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The world was often too loud for Will. The scratch of wool on his skin, the hum of the lights in the hall, the clink of forks on plates - all of it piled up inside his head until it felt like a buzzing swarm of bees. Will was six, and he had learned that the best way to make the bees stop was to squirm his way into his mother’s arms. Mummy was very very good at cuddles.
Eurus was never quiet, but she didn’t buzz. Her sounds were clean, like the chime of the little clock on the mantelpiece. Her shoes made no scuffing sound on the floorboards. Her dresses never rustled. When she moved, it was like she wasn't there at all, and then suddenly she was.
She found him in the garden, hiding behind the big rose bush. The petals were soft, almost velvety, and he was tracing their edges with his finger, one by one. The smell was thick, sweet, and it helped block out the buzzing in his ears.
"There you are," she said. She didn't sound like Mummy, who always called his name in a sing-song voice. Eurus never said his name. "You're counting the petals. There are thirty-four on that one. The next has twenty-seven. It's not a pattern."
He flinched, pulling his hand back. He hadn't been counting, not really. Just feeling. He didn't know how she knew what he was doing.
"Mummy says you're special," she said, sitting down beside him. She didn't brush the dirt from her dress. "Like me."
He didn't feel special. He felt like he was made wrong. His brain was full of things that spilled out of his mouth sometimes, and then Uncle Rudy's face would get tight, and Mycroft would sigh that long, bored sigh that made his shoulders feel like stones.
"You like snow, but only if it's warm," Eurus said, watching a ladybug crawl up a leaf. "You like rain, but only if it's dry."
That was exactly it. He liked the idea of things, but the real things were too much. The cold snow made his fingers hurt, the wet rain made his socks soggy, and the smell was wrong.
How did she know?
"I cut my arm open yesterday," she said, holding it out. A neat line of butterfly stitches marched up her forearm. "I wanted to see the strings inside. The tendons. They look like little white worms."
He stared at it. Mummy had said it was an accident with the trowel. He remembered the smell of the antiseptic, the sharp sting of it in the air. But Eurus's arm didn't look like it hurt. It just looked... fixed.
"Doesn't it hurt?" he asked. His voice was small, like a mouse's.
She tilted her head, her dark hair falling perfectly against her cheek. "What's hurt?" she asked. Her voice wasn't mean. It was curious, like when she took apart the radio to see the wires inside. "It was interesting.”
***
That night, the buzzing was bad. The sheets were too rough, the pillow was too flat, and the moon was too bright through the curtains. He was rocking, just a little, back and forth against the headboard. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The rhythm helped.
The door opened without a sound. Eurus was there, a shadow shape in the doorway.
"Let's play a game," she said.
He shook his head, pulling the blanket up to his chin. Her games weren’t fun. Last time, she had made him stand perfectly still on one leg for an hour, and when he fell, she hadn't laughed. She had just watched him from her seat on the floor.
"It's a new game," she said, coming closer. "It's called 'Tell Me a Secret'."
He shook his head again, harder.
"Please," she said. Her voice was soft then, like Mummy's when she was being kind. But her eyes were bright, like the glass eyes of his teddy bear. They didn't change.
She sat on his bed. The mattress didn't even dip. She leaned in close, her face near his. He could smell her soap, something clean and sharp that made his nose wrinkle.
"You tell me something you don't want anyone else to know," she whispered. "And then I'll tell you a secret."
He didn't have any secrets. He just had thoughts. Too many thoughts. He shook his head again, cringing backwards.
"If you don't play," she said, her voice still soft, "I'll have to make you scream."
Before he could even think to refuse again, her hand shot out, faster than he could see. Her small, cool fingers closed around his hand. He thought she was going to hold it, but then her other hand came up. She took his thumb and, with a calm, steady pressure, bent it backward, toward his wrist.
