Bucket List: a number of things someone wishes to accomplish before "kicking the bucket" (dying).
Terminal Illness: indicates a disease which will eventually end the life of the sufferer (e.g. cancer).
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx
Sherlock was always one for secrecy. If they did not need to know, they did not need to find out. There were only a few exceptions, and even they did not always receive the information he withheld. The benefit of that, was no one knew he was keeping secrets. Therefore, no one could care, or be hurt, until some unfixed point in time. In his opinion, he was doing the blissfully unaware a favour. They… were just… blissfully unaware.
There was one secret, one so big it made Sherlock want to scream it out. Let his head burst and his heart explode when he let the 6 little words echo throughout London, bouncing off the rooftops and making people's happiness plummet into a dark hole, just like his. The affected would never recover, never thrive again knowing the load put upon their shoulders; the dark and grim tale of his prognosis.
The world's only consulting detective, had the world's worst predicament.
No amount of treatment could repair his broken state. Incurable. Pursuing a cure would be fruitless. All the money being spent on any experimental nonsense would just flow out of the bank and into the pockets of scientists and doctors who whispered empty comforts into the ears of the ruined. Never was it truly 'alright'. Never could they say they have been there before, because had they truly been there, they would have been blunt. You are going to die. It's unavoidable. This is the cruelty and fragility of life, and you were going to have to deal with it at some point.
Pull out the big guns.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx
Everything had been quiet at the clinic the day the news had gotten out. Paperwork. Mounds of it, piled high atop the doctor's desk. John rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He couldn't get all this completed before he went home. Overtime, again. Sarah already had his nose to the grindstone, but this, this was overwhelming. Never in his life had he had such an outrageous amount of filing and such to accomplish.
Time moved along at its own pace, the silence of the office unbearable. Broken by nothing. Only the faint click, click, click of the second hand moving, it's pattern the same. Back and 'round again, the cogs and gears whirring behind that taunting, numbered face. Oh how time was something everyone had their pitiful love-hate-relationship with. I need more time for this assignment. I need this class to end. It was the friend everyone had that pissed you off to no end, but you always wanted him back. The pole in your back pushing you in the small of your back, digging into flesh, getting things done. The noose when your fingers ceased their rapid typing on the keyboard.
John huffed, pen dragging lazily across the papers. Signature, date, signature, date. The same robotic actions. Until his phone buzzed angrily, screaming for attention. Ah, his salvation. Reaching blindly for the mobile, he knocked over his mug of coffee, letting it crash to the floor, pieces scattering everywhere. "Fuck," he mumbled, turning his head to pay attention. There it was. He plucked the mobile off the desk, and checked his messages. Sherlock, once again, was pestering him.
John there is something pertinent that you must know immediately. –SH
Oh?
That you're bored? I think I already knew that one. –JW
No, you idiot. –SH
John rolled his eyes at the screen, his lips forming a lopsided smile. Only him. Not bored, apparently. That's new. The only texts he received during the workday were the same repeated line. 'John, I'm bored –SH'. Well, sunshine, he knew that. Did the man come to the belief that working with small children and old people with various stages of alzheimers was any more fun that tossing and turning on a sofa? Or perhaps, playing with rigor mortis? Honestly, Sherlock needed to get a good look at reality, because he was not under the same impression as John.
Standing up, John clung loosely to the mobile in one of his hands, and hobbled around the opposite, mug-free, side of his desk and to the door, opening it a crack and shuffling out.
Someone's in a cheerful mood. –JW
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxx
Cheerful mood? God, did he wish. Thankfully he'd been blessed with the honourable ability to mimic emotions. He wouldn't call it acting, no. That would be stupid. But sure, if you were foolish enough the fall into the clutches of his amazing portrayal of faked empathy and so on, of course he was cheerful. In all reality, cheerful was the new 'I got out of bed today, managed a shower, didn't collapse going down the steps'. It was a bitter cheerful, if anything.
Today the pang of guilt him straight in the gut, crippling him as he attempted to shave. The voice in his head bouncing crazily against the bone-confines of his skull, screaming at him in a voice filled with spite and bullets.
"Sherlock Holmes, you're a weak monster of a person, Leaving all these people behind; so unaware of your malcontent and state. Maybe you should just kill yourself—oh, wait," It taunted, making him tremble, his face scrunching up in denial. No he wasn't weak, never. He was living with this… bullshit, and his own mind had the nerve to belittle him for being the strongest person? For dealing with the constant pain of knowing, just knowing of what you had to face?
"Shut up!" Sherlock had roared, gripping the edges of the sink, the razor dropping with a clank to the floor. His knuckles turned white as he looked at his face in the mirror. That was death, looking directly into his eyes, piercing into his soul with unrelenting force. "I am the single most bravest person in my lif—"
"Wrong!" It cooed, the tremors wracking his body, making him splutter and cough into the sink. The cold blue eyes hidden behind screwed eyelids, blocking out the man in the mirror.
And he had dropped to the ground, curled up into a ball on the sopping wet bathmat, back heaving. It all came out on that carpet, the cries of unfairness, of why me, why me. No one heard him. Sherlock was so alone. Eventually John Watson would too. The crying became louder. The razor was picked up, and dragged down an open palm, the scarlet blood dripping down. Coated in filth, the poison of his own body.
The crying stopped.