Death Is A Friend

You Take My Breath Away

    The first person to arrive gave Sherlock such a shock that he almost fell over. They were early, and unannounced, yet they still proved to be no one important. Sherlock didn't recognize them from the church crowds, and they were wearing what appeared to be their nicest football t-shirts. They came to support the team, hardly the coach, and they shed no tears. After their arrival, however, the doors began to become more frequently traveled. Sherlock sat back against the wall, patting down his hair every so often and tugging at his jacket to pull it more tightly over his thin chest. He felt that it would be much more glamorous that way, much more exposed. Not one person snuck into that church without him seeing them, for his eyes were trained like a hawk's on that door, just waiting for his next unsuspecting victim to happen through. Yet it took a while, it took a disturbing amount of time, before anyone who looked under thirty years old happened in. The first was a gang of cheerleaders, painted girls who were doing their best to look sad just to get more attention. Their hair was done up, their spray tans were fresh, and they wore tight, short little dresses in hopes that the football team would notice them and their exposed legs. Sherlock knew that those were the sort of girls which were supposed to attract boys, he knew that most everyone else in his situation would be positioned here with a box of tissues and extra mascara, just to gain their attention. However the sight of the girls didn't excite him, in fact he was rather repelled by their almost plastic appearance. Oh how unfortunate it was that he had two defective organs! His stupid mucus filled lungs and his confused, backwards heart. It was impossible for him to breathe and it was even more impossible for him to love, for he could never get a breath and he could never get a boy. It took a while for the football players to show up, yet when they finally made their entrance it was impossible to miss them. They moved as a pack, all in matching jackets with their hair slicked back, and ties sticking out of their collars, looking very out of place. Sherlock stood up on his tiptoes, straining to find the one in the masses, and to his absolute joy, to his absolute pleasure...well there he was. That blonde headed God, moving innocently among his friends, with his hands set in his pockets and a look utmost grief upon his beautiful faces. Among all of the groups, the footballers seemed the most upset about the coach's passing. This would make sense of course, yet all the same Sherlock was almost touched by how legitimately upset they all seemed to be. Yet John Watson, well if he shed a tear today it would be just another dagger to Sherlock's already shredded heart. He was so vulnerable to that boy, so in love that most any sort of human emotion which might erupt from his heart was going to be crippling for poor Sherlock. Crippling, for someone so in love that he could hardly think to process properly when his worshipped love interest finally showed signs of humanity. This was it, this was his time! John Watson was entering the line, standing in the middle of the group of footballers and looking solemn. Sherlock's legs went numb, and he leaned up against the wall of the church to support himself. He knew this was it; this was the climax of his entire life. The moment their eyes met for the first time it would be...well it would be breathtaking! Yet hopefully not literally, for Sherlock in his condition could not afford to miss a single gulp of air. And here he was, moving through the line, gazing down upon the body and holding his beautiful head still. He let his eyes flutter, as if trying to hold back his tears; he allowed his posture to break and his hand to linger almost to the corpse, as if trying to pat it in farewell. Yet he restrained himself, muttered a single word, and started away from the coffin before he began to cry. John wouldn't allow himself to break down, not in front of his teammates, not in front of the poor, whimpering family. Sherlock braced himself; he stepped away from the wall and took as deep of a breath as he could manage. He knew that he had to play it cool, play it calm. Yet he simply couldn't allow this moment to slip through his fingers like sand. He had to clench it, he had to keep it. This was essential, not just to his well-being, but to his life in general. He had to enhance what he had left, and his one wish, if he could ever be granted one single miracle, would be to be in the company of John Watson for his remainder. This was his chance to a make a miracle into reality, his opportunity to take his own fate into his hands and just run with it. Sherlock took a deep breath, a mesmerized breath, and braced himself for what could no longer be the impossible. John approached him, he turned from the grieving family and started towards the wall which Sherlock was standing, he looked up and...and for the first time- their eyes met. Sherlock's eyes locked with John's, and for the first time he saw that they were the deepest, most beautiful shade of brown. He saw that they were merely...they were simply hypnotizing. And with that simple exchange, with that throb of their heart and weakness of the legs, well of course Sherlock's wish was granted. Of course he was blessed with the most unfortunate of all situations. He became breathless. And then he began to cough. Suddenly his oxygen tank was useless, he couldn't feel air coming in, he couldn't feel the pressure. Instead he merely began to hack; his lungs were giving way to mucus, and decided that now was the time to rid themselves. And so he coughed, heaving from the bottom of his lungs and gasping for the breaths were almost impossible to come by. Suddenly he crippled by the coughs, and stumbled fearfully into the wall. The first voice he heard was one he didn't recognize, the first voice he heard was his...