It wasn't a fast movement. It was slow and deliberate, but it was the worst pain he had ever felt - a deep, grinding, blinding agony that started in his joint and shot up his arm like lightning. It felt like his bone was about to snap right through his skin. The sound that came out of him was a raw, torn shriek of pure pain and shock. He tried to pull away, but her grip was like iron. He bucked and thrashed, but she held on, her face a mask of concentration, her eyes wide and fixed on his as if she were studying a fascinating specimen.
"Stop," he gasped, tears streaming down his face. "Stop, please, stop!"
The words were barely out of his mouth when her other hand moved with the same impossible speed. The cool pads of her fingers found the soft, tender spot just below his jawbone, behind his ear. She pressed, hard.
The pressure was sickening, a deep, nauseating jolt that stole his breath and his voice all at once. His scream choked off into a strangled, high-pitched sound. He couldn't form words anymore. He couldn't beg. He could only make tiny, pathetic noises as tears and snot streamed down his face.
She didn't stop. She just held him there, one hand bending his thumb to its breaking point, the other pressing into his nerve. The pain was a constant, blaring siren, and time stretched into a horrible, endless eternity. He was trapped in a cage of her making, crying and whimpering for what felt like forever, her face the only thing he could see, her expression unreadable. He felt himself getting smaller and smaller, disappearing into the pain, until there was nothing left but the agony and her eyes, watching him.
Then, through the haze of his suffering, he heard footsteps in the hall. The door flew open. Mummy was there, her face a mask of horror.
Eurus let go instantly. The sudden release was almost as shocking as the pain. She scrambled back on the bed, her eyes wide, her lower lip trembling. She looked like a frightened little girl.
"I don't know!" she cried, her voice wobbling perfectly. "He just started screaming! I came in and he was just... screaming!"
Mummy gathered him into her arms, her hands patting him, trying to soothe him. Her perfume was flowery and thick and made his stomach churn. "Oh, my darling, my poor boy, was it a nightmare? A terrible cramp?"
He tried to shake his head, to gasp out the word "Eurus," but his throat was too raw. He could only clutch his hand, which still throbbed with a deep, phantom ache. He looked past Mummy's shoulder.
Eurus was standing by the door now, her hands clasped in front of her. Uncle Rudy was there, too, drawn by the noise. He was frowning at Will.
"Stop that caterwauling, boy," Uncle Rudy said, his voice sharp. "You'll wake the dead. There's nothing wrong with you."
"He's just sensitive," Mummy murmured, rocking him. "So very sensitive."
Eurus looked at Will, her eyes wide and innocent. But as Mummy's attention was on him, Eurus's expression changed for just a second. Her mouth curved into a tiny, secret smile.
***
The next day, his hand and neck ached. There were no marks, not even a bruise, but the pain was a ghost that lived under his skin. He kept it tucked close to his body as he sat at the kitchen table, pushing his eggs around with a fork. The yellow was too bright, the smell of the toast too greasy. The buzzing was back.
Mycroft was reading at the other end of the table, a huge book that made a shadow on the floor. He was thirteen and knew everything. Will had tried to show him his hand that morning, before anyone else was awake. He hadn't been able to say what happened, but he'd pointed to the spots that still hurt.
"My dear brother," Mycroft had said, not even looking up from his book. "The human body is a map of minor aches and complaints. Indulging them is a waste of mental energy. Apply logic. If there is no mark, there is no injury."
Now, Victor was coming over. Victor was his best friend. Victor didn't think he was strange. Victor thought his facts about mud and decomposition were interesting. He was waiting for the sound of Victor's bicycle on the gravel path. It was a specific crunch, different from Daddy's car or the postman's van.
The crunch came. Will's head snapped up, a small smile starting to form on his face. But then he saw her. Eurus was standing by the window, watching the path. She turned and looked at him, her face perfectly smooth. She knew he was happy. She knew why.
Victor knocked on the back door, their special signal. Will jumped up, his fork clattering on the plate. The noise made him flinch.
"Victor's here!" he said, his voice a little too loud.
