Chapter Text
It all started with a door. No magic, no fairies turning me into a real boy. A little underwhelming if you ask me. I would have been disappointed had I not been in pain and scared out of my mind. And you must keep in mind I might have talked about being in pain before, but it was merely a figure of speech. Nothing could have prepared me for the real deal.
But back to the fateful door.
For some unbeknownst to me reason, I wasn't feeling like acting too much like a real person on that particular day. Perhaps because Sherlock got on my nerves, and I felt mischievous.
I don't like being ignored, and yet... he kept doing it. It wasn't like he refused to acknowledge my presence; he would definitely not go this far unless I gave him a good reason to. However, being the academically smitten man he sometimes can be, he was too busy reading some thick and indescribably dull book.
As he was reading and only ever responding with "mhms" and "ahas" to whatever I was trying to tell him, I came up with an admittedly silly idea. I decided to give him a good scare and teach him a lesson! My idea was to leave his bedroom for a while and then launch back inside through the door next to his desk. I also wanted to yell "boo!" at him like a ghost. That's what ghosts do, right?
Yes, the plan could have been better. And yes, I was unlikely to scare Sherlock at all, but I was craving activity and attention. And minds which are bored almost to death don't always come up with the best ideas. If I were lucky, he'd roll his eyes. It sounds desperate, but it was better than nothing at the moment. At least I would get a reaction out of him.
So, I left his room and waited in front of the door. I may or may not have rubbed my hands like a villain. Had I had a moustache, I would have twirled it. Presumably, I wouldn't know for sure, as I don't have one.
I waited in front of his door until enough time had passed, and I figured he would have forgotten that I had left in the first place. It must have been around ten minutes.
And then I launched at the door. I was smiling in anticipation, and I swear, I could already see his startled face in my mind's eye! Then I'd get the attention every imaginary person deserves. It's our birthright, you see!
But then… then came the pain. Although I did not know what it was back then. I would likely sound dramatic to anyone who has never been ethereal, but at first, I believed I would die any moment. I saw black and an occasional star. It was overwhelmingly scary, and before realising what was happening to me, I lost balance and landed on the floor. As you can imagine, this experience was not entirely pain-free either. Still, my head definitely hurt more than my posterior.
I must have remained seated on the ground for quite some time, but I was too shocked to care. Sherlock says I was groaning; I must have been. The thump against his door and the noises I was making while on the floor were enough to catch his attention, and I heard him call my name.
"Please... come," I said, and oh, I must have sounded distressed. It was enough to make him abandon his horribly boring textbook and come check on me.
"What is it, Jon?" He asked as he came out of the room, but he did not look nearly as worried as I would have hoped; on the contrary, he looked slightly annoyed and obviously expecting me to be playing a trick on him.
Of course, I couldn't answer his question.
"I... I don't know. I tried to jump through the door, but I failed, so I ended up on the floor," I replied, placing my hand on my aching forehead. Of course, it was slowly dawning on me that I'd hit my head - it was throbbing like a beating heart, and oh, believe me, when you have never owned a head before, the throbbing feels tenfold as awful.
"Of course you did. Let me guess, you hit your head, too?" He spoke mockingly, sighing and rolling his eyes and all these other wonderfully bratty things he does whenever I succeed in getting on his nerves.
Only, I was not in the mood for this. I was in shock, and the more I thought about the implications of what had just happened to me, the more my thoughts raced.
Would you like to know what else feels different when you have never had a corporeal body and are suddenly stuffed into one? Right, you experience having a heartbeat, but you haven't inhabited your body for long enough to filter it out, so you actually feel every thump.
Naturally, I came to the conclusion that a demon had taken possession of me. Why else would I feel and hear a throbbing in my chest? I was imaginary! We don't have beating hearts! I was convinced it was a demon who was trying to break out of my non-existent rib cage.
I admit the conclusion wasn't the most logical one, but I was terrified. I was experiencing things I had never experienced before, so forgive me for the silliness.
I felt the hard floor; my weight pressed me against it. I felt a chill in the air, which gave me goosebumps. Everything was suddenly so different, sharp and intense, and before I knew it, I was... hyperventilating. And that is not a pleasant experience.
"Something is happening, Sherry... Something..." I was rambling like a maniac, looking left and right. In terror. Shivering. Struggling for breath. It's not a pretty sight if you ask me. I was losing my mind, and finally, Sherlock began taking me seriously.
"It will be alright, Jon, just breathe slowly," he knelt beside me, and he was calmness incarnate. I loved him so much in this brief moment. He had this patronising tone, but his confidence gave me some of my strength back...
Until he touched me, that is. He wanted to place his hands on my shoulders to help me calm down, but he likely never expected to feel something this solid. And I was solid. For the first time in my life, I was as solid as he was.
