March 14th, 1941: Sherlock had to admit, he had never felt more distraught in his entire life. Once Victor's car had disappeared through the dust, it finally hit him that he hadn't even told Victor how much he loved him, he never told him a proper goodbye, he never told him to be safe to get his butt back as soon as possible. But he hadn't, and now, at two o'clock in the morning with no friend, no lover, and no self-esteem, Sherlock decided that he had finally hit the lowest of low. Rock bottom. The sad thing was though, that Victor wasn't even gone, he was probably in bed, barely sleeping, staring at the ceiling and wondering the same things Sherlock was. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe it wasn't. Sherlock didn't know anything anymore. He was sitting in the back of his closet, where no one would find him should they walk in, and no one would hear him crying softly to himself, wringing his hands together and pretending like it was Victor's hand that was clasped in his hand. Pretending like Victor was next to him, when there was no one there. It felt like he had a hole in his chest, a gaping hole that couldn't be filled by anything except Victor's presence, but he had already convinced himself that it was never going to close. It was almost as if Victor had already died, when he was still only down the road. Sherlock wasn't sure if anyone on this world had ever felt such a gaping pain, such a pain that wouldn't go away no matter how many times you tell yourself it will, no matter how many times you force yourself to wipe away the tears, to pick your head up and smile. There was no one to talk to, there was nothing to do, and if he started crying in public, his father would probably smack him in the head with another beer bottle. That would possibly hurt less. Wait, that's it! Sherlock knew someone who went through pain every day, he knew someone who had hit rock bottom almost as hard as he had, he knew someone who had dealt with loss and defeat every day. And he was asleep in the room down the hall. Could the alcohol possibly help? Would it fill Sherlock with a solution, a temporary filler in the hole that Victor had dug? Sherlock groaned softly, he was being stupid; would he honestly fall to his father's level? Touch that poison and possibly turn into an alcoholic just as his father had done? Just one, just one to help, to help him sleep for a little bit, to take his mind of Victor, to convince himself that everything would be alright. If it worked for his father, it had to work for him. It just had to. Sherlock jumped up off the floor, wiping his tears and tip toeing down the hallway where he knew his family was sleeping. But they were fast asleep, not a worry on their minds, not a care in their hearts, still whole. Sherlock made it downstairs, where no lights were on, but the moonlight coming in through the windows was enough to help him navigate to the familiar furniture patterns around the room. He opened the fridge, where there was a six pack of beer right in front of him, and he grabbed a bottle, feeling like he had just taken the devil's apple, a snake whispering encouragement into his ear. But before he could change his mind he closed the fridge and ran upstairs with as much grace and silence as he could muster, closing his door and sinking back to the floor in his closet, staring at the bottle, which still had condensation running down his fingertips. Would this one moment change him into a monster, as it had his father? Was Mr. Holmes' first taste of this drug around the same age as Sherlock was? Was he going to sacrifice his future to help this temporary pain? This obsessive teenage love that wouldn't have worked out anyway? Would he? Yes. Sherlock pried the top off of the bottle and held it to his lips, taking a deep breath before taking a large swig. It filled him with warmth, almost like the warmth Victor had provided, but as soon as the beer touched his tongue he spit it out in disgust, throwing the bottle into the corner where it was dumping its contents all over the hard wood floor. Sherlock spat some more, the foul taste still on his tongue, feeling as he was going to throw up. It didn't taste like relief, it didn't taste like happiness, it tasted like his father's breath as he screamed at his family, it tasted like the beer that had been cracked over his own head when his father didn't have his way, it tasted like the very taste that had taken his father and corrupted him into the monster he was. And Sherlock was not going to turn into a monster, no matter how much pain he was in, no matter how much his heart ached, he was going to stay human, he was going to stay sober, and he was going to wait for Victor to come back. Because that bloody solider was coming back, and Sherlock would march over to Germany himself and punch Hitler in his pathetic little mustache to make sure. So Sherlock sat far in the back, the only sound was the beer splashing quietly out of the bottle and a fresh wave of tears plopping onto his jacket.                 

     In the morning Sherlock mopped up the spill with some of his older clothes, hiding the beer bottle under some rags and went to the bathroom to clean up his face and hair. His skin was red and blotchy and you could see the path the tears carved into his skin, but after a quick wash and comb he looked relatively normal, if not a bit sleep deprived. So Sherlock walked slowly down to the kitchen, his feet scuffing against the plastic tile as he went to perch on a stool.
