Exordium and Terminus (The Brothers' War)
Hello, John, I see someone met up wit-
Sherlock Holmes. You know now that he isn't dead. I knew too, but you figured that out, judging by the fist to the face.
I think you broke my nose.
And I'm tearing up. Lovely.
Of course I'm tearing up, you ignoramus. It's an automatic response to being punched in the face. It's not crying.
Well, yes, I would prefer the yelling.
The yelling is more you.
Yes, I do mean more you, Dr Watson. From my experience, when you take on this calm rational-sounding tone, people die.
I don't plan on dying. I do plan on explaining.
Sit. And be a little less rational.
I don't blame you after what you been through, although the fist to the nose was a bit much. Did Sherlock get similar?
Pass me that tissue so I can slow the flow of blood a bit.
A punch to the chest? Irene was right. Someone loves that face. Some more so than others.
Yes, I was aware you temporarily stopped his heart and you insist you didn't want to hurt your hand again. But still, you bruised your knuckles on my nose, so that excuse is right out the window.
My story…. You want to know why Moriarty came out of nowhere and disappeared the same way?
Don't upset mummy.
That was the one rule as long as Sherlock and I could remember. If mummy were to become upset, then life in the Holmes household could and would become a living hell. But that's not important right now. The best way of telling you these things, John, is with a story.
Teacake? Fairy cake? Petite four? Take as much as you want, Dr. Watson.
I'm on a diet, so considering me eating through you.
Well, you look thin.
You've lost weight; I've gained what you've dropped. It's my love for sweets, I fear.
Yes, I'm stalling for time. I'm making sure my nose has stopped bleeding first. It has.
The important fact to remember is once upon a war there were two brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. They were not the first to be named this in their family, nor they weren't the first to war.
This is a very important fact.
The first Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship had been a tense one, true, but harboured on the fact that Holmes openly thought his brother to be rather lazy and queer in his habits. On scales of war, the first Sherlock and Mycroft's sibling war wasn't even a war or a battle. No, it was more of a minor skirmish, a storm in a teacup, which results in both brothers deciding that it would be much better if neither would meet unless it would of the utmost urgency.
The times of Victorian London and Modern London result in different battlefields. They didn't have our mummy to content with.
Ah, you thought this was going to be about James Moriarty. As far as you and I are concerned, Jim, or whatever his name was is, is simply a mere drop in the ocean of evil compared to mother dearest.
You weren't expecting that, were you?
I really should explain. The Holmes family is not known for being very… well… how to put this-
Well, I was going for empathic, but I suppose rational could suffice. Our mother did have two husbands she didn't love very much. Yes, Sherlock and I are half brothers. Holmes is our mother's family name, not our fathers', either one of them. I've met up with my own father on occasion and the less said about Sherlock's father the better.
He was killed… brutally. We'll leave it at that, Dr Watson.
I know it may surprise you, but there are some things in this universe better left buried.
Yes, yes, why unbury this little nugget of truth about mummy and her connection to a dead criminal or Whatever-his-name-is if you prefer? There was an actual James Moriarty… a Professor James Moriarty. But like our James Moriarty of now, he's long dead.
No, you wouldn't have met Professor Moriarty, Watson. Not unless you were alive in 1891.
Were you alive in 1891?
Of course not, but I do believe your Great-Grandfather was. I do my research. Unlike my brother, I find that it is most important to know the goings on of the world past and present. To not would be of course quite inopportune. I am the government after all, but I digress. Your great-grandfather chronicled these things, changing things to protect his friend's best interests.
Come now, did you really think the stories you read as a child were fiction? The best way to hide a truth is to hide it in a lie, just as one disguises a lie by sticking in a forest of truth. Your great-grandfather was quite the writer and that's always been said to be in the blood.
Enough with the flattery and back to the story then. Mummy was always concerned about her offspring. Well, her younger offspring more than her oldest. Or as much as Mummy was capable of caring. Her love, we shall say, was highly conditional. She'd love you on one condition.
Yes. Don't upset her.