Sherlock... flinched and landed on his posterior, too. His reaction did not calm me down. And he tried so hard to keep his cool and sound confident as he spoke to me, but he failed so terribly. I would have felt bad for him had I not been too busy with my own horror.
"What is the meaning of this, Jon? How are you- How-" He jumped back on his feet and started pacing back and forth. I could only tell him I did not know, but that something was pulsating in my chest, and I did not like the sensation at all.
"Do you mean a heart ?!" He exclaimed, and his tone was all over the place. Was he enraged, frightened, appalled, or mocking me again? I couldn't tell. Either way, he pronounced the word so loudly that I forgot my misery for a moment and stared at him. "So you have a heart now... unbelievable..."
Then my hand moved to my chest, and yes, it made sense that a heart would feel like this - not that I'd know; I'd never felt one before.
"I'm not feeling alright..." was all I could say. The hyperventilating was making me dizzy, and nothing so far suggested that this experience meant anything other than my impending demise. "I don't want to die, Sherlock, I still have so much to do..."
I did not. Other than keeping a secret or two from my friend, he'd sooner or later find out the truth with or without my help. I did not want to die, but honestly? It wouldn't have been such a significant loss if I had, at least up to that point in my story. That realisation stung a lot, and you can guess - it did not help with my panic.
"You aren't dying, Jon, you are... Hah!" Sherlock finally stopped pacing around, but the anxiety was still there. He smiled in disbelief, but he was not amused or happy, and his smile looked grim - Sherlock was as terrified as I was. "It makes no sense, no... this... this is insanity !" he cried out again, took a few steps back, and began shaking his head. I'm not going to lie; his mood swings weren't helpful, and I wished he'd stop startling me.
I... may or may not have started crying a little.
"Please, tell me what is happening to me, I'm so scared..." I remember saying before I began weeping into my hands. Of course, the weeping did not last long - the feeling of my own hands on my face cut it short and gave me yet another shock. And, of course, there was a non-familiar stinging in my new pair of eyes and the strange feeling of having something run down my face.
"I can feel myself..." I said as I wiped my tears and observed the wetness on my fingertips. I had never looked at my palms before, but in that moment, they were fascinating - so natural and human. I had no clue how they had looked before.
"Give me your hand." Sherlock's voice was closer than anticipated - he had knelt before me without me realising. He sounded a little calmer, but he did not look the part, for he was trembling like a leaf in the wind. It took me a while to process what he'd requested from me, but eventually, I reached out my hand, and he took it between his palms, and they felt so different from what I had ever imagined.
"Your hands are... different from mine, they feel..." I could not name the sensation, but it wasn't unpleasant or painful.
"Cold. They... are always cold, Jon. Unlike yours." Sherlock's voice cracked a little, and his grip around my hand tightened. I'd rarely seen him so shaken, and I wished I could be the one who could offer him comfort, but I was quite shaken myself.
And yet still, I had just learned something new about him; I had spent fifteen years with him, but I had never known his hands were always cold.
"What does all of this mean, Sherry?"
"I don't know. But we will figure it out together."
I'd rather not bore you with the details of how long it took me to get used to standing. I wouldn't say I was like a toddler; I definitely had more control over my body, but I was overthinking every single movement too much. More often than not, I ended up not doing anything at all. I had always been a thought - something not bound to the physical world. Initially, I often forgot that I could no longer move from one point to another without actually doing the work.
The first step was getting up from the floor - something I wouldn't have managed without Sherlock. I was suddenly about 180 pounds heavier than I was used to weighing, and gravity was nothing I'd had to deal with before. Things that are normal to regular humans posed the most significant challenges to me, and every step I took made my heart race faster and faster.
Sherry had once told me I couldn't grasp the true horrors of mortality, and I remember protesting. Good Lord, had I been naive to do so. I recalled this during my first day as a human, and suddenly, his words sounded like the wisest thing a human had ever said. I was in a position where I feared I'd die any moment; I feared I did not breathe right or that I would forget breathing altogether and suffocate. I was sure I'd fall down the stairs and break my neck.
Ah, the stairs.
You see, Sherlock was desperate. He was convinced he'd lost it entirely. Therefore, he was eager to leave the manor and confirm I had become corporeal by asking people on the street if they could see me.
The problem was that this plan required us to leave the house, and leaving the house required me to walk down the stairs, and I was not mentally prepared for expert-level walking exercises. I could barely walk on even ground without having a panic attack!
It wasn't fun - it wasn't fun at all - but Sherlock was trying hard not to let me see how scared he was because he knew I needed him to be strong. Of course, I could see it regardless - I knew him better than anyone, and the least I could do was walk the god-forsaken stairs down and help my friend get the answers he was so desperately looking for.
And I needed the answers, too.
And I did. It must have taken us at least half an hour to reach the ground level. I must have clung so desperately to him that I'd left his upper arm bruised, but somehow, we made it, and after a short break, we finally walked through the front door.
