Do you think there's something wrong with us?
Your brother asks you that question one day. You give him the short version of the answer, and wonder if he understands.
The longer version, the real one, remains unsaid.
You have been a big brother since you were seven years old. You gave your siblings your heart, and they broke it in the end.
You watched your little sister, the one with the sweet smile and the pigtails, develop into a full-blown psychopath at the tender age of six. A little boy, one who had annoyed you to no end, had lost his life to her psychosis, and you would give anything to have him annoy you once more.
Your family nearly falls apart. Your parents are heartbroken. Your little brother has become a hollow shell, his eyes blank, his mind shutting down. You need to be strong, to become their bedrock. But your heart, too is shattered into pieces. You must cover it in a layer of ice, so you never feel the pain.
You step up and do your duty, keeping your family together. You are the smart one, the mature one, the practical one. You reassure your parents, you help with your sister's care, you patiently coax your brother out of his fugue, and deal with his changed state. You try not to feel, not to care, and not to cry. You become the Ice Man.
Sometimes, however, you do. You feel, you care, you even cry. Only in private, at night, your pillow muffling your sobs. Sentiment; humanities greatest curse. It distracts you, weakens you, and ultimately destroys you. You wish you hadn't been cursed too.
You graduate from school two years early. You have many options before you when you enter university, but you decide to go into politics. Your time at school was well spent in acquiring knowledge, and learning how to manage ordinary people to your advantage. You have managed to get your classmates to stop their petty bullying and convinced them to work along with you. Politics shouldn't be much different.
Before long, you are recruited into intelligence. You are sent out into the field, and you are declared one of the best. You are brilliant, practical, and calculated. Your are aptly codenamed Antarctica. One day, you personally take out a terrorist in Kandahar, and also cause collateral damage. The collateral damage looks to be about fifteen years old, the same age your sister is now. You don't know what her relationship with the terrorist was. Was she a daughter? A wife?
It doesn't matter. The operation was a success, and the credit goes to you. Your superior questions if you need time off. "It's alright, Sir. I'm fine," is what you answer. That night, you sleeps fitfully. All you see in your dreams are two brown eyes, peeking out from a veiled face. Two dead brown eyes.
You lose your partner about three months into your first assignment. You are fine, you tell superior. Just fine. But you realize that you don`t really like legwork. It's tedious. You would prefer to sit behind a desk, and use your skills to direct others from afar. It is quickly arranged for you, of course. Behind the desk, you are one of the best, too.
Desk work has its advantages. You calculate every possible outcome and choose the best course of action. Usually, your calculations are on spot. If lives are lost, if people are hurt, at least you know you did your best. You pull the strings from behind, and rarely get personally involved. You are mostly safe from the complications of emotional investment. Your work is all the better for it.
When someone you personally know has lost his life, you freeze your heart a little more. Death will come for all of us in the end, but for some of us it comes sooner. We need to do our best to prevent it, but is there any use crying over it? Will it bring anyone back to life?
You continue your work, efficient, aloof, and detached. Then you get a call, about your little brother. He is destroying himself, and it rattles you. There are only two people in the world that can affect you in that way. You gave them your heart long ago, and have never taken it back.
You are afraid for him. He hasn't learned to control himself, like you have. He is always running, looking, searching. He is impulsive and irresponsible. He is suffering, and he wants to make it stop. You are his big brother, and deep inside he believes you have the power to solve everything.
You try. You go looking for him, time and again. You force him into rehab, and he hates you for it. It's a good thing your heart is frozen, or you would have cared. You follow him and nag him, and he retaliates by hurting you. He finds all your weak points and presses on them. You can't afford to care, if you want to save him.
One day, you meet with a certain DI Lestrade in the Chief Superintendent's office, and give him the green light to let your brother work with him. You advise him to take good care of him, as you worry about him constantly. That is the start of your brother's recovery. You have done your duty well.