"Are you alright?" John exclaimed, or at least that must have been his voice. Before Sherlock fell to his knees he noticed that John had picked up his pace, yet it was humiliating! This was not the way they were supposed to have met; this was not supposed to be their first introduction! Sherlock couldn't reply, well of course he couldn't force out a word! He had hardly any breaths to cough, much less to talk and hold a formal conversation. Mycroft was at his side, he knew because he could see the shining tips of his shoes on the floor, and suddenly felt pounding on his back. Mycroft was hitting him, trying to dislodge the mucus, trying to make it easier to cough up...
"Mr. Watson if you would please excuse us?" Mycroft suggested, and Sherlock used whatever strength he had to clutch to Mycroft's ankles, in his own urgency. For he didn't want John to see this scene, yet he still didn't want him to leave.
"He's alright?" John clarified, that beautiful voice, that gruff, concerned baritone.
"Yes, he'll be fine." Mycroft assumed. "Come on Sherlock, cough it up. You can do it." he was whispering all the while, pounding even harder on Sherlock's back. It waited just until John had disappeared, until his dress shoes vanished into the pews, that was when Sherlock was finally able to cough it all up. Finally he was able to get a breath, and spit up into a little napkin which Mycroft had produced from his pocket. Finally Sherlock was able to gasp for breath, the color returning to his face as he sat back against the wall and blinked the tears of panic away from his eyes. The tears of defeat were soon to pool up right after.
"You told him to leave?" Sherlock's first words were, coming of course in the form of a growl.
"You wanted him to see that?" Mycroft clarified in a snap, wiping the sweat from his brother's brow in his parental concern.
"I wanted him to stay! That was my only chance, that was..." Sherlock shook his head in defeat, letting his sentence hang as he slammed the back of his head into the wall behind him. Well of course that was how it ended, before it even began! What was he even expecting? Was he expecting life to be easy, now that two factors had lined up conveniently? No, it would almost seem as though the world was converging just so that he could be reminded of how hopeless he was in this romantic endeavor. As if the universe was trying to talk some sense into him, that he was destined for nothing more glamourous than the grave.
"That's not your last chance, now come on Sherlock! Go over and thank him for caring, I'm sure that's an even easier way to begin a conversation." Mycroft assured, patting on his brother's shoulder all the while he looked him over in that typical concern. He always wanted to make sure that Sherlock recovered fully from whatever fits he had, yet the fact that he was breathing was usually enough for his parents to cease to care. Then again, they were probably hoping that he would just double over and die already. His presence was inconvenient to them, if anything.
"No, no I can't look him in the eyes again! That'll be humiliating, Mycroft." Sherlock whined, shaking his head in defeat.
"That's not humiliating! Now come on Sherlock, you can't try to tell me that you're going to let him get away so easily?" Mycroft insisted. Sherlock growled, rearranging himself against the wall so that he could cross his arms and slouch miserably. Of course Mycroft prodded him, for he was always one about proper posture (not only for looks, but the lungs are much less compressed when the spine was straight). Yet Sherlock slouched because he was miserable, and he had every right to make his disappointment known to the world.
