The disease starts off slowly, rather like a funnel turned upside down, beginning with nothing and ending with everything.
He is only twelve years old. Mycroft is off to college, and Father has already left them all. Like he always has, and like he always would, had he stuck around. But his bags had been packed hurriedly and he had tried to hide the signs, and Sherlock knew this even at three years old from the oil patterns on the doorknob and the recently sparse nature of the bedroom.
Footsteps had sounded behind him and he remembers turning his neck, turning at the waist, pivoting on his feet, and looking up at her. Seeing her furious face, twisted in shock, and her downturned mouth, and her eyes crinkling in self-righteous sorrow.
He had been out the door before he had had to hear her shouts, her screams, and the string of profanities that never really began to leave her mouth, but rather had always been there, at the tip of her tongue and the curl of her lips. His curly hair had bounced atop his head as he had scurried away, off to the corner of his bedroom with the window next to the ladder. The ladder that had led out the door and to the garden. The garden that had led to the road. The road that he had gently rested on, tracing the asphalt with bemused fingers, gazing into the distance as he pictured vividly the beautiful feeling of flying with his feet, down the road, into another world and away from his own.
And here he finds himself again at twelve years old. Trapped between his world and another, and he wonders if maybe he wouldn't mind remaining trapped here. It's quiet. Ah, quiet, in a way that his own world never has been and never will be.
The wind rustles against the grass, whispering secrets— a trace of perfume laid just a little too heavily in the air (from a woman looking forward to possibly her first date), a snatch of stale bread (past closing at the baker's which means yet another unsatisfied customer), the high pitched scream of little children that tells him a playground is somewhere nearby.
Perhaps once upon a time he would have cared about what it all meant to him. But he doesn't— all that matters is what it means. Logically, detachedly. He wishes to hold no connection to the data. It will stifle him, stifle him like the dense air of home and his bedroom and every common area, pulling at his chest and making him forget to draw in air…
"I was on the internet today."
He stares unseeingly at his math homework, furrowing his brow as if paying attention, furrowing his brow as if to say not now, Mum, I'm busy. Busy getting grades, busy getting out, busy running away. Running, running, running. "Hmmm."
"It all matched up again. Another conversation."
He freezes.
His fist tightens infinitesimally, eyes narrowing as he continues to stare down the road, staring, staring staring. Staring, but not seeing, because he does not want to see. He'd much rather catalogue the world away into his head, to be examined at a later date, because at this precise moment in time, he absolutely cannot deal with it.
"They're watching us."
"They are not," he replies steadily.
And this inevitably begins another argument, another one, another one, filled with don't you believe me's and I'm not fucking crazy and in the end the famous get the fuck out of my house, you bastard. You're just like your father.
And he will not cry. He refuses to cry.
He will not cry.
.
At fourteen, he comes home to see the vents blocked. Standard printer paper piled up into stacks of ten, taped messily over the openings and cracks, and littering the ceiling with false protection.
Hands shaking, he reaches out, grabs one. Peels softly, pulling it away, glances at the empty expanse of the vent, and examines.
He finds nothing.
Heart hammering, a curious lump forming in his throat, he reaches for the paper, makes to replace it, and stops, staring at the words it holds.
Stay away, perverts. I know.
Eyes watering, he replaces the paper, sprints up to his room. Blocks out the sounds of her humming happily, blocks out the sounds of her murmuring to herself take that, you perverts, watching me. How do you plan to do it now? Brings his knees to his chest and stares ahead and just sits.
She's lost it.
She's finally lost it.
Because he's checked. He's checked every square inch of the house, glanced through the vents, researched all the possibilities, and he's come up empty handed. And he's shared this with her, and he's shared this with Mycroft. Mycroft, who always returns with it's only four more years, Sherlock. You can handle it. Just stay out of her way.
He breathes in, once, twice. Picks up his backpack from where he's left it on the floor, pulls out his Chemistry homework, and begins.
He will not cry.
He will not cry.
.
At age fifteen, Sherlock makes a friend. His name is Mike Stamford, and he's a shoo-in for the military, with rather amazing mental capacity to boot.
At age fifteen and a half, his mother is "researching" from her laptop. She plugs in the keywords from her day to day life, taking note of anything that slightly resembles anything.
She finds the name "Mike." Not Stamford. Just Mike.
Nevertheless, Sherlock is forbidden from seeing him.
Mike understands.
Sherlock does not. And as Mike claps him on the back and tells him that he'll stay in touch when they're both out of the clutches of their crazy mums, Sherlock can only nod quietly.
.
Sherlock does not attempt to make any more friends after this. He doesn't think he can stand it.
He probably can't.
.
I don't want you speaking to Mycroft anymore.
I don't trust him.
Her eyes are wide and angry, and her face is twisted again, and now when he looks on it, he feels no pity— only anger. Pure, unadulterated anger.
And in the end, that's it. That's what breaks him and makes him at the same time. That's what starts the shouting, the screaming, the tears that he angrily brushes away as he begs with his last breath, please, Mum, use your mind, please but she doesn't, and she can't.
"You're crazy," he states. And that's all. He begs once— just once— for her to come to her senses. And when she refuses, he turns, walks out, and refuses to speak to her in any form aside from a simple "Yes" or "No."
He is seventeen, and he no longer wants to cry.
He only wants to run.
.
Eighteen years old, Sherlock is a very different person. Logic overpowers his heart. Family is no longer family; rather, he wishes to be alone— to find company in solitude, in facts, in the solid, tangible things.
He observes the world around him and refrains from taking part. And if he does, it is only for the sole purpose of observing more.
He bids goodbye to his mother, bags in hand, ready for his one way trip to London. She sits up suddenly in bed, peering through her bangs in shock, her mouth wide open as if to say already?
He pauses, thinks. Wonders what he ought to say— because he will not write. He will not call. He will not visit.
Perhaps this makes him a cruel individual. But six long years of torture— of bitter pain and self-righteous hatred aimed towards him— have formed into a person who no longer cares. He simply no longer has the capacity, as far as he knows.
In the end, he simply turns around and walks away. Shuts the door and never returns.
His road is the last memory of home.
It is quite fitting, he thinks.
.
A/N: This is really personal to me, and probably quite confusing to you. I honestly just needed to get this out of my system.
If you read it, I hope you enjoyed it to some degree.
I don't own any of the characters.
Review if you wish to.