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“This isn’t healthy. What are you trying to do? You’re going to die.”
It didn’t start out as anything.
The world was a mesh of blue skies and dark clouds, and it encompassed him head to foot. He was bundled up tight, stuck in the grasp of a thousand dreams. He had gathered them, picked them like flowers, from the books that he had buried himself in. In this way, he dug himself a grave.
And so he started trying to seek this beauty, this perfection… and he started seeking stories. And he wanted one of his own.
He was wrapped up with the Earth within his mind rather than the one below his feet, and that was how he liked it.
Silly little people pushed past him, on their way to their silly little lives, with their silly little toys and their silly little loves. Love.
Silly.
At first, it didn’t work.
He tried and he tried, but he always snapped back to the pains and the tears. He didn’t know how to get away, and he wanted so badly to succeed, to win at the game he’d created.
He would triumph, he told himself. It was a performance. He was good at that.
Jim was the one who made it easy.
He met him outside the front doors one day, after he’d decided that he couldn’t hold his lunch down. (Decided, mind. He was in control.) Jim had a cigarette in his mouth and a grin on his face. His eyes were sunken and purple, and his arms were polka-dotted black and blue.
Sherlock thought that he was beautiful.
He didn’t know his name, so he just called him The Cigarette Boy.
The first day, neither did anything. They didn’t talk, or move. They didn’t even glance at each other. But it was nice. Sherlock watched the bones roiling underneath The Cigarette Boy’s many layers, and he watched the flame of his lighter dance to the song of the wind. It was nice. He smelled like nicotine and ashes and something else that Sherlock couldn’t quite make out.
It was nice.
When the bell rang for the end of lunch, Sherlock went back inside. The boy did not.
After the first week, Cigarette Boy offered him one of his namesakes.
He looked at him with eyes like boiling vats of chocolate and a challenge on his face, and Sherlock took the thin roll in his fingers and breathed in the smoke like it was candy. He’d had them before, but this was the first time he’d enjoyed the taste; maybe it was because of where it’d come from.
The Cigarette Boy was impressed. He watched Sherlock as he breathed in the nicotine, and his eyes never wavered. He looked like a wild animal.
Sherlock like that. He liked that very, very much.
He closed his eyes as he breathed it in, and his vision flashed white when he opened them up again. Finally, success.
He ran into The Cigarette Boy whilst walking around the streets one night.
They sat on the swings on a rusty old playground and blew smoke into each other’s faces.
His name was Jim.
He thought that Sherlock was a posh sounding name, you must be such a little perfect angel.
Sherlock told him that it wasn’t like that at all, and Jim raised his eyebrows.
And when Jim said show me, he didn’t hesitate.
Jim.
Jim and his filthy kisses, Jim and his wonderfully flavored breath, Jim and his magic needle. They’d go anywhere nobody would find them, and then Sherlock would lick and snort the beautiful snow from Jim’s bare skin. And then the world would be amazing, and he would float inside his own little story, and Jim would help himself. It was a fair trade, and Sherlock didn’t really care if it hurt; he was much too far gone to care.
Jim shared his secrets and his successes, and Sherlock listened with wide eyes and open ears. Jim didn’t care if he didn’t eat. Jim thought he was beautiful. Jim told him that his curls were like candy and his eyes were perfect. Jim told him that his body was getting better, you’ve been doing so well. So well.
Jim told him that if he worked hard enough, he would get everything.
His shirts hung off his shoulders and smelled like sex and smoke, and he loved it.
Mummy was worried. She begged and pleaded and sighed, and finally, cried. Sherlock was silent. He didn’t care. He was trying to be perfect. His mother didn’t understand. Nobody did. The tears streamed from her eyes in waterfalls, and Sherlock could only sit and watch as she too stopped coming down for supper.
Mycroft was angry. He shouted until his face turned red. Sherlock was silent. He didn’t care. He was trying to be perfect. His brother didn’t understand. Nobody did. But this only made him shout louder. Once, he got carried away and hit Sherlock with such force that he was knocked unconscious. It was okay though. He was used to it. He deserved it.