Your sister is another story. Hope, in her case, is a kinder word for stupidity. Your parents hoped, and it destroyed them. They waited for her to get better, to come home. Your uncle advises you to lie to them, and you helplessly agree. You cannot be the one to tell them what their daughter has become.
Your heart has gone into deep freeze at this point. You have no choice, if you successfully want to withstand the manipulations of your sister. Sometimes, you feel like you hate her, for all she has done. You can't afford that, however. Hate is a sentiment, too, and it will leave you vulnerable. Sometimes, she goes into a world of her own, and she sobs and screams hysterically. You feel stirrings of pity for her tortured soul, and are reminded of the innocent little girl you once loved with all your heart. Such feelings are dangerous, and must immediately be squashed. Caring wouldn't help her now.
You feel obligated to keep her stimulated, and use her gifts to save instead of destroy. Perhaps, in some way, she can still be saved. She saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives through her work. You know that fact is meaningless to her, but not to you. Perhaps, in some way, you do care.
An interesting phenomenon occurs one day. Your brother has found a flatmate, and formed a friendship with him. That is curious, very curious. Your brother doesn't do friendship. You want to find out more, so you get him to come to you. He impresses you with his trust and devotion to your brother. Caring, however, is not enough. You warn him to choose a side and stick to it. As a soldier, he understands what that means. You fight for your side, no matter your personal feelings. You do not abandon your post because of some personal slight. Your brother now has a chance.
The army doctor surprises you, but your brother does even more. You find them giggling at a crime scene, together. Ah, emotional bonding. Then there is the whole business with Moriarty, and you can plainly see it is too late. Your brother is emotionally invested in the doctor, and Moriarty has now found his Achilles heel. Your stomach lurches at the thought. Interesting. You didn't think you were still capable of that kind of reaction.
The landlady becomes a sort of surrogate mother for her two "boys", and it pleases you. There is too much distance between your brother and your parents for them to fulfill that role. She even takes you under her wing somewhat, and you are secretly pleased with her mothering. It has been a long time since anyone has tried to look after you. You have parented your parents and your siblings for a while now.
When you say, "I'll be Mother," your brother mocks you. You both know its true, and your brother resents it. Nevertheless, you have to do your duty. When the mission you send your brother on turns out to be a big mistake, you pull him out immediately. You don't realize that it's too late. Your brother has foolishly given his heart to a woman who didn't give hers back. Oh, she was infatuated, but she didn't care about him. She betrayed him, and hurt your little brother. He learned that once you give your heart, it isn't so easy to take it back. You have failed your little brother once again.
You try to teach him that lesson, that sentiment will only make him weak. It doesn't always work. Neither does it work that well for you. Your brother steals your access card, and breaks into a government facility. You are tempted to let him be locked up for a bit, to teach him a lesson, (which he will never learn, either way), but instead, you send his handler to help him. When he calls you, all sweetness and innocence, you give him access in return for some insignificant favors. You must be going soft.
In truth, you are worried. You know what's coming, and so does he. You help him plan and prepare, and then he fakes his suicide to protect his friends. Friends. Your high functioning sociopath of a brother has managed to do what you never have. He has people that truly care about him, and he cares the same way for them.
The next two years are one of the worst times of your life. Besides for the rare coded message, you never know of your brother is alright, or even alive. Then you find out he is alive, but definitely not alright. You trust no one else to rescue him, with the only objective being to get him out alive. Someone else might sacrifice him to bring down the terrorist organization that's holding him captive. So you go yourself.
You watch as he is beaten and tortured, and your pose is relaxed. Your face betrays no emotion. When the time is right, you smuggle him out and bring him home. When you are alone in your office, you enter the loo and empty the contents of your stomach. When you emerge, your expression is aloof and your hands are steady.
Your little brother accuses you of enjoying his torture. It's a good thing you don't do emotions, or that might have hurt. Surprisingly, your brother then calls you over one day, and engages you in playing silly games. You would have thought he actually wanted to spend time with you. Ah, he's had a little tiff with the doctor, and is feeling a little... lonely? As if he read your thoughts, he tells you that you must actually be lonely, too.