"Good morning Sherlock." Mrs. Holmes said almost sympathetically.
"Good morning." Sherlock lied. It was a terrible morning, the worst morning he's ever had.
"How are you?" she asked.
"I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" he asked defensively.
"Because Victor left last night." She pointed out. Sherlock sighed in defeat, hanging his head and studying the squiggles on the counter.
"I'm fine." He lied again. Obviously Mrs. Holmes didn't believe a word, but she continued with making whatever she was making and left Sherlock to mourn on his own.
"I'm making cinnamon rolls; your favorite if I remember correctly." Mrs. Holmes announced.
"I'm not hungry, don't bother." Sherlock sighed.
"No, I'm making them, and you're going to eat one, and enjoy it, because I don't want you moping around and making everyone sad." She insisted.
"You're not sad?" Sherlock asked.
"I am, of course I am, and I know he was your best friend, but honestly Sherlock, you're treating him like he's already dead. What is it with this boy that makes you so upset?" she asked.
"It's not him that makes me upset, it's his absence." Sherlock insisted.
"You knew him for less than a year; you're acting like someone in love." Mrs. Holmes pointed out.
"I don't...I'm not in love, he's my only friend, and he made me realize what companion ship actually made someone feel. He made me feel special." Sherlock admitted.
"You are special, and you're bound to make other friends." Mrs. Holmes insisted.
"I don't want other friends, I don't want anyone else, I just want Victor!" Sherlock demanded, and with that he got up off the stool and ran up to his room, wondering why he had ever decided to speak his feelings. Sherlock cowered on the bed, pulling the covers up to his chin and watching for the window, waiting in agony for someone to climb up it, even though he knew Victor never would. Not today. So he just sat there, some tears shed, some curses muttered, and the smell of cinnamon wafting through, as if a desperate call for him to take care of himself, to pretend to be happy. But he wasn't happy, and it didn't seem like he ever would be again, so he lay in his room and he pounded what might've happened if some things had changed. If he had just watched where he was going on the sidewalk, he wouldn't feel this pain, if he hadn't taken Victor on a walk in the fields; he might not feel this pain, even if he hadn't started crying in the car, he just might not feel this pain. But he didn't look where he was going, and he had taken a walk with Victor, and he had started to cry, and he did feel this pain.
"Sherlock dear, come on downstairs." Mrs. Holmes insisted, poking her head through the door. Sherlock quickly wiped away his tears, looking at his mother with annoyance.
"I don't want to come downstairs, can't you see I'm sulking?" he snapped, burying deeper into his blankets.
"I don't care, you're coming downstairs, and you're eating a cinnamon roll, and you're going to like it!" she insisted. Sherlock growled, but he knew when he was beaten. So, very slowly and very dramatically, he rolled out of his bed and got to his feet.
"My god Sherlock, you look like you've died." Mrs. Holmes muttered.
"I have." Sherlock snapped, and with that he pushed past his mother and stormed down the stairs. When he got there both his father and grandmother were sitting at the table, enjoying the cinnamon rolls the best they could, and staring at Sherlock as he entered.
"You look happy." Mr. Holmes observed, but he said no more. Maybe Victor's warning had sunken in finally.
"I'm not." Sherlock insisted, sitting at the table and grabbing one of the steaming cinnamon rolls from the plate. He had to admit, if he wasn't suffering heart break, he would've devoured it, instead he simply stared at the gooey icing and dripping butter and was disgusted.
"I told you, I'm not hungry." Sherlock insisted.
"Well that's too bad son." Mr. Holmes decided, grabbing the roll off of Sherlock's plate and eating it himself. Sherlock sighed, not hungry enough to eat it but certainly willing to argue over the unfairness of it all. That bloody man was more of a tyrant than Hitler.
"That wasn't very nice." Grandma Holmes insisted as she peeled part of his cinnamon roll so that her dentures could break it down.
"Manners really aren't on my to do list right now." Mr. Holmes insisted. Sherlock just scowled, staring at his empty plate and wishing Victor was here to defend him in some way. In any way, really, or just to hold his hand, and tell him everything was alright.
"Oh dear." Mrs. Holmes exclaimed as she tried to throw out a baking sheet and the trash overflowed onto the floor.
