Tell me I'm here, chapter 3
Here’s chapter three and I once again thank all of you guys who actually bothered to leave a review - THANK YOU! I need them in order to survive and since you are giving me them I love you forever :D
Please, tell me what you think about this one!
Chapter 3.
All the happy memories.
“And where are you going?”
“With you, of course!”
“Of course? I wonder what could possibly make you think you are welcome here, Sherlock?”
“But Mom said -“
“I don’t care what she said. You are not coming with us, understand?”
“Please, Mycroft, may be I could…”
His voice trails off as he watches his elder brother walks away from him with his friends, not paying attention anymore. His eyes sting and he holds back tears in the back of his eyes, willing himself not to cry because he’s big boy now, he’s seven and such grown-up boys never cry. Still, the feeling of being useless and unloved does nothing but increase, growing in his stomach and spreading up his whole body, suffocating him ruthlessly.
The feeling is suddenly so overwhelming that he can’t bear it anymore, his legs refuse to hold him and he leans heavily on the wall of the nearest building, breathing heavily and shallowly, what seems like enormous lump in his throat and the thoughts - those, which he constantly tries to get rid of - they are choking him.
His mother doesn’t need him, she doesn’t love him, she’s never there for him because he’s useless and not like every other children, his brother hates him, he’s useless, he’s a freak, nobody loves him nor needs him, he’s all by himself, he’s got no one else in the world, he’s so lonely
All of these thoughts just down on him at once, and he finally cries, loudly and with effort, and the fact that no one of the people who pass him by even stops or turns to him, the crying little boy, makes him feel even more pathetic.
And then he feels a hand on his shoulder, very cold one, but still a hand and he looks up at the man hopefully.
The man who squats down before him is not very old, and for Sherlock he seems like twenty-something. He’s got disheveled reddish hair and striking green eyes looking at him with infinite kindness.
Sherlock can’t explain it even to himself, but he feels somewhat strange, like something’s not right, not the way it’s supposed to be. He looks around and though he sees nothing unusual, he can feel it in the air, some wrongness, something beyond words.
He blinks, and the feeling disappears.
The man reaches up and gently wipes away the tears from his cheeks, making Sherlock blush deeply at both the contact and the fact he’s been weeping so hard in front of another man.
“Don’t cry, Sherlock, my boy” the man says, his voice loving and caring and Sherlock almost misses the man’s awareness of his name. He opens his mouth to ask but the man cuts in “I’ve been looking at you for a while and heard your brother call you by the name” he explains with a gentle smile.
He pauses, looking Sherlock in the eye so intensely, he can’t force himself to look away.
“Sherlock” the man whispers his name lowly and tenderly, like no one’s ever had “You truly have a very beautiful name”
His words sound so sincere that Sherlock blushes. In fact, he’s always hated his name and was shy of it - the consequence of Mycroft mocking him constantly about it, so the man’s compliment means double much too him.
“Thank you” he babbles, avoiding eye contact.
“You’re welcome, my boy” and his heart jumps inside of him, because no one has ever called him ‘my boy’ and he’s now ready to follow this man wherever he goes. “Would you like to be friends with me?”
“Yes!” he says too quickly to look polite, but the man doesn’t seem to mind.
“Wonderful, then!” he smiles and pats Sherlock’s shoulders. “Now, come with me!” He adds, standing up. He’s so tall Sherlock barely reaches his navel level, but is must also be the fact that Sherlock is too small for his age.
“Wait, what is your name?” Sherlock asks him shyly and for a moment he thinks he saw the man’s eyes turn black. He shudders, but the image is gone and he’s not sure whether he saw it or imagined. The man smiles widely and stretches out his large hand:
“William. My name is William”
----
“Please, William, go away!”
“Why?”
“Because I know you’re are not here, so stop bothering me!”
“Bothering you?! So that’s what I’m doing now?! Bothering you?!”
“No, no! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that!” Holmes quickly says before William gets mad.
Because God knows he doesn’t want William to get mad.
They’re sitting in his room, or, more exactly he is sitting in his room with his non-existent friend who has decided to appear in his life again all of a sudden.
“Why are you here, William?” He asks tentatively, feeling tired and sick for some reason.
“Because you need me” comes the same reply as ever.
“No I don’t! I don’t.” he states, doing his best to stay self-controlled. “I don’t and I haven’t for almost seven years now, so please do understand that your assistance is not required. Not anymore” And that is true. The hair on his arms and neck still stand with goose pimples at the memory of their last day together.
They are of the same age now, but Holmes still feels like a little boy in front of William.
“Ah, I see” William smirks, tilting his head to the side. “But I wouldn’t be so sure of that, taking into consideration the other night last week when you were crying into your pillow for hours like you are seven, not seventeen.”