You deny it, of course, but the thought keeps buzzing through your head. So what if it's true? Would the world be better off if you engaged in typical human interactions? Would more lives be saved if you expressed sentiment more often? Would it be better if your enemies found they could target you through your sentimental connections? Wasn't it better to be alone?
Your brother doesn't understand. He wants you to attend a wedding, a sentimental celebration. This particular wedding could spell the end of your brother's progress, the death of his friendship. You choose to run on your treadmill as a way to work off your anxiety. You tell yourself you aren't really involved, you are merely concerned. Concerned and practical. You bring up a demon of the past, but your brother remains oblivious. Good. Another breakdown at the moment would take a toll on your time and energy.
You take no pleasure in the fact that you were right. The doctor and his new wife have begun their blissful domestic life, and your brother has once again turned to his destructive habits. You are angry. Angry at the doctor for getting married, angry at his wife for taking him from your brother, angry at your brother for not listening and getting emotionally involved. You are sarcastic and just plain mean. Your brother responds in kind.
He throws you off by mentioning a name that instills terror into your heart. The last thing you need is your brother getting involved with a man as dangerous as that. You try to warn him, but he takes your interference as a personal affront. You end up with you skull nearly smashed against the wall. Your own brother has no compunctions about hurting you. You suppose that might have hurt, if you let yourself care.
You can't help but be terrified when your brother is shot. You are relieved that he pulls through, and for a short time, you think about making things better between both of you. When you meet at Christmas time, he is surprisingly understanding of your need to get away from the grating holiday cheer, and you both take a companionable walk on the grounds. You try to sound out his recent activities, hoping he has kept himself safe. Something urges you to express you true feelings. You let him know how much you don't want to lose him.
You harbor some hope of reconciliation. Instead, your brother betrays you, betrays your parents, and betrays his country. You run to rescue him from his own foolishness, but you arrive too late. Your brother has drugged his family, stolen state secrets, conspired with a criminal, and then shot the unarmed man in the face. You feel like breaking down. You know that even you can't save him now.
He knows that too, and lets himself be led away without a fuss. In your head you question, why, Sherlock, why, but you know he won't explain. At first, you are worried that he has snapped and is becoming what your sister became. Then you piece together a picture of a desperate man trying to save his friends and their unborn child. You are relieved in a way, but more lost than ever. Why didn't he trust you to help? How do you deal with him now?
Being locked away has only one possible outcome, so you try a different solution. You need to wipe every trace of sentiment from your psyche in order to be able to suggest such a terrible plan. Even Lady Smallwood is shocked by what she sees as your lack of mercy. You are the only one who understands that cold-heartedness is the only thing that can save him now.
You know you will find a way to bring him back before it's too late. Your little brother does not believe that. Or perhaps he can't hold out that long. He drugs himself before he leaves. You finally break, and let your concern show. Your brother throws it back in your face in a fit of anger. You are the perfect target, being that you are the one who came up with the plan. He doesn't ask, he demands, and you pull every string to get him off the hook. If you had cared, you might have felt hurt at the lack of appreciation. It's a good thing you don't.
You extend yourself to protect your brother's friends. You go so far as to arrest and interrogate a trusted colleague on your brother's say-so. Meanwhile, you warn your brother to prepare for the inevitable. He cannot save her forever. There are too many threats, from too many different angles. Your brother stubbornly refuses to listen.
When the inevitable happens, your brother blames you once more. Not so much with the words he says, as with the way he looks at you. However, the lion's share of the blame he takes upon himself. He begins to destroy himself once again, and you scramble frantically for a way to help him.
Your interference does more harm than good. When you see the face of the woman on the DVD, you tremble internally. That woman, whom you can't bring yourself to hate, but can't bring yourself to trust. She shot your brother, than gave up her life for him. What kind of machinations had her devious mind prepared now?
