There Is Nothing Wrong With Me

Wounds Inflicted By Words

Dr. Thompson just glared at him for a moment behind her thick glasses, but finally she shook her head and made another note, tapping her pen against her clipboard for a moment before continuing.
"Did you attempt to talk to a girl?" she wondered finally.
"I mean...no. Not really. They were all in packs, I knew that if I approached one they would all stare at me, and they were all dancing with the boys, and they hate me, they would've...well I don't think they would've liked me hanging around." Sherlock admitted truthfully. Dr. Thompson sighed, and made another note, as if everything he said fascinated her. Of course he was fascinating to her, she saw him not as a human but as a tragic experiment, she wanted to get into his 'deranged' head and find out what went wrong. She saw him as a mistake, nothing more, and she wanted to correct him.
"Are you afraid of the boys in your school Sherlock?" she wondered softly.
"Well of course I am, God who wouldn't be? You know how they treat me." Sherlock snapped.
"They're just worried that you might approach them romantically, you need to ensure them that you're getting better, that you're healing." She insisted softly.
"I'm not going to approach any of them...romantically. I hate them all, more than they hate me I suspect. They have no real reason to hate me, other than their fear for me, but their bullying gives me a legitimate reason to avoid them." Sherlock muttered. He was being honest, of course, boys treated him horribly, as if they thought they had something to prove around him. Maybe they wanted to demonstrate their masculinity, or keep him at bay with violence and cruel words, either way it worked. They disgusted him, sometimes he doubted that they were even human or not. Devils, quite possibly, sent by God to punish him for being so abstractly abnormal. Sometimes Sherlock wondered why his heart had chosen the most difficult gender to be attracted to.
"And what made Victor different from the boys in your school?" Dr. Thompson wondered.
"He approached me! He was in love with me!" Sherlock defended instantly.
"He was not in love with you, he insisted upon the fact. You made that up in your mind to justify your actions." Dr. Thompson said flatly. Sherlock groaned once more, feeling like a child who was never listened to, never taken seriously.
"What's the point of this therapy if you don't listen to me?" Sherlock wondered miserably.
"I know when someone is being truthful, Sherlock, and when I interviewed Victor I am positive that he wasn't lying. But you are, Sherlock, you're hiding behind the hope that there is another person in this world just as damaged as you are. You may be telling yourself that if Victor had been a homosexual as well then that proved that you weren't sick." Dr. Thompson guessed. Sherlock growled, clutching at the arms of his chair angrily.
"You have no idea what's going on in my head Doctor, you have no idea what actually happened!" Sherlock insisted. "You're just making up whatever comes to mind, trying to sound smart, trying to sound like you're worth the hundred dollars an hour my mother is paying you!"
"Well when you get your psychology degree Sherlock I'd be happy to listen to your own self-diagnosis. Until then, I should like you to trust mine." She insisted with gritted teeth. She always lost her temper at him, she could never understand that he was a human; she could never understand that he had the right to protest against her lies!
"Unlike you, I know what happened. Alright, so I may be a homosexual, but I'm not a criminal. I'm not a monster." Sherlock defended sincerely, staring his therapist down with determination.
"Sherlock you cannot pretend that you didn't attack that boy, you cannot pretend that you didn't force him..."
"It was consensual!" Sherlock defended, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation.
"That's not how Victor made it seem." Dr. Thompson protested sternly.
