Chapter 7
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Sherlock jerked awake. He was alone, aside from a nameless chauffeur, in the back of his father's car. Parked in front of the brownstone.
Wearing clothes he didn't recognize.
In a rush, last night was upon him again. It was a long time before he found the will to pull himself from the deep leather seats into the offensively bright morning.
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Morland and Mycroft Holmes sat at opposite ends of the front room. His father had a newspaper open in his hands and his eyes snapped to Sherlock's with something that approximated care.
Mycroft, on the other hand, was fit to do murder.
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In an instant Sherlock found himself trust flush with the wall—his brother screaming into his face. Sherlock's mind outright refused to process English, as if he were being yelled down in another language entirely. Though the words rained past him, Sherlock could read the meaning in Mycroft's eyes. His red-rimmed gaze held absolute fury.
Then Mycroft's burning eyes filled and spilled over.
Sherlock felt his own chest catch and stick. Words, thoughts, breath—all stopped up, somewhere deep behind his breastbone.
Again.
Iron fists tightened on Sherlock's foreign sweater and for a moment he felt himself pulled away from the wall before being violently slammed against it again. Lathe cracked behind him and his head rapped off the plaster. Then he was yanked forward and slammed back again. He felt more cracking, from himself or the innocent wall he couldn't tell.
The world blurred.
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His brother's barrage began to translate and the words hit him like a hammer. Pounding him, sliding down the wall. Crushing him to the floor.
"How does that make you feel Sherlock? You fucking monster!" Joan's former lover—bellowed. "When Joan was taken…only taken…you gave me no quarter Sherlock. You had exactly no empathy or compassion." Mycroft paced in front of him. "You wished me dead!
"And you were right so I left, you see? I left my work, my home, my life.
"I left Joan." Mycroft's voice turned to a bitten-off sob and for a moment he stood, struck, with his hand over his mouth.
"For you Sherlock. For her. So you could both be safe and happy. As happy as your frozen stone of a heart was capable of anyway."
Another painful sob tore the air and Sherlock reached a hand up towards his brother. Please stop.
"I never should have left. Never should have left her to you! Because she didn't die on my watch, did she Sherlock? She didn't die."
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For the hundredth time that day he found his voice unfamiliar in his own ears, low and hoarse. "You are right and I am sorry."
Sorry in no way covered it but he knew no word that might.
Seconds ticked by, Mycroft's panting breath was loud and echoed across the wood floors. The strength washed out of him-like water down the drain-and Mycroft staggered and sat heavily in a beaten chair. When he spoke again his voice was quiet, but filled malice and frustration.
"You were right there Sherlock. You couldn't stop one person with a little knife? From how you tell it, you're the smartest bloody man any of us mere mortals will ever meet. The most deductive. The most goddamn brilliant. You were right fucking there Sherlock!"
Out of the shadows their father spoke firmly "That's enough Mycroft."
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Ten minutes had passed and neither of his sons showed any sign of movement. Mycroft sat with his face in his hand; Sherlock slumped like a broken doll against the wall.
Morland Holmes had been in each of their situations and he knew Sherlock to be in a far worse place than Mycroft—regardless of what Mycroft might believe.
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He had planned for Sherlock's future. Given his own history, Morland knew he wouldn't live forever and was pleased that Dr. Watson would be there for his odd, angry, brilliant, addict son.
And now his plans were in shambles.
What if he were assassinated tomorrow? God knows there were organizations out there hoping for it. Or had a stroke. Or fell and broke his neck in the tub.
Someone has to be responsible for Sherlock after I'm gone.
That left only the very unlikely Mycroft.
"Mycroft."
After a beat, his eldest made eye contact.
"Mycroft. I'm not feeling well and your assistance is needed here. Please, help your brother to his feet and into the shower."
"But…"
He stopped the argument with a raised hand. "Please Mycroft."
Mycroft was a good man. Once he took even an iota of responsibility for his brother, once he saw him naked and derelict, once he held his trembling hand, he would soften.
He would have to.
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To Mycroft, Sherlock's chest looked as though he had received a dozen lashes.
In his mind's eye Mycroft could picture Joan held there, gasping and clawing. This fit with what he knew from the grainy MI6 satellite imagery he wished he had never seen.
Dearest Joan. Sherlock.
For an instant, only an instant, he felt awful for his strange little brother.
"Alright Sherlock, I'm going to start the water." Sherlock could barely stand but said not a thing as Mycroft coaxed him over the lip of the bathtub into the shower. Sherlock had said only seven words since arriving home.
Shock.
Sherlock closed his eyes against the pink plastic razor. The long handled scrub brush, with a jaunty ladybug strapped to it's back, propped in the corner waiting for an owner that was never coming. The flowered bottles and pretty smelling things.
Hate and love.
Love and hate.
They both surged forward in Mycroft's chest as he held Sherlock's trembling elbow.
Water, hotter than it needed to be because truthfully Mycroft wanted it to sting, swirled the drain red. Then pink.
Then clear.
All traces of Joan Watson had been rinsed away.
But not really, not at all.
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Having helped his brother into plaid cotton pajama pants and a ratty t-shirt, Mycroft insisted that Sherlock rest. "You lay down and I'll fetch a glass of water and a paracetamol. You know Father will send us straight back up if you don't, Sherlock."
With a half-nod his charge padded, feet bare and shoulders limp, into Joan's bedroom and lay curled, facing the wall, on top of the unmade covers.
That will have to do for now, Mycroft supposed.
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A/N Thank you for your reviews so far…pretty please take a moment and tell me what you think
