Words Can Kill - BBC Sherlock pt.1

                  They always screamed horrible things at him. He was used to it, and he could usually ignore it, just brush it off, and never give it a second thought. It was nothing new to him to be hated because he was different, because he scared people with all he knew, all he could tell about them. That simply was how his life worked. Seventeen years of hatred toward him, for no good reason, be it from his mother and father, or his class mates and teachers, or even strangers, he was used to it. But this time the words got to him; this time he could not simply brush them off, or simply ignore them. They were ringing in his head from the moment he heard them until he was sitting up in his room, hours later, alone, while his parents ate dinner.

                He tried everything he could to silence his mind, but at the best of times he could not. His violin worked at first, for a few minutes at least, as he focused on the song, and making every pull of the bow precise and perfect, but he soon found he knew it off by heart and his mind was wandering again, back to those words, those horrible, horrible, thought provoking, words.

                He put his head in his hands, sitting in his dark messy room, on the edge of his unmade bed, and tried to pull those thoughts out of his mind by pulling his dark curly hair, but it seemed to just make it worse, it made the words louder, if that was even possible. Now the words were screaming in his head, and he could hear and think nothing else as they echoed continually. As he got dragged in to the memory it was so clear, he might as well have been standing in the cafeteria at school again with a cores of insults being thrown at him, but in the memory he could only hear one of them being shouted, the only one that ever made him flinch.

 “Why don’t you go kill yourself you freak, no one wants you hear, no one wants you alive! Do the world a favor and die!”

               Although he had kept his mask of indifference on at school those words had been a sucker punch to the gut. Anybody less stupid than his classmates would have noticed him pale at the words, the fact he stopped breathing for a little too long in between breaths, the way his eyes seemed to show they had finally broken him, but the only person who could ever read, or for that matter ever tried to read, Sherlock was his older brother Mycroft, and he was off at Uni, and Sherlock often doubted whether his brother actually cared about him since he left.

               For a second Sherlock was distracted with one of his few good memories from his child hood. It was not good in itself, at least how it started, but it did end up being one of his most cherished memories of him and his smarter older brother, not even just that, it was one of his overall most cherished memories of his whole life. 

              He had been about twelve at the time, and Mycroft was how old Sherlock was now, in his last year before going off to Uni. Sherlock had had a particularly bad day at school, it had been one of the first times one of his classmates had followed through on a physical threat, and Sherlock had been feeling weak, lower than low, and when he had gotten home his parents had only made it worse, telling him he probably pissed someone off and deserved it. Sherlock had decided to skip dinner after that,much like he had this day, and had hidden up in his room until he heard a soft knock at the door and saw Mycroft peek his head in.

“Little brother.” Mycroft had inclined his head as he said it as a greeting.

               Snapping a little because he had been worn so thin Sherlock almost yelled, but caught himself, and instead said through gritted teeth, “What do you want Mycroft?!”

               At that Mycroft had simply let a small smile cross his face as he continued, as if his brother had not just been rude, and acted like Mycroft was his worst enemy. Keeping the smile he said, conspiratorially, “I was hoping you could help me with something. It would be a big favor.”

              Sherlock had tried to look annoyed at his intruding big brother, but was simply too intrigued by his brothers offer, so he got up from his bed and followed his big brother to his room which was next to Sherlock’s. When Sherlock had poked his head in the door he had been stunned, which was not easy to do to him. On Mycroft’s desk, which was usually littered with papers and books, much like his own, was every food Sherlock loved, and his favorite drinks, as well as the only bored game Sherlock ever loved to play, Clue, which was set up in the middle of all the food and drinks. When he had looked up at his brother in shock he could not help the smile that spread across his face, and he could not help smiling more when he saw the same smile mirrored on his brother. The smile only grew more infectious when he heard his favorite classical violin songs start to play on the stereo in the corner of Mycroft's room.

             When Sherlock had asked why he had done all this for him Mycroft had simply said, “Isn’t that what family does for each other? They try and make them feel better when they have had a bad day? That's what you do for people you care about.”He had stated it like a fact.

             Mycroft had read on his little brother how bad it was the second he saw him when he arrived home just before dinner and saw his little brother bolt up the stairs. He had known how hard it was at school for Sherlock, or at least had briefly observed it in person, and on his brother when ever he came home from school in a bad, or upset mood, and he knew too well how his parents treated his little brother, so he had decided to try and make the day go from being Sherlock’s worst day ever, to being his best day ever, and he had succeeded. Five years later and Sherlock still thought of it as such. He still used it to bring himself back up when he hit a bad low.