"He was saving his own neck! He was pinning the whole thing on me because he didn't want to get the same sort of social exile! I'm not a criminal, I'm not a rapist!" Sherlock exclaimed. With that he rose from his chair, grabbing his case of medication hatefully and throwing one last hateful look at his therapist. She didn't do anything to stop him, she didn't even raise her pen from the clipboard, as if she was expecting him to sit back down and continue their conversation normally. But he wouldn't, he refused to play this game any longer. He wasn't a child anymore, he knew right from wrong; he knew the truth from the lies, so why did everyone tell him things that he knew to be false? Why did no one just listen? Sherlock dashed out the door and into the equally cozy hallway, descending the stairs as fast as he could and jumping the last three. He knew that his mother was going to be outside, it was near the end of the appointment anyway and she always liked to be excessively early. They had taken away his license when he was caught, as if they were worried that he would drive as crooked as his sexuality. Or they were just trying to alienate him even more; trying to make sure he found it difficult to spread the 'disease'. As promised when Sherlock ran out the door his mother was just pulling in, the family's station wagon jingling and jangling as the piece of junk rolled over the bumps in the cracked pavement. Mrs. Holmes seemed surprised to see Sherlock out so early, and almost as soon as she spotted him a look of worry fell over her face. That was an almost constant look these days, so Sherlock knew what to expect when she wore it. The car was just rolling into a parking space when he flung open the door and sat down in the passenger seat, throwing the pouch of syringes onto the dashboard hatefully and crossing his arms with a scowl.
"Sherlock honey you still have another fifteen minutes with Dr. Thompson, why are you out here so early?" Mrs. Holmes wondered cautiously. She knew to mind his temper when he was in one of his moods, and she was right to talk softly, because he was searching desperately for a reason to yell at someone.
"She's just being unreasonable again, she won't listen to me." Sherlock growled, trying to keep his voice calm while his entire body shook with anger.
"She's just trying to help." Mrs. Holmes assured.
"Then why won't she listen! She's trying to tell me that I did things I didn't do, she's trying to make me believe Victor's ridiculous story!" Sherlock exclaimed. Mrs. Holmes was silent for a moment, and Sherlock could tell that she was choosing her words with caution. He knew why, of course, because she believed Victor. Everyone did, everyone thought that Sherlock...that he did those horrible things, only two people knew the truth, and one of them was lying about it. It was his word against Victor's, and with the lies that Victor was telling, people would obviously attack the homosexual. They thought him to be so abnormal that he had no self-control, and of course they would believe Victor, who was hiding behind a mask of innocence and heterosexuality. No one would ever believe that two boys could actually fall in love.
"Why don't I go talk to her, you wait here, alright? I think I've got some mints in the glove compartment, if you're hungry." She offered carefully, opening some windows before turning the car off and taking the keys. Sherlock rolled his eyes, wondering if his mother even heard what she had just said, but before he could say anything she was gone, closing the door and locking it about three times before walking off in her high heels to the therapist's office. Sherlock reclined his seat a little bit, scowling and staring at the medication sitting there on the dashboard. No doubt they'll increase his dosage, try to make him less and less attracted to anyone or anything, that's what it did, after all. It decreased the longing for human contact, and yet all the while he was taking it they were insisting on him interacting with girls, pretending like he would ever be attracted to them. It was pathetic, it was degrading, God look at the mess Victor had made of his life! And to think that snake was sitting in his dorm, probably reading a good book at the moment, snuggly and warm and satisfied. Sherlock pulled open the glove compartment furiously, digging around through the papers and Band-Aids to find the mints, as promised. He knew they wouldn't help anything but boredom, so he popped one in his mouth and scowled once more at the medication. His mother returned not ten minutes later, holding a folder in her hands and looking completely exasperated. She unlocked the car and pulled open the door rather roughly, sitting down heavily and staring at the wheel, the folder tucked in her arms as though it was precious to her.
"What's that?" Sherlock wondered hatefully, crunching down the last of his mint and looking curiously at the folder in his mother's arms.
"Your report. And your assignment." Mrs. Holmes answered in a rather haughty tone, as if she had just walked away from yet another argument with expensive and useless Doctor Thompson.
"Another assignment? I thought that's what we talked about today, how I've been failing all of my assignments?" Sherlock groaned.
"It's not bad, here, take it." Mrs. Holmes muttered, thrusting the entire folder into Sherlock's hands and turning on the car.
