Note: Thank you all so much for your reviews. They mean the world to me, and are essential to my writing motivation. This story is more than a little therapeutic for me, and I only hope somebody else connects with it as well. And as always, please - if you're struggling with any eating issues, seek help.
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Sherlock stared at his Christmas dinner, his entire family watching him. Wart was licking his ankle under the table, trying to coax Master Sherlock into dropping a fatty slab of goose.
His plan had been to eat. To make a show of it, to prove that he was fine, completely fine. To have a good meal, without the usual arguments over the size of his servings and the amount he actually ate - always too small, always too little. He had envisioned it in his mind - his mother smiling in relief, his father giving him an approving nod, and Mycroft trying not to betray the pride that beamed in his eyes.
So he had loaded his plate - heaps of meat, Yorkshire pudding, buttered parsnips, cranberry sauce. But now, with the spread out before him, the calories were screaming in his head. And he had been doing so good in his experiment. It had been eight days without food - two more and he would have beat his record. This would set him back. He was terrified of the food and of the sudden failure of his plan. He didn't know what to do. That scared him too. Sherlock Holmes always knew what to do.
Food wasn't necessary, that was the hypothesis. It was merely an ancient, primitive method of obtaining nutrients, before the advent of things like scientifically formulated supplements. He had come to this idea on his own, but he had since found medical literature that confirmed it. There was a morbidly obese man in the states who had lived off nothing but carefully regulated supplements for nine months. So it was not an entirely untested hypothesis. Posing as a school boy writing up a paper on the obesity epidemic, he had contacted the paper's authors himself, asking for details beyond the published article. To make his story more believable, he even dropped a few grammatical mistakes in his writing, cringing as he did so. He couldn't have them know what he was really doing with their information. They'd think him crazy or anorexic, and Sherlock was neither. The doctors had even confirmed that.
Unfortunately, Sherlock had not yet reduced his calorie consumption to the ideal zero. He still consumed an estimated 50 calories per day - his supplements by oral route. He would prefer to utilise an intravenous route, but he had yet to accomplish this in the school's chemistry lab nor had he been able to find a local shop that carried anything suitable.
Furthermore, Sherlock was certain that he didn't need to weigh anything more than 4 stone 5 pounds. He'd arrived at that number by estimating the weight of his organs, essential bodily fluids, minimal smooth muscle responsible for organ function, and his skeleton, at his current height of 5'6. He had liked the number he had arrived at - the pleasant tidiness of it. Four stone, five pounds. Anything coming in would go out. No excess, no distraction. A perfectly tuned machine. He was a brain, not a caveman. A research chemist, not a farmer. Fat and muscle were obsolete in today's world. Of course, at age fourteen, he was likely to grow and would have to re-estimate regularly, but he believed this was achievable. He was a good deal away, at a dismal 5 stone 6 pounds, but he was getting closer each day.
Truthfully, the less he had of a body, the happier he would be. It was as useless as the vermiform appendix. A vestigial organ. He'd be pleased to chop it off. Sometimes he fantasised about his brain in a jar, swimming with a perfectly balanced cocktail of nutrients, electrodes jammed into the sucli, controlling his world by proxy - commanding a robot or a computer with his thoughts alone. A perfect neural link without the clumsy, imprecise interference of a body.
Of course, It had taken him some time to determine how to replace the basic function of calories - energy. He'd toyed with stimulants - copious amounts of tea, various formulations of medications intended for the treatment of hyperactivity, even caffeine-laden diet pills he'd nicked from Tesco. However, it was not until he'd discovered cocaine that he had his answer.
Cocaine did everything and more. It extinguished what was left of his appetite while providing him energy. It even quickened his mental apparatus, unlike food that left him so sluggish and foggy. Cocaine was far, far better than food. As soon as his relationship with the local dealers had grown strong enough, he had begun to replace calories with his beloved seven percent solution. He much preferred injections to snorting - particularly after reading of horrific sinus and nasal injuries sustained by chronic users. His nose was simply to closely linked to his brain to risk it.
And now, all too aware of his family's stares, Sherlock didn't know what to do. He only knew that he could not eat.
"Is everything all right?" His mother asked tentatively, the fear apparent in her voice.
Sherlock licked his lips. "Not hungry." This was absolutely true, after all. He didn't even feel hunger anymore. The signals had grown weaker and weaker until they'd simply faded away. He'd considered it a triumph, one less physical malady standing in the way of perfection.
He shifted in his seat, the hard wood grinding into his pelvic bones and coccyx. He wrapped his hand around his glass of water and sipped slowly, the water sloshing as his hand trembled.
"How much do you weigh now, Sherlock?" Mycroft intoned. "A good bit less than six stone, I'd wager."
Several things happened in the next few moments. His mother let out an anguished sob. Sherlock saw a twitch of movement in his periphery, and the deductions began spiraling. He'd learned to read people and situations since going away to school - a necessary defense mechanism to avoid bullying or beatings. It was easy and he found he was very good at it.
A slight flare of his father's nostrils - he was angry - his chin trembling - angry and frustrated, then - his left hand curled into a fist - his dominant hand - his forearm flexed under the fabric of his dinner jacket - preparing for physical exertion - the hoarse scrape of a chair being pushed away from the table - his father was going to hit him.
His father was not a violent man, preferring always to talk things out before they had escalated to physical violence - or, more commonly in his line of work - war. He had never even spanked either of his sons - corporal punishment was a cruel and stupid practice. But now, five years of frustration and worry and pain had built up into his left fist and Mr. Holmes had no idea what else to do.
Sherlock, even when he had seen it coming, had no time to respond, waiting in stunned, paralysed silence for the blow to connect with his jaw. When it did, Sherlock's body flew backward with the chair. He was vaguely aware of his mother's scream and his brother's shout as a shimmering bright black consumed his vision for a moment, and then all went silent as the world faded into nothing.