Work Text:
Mycroft teaches him to conceptualize his moods as colors when he is four. “What color is today?” he asks Sherlock, usually when they’re cleaning their teeth side-by-side at the mirror before bedtime.
“Yellow,” he answers, the day he spends at the beach studying crabs and searching for a treasure that Mycroft buries for him to hunt using a coded map. “Gray,” when Harry Plinkett and his mum come over and Harry knocks him down three times. “Blue,” the day they find the turtles in the pond. “White,” when they go to the museum and see the bones of all the birds Sherlock has seen in his field guide at home.
For three days in a row Sherlock’s answer is “black” and Mycroft at last goes and tells Mummy and Father.
“I think there’s something wrong with Sherlock,” he says. But Mycroft is just a boy, for all he’s the smartest person in the world and about to go away to school, and their parents find it easy not to listen.
After Mycroft leaves, things are mostly black every day, and sometimes gray. Sherlock plays alone in his room and wishes there was someone there with him, and he plays outside with the neighbor boy and wishes he was alone. He cries sometimes, because everything is just so awful, and Mummy comes to hug and coo at him; but that doesn’t make it better. It just makes him feel prickly and ashamed, like he’s being stared at by everyone in the world.
“Quit coddling him,” Father tells her, and Mummy frowns, but she lets him go when he squirms and fights her hugs. He runs away and paints a picture of himself and Mummy and Father and Mycroft, but when it’s done it’s so wrong and stupid that he hates it immediately. He paints it over black and he dumps all the paints on the rug and breaks the brushes, he hates it so much. While he’s ruining things he almost feels all right, but after Father spanks him and he’s alone again everything is still black and he doesn’t know where the colors went or how to make them come back to stay.
-+-+-+-
He listens to his parents argue, because Mother says eavesdropping is naughty but Mycroft says it’s the only way you ever learn anything. Sherlock knows that’s true because people always send him out of the room whenever they’re going to talk about something important.
“There’s nothing wrong with his mind,” Father says angrily. “He’s not feeble-minded or insane, I won’t have stigma attached to him because he goes to a, a specialist.” A specialist who works with the feeble-minded or insane is called a psychologist, but maybe Father doesn’t know the right term. Sherlock likes to know all the right terms for things, and to say them. It makes things more orderly.
“Maybe not with his mind, but something’s wrong! He’s so unhappy all the time, I can’t bear to watch it. I was talking to his teacher the other day- he spends all his free time reading, he still has no friends- do you know he got into a fight last week? A fight! He and another boy were just talking, and Sherlock hit him.”
The others at school were all so unbearably stupid, Sherlock can hardly stand to be near them. Sometimes he’ll be talking to them, listening to the foolish, ignorant things they say, and rage wells up in him like a black tide. That’s still better than the times he just bursts into tears like a baby because his pencil lead broke or the teacher told him he was wrong. He isn’t a baby, he knows it’s stupid to get upset over something so trivial, but it keeps happening.
“The only problem Sherlock has is a discipline problem,” Father says. “You see he’s always worse after Mycroft visits- he just wants attention.”
“Siger Aethelred Holmes,” Mummy says. Sherlock leans slightly forward- the arguments are always extra interesting after Mummy uses Father’s full name. “I can tell when there is something wrong with my son. I have tried it your way, and it hasn’t worked, and if you try to stop me from taking him to a psychologist-”
“Specialist, Violet, for God’s sake-”
“I will take him and I will leave this house, you watch and see if I don’t.” Mummy’s voice sounds oddly strained, even though she’s not yelling, hasn’t raised her voice at all. It’s very odd.
-+-+-+-
The psychologist, it turns out, is about at the same intellectual level of Sherlock’s peers. He tells Sherlock that people are primarily unhappy because they want to be, and that if he makes more of an effort to fit in he’ll have loads of friends in no time. It’s almost a shame that Father refuses to meet with him; they have so much in common, Sherlock is sure they’d get along.
-+-+-+-
“We’d like to try something different, Mrs. Holmes,” the doctor says. “I think it may be time to consider medication.”
“I don’t like the idea of giving Sherlock a sedative every day,” Mummy says. Her confident firmness is belied by the way the fingers of her right hand tick off the gold chains in her bracelet one by one. Sherlock watches her over the top of the book he’s holding. “We agreed years ago that medication was a bad idea. There are so many side effects, and the specialist said it could damage his heart.”