"Control your volume, William," Uncle Rudy said from the doorway. He was holding a cup of tea, and he was looking at Will's hands, which were flapping a little, a small flutter of excitement. "And stop that incessant flapping. It's unseemly."
Will stuffed his hands into his pockets. The fabric was rough against his knuckles. He tried to make them be still.
Victor came in, his cheeks pink from the bike ride, his hair messy. "Will! Are we going to the woods today? To see the beetles?"
"Carabus granulatus," Will said, the words tumbling out. "They're ground beetles. They can't fly. Their wing casings are fused together. They live under stones and eat slugs."
Victor's eyes went wide. "Brilliant! Let's go!"
But Eurus was there, standing between them and the door. She wasn't looking at Victor. She was looking at Will.
"Can I come?" she asked, her voice sweet as honey.
"No," Will said immediately. "It's just for us."
"That's not fair," she said, and her voice changed. It got smaller, wobbly. "You never let me play. You always play with him."
"Eurus, darling, why don't you and I practice your music?" Mummy said, coming into the kitchen. "William and Victor need boy time."
Eurus's eyes darted to Mummy, then back to Will. There was something in them, a flat, cold light. "But I want to see the beetles," she said. "The ones with the fused wings."
Will felt a cold dread creep up his spine. She had been listening. She always listened.
“You’ll see them another day, darling,” Mummy said, and Will grabbed Victor’s hand and towed him out of the house, not looking back.
***
Victor had found three beetles, and they were watching them crawl over a leaf. It was good. The buzzing was gone.
"I have a secret," Victor said, leaning in close. "My dad got me a telescope. A real one. We can look at the stars tonight."
Will's heart gave a happy thump. Stars. He knew all the constellations. He could tell Victor about nebulae and binary systems and the speed of light. The sun was warm on the back of his neck, making his shirt feel a bit prickly. Will sat cross-legged and barefoot in the meadow, pulling blades of grass apart one by one. The green smell was nice. It helped quiet the buzzing that sometimes lived in his head. There were ants among the blades, but Will was careful not to harm them.
Victor pointed at an ant carrying a crumb. "He's strong," Victor said, his voice full of wonder. "He's stronger than he looks."
"Formica rufa," Will supplied quietly. "Red ant. They can lift twenty times their own body weight. Their jaws are called mandibles. They bite."
Victor giggled. "You know everything."
Will shook his head. "Not everything."
Then they heard it. A little tinkling sound, like a bell. It came from the edge of the woods.
"What's that?" Victor whispered, sitting up.
Will didn't know. It was a pretty sound, but it felt wrong. It was too perfect, like a sound from a music box, not from the woods.
"I'll see," Will said, getting to his knees. "I'll be right back."
"Okay," Victor said, already distracted by a beetle crawling over his own bare toes.
Will walked slowly toward the trees. The grass was cool and damp under his bare feet. The tinkling sound got louder. There, on a low branch of an old oak tree, was a little silver bell. It was the shiniest thing he had ever seen, glinting in the breeze. He reached out a careful hand to touch it. The moment his finger touched it, the branch snapped, clean and sharp. A thorny vine that was growing up the tree whipped across his face. A line of fire burned across his cheek.
He cried out, stumbling backward. His foot landed wrong in a rabbit hole, and his ankle twisted with a sickening, painful crunch. He fell down hard, knocking the breath out of him. For a moment, everything was blurry and grey.
He had to get back to Victor.
He pushed himself up, but his ankle wouldn't hold his weight. A sharp, hot pain shot up his leg every time he put pressure on it. He started to hop, tears of pain and fear blurring his vision.
"Victor?" he called out, his voice small and wobbly.
The clearing was empty. Their shoes were still there. But Victor was gone.
"Victor?" he called again, louder this time. A sob caught in his throat. "VICTOR!"
He started to limp as fast as he could, calling Victor's name over and over. He fell, scraping his hands and his knees on sharp little stones, but he didn't even feel it. He just got back up and kept going, his breath coming in hitching sobs.
