Chapter 12: There Is A Distinct Lack Of Jam

"Why doesn't your birthday matter?" John asked me over our Chinese take-away an hour or so later.

Sherlock had still been in his thinking mode upon our arrival back at the flat, so John had prepared a plate of takeaway for him to eat later, if he did at all. The food was being stored in the fridge, something I had yet to see the inside of. Was there severed heads in there or something?

I paused for a moment. I wasn't exactly sure how to answer that. I normally refused to think about why I had chosen to give up birthdays but, of course, the subject was now unavoidable.

"It's just not really that important to me. Especially not after my friend died," I divulged haltingly.

It was only partly a lie; Kayla had had a friend that had died, but it was the night before her birthday, and the trauma had led to her forgetting. My own friend had simply Fallen through the dimensions, but it had the same finality. I would never see her again, and I would never celebrate the day of her death.

"Oh," he said softly, regretfully.

I smiled in forgiveness, returning to my sunny facade. We ate for a few minutes in silence. However, despite how I may have appeared, inside I was mourning. My brother had been the only person that had cared about my birthday, so when he disappeared... I'd stopped. I'd stopped celebrating another year I was still Above, I'd stopped my learnings, I'd stopped socialising. I had descended into as close to depression as Beings were capable of.

My brother had been my life. He had been my best friend, my only confident and, despite the fact he was around twice my age, he'd put up with me. He'd cared for me. And then he fell. I'd decided that if I ever fell also, I would try to find him. We'd even come up with a plan as to how we would locate each other, but I couldn't recall it just then.

And later that night, once John had wished me good dreams, I remembered the plan.

'Ok, then, if that doesn't work, I'll become a violinist,' my brother had insisted, and I'd laughed. I was so young then. I'd been so naïve.

'You can't be a violinist!' I'd told him, and he had faked a confused face.

'Why on earth not?' he had asked, tickling me and I laughed again.

'Violins are so expensive, you'd never be able to afford one unless you were royalty!' I'd told him, and he'd laughed at me.

'I'll be a special violinist; I'll become royal. I'll be the only one in the world like me, and at every concert, I'll play my Mark, just for you." he'd promised, and I'd nodded.

'I'll find you,' I'd sworn, 'but what about me?'

He'd then smiled. 'I'll always find you, no matter what.'

I fell asleep, and dreamt of a young Being with curly brown hair and sapphire blue eyes, his grey wings pulled tight, playing with an younger, with pixie-cut black hair and green eyes, her pale grey wings extended. I fell asleep, and remembered my brother.

The next morning, I discovered that Kayla didn't like eggs. Or cereal. Or jam. In fact, she only ate buttered or honeyed toast for breakfast, which amused Sherlock to no end. John, however, was mourning the lack of strawberries in the jam jar.

Sherlock, it turns out, had awoken from his thinking coma some time around 3am and had then proceeded to play the violin. The playing had somehow mingled with my dreams, and I had slept on. John had been woken up, and decided that wrestling the taller man would be a good idea. It wasn't a good idea.

Mrs Hudson, who came to visit us at breakfast, had been endeared to me instantly, mainly because I was eating my buttered bread without dropping crumbs and had yet to wake her up in the middle of the night via violin or a wrestling match.

Sherlock wasn't very happy that he'd been replaced as favourite. I had taken great delight in giving him a smirk as Mrs Hudson exited the flat without trying to hug him, to which he responded with his tongue sticking out.

This, in turn, amused John, enough to make him forget about his lack of jam, and he wasted no time in taking a photograph, which Sherlock then tried (unsuccessfully) to delete. All in all, a very eventful morning.

Edit: 25.2.16