Years on, she still calls the psychologist “the specialist,” as if either Sherlock or the doctor are too stupid to know what she’s hiding behind the euphemism. It’s one of the more distasteful habits she’s picked up from Father.
The doctor glances at Sherlock, but he can’t be bothered to pretend he’s not listening; it’s a book for babies, even if he did feel like reading. “This is something new- not a sedative, and it doesn’t have any cardiovascular risks. It’s called Prozac. They’ve been getting very good results with it in America for a couple years now, and it’s safe for children. There are virtually no side effects.”
“Bollocks,” Sherlock says. He knows the look the doctor gives him, it means why is this child involving himself in my conversation, and he’s seen it from teachers and doctors and police detectives, even when it’s obvious he knows more about what they’re talking about than they do. Even when the conversation is about him.
His mother makes a moue of distaste. “Really, Sherlock, language,” she says.
“The side effects are almost negligible,” the doctor says snidely, refusing to look at Sherlock. “Very occasionally sleep is affected, or there’s a bit of stomach upset. The most common side effects relate to- well.” The doctor is flushing a bit, avoiding eye contact with Mummy as well as Sherlock now. He stammers, “To the, er, libido.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. He’s twelve, for God’s sake. He knows what sex is.
Mummy sees him. “Sherlock, let’s not be difficult,” she says. “It sounds worth trying, doesn’t it?”
The doctor is already writing out the script, obviously eager to have them out of the office. “Just one pill a day. It will take a few weeks to start working, mind, but you’ll feel one hundred percent better. I guarantee it.”
-+-+-+-
He does not feel one hundred percent better. He feels nauseous half the time, although without a proper control it’s hard to be sure if that’s really the fluoxetine or just the power of suggestion. What he is sure of is the worsening of his inattention. Now instead of merely being unable to focus on a project for more than five minutes at a stretch, he feels compelled to pace his room, to tap his fingers on his crossed arms, to lick his lips over and over until they’re raw and cracked. It’s maddening.
Worse still is that it leaves the rest of his mind untouched. The black despondency, the abrupt fits of rage that lead to him overturning his chair or flinging his textbooks to the ground, the inability to countenance the idiots he’s surrounded with on every side, the aching, empty feeling in his chest, all remain the same. And while before the pills he at least had days when it ebbed and he could bury himself in some project or study, now even when the hurt or anger don’t overtake him the restlessness does.
He finally calls Mycroft at uni to demand the proper word for it. “Akathisia,” Mycroft says snippily. “You could have easily looked that up yourself.” He can’t bear to explain that the almost-unconscious tapping and twitching kept him from the focus he needed to pore through the reference books. The irony is infuriating.
He waits for Father to return from his latest business trip before he announces at the dinner table that he’s done with the pills.
“Oh Sherlock,” his mother sighs. “You barely tried.”
“I tried for four weeks,” he corrects. “They don’t work and they’re horrible.”
“Perhaps there’s something else, then,” Mummy says rather helplessly. “If we go back and see Doctor Peterson-”
“No more pills,” Father says. “You can’t drug yourself happy, and I’m glad the boy realizes it even if you don’t.”
Mummy’s eyes flash and she looks set to argue. “Medication isn’t making me happy,” Sherlock agrees. It has the desired effect: Mummy deflates all at once, and silently cuts another bite of roast.
“That’s the way, son,” Father says. “Brace up. You have to get out and do new things, meet new people. Set a goal and fight for it, that’s how you satisfy yourself.”
Sherlock nods, but he’s stopped listening, because he already has what he wants.
-+-+-+-
By the time Sherlock sits his GSCEs, he’s verified a definite correlation between black moods and boredom. Causation is a little more complicated.
He finds he prefers being in trouble for unapproved dissection studies, unsupervised trips to London, and mysterious explosions (that are never definitively proven to be the result of his chemical experiments) to being studious and petted and bored beyond all endurance. He was expelled from three public schools before Father brokered a deal that let him remain a day pupil at the nearest in order to save the family the disgrace of being forced to enroll him in a comprehensive. Sherlock frankly couldn’t care less- he’s hardly fat Mycroft, starting his political career with all the right connections and the right smug entitlement- but at least he no longer has to live with his idiot peers as well as attend classes with them.