"I'm covered in sweat and mucus, he just saw me collapse and nearly die. That's not something you rebound from, that idiot is going to pity me for the rest of my life!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"Now I don't want to hear that sort of talk, get on your feet Sherlock, I'll take you over to him to thank him for his support." Mycroft decided, holding out a stubborn hand for Sherlock to take. And of course, no matter how stubborn Sherlock considered himself to be, he really couldn't say no. Mycroft was just as persistent, and there was nothing Sherlock could say to change his brother's mind on any point, much less something as important as this! Maybe Mycroft grasped the once in a lifetime style urgency better than Sherlock did, or maybe he was just too stupid to realize that there were some points where you could never return to- and some first impressions that were best left to be the last impression as well. Yet this was John, oh Sherlock really should be fighting tooth and nail just to make some more eye contact with such a radiant thing! Maybe, well maybe there was the off chance that John had cared only so much because of that one tiny, fleeting little moment of eye contact. Maybe he suddenly found it within himself to care just because their eyes met so wonderfully, and so appropriately. Maybe he raced over to give himself a way to start a conversation, even if that was just a series of worried exclamations and fits of coughing. And so Sherlock dragged himself to his feet, for he understood the urgency. He understood it well enough to get his motivation back, or at least hope that he hadn't missed his chance entirely. And as he walked the perimeter of the church very slowly, as he meandered through the crowd with his head held high, and his bangs matted to his forehead with sweat that had since dried...well he had been determined enough to feel a painful stab of defeat. He felt this with such angst, and even Mycroft felt something of a disappointment, for John had vanished. So it was with viewings these days, people only come to give their best wishes and be on their way. And that must have been what the athletes had done, for just as soon as they walked the entire church Sherlock realized that he hadn't seen a single varsity jacket, nor any signs of a spray tan anywhere. So gone were the footballers, and the cheerleaders as well.
"He's not here, is he?" Sherlock grumbled miserably.
"Well maybe he just used the bathroom." Mycroft suggested, yet they both knew that it was a lost cause. John left, it was hopeless. Sherlock took a great, laborious sigh and sank in the corner seat of a pew, staring at the masses of people, all of who now looked so unimpressive. Suddenly the church didn't seem nearly as bright as it had been when he arrived; it was shadowed now with a dark cloud of depression, and defeat. Oh he had known from the moment the news arrived that this entire escapade would be a failure! That seemed to be his utmost profession, getting a chance and wasting it completely! Oh what a pitiful failure he was proving to be these days. What an absolute disaster. Mycroft was dragged away before the funeral itself begun, and so Sherlock was left alone in the back pew, listening only partially as the priest went on and on about what an admirable man lie in the coffin in front. Well of course he was obligated to saint the man before the large audience, yet Sherlock found the speech very mundane, and very boring. Obviously it was either a template, or it had been written the night before in some hurry. Sherlock didn't bother listening to the whole of it, for whenever football of any sort was mentioned he got a tight cramp in his heart. A pang of defeat, perhaps, as he realized that he sat in this pew alone because he was a failure. What might have been the best, most prosperous night of his life had instead turned into just another evening, sitting alone to lament and mourn not over some stupid football coach, but instead the death of his future of happiness. For John Watson was the one thing which made his life worth living, if he didn't have the hope that someday he might recover and take that man as his husband, well there really was no point in fighting this disease any longer. If he believed that his future, if he even did have one, was a lost cause then there would really be no point in fighting at all. How depressing it was to listen to such a funeral speech and wonder what your own would sound like! Sherlock wondered if the priest would even know anything about his life, or have a single thing to talk about at all. Even if his own father administered the service, well there wouldn't be a thing to say! He could imagine it now- "Sherlock was a very good son, always stayed in the attic and didn't complain. He liked clam chowder soup...at least I think he did. I never asked really." How pathetic would that be! Sherlock groaned, shaking his head as he imagined no one else but his mother and brother in the audience, in this great big church and they couldn't even manage a single other participant to mourn him! What a depressing life he was forced to live. How pitiful. Sherlock never realized that the church cleared out until he noticed a man walking towards him. The music had ended, and all of the sudden he was left sitting alone in his pew, staring at the ground while leaning heavily on the handle of his wheeled oxygen. He assumed that the man was Mycroft, come to collect him, yet when he paused next to the pew and said nothing Sherlock was almost forced to look up, and wonder who it was who would bother visiting him. The priest, perhaps? Come to tell him that his father had already been called, and he was in a great deal of trouble? Or maybe it was the doctor, come to remind him that his life expectancy was halved again? Well it really could be anyone, yet as Sherlock raised his eyes to meet the strangers he had to admit, such a look really classified this man for only one profession. Or at least only one job which would be justified in a church. He was dressed in all black, wearing a formal tailored suit without a hint of color on it. Even his tie was black, paired with a dark shirt and vest, underneath a lint rolled jacket with sparkling silver cufflinks. He wore a top hat perched on his head, and leaned very heavily on what appeared to be a silver topped walking stick. A look of boredom was across his aging face, with shaped eyebrows curving around some very unimpressed yet stunning blue eyes.
