The Dark Side of the Moon

A Sherlock Post-Reichenbach Fanfic

Cain and Abel

1

Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes despised each other, on the face of it.

The simple answer was sibling rivalry; bog-standard, sibling rivalry.

The long answer had deep roots, spanning the entirety of Sherlock's life.

At first, he'd been thrilled to have an older brother.

He'd been an eager child, full of energy- perpetually running around everywhere, much to his mother's grief.

And Mycroft- mysterious, all-seeing, omniscient elder Mycroft had been his idol.

The age gap- seven years- had accustomed Mycroft to being the one, however. The firstborn. The center of attention.

The star of the show. The best.

For a few years, Sherlock had believed it.

He'd been delighted to be the foot-soldier: go get this for me, would you, Sherlock?

No problem.

Hand and foot service, that was Mycroft's expectation.

And as a child of only five, he hadn't been quite able to see that he was being used, while Mycroft- now thirteen years old and a god in his brother's eyes- laughed behind his back.

Is that your brother, or your dog, Mycroft?

Some days it's hard to tell the difference.

When he'd started school, he'd quickly shown a penchant for getting into fights.

With his sharp skills of deduction- not quite as good as Mycroft's, of course- he could easily see the things that others couldn't even begin to guess at the existence of.

How do you know that, you scrawny little rat? How? You been spying on us?

Combine an odd personality with skin that remained stubbornly pale and looks that were unique, it promised danger. Add in the name of Sherlock- a ridiculous, never-heard-of name- and he was the school punching bag.

So he learned to fight.

Mycroft, attending the same all-boys boarding school, disapproved.

But still, Mycroft- ever-cool, ever-calm, all-knowing Mycroft- still held Sherlock's respect.

When he held his mind in a crisis, it taught Sherlock that panicking served no purpose. When he stoically endured their parents' occasional drunken rages- things that would land Sherlock in the hospital, but never seemed to touch the godly Mycroft- he learned that emotions were not an advantage.

He forgave his parents.

Mycroft held his saintly status until Sherlock reached the age of eleven.

It was Mycroft's last year of regular school before he was shipped off to some fancy university. It was near the end of term that one of the gangs- Sherlock was universally hated, and looked down upon by his older brother.

But Mycroft was a god, as far as Sherlock was concerned, until that hot day in June.

Freedom was so close, he could almost taste it, Sherlock had thought, sitting alone in a secluded spot during recess. Just one more month, and he'd be free.

Two more months, and Mycroft would be gone. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

He was a thin child, already gangly, with legs longer than most boys of his age. His fingers were slender and agile- excellent at dissecting various things, or picking locks.

His mind was like an engine, going constantly, the pistons eternally firing on full; he saw everything and everyone, noticed the smallest things.

He knew how to lie.

He knew how to bow and obey, to act subservient. He knew how to gather information and hold it long enough to pass an exam- if he didn't bother to pass the exams, there'd be trouble- and he knew how to delete it immediately afterward.

He spent more time in his own mind (his 'mind-palace', as he called it and Mycroft taunted him about) than in the real world- seeing and deducing, understanding and tucking away bits of information that could be vaguely useful.

Did it matter that the earth went around the sun? Did it?

His antics irritated almost everyone, and he didn't have any friends.

Except Mycroft.

Sort of.

Because Mycroft was something else.

Mycroft was different. Mycroft had friends. People liked Mycroft. Mycroft liked people.

Mycroft, in short, was everything that Sherlock wasn't: smart, popular, talented, well-off.

He was better. He was the firstborn, and got everything.

Sherlock got the scraps left over.

Speak of the devil, he thought, watching a clump of fifteen-year-olds (he had a vague notion that they were of Mycroft's ilk) wander his way.

He braced, and gathered his legs. He just might need to disappear at a moment's notice.

But Mycroft always knew where he was. All Sherlock had was a small skill for the violin and a (in his view) a smaller possession of the gift Mycroft had in hoards and delighted his friends with.

It worked for Mycroft. People hated Sherlock for it.

Maybe it just wasn't meant to be understood.

Mycroft was the firstborn.

Maybe that made him better.

It must have.

A quick scan of the approaching gang showed them to indeed be among Mycroft's massive group of lackeys: Fischer, Freeman, Desnar, Kennedy, and Quaritch, he noted, five of the more malicious ones.

