My brother had gone up to Oxford at eighteen, when I was twenty five and just out of college. He dropped out when he was twenty. By twenty-three he was heavily involved with drugs to my great sorrow. I was thirty and my career at Ministry X was progressing well. The family had stopped giving him money, knowing that it would only go into his arm and interventions had been tried, but you cannot help someone who does not wish to be helped.
I attempted to keep an eye on him, but my income was not considerable at that time and I did not have the resources of the Ministry to aid me at that point. When he disappeared at twenty-four, I was forced to employ private investigators.
They found him in a dreadful bedsit in the worst area of Brixton and contacted me immediately.
The room held only the barest of furniture and smelled unwashed and unsanitary with scabrous walls and a warped floor. My brother lay, face down upon a stained mattress with no sheets. At first I feared that he might be dead, but I found his body warm, but chilled in the cold air of the room. He was in such a sorry state that I quickly called 999 for an ambulance.
At my touch he stirred slightly, rolling over on his side and partially sitting up to look at me with bloodshot eyes.
"Mycroft?" he said dazedly.
Such was my horror at finding him so ill, so lost, that I responded instinctually and pulled him across my lap as if we were children still. At that point in my life I was quite unfit, but I was able to easily pull him to my arms, so emaciated was he. At six feet tall he could not have weighed more than 125 pounds and quite probably less. His skin was sallow and his eyes were deep with purple shadows. He was dressed in jeans that hung off his narrow hips and a dirty shirt. The fine wardrobe with which he had left college was long gone as was the watch that Father had given him at the end of sixth form and the fine gold chain that Mummy had given him when he was sixteen. Whether sold or stolen, I do not know. His arms were covered in bruises from malnutrition as was what I could see of his side above his jeans. His hair was lank and so filthy that it looked almost grey. I do not know how he was supporting his habit, but I know that even in his wretched state there are still those who would have found him…useful. I also know that there are certain types who would have enjoyed degrading a public school boy with his once pretty features and posh accent. I tried not to think of such things even as I noticed the bruising around his wrists. I felt such a wave of fury but I don't know if it was directed at these unknown abusers, my brother or myself.
Suddenly he started up, as if suddenly remembering where he was and struggled to break free of my arms and crawl away.
"Sherlock," I cried, "it's me, Mycroft!" but that only seemed to make him more agitated and desperate.
"Let me die, Mycroft. Why won't you just let me die. I was so close this time. You promised you would. I still have the note."
At first I had no idea what he was talking about, but watching him crawl across the floor I realized that he was using the same type of hiding place as he had as a child, a pried up floorboard, and it all came back to me. The agreement he had had me sign when he was ten.
"Sherlock," I said as commandingly as I could, "there's a clause that says I will not let you die. That you cannot ask that of me."
He seemed to wilt at that and I was able to pull him back to me, whereupon he began to cry and bury his face against my shoulder.
I cannot express how grieved and distraught I was at his words and his breakdown. Sherlock had barely cried as a child. To have him shuddering and nearly hysterical in my arms was a more distressing sign of his condition than even his appearance had been.
"Mycroft, I want to die," he wailed, "I am drowning, drowning in their stupidity and their cruelty. I don't know what to do. I don't know what… No one wants me. No one knows me. I have no purpose, no purpose and no place."
"Shhh, Sherlock," I whispered as soothingly as I could through my own emotions which threatened to overwhelm me. "I love you. I want you to live. I want you to live and be happy. We will find you a purpose. I promise, Sherlock, and you know that I never break my promises."
He continued to sob into my shoulder, his gaunt arms about my neck, until the medical personnel arrived and pried him from my arms.
There was some time spent in hospital recovering from the starvation, learning to eat again. The withdrawal, the physical healing. And we got him into a quiet rehab., but as I said before, you cannot make someone recover and heal who does not want to recover. I know this from my own addiction. Surprised? Yes, I have had my share of addictions, but I have always had a stronger sense of self-preservation than my brother.
The family and I found him a variety of positions, such as assisting a well respected chemist and even a small teaching position, but he ran away from them all, reverting quickly to his previous life. Fortunately I was able to intervene before the situation became as desperate as it had been, but each time he would go through rehab and the doctors would assure us of his willingness this time, but I know that he was able to wrap them all around his finger.
I even managed to get him a position with Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations in the United States in the hope that removing him from London and giving him work in the field which he had expressed such interest as a child might hold his focus and give him the purpose he so desperately needed and desired. He lasted there for six months before returning to England. He was more in control of his addiction by this point and was able to do work to pay for his minimal needs. He was drawn to manual labor jobs which challenged him mentally not at all, but seemed to keep him in a state of numbness that was at least not self-destructive.
And so it continued until he was twenty-eight at which point he met then Detective Sergeant Lestrade of Scotland Yard, and began his first steps towards what would become his lifetime's work.