must've been very old, for a stuffed bear that is. Very old, and very loved on some forgotten level.
"He actually told me to burn this old thing," Mycroft said, picking up the raggedy old thing and blowing the dust off the top of its head. "However, I refused to. He took this bear anywhere he was allowed to as a child. It was his best---" Mycroft paused and looked painfully at the weary old teddy bear. "I-it was his only friend." Trying to shake the strong sorrow the bear brought him, he handed it off to me and the scent was instantly potent. I gagged and wanted to throw the thing back down. It reeked of old age, dust, and set in slobber of a young boy.
"I'm surprised he remembered old Chewy Bear," Mycroft said, trying to stop his chin from trembling. "Like I said, he doesn't remember much of anything. He refuses to, not that I blame him. When you give him this, tell him who gave it to you. Can you do that for me?"
In that moment, I found it much harder to despise Mycroft Holmes. The pure, unmasked emotion in his face as he talked vaguely about his brother told me that Sherlock's troubles truly did pain him. For the first time since I met him, Mycroft was Sherlock's brother.
I thanked Mycroft, then hurried out of his house so I wouldn't disrupt the rest of his day. On my way back to the hospital, part of me wished to turn back and beg on my knees for Mycroft to spill Sherlock's story to me, leaving out no detail what so ever. The fact that he kept an entire closet, full to the bursting with Sherlock's childhood items forced me to assume that Mycroft dwelled on Sherlock's apparently troubled past a lot; much like I did, and I didn't even have a clue what had occurred. As I passed people on the street, they stared at Sherlock's bear with judging eyes. It was an eerie reminder of how people sometimes stared at Sherlock. Before they even knew him, they viewed him as a freak, that is if they knew what he was capable of. They only looked with their eyes at him, not with the full capacity of their minds and hearts. They were all blind to the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes. The man was great, no matter how broken. To me, he was brilliantly broken--and I still didn't know why.
"Hello there, Sherlock," I said as I entered his hospital room, hiding the bear under my coat.
It was heart breaking and yet hilarious that he was still examining the nicotine patch by the time I returned. Distracted, his eyes turned upward and met with mine, then his face formed a smile. He pointed at me and let out a wholehearted, delighted, "Ahh!"
I nodded, chuckling, then joined him at his bedside.
"I have something for you," I said, starting to pull the bear out of my coat. He watched me intently, and got frustrated when he couldn't immediately see what I had brought him.
"Look here, Sherlock," I said, pulling the bear out and showing it to him, "Chewy Bear."
In a very tearful moment of childish euphoria, Sherlock snatched the bear out of my hands and proceeded to sob loudly into it. I heard him repeat "Chewy Bear" over and over, his body shaking and convulsing with each labored breath. It was sort of a beautiful moment, like I had reunited him with a long lost relative, and according to Mycroft, I sort of had.
"John!" Sherlock cried, instantly snatching my undivided attention. He said my name. For the first time in nearly a week, he said my name.
My eyes swimming in tears, I replied, "Yes, Sherlock?"
Sherlock shoved the bear in my face and cried out joyously, "Chewy Bear, John! Yes! Good!"
He then pressed the smelly thing into his face and I watched him with teary eyes. I never thought that such a terrible circumstance could be so very beautiful. From what I understood, Sherlock's childhood was not one that normal children are privileged with, and considering his current mental capacity, it was like he was given a second chance. My mission was to catch a glimpse into Sherlock's life, and I felt like with every word he spoke, with every relic from his childhood I found, I was collecting pieces to a puzzle. So, as I sat and watched a twenty five year old man snuggle with his slobbery, moth eaten teddy bear, I smiled to myself. As long as it made him feel better, I was alright with it.
While Sherlock cooed incoherently about his bear, I began to sift through some of the drawings I had collected from Sherlock's bedroom at the flat. I smiled at a few, but some of them frankly hurt me. The painful ones were usually ones that looked like he had drawn at a slightly older age, and they involved lots of red and black colors and a lot of self portraits. He depicted himself in a very grotesque manner; very small amongst crowds of giant people. He drew his hair as swirly black blobs which hung over his shadowy face, and his face was frankly deformed and hideous, which was not a true reflection of Sherlock's appearance. In one of these pictures, he had written the word FREAK in huge letters across the top. I tossed that one aside, feeling very down hearted, then smiled at the next drawing I saw. Sherlock had to have drawn this at a very young age because it was drawn in crayon and it was very sloppy. He had drawn himself next to someone else, and they were both wearing black hats and wheedling swords.
"Sherlock, look at this," I said, chuckling. "You drew this?"
Sherlock lowered the bear away from his face a little, then examined the drawing with a pale face and slightly frightened eyes.
"Yes," he replied nervously.
Looking back, I wish I had noticed his level of anxiety and shut my mouth.
"Were you supposed to be pirate or something?" I chuckled, "That's what it looks like to me. It's a nice drawing, Sherlock."
Just when the day was going well, things turned quite sour. Sherlock slapped the drawing out of my hands, then in his moment of uncontrollable hysterics, he fell out of bed ad crashed to the floor.
"Sherlock!"
I ran to him to help him up, but only screamed at me and backed himself into a corner, shouting indiscernible phrases at me behind labored breaths and tears. When I went to grab him, he slapped my hand and screamed "NO!" at me loud enough to attract several nurses. They crowded him, which only made the moment that much more difficult for him. As I backed myself out of the room to collect myself, I could still hear Sherlock's confused sobs and screams and I wondered what I had done to set him off this time. I had formed a pattern in my mind, and these intense panic attacks were usually brought on by the single mention of just one word, but what word this time? I peered into the room and saw that the nurses were restraining him to his bed because he was flailing about in his hysterics, so rushed in to take his hand. He looked me in the eyes, and that was another look I won't soon forget. It was like he was physically with me, but he had drifted away in his head. He looked terrified, yet completely absent. As he began to hyperventilate once more, I tucked his Chewy Bear under his arm and said:
"I'm sorry, Sherlock."