It was a lovely sunny day in Cordona. Of course, I was blinded at first, but after explaining to me for the hundredth time that, no, I was not going to die and that, no, this light was merely the sun and not God coming down to earth to take my soul to the realm of the dead, Sherlock and I finally left the garden and walked down the street.
Thinking of this very first day of my new life always surprises me. Mostly because I had never expected Sherlock to show so much patience towards anyone, but on that particular day, he was the most patient and compassionate person I have ever met. I like to think he simply cared for me too much to get irritated by my baby-bird-like behaviour. Recalling this makes me smile even now.
I remember holding his arm during the whole ordeal. I was too afraid I would fall or... dissolve. Anything was possible in my mind. Sherlock says people were giving us very peculiar looks, but I guess I must have been too excited and nervous to actually pay attention to such details. Of course, Sherlock was trained to always pay attention, no matter how troubled he was. He is pretty impressive. My first hours are really blurry to this day, but yes, we must have caught many people's attention because… actually, I will get to this story later.
We took a stroll, and I was vibrating, feeling too many things at once - more than I could process. There were so many sensations I'd never known before. It was like I had entered a whole new world. Even the cobblestones under my feet amazed me because they felt different from walking on grass.
"I don't think I need to ask people, Jon; it's undeniable that they are seeing you..." Sherlock said once we reached Vernet Street. I couldn't tell if he was relieved or regretful, but he sounded like the little boy I once knew - like the Sherry from ten years ago. Insecure, fearful, small. I had adjusted to my new situation enough to start paying attention to him again, and I hated seeing him so uneasy.
"Shall we go home? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've had enough excitement for the moment," I suggested, hoping the walls of our manor would provide both of us the comfort we desperately needed. Sherlock nodded, and we turned back.
I tried to interact more with my surroundings on our way back - I had finally gathered enough courage to greet the people we saw in passing. However, nobody ever greeted me in return, which puzzled me quite a lot, and every time, I felt Sherlock tense up even further.
Shortly before reaching the manor, we were stopped by a policeman, and I remember fearing my heart would burst out of my chest as I lifted my hand and waved at the man. I tried to say "hello ", but my voice failed pathetically.
"Is this man bothering you, sir?" said the man, and of course, he was talking to Sherlock. Still, he was definitely looking at me as he spoke, and that had never happened before. I'd never felt so exposed in my life, and I took a step back, all while refusing to let go of Sherlock's arm.
"I'm not…" I tried speaking again, but was not as prepared to talk to strangers as I'd hoped. Luckily, Sherlock jumped in.
"Of course not," Sherlock replied, and suddenly, his voice was made of steel. He seemed quite irritated, and I did not understand why, even though the reason should have been apparent to me. "He is my friend, and he never bothers me, which cannot be said about you, officer. Come on, Jon, let us continue our walk and leave the kind man to his job. Not that he'd make a difference." Sherlock said and pulled at my arm. His rudeness surprised me a little, but I did not protest.
As we walked away, I remember turning around to look at the policeman, who was mumbling something I couldn't understand.
And then a thought crossed my mind and made me halt. I couldn't think of another reason why everyone seemed to avoid and suspect me.
"I am hideous, am I not?" I let go of Sherlock for the first time since we'd left. It had to be it - people were shallow enough to be unkind to anyone who did not look appealing. I was quite disappointed in humanity. It wasn't like I had chosen my face! Sherlock had!
Sherlock's eyes widened a little. Once again, disbelief was written all over his features.
"Seriously, Jon? "Of course, he immediately recognised I was dead serious, and his face softened a little. "You are not hideous. They are just being unfriendly to you because… "
All of a sudden, he looked pensive, sorrowful even. I did not understand the swift change in his mood, but apparently, something about me appalled people, and he knew what it was.
"Does it matter why they act like this?" He asked, and although I knew it pained him to answer my question because he did not want to hurt my feelings, I nodded.
"It's because… You are not dressed like a fine gentleman, Jon. You know how essential disguises are for my work." He finally replied, and I sighed in relief. It was really the clothes, wasn't it? I looked down, and suddenly, it all made sense. I looked like a street urchin! I really stood out in Grand Saray!
"It means I simply need different clothes, then! People will finally talk to me if I dress better, right?" I was still a little shaky, but I was also beginning to enjoy my new form of existence. I was excited. I had always wanted to be real, always, since the very first day I'd appeared.
"Yes, you simply need to change your way of dressing, and you will likely become quite popular, Jon. Much more popular than me, I assume. But let us go home for now, shall we?" Sherlock smiled at me, but I couldn't get rid of the feeling that he was forcing his smile, for his eyes still bore sadness I couldn't explain.
Without saying a word, we entered our garden. It was still noon; the day had only begun, but it had already changed our lives, and we needed a break.