His eyes go wide. “You -”
“Of course I was watching you, Sherlock! I’ve told you so many times already that I’m always with you, I’m always watching you even though you don’t see me”
He shuts his eyes with a pained expression. “Alright, now please go”
And then the voice sounds right in his head: “Are you afraid of me now, my boy?”
He shudders, hearing the endearment and wishing he won’t hear it ever again. His heart is beating painfully in his chest and his throat is dry but he can’t not answer, or William will be mad.
“No”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Sherlock!” William hisses and the echo of his voice sounds in Holmes’ ears painfully, accompanied with feverish whispering and he suddenly feels like crying. “Don’t you dare do that, or may be you want to see me angry?!”
He doesn’t answer, his eyes hurt as he shuts them so tightly.
“Do you?!”
“NO, I DON’T! Yes, I’m afraid of you, yes, who wouldn’t be, considering what you’ve done to Jack!?”
And he sobs hard, his whole body shaking with fear, hurt, anger, confusion, grief. He remembers the boy, all these years ago, a boy whom he once considered his only friend. Who he used to play with when he was little and found confidence in. That was, until William learnt about him.
Now Holmes knows at first hand what it is like when William is angry and for the life of him he doesn’t want to ever witness it again.
He still feels too guilty to visit Jack’s grave after all this time.
So, he takes a deep breath and repeats firmly: “Go away, William”
“But why?”
And all over again it starts.
----
“Willy! You’re here!”
“Of course, Sherlock, my boy, you don’t turn nine years old every other day!”
Willy comes and sits on the age of his bed, his eyes shining.
“Don’t get too close, doctor says I’m contagious.” He informs his friend sadly but Willy only smiles and shrugs it off.
“Don’t you worry about me, my friend, I will be fine. It is your birthday, not mine so you’re the big boy today”
Sherlock grins so widely his cheeks ache, and though the doctor ordered him to lie still, he struggles to sit and hugs Willy tightly.
He’s so lucky to have such a friend!
“There, there, my boy, I’m glad to see you, too!” Willy says, smiling and patting him on the back.
“How did you manage to come in, by the way? Mother doesn’t let anyone in here” he says, thinking that in fact, there’s no one else to try to come to him.
“Oh that was simple, the door was opened so I sneaked into the house and then quietly got upstairs, directly into your room. Your… mother didn’t even notice me.”
He spits the word ‘mother’ with so much hatred and contempt that Sherlock fidgets in his place uncomfortably and for a second he’s sure Willy’s eyes are terrifyingly black, but the next moment its gone and he wonders why he even worried.
“So what are we gone do today? Do you want to solve puzzles? Or else we could do some work in French?”
He nods enthusiastically. He doesn’t care what they will do as long as they will do it together and Willy won’t leave him alone in this cold grey room. He smiles happily and Willy smiles back at him.
----
----
Holmes wakes up, and the feeling of happiness quickly withers, making way for misery and exhaustion as he finds himself curled in his bed in a fetal position, his hands gripping the blankets so tightly his knuckles has gone white.
There’re both tension and weakness in his body, altogether making it almost impossible for him to move, his limbs numb for some reason. He slowly flexes his fingers - at first on the left hand, than on the right, and then he feels a man’s weight on the mattress to his left and he freezes, for a moment hoping it’s Watson who has come to him during night for however improbable reason, but all his hopes shatter in one moment as he hears that voice:
“Good morning, Sherlock, my boy”
And he screams.
----
“What do you want for dinner, darling?” Mary asks him in that sweet loving voice of hers and he feels guilty again and again for hating it so much.
“Whatever you wish to make for me” he replies through gritted teeth, fuming silently.
Mary looks at him closely. “What is the matter, John?”
“For God’s sake, Mary, can you leave me alone for one goddamn minute?!” he exclaims, wondering what, indeed, he is so pissed about. Mary hasn’t done anything wrong lately, or said anything at least vaguely interesting-
He needs to stop thinking like that - it will not end well for any of them. He’s just so nervous because of Holmes.
He bites his lip hard; he was not worried when Holmes didn’t show up the next day after the incident in his room. Nor the day after that. But he did begin to worry when there was no news of his friend for four days in a row, and he couldn’t pretend everything’s alright anymore. The doctor in him was surmising diagnose after diagnose, each worse than the one before.
Mary was not helping the matter. Her calm, quiet and painfully predictable self was getting on his nerves and the whole situation with Holmes and his really sensible words about Watson’s premature marriage and Holmes’ sudden absence was annoying the hell out of him, finally bringing him to boil.
He stands up abruptly and grabs his hat and cane and heads to the door. Mary goes after him, frowning,
“Where are you going?!”
Her voice is no longer calm and sweet, but high and a bit rowdy and deep inside he feels sadistic pleasure at hearing that.
“I’m going to see Holmes” he deadpans.
“But- you- you wanted to wait and -”
“Well I can’t wait anymore! My best friend is god only knows where and he’s most like far from being alright while I sit here pretending he is!”
And with that he escapes, leaving Mary behind.
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