He was closer to the house when he saw her. Eurus was sitting on a fallen log, humming to herself and pulling the petals off a wildflower. She looked up as he stumbled toward her, her face blank.
"Have you seen Victor?" Will gasped, leaning against a tree to hold his weight off his bad foot. "He's gone."
Eurus didn't say anything for a moment. Then she started to sing. Her voice was clear and high, and the song was strange and sad.
"Without your love, he'll be gone before.
Save pity for strangers, show love the door.
My soul seek the shade of my willow's bloom
Inside, brother mine -
Let Death make a room."
"What's that?" Will cried, fresh tears running down his face, mixing with the blood from his cheek. "Where's Victor?"
"I don't know where he is," she said, her voice perfectly calm. "Maybe he went home."
The song was stuck in his head now. Let Death make a room. The words were scary, and they didn't make sense, but they were there, repeating over and over.
He had to get home. He turned and ran, or tried to. The world was a blur of green and brown. He fell again and again, getting more and more hurt. He just had to get to Daddy. He finally stumbled out of the woods and into the back garden. He fell against the kitchen door, banging on it with his fists.
"Help!" he screamed, a raw, ragged sound. "HELP! HELP!"
The door flew open. It was Daddy. His face went white.
"William! Good heavens, what happened?" He dropped to his knees in front of him.
"Victor," Will sobbed, trying to get the words out. "Victor's gone. The meadow. Eurus... she sang a song..."
He tried to remember the song, to tell him, but the words were all mixed up with the buzzing in his head. The pain, the fear, it was too much. He started to scream, a high, wordless sound of pure frustration. He couldn't get the words out. He flapped his hands, trying to show them, to make them understand.
"Easy, son, easy," Daddy said, his voice gentle but scared. He picked him up carefully, holding him tight. "Mycroft! Get in here!"
Mycroft came running, his book falling to the floor. His eyes got wide when he saw Will.
"Victor," Will gasped, clutching Daddy's shirt. "Gone."
Mummy came in then, and she made a little crying sound. "Oh, my baby! What happened?"
"The clearing," Will choked out. "He's gone."
"Right," Daddy said, his voice tight. "Mycroft, you and I will go to the clearing. We'll look for him. Mummy, you get the first aid kit. He's bleeding."
Daddy handed him to Mummy. Will clung to her, his whole body shaking even as her arms surrounded him.
"It's alright, my darling," Mummy murmured, but her voice was wobbly. "Let's get you cleaned up."
She took him into the bathroom and sat him on the edge of the tub, but it hurt too much, so he wriggled down onto the floor. She went to the cupboard to get the first aid box. Uncle Rudy was standing in the doorway, holding his cup of tea. He was just looking at Will, his face sporting a frown.
"Stop that noise," he said, his voice sharp. "All that caterwauling. You'll wake the dead."
Will tried to be quiet. He brought his knees to his chest, hid his hands in his lap, trying to make himself small.
"You're a mess," the man said, walking into the room. He looked at the bloody scrape on Will's cheek. "And for what? A tantrum because your friend went home without you?"
Will shook his head, tears welling up again. "No," he whispered.
"Look at you," Uncle Rudy said, gesturing with his cup at Will's hands, which were fluttering in his lap. "Can't even keep them still. No wonder the boy ran off. You're odd, William. You've always been odd."
The words were like stones. They hurt more than his ankle, more than his cheek.
"Now sit still and be quiet. Your mother has enough to worry about without you adding to it."
Will buried his face in his knees. He could hear Mummy coming back down the hall. He could hear Daddy and Mycroft calling for Victor as they left the house.
Mummy came back with the white metal box. It smelled of antiseptic and cotton. The smell made the buzzing in Will's head roar.
"Stay still, my love," she said, her voice soft and wobbly. She dabbed a wet cloth on his cheek. It stung. Will flinched, a small sound escaping his throat.
"I know, I know," she murmured. "It's just some antiseptic. It will stop it from getting infected."
