Chapter 2
Title: The Beauty of Blackness
Rating: T
Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort
Summary: AU. After a life-threatening incident when he's fifteen, Sherlock lands in the hospital, blinded. Rated mainly for swearing.
A/N: Telling the truth, I forgot about this for a while. But I ran into it again a couple days ago and decided to finish up chapter 2. Enjoy.
Sherlock runs his fingers along the ornate tapestries hanging in the gigantic hall. They all have a red trim, and scenes of both battle and peace stitched onto them. There's a weave of the snowflakes, a design of recent crimes, and stitchings of which colours go best with what, so he can look dapper even if he can't see his damn clothes. Not that he needs to look spiffy, but it's always good, and he does enjoy it. This is his mud room. Extravagant, yes, but the rest of the Mind Palace is even more so.
Coat hooks and shoe cubbies line one wall, waiting to be filled with information. There's many little tables scattered about, cluttered like his desk at home. And this is just the mud room.
Sherlock is very satisfied with his mind palace.
—
Mummy visits on New Years Eve and they watch(oh, how absolutely hilarious) the celebration on the little TV, even though there is a bigger party elsewhere in the hospital.
Sherlock doesn't think he's ready to go out of the room.
It's pathetic, he knows that it's a perfectly normal response when being suddenly blinded to be afraid of new or wide-open spaces and lots of people, but that doesn't change the fact that it is pathetic.
He's asked the nurses several times to help him get out, but he keeps panicking and making them bring him back before they even leave the room.
—
He's in the hospital for a long time. He's lost track of how many days, though the last time Mycroft visited, he said that it was the tenth of January.
But days blend together, and Sherlock makes no conscious effort to discern between them. Time is now measured in family visits. Day and night have no meaning, nor will they ever again.
But he is finally discharged from the hospital and cleared to go back home, so long as the doctors keep regular tabs on him.
Leaving the hospital is the scariest thing that he's ever done(pathetic). He is helped into a wheelchair by Mummy and a nurse(he thinks Mycroft is there too, but he can't. Fucking. Tell.), and is wheeled from the room.
He can feel every bump the wheelchair makes, can hear the conversations of every doctor, and the squeaking their shoes make on the floor.
He doesn't let go of the chair arms all through the hospital, and he knows that once he's taken outside, it will be ten times worse.
The horrors of the outside world are unparalleled. The cars, the people, all the background noise of London that he used to enjoy now overwhelm him. He doesn't know if he wants to cling to the chair or cover his ears. Oh, the noise is horrible!
The wheelchair ride stops right outside their car, but Sherlock must stand up and walk now. It seems like such a big step, but he shakily stands up, clinging to Mummy for balance and guidance. He is too terrified to take a step forward, worried he might do something stupid like run into the car, but he takes stupid little baby steps with Mummy whispering encouragement and directions in his ear, and is able to climb in without too much trouble.
Once in, he fumbles for the seatbelt, and actually manages to buckle himself in(after too much fumbling) without hurting himself too much(his ribs are very sore, though).
The ride back home is boring. He can't read to pass the time, and he certainly doesn't want to talk to Mycroft or Mummy. So he spends his time wandering the vivid halls of his Mind Palace and wondering why Father isn't here.
Getting out of the car and walking to the front door is absolutely terrifying. Sherlock shuffles, clutching Mummy's arm and concentrating on her instructions, and he manages to get into the manor with only some stumbles.
"Couch," he says, and they begin the slow walk to the plush couch that Sherlock is so fond of. Once sat on the couch, Sherlock promptly lays down(wincing from his still-mending ribs), and closes his eyes.
He doesn't hear Mummy, so she might've sat down or left. Though the sitting room isn't all that big, Sherlock is painfully aware of the empty space around him. It seems like it goes on forever, though he logically knows it doesn't.
Over the next few days, Sherlock lives on the couch. Mummy pampers him and serves his meals there, brings him pillows and blankets, and Sherlock finds himself wanting for nothing. Except something to do. It's boring being blind. His chemistry lab is off-limits, he can't go for a walk, he can hardly go to the damn bathroom by himself for god's sake!
It has been three days since Sherlock had gotten back from the hospital, when Mycroft's voice is heard from beside him. Sherlock tries not to startle. The carpeting muffles footsteps, so only when Sherlock is closely concentrating can he hear people coming to him.
The guilt in Mycroft's voice can plainly be heard, "I bought a Braille alphabet for you, and some books. You can learn it, and read at your own pace."
Sherlock knows that he won't read at the speed of before, simply because his hands do not move quite as quickly as his eyes and mind, but he eagerly accepts the gifts, for something to do.