"What the h*ll was that about?" Mr. Holmes snapped, extending what little neck he had to look at the mess.
"I'm guessing no one changed the trash in a while." Mrs. Holmes guessed.
"You'd guess correctly." Sherlock sighed.
"Sherlock, clean it up." Mr. Holmes ordered.
"Why me? The trash is your responsibility, considering you're family." Sherlock insisted.
"And for that you're going to take it out back." Mr. Holmes decided, taking Sherlock's insult a little bit too calmly for comfort. As if he knew that there was a family or rabid possums living in the backyard, and he couldn't wait to see Sherlock get mauled by them.
"Do as your father says." Mrs. Holmes insisted, placing the baking sheet lightly on top of the overflowing trash can and considering that a sufficient way to get rid of it. Sherlock groaned, pushing out his seat loudly and throwing as much as the garbage into the trash bag as he could and then dragging it out back to where the trash cans were on the other side of the yard. Sherlock groaned, it was freezing out and he was still wearing his clothes from yesterday. Thankfully no one had commented on his poor choice of attire. He dragged the bag into the bin, just about to walk back inside when he saw a figure walking down the road towards the house. He tried to tell himself that it was just a jogger, possibly someone just trying to escape the ruined town, maybe even a hallucination formed by grief. But no, as the shape got closer it was a man, a young man in an army uniform. It was Victor. Sherlock ran out to meet him, and as soon as Victor saw him, he ran as well. It was like some sappy love movie reunion, although, they were now in the middle of Sherlock's front yard, and any one of his family could look out the window. But right now, the only thing Sherlock cared about was that it was, indeed, Victor. Resurrected one my say. As soon as they got in range, Sherlock threw himself onto the soldier, hugging him with as much strength as he had, Victor doing the same, both terribly out of breath but so in love that it didn't matter, the closer they could get the better.
"Victor, I thought you'd left, I thought I'd lost you." Sherlock insisted, pressing his head into Victor's warm chest, hearing his heart beat quickly.
"I couldn't leave; I couldn't sit there and wait to leave you." Victor insisted.
"But my father said that you weren't to come inside anymore." Sherlock pointed out.
"We don't have to, come on." Victor insisted, taking Sherlock's hand and pulling him to the side of the house, where they were concealed enough so that no one could see them from the road, and far enough from any windows so that Sherlock's family couldn't see him from the inside. They embraced again, Victor was practically lifting Sherlock off of his feet with such a hug, but Sherlock didn't care. He was so relieved, so happy to see Victor, to smell his familiar aroma, to feel his warmth once more, that he didn't care what happened.
"I never got to say goodbye, I realized that last night." Sherlock insisted.
"It's alright, I'm here, I'm here." Victor assured, talking gently but in deep breaths, as if talking to Sherlock was more important than breathing at the moment.
"I love you so much Victor, so much." Sherlock admitted, trying to let the feeling of Victor's arms around him melt into his skin, so that when the soldier wasn't around, Sherlock could remember what it felt like...
"I love you too Sherlock, I couldn't sleep all last night, I couldn't live with myself knowing that you were alone..." Victor muttered.
"I'm not anymore." Sherlock insisted.
"Not anymore." Victor agreed. He pulled Sherlock's face up to his, kissing Sherlock's lips just as he should, it was the final kiss, and it should mean something. Sherlock was already breathless, but as he kissed Victor for what they both knew was the final time, he felt like someone had ripped his lungs out for good. But for some reason he didn't care how much of him was ripped off, he didn't care that they were endangering their entire lively hoods, he didn't care. He just had to be close to Victor, he had to run his fingers through Victor's gorgeous brown hair, to feel his breath, to taste his lips; he had to remember the feeling of Victor's kiss for the rest of his life. He was so in love with this boy, nothing seemed to matter anymore, the only thing he knew was that he and Victor were kissing; it felt like the entire world had just stopped. But it hadn't, and Sherlock realized that as soon as there was an enraged scream, almost like a war cry, and his father came charging at them.
"Victor, run, RUN!" Sherlock screamed, pushing Victor off of him and trying to let the boy run for his life. But with Mr. Holmes' rage, he was able to catch Victor just as he tried to dart off towards the fields, grabbing the boy by the middle and throwing him into a wheel barrel that was lying face down in the yard.
"No, get off him, leave him alone!" Sherlock screamed, diving at his father and managing to tackle him to the ground. "Victor run!" Sherlock repeated.
