Snarled 4a/?mitsuruakiJanuary 1 2011, 09:27:50 UTC
Oh, god, he was so bored.
Mycroft had left ages ago, off to do whatever it was he did during the day, something business-y and bossy, no doubt, and once again he was stuck here with nothing to do. Everything was so tedious, so mind-numbingly dreary.
He was starting to regret destroying all his lab equipment last night.
That display of childishness had sent his experiment back to square one-he’d been working on creating something acidic enough to unseal his window yet wouldn’t completely destroy his shutters. But Mycroft was very careful with the materials he provided, and Sherlock had only a few places to hide the progress he was making, and now the whole thing was for naught.
Sherlock glowered at his reflection in the mirror of his vanity table-turned-desk. His face glared back at him, furious for ruining the only true entertainment he had in this horrendous place, and what was he going to do now?
There were no books he could get lost in, as Mycroft had been overly involved in his work lately and lacked the time to bring back anything new. Sherlock lived for books, everything he knew he’d learned from books; how was he supposed to keep his brain occupied otherwise?
Mycroft had taken over his schooling when Nana left, drilling him in his letters and numbers, teaching him to read and solve puzzles and write essays and do arithmetic. He’d gone without dinner some nights for misspelled words and improper grammar, lost his lab privileges for back talk and numerically wrong answers, but Sherlock was practically a sponge for knowledge. He learned fast, remembered everything he’d been taught, and it all revolved around the books Mycroft read to him and years later, left him to study.
He hadn’t had a lesson in years.
Perhaps he’d reached the end of what Mycroft could teach him, but he suspected that wasn’t the case. The frequency of his lessons radically decreased when he first began asking what it was like outside the house. Not only that, but they’d shifted from geography and history to safer topics like trigonometry and culinary arts, the latter of which Sherlock despised. When he was fifteen, the nearest town had hired Mycroft for some exceedingly important position and the lessons had halted indefinitely, substituted instead for the occasional book or other scholarly text his brother deigned to give him.
What could the outside world possibly hold that would cause Mycroft to purposely keep him in ignorance?
The awareness of his own lack of knowledge both chafed and further fueled his curiosity. There was more out there, of course there was. There had to be. Mountains and rivers and towns to explore, people and devastation and prosperous places he was determined to see if he could find a way out from under Mycroft’s ever-vigilant thumb.
Sherlock scowled at his sealed window. It was merely a delay, nothing more.
His biggest question was when (not ‘if’, there would be no ‘if’s, only ‘when’) he did leave, where would he go?
Vaguely, he recognized there was a town nearby-the same place Mycroft worked and bought their supplies from, according to the contradictory smell of grit and baked goods clinging to his clothes-but he wasn’t entirely sure where it was. His brother was careful not to leave any papers lying around and although he was familiar with the concept of cartography, he had never laid eyes on an atlas or a map. Not once.
Fine then. He didn’t need a destination. He’d just…leave. So there.
Snarled 4b/?mitsuruakiJanuary 1 2011, 09:34:34 UTC
Raising his chin haughtily, Sherlock stalked out of his room and down the staircase. He trailed a finger through the faint layer of dust building on the railing with a spiteful satisfaction-just because he was bored and trapped here all day didn’t mean he was going to resort to housework. Cleaning was dull, cooking took too long, and other than his experimenting there was only one other hobby he bothered to indulge in.
There was something powerful in expressing himself through paint, Sherlock had discovered.
He’d had a horrid row with Mycroft the first time his brother came home and found he’d desecrated the walls. There’d been no paint in the house at that time, so in a fit of intrigue he’d mashed up food of all sorts into paste and spread it on the walls. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, but he certainly wasn’t going to apologize for the mess. He’d argued about boredom, and the need for self-expression, that his options for entertainment here were limited and there were only so many times he could sit around brushing all forty meters of his hair. All nonsense, naturally, but Mycroft finally gave in when Sherlock refused to clean his organic artwork from the walls unless his brother bought him proper paint.
It was the first and only battle Sherlock had ever won, so he made the most of it.
