The word "blind" has multiple meanings.
The most obvious one, needless to say, is someone having less than one tenth of normal vision in the more dominant eye, even after defects in the eye are corrected by lenses.
In other words: It is very difficult or impossible to see.
Some people who are considered blind can see colours, but cannot form the shades into tangible forms. Blurred images and softened features, squinting in order to see clearer. An array of light surrounds them once they remove their glasses, and they see the world with intense admiration and detestation.
And there are those who can only see black.
They are blind, all of them.
Chuckles and words of hate escape their wretched throats and he can only think of squashing their inferior comments with his own acumen and acute observance of details they cannot see.
They are perfectly aware of the fact that he can hear every word they say. Purposely calling him juvenile names and whispering rude comments that they use to make themselves feel superior to him, to his knowledge.
He knows they are in some categories.
They are blind to his stability, to the cracking shell he surrounds himself in. It was relatively easy to remain calm, to act as if his skin was leather that could not crack.
But it was ripping open, slowly. Like a knife running along his spine, cutting lightly into his flesh, enough to leave a mark, but not enough to let it bleed yet. They assume that he has been scarred enough that there is nowhere left to rip out a seam, to unwind the folds in his heart.
They are blind to his act. To his usual scoffing, the panting in his breath that gets caught in his throat. He could not ignore their ignorance, the fact that they believed he could never have a heart.
He could barely pretend that it didn't hurt, that he was brave.
He was no soldier.
There are those who are colorblind.
Who cannot tell the different between red and green, and those who cannot distinguish yellow and blues hues.
And then there are those who cannot see colours at all, only black and white.
He never noticed colours much, never saw the hundreds of shades of rain as he passed under the clouds, only focusing on the wet drops that pierced his skin. He never inspected the ten million shades he was able to see, only focusing on what he could smell, touch, sense around him. When the flowers bloomed and the multitude of yellows filled the ground, he only saw petals that came together to form an organism that for some reason represents beauty and love.
But the only thing he only truly saw in colour was John.
While everything else he saw was in between black and white, he would always catch a glimpse at John's salmon knitted jumper and the clashing olive jacket that outlined his figure, and he would become startled and attempt to firmly grasp his pen.
Or they were running from serial killers on a scene, and Sherlock would simply forget where he was and the grey roads that paved in front of him. All he would notice was John's greying blonde hair against the ebony skyline.
Or maybe John's hand brushes up against his while handing him a cup of tea and Sherlock will mutter "Thank you" while feeling the tan, somewhat pale skin on his own. And he will inspect the redness of John's nose in the cold, as they walk along through the freezing London streets and John swears about the terrible weather.
And when John would yell at the blind for breaking the seams of Sherlock's skin, Sherlock would fondly look on and see an angel bathed in blue and plaid, a soldier disguised as a knight in armor coming to his rescue when he did not have the heart to defend himself.
And when John was mad, he would slowly turn red, then purple, a shade of blue hinted in his tongue. He would yell at Sherlock, and slowly the words would drown and he would only see the colours exploding in his expression, feel the red slowly creeping up his skin.
"You only see things in black and white," He would say to Sherlock, angry.
"Is that a bad thing?"
And then there are those who can see millions of colours.
The norm, the average. Molly, Greg, all of those people who could see nothing special about Sherlock. He never stood out with a pop of colour, he would seep into the background of their stories, walking on the walls and blending into the pale background. While they would see the green in the trees, pink and orange skylines in the evening, and blue lights fill the air, all they would see in him was colourless.
Sure, he was interesting. Organized. Genius. A brilliant mind, like none of them had ever seen before. Calculating hypotheses and large numbers within seconds, his mind racing faster than a machine. He was a computer walking on his feet.
But he was all black and white.
And slowly, he began to see everything.
The red in the cheeks of the young woman drinking coffee stood out to him. The happy couple with a newborn, wearing blue jeans and pink smiles on their faces. Coworkers and businessmen in brown suits gossiping about bosses and office relationships.
John slowly opened Sherlock's eyes to every colour around him, the green in the trees that the children climbed on, the orange tiger lilies that the shopkeeper was staring at with glee. The movie theatre that had glimmering yellow lights at night, the red lipstick the older woman was wearing with her husband on her arm.
John's hair still glowed, his jumpers still felt warmer and looked brighter than anything else. But Sherlock found his eyes opening wider and the awe coming to him, slowly but surely.
"You were wrong, you know," He would have said.
"About what?"
"I don't just see in black and white. I see in colour, too."
And then there was the last colour he saw.
Red. Red everywhere.
On his pink skin, on his striped jumper that had been green, staining his messy grey-blonde hair and darkening the flesh on the side of his head. The remains of his blue jeans and his grey shoes started to wear away, and were replaced with red.
Sherlock held him in his arms, whispering words that although he said out loud, didn't seem to come out. They escaped through his throat, but did not reach John's crimson ears and he did not hear the black words that were spewing out of Sherlock's mouth, each trying to revive the red from John's body, only to become darker and darker every moment.
And John was red in his arms but yet John was not there, and he could feel the colour draining from his heart, the only spot inside of him that was not black and white. His ears drowned out the rest of the noise and muted the colour around him, so all he saw was red and he could feel the darkness closing in on him.
And Sherlock tried to grab onto the pink of John's skin, the green of his jumper, the greying hair on his head without moving, without breathing, because he realized that John was fading away, what made him see everything was gone.
And John was frozen red, and Sherlock's eyes had become black, and the words he screamed from his mouth because clearer and clearer, eventually fading into the grey, becoming steam erupting from his mouth, just steam that cannot be felt, words that could not be heard.
He could no longer see the colors.
The young woman with the coffee had the red drain from her cheeks. The happy couple with a new baby were now wearing dark, unrecognizable clothing and their smiles were grey. The shopkeeper no longer stared at the orange tiger lilies.
And the only colour he could see was red.
When John's red body was lowered into the black ground in a white casket, Sherlock found that he could only see black.