There Is Nothing Wrong With Me

Not Really In The Dancing Mood

           

"Sherlock honey, are you in there?" Mrs. Holmes called, knocking on Sherlock's closed bedroom door impatiently. Sherlock scrambled to hide the traces of his medicine, grabbing the syringe and shoving it hastily back into the case, throwing the whole thing into the drawer roughly and closing it sharply. He then checked his reflection in the mirror, making sure he looked good enough to enter into the darkness proudly, and went to get the door. His mother was standing there with a very proud look to her, looking down at her son with such pride that he was almost ashamed to have different intentions than her.
"Oh don't you look lovely?" she wondered with a smile, trying to pat him on the cheek but he was too quick, he caught her by the wrist and threw her arm back in refusal.
"Don't patronize me." he snapped with a scowl. Mrs. Holmes's face slackened, however her eyes still shined, a simple snappy comment from her son surely wasn't enough to steer her good intentions away.
"Now Sherlock don't be cross with me, you know that this is for your own good." Mrs. Holmes said in a soft tone. Sherlock shuffled uncomfortably in his doorway, knowing that his mother wore that sad gaze she wore when she remembered what a freak he had grown up to be. She always looked so upset with him, even though she tried her best not to let it show.
"I know, but it doesn't seem like therapy to me." Sherlock insisted with a bit of a glum tone.
"It is, you know what you have to do right?" Mrs. Holmes said, perking back up with hope that Sherlock would actually do what his idiot therapist told him to do. Of course he never did, he only pretended that he did, and it seemed to satisfy them all enough to let him walk free.
"Interact with a girl." Sherlock muttered in annoyance, having known his mission for the entire week. They liked to make sure he had time to prepare, as if they expected him to prepare lines or something desperate like that.
"Yes Sherlock, good. And you know, interact is a very broad term, certainly if you want to, you know, go farther than that we wouldn't be all together opposed, as long as you're safe and protected..." she started. Sherlock silenced her with his hand, his dangerously pale face flushing up with red in humiliation. Of course he had no intentions of 'going farther' with any sort of girl, however in an attempt to please his mother he simply brushed it off, as if he was too embarrassed to admit that his mother had guessed his intentions.  She was always so happy when he acted like this, that smile of hope that gleamed on her lips was almost too pure to avoid. As much as Sherlock despised her pestering it was worth it to see his mother so happy, and if his lies could satisfy her then he would certainly continue lying to her.
"Could I have some money to get in? They sell tickets at the door, making it some sort of pathetic fundraiser." Sherlock grumbled, holding out his hand expectantly.
"Why do you sound so upset? I thought this would be fun for you?" Mrs. Holmes debated while she fished around in her pockets for some loose cash.
"Fun? Mother do you know me at all?" Sherlock asked with an almost pathetic laugh, looking at his mother and wondering what on earth she saw in return.
"Well I just thought maybe with the medicine you could look forward to attending." She defended in a meek sort of tone. Sherlock sighed heavily, not wanting to upset her with his constantly negative tone. So he forced a smile on his face, nodding as she put some crumbled up bills into his palm.
"Well, maybe I could force myself to like it, just for an evening." Sherlock agreed hastily. Mrs. Holmes beamed at him, and this time he wasn't quick enough to swat away her gentle hand on his cheek. For a moment she just gazed into his eyes, wearing an expression of mixed pride and shame, and then she smiled, as if she were so happy to see her son exactly as she expected him to be. What she didn't know is that Sherlock was wearing a mask, the same mask he had worn for so many years, the one that he had been brave enough to remove for a simple week before it had been forced back onto his face by everyone who looked down upon him. He had learned his lesson on that fateful day, he learned that no matter what words were spoken, or whatever touches and whispers were exchanged, no one could truly handle who he was inside. No one could ever accept who he was accidently born to be.
"Then go, go Sherlock before you're late!" Mrs. Holmes exclaimed, suddenly stepping away and pushing Sherlock out of the doorway.
"You were the one keeping me in the first place." He protested, but nevertheless he descended down the small wooden staircase and went out the door.