Father was already deep inside the ground, but he would’ve hit him too. Sherlock would’ve been silent, if that had happened. He would try harder. He was trying to be perfect. His father understood. His father knew just how imperfect that he was.
He deserved this.
One day, he fell asleep.
He woke up two weeks later.
The doctors didn’t understand either, so he didn’t bother talking to them.
The room was boring and white. White, white, white. The color of his story. White. The color of Jim. What was Jim doing now? What was he going to do without Sherlock? He was Jim’s perfect little boy, he didn’t want to stay away. He didn’t want to make him worry. What would Jim think had happened?
Everything was white.
Except one thing. One thing was warm and gold, and that thing smelled like tea and old jumpers.
John was in the room right across from him, and he was spectacularly not boring. He was the perfect character for his story. He was sincere and kind. He was a prince from a far-away kingdom.
Sherlock didn’t understand how John could be so warm when he was so cold inside. They were all there for a reason, and Sherlock could see everyone’s reason right away.
Usually.
John came in a month after he did, and he was a giant question mark.
He didn’t make any sense. He was an anomaly in the system. It wasn’t fair.
Drugs, bulimia, hallucinations, alcohol, cutting, more drugs, PTSD, more alcohol, and - John.
JohnJohnJohnJohnJohn. What was John?
He figured it out when he saw the scars on his wrist. Two of them, vertical, pink, and still fairly new.
How are you so warm when you are so cold on the inside?
John told him that he never wanted anyone to feel the way that he did. He wanted to make sure that no one ever had the thoughts that he had.
The funny thing was that he didn’t care about himself at all. Everyone was worth it, except himself.
Sherlock told him that he was already better than all of them. Everyone but John was selfish and vain. Sherlock was certainly both. But John was kind and loving, and he was the kindest person Sherlock had ever met. Just the way that he treated other people should make him a saint.
John told him thanks, but his eyes said the truth.
John got out a week before he did. He still didn’t think he was a saint.
Okay. Here’s my number, John. If you ever need a distraction. (You’re worth it.)
He didn’t say the last part out loud.
Maybe he should have.
When he finally got out, he was good for about a week. He wanted to make Mummy happy, and maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t something that he wanted. Maybe he didn’t want his story to be like this. Maybe he wanted to help John realize that he didn’t deserve a story like Sherlock’s.
Then he remembered Jim.
Jim wasn’t outside. His smoke was nowhere and his cigarettes were invisible. It was like a piece of Sherlock’s heart had broken out of his chest and walked away.
He found him in the old barn. He was nestled among the memories of their stolen hours and their filthy tongues, and he had a smile on his face. He was cold and white, white, white.
Not the good kind of white. He wasn’t white like the drugs or the nothingness; he was white like the forgotten and the gone. He was white like ash and dust.
He was cold and gone, and Sherlock felt the tears but he didn’t notice them. Jim was gone just like he had come:
Quietly.
Sherlock did it for Jim. It was all for Jim, he told himself. This is what Jim would’ve wanted. I was so close to perfect last time. This time I will succeed. This time I will win. For The Cigarette Boy. All for my white, white, white Cigarette Boy.
He didn’t hear the fights and he didn’t feel the tears. His mother cried and screamed, but she couldn’t do anything. Mycroft tried his best, but he too was tiring.
His father slapped him, hard, again and again, from some place that existed only in his mind.
He deserved it.
White, white, white. He was floating. Floating away.
Silly little people pushed past him, on their way to their silly little lives, with their silly little toys and their silly little loves. Love.
Silly.
Silent. Quiet. He didn’t care. He was trying to be perfect. Nobody understood.
That’s okay. This was his story.
He was going to win.
That was all that mattered.
He deserved this.
Floating away.
For Jim.
Silly.
White, white, white.
John did end up texting him. He texted him with the last of the strength in his fingers, and his last thoughts were of the boy who’d called him a saint. Maybe he wanted a distraction. Maybe he wanted to live.
Maybe they all did, in the end.
But it went white for him, too.
It was all white and red and ash and gold.
They were all stories, in the end.
He won.