AN: Yay new chapter! I'll be honest, this chapter kicked my butt. I tried to do everybody's character justice.
Thanks for reading!
Sherlock sits on the edge of his old bed in his old clothes, his hair dripping onto his knees and the floor as he stares down at his hands.
They tremble lightly, and he clenches them almost to the point of pain to try to get them to stop. His eyes flicker around the room for distraction as two different realities war for dominance in his head. The reality that they poured into him — and this new reality that John promised. He was beginning to realise that he really had no idea how much of his life they replaced with the life they owned. He always knew John was real no matter how hard they tried to erase him, but Mycroft…? The vivid memories, though false, were so prominent his fist instinct was to trust them. They kept trying to pull him back into the sucking tar of desperation, and through it the only thing he could really be certain of was that he could trust John more than his own traitorous mind. This thought helps keep him in the here and now.
Still, he had a hard time fully believing it even when he heard the voices coming from the sitting room.
There was John's anxious tenor becoming more agitated by the second, and then a pause when he heard those familiar pugnacious tones concealed with false politeness and a timber that matched his own. A tempo he would know anywhere.
Sherlock inhales sharply, his breath sticking in his throat. He creeps to his door and opens it a fraction to better hear the conversation.
"…professional opinion —"
"That may be the case, Doctor, but this can't wait. I need to debrief him as soon as possible. My people won't wait, and the longer we tarry the more the trail runs cold," Mycroft's voice steamrolls over John. Sherlock hears expensive leather shoes begin to make their way towards his bedroom, and he holds his breath. Then, at the last moment another pair of shoes (worn, cracked soles, men's size eight) intercept the first.
"I can't let you go in there, Mycroft. What ever it is can bloody well wait. As of yesterday you put me in charge of his care, and I say as his doctor you need to bugger off."
Mycroft's tone takes on a dangerous edge. "You will not keep him from me, John."
"As of thirty minutes ago, he was quite convinced you were dead! I won't have you upsetting him when he's meant to be recovering."
At this, Sherlock feels he needs to intervene. After all, John shouldn't be allowed to suffer the insufferable alone. He takes a much needed breath, and with his head held high slips into the sitting room.
"It's all right, John," Sherlock says, trying to maintain a sense of aloofness even as Mycroft's unnerving gaze snaps to him. For once the man is rendered utterly speechless, mouth slightly open in shock. The look on his face would have been almost comical if it weren't for Sherlock's racing heart. John whips around to face him.
"Sherlock? You okay?" he asks warily, his eyes cataloging him from top to toe for any signs of distress. Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back to hide the trembling, and nods assuredly. After a few more moments of intense doctorly scrutiny, he purses his lips in a line that means business. "I'll put the kettle on."
John's presence between him and Mycroft acted like a barrier of protection, and with its sudden absence he felt colder somehow, more exposed. Sherlock resisted the urge to clutch his robe tighter around him, and he regards his older brother sceptically.
He looks older, the lines around his mouth and eyes deeper than he remembers. He also looks thinner around the face, and for once Sherlock regrets the countless jibes he had made about his weight over the years. (It was an odd thing to regret. It made him feel uncomfortable.)
When Mycroft takes a step towards him, Sherlock can't help but flinch violently and he nearly jumps out of his skin, the back of his knees hitting John's armchair. He manages to catch himself, and he sits heavily on the arm, his hands held up to stay the ghost in the sitting room.
"Stop," he hisses, slamming his eyes shut.
The incongruent realities in his head fight for dominance, and cause a wave of nausea to swell up within him. He hears Mycroft stop in his tracks, and he lowers his hands in a mixture of relief and shame. He peeks out from under the fan of his lashes like he did when he was young and was caught doing something wrong — looking up at his venerable older brother; their parents' favourite. It's humiliating, especially since he could tell Mycroft instantly recognises the insecurity and fear on his face as well. But instead of that detached smugness — that cruel disgust, that utter dissection of his weakness on display — Sherlock is met with a soft smile, and pinched eyes so out of place he momentarily forgets the clanging in his head.