It isn’t merely that they’re stupid, or even that they’re boring; it’s that they so clearly don’t want anything to do with him. The few that aren’t driven away by his deductions, by his scientific curiosity, or by his refusal to feign interest in the latest fads and television programs, inevitably depart after the first black mood. When he’s silent they call him standoffish and walk away, but when he lets his anger and frustration speak, they’re offended.
Mycroft tells him that he ought to apologize, and that sometimes you have to lie to make peace. But Sherlock has too much pride to apologize for speaking the truth, and he has too much self-respect to apologize for being himself.
-+-+-+-
The idea of uni kept him sane through secondary school, which is why it’s so utterly crushing to discover that it’s simply the same song, second verse. Classes keep him occupied during the day, but they don’t keep his weakness at bay.
Father, ever the believer in “tough love,” cuts him off in his second year, when he’s first arrested for possession of a Class A substance. Mycroft prefers the more direct form of manipulation, but since Sherlock has quit paying his phone bill, he’s forced to come in person to the flat Sherlock has been evicted from three times but is nonetheless squatting in.
He opens with, “I thought Father was acting a bit prematurely, but I see just the opposite is true.” Sherlock sneers at this, as well as at the second salvo: “Mummy would be appalled.”
“If I were interested in what Mummy or Father thought, I would already be at home throwing myself upon their negotiable mercies,” he says. Mummy had sobbingly told him that he could come home to dry out, not that she’d phrased it that way. It was shortly after that call that Sherlock swore off telephones. Pity is intolerable.
“I thought you took great pleasure in puncturing delusions,” Mycroft says, eying the rather squalid flat with distaste. Sherlock’s clothes are clean and neat, but the sofa he’s reclining on is not. He adopts an attitude of casual ease, simply because he knows it will further discomfit Mycroft. “And yet you still insist that you don’t have a problem.”
“A problem is a difficulty, or a situation which invites resolution,” Sherlock says. “A problem is what I had before I started the cocaine. I don’t recall you being so actively interested in my life at that point.”
“You’re not a child any longer, Sherlock,” Mycroft says. “It’s not my responsibility to entertain you, nor is it Father’s or Mummy’s. I’ve always been generous with my time when it comes to you-”
Sherlock can’t restrain his bark of laughter at the notion of Mycroft’s generosity. “Your time is not a precious commodity, Mycroft, however often you claim it is to inflate your self-importance.”
Mycroft is flushed now, having lost a bit of his composure. “Do you think it wasn’t difficult for me too, growing up among peers I had little to nothing in common with, trying to stimulate my own intellect and manage its development because no one else was capable of doing it properly? I’m speaking as someone who knows what you’ve gone through. Don’t you think I’d help if I could?”
“You gift me with platitudes as if you think you’re being helpful,” Sherlock says, then bites his tongue. That was a bit closer than he cared to come toward asking for Mycroft’s help.
“I would,” Mycroft says. “But I can’t. Let me at least help you with the cocaine. I can find you a good program, and then Father can be persuaded to resume paying for-”
“You don’t understand at all,” Sherlock says, his anger flaring suddenly.
“I understand that you’re mired in a self-absorbed tantrum,” Mycroft snaps. “One that’s driven off what few people you hadn’t already alienated with your charming personality. And there’s only so much of it your family will tolerate before-”
“Fuck off!” Sherlock flings the most disgusting thing he can reach from his supine position, which turns out to be a bowl half-full of spoiled milk. It splatters Mycroft’s trousers in a most satisfactory manner as he ducks out of the way. He fancies that Mycroft stomps a bit as he retreats down the stairs.
Mycroft, in the end, is as incapable as everyone else of reading the evidence set before him. Does Sherlock get no credit at all for being a genius? If he could simply reason his way through, wouldn’t he have done it already? Perhaps the most infuriating thing about the aching tension and the cold emptiness that keep him awake and half-frantic through the black days and nights is that he can’t control them the way he should be able to control the contents of his own mind. These illogical feelings should be neat packages set on shelves in his mind palace, and instead they’re more like a large dumb animal with a mind of its own, blundering around the rooms and knocking things over.
This metaphor is so horrible it makes him instantly disgusted with himself. He’s digging under the clutter on the floor for his kit without even planning it. The power of cocaine isn’t in the euphoria, and it isn’t even in the way it makes his mind speed on new pathways with inhuman alacrity. It’s in the way it makes him feel, however briefly, that he is another person entirely.