"No, not without you!" Victor insisted as Sherlock struggled to keep his enraged father pinned.
"Go!" Sherlock insisted, and Victor nodded, taking off into the fields.
"HOW DARE YOU GO AGAINST MY WORD, HOW DARE YOU!" Mr. Holmes yelled, and with that he kicked Sherlock in the stomach, pushing him off of and sprinting after Victor, who had a good head start. Sherlock panicked, he didn't know what to do, obviously Mr. Holmes was going to kill Victor, obviously he would have no remorse as he tore his head off, what could Sherlock do? He looked around, finding no tool, nothing to use as a weapon, but decided that didn't matter. He wasn't going to let Victor die; he wasn't going to let his scum bag of a father take everything he loved away from him. He was going to fight back, to stand up for himself, once and for all. And with that, Sherlock ripped off his jacket and ran off into the fields, through the trees, dodging branches and fallen apples, tearing through the landscape like only a man in love could.
"I'M GOING TO FIND YOU, SCUM, AND WHEN I DO, I'M GOING TO PEEL YOUR SKIN FROM YOUR BONES!" Mr. Holmes screamed from up ahead, and Sherlock only accelerated more.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Sherlock warned. He could hear someone crashing through the trees just ahead, whether it be Victor or his father, he had no way of knowing, but either one would do. He would stop his father, kill him if he must, or he would defend Victor. Either way, his father was going down.
"SHERLOCK WHERE ARE YOU?" Victor screamed from farther ahead, and Sherlock knew that the oaf crashing through the trees above him had to be his father. So he put all of his speed into his legs, every ounce of rage, and love, and fear that he had, and he barreled into the figure that was his father, once more smacking the fat lard to the ground.
"What do you think you're doing?" Mr. Holmes growled, picking Sherlock up from the shoulder and tossing him effortlessly into a tree. Sherlock groaned, quickly getting to his feet and seeing his father do the same.
"You can't hurt him, I love him!" Sherlock insisted.
"Then I won't hurt him, I'll kill him!" Mr. Holmes growled. Sherlock charged once more, trying to punch his father in the face, but the man ducked and kneed Sherlock painfully in the chest, sending the boy sprawling into the ground once more.
"You're going to get in my way, are you boy? You're going to play that HERO?" he screamed.
"WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE WHO I WANT TO LOVE?" Sherlock screamed back, once more pulling himself to his feet, his chest throbbing and his entire body aching. He felt the need to regain his breath, to lie on the ground and just gasp, but he knew he couldn't, he couldn't let his father go anywhere.
"Because this is mutiny! It's an atrocity, if I had known you'd grow up to be a bloody homosexual then I would've starved you in the basement!" Mr. Holmes insisted.
"I LOVE HIM, IS THAT NOT ENOUGH!? JUST LET HIM LIVE!" Sherlock yelled.
"HE'S TWISTING YOU, YOU BLIND SON OF A B***H, HE'S TAKING ADVANTAGE OF YOUR ABSOLUTE STUPIDIDTY!" Mr. Holmes yelled.
"If you want to hurt Victor, if you want to kill him, then fine. But you have to go through me first; you have to kill your own son. Because I am not going to let you hurt him father, this is where I draw the line." Sherlock warned, wiping a trail of blood from his nose and standing in the middle of the path.
"I don't have a son, not anymore!" Mr. Holmes insisted, grabbing a discarded rusty pitch fork from a patch of weeds. "Last chance Sherlock, because I will get that boy's head on a spike, mark my words."
"I'll die for him, I'll die for him." Sherlock muttered.
"Then have it your way!" Mr. Holmes yelled, driving the pitchfork forward and impaling it into Sherlock's chest. The boy swayed a little bit, feeling the iron dig through his rib cage, stumbling on his own feet and staring at his father, choking on blood. And finally, with one final gag, he fell over, slumping onto his knees and falling onto the ground. The blood soaked out, the shade of the apples; the color of Sherlock's face whenever Victor paid him a complement, soaking into the ground and surrounding Sherlock's mangled body. And Sherlock was left staring at the blood soaked grass, coughing slightly, feeling his life drain away from the three holes in his chest, and saw his father's feet run away into the fields. The pain was unbearable, but he knew that he had given Victor enough time, he had saved him, in the end...Victor was alright...