A Golden Opportunity

Don't Mistake Me For a Role Model

"The chapter was impossible, sir," Victor admitted with a little frown, watching as his questions floated down upon the mess of papers. Even from this angle they were embarrassing, he might as well have started off by inquiring what his name was, or what the proper date was.
As Professor Holmes looked over the questions Victor could not help but search around his desk for another incriminating document. He wanted to be sure there were no letters hidden on this desk, nothing that could find their way into his backpack without his immediate knowledge. Thankfully the old man seemed to have learned from his mistakes, for the desk seemed neater this time around, busy only with assignments submitted within the last two weeks.
"Impossibility depends on the subject," Professor Holmes muttered. "And that subject's limits."
"My limits were surpassed in algebra one," Victor grumbled, clicking his toes together in some agony. He had hoped Professor Holmes would speak a word against such a claim, though when he did not argue against Victor's self-deprecation it felt like even more of a slight. The boy sighed, though he could not blame the man for doubting him. It seemed as though all he could figure out in this class was what he didn't know, and he realized that in the time it took the other students to master the material.
"Why do you continue with math, if you don't consider it your strong point?" Professor Holmes wondered, grabbing for his pen but fiddling with it absentmindedly, as if he actually found Victor more interesting than the homework he had assigned. If only Victor was allowed the same luxury of twenty questions.
"Because my father wants me to become an engineer. It was the only way he'd pay for college."
"And why go to college, if that was his condition?"
"Well...I didn't know what else to do. I don't exactly have a calling."
"Of course you do," Professor Holmes insisted, his eyes narrowing in disappointment.
"It's obviously not engineering," Victor sighed, frowning at his own inadequacies and trying to avoid the Professor's eye contact as best he could without being impolite.
"Then why stay?" Professor Holmes wondered, prying with the same intensity he begged Victor to spare him. It was quite the double standard, though Victor had to admit the question was thought provoking. It was something he hadn't quite considered before, though it begged the question of why...why struggle through if there were no results out the other side? Why take these classes, why work this hard, if he could hardly stand any single minute of it?
"I suppose it's the company," Victor admitted with a sigh, nodding to himself once the idea of Reginald Musgrave entered into his head. "I don't have friends back home, not like the ones I have here."
"Very well," Professor Holmes muttered. "Then I will do my best to help."
"I should expect so," Victor scoffed, to which the Professor merely grinned.
"Do I owe you something, Victor?"
"Not a thing, sir," Victor assured. The old man nodded, as if he knew that would be the answer upon his student's lips, and finally set his mind upon looking over the questions written out upon the page. For a moment the man hummed, his eyes wildly alert even if his body looked as if it yearned to fall into a grave.
As Professor Holmes looked over the paper, Victor couldn't help but look around the room, feeling a bit awkward staring at the man when it would seem there was no chance for conversation. He looked absentmindedly through the overflowing filing cabinets, across the window which was still probably scuffed with Reggie's boot prints, and finally again at the bulletin board on the left wall. It was hard not to arrive upon this, as it was the only item in the room that seemed organized and remarkable. After a quick glance at John Watson and his blushing bride, Victor studied the calendar that was pinned next to it, a calendar that had once been rather empty but was now marked in a peculiar fashion. "Why have you got questions marks on your calendar?" Victor wondered, noticing that each day was marked with a question mark, even the weekends when one would assume his work would not be required.
Professor Holmes paused, looking up from the paper and blinking away his trance. He looked towards the calendar, his face falling in sad realization, and dipped his gaze back to his work.
"It's something I learned in the army, that's all." The tone of his voice betrayed the lie.
"Surprise appointments?" Victor presumed. The old man sighed, but shook his head flatly.
"Focus on your work, Victor, and I will explain once you have understood the chapter."
"Not fair, then I'll never know!" Victor defended with a little kick of his feet, mimicking a fit a toddler would throw when denied a piece of candy.