"You seem angry." Sherlock observed, watching as his mother pulled out of the parking spot agressivley. She just sighed, shaking her head as if she didn't want to talk about it, but Sherlock knew that his mother always wanted to rant about something or other to anyone who would listen. She would talk soon enough.
"It's just...we're paying that woman so much money to try to help you, and every time you go in there you keep saying that she does nothing to help! I just can't help wondering if it's worth it. And not to mention the medication, I don't even know where the money is coming from, or where it's going to come from in the future!" Mrs. Holmes exclaimed worriedly, gripping the wheel of the car nervously as she sped down the little town road. Sherlock could just get a glimpse of the brick walls of Wisteria over the tree line before it disappeared behind the foliage, and he slumped down in his seat and watched as all the cars went by. He felt bad, he really did. His parents have been paying so much to try to get him better, but he knew that it was wasted money. He was never going to be cured purely because he wasn't sick, and he knew that until he could convince the world that had 'become straight' he would be stuck in this constant process of medication and therapy. It would take more than another year to convince both his parents and Dr. Thompson that he had recovered, especially with this negative attitude he had been flaunting around for so long, but it was obvious that they simply couldn't do this forever. To stop the medication without being medically allowed would mean jail time, so he had to do it the easy way, the compliant way. If he couldn't convince them of the truth, then he would have to bow down and contort himself into what they wanted to see, no matter how deceitful and how wrong it was. If they wanted Sherlock to be straight then he had to pretend to love girls, if they wanted him to be a rapist then he needed to confess with tears in his eyes. If he couldn't convince them to stitch up his wounds then he would have to wait for them to heal, even if there would be a nasty looking scar when he was finished. Finally Sherlock opened the folder, seeing a neatly typed report with his picture on the front, going over what his 'issues' were and what they had been doing to prevent them. His picture was coupled with so many disgusting titles, so many disgusting lies that everyone had gone out of their way to believe. Dr. Thompson's report wasn't anything to be proud of either, in fact it nauseated Sherlock to see what she thought of him, so he flipped past that page. When he arrived at the next, however, he was surprised to see a grainy picture staring back up at him, a picture of a woman, seemingly copied out of a text book. She was about his age, maybe older, smiling, pleasant looking, but Sherlock had no idea what a picture of a woman was doing in his assignment folder. As he flipped through the pages he saw that there were more pictures, four more in fact, five in total, all of smiling women.
"What exactly is my assignment?" Sherlock wondered nervously, hoping that this wasn't some sort of scavenger hunt around town for women who resembled these. Mrs. Holmes sighed, stopping the car at the stoplight and glancing down at the pages in front of him.
"Oh, you have to look at those pictures and pick out one thing that makes them beautiful. A characteristic that you find appealing." Mrs. Holmes said with a rather annoyed tone, as if she was just as doubtful about his new project as he was.
"You're kidding me? She's trying to make me heterosexual with photocopied pictures?" Sherlock wondered with a laugh.
"Sherlock don't talk like that, please..." Mrs. Holmes insisted, her fingers gripping the wheel even tighter. Sherlock sighed, but bowed his head sorrowfully.
"Yes, sorry mother. I just think it's rather absurd." He admitted with a shrug. Mrs. Holmes didn't like to face reality; he had known that since this entire thing started up. She would comply with the rules the government gave them, she would pay for medication and therapy and try to coach him through it, she would go through the motions and ignore what she was really doing. Despite all of this Sherlock doubted that it had ever really dawned on her that he really was a homosexual. She liked to ignore the facts until they changed for the better, so when Sherlock so blatantly referred to himself as anything but heterosexual, well, she got emotional. Maybe she didn't want to accept her son as the freak he was. The rest of the car ride was silent, Sherlock had long since closed the folder and stuck to staring out the window mournfully, watching as the buildings and trees and such went past so quickly they became blurs if he didn't focus on them. He liked the world when it was a blur, when it was silent, he liked it when no one was yelling at him or casting him dirty looks. Sherlock often wondered what he had done to get such horrible treatment; he ever wondered what he did to the world to get all of this in return. He had fallen in love, like billions of other people before him, he had submitted to his heart's desires and this was what he got in return. It was probably meant to be, then, that he was caught and prosecuted. It was probably God's path for anyone who dared venture away from him. Maybe homosexuals really were freaks. They pulled into the driveway not long after, and Sherlock grabbed the medication and the folder and jumped out of the car immediately. The sky had clouded over and the world looked gray, only adding to the misery of both Sherlock and Mrs. Holmes's day. Sherlock led the way into the house, finding that the door was unlocked.
