Chapter 12
During their infancy, Mrs. Holmes noticed a stark contrast between her sons. It was not so much age, as it was behaviour and personality. Mycroft excelled in school, but Sherlock came home bloodied from fist fights at least once a week. All effort to calm her youngest one from violence were to no avail. It wasn't that Sherlock went around picking fights, more so it was the other pupils would start the brawls with a snide comment about Sherlock's intellect. He would merely finish what they started, those Battles of Wits rapidly dissolved into punches. It didn't take a mind like Sherlock's to deduce a fight would always tag after a round of taunts and insults.
Sherlock believed he had the upper hand with his "superior intellect", and beat up those bullies, which in turn only led to a new round of meaner bullies, and more fights. It was the "superior intellect" that got him in trouble, he didn't quite master the art of ignoring others. He couldn't resist not proving he was right, always right. He had to be right, even if proving wrong was right.
In retrospect those fist fights might have proven slightly beneficial in the long run, but only slightly. Given the number of fights Sherlock regularly engaged in, he found himself on the examination table for a black eye or treating a broken body part frequently. It was during those visits that the Holmes family discovered the dreadful news.
Sherlock never once mention his troubled vision. He thought it was not necessary, and would simply dismissed it as after effects of the countless fist fights. Once, Mycroft saw his little brother walk straight into a table tripping over a stack of books in the process in broad daylight, not taking heed of the objects until he plowed straight into them. A nasty bruise resulted from that experience. After witnessing a similar occurrence again, he brought the matter to his parents, they in turn took their sons to the doctor. Mycroft was worried for his little brother. He did love him dearly though found it hard to express it. Emotions weren't his forte.
The doctors spoke at great lengths with the parents alone assuring them the symptoms would not manifest themselves until Sherlock had reached adulthood. It was the nature of the disease, an age-related one.
Juvenile macular degeneration.
It was an earth-shattering diagnosis. Little by little Sherlock's world would turn into a void of darkness. Something that made even the blackest starless night seem brighter than an eclipse.
A dastardly and vile and horrid and dreadful and repulsive and down-right terrifying word. Simply put JMD was worse than a death sentence in the mind of ten-year old Sherlock.
The genetic testing had confirmed all the doctors' suspicions, molecular biology cannot lie. Much to the family's horror also came the shattering new of 'no cure just treating symptoms'.
That one visit single-handedly shattered the young boy's dreams of becoming a pirate and battling on the wild seas. What used would come from a blind pirate? None at all.
This Curse, as Sherlock called it, was banished to the dungeon of his Mind Palace from that day forward. Not a second thought was given to it once the shock of the diagnosis wore off...not until today.
Helas, there was no escaping something that was engraved in his essence. For the first time in his life, Sherlock felt lost and scared to the point of not knowing what to think.
A-N: It has been far too long since I've written a continuation for this story. I've been busy with exams then writer's block and revising the previous chapters.
Thanks for sticking with me!