"Have a nice night Sherlock; stay out as late as you want!" Mrs. Holmes called from the top of the stairs, waving her farewell and sounding almost tearful. Sherlock was just thankful he had escaped without her taking his picture; she always liked to document this kind of stuff, things that she could put in her scrapbook and look back with a smile. She wanted to look back upon her son as normal, right? She wanted to lie to future self, just a little bit, and try her best to forget what he had done, what he had become when she wasn't looking. Sherlock closed the front door and slipped out into the dusk, the sun just beginning to slide under the horizon and lighting the landscape with the last of its dying rays. Their little street looked beautiful when the sun was barely present; everything gleamed with a sort of golden hope, as though in this lighting anything could happen. Sherlock walked slowly towards the school, he was in no rush really. Because without an audience he slipped back into the recesses of his mind, the precious couple of cells that had survived such a brutal process of medication, the few that still remained with the same feelings he had been trained to avoid his entire life. This was the night, possibly, that he could go against anything they've ever insisted upon him. Sherlock could break through the mold they had been forming around him, maybe tonight he would be daring enough to do what he wanted, what he deserved. It's been a year, maybe more, since he had given himself up to the feelings and desires that had consumed him since he was a boy. Maybe tonight he would be able to access that satisfaction, that complete weightlessness he felt when his arms were wrapped around the able bodied form of a muscular boy, maybe tonight no one would notice... The lights from the school were visible from a distance, the only lights that seemed to be on even in the first stage of darkness. They illuminated the night sky, drowning out the stars that were just beginning to peek out from behind the thin gray clouds. Sherlock could hear voices even as he started down this remote little street, his shoes clicking on the pavement, and he wondered who those voices might belong to. Certainly they were the voices of someone he didn't like, or someone who didn't like him, and they sent a shiver down his spine, knowing what they were capable of. It seemed as though every voice he's ever heard had conformed itself in some way to shout a derogatory comment at him. Maybe it wasn't even an intentional verbal attack, maybe it was something that, in its own way, reminded him just how alienated he was from the rest of the world. It wasn't normal, he wasn't normal, and everyone constantly wanted to remind him of the fact. Sherlock appeared at the doors in a timid sort of state, wanting to blend into the crowd the best he could all while knowing that all eyes were fixed upon him. He knew precisely that they all noticed him, despite his not noticing him. Their conversations would falter and for a moment they were gaze upon him, and then they would hastily start up on a completely different topic, trying their best to make it seem like they didn't notice, or didn't care, and yet their eyes would glance every so often back a the freak of nature, and their brain would wander away from their unless chatter and imagine the things Sherlock had done, and the things he was planning on doing yet. His sexuality made him an outcast, looked upon by his peers as no more than a dangerous criminal, and even the nicest of school goers would stop and stare, just for a moment, as if they were wondering just what was going on inside a freak's head. When he finally approached the doors there was a little cardboard table set up outside, draped with stupid decorations like streamers and balloons and manned by one of the Spanish teachers with a money box, handing out tickets from a large roll. They all filed themselves into something of a line, large groups standing together and making it almost impossible to blend in with the crowd when he was the only one standing alone. Everyone had dates, friends, or groups that they were attending with. If they didn't they at least knew someone they were going to hunt down when inside the doors of the gym, but not Sherlock. His mother gave him a mission, talk to a girl, interact, as if that was ever going to happen. Sure, some of the girls were nice to him; he knew that they only patronized him like that because they looked at him not as a normal person, but as a freak that they could claim their own. Some of them found him attractive, they probably thought that they could change him, and longed for the opportunity. Others just pitied him, the nicest of the girls just wanted him to fit in, like poor Molly Hooper, who tried and tried to start up conversations with him just because she hated to see him sitting so silently.  However her attempts at friendship seemed to be so misguided and forced that Sherlock couldn't do anything but push her away, it made him feel even worse when everyone tried to treat him like a normal person, only bringing more attention to the fact that he wasn't. And if they weren't trying to include him, or if they weren't trying to ignore him, they were ogling at him like he was some sort of fascinating creature in a zoo, as if they had never seen a boy with a heart that managed to stray from women. It was pathetic, and it was the main reason Sherlock despised group gatherings like this. They all wondered why he would even dare show his face here, what he was looking for in a place like this. The boys would all be very careful with who they pulled into their arms in the dark...
"Sherlock Holmes?" blinked the teacher when he approached. She looked up at him with a sort of confused expression, as if she didn't believe that he would dare attend something like this. Sherlock just cleared his throat awkwardly, putting his money carefully on the table.
"I don't want to hold up the line." He muttered quietly, keeping his head down and intentionally avoiding eye contact with the woman. She sighed, but obviously she knew that there was nothing she could do to avoid what she probably thought was a disaster waiting to happen. So she thrust the money into the box and tore off a little red ticket, setting it on the table as if she wanted to avoid any skin to skin contact with him, as if his touch alone would turn her into a freak like him.