"Hello, Sherlock," he says quietly, folding his hands over the top of his umbrella. "It's been a long, long time." Mycroft's eyes close for a moment as he exhales lightly through his nose before leveling a look at him. An honest look, not masked by that usual hard shell.
It's this look that has Sherlock tentatively bridging the distance between them before he realises what he's doing. He stops suddenly, swaying on the spot, but Mycroft's expression doesn't change, and with much trepidation, he continues forward.
He circles slowly around Mycroft, deducing everything about him from his chestnut coloured hair (thinner and with a bit more grey than he remembers) to the slope of his shoulders, (tense, too many late nights behind a desk) to the seams in his dark blue suit (slightly frayed, at least a year old), and comes to a stop in front of him. Without thinking, he reaches out a shaking hand before snatching it back and looking around in a panic. His eyes clap immediately onto John's who has been standing for some time on the threshold of the kitchen, watching silently. John nods at him with a small encouraging smile, and the panic fades. Sherlock's hand continues its journey, and comes to rest over Mycroft's heart. He needs to feel…he needs to know —
The beats are strong and sure against his palm. Evidence that he is well and truly alive.
Sherlock releases a gusty breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and drops his hand, the feel of the pulse still tingling against his skin. As if giving permission, he nods silently and spins around trying to look imperious, and he folds himself into his old chair by the fireplace.
"Mycroft, do you take sugar?" John asks, thawing the tension in the air just a little.
"No, just milk, thank you." He smiles thinly and sits across from Sherlock in John's chair like he was always wont to do. The brothers stare at each other, ignoring the tea John brings them before he settles himself on the sofa. Mycroft clears his throat. "How are you?"
Sherlock's eyes slide away from his. "As good as can be expected."
"It's different from last time. Are you sure you're quite recovered?"
"Last time I had help."
"And this time…?"
"I don't remember it being this…painful. I don't remember —" he sucks in a breath, closing his eyes against the surge of panic. He can hear John shifting anxiously on the couch.
"All right. It's all right," Mycroft says, and Sherlock opens his eyes again. "Your memories will undoubtedly come back with time. Just tell me what you know and we'll go from there."
"FortLondbow," he says clinically trying to detach himself. It was easier if he just focussed on the facts. "It's not what it seems. They do testing there, on people like me: geniuses the like. They manipulate their cognitive processes."
"Yes, according to the information I procured, it seems as if the HOUND Serum plays a part in their ministrations."
"Correct. It is mostly used to coerce the more…unwilling participants. Especially if other interrogation methods failed." Sherlock grits his teeth, remembering being strapped to a chair as currents of electricity passed through his body over and over. Anger roils within him at the memory of the Coordinator's cruel face as he turned the dials up further and further until he blacked out. His mouth waters at the onset of intense nausea, but he forces it back swallowing rapidly.
"When I first got there I was under the impression I would be assigned to a unit, or covering the intelligence on Moriarty's network. But when I found out what the division stood for, I tried to leave. I told you before I had no qualms going after them on my own, and I fully planned on just that. They wouldn't let me go, however, saying I was obligated under some rubbish contract. They said in high times of terrorism, power was given to the government to use its resources as they saw fit to protect the general public." Mycroft closes his eyes at the acquiescence of this statement. Sherlock presses on in a bitter voice stained with accusation. "They told me you were most inclined to agree."
"Listen to me, Sherlock," Mycroft says in a hard voice as he leans forward, his back ramrod straight, intensity imbued in his gaze. "I was unaware of your situation until three months ago. Had I known, you would have been removed immediately."
Sherlock's eyes narrow a fraction, seeking out any dishonesty in his posture or tone, and he finds none. His anger dies down, and though he would be loathe to admit it, he is immensely relieved.
"Of course you would have. Mummy would be furious, and we all know how you hate to disappoint her." Mycroft relaxes back into the chair at this, equally relieved.