            The good feeling from the memory was fleeting though, even thinking of those perfect few hours was not enough this time, and soon Sherlock found himself curled up in the fetal positing on his bed, trying to curl up into himself, while he sobbed and shook, and for the first time in his life prayed for death, prayed for an end to his pain, prayed for nothingness.

            He was scared by his thoughts, by the fact he wanted to take the advice of that classmate. He wanted to stop those thoughts before he acted on them, so after summoning enough energy to control himself at least a little, he tried to phone Mycroft, the only person who ever seemed to care at all, the only one who ever made him feel better, but he ended up getting an answering machine, he knew it was a long shot before he phoned, his brother was a busy man, even if he was not yet out of Uni. It had been a hail Marry.

           When he heard the beep he didn't know what to say, and he knew it was painfully obvious he was crying. “Hi, Mycroft, it’s Sherlock. I was just hoping I could talk to you…but I guess you are busy…I knew you would be...I would not have even tried, it’s just… I ... I really needed to talk to someone, but I guess I won’t be…” he paused for a good half minute before he finished with another sob, “I love you Mycroft, I just want you to know that the night we stayed up until one in the morning playing Clue was always my most treasured memory… I’m sorry.” He had whispered the last part before hanging up. He knew what he was going to do, and he was pretty sure it would hurt his brother. He just wanted his brother to know it was not his fault, that he in no way blamed Mycroft for ending up here, with these poisonous thoughts and plans.

           He stopped to think for a moment, or maybe it was a lot longer than that, time was not really relevant to him at the moment. He thought of all the ways he could do it, how he could kill himself. He thought of a dozen ways and quickly dismissed them, some being simply impossible, while others just did not have enough of a guarantee to work, before landing on one that just seemed the most reasonable and easy way to do it. He was smart, and he had a particular interest in chemistry so he knew what kinds of things would do what needed to be done.

           He snuck out of his room, only now realizing how late it must be because the house had long ago gone to sleep, and the only thing he could hear was the faint sound of the far off main road. He went and got some pills from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom that he knew were easy to overdose on and went back to his room, locking the door behind him. He sat in silence for a while longer, letting all the painful memories take over his mind before he swallowed half a dozen pills and laid back on his bed waiting for his soon to come end. Waiting for the promised nothingness, and for the darkness to descend over him.

            He could feel it pulling him towards his last moments when his eyelids started to slide shut and he could feel his body trying to protest, and get the poison out, but he would not let it, he had enough control left to override his body’s desperate attempts at survival. He drifted off into a hazy world, and was about to be taken completely by the darkness when a sudden commotion brought him back a little. He could hear the faint sound of the front door being banged on, and loud protests from who he assumed was his father. Then he could hear yelling, now from two different men, his father and someone else, and the sound of loud footsteps on the stairs, two pairs. He was faintly curious as to what was happening but not enough to make him even attempt to open his eyes, that is until there was a loud knocking at his door, a desperate kind of knocking, and he could hear someone yelling something and trying frantically to get into his room. He opened his eyes as much as he could when he heard someone throwing themselves against his door, and he was startled to see his brother tumble in as his door gave out and he rush to his side.

            He was faintly aware of his brothers frantic pawing at him, trying to feel his pulse, listen to his breathing, and of his brother screaming at his father, and mother who had come to investigate the commotion, to phone an ambulance. It wasn’t until his brother was sitting with Sherlock cradled in his arms, stroking his hair that he truly heard what his brother had been muttering since knocking in the door. Mycroft was crying as he whispered it, like it was a mantra, “Please Sherlock, please don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Please just be okay. Please Sherlock, just please.”

           Staring up at his older brother, his crying older brother, his older brother who rarely showed emotion of any kind, Sherlock felt a faint regret for what he had just done. He did not like that he was the one causing his always in control big brother to lose that control that was so precious to him. He felt guilty about hurting his brother like this. He had lost consciousness after one final look into Mycroft's frightened and horrified eyes, after staring up at his brothers pained face, his last memory being a whole different kind of excruciating pain. Then the darkness hit, enveloping him completely in the nothingness he had only moments ago wanted so badly.