"Now you behave yourself in there." She warned with a bit of a fearful tone. Sherlock sighed in disgust, grabbing the ticket from the table without a response.
"Thank you." He muttered, pocketing the ticket and shuffling into the darkened gymnasium. There really wasn't a reason for the tickets, no one collected them at the door, no one made sure that you had them, once you got into the gym it was a lawless wasteland, there was no adult supervision in the darkness, and there seemed to be nothing stopping his disgusting peers from doing whatever they pleased with whoever they pleased. There already was music pumping from the speakers, they were keeping it light for now, just the latest hits from the Beatles to which everyone was twisting and singing along. They revolted Sherlock, honestly, as innocent as this music was the students all thought it was some sort of invitation to hook a girl around the waist and pull her off behind the bleachers. Sherlock was quite sure that there were plenty of couples in the darkest of corners, not able to wait at least ten minutes before the kissing began. So he slunk back into the mats next to the wall, far away from the crowd of dancers and far enough away from the wallflowers who clung to the wall as if it was their date. He knew better than to approach anyone, especially now, before anyone spiked the punch. They would hiss and slide away from him, the girls and the boys alike, they wouldn't want to interact with a man who had deemed himself the freak of the school before he even arrived. And to think that if he had staid quiet and wore the mask like a good boy he might not have even been here at all. He might have been back in his old dormitory, studying under the lamp light and itching at the black sweater that crept just too far up his neck. Twenty minutes into the dance and Sherlock still wasn't sure of himself, he still wasn't brave enough to do what he thought he ought to do. The doors had long since closed, and now the only light was that of the disco that was shining from above, sparkling the dancers with shimmering glints of light that almost resembled snowflakes, spinning around and around them as they chose their partners carefully. Sherlock slunk farther and farther into the shadows, regretting his decision more and more. He knew that tonight would be an awful night, and here was his proof. He couldn't complete his mother's goals for him tonight, much less his own, and yet he knew that the latter was growing more and more impossible. As the night went on he could only hope that his confidence and the other's ignorance would grow, and maybe by the very end he could have an acquaintance for these previously unoccupied shadows. But he didn't want a girl. God he knew that he could have a girl in a heartbeat, he was attractive, he was desired, however it seemed that his heart wanted to be a bit more selective. It had been so long since he had last been with a boy, since he had last been trusted to so much as come within a five foot radius of one. He had been aching, dying even, to hold one again, to be held by those strong arms, to be kissed with the rough lips... He had come here in hopes that he might be able to recapture the feeling that he had felt a year or so ago, that feeling of invulnerability that had been crushed by reality so quickly he could hardly appreciate it. But now, looking upon the tightly packed group of dancers, all dancing together and keeping tabs on one another, he knew that he had no chance. It wasn't safe for him to venture out into the crowd and try to make acquaintance with them, even if he did sneak up behind one and trap them in his arms in the darkness, their friends would be bound to notice, they would be bound to warn him. Being a homosexual was hard these days, it was basically impossible. Especially when everyone knew, and when everyone expected the very worst. So Sherlock was put in a negative light, so he was looked at in fear, as a monster? Why shouldn't he just stoop to those expectations, why shouldn't he allow himself to be the freak they thought he was? It was almost two hours into the dance now, people were starting to tip, the air was starting to be filled with the rancid smell of cigarettes, cups of punch and flasks were being passed around, the music got more intense, the dancing got more intimate, the teacher monitors started to nod off in their chairs and the kids started to rebel more and more. Sherlock was sober but he knew that was a good thing, he had brains now, in a place where people were dulling their consciousness more and more, he could think while everyone else just went with whatever was happening. He knew that if he was going to make a move it ought to be now, he knew that he needed to wrangle a boy from this crowd before everyone started to pass out. Surely he couldn't be recognized, the darkness was working for his advantage, and he hoped that his skin felt womanish enough to pass him off for a girl with short, curly hair. The boy would never see it coming, and he would never realize it, not until after Sherlock had let him go. But if he failed, if somehow he was noticed and word got back to the very people who had condemned him in the first place then he would be ruined. He wasn't only avoiding his medicine but he was doing precisely what he shouldn't be doing, and that would get him thrown into a jail cell like he was intentionally supposed to be. Maybe they thought he was just too young, maybe they thought that he was confused, and that was what let him walk a free, poisoned man. They thought that they could still change him, that they still had time. Well obviously it wasn't working, was it? Nothing they made him insert into his blood stream was going to stop him from being who he was, and from loving who he wanted to love.