Sherlocked (BBC Fanfiction)

Chapter 15 - Out With Reason, In With The Season (Part 2)

I sipped my soda inattentively.  My thoughts fell in waves, just like the snow outside.  We had chosen a table in the very back corner.  On my left was the window.  I could feel the cold stemming from the glass.  I felt exhausted.

“Your family.”  I lifted my eyes up to Sherlock.  He distractedly traced his finger along the rim of his water glass and eyed me.

I was taken off guard.  “My family?  What about them?”                  

“Well don’t people usually get together for the holidays?”  Sherlock questioned.  I focused my attention solely on the hushed conversation around us; the whispers, the sudden bursts of soft laughter.  My ears caught bits of words here and there.

“Typically,” I answered.

“Are you?” 

“Am I what?”

“Going to gather with your family.”  I shook my head.  “Why?”

“Must we discuss this now?”

“Why not?”  I sighed and set my glass down on the table, the cold condensation from the cup rubbing off on my hand.

“No, Sherlock.  I won’t.  And I probably never will again.  And would you like to know why-”

I could feel the atmosphere precipitously gain an additional twenty pounds as it pressed down upon us.  The air was almost like oil and I inhaled it through my nostrils, gagging-

“Because my mother hates me, my father is dead, and my sister is off banging some drug dealer in Manchester.”  What followed was not something I wished to reiterate.  Inelegance had seemed to smear itself on our bodies like paint.  We were covered it.  We reeked of gawkiness and ineptness of speech at the moment in time.  I wanted to get up and excuse myself to the bathroom but I felt chained to the gracelessness of the air.  Like a dead animal shackled to my ankles, always dragging behind me, holding me back. 

When Sherlock spoke, his mouth movement and voice didn’t seem to be exactly synced.  “Oh.” 

Once our food came, we ate in silence.

“You want to go?”  Sherlock spoke up as I drew close to finishing.

“Home?”

He shook his head.  “The park.”

“The park?”

“Hyde Park.”  I tentatively agreed.  We paid and left and entered the frigid night.  As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, my breath became quite visible in the frozen air.  The sidewalks and streets were blanketed with snow and it continued to fall, an every-lasting storm of flurries of white specks.

The street lights that lined the boulevards smoldered warmly.  But they seemed to stand like guardians over the passerby’s that gave no notice.  Rooting myself into the cement beneath my shoes, I thanked the streetlights.  I expressed my sincerest gratitude toward them for providing light when no one else could.

“What are you doing?”

Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I responded absentmindedly, “Thanking the streetlights.”

We walked on, our feet shuffling through the sidewalks, the only resonances were the crunching of snow beneath our shoes, the occasional car that whooshed past, and the sound of our breathing.  After walking a quarter mile to Hyde Park, I felt that all my organs had turned to bloody popsicles.  Human flesh stalactites. 

We stood at the entry of a wide walkway, tall lights lining both sides of the walkway.  They shone brightly.  Trees had been planted on either side, their leaves stripped of their branches, leaving them cold, naked, and helpless.  Skinny branches, skinny bones of an arm.  They had grown over, almost making a canopy above the sidewalk.  Wound around the skeletal carcasses of the trees were decorative nights.  Various colors, various sizes. 

Placed at every other lamp was a steel bench.  No one occupied these lonely benches.  “Let’s sit,” Sherlock suggested.  We sauntered over in the numbing cold, my fingers anesthetized.  We sat down on the bench and I crossed my legs, folding my hands together in my sleeves.  The silence of the air was palpable.  I swallowed it into me, chilling me.  The silence was cold and frozen.  But beside me, Sherlock seemed to be radiating heat.  “Who’s Brendon?”

I froze.  Literally.  I felt my body go numb and my eyes fixate on a singular light post.  “Nobody.”  My mouth ached and hurt as my lips formed the word.  It sliced my tongue apart and broke my teeth.  It wounded me to say it. 

“I hear you saying his name in the middle of the night,” Sherlock respired, his breath visible in the air.

I had been geared toward defense now.  “What are you doing awake then?”  I snapped, the cold turning my thought process lethargic.

“Nevermind that,” he spoke softly.  “Who is he?”

I exhaled quickly, my regimes falling.  I could feel them crumbling.  “An old friend.  But he’s gone, nothing more, nothing less.”

“He was your old boyfriend, wasn’t he?”  Seeing the flit of recognition in my eyes, he proceeded.  “He was.  Everytime I mentioned the word ‘boyfriend’ you reacted abnormally, either by averting your eyes or tensing up your fingers.  When we had gone to dinner that first night anwd I asked you, you responded in an off-putting manner.  Brendon was your old boyfriend then, wasn’t he?  From college?  I doubt it; you haven’t been to college for six years now.  Most likely from the army then.  He died as well then, I presume?”

I was angry.  Beyond angry.  “If you already knew then why’d you ask?”

“For conformation.  And he’s dead then, alright.  Blast explosion out on the battlefield?” 

“You should know,” I retorted in response.  The cold had subsided and all that remained was hot, blistering anger.  He…didn’t care!  His words, his intonation…he just simply didn’t care.  It didn’t matter to him whether Brendon had died or not.  He just wanted to know.  For the living hell of it he just wanted to know.  To hang something over my head.

“You’re cross,” he said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I mumbled.  I found myself on my feet.

“Where are you going?”  I started walking down the pathway, my thoughts tearing at the seams.  Have I overreacted?  Possibly?  A smidgen?  I didn’t care.