-+-+-+-
It’s almost disappointing to Sherlock when he discovers that his relationship with John hasn’t fundamentally changed him. Almost, because of course he isn’t really disappointed, because it would have been ridiculous of him to hope that John might blunt his mind’s more dangerous edges.
Anyway, now he has conclusive evidence of that psychologist’s idiocy at long last, so that’s something.
The trouble is, while John is a source of myriad entertainments and therefore adept at turning a gray day into a better color (aquamarine, malachite, xanthic, heliotrope), there is not a great deal one can do with black.
John’s efforts in spite of this obvious fact are clearly an absurd waste of time. By all rights, his refusal to leave Sherlock alone while he’s busy being miserable, his insistence on sitting right next to Sherlock and pretending to watch that fussy Belgian he puts so much store in, ought to be aggravating beyond all tolerance. But this is different, this is...acceptable. John isn’t fussing at him, or giving him advice, or mouthing platitudes. He’s just- there.
Sherlock sighs again and presses his nose to John’s stomach. The fingers massaging his scalp are soothing: not fully distracting, but they do give him something to focus on, outside himself. And the gentle scraping of John’s short fingernails is sensual in a way that has nothing to do with arousal. Sherlock finds this stimulation accomplishing what concentrated efforts to relax could not: releasing the tension that’s kept his neck and shoulder muscles coiled hard and tight.
He rouses slightly to John shifting away from him, replacing his lap with a vastly inferior cushion, and his internal clock informs him that he’s actually just woken from a substantial nap. To his relief, the removal of John’s hand doesn’t lead to an immediate re-tightening of his muscles, and he takes advantage of this unexpected lassitude to drift for a few moments, aware of John’s movements around the flat but not bothered by them.
A slight creak of the loose seventh stair signals someone ascending. John must have heard the door downstairs while Sherlock was asleep. Not Lestrade, he always jogs up the stairs; not a client, Mrs. Hudson would have called up. Someone familiar with the building, fond of moving unobtrusively but not trying to avoid detection, and forward enough to swan into the flat without a by-your-leave: Mycroft.
“Hi,” John says in a whisper. “If you want to talk to Sherlock, you’ll have to come back. He didn’t sleep at all last night, and he finally managed to drift off for a couple hours. I don’t want to wake him.”
Sherlock is careful to keep his face slack and his breathing even. He’s adept enough at feigning sleep that Mycroft won’t be able to tell without peeling his eyelids back, and John certainly won’t allow him that close. Mycroft sniffs as he assesses the room, but he does keep his voice low. “Another of his moods, I see.”
“Why are you here, Mycroft?” Obvious irritation in John’s voice: defensiveness. Protectiveness? Sherlock of course needs no protecting, but he always finds it oddly pleasing when John defies Mycroft for him.
“I was going to offer him a case,” Mycroft says. The very tone of his voice- attitude #4b, ‘Pompous Disappointment With a Trace of World-Weariness’- makes Sherlock’s back muscles start to stiffen again. “I suppose there’s no point, now. He seems to take special delight in being obstreperous at these times.”
“Well then, it would be cruel to deprive him of the pleasure of telling you to stuff it, wouldn’t it?” John says. Sherlock has to school his face carefully to prevent a grin from surfacing. “You might as well leave it.”
There are the small sounds of Mycroft moving to the table by the window, of things being shifted so he can lay the file down. “If you would be so good as to draw his attention to it when he wakes,” Mycroft says. “He may listen if you suggest it.”
“Okay,” John says.
Mycroft’s tread returns to the door, somewhat ponderously for him. “I’ve never known him to sleep when he’s in one of his ‘black moods.’” Sherlock can hear the quotes thump into place. “Not without pharmacological aid, at any rate.” Ah yes, his brief heroin phase. Sleeping was an acceptable way to wait out a black day, but while nodding off he was unable to stop Mycroft from abducting him and checking him into rehab.
“If you’re suggesting-” John’s voice is angry again, the whisper nearly a hiss.
“No, I- no.” Mycroft sounds very nearly flustered. “I’ll just be going. John-” The briefest pause. “Do let me know if the two of you need anything.”
“Thanks, but I think we’re good,” John says. Mycroft descends the stairs, and Sherlock feels the sofa shift as John leans over the back to pet at his hair again. “Yeah,” John murmurs. “We’re good.”