A/N: Greetings! Now we come back to Holmes for a rather dynamic chapter. It sort makes up for Watson's malaria driven ramblings. They are rather strange.
No disclaimer: Public Domian!
Ch. 11- The Revelation
27 July, 1894
The most extraordinary event has occurred. It rivals any revelation or solution of my past cases and shall eclipse all those that follow. Even now I have not fully digested all that has transpired, but since I am currently without means to continue my search, and, being unable to sleep, removed this journal from my desk and shall transcribe exactly what fortunate event inspired this change of my outlook and infused life once more into this wretched soul.
Previously, I have written that Mycroft had invited himself to dinner and as my last act of good will before I ended my undeserving existence that I would humor him and in doing so would also deliver this journal into his hands. Since childhood, Mycroft has had the rather unnerving talent for upsetting any plans that I may have formed. He may wish to complain that having me as a younger sibling made his youth a most troublesome one. I counter this with the absolute certainty my role as the younger sibling to his elder was made infinitely more difficult by him. More times than I wish to contemplate, he has taken it upon himself to "return me to Earth" as he termed it. This usually entailed his fouling up my plans, knocking the figurative wind from my sails, or just generally making an annoyance of himself. It is why, as an adult, I have done my best to limit Mycroft's knowledge and interaction with my affairs so that I might save myself a headache.
Though on Mycroft's interception into this affair I cannot find cause to complain.
After the conclusion of my previous entry, I found that I could not be roused enough to make myself presentable. I will admit that I must have been a frightful sight to my sibling who has not had the misfortune of seeing me in such a poor state before and a veritable wealth of clues for his deductive skills which, Watson was correct in reporting, are superior to my own. I had already begun to lose weight even before Watson's departure, but afterwards it rose to an alarming amount. Though I do enjoy an excellent meal as much as the next gentleman, its consumption is entirely secondary to my work. It was a necessary detachment that began with punishments in childhood and was compounded by my time in Montague Street when my career was yet in its infancy and I barely could afford my rent, let alone have enough left to feed myself. Those two factors helped to shape my habits that have survived despite the best efforts of a landlady who possesses no greater wish than to fatten me like a Christmas goose and a doctor who would gladly aid in the endeavor.
Perhaps, should events unfold as I hope, I shall allow them to do so since I am unlikely to ever achieve my brother's prodigious size.
Aside from my weight loss I had not shaved in several days, nor even attempted to comb my hair. The only reason my clothes were different was because Mrs. Hudson thought to steal them and replace them with fresh when I finally succumbed to her bullying and bathed. Still, I was in no way inclined to address these issues, nor was I tempted to move when I heard the bell. Voices were soon upon the stair and I heard Mrs. Hudson promise a fresh pot of tea followed swiftly by dinner.
"Thank you, my dear lady, that will be most excellent." By the gruffness of his voice, Mycroft had already visited the Diogenes Club and inhaled the smoke there in. I heard the door open and close, but I did not rise from my prostrate state upon the settee, nor did I offer any greetings.
"Shall I strip you, Sherlock, and check for bed sores?" This unusual question, even from my brother, caught me off guard and I raised myself enough to peer over the back of my chosen furniture piece. Mycroft stood casually by the door, one hand still on the knob, impeccably dressed and face accursedly blank. His grey eyes offered me no mercy as they raked over my no doubt pitiable appearance.
"And why, brother Mycroft, would you wish to do such a thing?" It takes a special combination to be both casual and caustic simultaneously.
"You have not moved from that spot, except for yesterday, for seven days, Sherlock. It would be a miracle if your entire backside were not one giant sore. If that were the case, it's no less than you deserve."
"Tell me why you believe I deserve such an affliction? It is most unlike you to want me to come to harm."
"At the moment I wish I could not claim such an absolute imbecile as flesh and blood kin, let alone my younger brother." I was momentarily saved by Mrs. Hudson who entered with a tray filled to excess. No doubt she was just happy to have someone present who would appreciate her cooking. I dare say that I had failed in that aspect in the past week. Gratitude broke through my brother's blank façade and the smile my landlady bestowed upon him stirred indignation and jealousy in my breast. She left the room without glancing in my direction, abandoning me to my brother's abuse.