You picked up quickly. Sherlock has been teaching you well. And Sherlock's conditions were to be quiet and never seen. Do you know how hard that is for a preening peacock like Sherlock?
Well, of course, I see… sheet joke.
But this is not a time to be light-hearted. No. Not at all. Mummy's conditions for Sherlock didn't stop once he left her clutches and it has caused Sherlock and me nothing but grief. Tell a man that his mother secretly hates him and wishes to keep squishing him down…
I wasn't trailing off. I needed some tea.
Ahem. Sherlock didn't know his love came with the condition of being seen and not heard. He believed that as long as he was good and perfect at everything, Mummy would love him.
Well, that was because our mother told him that little lie to his face. She's a very good liar and Sherlock eats every one of those little lies faster than a schoolboy tears into a package of Toffee Dodgers. It is rather sad to think of the great Sherlock Holmes that way, but it is a basic truth of the human condition. All boys want their mother's love. It is something that cannot be argued.
If you're going to keep asking questions, Dr Watson, than we will never get to the explanation. I stopped wanting my mother's love the day I became mummy and stopped thinking of that despicable despot at anything more than the woman who pushed yours truly out.
Mummy wants Sherlock to remain her great little unknown. And unfortunately your blog didn't help out in the slightest. You made him famous. Which of course by extension made mother the most upset that she has been in ages. The hat was a sore spot with her. She loves his curls and loathes seeing them smashed flat under there.
Well, before then, had you ever seen Sherlock wear a hat?
There you go.
He should, he'd get less bouts of pneumonia. Going out and about with damp hair and a cold when one is a former smoker is just begging for all sorts of trouble, but I digress. That's MY mother instincts rising up, John.
Of course, she has been planning this long before your blog had come out since Sherlock had been consulting long before you and he had ever met. He had been invoking mother's ire in his endless attempts for her approval. And to her credit, Mummy put up a front. She praised his work with Scotland Yard, told him he would go far, and showered him with cash. On the other hand, she made sure that every cocaine dealer knew my brother's weakness for the drug. Not only that, she was spinning a nemesis for my baby brother.
I told you that Mummy played into it. Don't get me wrong, the man James Moriarty was before was in fact that man who slaughtered poor Carl Powers like an innocent lamb among with countless others. But Mummy named him, gave him a purpose, gave him an obsession, and sent him on his merry little way.
You see, every story needs a good villain. And for years and years, I was Sherlock's archenemy of sorts. There is an eternal war between us, a war between brothers. I can tell him of his mother's evils to his face and his ears remain closed. But Moriarty is a different sort. He is a nemesis of Mummy's planning. Built by her to bring her pretty son to ruin.
I suppose you will go out of our little meeting thinking that James Moriarty was some two bit nothing evil, but I would rather like you to get that notion out of your mind. The truth is James Moriarty is still one of the most vicious men that the world has ever seen and will ever hope to see.
John… I… I tell you this because the world has openly seen Moriarty's evil. It is the evil of a spider, a web shining out in the open air. One easily dodged if one knows what to look for. My mother's evil is the evil of things lurking in the deep dark trenches of the earth, things that have never been seen and should never be for the sake of humanity.
I fear Mummy probably told James more than I ever told him. I told him of Sherlock's drug record and criminal charges, things that would have come out eventually. But there are things about Sherlock Holmes that even I don't know… things that she does. Of course I lied, because you must never meet our mother.
There is one thing you can do. Outlive her. You can't kill her. As odd as it seems, Sherlock loves her in his own stunted way. And he will hate you for life, just as he hates me. Only far worse.
She's getting along in age. One day she will die and Sherlock will be free of her grip. One day, the war between Sherlock and I will end. Some day the cycle of hurt she fostered will break down and I can repair the wounds with my own sibling.
Of course we must keep Mummy happy, Dr Watson. She sent Moriarty the first time. Imagine the horrors she has in store.
She might just want to meet you herself.
Good day John. Try not to start a war. You'll only upset the wrong person.