He wanted to tell her that wasn't the problem. The problem was the smell, and the light, and the way Uncle Rudy's words were still echoing in his ears. You're odd, William.
She cleaned the scrapes on his hands and knees. They stung, too. Then she started to wrap his ankle. It was swollen and purple, and it hurt when she touched it. He didn't cry. He just bit his lip and tried to float away, to a place where none of this was happening.
"They'll find him," Mummy said, as if she could hear his thoughts. "Daddy and Mycroft are very clever. They'll find Victor."
But Will knew they wouldn't. They were looking in the clearing. They were looking for a boy who got lost. They weren't looking for what Eurus had done.
They never looked for what Eurus had done.
The front door opened and closed. Heavy footsteps in the hall. It was Daddy. Will's heart gave a painful lurch.
"Anything?" Mummy asked, her voice tight.
"Nothing," Daddy said. His voice was flat and tired. "No sign of him. His mother says he never came home."
Mummy made a small, hurt sound. "Oh, that poor woman."
Will squeezed his eyes shut. He could see Victor's face, the way he laughed, his excitement. He could see the shoes in the empty meadow. The image was burned into the back of his eyes.
Just then, the telephone in the hall rang, its shrill jangle cutting through the quiet. It was a sound that always meant trouble. Will flinched hard. Mummy and Daddy both froze.
"I'll get it," Daddy said, his voice heavy.
He left the bathroom. Will could hear his low voice talking, but couldn't make out the words. It felt like a long time. When Daddy came back, his face was pale and grim.
"That was Victor's father," he said, looking at Mummy. "The police are involved now. They're sending an officer over. They want to speak to William. He was the last one to see him."
"He's just a boy," Mummy whispered, looking at Will with wide, frightened eyes. "He's hurt and confused. He can't possibly talk to the police. Look at the state of him!"
Mycroft appeared in the doorway, his expression as serious as could be for a thirteen year old. "Mummy’s right. His account will be unreliable. He's already constructed a narrative involving Eurus that is demonstrably false."
Will stared at them. They were talking about him like he was a broken toy, something that didn't work right. He wasn't a person. He was a problem. He tried to open his mouth to say that he wasn't lying, that he just needed them to listen, but his throat felt thick and closed.
"I'll handle it," Uncle Rudy said, walking into the bathroom with his usual stern expression. "I'll speak to the officer. I'll explain that the boy is... delicate. Prone to fits of imagination. We can't have him upsetting the Trevor family with wild stories."
Will felt a cold dread creep up his spine. He wasn't going to be allowed to talk. The one person who knew what happened, and they were going to silence him. They were going to lock his truth away.
"No," he whispered, but no one heard him.
"It's for the best, William," Daddy said, his voice gentle but firm. "You've been through a terrible shock. You need to rest."
Something inside Will broke. It was a clean, sharp break, like the snapped branch that had whipped his face. The memory of Victor's face, the sound of his name being called, the scary song in the woods - it was all a sharp, hot thing that hurt too much to hold. So his clever brain, the brain that everyone said was so special, decided enough was enough.
Will stood up, his ankle screaming in protest. "I'm tired," he said, his voice flat and empty. "I want to go to bed."
He didn't wait for them. He hobbled out of the bathroom and down the hall to his room. He didn't look back. He closed the door and climbed into bed, pulling the covers over his head.
It was dark under the blanket. It was quiet. The buzzing was still there, but it was farther away now. He lay in the dark, and his brain started to work. It was a good brain. A clever brain - and it knew that the truth was too painful to keep. The truth was a sharp, hot thing that hurt too much.
Will’s clever brain started to change it.
It was easier not to think about Victor's face, or the sound of his name being called, or the scary song in the woods. Victor had been Will's friend, and Will would miss him terribly, but that was okay, because William was going away too. It was easier to think about something else. Something softer. Something warmer.
A dog. Will had always wanted a dog.
A big, friendly dog with red fur. A dog who loved him. A dog who was his best friend.