Learning Braille takes him all of an hour. It's quite dull, really, and Mycroft must of dug through Sherlock's library for ideas on what books to get him, because they're all ones he has read before.
He listens intently for Mycroft or Mummy, or even Father(he hasn't heard him since he left the hospital), but there are no audible footsteps. Good. He wants to be alone right now. Sherlock kicks the bedding to the foot of the couch and slowly moves to stand up. Good. He's able to stand by himself. His arms are partly out to his side for balance, as the majority of walking he has done lately has been down the hall to the bathroom with lots of help, leaving him weak and unstable.
Sherlock doesn't know where he's going to go now. But he wants to move, so he shuffles his feet and makes his way in the direction he thinks the kitchen is. Past the kitchen is the small room his chemistry set is in.
He tries not to stretch his arms out in front of him, because that would just be pathetic, and instead steps slowly, so if he does bang his shin on something, it won't hurt as much.
Imagining how he would look to an observer is torture.
Sherlock feels the carpet change to wood beneath his feet, and knows that he's in the kitchen now. The table would be a few feet in front of him, right? He cautiously takes a larger step, letting his hands drift up slightly at the height the table should be at, so he can know when it comes. Another step, and he can feel the edge of it. He lets the table guide him now, keeping one hand on it and going around it, taking cares not to stub his toe on a chair leg, and pauses on the other side of the table, where he estimates he's directly opposing the door to his chemistry room.
Sherlock steps forward, shuffling again, hands slightly outstretched to meet the door.
Finally, he is inside. He doesn't know what he'll be able to observe outside of smell and hearing, but he is inside among his chemicals, and he is happy. He can smell their sharp-yet-faint odours that he is so familiar with, and smiles. Wonderful.
He shuffles to his swivel chair and sits down, rocking on it slightly as he just inhales the smell of chemicals. Most people would smell sulphur and metal, Sherlock smells excitement and security. He's always felt more at home in this room than the rest of the house.
For a long while, Sherlock just sits there. He desperately wants to run his fingers along the bottles he knows are just inches in front of him, and choose one. He wants to mix and discover what he can make.
But he wouldn't be able to tell what chemicals he used. He wouldn't be able to document them like a proper scientist. Wouldn't be able to investigate.
But then again...explosions set his heart racing, made him smell slightly singed, and gave him a wonderful adrenaline rush.
He runs his fingers along the bottles, choosing three at random. He sets them on the table and kicks the swivel chair across the small room, overestimating the force needed, and running into the wall. But it's mostly the chair that's hurt, and Sherlock smiles to himself. He kicks again, and is soon near the wall where the cabinets are. He knows because he is already reaching up to find them. He fumbles a little bit in the cabinet, and extracts a beaker. Sure, he might've accidentally smashed a couple test tubes, but they had it coming.
He doesn't kick so hard this time, not wanting to run into the table and tip over all his chemicals(though the resulting reactions would be interesting and exciting), but rather just jerks the chair slightly until he can reach the table and pull himself in.
He sets the beaker in the middle of the table, and grabs the bottles he set aside, and after only a bit of fumbling, he opens them and pours a little bit of their contents into the beaker. Two liquids and a powder. No explosion.
Usually his experiments are a little more directed than just adding chemicals until he gets a result, but this isn't an experiment. He feels no guilt in choosing five more bottles and putting their contents in the beaker. He spends several minutes adding various chemicals, with no explosion. Dammit, if he could choose the chemicals he was adding, he would've gotten an explosion at the very beginning!
Becoming a bit frustrated, Sherlock throws in two more chemicals.
The slight hiss is his only warning.
Powders erupt everywhere. They tickle his nose. A goop of some sort hits his face, and the air becomes rancid as the scent of the reaction fills the room, mixed with the all-familiar smell of singed eyebrows.
Sherlock's heart is pounding and he is on the floor after falling off his chair, but he is laughing.
Explosions are the best therapy.
Things did not look up after that. Mummy and Mycroft had been out, and weren't very happy when they found Sherlock on the floor with no eyebrows.
While not forbidden from going into his lab again, Sherlock has to ask someone to accompany him, and that is no fun.
After that, the novelty of explosions wears off a bit, so Sherlock does not find himself making another. He yearns to do his proper experiments again.
It is hard doing experiments, as Mummy and Mycroft do not think the same as him, and don't observe everything. And he needs to know if it bubbles, what colour it is, if it clumps, everything!
So eventually he gives up on experiments, and falls into a stupor. He just lies on the couch, not responding to Mummy or Mycroft. He doesn't do anything for a long time. He finds that he has no will to do much of anything.
Life is too boring to bear.