After retrieving his art box from the wardrobe he traipsed back up the stairs and gazed around his room in search of the day’s latest stretch of ‘canvas’, only to discover he was running out of space.
The thought was distressing, and he’d have to come up with a solution soon. Downstairs had been the place where he’d first started working. In a fit of bitterness, he’d wanted to begin with Mycroft’s small room off the kitchen when his window had first been permanently closed, but his brother’s door was always locked and he couldn’t get in. Gradually, he’d moved up the walls and the staircase and into his own room as he got closer and closer to the roof. Lately, he’d taken to suspending himself from the eaves with his hair looped into variations of makeshift harnesses, because honestly his hair had no other practical everyday use, and it never failed to make Mycroft fret. But maybe he should start with the floor, next?
Sherlock eyed his walls critically, examining the colours applied over the wood and masonry. His initial brushwork consisted of formulas and diagrams he needed for experiments. Then Mycroft had brought home art books for his perusal and he’d branched out into more creative areas, learning as he went and losing himself in hours of lines, contours, and colours. Animals, astronomy, and the basic human form appeared sporadically on the stone, slowly morphing from realism to the impossible to the abstract.
He painted whatever happened to catch his fancy at that moment: self-portraits that lost clarity near the bottom, dark hues bleeding together into a background for another picture; vertical curvy symmetrical lines separated by dark columns with a perpendicular line of four bright dots; green circles and other geometric shapes overlapping each other. Overall, the result was a collage of styles and shades of pigment that transformed his room into a questionably successful foray into home décor.
Hmmm, well…he could always work on the ceiling. At the very least, it would make Mycroft blink and his mouth thin in disapproval when he finally returned home.
Nodding decisively to himself, he craned his head back to scrutinize the wooden beams above him. Then he dragged the end of his trailing hair to him, the weight of it dense and warm in his hands, and lobbed it up into the rafters.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! What is this?! I get distracted for 3 days and come back and find 2 new chapters?! Oh, it's Christmas! <3 Wonderful chapter, my dear! I love Sherlock's version of self expression. And the way he earned it! lol I'd say "poor Mycroft, he has to put up with so much," but then again, he kind of deserves it for keeping Sherlock locked up. lol Now, off to read the next chapter! *zooms*
Re: Snarled 4b/?mitsuruakiJanuary 4 2011, 03:10:23 UTC
Only for you, dearest OP~ XD I figured painting would still be one of a few activities Mycroft would allow, especially if it distracted Sherlock from his experiment (which Mycroft knows about, of course he does). And the series shows Sherlock is definitely not above vandalizing his own place of residence. Lol! If Mycroft had to take care of Rapunzel, he'd probably be thrilled after living with Sherlock, because she's about eleventy billion times easier to handle. =D
Mycroft had left ages ago, off to do whatever it was he did during the day, something business-y and bossy, no doubt, and once again he was stuck here with nothing to do. Everything was so tedious, so mind-numbingly dreary.
He was starting to regret destroying all his lab equipment last night.
That display of childishness had sent his experiment back to square one-he’d been working on creating something acidic enough to unseal his window yet wouldn’t completely destroy his shutters. But Mycroft was very careful with the materials he provided, and Sherlock had only a few places to hide the progress he was making, and now the whole thing was for naught.
Sherlock glowered at his reflection in the mirror of his vanity table-turned-desk. His face glared back at him, furious for ruining the only true entertainment he had in this horrendous place, and what was he going to do now?
There were no books he could get lost in, as Mycroft had been overly involved in his work lately and lacked the time to bring back anything new. Sherlock lived for books, everything he knew he’d learned from books; how was he supposed to keep his brain occupied otherwise?
Mycroft had taken over his schooling when Nana left, drilling him in his letters and numbers, teaching him to read and solve puzzles and write essays and do arithmetic. He’d gone without dinner some nights for misspelled words and improper grammar, lost his lab privileges for back talk and numerically wrong answers, but Sherlock was practically a sponge for knowledge. He learned fast, remembered everything he’d been taught, and it all revolved around the books Mycroft read to him and years later, left him to study.
