Heredity (Sherlock, 221b ficlet)

[baudown]

Title: Heredity
Author: baudown
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Character: Sherlock
Disclaimer: Not mine
Note:  A 221b ficlet (221 words, the last word beginning with the letter b).  Posted as part of my attempt to post everyday in January.  No spoilers for season 3 ( or any season, really).

Odd, that it's Sherlock who discovers Mummy's body.  Her "episodes" -- those retreats from the world and its inhabitants -- have become more frequent, and longer in duration;  and Sherlock's visits, correspondingly rare.  It's impulse that drives him there; no mystery to it.  Certainly nothing so amorphous and unsupported as intuition.

She can't have been dead for more than an hour.  Looking just as she always does, propped up on a pillow, face emptied of expression.  An accidental overdose, planned meticulously, for years -- to all appearances, a simple mistake in her medication.  She wouldn't have wanted a scandal, and there isn't one.  The word suicide is never used, not even in whispers.  "Her poor weak heart," is the operative phrase, spoken with sickening sincerity, as if it were the pathology of her death, and not metaphor.  Her true illness was always an inability to tolerate the world's horrors, petty or great.  Defenseless to them, as if they'd constantly surprised her.

Sherlock has inherited the disease, albeit a mutated strain.  What he cannot bear is that the world's horrors are utterly predictable.  People are monsters, himself included.  Himself most of all.

But the condition, though incurable, can be managed.  Before month's end, he'll feel the first sting of the needle.

The world is no longer boring, when one sees it all in a blur.

Comments

[chasingdemons.livejournal.com]

I don't watch that show, but it's beautifully written and leaves me very intrigued.

[baudown.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

The show really is worth watching, even if you don't plunge completely into the fandom and/or slashiness.

[chasingdemons.livejournal.com]

Is Spike in it?

[baudown.livejournal.com]

Heh. I know what you mean.

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Lol. That pretty much sums if for me for fanfic.

[baudown.livejournal.com]

So true...although I've been reading some non-Spike of late. It kind of makes me feel like I'm cheating.

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Lol! I actually read non Spike a few days ago but I must be so traumitised at teh betrayal, I've completely forgotten what it was. :D

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

Gentle and insidious and then you kick us in the teeth with that last night. Very nicely done.

[baudown.livejournal.com]

Thank you, hon. In honor of the US season 3 airing tomorrow!

[sparrow2000.livejournal.com]

I know. It airs in Canada tomorrow too. I've been studiously avoiding spoilers for the last three weeks. At least we didn't have to wait 6 months, or whatever it was after Season 2!

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

A 221b ficlet. What an odly challenging prompt. Do love Sherlock though I've only seen S1. Cumberbatch is just brilliant, I think, as is Martin Freeman.

Such a softly written account of suicide and such a softly written account of the beginning of life long addiction. Clever as always. :D

[baudown.livejournal.com]

I love Sherlock, but I didn't have much of an urge to write it until I came across the 221b thing. I think it's a neat idea.

And thank you!

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

You know, it was only after I pressed submit that I worked out where the 221b came from. Duh!