You spare no thought for the bereaved doctor, damaging your already fragile relationship even more. The landlady labels you a cold-blooded specimen and throws you out. Oddly, you feel a pang at your destroyed relationship, at the mothering she will never again give you. You might have assisted her numerous times, and even that day got the police off her back, but her "boys" always come first. You hurt them, so you turned into the enemy. You berate yourself for ever letting yourself enjoy her affection. You have made yourself vulnerable.
The next time you see your brother, it is in entirely unexpected circumstances. You find yourself in a terrifying situation, and beg your brother for help. To your shock, your brother was behind it all. Even more shocking, it was the gentle doctor's plan to scare you out of your wits. The doctor adds a few barbs to drive the point home, and the duo leave in jaunty spirits. It isn't every day that they manage to get one over you.
You show up at Baker Street the next day, and cannot bring yourself to sit down in the seat they show you. Something in you rebels at the thought of being treated like a stranger. Haven't you given your brother your all? Haven't you been there every time he did reach out for you? You always picked up the phone for him, no matter what crisis you had to deal with, or which important personalities you were meeting. You want your brother to show you the mere courtesy of acknowledging you as family.
The landlady seems to enjoy mocking you, and it stings. At least she leaves. You try once more, to remind your brother that you share a familial relationship. Your brother responds that he considers the doctor family, while he says nothing about you. You had forgotten how much your heart can still hurt.
You all get a surprise delivery from your sister, and the atmosphere changes. You put your differences aside and work out a plan to save yourselves. Your brother once again surprises you by stretching out an olive branch in the form of a compliment about a long ago performance. You know he is lying, but that makes it mean so much more. You are surprised at how happy it makes you.
Ahead of you lies a day that you dearly wish to forget. Your greatest fear has come true. You have been derelict in your duty, and have thereby unleashed your psychotic sister into the world. She taunts and teases all of you, and you don't want to play her games. The doctor reminds you of your obligations. You do as you always did, fulfill your duty and ignore your needs.
The climax comes when your brother has to choose. It was clear that matters would come to this, and you have a plan in place. There is no sentiment involved, only practicality. You have caused this situation, so you will suffer the consequences. If you try to make it a tiny bit easier on your brother, well, at the end of your life your sentiment won't cost you so much. And if you are glad that your brother will have his beloved friend at his side, that is merely an outcome of the practical choice.
When your brother shows his ridiculous sentiment once more, you are scared out of your mind that you are truly losing him this time. Fortunately for him, your sister doesn't want to lose him either, for whatever twisted reason her psychopathic mind has conjured.
You wake up in your sister's cell, and there's silence all around. You have no idea of what has become of your brother and his friend, and the worry is tearing you apart. The awful day comes to an end with you learning that everyone is safe. For some reason, you shiver and tremble, and can't seem to get warm. It is the first time in your life that you have gone into shock.
Several days later, you meet with your parents. They are angry and disappointed, and call you an idiot and limited. Although you haven't been relying on them for a very long time, their words sting more than you had imagined they would.
The final blow comes when they tell your little brother that he was always the grownup. With one little sentence, they dismiss everything you have ever done for your family, everything you have sacrificed. You are merely a foolish child, very limited in ability, and have now completely lost everyone's trust.
It's your little brother who brings the family back together with his little performance in Sherrinford. He smiles at your sister, and she smiles back. Your father is emotional, and your mother wipes her tears. She even squeezes your hand, forgiving her limited child for not being better. It is a satisfying moment for all, except for you, when you come to a realization.
You have tried not to care, but you cared too much in the end. Everything you have ever done, from lying to your parents to watching over Sherlock, to involving yourself in Eurus's care, was because of sentiment. It all backfired on you, and now your family resents you to varying degrees. The pity that your parents and your brother feel for you makes you feel even worse.
Nobody really needs you, in the end. Sherlock has become so smart and compassionate, and he has his doctor friend to help him. Your parents have been reunited with their daughter, no thanks to you.
You are aware that all lives end. Before they do, all hearts are broken. You have given your heart, time and again, and had it broken in return. You have tried not to care, but never knew how. All you know is what became of your caring.
Caring is not an advantage.