He hadn’t had a lesson in years.
Perhaps he’d reached the end of what Mycroft could teach him, but he suspected that wasn’t the case. The frequency of his lessons radically decreased when he first began asking what it was like outside the house. Not only that, but they’d shifted from geography and history to safer topics like trigonometry and culinary arts, the latter of which Sherlock despised. When he was fifteen, the nearest town had hired Mycroft for some exceedingly important position and the lessons had halted indefinitely, substituted instead for the occasional book or other scholarly text his brother deigned to give him.
What could the outside world possibly hold that would cause Mycroft to purposely keep him in ignorance?
The awareness of his own lack of knowledge both chafed and further fueled his curiosity. There was more out there, of course there was. There had to be. Mountains and rivers and towns to explore, people and devastation and prosperous places he was determined to see if he could find a way out from under Mycroft’s ever-vigilant thumb.
Sherlock scowled at his sealed window. It was merely a delay, nothing more.
His biggest question was when (not ‘if’, there would be no ‘if’s, only ‘when’) he did leave, where would he go?
Vaguely, he recognized there was a town nearby-the same place Mycroft worked and bought their supplies from, according to the contradictory smell of grit and baked goods clinging to his clothes-but he wasn’t entirely sure where it was. His brother was careful not to leave any papers lying around and although he was familiar with the concept of cartography, he had never laid eyes on an atlas or a map. Not once.
Fine then. He didn’t need a destination. He’d just…leave. So there.
Reply
There was something powerful in expressing himself through paint, Sherlock had discovered.
He’d had a horrid row with Mycroft the first time his brother came home and found he’d desecrated the walls. There’d been no paint in the house at that time, so in a fit of intrigue he’d mashed up food of all sorts into paste and spread it on the walls. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, but he certainly wasn’t going to apologize for the mess. He’d argued about boredom, and the need for self-expression, that his options for entertainment here were limited and there were only so many times he could sit around brushing all forty meters of his hair. All nonsense, naturally, but Mycroft finally gave in when Sherlock refused to clean his organic artwork from the walls unless his brother bought him proper paint.
It was the first and only battle Sherlock had ever won, so he made the most of it.
After retrieving his art box from the wardrobe he traipsed back up the stairs and gazed around his room in search of the day’s latest stretch of ‘canvas’, only to discover he was running out of space.
The thought was distressing, and he’d have to come up with a solution soon. Downstairs had been the place where he’d first started working. In a fit of bitterness, he’d wanted to begin with Mycroft’s small room off the kitchen when his window had first been permanently closed, but his brother’s door was always locked and he couldn’t get in. Gradually, he’d moved up the walls and the staircase and into his own room as he got closer and closer to the roof. Lately, he’d taken to suspending himself from the eaves with his hair looped into variations of makeshift harnesses, because honestly his hair had no other practical everyday use, and it never failed to make Mycroft fret. But maybe he should start with the floor, next?
Sherlock eyed his walls critically, examining the colours applied over the wood and masonry. His initial brushwork consisted of formulas and diagrams he needed for experiments. Then Mycroft had brought home art books for his perusal and he’d branched out into more creative areas, learning as he went and losing himself in hours of lines, contours, and colours. Animals, astronomy, and the basic human form appeared sporadically on the stone, slowly morphing from realism to the impossible to the abstract.
He painted whatever happened to catch his fancy at that moment: self-portraits that lost clarity near the bottom, dark hues bleeding together into a background for another picture; vertical curvy symmetrical lines separated by dark columns with a perpendicular line of four bright dots; green circles and other geometric shapes overlapping each other. Overall, the result was a collage of styles and shades of pigment that transformed his room into a questionably successful foray into home décor.
Hmmm, well…he could always work on the ceiling. At the very least, it would make Mycroft blink and his mouth thin in disapproval when he finally returned home.
Nodding decisively to himself, he craned his head back to scrutinize the wooden beams above him. Then he dragged the end of his trailing hair to him, the weight of it dense and warm in his hands, and lobbed it up into the rafters.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment