2010 - Brothers

Sherlock POV

After our showdown at the poolside, all I wanted to do was to make a cup of tea, spread liberal amounts of jam on some toast and shove both down John's throat to cheer him up. He was worryingly quiet, just staring at the wall and looking almost as pale as me, and that was not pleasant for me to see. I didn't like John being upset—why was it so upsetting? I didn't understand… why did John's anxiety make me so upset? Well… it was John, I suppose, and that was all the explanation I needed—but I couldn't do anything to comfort him. I had my own thoughts to sort through and I was hardly good at 'comforting', the last time I had done it was when I pointed out to Mycroft that he was gay, and whilst it had gone reasonably well that was only because I had spent months thinking of a way to talk to him about it. Therefore, after leaving that cup of tea and side order of toast beside him on the sofa, I collected my coat and scarf again and decided to go for a walk, ignoring the chill and just breathing in the thick scent of London.

Most people who come from wide, country expanses and clean air as I do – although I would argue that given my start in life had come during the early 1800s in rural Switzerland, living before cars and factories, I had breathed air cleaner than any that existed in the developed world – despise the smoke and dust of London. But it was a smell which reassured me like none other because when I breathed in that smell, I breathed in people, I breathed in their hustle and bustle and their machinery. It was the smell of civilised society and mankind – two things I never thought I could be a part of. And whilst I still strived for the latter, I knew that I was at least partially accepted into their society and that was more than I could ever have asked for. I was not isolated, living in the woods or hiding in the shadows anymore.

I had never felt quite so lost in London as I felt that night. I knew every street and could get anywhere without trouble but I was lost inside my own head, completely at a loss of what to do next. Tonight I had nearly died and I hadn't given a thought to my own safety. No, John had nearly died at my side. I had watched him jump onto Moriarty, to try and save me – no one had ever done anything like that for me and I almost lost him, and surely Moriarty saw the panic in my eyes and the tremble of my gun when John was wrapping his arms around Moriarty's neck, as for a second I was afraid that I was going to lose him. Almost as bad, for a second I had thought John was Moriarty. It was a crushing thought; my sweet, kind, handsome—why did I say handsome? Not that he isn't but why did it seem relevant?—soldier had for a second turned against me, and my truest and most treasured ally had seemed gone. The betrayal had been more painful than the lash of the whip on my back, than all of the bullets of the war and every insult I had ever heard.

I don't know why it hurt so very much, why it felt like he was tearing at my already deformed heartstrings and making me bleed inside my chest. It just... it didn't make sense why he mattered so much. No one else had mattered so much. But that moment that I thought I had lost John had been the longest of my life, I felt like I could not go another second without him, as if my whole life was ending. I hadn't even felt like that when I had to leave Elizabeth, or when she married that other man. She hadn't been mine, I'd always known that but John? John was, we belong to each other in a way that only soul-mates could, even though it wasn't a feeling of romance—at least I didn't think it was—I knew that I loved him with every fibre of my being and it was requited. It was an entirely new feeling. Despite the cold and painful slash through my heart that I had felt at his betrayal, the warmth and the happiness that had followed when I learnt he was not Moriarty, the brief flutter of my dead but still beating heart, was euphoric.

Walking late at night, of course, is never wise. Don't worry yourselves, I wasn't mugged or abducted or abused in any form on that night. No, I simply became very aware, not long after I started walking, that a black car was trailing me. At first, I simply assumed it was Mycroft; I refused to get in of course. If he wanted to see me then he would do as he had promised a few years ago, when he had gained his umbrella – which was now battered and old but still kept as a tiny reminder that we had once been close - and he would come to me. He would not spy from afar and pick me up when it took his fancy. I did not appreciate such invasions of privacy. He had promised – and broken that promise many times – that he would come and speak to me in person.

But when the darkened windows wound down I saw the same face that I had seen just a few hours prior, grinning out at me,

"Well, Sherlock, I believe I have found something we share in common." I didn't spare Moriarty another look, I just continued walking as the car slowly inched along at my side,

"Are you going to kidnap me now? I won't go as easily as John, I'm warning you of that now." He chuckled, the window going down further to allow him to lean out slightly, chin resting on his hand as he giggled and whisper to me,

"I don't need to kidnap you... not when I have these-" I tried to ignore him, whatever he was talking about was apparently tempting enough to lure me in, so I would avoid such temptation by simply not looking him.

But eventually my will caved and I glanced, curiosity murdering the cat at last, and what I saw shocked me to the very core. The car jolted to a stop as I turned to face him, freezing on the spot as if someone had doused me in liquid Nitrogen,

"Where did you get those papers?" He grinned, gently fanning himself with the yellowing pages which I had thought were destroyed two centuries ago, apparently Victor and his father had both thought to save their parts,

"Oh these, I was given them shortly after I was born- now we both have half of the notes." I snarled, reaching to snatch them away but they were held out of my reach, as he tutted slightly,

"Oooh, impatient aren't we Sherlock?"

"Those notes belong to me; they come from my creator-"

"Our creator, Sherlock... I suppose you could say that we're brothers, the only two of our kind." I stumbled back slightly at that, it wasn't possible,

"What? No- you can't be-"

"So maybe Victor didn't make me by his hand but I am still the fruit of his knowledge, just as you were, only made by his apprentice instead."

