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To be good (oneshot)
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Sherlock Holmes is a great man. But he is not a good one.
Greatness comes through mistakes and failures, slowly evolving as you pick up the bits of you still breathing and put them back together. We fight, fight and fight until our blood pours through every pore and dirt clings to our hands, and eventually, through all the fighting, greatness starts to settle.
This is something Mycroft knows too well. He saw it every single time.
Every single time Sherlock lay on the cold ground, his clammy, twitching fingers the only signs of life left in his body, skin stretching over bone like cling film and eyes flickering like dying candles in black, bruised sockets, he was there. Sitting by his side, clutching the list, his list like a lifeline.
"Mycroft-"
"The list." Sherlock gave him the paper.
Cocaine
Morphine
He sat by his side and read it again, and again and again, until the words sounded all wrong in his head. It was easier than looking at the man beside him.
They never said more than three words. If they said too much it would become real. And Sherlock wouldn't let Mycroft find him again. That was the unspoken law between them, the silence. Though neither could say what the punishment would be if one of them decided to break it.
However there are exceptions to every rule.
In the south of London, there lies a grubby street where the lowest of the low are drained. On this street, there is an abandoned warehouse, with its skin flaking from its walls and bones splintered like skewers from the beams above. The warehouse was where he first found him.
"Sherlock?" His brother lay twitching on the floor. He knelt next to him.
"Sherlock." He shook his shoulders. Sherlock groaned and rolled over. His eyes were bloodshot.
"What… What are you doing here?" He slurred. Mycroft moved back. Disgusted. His hands shook; he gripped his umbrella tighter. His eyes were hard. Sherlock squinted.
"Why… you here?" He said. He looked pathetic lying like a pile of rags on the floor. It sent a crack through his composure. He hated Sherlock for this. He hated him. What was he going to tell their parents? Should he tell their parents?
The creature before him was barely recognizable. Mycroft stared at it as it shifted and sighed and thought. Always thinking. Always bored.
"Get up." He hissed, kicking Sherlock harder than intended. He groaned.
"Piss off."
"Get. Up."
"No."
"GET UP." His voice echoed in the room. Sherlock stared at Mycroft, shocked. He squinted through his drug induced haze. There was something wrong with his expression. It was all wrong. He didn't look like Mycroft. He looked… sad.
Mycroft turned away and sat on the floor beside him, his back to his face. Sherlock's mind dragged sluggishly through understanding. Mycroft read the list over and over.
"I'm sorry."
Mycroft didn't turn around. Sherlock didn't think he heard. But he did. Those words were what kept him there. Night after night.
It wasn't John Watson who saved Sherlock Holmes, it was the one who walked in his shadow, the one he hated the most, the one who will never be a hero, and will never be thanked by the person he saved.
But maybe that's okay.
And so in his shadow, he will remain. The cold calculating machine, collecting pieces his brother leaves behind in a notebook full of lists.
Because Sherlock Holmes is a great man.
And maybe one day he'll be a good one.
Disclaimer:
(I don't own Sherlock, there said it, so ya can't sue me :P)