Greg and Sherlock were arguing, the rain drizzling around them as they shouted, the tension of the case making them both tired and irritable. The blasted word spilled from Greg’s lips before he could think of the effect it could have on Sherlock. Sherlock, who immediately stiffened up, not moving, not blinking, not breathing for a prolonged second as the word hung heavily in the air between them.
The first time that Sherlock was called that loathsome word, he was just in second grade. He was in the playground, but he never did actually play with the other children. Instead he’d sit in the corner of the playground, underneath the trees that covered him in its shadows like a blanket of protection. He would read books that were meant for the older children that his teacher, a kind woman named Mrs Petelli, gave to him. He would solve puzzles, or he’d sort the wood chips by size and height if he was truly bored.
He existed peacefully alone, a shadow scarcely noticed and heard, until another kid named Sebastian decided that the scrawny loner was an easy victim. “Hey, freak!” he’d shouted, and Sherlock’s entire grade listened and for some godforsaken reason the name stuck. The first time Sherlock had been called the name, it stung. The question of what he’d done to deserve the name brought tears to his 7 year old eyes, before he turned on his heel and ran as fast as his legs would take him.
He did the same thing now at 24 years of age, his coat billowing out behind him as he ran, unable to stay at the crime scene any longer. The pounding in his ears sounded like the crashing of waves against an empty beach. Ice crept up and down his spine, freezing his fingertips over. It wasn’t the weather though, he was certain that today was a mild day in spite of the rain.
Sociopath was a word that Sherlock overheard from a conversation between his mum and dad when he was 13. Loud voices as sharp as shattered glass that filtered through Sherlock’s door and assaulted his ears as he tried to finish his writing assignment. Mummy and dad were arguing about something, and it took Sherlock a few beats before he realized it was about him and Mycroft. “They’re sociopaths!” Father had shouted, “I cannot have this go on any longer! William’s an outcast, he hardly socializes, and our neighbors think were some type of oddball family now because of those two!”
Mummy yelled back of course, voice tight with tears that Sherlock knew were falling even if she was hidden behind a closed door. The argument continued on, until it ended in whispers that were no longer coherent to Sherlock’s racing mind. Mycroft found his way into Sherlock’s room, silent as he looked into Sherlock’s eyes, and no words needed to be said. There was a silent understanding as he simply placed his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and handed his younger brother his mask of aloofness.
“It’s easier not to care, Sherlock,” he said suddenly a few nights after that, and Sherlock looked up already knowing what this was about. “Caring isn’t an advantage, I’ve learned. Ordinary minds often try to suppress the extraordinary, so they call us names to bring us down.”
“What do we do then? They think we’re…” he trailed off then, unable to say the word out loud, afraid that saying it would make this entire nightmare more real.
“What have people done throughout the ages when they’re called unsavory names?” Mycroft asked, a small smile pulling on his lips in spite of the look in his eyes that reflected the sharp edge of an icicle. “We take it and we own it.” And they did. They began acting distant and colder, because it becomes harder to target a heart once you’re no longer sure it exists. Sherlock forced himself to stop caring, shoving all emotions into a closed off wing of his mind and refusing to show any vulnerability.
Silk turned into leather.
The car came out of nowhere, it seemed. It wasn’t going very fast, Sherlock decided as he fell against the concrete, otherwise he’d be dead. Between 20-30 mph then, because at 40 mph there was a 90% chance of death, whereas for 20-30 there was only a 10-50% chance of death. He was fairly certain he was neither dead nor bleeding internally, although the fact that he hit his head on his way down may have been a mercy handed out by the powers that be to stupidify him into believing he was safe. His body felt… distant, as if he was a disembodied consciousness floating in the midst of a world that was spinning rapidly, colors and muffled sounds swimming past his mind as he fought to grab onto something that could steady him, anchor him to reality.
He could feel the pain burning beneath the surface of his skin, bubbling like a pot of water left on the stove. Someone was touching him, he belatedly realized, a wet hand pressing against his face. Maybe his face was what was wet and not the hand. Maybe it was raining. Or maybe nothing was wet and it was all in his messed up mind.