"Come here, Sherlock, and sit. I gave you sufficient warning of my arrival. If you chose not to use the time afforded to you to make yourself presentable, that is your problem, but I did not come to lecture the back of your settee, no matter how well made it is."
For a half-second, though a half-second only, I was tempted to remain stubbornly in place, but I have learned to pick and choose my battles with Mycroft. He was not above bodily hauling me to the dinner table and unfortunately for me he would not choose to use my arm, but my ear. Gathering my dressing gown (and my dignity) more closely around me, I rose to join him at the table where he was already indulging in the feast provided by my much suffering landlady. He had commandeered my usual place, forcing me to occupy Watson's and I was dismayed to see a bowl of barley soup had been dipped for me.
Seeing my face twist into a sneer, Mycroft's fork paused half-way to his mouth. "Do not complain, brother, for if you consider your diet of late, which no doubt has consisted of little more than alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine, it will be a small miracle if your body will tolerate even that. I was for giving you bread and water, but your good landlady insisted that you would need something a bit more sustaining."
"Mycroft, you did not come to inquire after my eating habits or health, a telegram would have sufficed there. If it is a case that brings you, then I might cut this familial congeniality short—I am not taking any cases at present."
Mycroft wiped his mouth. "Indeed it is a case that brings me to your doorstep, though I will wager that it will be enough to rouse even your dampened interests."
"Betting, Mycroft? Most unlike you."
"As to your health," he continued as though I had not even spoken, one of his most irksome habits, "I have already received a most accurate account of that from both Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson."
My eyebrows drew downward. "Lestrade? Impossible! I have not seen him in two weeks."
"But you have seen Inspector Gregson, who relayed his findings to Lestrade and Lestrade to me. After my interview with your esteemed landlady yesterday, I felt that a personal intervention was necessary."
My hands fisted in the fabric of my poor dressing gown as the clearly superior tone of my brother's set my teeth on edge. What did he know? How could he know? What business was this of his? "Clarify for me, exactly, what you deem worthy of your interception? I can think of nothing at the moment that would qualify for such a move."
"Not even the doctor?"
His question rolled over me like a punch to the gut and I shut my eyes against the flood of images that invaded my brain. The fire, the bitter taste of triumph, the tears in my beloved's eyes. I clenched my teeth till they cracked under the strain of my anger and pain. It was some seconds before I could battle this reaction enough to answer though it was in no way possible to construe my tone as anything approaching normal.
"What of Watson? He is no business of yours."
My brother's grey eyes grew flinty in response and he abandoned all pretenses of eating. "He has been since '83, Sherlock, whether you were aware of it or not. Are you losing those deductive faculties you so pride yourself on and which the doctor has made the entire world aware? I am beginning to believe so."
"Do not," I warned, my own eyes hard, "presume too much, brother. Watson is none of your business."
"Do you claim his as yours despite the fact you have driven him away!?"
I rocked back in my chair, only now aware that I had been leaning forward, blinking rapidly in shock. It had been some time since Mycroft had employed that tone with me—since that time in childhood when I nearly broke my neck while testing a theory—but now I was fairly certain that he was angrier than he had been then. Despite the sinking feeling that I would not emerge from this bout between us victorious, I pressed on.
"What would you know of it?" My attempt at angry only emerged as little more than a desperate whisper.
"Considerably more than I'm sure you wish I did."
I could not conjure a reply to that.
"Tell me, Sherlock, how long have you known the doctor?"
"Since '81 as you very well know!" Ah, so I did still possess some reserves of sarcasm.
"Surely you can be more specific! I am certain, if pressed, you could tell me how long down to the very minute."
My body quivered and my knuckles began to turn white in the effort to keep them from wrapping around my brother's neck. Surely I could convince Lestrade, traitor that he is, that fratricide is completely justified—at least in my case. Why I have not committed it before now, I am not entirely certain.
"You spoke of a case, Mycroft," I began in hopes of steering the conversation away from this painful subject, "and Watson can't have anything to do with that. Speak your piece and be gone!"
"That is where you are mistaken, brother mine. Doctor Watson has everything to do with it."
"Explain."
"Would you be prepared to swear that you know the good doctor better than any other man alive?"
My brother, when he so chooses, can be terribly roundabout in his explanations. If he indulges in this method, there is no swaying him from it and one must merely suffer through it. Exactly where this line of questioning was likely to lead, I was uncertain.
"Yes," I swore, grinding out the answer between clenched teeth. "I would swear that I know Watson better than any other, certainly better than you."
I just knew by the smile that my larger sibling bestowed upon me at this declaration, he was already assured of his victory. I would not, however, concede the battle just yet.
"You have read the stories of your cases he has presented to the public, then?" At my terse nod he went on. "What can you deduce from them?"
"That the doctor has entirely ruined what should have been a series of lectures on the art of observation and deduction and turned them into romantic tripe!"
I was hardly expecting the laugh I received when I finished. "Do you listen to yourself at all, Sherlock? I now have all the evidence I need to know that you have read them as you nearly quoted yourself from one!"
Blast! I could feel the beginnings of a blush creeping up my cheeks and I turned away with a huff.
Mycroft soon lost any jollity he had acquired at my expense and proceeded with a more serious air than before. "From your readings, then, would you say it is a fair deduction that the good doctor has an excellent imagination?"
This time I did not deign it necessary to respond. Let him suffer through the silent treatment.
"Allow me to offer you my opinion, then. I, too, have followed the doctor's writings with some interest, and while it is true that they are of a romantic bent, I was still intrigued by them." This caught my attention as Mycroft very well knew by the slight inclination of my head. "If the stories were not enough to convince me of his imagination, then listening to him describe his own suicide with the accuracy of which you would investigate it did."
Even now, a full two days later, any words that I possess fail me in my endeavor to give voice to my feelings at that precise moment, but I shall do my best.
My world darkened and all I could focus upon was the world "suicide." I gripped the table as I began to tip forward and with much more speed than I would have believed him capable, Mycroft leapt across the table and lent a hand to keep him upright. His calling of my name was but a distant echo drowned out by the roaring of my ears. If not for the none too gentle slap to my cheek, it is entirely likely I would have passed out in my own sitting room. Where the first slap prevented this, the second brought me back to my senses.
"Sherlock, pull yourself together! This is no time to faint like a blushing virgin!"
I grasped the sleeves of my brother's jacket and gazed at him with half-crazed eyes. "Watson? John…he did not…he isn't…"
Forgoing the slap, though I could see the want still lurking in Mycroft's expression, he settled for delivering a sound shaking. "No, he isn't though it's no thanks to you." Removing himself from my weakened grasp, he thrust a brandy glass into my trembling hands. "Drink that and calm yourself."
Hardly aware that I was obeying, I lifted the glass to my lips and downed it. My brother, whose face I now believed to be set in a permanent frown, snatched the glass from me before it could become a victim of my unsteadiness. I then asked the question that I did not want the answer to but still desperately needed to know.
"What did he say?"
It seemed as though I surprised him if that raised eyebrow was any indicator. "Do you truly wish to know?" I swallowed around the knot in my throat and nodded. "Very well, as you wish. He wondered, at Reichenbach, what it was for you to be a voyeur to his grief. Did you wonder how close he came to allowing himself to plunge into the roaring abyss so that he might join you in death? Did you ever consider, in the years that followed, how many times he had held his revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger, imagining there was a bullet in the chamber so that he might scatter his brains over the walls? His scene of you investigating his suicide, however, was most telling. I found it morbidly accurate. He was certain that you would look upon his corpse and chastise him even in death. 'Passion, Watson. Like grit in a finely-tuned machine. Cause and effect.' He did not believe that you would grieve his passing at all."
"For I am the brain without a heart," I concluded bitterly, surprised that I was able to speak at all given what I had just been told.
"In your dealings of business, especially your business, it is entirely necessary and practical to be so. It is not acceptable, however, to carry that practice into ones home. Not to ones closest friend. So tell me then, Sherlock, why did you do so? Why did you punish the one man who would forgive you of any sin? Why do you give nothing back to the one who has given up nearly all to you?"
"Because he will destroy me!" Anger once more coursed through my veins and I quit my chair, retreating to retrieve my pipe from the mantle.
Mycroft settled back in my chair, I thought it gave a rather ominous squeak, and fixed that unrelenting gaze upon me. "How?"
This was the moment of truth, though I was not entirely certain why it was so difficult to reveal my secret. Perhaps it was because I had kept this hidden for more than a decade. I do not wish to acknowledge that I might be so fanciful as to think that if the words escaped my lips they could instantly be known to Watson and he would be beyond my reach forever. But was he not so now? Had I not sliced that cord of friendship that, while frayed by our separation, had nevertheless started to mend? But could he not see? Had Watson known…
"It was necessary," I heard myself begin even though I had made no conscious decision to speak.
"So you insist."
I whirled around. "It was!" I snarled, vacillating towards anger once more.
"Explain it to me then!" he demanded.
I tossed my pipe aside, stalking toward my brother with every intention of bodily ejecting him from the room, when the sight of the black medical bag sitting so innocently on the settee arrested my attention once more. All thought of retribution drained from me and I quite simply forgot my anger towards my brother. Against my will, my feet guided me to the settee and with the utmost care I lifted it from its resting place and cradled it against my chest as though it were a child and I its parent. Once more I found myself swept away by the emotions that had haunted my every waking and sober moment. That scene, that wretched scene, was enacted by my accursed brain in every detail and I swayed under the echo of my own anger, trembling with each verbal and physical blow that I had bestowed upon my beloved. Watson's name flowed from my lips in a pleading chant, the tears marking a familiar path down my face.
I was completely unaware of how far I had fallen in this state until two arms pulled me against an overly large body and one hand guided my head to an awaiting shoulder.
"Sherlock? Sherlock, you must come back to me." That dulcet bass, which had chased away so many demons in my childhood, weaved a path for me to return to myself, but it was still some minutes before I managed to banish the image of Watson's anguish to the cell I had locked it in.
"What have I done, Mycroft?" I whispered, staring listlessly past his right shoulder.
"You have made mistake," he replied gently before disengaging from the embrace and leading me back to the settee.
"I did not think so at the time." My voice was hollow just as I was. "I thought he knew and was mocking me for it. I thought he was merely dangling his forgiveness of my abandonment so that at the perfect moment he might snatch it away. I…I…thought he was laughing at how pathetic I became in regards to him and was using her to show that he would never love me in such a fashion."
"Love?" At the time I did not mark how incredibly hopeful my brother sounded.
I turned my red-rimmed eyes in his direction. "I love him, Mycroft, I love him with every fiber of my being and I have destroyed him." My eyes fell close and my head dropped to my chest, too heavy for me to hold upright any longer. "Would that I could just take it back, somehow mend the splintered bond between us, I would trade my soul to do so. But it is entirely impossible."
"Perhaps not."
My entire existence came to reside on those two words. My very breath stilled within my breast and I believe my heart skipped a beat or two. That magnificent brain that others have praised so highly, failed utterly in comprehending the implication of them.
"I don't understand."
Mycroft's grey eyes had lost their stony edge and he reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, a gesture I had not been privy to since childhood. "I keep his secrets, Sherlock, just as I keep yours." He held up a hand to stall my protests. "This is a puzzle you must solve on your own. You will not, however, be able to separate your emotions from this as you have all your other problems in the past. Now is the time to use them in concert with your powers of deduction."
"But what if I fail?"
Sadness settled heavily upon his brow. "Then two of the greatest men I have ever had the privilege of knowing will perish. Do not fail in this, Sherlock, for it is the most important problem you have ever undertaken."
End Ch. 11
A/N: Happy birthday to me! Today (the 25th of April) I turn 24! And this chapter, a day early…or close to it…is my present to you guys. Please enjoy!
Reviews are like virtual presents and virtual birthday cake, no matter how many you get, you can't get enough!