Death Is A Friend

Smile At The Obituary

Sherlock stayed near the trap door while his mother ascended with some difficulty. In one hand she held a plate, and with the other she clung fearfully to the shaky wooden ladder. Sherlock could help her if he had wanted to, yet he knew better than to make her life any easier. That would be considered charity, and she deserved no such thing from him.
"Dinner." Mrs. Holmes said sharply, her bony face emerging from the shadows only to drop the plate onto the floor with a scowl.
"So hospitable, thank you mother." Sherlock growled, yet snatching the plate away before she could take it back in punishment. The woman growled from the ladder, looking up at her son yet unwilling to ascend enough to properly yell at him. His parents never liked to go into the attic, for they claimed it had an unhappy air to it. Well of course it was unhappy, Sherlock was confined here all of his life! He didn't understand how they might think he would be enjoying himself in such hellish conditions.
"You need to be more appreciative. We could very well starve you up there." Mrs. Holmes warned.
"Oh really? In that case, please do. I'd love to see you both in Hell." Sherlock growled. Mrs. Holmes said nothing, yet her response was plain when she descended the ladder with a huff, and threw the trap door as agressivley as she could to slam back into the floor. Yet that didn't scare Sherlock, not anymore at least. And so he grabbed his plate of food, what seemed to only be a sandwich and a couple of old wrinkled baby carrots. This was actually generous; sometimes he only got a cup of applesauce and a sleeve of crackers. For his parents were in no way trying to preserve his health, they weren't giving him the nutritional balance his doctors recommended, nor would they spend the money on the pills which might make his life a little less miserable. They provided him with the bare minimum, on the account of "God's will". Of course this went only as far as their own consciousness; for it was difficult to tell the doctors that they were going to let their son die early, simply because God had destined him for such a fate. Sherlock sat up on top of his bed, staring out the window at the fading sunlight. The sunsets were always the most beautiful part of his day, the most colorful things he had access to without the textbooks which his mother assigned him for her poor excuse of homeschooling. He had no phone, nor a computer to entertain himself with. And so the sunset, a thing that moved, a thing which changed day by day, well it proved to be an absolutely breath taking experience. It was one of the only things which changed day by day. So Sherlock sat and ate, watching the explosion of colors in the sky and wondering just who else in this corner of the world was appreciating such a color eruption. He wondered if John Watson, somewhere out in that town, was looking up to appreciate it. Or if John Watson was sitting slumped in a desk, finishing up the last of his neglected weekend homework. Possibly John was lying somewhere with a girl, in the back of his car, or in her bed when her parents weren't home. The idea made Sherlock's stomach churn with jealousy, yet he could do nothing except grit his teeth and accept his own defeat. Accept the fact that John Watson, the football star of their local high school, would go his whole life without knowing who loved him most in this world. He would go his entire existence without ever realizing that he was missing out on something, on a lover who would cherish him beyond contemplation. And there were girls in this world, girls who lived with the memory of their time spent with him, with their skin permanently imprinted by his fingers, and their lips forever stinging with his kiss. Such experiences which they took for granted, perhaps they hadn't even enjoyed...and such things that Sherlock would very well die for, or even kill for. Things that Sherlock desired more than anything else in the world, the mere attention of the boy he had come to admire and desire from afar. But he had no reason, to solid excuse for having fallen so head over heels in love with this boy. Sherlock didn't know anything about him, apart from the fact that he was beautiful, that he attended church, and everything more that the newspaper articles which Mycroft brought him had declared. Yet that was nothing more than football stats, coupled with a beautiful picture of the boy in his uniform, running up and down the field. Was he nice, or conceited? Was he soft to the touch, or did he have rough skin? Was his smile always genuine, or was he miserable inside, just as miserable as Sherlock was as he watched? Was John hiding his own feelings, hiding his own wandering sexuality all the while he hid behind his football status, and his multiple discarded girlfriends? If there was a chance for Sherlock to escape this prison, was there a chance he would be accepted with open arms? Or would John shame him for his disease, and for his sexuality? Well it wasn't his fault, none of this was! To be blamed for falling in love was just about as legitimate as being blamed for being born with useless lungs! Sherlock had no control over his body, or evidently his desires, and here he was sitting helpless at their mercy! Coughing and loving, well they were just as painful, and just as deadly. There were hundreds of girls who Sherlock could have fallen in love with, all throughout his childhood the choir girls frequented the sidewalks, dressed in their robes and singing loudly enough so that he could hear them through the window pane. And they were always dressed in their best, always preened to perfection with hair gleaming in the morning sun. Why hadn't Sherlock fallen for one of them, why hadn't he even considered it? Why did he have to pick the one boy who wandered in and out of this church for as long as he could remember, the one with the most muscle mass, the one with the most beautiful smile. It was a question Sherlock couldn't answer, for he couldn't speak for his heart and its uncanny desires. He could only sit back and suffer, for no matter the gender, no matter if it was a choir girl or a football star who he began to love...well he was hopeless in either endeavor. Even if he did fall in love with the wrong gender, well it didn't change the fact that he was never going to escape this accursed attic.