"They crossed lines that should never have been crossed. What I need are names. Can you provide them?"
"I don't — they rarely let me out of that room, and when they did it was…" Sherlock trails off. It was getting hard to breathe. "They made me do things, Mycroft. I…hurt people. Killed them." He winces as broken flashes of screaming and torture at his own hand strain against his vision and threaten to drag him back to those dark places. He gets to his feet and stares out the window so he can have something to anchor him to the present.
"They used you to track down Moriarty's network. They made you an assassin," he acknowledges.
"Make no mistake, they didn't have to coerce me to dismantle Moriarty's empire, I handled that well on my own. But I never killed them. It was after when they made me — they needed other people to be silenced. Certain government officials as well as racketeers. People with the right power at the wrong time. Waste not, want not, isn't that the adage? No, when I was abroad I handed Moriarty's men over to Moran to do as he saw fit," Sherlock says, his voice dark and scathing. That twisted face, the one that brought so much pain and anger to the forefront of his mind, swirled to the surface.
"Moran was the overseer." Mycroft says. It's not a question.
Sherlock turns sharply from the window. "You know of him. How? That neat little file information you procured?" His heart rate speeds up a fraction despite the asperity in his tone.
"No. Not just that," he says sighing wearily. He braces his forearms on his knees, and Sherlock can't remember the last time he looked so rumpled. He wonders how long it's been since he slept. "Sebastian Moran was James Moriarty's right hand man. He was the man IA was trying their hardest to track down. It might have been due to the fact we only knew him by his alias: The Cleric. Little did we know he was posing as a double agent in STF."
Sherlock swallows back bile, his fists shaking at his sides where they were balled tightly to keep from shattering the window. His vision practically whites out due to disgust and all consuming fury, and he sways until his back hits the wall. John is there in an instant, a steadying hand on his shoulder guiding him back to sit in the chair.
"Mycroft…" John starts quietly. "Did you say, The Cleric?"
"You know him?" Mycroft says eyebrows arching in surprise.
"Not personally, no. But I knew of him when I served. There were rumours…rumours of an Army Chaplain who switched career paths and became a sniper. The stories were that he reveled in the killing, and had a penchant for violence. Last I heard he was discharged due to failing a psych eval. It was over three years ago when I started hearing the name Cleric being thrown around. Some of my old Army mates heard he went on to private contracting, and others said he became a rogue merc."
Sherlock's vision swims in and out of focus, the past trying to burst through the dams of his mind. The words come unbidden to his lips, and his fingers curl into the armrests of the chair.
"And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel: and they shall do in Edom according to mine anger and according to my fury; and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord God." It comes out as barely a whisper, but the room falls silent.
"Sherlock?" John says quietly, his hand back on his shoulder. Sherlock drops his head into his hands, and grasps his hair, the pain keeping the false memories at bay. "Mycroft I think it's time you left now."
"In a moment, John," Mycroft says. Suddenly he is crouching down in front of Sherlock grasping his forearms, and trying to get him to look up. "Names, Sherlock. Do you remember any other names?"
"I — I don't —" The world is tilting, and Mycroft's face is flashing between alive and dead. It hurts.
"Mycroft," John says sternly.
"What about the Director? The one Moran was working for? Did you ever meet him?" he says ignoring John.
"No! I don't know! I don't remember anything else before breaking out two days ago!" he shouts. The alarms in his head are at their peak, and sweat breaks out on his face. He needed the torrent in his head to stop.
Mycroft drops his hands from where they were clasped tightly around his wrists. "Two days ago? Sherlock that was three months ago."
"I — what? No. No…"
"Where were you for the past three months, Sherlock?" Mycroft says, genuine fear colouring his words.
Sherlock looks from John's concerned face to Mycroft's ashen one.
"I don't know."
He has never known such terror.
Hooray for mysteries and one clusterfuck of a plot! Hopefully I can keep up with myself. I appreciate any and all feedback!