Sherlock

The next morning, when John sat down, he handed Sherlock a pile of comics, all reading the same name. "Here," John said, accompanying the hand off, and then he put on his headphones and listened to something.

Sherlock took them gently, and slid them inside his backpack as if they were a secret. He didn't want to read them in front of the boy. It'd be like he was resigning that he did, in fact, enjoy the books. It would be admitting something.

When Sherlock got home, he jumped on his bed and opened the first comic, desperately turning the pages in an attempt to fall inside them. He loved it. He wasn't amused by the characters, or tolerant of them, he loved them. Sherlock had no way of interacting with them, but he felt their presence all the same.

Sherlock got dinner, which was spaghetti and meatballs, and he ate it all, not bothering to keep the pages clean. An entire glop of tomato sauce landed on some of Rorschach's dialogue, and after wiping most of it off with one finger, Sherlock turned the page and pressed on, adjusting himself so that he was laying on the bed, feet suspended in the air, kicking back and forth.

He left the light on until he felt the rhythmic, heavy stepping of his father, followed by the door opening.

"Go to sleep," Siger growled.

Sherlock breathed deeply in an attempt to make his father believe he was sleeping, eyes still open widely so Sherlock could see what he was about to do.

The light flicked on, and Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. Not fast enough, though. Siger walked to Sherlock and ripped off his covers as he clenched on tightly to John's comic.

"What's this?!" Siger yelled, ripping the book out of Sherlock's hands, and then beginning to flip through the pages. His eyes widened as Sherlock realized he'd found a picture of... No, Sherlock moaned.

"No, father, stop! Don't touch my book-"

"Shut up," Siger roared, tearing out a page, "Look at this. Look at this shit. Is this fun for you? You enjoy this garbage? This is sick." It was a panel of a lady giving someone a hand job.

"No, no, it's part of the plot-"

"What kind of bloody plot is this? You think you can look at pornography and not be punished?"

"No, it wasn't that and I'm sorry really I am-" Sherlock yelled, and there was the sound of a smack that sounded like a thundercloud, and it burst his vision, spots appearing and clouding everything.

Siger ripped it in half as Sherlock nurtured a bruise forming on his cheek. "It wasn't..." Sherlock trailed off.

"Shut up."

Sherlock flopped onto his bed.

"If I ever catch this comic in my house again, I swear to god, I will beat you until you're bleeding."

"I'm already bleeding," Sherlock countered dryly, wiping a streak of dark red blood from the corner of his mouth to his cheek.

"I'll fucking skin you. Understand?"

"I understand," Sherlock whispered, but Siger was already gone.

He opened the shades, so the moonlight was streaming in, casting a silver glow over the bedspread. Then Sherlock removed volume five of Watchmen from the slit in his mattress and continued reading.

John

John gave out comics as quickly as he could, and Sherlock never payed a second glance as he took them in groups of five.

And when Sherlock gave them back, they were pristine - until John opened them up, and then there was melted cheese permanently grafted into the paper, tomato sauce splattered across some dialogue and bread crumbs stuck inside the folds.

"Sorry," Sherlock said, addressing the state of the books.

The thing that caught John's eye was that on volume five, page three of Watchmen, there was two drops of crusty blood on the letters, as if Sherlock had a nose bleed while reading.

"Where's four?"

"Volume four?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. I shredded it on accident."

"Oh. That's rich."

"Yep," Sherlock said, popping the p. Sherlock didn't offer to pay him back, so John didn't need to reassure him that he didn't need to do so.

It was so strange, too, despite all that food in the pages, John wasn't freaked out or scared or angry. John just recognized that he'd been touching his books, reading them, entering that world, and that was bloody great.

Unfortunately, John had slept late, and only had time to shrug on some jeans and a really warm sweater before running out of the house. He didn't even get to brush his teeth; not as if he could afford to buy anything but food. He didn't own a toothbrush, so that wasn't especially bad. Well, it was, but it wasn't especially different. John tried not to direct his face towards Sherlock so he wouldn't catch a drift, but he directed his face anyway. Just to catch a glimpse of those blue, icy eyes. He saw a bruise instead, and his nose, crusted with blood around the edges. John didn't ask.

"Um," he said nervously, before he knew what he was going to talk about.

"Yes, John?" Sherlock answered immediately.

John shifted. "How do you know my - um. Well, you aren't listening to anything, and I have my iPod with me, today. Right now."

"Yes?"

"You should listen to real music."

"Hmm?"

"With me."

"Uh. No, thank you."

"Okay," John said, without any disdain, and then he said, "I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything."

Sherlock slipped his headphones over his ears, thinking, What the hell am I supposed to say to that? So he decided to just not say anything.

When John arrived in English, he tried to catch Sherlock's eye, but he purposely looked away, as if he didn't want to disrupt the serenity of their relationship.

Mr. Lecter was trying to make people talk, but no one felt up to it. Thus, he picked on Sherlock in an attempt to make class interesting; his thoughts on Romeo and Juliet were probably controversial.

"You don't seem troubled by their deaths, Sherlock."

"What?"

"I am implying that you don't seem to be bothered by the irony and tragedy of their love."

"I don't find them to be very smart."

"Do you ever?"

"Touché. All people who fall in love are lusting idiots driven by their libido and their irrational stupidity."