They had called him Redbeard.
Redbeard wasn't gone forever. He wasn't lost in a scary way. He was just... old. He was sick. And Daddy had taken him to the vet, and he had gone to sleep, and he wasn't coming back. It was sad. But it was a normal sad. It was a sad that made sense. It wasn't a scary sad that no one would believe.
Will had never had a dog, but Sherlock had. He could almost feel Redbeard's fur now, soft and warm under his hand. He could almost hear his happy bark. It was a nice thought. It was a safe thought. Sherlock curled up around it, holding it tight.
The buzzing in his head stopped. The pain in his cheek and his ankle faded away. The scary song was gone. There was just him, and the memory of his dog, and the quiet, dark space under the blanket.
***
The house felt different after that. It was quieter, but not a good quiet. It was a heavy, waiting quiet. Mummy and Daddy moved around like ghosts, their faces pale. They spoke in whispers, especially when they thought he was listening. Sherlock stayed in his room a lot. It was safer there. Redbeard was there with him, a warm, comforting presence in his memory. He didn't have to think about the other thing, the big, empty space where something else used to be.
Eurus was different, too. She didn't seek him out anymore. She didn't sing her strange songs. She just watched him. He could feel her eyes on him sometimes, from across the room or through the crack in his door. It was a flat, cold feeling, like a snake watching a mouse.
One evening, a week after Redbeard was gone, the smell of smoke woke him up. It wasn't the good smell of a fireplace or the sharp smell of Mummy's toast burning. It was a thick, acrid smell that made his nose burn and his eyes water. The buzzing in his head came back, loud and insistent.
He sat up in bed. The air was hazy. He could see a strange, flickering orange light coming from under his door.
He got out of bed and went to the door. He put his hand on the wood. It was hot. He pulled it back with a little gasp. He tried the handle. It was locked. It never locked. He jiggled it again, harder. It wouldn't budge.
Panic, cold and sharp, shot through him. He was trapped.
He started to cough, a dry, hacking cough that hurt his chest. The smoke was getting thicker, seeping under the door. He ran to his window and looked out.
Down below, the world was chaos. Red lights flashed, painting the lawn in bloody streaks. Men in strange helmets were running around. He could see Mummy and Daddy, their faces distorted by terror as they screamed his name. A big firefighter was holding Daddy back, stopping him from running toward the house.
"WILLIAM!" Mummy's voice, a thin, desperate shriek that cut through everything.
He hammered on the window. "Mummy! Daddy! The door won’t open!”
Suddenly, Mycroft moved. He didn't run for the front. He bolted around the firefighters, around the side of the house, toward the back garden. A moment later, Sherlock saw him on the trellis, scrambling up the ivy like a frantic cat. He was coming for him.
"Hold on, Will!" Mycroft's voice, strained and tight, somehow reached him. "I'm coming!"
Sherlock pressed his face against the window screen, coughing and crying, his whole world reduced to the sight of his brother climbing toward him. Mycroft reached the window ledge, his face smudged with soot, his eyes wide with a fear Sherlock had never seen.
"Stand back," Mycroft grunted, fumbling with his handkerchief, wrapping it around his hand. He smashed the center of the window, then knocked the edges out. He reached in and grabbed Sherlock, pulling him through the opening and onto the narrow ledge. The trellis was smouldering, flames licking up from below.
"Hold on to me," Mycroft commanded, his voice tight with fear, pulling Sherlock onto his back
Sherlock clung to him, his whole body shaking. Mycroft shimmied along the ledge to the corner of the house, where the roof of the kitchen extension was lower. He lowered Sherlock down onto the kitchen roof, then dropped down beside him, landing with a grunt. As he fell, a shower of sparks from the eaves above rained down onto his side, and he cried out, a sharp, pained sound, flames dancing on the edge is his shirt. Sherlock surged forward, batting at the flames with his bare hands, but then Mycroft rolled, and they all went out. Then he was up, grabbing Sherlock's hand.
