Lessons in friendship 5 - Practising to give

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Chapter 6

John woke up to dim light and with a blanket covering him. He was on the sofa, and he felt he had not bothered to put on a shirt or anything at all before falling asleep.

Then the events of the day returned to him and he turned around. He looked directly at Sherlock who sat behind him, on the table, just looking at him.

"You weren't making fun of me..."

Sherlock pressed his lips into a slim line and John understood what had happened during the past hours - or at least what he remembered of that. And it made him understand this was not a joke, it was even pretty good trying to work out how to take care of another human being.

Sherlock had done things he had never thought possible when he came out of his flashback. The detective had honestly gone through a lot of trouble to help him.

As with all things the detective does he had done it in-depth and in detail. He had analysed, tested, and tried things in order to find the best way of dealing with it, Sherlock was doing this in earnest!

John's mouth opened and he looked up to Sherlock who had obviously just waited for anything to happen, maybe with a slightly worried expression.

Worried? Sherlock?

"You are not joking, I got it. I see your need to improve your social skills, and I approve that you try to, but I can't guarantee you that I always have the patience to discuss things when I feel bad."

"Since it would be of need for me to also learn to recognise such a situation and react properly… that would also be a lecture in this field, I guess."

"Uh, Sherlock…" John started, feeling this was somewhere between awkward and admirable. "You can't handle this like writing a computer program. It is not!"

"Not for you, I know, but for me it is. This is the only way I can learn about emotional things. I need to store data before I can start to try to translate the information into my own way of how things feel. I can't translate without defining parameters."

"Parameters? What parameters? What is the scale?"

"You."

"Me?… You lost me."

"Though I probably don't feel like you, I can file your feelings and their appearance. And I can learn to act upon your set of rules from your mindset's perspective. It's almost like any other information. I save them in a… mental database," Sherlock's words were so fast John had problems following. "I process and I compare your descriptions to mine. What is difficult is that usually other people's descriptions are just too superficial and abstract and I lack the necessary information to make reliable connections. Or maybe other people actually just feel different, another possibility is of course that they just are unable to describe sentiment properly. I am not sure, but… this does not mean I am unable to care. I was taught that caring is a disadvantage. Though I have to admit I am pretty much out of practise for to do it, because I didn't want to before. My experiences with people are - overall - not good."

"Uh, Sherlock," John was rendered speechless again. The essence of what Sherlock had just said hitting him with full force.

This was quite a profound utterance of affection - in a platonic way. In fact all Sherlock had done today was.

He cared, and he cared a lot, John understood.

Sherlock had just given him something he hadn't thought was possible. This was more than just an offering of friendship. More like the adoption of a brother.

Well, maybe not in the sense Sherlock knew brotherhood with Mycroft, but their relationship was already close to what John considered brotherhood, but this was progression in the sense of soul mates?

He already had understood his flatmate didn't sort things into mine and yours. John had had problems with that, especially in the beginning, and especially when Sherlock took his laptop or other things he considered private.

But Sherlock lived with the implicitness that everything he had was free for John to access and use - even his credit card. Opening up seemed to be an all-or-nothing-thing with Sherlock. Maybe it was the same with his feelings.

Was this also a factor why he was working so hard to get John's trust back?

"Sherlock..." Putting this into words was not easy for John. Usually he just didn't talk about feelings like this. He couldn't even put it into words for his therapist. But he was sure the detective needed feedback because this day must have been like learning to swim without preparation. "I had a really rough day today and… one of the worst flashbacks I ever had. But as hard as it was, you…" he paused and cleared his voice. "You softened my fall immensely. I don't even want to think about how bad I would feel right now if anyone would have carted me to a hospital. You did good… I mean, it felt horrible but you were a safety net. Kind of…"

Sherlock looked up into his eyes, obviously trying to gather more information to be sure what John meant, he also looked a bit unsure of what to say.

"I need your trust, I guess…. because not-trusting is a disturbance, a contamination of our gathering and interaction. I don't like it," Sherlock finally managed.

Yeah, this was Sherlock, answering his try to say thank you with an unemotional and technical description of his innermost intimate emotions in a way that was astounding intense and beautifully pure.

John smiled, the intensity of the moment making him a bit speechless.

"Thank you, Sherlock," he smiled carefully.

Sherlock looked at him for a moment, his face neutral, then stood up. "You want some tea before going to bed?"

"Actually… Yes, and some telly?"

Sherlock not reacting or having the last line, this must have hit a spot, but at least a positive one.

The moment when Sherlock had touched the scar left him a bit lost about what might have happened in Sherlock's mind. Nevertheless, John realised it was like a kid's probing, the need to know what it feels like.

He seemed affected by the sight of it. John had sensed it was an important moment and granted him to examine and touch it, although it hadn't been easy for him.

It felt a bit like going through old pictures together, letting him participate in his history.

He was sure some day he would know what had happened in Sherlock's head in those minutes.

Presumably, it would take some time until Sherlock had processed all the things of this day and until then there would be no obvious reaction. He would ask tiny questions in moments that weren't related for a normal person but had brought up the topic for him. And he would collect more delicate pieces in ways even more subtle and without drawing attraction to them, no one noticing. It would be best not to disturb the development in progress and just wait.

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A/N:

This story is part of a series. You can find the other part with my other stories. Thanks for reading.

Please let me know what you think and write a review.