"The deals we make with ourselves, Victor, can be the only real motivation. Now come on then, get your notebook out, we'll start with the first."
Perhaps a little motivation was what Victor needed in the moment, though such a motivation was so distracting he could hardly pretend to care much at all about the course material. Even though the exam was coming at such a pace he ought to be scared silly, Victor could hardly keep his eyes and ears in the same spot as his brain, catching himself daydreaming so badly that Professor Holmes's voice had become more of a background noise. The man's deep words were lulled into one fluid sound, something akin to a boat rocking on the waves, and in that same octave Victor's thoughts cumulated together, thoughts about war, thoughts about young love, thoughts about how lovely this John Watson must have been to make even war something to be missed. It was slightly embarrassing, as Professor Holmes must have noticed the film gathering over his student's eyes, and every so often his words would halt, he would wave his hand in front of Victor's face, and then he would promptly continue his miniature lecture.
Whereas their last office hours had been spent in intense conversation, the sort of back and forth brainstorming that happened when two people were paying attention to the course material, Victor could hardly tell when the last question of his had been answered. In fact, Professor Holmes had stopped droning for about fifteen seconds before Victor finally blinked, raising his eyes to meet that of Sherlock Holmes and trying his best to look as if he had been paying attention for the duration.
"Got it?" the Professor wondered, though his tone of voice made it quite clear that he doubted his student's attention span.
"Oh yes," Victor lied. "Yes, I think so."
"Any other questions, then?"
"Yes, why do you mark your calendar like that?" Victor asked abruptly, happy they had come back to that.
"About the homework Victor!"
"Oh, no."
"Then you weren't paying attention." The old man sighed, dropping his pen upon the desk and looking at Victor with suddenly stern eyes, those which predicted trouble. "Victor, I hope you are not distracted by...by the unfortunate occurrences of the past week."
"Of course I'm distracted by them," Victor grumbled, messaging his fingers over his eyes in an attempt to knead the preoccupation out of his brain. At least he wasn't blushing, he was too intrigued to be embarrassed by his own curiosities. Even Sherlock Holmes seemed hesitant to be ashamed, now he seemed more concerned that his own tragic backstory would prevent Victor from writing his own future.
"You were the one who suggested forgetting."
"Oh wow, well if it was that damn easy I would!" Victor scowled, though the man did not match his emotions.
"No need for hostility, Victor. I'm not angry," Professor Holmes assured calmly. "Though I would hope that you're not imagining me more exciting than I really am. I warn you, I live a very boring life."
"You didn't always," Victor protested with a little frown.
"What I did in my youth is of no consequence to our time here. I was a different man back then, so different that I dare say I am a phoenix reborn. Reborn into a pitiful thing."
"Why is your calendar marked with question marks?" Victor asked again, inquiring upon the only thing he truly cared to know. He didn't want to hear Professor Holmes's deflection methods; he didn't want to hear a slew of excuses that boiled down to madness. Today seemed to only confirm that nothing would ever be the same, the secret keeper and the secret itself could hardly blend together to talk about calculus. His last hope had failed him, and Victor was doomed to fail this class in favor of mastering the study of the man who taught it.
"My commanding officer had done the same. It's a method of reminder, a method that ensures you do not take a single day for granted. Upon arriving in the army I was overconfident, negligent. He then scared me straight, scared me by reminding me that any day could be my last. Each year, he said, we live through the premature anniversary of our death. You don't know when that day is, though it will be a day of remembrance for all the lives you had touched after it is complete. And so you mark each day with a question mark, questioning whether or not you'll live to see the end of it. Whether it will be the first one you don't finish. Whether it will be the day that, from then on, will no longer be so inconsequential. Will be held in some regard, at least while the family you left behind still lives to remember you. Never assume a calendar is blank, Victor, especially when life is always in the balance."
"In the army that makes sense," Victor whispered. "Though now...why have you taken up the habit again?"
"Because I am close. Closer than ever before."
"You're dying?"
