Death Is A Friend

Always A Pleasure

Sherlock's mother glared at him all throughout their lesson, yet this was not an uncommon occurrence. Sherlock was used to getting stared at like that, with the look of regret tunneled deep into her face. As if she was regretting the day he was ever born, as if she regretted those nine months where she was perfectly contempt on carrying her second child. She stared at Sherlock now as if he was the root of all of her problems, as if he was the single most insolent, inconvenient thing that had ever walked the earth. So of course, it was just another day. They were doing math problems, which of course never troubled Sherlock too greatly. The only good thing about having this wretched woman as a mother was she actually knew things, and was good at passing down her knowledge whether she liked it or not. The books helped, yet she could help Sherlock when he was stuck (although she never seemed too happy about it). The Holmes brothers were both unnaturally smart, and that was yet another bane of their existences. Mycroft especially struggled under the weight of being intellectually superior, simply because he had to wallow through the wake of the unintelligent more often than Sherlock did. Yet Sherlock understood what it was like to know too much about the world, for every single scrap of information he learned was never going to be applied. He never got out into the world to use calculus, he never was able to talk with someone about Shakespeare, no he was stuck up in this horrible attic, and the information he learned that day just simmered in his brain until he deemed it appropriate to just forget entirely. As his lesson was coming to a close his mother got to her feet sternly, collecting the books in her hands as she always did, yet paused on her way down the trapdoor. She took a great, laborious breath, yet turned to her son with a miserable look in her eye.
"Your brother is taking you to the morgue at four forty five. Be ready." She growled, and with that she made her way down the ladder and pulled the trap door as agressivley as she could over her head on the way out. Sherlock sat in the desk chair, smiling satirically to himself for he knew that despite her obvious anger; he was getting the best of her. She was in the most hopeless situation of her life, for she had no power over Victor, and therefore no way of stopping what had already been put into motion. She merely had to sit back and watch as the confinement she had crafted fell away, and as Sherlock's life blossomed into something much more fulfilling than being trapped in the horrible attic for the whole of his existence. And so Sherlock sat, and he waited. He was not tasked with any assignments, and so he was left with nothing to do but sit on his bed and ponder the day which was about to unfold before him. He got to thinking what lay ahead of him, and what could be waiting today at the morgue. Sherlock lay back on his bed with a breath of exhilaration, clutching his hand around the handle of his oxygen tank just to make sure it was still there, supplying him the necessary oxygen. He smiled, a genuine smile that may appear to be the sign of a maniac to any onlookers. Yet all the same he couldn't help it, he was overwhelmed in excitement, and in purpose! Finally he had a life worth living, finally he was able to leave the attic and fulfill his potential! Well of course the job of a mortician was not something worth bragging about; certainly it would raise a lot of eyebrows from a lot of different people. Yet there was something strangely enticing about the position, something which simply couldn't be explained. He knew that the job of beautifying dead people shouldn't be an artistic, almost romantic profession, yet the very idea of taking the dead and bringing them back to life, just for an hour or two, was surprisingly exciting. Sherlock felt almost Godlike, as if he was conquering the one weakness he was supposed to have. Death followed him for a while now; in fact it was the single person he knew would show up at his door. He felt close to the idea of death, simply because he's walked the thin line between living and dying for the whole of his life. He knew the side of life so plainly, as did everyone these days. Yet death was entirely foreign to him, even if the concept was, in some ways, almost comforting. The Reaper had never frightened him, simply because he'd simply transition from the attic to the coffin. Yet Sherlock had always seen that as the end? The day his lungs gave out for good, the day they decided to finally let him go without oxygen for one second too long...well he had never imagined anything past that blackness! He never considered that his body would be left behind, hallowed out and without a soul. And his body, it would be given to the mortician, but to do what he never knew! Sherlock had never considered that his body may be preened and makeuped and remodeled. He had never imagined anyone caring enough about him to give him a proper funeral, yet if ever he was granted such a pleasure he would undoubtedly then end up on Victor's table. One of those silver pans, with drains at the end for the leaking of fluids. He would lie there just as cold, white, and naked as all the rest of the cadavers. He would be taken apart and put back together again, filled with chemicals and drained of blood. He would lose all humanity, just for the sake of bringing back the allusion of life. Yet at the same time...well there was something about the idea of death now, the idea of that full circle, which got his heart beating faster than he remembered it ever going. It got him exhilarated to the point where he had to take a deep breath, and wonder just why such a process was becoming increasingly attractive to him. As the time approached Sherlock was getting so excited he could do nothing but pace around his room and wait for the clock to start ticking in the right direction, and for his brother to arrive at the trapdoor to take him away from this accused attic. To take him to the morgue, to meet his new savior, and his new best friend. Oh Victor Trevor, what a...well what a mysterious man! What a thing who had no human traits, no tells, and no weaknesses. What an invulnerable man, what a God! Sherlock didn't know much about Victor, in fact he hardly knew anything but his name. Yet he felt as though Victor knew him, he felt as though Victor knew every little thing about him! From his family, to his brother, to his sickness! Those blue eyes, those that penetrated so deep into the soul, well they had to be telepathic. Sherlock felt so vulnerable in that man's stare, or even in his presence! Maybe that weakness came from his lack of social skills, or more likely it came from Victor's overwhelming confidence. That stance which made everyone feel so superior, and that strut which made him look quite like the most proper man on the face of the earth. He could stand before God himself and express his disappointment; he could confront death and ask just when his own time was coming. He could look even Mycroft in the eye and not wince, and steal Sherlock right from under the noses of the tyrannical parents! What sort of power did you need to do such impossible things, what sort of inhumanity! Victor was something else, something entirely of his own creation. He was everything Sherlock ever wanted to be in life, and yet he was precisely what Sherlock could never be. His age alone was enough to separate them, for Sherlock was never going to live past his twenties. Victor, it was safe to say, had surpassed that by just enough. He was young, yet he was professional. He knew what he was doing, so much in a way which would give the impression that he had been working on cadavers for fifty years. That alone was enough for him to earn Sherlock's respect. All that came after was merely bonus; all that came after was just extra motivation for Sherlock to go running eagerly into his office once more. It was enough for him to do circles around the trap door, and wait anxiously for the moment it would open, and when he would be allowed to escape back into the view of Victor Trevor once more.