He couldn’t be sure anymore, and he fought to focus, trying hard but he was just so tired and his eyes were slipping shut, too heavy for him to keep open. Sherlock was vaguely aware of a pressure building in his head, and it felt like someone was wrapping a rubber band around his brain, tighter and tighter.
“Focus on me,” Mycroft had whispered, voice soft as Sherlock- 16 years old- shuddered, too cold and covered in sweat as he lay on the mattress that did nothing for his bones. “Don’t go to sleep.” The light off of the candle lent a soft glow to Mycroft’s eyes as he stared down at Sherlock worriedly, wiping the sweat off of Sherlock’s face with a flannel with an uncharacteristic gentleness. The silence stretched on forever as Sherlock fought to stay awake in spite of the exhaustion the fever was causing him.
“You worry so much it makes me worry. Am I dying, Mycroft?” he asked with a teasing smile that Mycroft didn’t return which slowly fell from his face. He shifted slightly, trying to ease the pain in his back. “Am I dying?”
The look he received was filled with what could only be labeled as a mix of frustrated helplessness, panic and shame. “I don’t know, brother mine. You better not.” Mycroft moved slightly, face turning away and Sherlock watched as the shadows danced on his face. It did nothing to hide the tears which shined clear as day in his periwinkle eyes. “Not yet. Not before me, at least.”
Someone cried, “shit, are you okay? Don’t you die on me, you bastard…” and Sherlock wanted to reply, perhaps snap at the person to shut up, yet his entire mouth tingled and he wasn’t sure if anything even tumbled out his traitorous lips. All he knew was that everything was too cold and too hot all at once, his vision turning gray at the edges.
“Come on, Sherlock, wake up!” A hand slapped against his face, panicked and desperate. “He’s not waking up!”
Death was not a concept that Sherlock was knowledgeable about, he’d known about death and its permanence since he was 5 years old. He learned it through Mycroft, of course, since he learned most things through Mycroft. Redbeard had died, and he stared up at Mycroft with wide eyes. “He’s not waking up,” he had said in confusion, speaking slowly as he tried to piece together the events to form an explanation. “Why isn’t he waking up?”
“Call 999! We need an ambulance, he’s fucking dying!” a man’s voice shouted, distraught. Sherlock heard the marching of feet, and then succumbed to the darkness which swallowed him whole.
“Everything dies, Sherlock. All lives end.”
Sherlock became lucid in fragments, becoming aware slowly as his mind tried to stitch together the little slivers of data he received from each individual sense into a whole picture. The heart monitor beating to his right, noise loud and sharp in the otherwise silent room. The smell of cleaners so strong that it felt as though the inside of his nose was being burned, a lemon-like aroma that filled Sherlock’s lungs with every inhale. The scratchy blanket that bundled around his legs, coupled with the feeling of a cool metal bed rail against his left arm, helped him come to the conclusion that he was in a hospital without him needing to open his eyes.
He opened his eyes slowly, the lights thankfully having been dimmed to be more agreeable with his headache. “You’re awake,” a rumbling voice like rain against a window said from the corner, and after a moment more of staring up at the ceiling, Sherlock turned to look at Greg. “I thought you were going to die…”
Sherlock stared at him for a few seconds, eyes dull as he took in the sight of the disheveled man with wrinkled clothes, before looking at the wall instead. “I didn’t want to die yet,” he replied simply, unsure about how to speak to the man he’d considered a friend and father figure for a long time, his chest aching as he remembered the words they’d exchanged. The vitriol that Greg had yelled, the anger in his eyes- or was it disgust?- that had suddenly made Sherlock feel as if he needed to be anywhere- anywhere- but there.
Greg shifted in the plastic chair, nodding as he offered a tight smile. “I’m glad.” The smile was so bitter and brittle it seemed as though the slightest breeze could blow on it and leave it a pile of dust and regret.
“I’m sorry,” Greg finally said, breaking the silence awkwardly, like a child clumsily shoving a block between two others and bringing the entire tower down. “I didn’t mean to… call you any of those things. I didn’t mean it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, and the dim lighting of the room did nothing to hide his glistening eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sherlock.” His voice wavered, on the edge of cracking, and Sherlock couldn’t help the tears that rushed to his own eyes.