"I've been dying," Professor Holmes clarified, as calmly as he would have corrected an answer on the chalkboard.
"Now you have a deadline?"
"An expectancy," Professor Holmes corrected. Victor struggled with the breath that caught in his nose. "Three months, if I'm lucky."
"And if you're not?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. I didn't mark November yet. It would be silly to question a day that may never come."
"Professor you must be mad!" Victor insisted, feeling the need to stand up in his chair but only going as far as planting his palms on the armrests, his weight not yet set upon them, not yet stirred from the seat.
"I've been called it before," Professor Holmes's eyes narrowed, "Though never in the context of my own mortality. Am I so mad for dying?"
"No, for being here!" Victor insisted. "For bothering with us when...when you could drop over at any moment!"
"I beg you consider my alternatives. Hospice, perhaps?"
"Have you no relatives, anyone you could spend your time with? Any destinations you'd like to go for the first time, or memories you'd like to relive?" Victor's palms slid off the chair only to let his fingers tap anxiously against the wood.
"I have no relatives, nor any want for travel. I have my work, and I have my students. My office and my coworkers. I intend to live the rest of my days as if I knew for sure that I would see tomorrow, even if such a thing is too much to ask for."
"Is it cancer?" Victor presumed, wondering if one could really get leg cancer.
"It's an infection, a blood borne pathogen. It had come from the shrapnel in my leg, those that were too imbedded to properly remove. It's been the slowest murder in the history of mankind, but that man on the riverside...he really did kill me."
Victor sat quietly for a moment, feeling a sickness in his stomach that he could hardly describe. It was not sadness, for he could hardly mourn for a man he had mostly known in imagination, though he could not truly say he did not feel regret. Regret perhaps for Sherlock Holmes's life, and how he was approaching his dying days with no one by his side. Regret that he was nearing the end of his time and the last time he seemed to have been happy was no later than his early twenties. Would that he could turn back the clock, back to when he had two working limbs, back to when he had John Watson by his side! Had he smiled since, truly smiled?
"Don't be upset, Victor," Professor Holmes suggested softly. He looked truly uncomfortable, as if he hadn't expected anyone to shed a tear for him. Almost as if he did not realize his worth had ever been recognized.
"Well of course I'm upset," Victor hissed. "How the hell am I going to pass this class if you die in the middle of it? Mr. Hall will call for murder and I'll be failed!"
"I'm sure they'll find a reasonable substitute," Professor Holmes assured, seemingly relieved to find an excuse to laugh. "My colleagues are quite adequate, you know."
"There's no one like you, Professor," Victor insisted sadly, wondering when he had gotten to the point of blinking back tears on behalf of his calculus professor. How could it be that he felt so strongly towards this crippled old man, this man who sat at the helm of the subject matter he hated the most? How could it that he already felt like crying, crying over the very thought of his absence?
"How would you know, Victor? You're not paying attention to my lectures anyway." The man tried to laugh again, though he was met with Victor's deep frown, the sort that twisted upon a boy's face to hide the tears that were welling ever so fiercely behind their eyes. The sort that seemed to control themselves, which flexed downwards even when a smile was attempted, with cheeks so heavy and muscles so strained it felt almost comical.
"Because you're different, sir. You're...you're like me," Victor whispered, finally allowing a single tear to fall from his face and madly wiping it away with the back of his hand, averting his eyes as he suddenly felt embarrassed, embarrassed for valuing this man's life the way he did. "I thought I was the only one...the only one in the world. That the stories you hear were just that."
Sherlock Holmes leaned forward on his desk, this time ignoring the flaring pain that erupted from his old wound, his fingers locking together and his face suddenly stern. He was not trying to laugh anymore, nor did he seem to want to join in on the tears. Instead he looked suddenly panicked, the first look of true emotion since Victor had entered into his office this morning.
