Chapter Nine - Lonely East Wind

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Sherlock

The next morning, when John sat down, he handed Sherlock a pile of comics, all reading the same name. "Here," John said, accompanying the hand off, and then he put on his headphones and listened to something.

Sherlock took them gently, and slid them inside his backpack as if they were a secret. He didn't want to read them in front of the boy. It'd be like he was resigning that he did, in fact, enjoy the books. It would be admitting something.

When Sherlock got home, he jumped on his bed and opened the first comic, desperately turning the pages in an attempt to fall inside them. He loved it. He wasn't amused by the characters, or tolerant of them, he loved them. Sherlock had no way of interacting with them, but he felt their presence all the same.

Sherlock got dinner, which was spaghetti and meatballs, and he ate it all, not bothering to keep the pages clean. An entire glop of tomato sauce landed on some of Rorschach's dialogue, and after wiping most of it off with one finger, Sherlock turned the page and pressed on, adjusting himself so that he was laying on the bed, feet suspended in the air, kicking back and forth.

He left the light on until he felt the rhythmic, heavy stepping of his father, followed by the door opening.

"Go to sleep," Siger growled.

Sherlock breathed deeply in an attempt to make his father believe he was sleeping, eyes still open widely so Sherlock could see what he was about to do.

The light flicked on, and Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. Not fast enough, though. Siger walked to Sherlock and ripped off his covers as he clenched on tightly to John's comic.

"What's this?!" Siger yelled, ripping the book out of Sherlock's hands, and then beginning to flip through the pages. His eyes widened as Sherlock realized he'd found a picture of... No, Sherlock moaned.

"No, father, stop! Don't touch my book-"

"Shut up," Siger roared, tearing out a page, "Look at this. Look at this shit. Is this fun for you? You enjoy this garbage? This is sick." It was a panel of a lady giving someone a hand job.

"No, no, it's part of the plot-"

"What kind of bloody plot is this? You think you can look at pornography and not be punished?"

"No, it wasn't that and I'm sorry really I am-" Sherlock yelled, and there was the sound of a smack that sounded like a thundercloud, and it burst his vision, spots appearing and clouding everything.

Siger ripped it in half as Sherlock nurtured a bruise forming on his cheek. "It wasn't..." Sherlock trailed off.

"Shut up."

Sherlock flopped onto his bed.

"If I ever catch this comic in my house again, I swear to god, I will beat you until you're bleeding."

"I'm already bleeding," Sherlock countered dryly, wiping a streak of dark red blood from the corner of his mouth to his cheek.

"I'll fucking skin you. Understand?"

"I understand," Sherlock whispered, but Siger was already gone.

He opened the shades, so the moonlight was streaming in, casting a silver glow over the bedspread. Then Sherlock removed volume five of Watchmen from the slit in his mattress and continued reading.

John

John gave out comics as quickly as he could, and Sherlock never payed a second glance as he took them in groups of five.

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