Mirroring, he told himself. It was just a human instinct deeply wired into the subconscious to react to someone’s tears and pain with empathy. It meant nothing. Fighting to regulate his breathing, he nodded slowly, afraid that the wrong action would break open the dam and leave him to drown in an ocean of unshed tears that had collected through the years.
“When I saw you get hit by that car… I thought you were dead. Blood was all over your face, you weren’t responding to anything, and I just- I thought I lost you. I don’t want to lose you, Sherlock, and I hope you can forgive me for what happened.”
There’s a bridge being stretched out between them, and Sherlock knows that he could either ask the question that weighed heavily on his mind or he would miss the moment and wonder forever.“Do you really believe that?” he asked, voice hoarse. “That I’m a… freak?” He faltered at the word freak, feeling like he needed to drink an entire bottle of the horrible lemon-scented cleaner the hospital used to get rid of the dirty feeling that overwhelmed him at the use of the word.
Greg’s eyes bore into his, dark pools of sadness swirling behind them as he shook his head. “I don’t. I never did, I never would believe that you’re anything less than… extraordinary.” He moves closer in his chair, hand on reaching out and tentatively placing it on top of Sherlock’s which were idly tracing patterns against the blanket. “I don’t know why that I used that word, or why I snapped at you but I wasn’t angry with you, I was just- angry and I snapped. I’m sorry, I don’t have any excuses for my behavior but-”
“You apologize too much,” Sherlock cut in with a small smile playing on his lips, but the tears shining in his eyes contradicted them. “Apologies are tedious. A simple sorry would have sufficed”
Greg laughed in surprise at the statement, then his eyes flickered to Sherlock’s left leg that was in a cast, and his eyes softened, no it wouldn’t have.
Sherlock cleared his throat, staring at the tan and calloused hand on top of his for a few long seconds. “My father never apologized.” He shook his head quickly after speaking as if he was shaking an idea out, something akin to flustered panic written in his eyes. “Not that- not that he had any reason to! He never hit me, or anything. He was a good man, he just said some things sometimes.”
“He’s a good man,” Mum had said to Sherlock, who laid with his face buried into a pillow, his back against the headboard and his knees pressed tight against his chest. “He just has a bit of a temper these days, and he says the wrong things with good intentions at heart. You have to learn to ignore the things he says, love. In one ear and out the other.” She pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s mop of curls before she left Sherlock alone in the room that was far too big and far too cold for Sherlock. This isn’t home anymore, Mum, he had thought as the tears fell quickly, creating a pattern fit for a Rorscach test. “What do you see here?” a man in a white coat could ask, and Sherlock knew what his answer would be.
“I see a fallen angel without a home.”
“Sometimes good people do bad things,” Greg murmured, eyes scanning over Sherlock. “Sometimes the words we say carry more weight than we could believe. They get embedded into a person’s mind and after that, it can be a pain to get out. Even after years and years, the words we say could still be echoing in a person’s mind.”
Sherlock nodded, a tear falling from his eye as he bit down on his lip. “I’m not a sociopath,” he said, wondering if it was Greg he was saying it to, or the memory of his father that he could still hear yelling the word. “I’m- I’m not as strong as everyone thinks I am, Greg.”
He used the name deliberately, and he knew the older man knew that as well. The hand on top of his tightened for a second, before leaving it completely. “That’s alright,” Greg responded, standing and pulling Sherlock against his chest, mindful of the wires. “You’re plenty strong enough for me. And if you need me, I’ll help you carry all that weight you lug around inside you.” Sherlock buried his face into Greg’s soft cotton Henley, the dam broken as his skinny shoulders quaked.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Sherlock whispered between his tears as if it was a truth he was too afraid to say out loud, a thought which haunted him during long sleepless nights.
“You’re not alone anymore. I’m here.”
So! That took forever to write and the timing of it was pretty much all over the place. I hope it made sense. @princesspeach212 suggested it again, so she’s to thank for this little fic.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/11159409 if you’d like to comment/ leave a kudos. @love-in-mind-palace @savedbyholmes @kateis-cakeis @shag-me-senseless-watson @inevitably-johnlocked