"Victor, don't go saying that. Not to me, or to anyone in this school. You must not find any part of me to be a role model, other than of course a firm dedication to mathematics. You must not look to replicate any other personality trait." His voice was stern, as if he was scolding, though when Victor finally raised his eyes to meet he saw fear. Not anger, but an intense dripping of panic, his knuckles white as they clenched together on top of the numerous papers he had strewn across his desk.
"It's not your fault," Victor whispered, dropping his eyes again, finding it too difficult to look into that intense glare and be met with disappointment. "I knew...I knew before."
"Then you'd be better off forgetting now," Professor Holmes insisted, finally reeling back into his chair only to grab for his walking stick, slamming the thing into the carpet and testing his weight, wondering if it was worth his while to stand. No, apparently not. "Forget while you're young, when you still have your future."
"Would you have wanted to forget?" Victor demanded, feeling the need to fight back for what he knew was appropriate. What he knew what right. "Would you have wanted forget it all before you met John, and miss out on what..."
"Yes!" now Sherlock Holmes was on his feet, now he kicked back his chair and bent his crooked back over top of the walking stick, his feet lying unevenly on the floor. "YES!" he repeated again, hobbling out from behind the desk as if he felt the need to whack his student with the thick stick of mahogany he now clutched. "What use is a week's worth of memories when faced with a lifetime of regret? Of loneliness? What reason is there to be longing for a man who had forgotten your name fifteen years ago?"
"At least you're not lying to yourself!" Victor snarled, getting to his feet to match the sudden aggression, at least to keep his height to his advantage. He liked it better when he could look down upon people, especially when he knew his argument had the moral high ground.
"You fight like you've already lost, Victor," Professor Holmes pointed out. "That spark in your eyes isn't blind faith in the future...it's resistance against the present. It's hope against the impossible."
"I haven't lost anything," Victor insisted, suddenly aware that his calves were pressed against his chair, left with no option of backpedaling if his argument went south. If suddenly he did lose, lose against the very nature he was trying to defend.
"Not even your heart?" Professor Holmes insisted, his eyes squinting in suspicion.
"It won't happen to me like it happened to you! Already I've got you beat, two years, not two weeks!"
"And what progress have you to report?" the man's lip curled, his grip tightened on his walking stick. "What successes have you won, here with your two years of pining?"
"Nothing yet," Victor admitted. "But that still puts us even!"
"I had more than nothing," Professor Holmes insisted with a grimace, as if that was something to be proud of.
"Maybe you did, but I have two more years to surpass you!"
"Not if I fail you out of this school, Trevor!"
"How could you if you die before the end of it?"
"You're an insulant rascal," Professor Holmes growled, teeth barred.
"And you're a stuffy, crooked, boring, hypocritical...mathematical...lonely..." Victor's voice trailed off, trying to find the right endcap for that.
"Cripple?" Professor Holmes suggested.
"CRIPPLE!" Victor agreed with a yell. Thankfully by the time the word left his lips, Professor Holmes was smiling once again. Victor still felt sick, though he was manage to match the grin with the slightest pull in his lips, the sort of smile that was offered when he still wasn't sure if all the anger had dissipated from the room.
"I can't encourage you, Victor, it would be morally incorrect. But I suppose I cannot stop you."
"You're damn right," Victor agreed with a stark nod. "But now this puts us even. I have your secrets..."
"And I have yours." Professor Holmes bowed his head, as if this was a fair enough trade. Even from here he was looking remarkably paler, as if the energy in the room had drained him of all of his energy and all of his blood. His hand trembled on the walking stick, though still he held his balance, his entire body shifting and twitching as if he was fighting the tugs of individual puppet strings, each one pulling in an attempt to take him down.
"You'll be okay?" Victor clarified. "Until Wednesday at least?"
"I don't know," Professor Holmes admitted with a hesitant laugh. "It's a mystery."
"Well..." Victor sighed, pushing his hand through his hair and nearly sneering with the thought in his head. "Well then come here." His teeth were barred, though still he could open his arms, spreading his full wingspan so as to give the Professor the appropriate message.
"Certainly not?"