And a figure, far off in the background.

"Backed yourself into a corner again, Sherly," Quaritch called, the group spreading out slightly. "You still haven't gotten any smarter, I see."

"Smarter than you," Sherlock called back, even as the hair on the back of his neck rose. He hated being called Sherly.

He didn't like his name. Sherlock Holmes: there was far too much stupidity in those two words.

"Split off, boys," Quaritch ordered. "Don't want him escaping by a back route."

To Sherlock's dismay, two of them split of and circled around to watch his flank.

Still patiently sitting, from twenty meters off, he decided to begin to taunt them.

He was already circled. There would be a fight.

"How did you skin your hands this time, you bonehead?" Sherlock shouted. "Did you trip over your own feet? No, wait, let me guess- you punched something that fought back!"

Quaritch snarled murderously, infuriated.

Recklessly, Sherlock laughed just to make him more mad. "And I suppose you got that black eye a while back from someone half your size?" He flashed a dazzling grin. "You're like a troll! All muscle, no brain!"

Only ten feet away, Quaritch lunged.

In a flash, Sherlock stood and dodged. He weighed almost half what Quaritch did, the older being a rugby player and very heavily muscled. Sherlock was lightweight, but strong enough.

But no match for five on one.

He hit Quaritch with a devastating right hook, and registered the figure standing in the background: Mycroft.

Mycroft, who saw and knew all.

Mycroft, who ruled the world.

Mycroft had to save him.

Wouldn't he?

And even as Sherlock fought tooth and nail for survival, he stood by.

And even as he struggled, Sherlock's world fell out from underneath his feet.

Mycroft… all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipotent, firstborn Mycroft, would call them off.

He had to help.

He had to do something.

And Sherlock realized that no, his older brother was not God.

In that moment of life-changing revelation, the first heavy blow got through his defense.

Even as his younger brother- his blood, the one person in the world he was socially obliged to protect- screamed for help, as the blood they shared stained the asphalt, Mycroft stood by.

He did nothing, even when Sherlock begged and cried.

Holmes, the younger, was in the hospital for six weeks.

**

Mycroft left before he got out of the hospital- with a limp, with visibility in both eyes reduced, with broken bones in his ribs and arms, and a severe "high-risk" concussion.

It was another week before he could see properly.

Another after that before he could get out of bed.

And now he was alone.

He'd been expelled from the boarding school. The future was vague.

And pain was sharp, and present.

Pain was a constant, both physically and mentally.

Mycroft isn't what I thought he was.

He was only eleven, and he'd taken a beating that had nearly killed him, and been betrayed by his own brother.

And so it was that a respect bordering on worship turned like a snake to hate.

No sight or sound of the firstborn brother for those six agonizing, terrifying six weeks in the hospital, Sherlock thought. Oh, no. No desperate, pathetic attempt at redemption. No I'm so sorry, but I couldn't control them.

No apology stung more than a horrible one, he realized. It was like Mycroft hadn't even cared to see if the brother he'd abandoned had survived.

When as he walked down the hall, Sherlock's leg gave suddenly, forcing him to clutch at the walls, he swore violently, and struggled to regain his footing.

I'll get you for this, Mycroft. Some day. I swear it.

**

At age fourteen, Sherlock was back in school.

It was in December that during an exam, the teacher put down the phone, and (watched carefully by Sherlock) walked through the rows, and tapped him on the shoulder.

"You're wanted in the Office," he said under his breath, holding out a hand for the paper.

Sherlock quickly rolled it up, and giving it to him, walked swiftly down the halls towards the principal's office.

He had scars to prove Mycroft's treachery, and not a day passed when he didn't think of screaming his brother's name until his voice broke with no result.

Three years. Maybe he'd finished University already. Maybe the jackass was back. Maybe it was time to beat him up, and let him scream without anybody coming for aid.

He turned into the principal's office- or just "the Office" as it was called by most everybody.

The principal and Sherlock got along fairly well, but surprisingly, it was just the two of them in the room.

"You wanted to see me?" Sherlock asked, quickly giving the man a look-over.

New dog. Congratulations.

He held up a finger, pointing at the phone in his hand.

