As it should be

by beardsandblueboxes

All the ways the world can break you, and all the ways it broke Sherlock. From love, to loss, to family and toxic relationships. The differences between unrequited love with the right man and requited love with the wrong one. A love story turn psychological thriller. TW drugs, self harm, mentions of suicide.

10. Chapter 10

PART TWO

Chapter 10

It wasn't the first time Sherlock had been locked away. This time of course, was for the safety of others. But his first time was for the safety of himself. He's sure now, that everyone who had tried so hard to save him would regret it now, after all that he had done. There wasn't much he remembered from the time he was in hospital, it had only just begun to come back to him. For so long he believed an entirely different narrative, a story he'd told himself to feel better about everything that had happened. A fairytale. But this was real life and he was beginning to see it all for what it was. And it reminded him of why he wanted to create a false reality so badly. Because real life hurts. Especially when you lose yourself so thoroughly you begin to mourn your own loss.

There were things he'd left behind when he was first discharged from hospital all those years ago. He left a scarf that they'd confiscated, a notebook filled with deluded ramblings that had fallen down the back of his bed, and a mind free from the voice of 'Moriarty'. He'd first appeared after a few months. He was quiet at first. He'd just sit in the corner of the room and roll his eyes when the nurses were being particularly patronising. Then he started to speak up, pointing things out that Sherlock hadn't noticed, like the ticks in other patients that proved they were bluffing in a game of poker. Then he'd point out the way the nurse fiddled with her ring, that she was obviously having an affair with one of the doctors. Then he pointed out that the nervous laugh shared between two patients was, in fact, directed at him, and that he should shut them up. So Sherlock did.

It was games night, which it was every Thursday, and he was playing scrabble with two other patients, when Moriarty made this astute observation, Sherlock climbed over the table and shoved the bag of scrabble tiles so far down the louder of the two patients throat, that they almost suffocated there on the games room floor. "I wonder what kinds of words they'll cough up!" Moriarty had laughed, as he watched the whole thing go down. Sherlock was banned from games night for two months. But even after incidents like this, the staff were never concerned about Sherlock. They never considered him a danger to society, or at least they didn't act like they did. But maybe that's because they were getting paid off by the british government himself to give Mr Holmes 'preferable treatment.'

Mirrors in prisons and hospitals aren't made of glass or metal like normal mirrors. Instead they are made of a bendable piece of plastic and glued to the wall, in an attempt to prevent accidents and injuries. When you look in them, there is no angle or position for you to stand that won't distort your face in some way. So for years and years, locked away, whilst the world outside the walls solidifies an understanding of who you are, either in the memories of your loved ones, or printed in black and white in every news publication in the country, your own reflection stops looking like you. And everyday that you look in the mirror you try and remember what your face actually looks like, and everyday you lose a little bit more of that memory. Until one day you look at yourself and you couldn't for the life of you pick out the details of your face that are wrong. And if you let the madness of the place really get to you, and if you let the solitude and repressed emotions overspill out of your mind and into your reality, you might forget who you are completely. And what do you do when that happens? Do you keep searching inwards, digging into an emptiness so deep and vast if you go too far in you wouldn't be able to tell which way was up? Or do you push it all outward, create a new reality, create a new voice, create a new chapter, and let that control you? But once you do that it becomes harder and harder to get back to yourself, that even a glimpse inward at the darkness can haunt you, and any memory of a life before can drown you.

So Sherlock just kept running from the darkness. In the hospital he was running toward Moriarty, letting him consume him completely. And in prison, he couldn't think of any other direction to go at all. So he sat on the edge of his cold hard bed, staring ahead of him at the distorted mirror above the sink, and he said "Hello, Moriarty. Do make yourself at home."