No one laughed except for Mr. Lecter; probably because most of them didn't know what libido meant.

"So you think all love is just an urge? What about brotherly love? Fatherly love? Motherly love?" Sherlock seemed jerked awake by those words, spitting out an answer suddenly and angrily.

"Those who believe that the true purpose of their lives is to love and to be loved are lacking in intelligence and they have no proof to support that claim. Those who fall for others are doing exactly what the phrase says they are doing: falling, and I, for one, am not amused by this ignorant novel by a man who found the need to imply that love was to be achieved by undying dedication. Dedication is never truly dedication; people just want to get something out of it, and this was merely selfishness on their part and nothing more," Sherlock spat, "so ask someone who cares."

The whole class seemed to be roused out of their sleepiness, and when Mr. Lecter asked the next question, the entire class raised a hand, except for John.

"Mr. Watson!" he called.

Shit, "Um."

"Are you troubled by their deaths?"

John shared a passive glance with Sherlock before stuttering, "Um, n-no."

Sherlock rolled his eyes dismissively before slumping onto his desk.

When John got on the bus, Sherlock seemed to be waiting for him, and he surprised John by speaking, firmly.

"I want to listen."

"To... what?" John said in confusion, taking out his iPod and plugging in his shitty headphones.

"To your music," Sherlock confirmed, "Looking outside is sort of boring."

"You're awfully indecisive."

"I'm incredibly so."

"Okay."

"Well?"

"Okay." John handed him an earbud, and turned on U2.

John's stop came much too quickly, and that night, while John was doing homework, he loaded a CD with The Smiths and The Beatles and The Kooks. He stuffed it into his backpack, along with five copies of Thor before going to bed.

Sherlock

Sherlock slid onto his queen sized mattress, taking out a copy of X-Men. He read it until he fell asleep at five thirty.

When he woke up, he heard screaming, and it was not until Mycroft rushed inside his room that Sherlock realized the screaming was coming from him.

Mycroft hugged him gently as he quivered, sobs heaving through his bones. "It's quite alright, Sherlock, it's quite alright," Mycroft said, brushing sweaty curls to the side of Sherlock's head, panting.

Sherlock felt his entire body shake as he replayed his all-too-vivid dream in his mind over and over, and he spasmed slightly as he hallucinated his father's hand coming down upon him. He was always paralyzed, strapped down to a bed with invisible shackles, screaming at the top of his lungs for someone to save him. He needed someone. Anyone.

"Promise me he won't wake up, Mycroft, promise me," Sherlock sobbed, "please, please, promise," and Sherlock curled into Mycroft, begging for him to just keep this one vow.

Mycroft quieted him softly, "Hush, brother dear," and slowly, he lay Sherlock back in bed as he shivered, eyes drawn with sleepiness, but not wanting to sleep.

"Mycroft..." Sherlock whispered, "Mycroft, I'm..."

"Hush, brother. Shhhh," Mycroft placated before kissing Sherlock's forehead slightly and beginning to tell him a story, as he did many a time as a child. "Once upon a time," Mycroft started, "there was a lonely East Wind, that swallowed all and everything in its path in an attempt to find a friend..."

John

John woke up to the sound of yelling, overlaying the noise of a woman crying hysterically. His mum.

He heard Harry move, and saw her head sag down as he opened his eyes to see her hanging from the top bunk, eyes wet with tears. She jumped lightly out of bed, smelling faintly of lavender, and that comforted John. He stood up and hugged her, despite her tremendous height advantage, letting her tears fall onto his shoulder.

"I hate 'im," she whispered quietly.

"I hate him too," John said back.

Their mum shrieked loudly, and John resisted the urge to pee himself as they both jumped. At any other time, John would've broke down the door or at least called 999, but right now, it seemed childish and stupid because nothing ever changed.

John crawled onto the floor with Harry and they fell asleep, again, with no one except each other.

He woke up four hours later. A horrible thought consumed John's mind, as he didn't remember falling asleep or remembering when the screaming stopped. He slowly untwisted himself from Harry's grasp, letting her fall gently to the floor before grabbing a pocket knife from under his bed and sneaking out of his room. He crept through the hall, listening for the telltale sound of Pickard's snoring. It wasn't there. John's heart seized. That fuck, that fuck, that fuck.

He almost was ready to call out his mum's name, but then he heard the sizzle of bacon and oil. The pocket knife slipped into his pant leg as he walked into the tiny kitchen. Pickard was there, chomping on some bread, drinking some beer, yelling loudly. "Ay, Emma," his words came out flecked with spit, burning dangerously. "Where's the bacon?"

"It's not ready yet, honey."

"Whaddya fuckin' mean it ain't ready, I told you to make it an hour ago."

"Please, just... just wait, baby."

"What?"

John stepped out, and growled menacingly at Pickard. "She said that it isn't ready, so it isn't ready."

He opened his mouth to retort, but then thought better of it. John couldn't not notice the bruise on her face or the hickey on her collarbone. That demonic, evil pestilence.

"I'm going to school," John announced loudly, picking up his backpack and leaving. He didn't even realize that he was wearing the same clothes as the day before as he arrived at the bus stop, waiting for at least an hour before it picked him up.

A/N: I want John 2 b happeh wif surelawhk iz that 2 mach 2 ax