"Home so soon brother mine?" asked a sinister voice from the living room. Sherlock wandered into the doorway to see that his brother, Mycroft, was sitting in an arm chair with a cup of tea, looking dapper as ever in his crisp tan suit.
"Still here I see, brother mine?" Sherlock snapped back. Mycroft was seven years older than him, and ever so successful, so it was a wonder why he still insisted on living at home with their discounted tea and uncomfortable armchairs. Mycroft claimed that it was because the drive to his work was much less from here than any of the available apartments, but Sherlock suspected that he just didn't want to be alone. Not that he wanted human companionship, no of course he wouldn't get lonely, it was purely the fact that Mycroft only ever felt superior when he had people to look down upon. If he moved away from his parents and deranged brother, who was going to worship him, the tea kettle? Mrs. Holmes walked in right before Mycroft could respond, so instead of making a childish remark he simply raised the cracked tea cup to his lips and took a sip. Mrs. Holmes cast a rather accusing glare at Mycroft, to which he just smiled, and she disappeared without a word. Sherlock sneered at his brother and ran up the stairs to his bedroom, shutting the door rather violently and walking over to the dresser. He opened the top drawer and hid his medication inside, shutting it with a snap and sitting down on the edge of the bed. He opened the folder once more, staring at his own picture and frowning. Dr. Thompson described him as uncooperative, in denial, and childish. Not all together an inaccurate description. He then looked over the pictures of the women, looking over their faces carefully and trying to pick out something attractive. That wasn't difficult, it was easy to appreciate beauty when it was there, however nothing about these women made him keener to date one. He doubted that all of these beautiful things combined would make him want to trade a woman for a man. He didn't know why he found men so appealing, honestly he had no idea what made woman anything less than appealing, it just...was. And it always has been. There was nothing wrong with that, there was nothing sinful, his heart just worked a different way. And he was punished so brutally for it. He wondered what that boy was doing right now, where he was, who he was with. He had been beautiful, in the brief glimpse Sherlock had in that dim light, that boy had been more than he would've ever expected to single out from that crowd. He seemed surprised, in that moment, but not scared. He didn't wear the ever familiar expression of disgust and terror that usually flashed upon someone's face when they saw Sherlock. Not that he was hoping for anything, he knew that a boy like that would never think anything of him, nor would he want anything to do with him. He couldn't assume that just because the boy wasn't disgusted it meant he was attracted, he just...he hadn't been able to process things just yet. And still, that night had been so wonderful, those brief moments when he pressed his chest up against that boy's muscular back, when he let his lips trail down his soft skin, there was nothing a woman could ever do to replace that feeling. There was nothing a girl could provide him that could give him the same feeling, the same deep longing, as a brief touch with a boy could. And that boy, he had been everything, everything and nothing at the exact same time. It seemed as though Sherlock had miraculously gotten away with it too, for the police hadn't been knocking on his door lately. Maybe that boy hadn't known enough to contact the police; maybe he was too ashamed, too misinformed. He didn't know who Sherlock was, even though he probably had a good mental image of his face. Maybe he didn't know what to do with the information, or maybe, just maybe, he was willing to protect Sherlock. Maybe he wasn't willing to condemn a boy to the fate he knew befell onto a homosexual.