They ran across the kitchen roof and jumped down into the rose bushes. Thorns scratched at Sherlock's arms and legs, but he didn't care. They were out. They stumbled onto the lawn, into the chaos. Mummy and Daddy broke free from the firefighters and ran to them, gathering them both into a frantic, sobbing hug. But the hug didn't last.
Uncle Rudy was there. He wasn't crying. He wasn't looking at the house. He was looking at Eurus, who was standing a few feet away, perfectly calm, untouched by the soot or the tears. His face wasn't just angry. It was white with a kind of sick, horrified fear.
"You," he breathed, pointing a shaking finger at her. "You."
Mummy looked at him, confused. "Rudy, what is it? Thank God you got them out."
"She told me Will was with you, outside. And she asked me," Uncle Rudy’s voice broke for a moment as he composed himself. "Yesterday. In the library. She asked me what would make a fire burn fastest. I thought... I thought it was just curiosity. A genius's curiosity. I told her."
He looked from Eurus to the burning house and back again, his eyes wide with dawning, sickening realization.
"Oh, God," he whispered. "I told her."
Mummy and Daddy stared at him, then at Eurus, their faces shifting from relief to a dawning, incomprehensible horror. Eurus just stood there, her expression unreadable, as if she were watching a play that didn't involve her at all.
The police came. They asked questions. They looked at the locked door. They listened to Uncle Rudy's frantic, fearful explanation. Sherlock hid behind Mycroft, watching the adults talk in loud, urgent whispers. He didn't understand all the words, but he understood the tone. It was the tone they used when he had done something very, very wrong. But this time, it wasn't him.
And then, they took Eurus away, and Uncle Rudy went with them, his face grim, talking urgently into his phone. He didn't say goodbye.
***
They stayed in a hotel. The house was gone. Redbeard was gone. Eurus was gone. Uncle Rudy was gone. No one talked about them. It was like they had never been there at all.
Mycroft was treated for the burns down his side. Something about limited mobility, physiotherapy, might be better to shoot for a desk job…
Sherlock's brain finished its work. The big, empty space where something else used to be was filled in completely. Sherlock didn’t answer when his family called out the name “William”, or “Will”, because why would he? It was all very confusing. He leaned away from hugs, from fleeting touches, encircling arms - mindful of pressure points, and joints that could be bent and injured without breaking.
Mummy cried sometimes, but he didn’t know why. He wasn’t very good with emotion, or sentiment. Daddy was there to cuddle Mummy anyway.
Sherlock didn’t need cuddles.
***
Weeks later, Sherlock was supposed to be asleep. He was in the guest room at Uncle Rudy's house, the room with the dark blue curtains. But he wasn't asleep. He was awake, listening. The house was quiet, but he could hear voices from downstairs. Mummy and Daddy. And Uncle Rudy, who had finally come back. They were shouting.
He crept out of bed and onto the floor, pressing his ear against the cool wood. He could hear the words now, through the buzzing in his head.
"...another fire..." Uncle Rudy was saying, his voice raw and broken. "She set another fire. At the institution."
There was a sound from Mummy, a horrible, wounded animal sound.
"Is she...?" Daddy started, his voice cracking.
"Eurus is gone," Uncle Rudy said. "She didn't make it out."
Sherlock lay on the floor, his cheek pressed against the wood. He was confused. Who were they talking about? Who was gone? He knew everyone who was supposed to be here. Mummy, Daddy, Mycroft, him. Uncle Rudy. That was all of them. He didn't know anyone named Eurus.
He curled up on the floor, pulling his knees to his chest. The shouting downstairs faded into a dull hum. He thought about Redbeard, his warm fur, his happy bark. He thought about chemistry sets and violin music and books full of facts. He thought about all the things he could control, all the things that made sense.
Caring was a vulnerability. Love was a weakness. Feelings were a liability. The only thing that mattered was the cold, hard truth. And the truth was, it was better to be alone.
It was better to feel nothing at all.