"Yes, come here. Give me a hug," Victor insisted, nodding his head and trying to become more comfortable with the request himself. It felt like the right thing to do, even if it made both men increasingly uncomfortable.
"You're madder than I," Professor Holmes chuckled. Nevertheless, he pushed his cane forward and followed close after it, thunking and dragging his weight as he made his way closer. As he approached, Victor's arms were already growing tired, wavering with the effort of being held at such heights, though still he managed to hold his form and his determination. The Professor was blushing, almost to the point of laughter, as he approached at a snail's pace. He had claimed not to have joy in his entire life, not since he left that military hospital, though Victor hoped that even a man as broken as he could find something out of a meaningful embrace with someone who loved him. Not loved in the sense that Reggie feared, or in the sense that would probably get them locked up for different charges...loved as an equal, as a kindred spirit, as another soul lost in this mess of an Earth that just so happened to think and love in the same capacity. Someone different, but also vastly the same.
Professor Holmes wasn't an aggressive hugger, in fact he needed one hand to balance himself and so he could only raise one to match the embrace. His grip was weak, though he did not hesitate to hobble right against Victor's chest, draping his skinny arm around the student's shoulder and allowing himself to be embraced. Victor curled his arms around the man, just now realizing how thin he was under the bunchy fabric that hid his true form, feeling two jutting shoulder blades against his wrists and a chest full of ribs against his own. The man's breath was fresh like spearmint and his hair was soft against Victor's chin, his back still bent and his right leg still hovering within its shoe, attempting to avoid any weight being settled upon it. He was a scarecrow of a man, not even a convincing shell of a human, with hardly enough power to make his presence known. And yet his emotion was enough. Perhaps he could not press with his body, though he had no problems with radiating a sort of intense thanks that felt akin to an anvil coming down upon Victor's heart. The soft sigh he released nearly brought a tear to the boy's eye, and when the old man shuffled to get closer Victor had to wonder if he could even remember the last time he had been hugged. It was as meaningful as anything, as meaningful as family to a man who had no one.
It was Victor who pulled away, as he would not have noticed any change in the moment had Professor Holmes been the one to do so. Instead he allowed his arms to slacken, and with a slow step he opened a gap between them, just enough for the old man to resettle upon his own three feet. When Victor caught his eye he noticed tears, though for once they did shine with remorse, or with fear. Instead they looked happy, falling between the folds of a smile. Falling from eyes that were becoming more familiar. In that moment Victor wondered if he could do anything with such impact ever again. He felt if he spent the rest of his life robbing and killing he would still make it to Heaven, if just for this one moment of bringing joy into a doomed man's life.
"Thank you, Victor," Professor Holmes muttered, his words choked with true emotion.
"No, thank you," Victor insisted, his own hands trembling with an overwhelming appreciation. For himself, perhaps. For what he had just done. He had never been so satisfied with a single action in his life.
"Off with you, then," the old man batted his free hand towards the door, hobbling back towards his desk to relieve his leg of any further stress. "I'm sure you're already late to your next class."
"I'll see you Wednesday," Victor insisted, lunging for the desk if just to collect the papers which had been strewn across. His own question sheet was buried in a mass of scratch papers, those which would undoubtedly help him where his attention span had once failed.
"If you wish to," Professor Holmes agreed. "If you wish, I will do my best to be there."
"I'll take you on your word," Victor decided with a nod, "Because I do wish it."
"Then I will see you Wednesday, Victor. If indeed you leave my office before then!"
Victor gave a quick smile, shouldering his backpack with a shiver of goodwill before finally turning his back on the Professor. There were no other words he could have offered, no rally cries for the continuation of his life, no words of encouragement in the simple act of staying alive. Though not so simple, was it? Not so simple for any of them. Professor Holmes was counting his days, striving for the next with no true purpose but existing. Though at least he knew now, didn't he? He knew now that in the life of some sixty plus years, there was at least one other man who overlapped with him, at least one other man who loved the same.