"He's right here, Mrs. Holmes," the principal said. "Yes… Yes… I'll pass you to him."

Mrs. Holmes?

With shaky hands, suddenly uncertain, he took the receiver.

"Mother?"

He listened, and everything inside him went numb.

Dear Christ. No.

"Oh, God," Sherlock whispered. "I'm coming. I'm coming home, right away."

**

He'd expected Mycroft. He'd expected Mycroft to be there, taller than him, better than him, so goddamn smug you could cut it with a knife.

He'd gotten a tearful phone call from his mother.

His father was dying.

Through drunken rages, through fights, through tears, Sherlock had forgiven. He'd stuck.

And now his father was dying.

So much I didn't say, he thought. So much I'll never get to say. Oh, God. My father's dying.

"Thank you," he said quietly to the taxi, passing the fare over and dragging his luggage behind him as he approached the magnificent manor-house.

He unlocked the door and instantly dropped his bags- after noting the lack of any sign, any sign at all, of Mycroft.

Selfish fucking bastard.

Mycroft would have left a sign, just to irritate him. I got here first. I'm back, Sherlock- isn't that a bitch?

Mycroft had abandoned his family.

Well, he'd learned not to trust him.

The entry was a magnificent thing, entirety made of rich, old wood. It was mostly a small alcove, with the broad stairs directly in front of (but sideways- it had never made sense to him) to the door. The kitchen was to the left of the stairs, a living room with a sliding glass door straight beyond the stairs, and a corridor leading to bedrooms and closets on his right.

"Sherlock," his mother said quietly, walking slowly down the stairs.

He quickly crossed to her, gently took her hands in his.

"Where is he?"

Tears shone in her eyes. "Upstairs. He's close to the end."

Sherlock- the second son, the less-loved- sprinted up the stairs, and opened the door to his father's room.

The atmosphere was gaunt.

The light was low, entirely that of candles; the standard luxury and opulence that drowned the rest of the house was on fine display here, but subdued.

His father's head turned slowly to look at him miserably from his bed, and Sherlock rushed to his side, taking his hand as his mother reentered.

Skin is cold. Eyes are hollow. Thin- emaciated. Skin clinging tightly to bones. Heartbeat irregular.

Infection.

He expected, almost expected, to hear those painful words, as the old man's eyes were blind with pain.

Mycroft, is that you?

But it wasn't Mycroft's name that Kerran Holmes spoke.

"Sherlock," his father said quietly, and those fingers clamped on his son's hand like a vise. "I'm so glad you came."

Sherlock bowed his head. Anybody could have seen his father's time was near.

"I'm sorry," Kerran said suddenly, the words sounding pained.

His eyes tormented, Sherlock lifted his gaze. "Don't be."

"I won't be able to be at peace with myself unless I say it," his father said, the old authority flowing in his voice. Instantly, Sherlock was silenced.

"I'm sorry for everything," Kerran whispered. "For the rages. The fights. For Mycroft. For loving him more than you."

A tear escaped from Sherlock's eyes, and then another as he held his father's hand in both of his.

"I forgive you," he said quietly, and had never meant anything more in his life.

Slowly, Kerran raised his other hand, and gently brushed his fingertips along Sherlock's cheek before holding them there.

"My son," he finished. "My second-born. I am proud of you. Don't let anybody tell you different."

Shaken, deeply, it was all Sherlock could do to hold back the tears.

The second son, Kerran thought. The quiet one, the one without friends, the one that got picked on, the underappreciated son.

He had been wrong.

Sherlock was a greater person than Mycroft.

"I love you," Kerran murmured.

Before Sherlock could finish processing those foreign words, the pulsepoint on his father's wrist stopped.

**

"I've taken a month off from school. They won't miss me, and you need me here."

Too miserable to argue, Sherlock's mother only sat in silence.

It wasn't fair, Sherlock thought, that Mycroft could abandon his home and still be the heir.

Everything he saw- everything, the house, the grounds, all of it- would become Mycroft's on their mother's death.

The firstborn, Sherlock thought hatefully. The better son.

**

It had been sepsis.

Sepsis had killed Kerran Holmes.

It was undeniable; through a microscope, with various tests, the bacteria were undeniably present.

What had he expected to find?

Poison?

Mycroft?