"Are you still mourning?" the stranger asked, with a voice deep and distinguished. Such a voice had caught Sherlock off guard, for despite this man's appearance (which might put him somewhere a bit older than Mycroft, yet not by much) he had expected an almost feminine sound to come out of him.
"I'm uh...no I'm not. I didn't know him." Sherlock said abruptly, and obviously without thinking at all. The man simply chuckled, yet the smile that appeared on his face was more snakelike than anything. In fact, he seemed almost inconvenienced at the moment.
"Then you're just attending the funeral to get a better look at what's to come?" the stranger presumed. Sherlock blinked, staring up at him and wondering whether or not that statement was based off of his oxygen tube, and if it was intentionally so rude.
"I have my reasons." Sherlock snapped back, feeling a little bit embarrassed that his own life expectancy was so clear to this man. Of course, no one really understood how dangerous cystic fibrosis was, most people assumed that it could simply be cleared up with an oxygen mask and that was that. Yet this stranger obviously knew enough to detect the signs of the disease, most likely because of the tank, but perhaps because he had seen Sherlock dying off in the corner a little while ago.
"There are many good reasons to attend a funeral. Nearly all of them don't include familiarity." the man said with an ominous little chuckle, setting both of his hands onto his walking stick and looking Sherlock up and down with very curious eyes.
"Did you know him?" Sherlock wondered, feeling almost as if this man was making fun of him for something, as if he was trying to make him feel silly for sitting in this pew for so long.
"Oh no, no of course I didn't know him." the man laughed.
"Then why are you here?" Sherlock challenged. The man grinned, leaning even closer to Sherlock as if he was trying to remind him just who was steering this conversation. As if he regularly handed out challenges, but was much too afraid to take them himself.
"I'm the mortician." The man explained in a snap. Sherlock blinked for a moment, yet nodded very slowly after a quick moment of processing. Well that explains the late Victorian outfit then, and the need to be so pale and dramatic. This man appeared to have crawled straight from the grave himself, in the clothes that a man might have been buried in fifty years ago.
"Well then, I suppose I best be out of your way." Sherlock grumbled, deciding that as fascinating as this man was, he really would never be worth his time. Yet even as he got to his feet to leave, the stranger blocked his path, making it impossible to escape.
"Are you afraid of death?" the man asked quickly. Sherlock winced, wondering what sort of horrible question that was. Yet the man seemed rather proud of himself, or at least impressed with the offended reaction it produced.
"I'd like to think I'm practical about it." Sherlock responded a bit hesitantly.
"Yes I'm sure you are." The man agreed, nodding and looking very obviously to the oxygen tank that was positioned right next to Sherlock's leg. "How long do you have then?" he wondered calmly. Sherlock stared at him, wondering just what sort of maniac would dare ask a question such as that. Yet for whatever reason...well in fact Sherlock didn't take much offense. From a mortician, well Sherlock felt as though he had every right to ask. Simply because he'll know in the end, how long Sherlock did make it. Undoubtedly Sherlock would be stretched out on his table in the near future.
"They say no more than a year." Sherlock said quietly, letting his head drop in shame all the while the stranger smiled wider, as if such a claim made him all the more intrigued. Instead of exchanging his sympathy he instead reached out a hand, a sort of gesture which made Sherlock recoil, only to realize he was simply asking for a handshake.
"Victor Trevor." The man said finally, an introduction which was almost forceful. Yet all the same, the abruptness of this stranger, coupled with his almost humorous approach on Sherlock's illness- well it made him a very interesting man indeed. The sort who didn't pity Sherlock's fate, but saw it as just something that had to happen to someone. Saw it instead as just another natural part of life, no matter how tragic it was in other people's eyes.
"Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock mumbled quietly. For a moment there was recognition in the man's eyes, something like a sparkle of interest. He opened his mouth to comment, undoubtedly on the fact that such a last name was familiar to him, before he was interrupted rather harshly.