"…you have given him the perfect ammunition."
SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS
He'd kept the paper. He didn't know why. It was on his coffee table, next to a photograph of himself and his brother as children. Next to his empty glass that once held cognac. Sherlock was gone and Mycroft's conscience had taken the voice of John Watson.
Suicide was a complicated thing. Mycroft was well aware that it frequently defied logic, that it was often beyond even the most excellent of minds to figure out, but Sherlock's death was even more puzzling than usual—it seemed pointless. It was hardly like Sherlock to admit to a lie, even one spread as thoroughly as Moriarty had done. The master criminal had woven his story into every nook and cranny he could find, like some non-Newtonian fluid filling every crack and then solidifying when taking a punch. But Sherlock still should have fought it. It was out of character for him to do anything else.
So why, in his last conversation, did he "confess" to being a fraud?
How many times, thinking about his brother's death, had he refilled his glass? Mycroft wasn't sure. He didn't care. Which was a bit ironic, considering that the only reason he'd had more to drink than usual was because he did care.
"All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage."
He'd said those words more for Sherlock's benefit than because he actually believed them. A way to reassure his brother that he wasn't broken, that there was nothing wrong with him. In fact, that his lack of caring was completely right. Admittedly, Mycroft, too, was cold, and there were very few people he'd latched onto, emotionally. His family and his nation. Most of all, his troublesome little brother who was constantly (if very secretly) fighting a drug addiction and the urge to engage in criminal behavior out of the simple fact that he required mental stimulation constantly.
And now he was gone.
Mycroft poured another drink.
The funeral was the next day. He was going to be hungover. He didn't care. The only thing stitching his wounds together right now was an extraordinarily simply molecule formed out of two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms, and one oxygen atom. As addictive substances go, it was by far one of the simplest.
It wasn't just the fact that Sherlock was dead. Mycroft knew precisely who was responsible for the fountain of lies that had soaked the pavement outside Bart's with blood. Oh, yes, Moriarty had used the intimate details of the Holmeses' childhood against Sherlock, but the true culprit was the man who fed him with that knowledge. Mycroft himself.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
An obvious philosophy, but one that was incredibly hard to stick to. Mycroft found it easier than most to see the big picture, but today, he realized that mistake. By focusing on the needs of the nation, he had driven his brother to a very dark place—discredited, friendless (or nearly), a public fraud, and right where Moriarty wanted him.
So it was Mycroft's fault, really.
His glass was empty. He fixed that.
His thoughts were coming more and more slowly, not the rapid-fire Holmes way of thinking, but more like swimming through molasses. And that was good. The less he thought, the less he felt. Tonight, thinking was the worst possible thing he could do.
The doorbell rang. He ignored it. It rang more insistently. He ignored it. It rang, a long ring as if someone were leaning on the bell.
"C'ming," he mumbled, staggering over to the door and opening it. Molly Hooper looked up at him nervously, holding up a man, clearly in pain, a man that looked very much like Sherlock.
Alive.
Sherlock.
Mycroft very quickly came to the conclusion that he'd had far too much to drink.