Goddamn Mycroft!

He stared blankly at the wall.

Slowly, he drew a syringe out of his pocket, and pulled the needle-guard off with his teeth.

He slid the point into a vein visible along his left wrist, and depressed the plunger, sighing quietly.

The drug cleared his mind, focused the hate so it could be used.

Alright, Mycroft, Sherlock thought, shaking himself. I'm going to burn you. Piece. By. Piece.

**

His mother had nightmares.

Every night, he'd come to her room, because she'd be screaming as if somebody was stabbing her.

Every night, he never slept, waiting for it to happen, researching, wandering in his 'mind-palace'.

Eventually, he gave up.

He'd sit with her.

When she went to bed, he'd sit with her, holding her hand.

Every.

Single.

Night.

He'd stay until dawn.

**

He had to go back to school.

But his mother was… dangerously close to catatonic.

She would sit.

And stare at the walls.

And so would he.

Sometimes, he'd play his violin for hours on end- until she went to bed. Sometimes, she'd fall asleep listening to him.

And because a deep instinct told him that Lydia Holmes was drawing close to following her husband into the void, he would play for hours, until dawn, because when she fell asleep listening to the violin…

…she'd fall asleep smiling.

So Sherlock Holmes- socially stunted little Sherlock Holmes, bullied, used and betrayed- gave hit utmost.

Lydia watched her son run himself into the ground, break his limits, and keep soldiering on.

There would be a crash, soon.

He'd take her down with him, if it was bad enough.

**

Three days before his scheduled return to University, his system finally gave.

Humiliatingly kneeling on the floor of the bathroom, Sherlock was again desperately sick, then pressed his face to the cold tile of the floor.

Too far.

Weeks without sleep.

Scars.

Mycroft.

Blackhearted Mycroft.

Drugs.

Fifty milligrams… cocaine? Oxycodone? Morphine?

Morphine.

Lots of morphine. Oh, dear God, the pain.

The old broken bones ached like fire, and his stomach cramped.

Again, he was sick.

Withdrawal.

Need… Something.

When he managed to struggle back to his quarters, and injected himself with a full syringe of morphine, the pain- physical, and psychosomatic- was blotted out.

There must be something… I swear, Mycroft, I'll get you one day for something…

**

That night, as usual, he held her hand as she fell asleep.

It was a simple comfort.

You're not alone.

When he woke from a dream that his hands were trapped in an iceberg, he looked down, just to check.

His hands were free.

But his mother's was ice cold.

**

The funeral was quick.

Mycroft had not chosen to attend their father's funeral. There was no reason he should have a chance to attend Lydia's.

Mycroft was the heir.

It was all Mycroft's.

Goddamn it. You won, brother.

So Sherlock Holmes stood before his parents' graves, as winter pulled at his coat and sent daggers into his skin.

Their older son, a selfish bastard who would stand by as his little brother was killed.

Their younger, a drug addict with a hateful obsession with the older.

"God help us all," Sherlock whispered, and turning his back, walked to the house.

They had been buried on the property that had belonged to the Holmes family for hundreds of years.

It was only right.

**

He stole the pictures.

The little ones; the happy ones. The ones of the four of them, before everything had gone so wrong.

Kerran, Lydia, Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes.

A family.

Almost.

**

As he left, he turned, just for a moment, and took in the house where he'd grown up. He'd have to raise himself now. Mycroft- twenty-one by now- would have no interest in his younger brother.

He would not go to Mycroft for money. No matter what.

He had a right to fight for the estate, it turned out. He could fight Mycroft. He could challenge him in one little petty way.

The court date was scheduled for his eighteenth birthday.

He raised a hand, in farewell.

**

Sherlock was eighteen.

Mycroft, twenty-five.

Sherlock had lost the fight.

The estate, the name, the grounds, the land, the wealth, it was all Mycroft's.

Sherlock would get nothing.

He didn't know why he'd followed Mycroft, why he was full of rage that made him tremble and his eyes water.

Cold whipped at his poorly-made coat, the peasant's mark, as Mycroft, all silk and velvet, walked to the house that was his.

"I'll best you!" Sherlock screamed, making his brother stop dead in his tracks and the ghosts walking the halls listen. "I'll best you, I swear it- or die trying!"