"He didn't have an apprentice-"

"Okay rival, rather fitting that your nemesis is made by your father's school rival, isn't it? He stole the notes from Alphonse and used them to make me, just as they were used to make you. Although from the drawings I've seen of your past, I think that my master did a better job than yours in most respects; he had a more artistic and skilled surgical hand for example. How did it feel to look so abhorrent, to have people scream and run, to never be able to show your face? You must have felt like taking up residence under an Opera House, perhaps stalking a young Soprano-" He smirked, "I look at you now, so full of vitality and so very handsome but do you know what I see?"

"No, and I'm not sure that I want-"

"I see the monster. The monster beneath the new skin and the curls; I see the ugly little dark side that lives in both of us, and the weariness and the hatred and the pain, I see the crimes which put you on my level."

"They were a long time ago."

"But they still happened. They still haunt you, living forever on the edge of your conscience... perhaps if you'd been as normal in your appearance, if your creator's hand had been as careful and as skilled as mine you would have been perfect from the start. Perhaps they would have lived their lives in happiness, and accepted you. If only he could have done as good a job on your face as my own master."

"And how did he your master fail? Apart from the obvious mental instability-"

"Oh you know how Sherlock. We both only have half the notes, only half of the explanations as to how our bodies were animated which meant that my master only had a small portion of that knowledge, neither of us have our soul but I have just a little bit less of a mind and a consciousness than you. Don't misunderstand me, I don't mean than I am less intelligent, my mind is simply more one tracked than yours, less varied. I merely want to watch the world burn, whilst you don't quite understand what you want, to light the match or beat the flames with a blanket... you're a fully formed person, whilst I'm a fully formed villain who's hell-bent on destruction. I have one emotion, whilst you have so many. But then that might be because my master didn't abandon me, he raised me to cause Hell and that is what I shall cause."

He smirked slightly, dark eyes glinting unpleasantly, "it's so nice to chat without your pet around, because when you're around him you're just too... normal, at least you try to be. Looking at you now, alone in the rain, I can see that you're still striving to gain your soul. Personally I prefer my lack of conscience, it's far more fun. I mean you've always strived to be good and human, to be less than what you are but more in the same instance – the mortal man gaining a soul and yet the immortal genius with no love for anything but logic. You can't be both Sherlock. And where have those attempts to be good gotten you? This is where that path has led you, to dark dreary London where you fight for your life and are hated by those around you. They don't appreciate you and nobody loves you, nobody has ever been able to. Being Human won't be all you want it to be Sherlock, give up and join me. Help me create more of us, to be with your own kind and find true acceptance. We're the only ones who will actually accept you for what you are, without you needing to change."

I took a step towards the car and he smirked for a second but I simply snatched away the notes and hissed to him,

"Unlike you, I have enough of the notes and my own scientific knowledge to be able to successfully create more of our kind; I could do so now if I was so inclined. I could even have done it a hundred years ago, but I never did for one simple reason. And the reason that I am not inclined that way, nor have I ever been or will I ever be, is that I have seen what I've done and I have seen what others could do, it is not safe or worth it. I will continue on my path as I am, and I will never help you. One day this hard work, this suffering, will pay off and I will find my place amongst mankind, and you will be alone with your hatred and your crimes. I will not make more of us to hurt the world, not when I've seen what they will become... because I know what we've become. I have the benefit of hindsight, which Victor lacked when he made me."

"Then I'll simply keep calling, Sherlock; one day it'll seem so hard and so lonely that you won't be able to resist and you'll give in."

"It'll be a cold day in Hell."

"Hell for us is this land, this Earth. And I think you'll find that it's not long until the winter gets harsher, so look out Sherlock. I'll be back when the snow begins to fall, and it won't be the only thing falling that day."

And with that, the window slid back up and the car pulled away, slicing like a knife through the blackness of the night, leaving me stood alone and clutching the notes. That night, I updated my Mind Palace with every new scrap of information written in Victor's hand and then, when John was asleep and the Smoke Detectors were disconnected, I burnt them in the fireplace. I burnt everything that I had except for the sketches and the pictures; all of the information on creating another of our kind was gone, burnt to a cinder and out of his reach.

Victor had saved my half through insanity and through that single hint of sentiment that he possessed, and his father had done it for the same reason, neither realising that the other half still survived and that sentiment had almost cost a deadly price. Imagine if Moriarty had had the other half, he did not have the scientific genius to make the leap from his sparse notes to another one of us, but if he'd had the other half, my half... I shuddered to think. The Human race would never know how close it had come to its darkest day, and it would never know that I had saved them.

Once it was nothing but ash, I turned and headed up to John's room. I had intended to talk to him about the events that had transpired, to be certain that what I had done was right and to just be calmed by his presence. He was asleep however, and looked so worried and lined with exhaustion that I couldn't wake him. He didn't need to know. So instead, I simply sat on the end of his bed, smiling down at the man sleeping just a few inches away from me, carefully cataloguing his sleep cycles as he snuffled. I may have curled up beside him at one point to just reassure myself that he was there, that he was still breathing and the worst had no happened at the pool side. But nobody needs to know that, I was gone by the morning. As I was every other night in the weeks that followed.

AN. Just wanted to say that I'd love to see some fanart based on anything from this story, so if anybody wants to do some and post it on tumblr then let me know and I'm sure I'll be able to reward your efforts ;)