How does a man create the means by which to work his own ruin? How does a man who is born into every advantage ruin the lives of those he cares about the most? Well, it is not a pretty story, though its beginnings are rather benign. I regret to confess that I do, in fact, know this, or nearly do. The childhood that should have created such an idyllic life began, as many do, with two loving parents and two little boys, seven years apart in age from each other. Myself, the younger of the two, had for several years been the child upon whom all doting landed. My brother, Mycroft, loved me and guided me as well as, if not better, than my parents. I had ample means by which to learn about the world around me, and I was taken by the means by which living beings existed and made their lives- for our own kind, the power of human choice. And among the animals, I studied bees, with their near studious pursuit of their livelihoods, working in harmony with each other as some sort of natural machine, perhaps even more harmoniously than humankind could ascribe to. I devoured book after book in my topics of choice inside our home in Sussex Downs and oft would traverse out into the countryside to see my favorite little creatures go about their day.
And who am I? My name is Sherlock Holmes, the man who invited tragedy into his own home- but I get ahead of myself. In regard to my childhood, in addition to learning, which I had no little access to, I was also fortunate enough to be born into a family of not inconsiderable means, which allowed us to travel across our fair England with some degree of ease and partake of all the wonders thereof. And, perhaps the greatest blessing of all, I was fortunate enough to have neighbors, and not just any neighbors, two children in particular- John Watson and Molly Hooper. Molly and John comprised the bulk of my childhood companions, and many happy childhood hours I spent in their company.
Alas, my mind, as I reached adolescence, began to dabble in the illicit- such drugs as my parents mourned and my friends were grieved to hear of. Though I only briefly used them before leaving them behind me, while I did, my thoughts seemed so sharp, even while they raced at greater and greater speeds than I had ever otherwise known, and in my quiet moments, I wondered what might be possible to achieve if such a process should be refined. But as I regained sobriety, such thoughts faded into the background, and I did not think on this again until my paths took me to London.
As the youngest of my set, I was the last to arrive in London to finish my education, as my dear Molly had, to her disservice, been sent to finishing school and John, to his service, went to medical school. While in London for my education, I had set myself up as a consulting detective, though business was slow in coming to my Baker Street rooms, and I mostly occupied my free time with refining my deductive process and my knowledge of human nature and developing new methods of chemical detection that should aid my mind and the London constabulary. Indeed, I became so engrossed in this pursuit, that I stayed on, even once my education was completed, even as my Molly returned to her family in Sussex, and John's love of danger led him to an army career.
Now, I had promised my Molly that I would not be long in following her back to our Sussex hometown, only wishing to cement my reputation in my field and finish the more time-laborious experiments I had begun before returning to be with the woman I loved. What I had neglected to tell her, or John, for that matter, in my letters to him while he was abroad, was that my previous dabbling in the illegal tinctures and powders of my youth had once again wormed its way into my life. I had once again begun to wonder what feats of the mind those concoctions might unlock, if applied properly. I had long thought that all the data of the world, every human and animal action and reaction, were out there for the taking, if one could only grasp hold of them. I had seen in my own life the kinds of stellar deductions my increased mental capacity allowed me to make in comparison to my colleagues. The very thought of somehow managing to chemically spur the mind to greater heights so that all such data streams could be attained enchanted me to my core! What God-like ability would I then possess! What sort of deductive leaps could I make about not only the crimes I had heretofore been solving, but all manner of problems, both human and philosophical! To know everything- not about a person or a field or a place, but everything- was a temptation I was not strong enough to resist.
It was these experiments that I was waiting to perform until after Molly had left London, knowing that she would heartily disapprove of the dangers posed to myself in the experiment's performance, were she to be aware of them. So while I waited for her departure, I busied myself laying as much of a foundation and groundwork as I could, researching chemistry, biology, psychology, mathematics- particularly those statistical methods that quantified and predicted human behavior. It was in this pursuit that I met that accursed mathematics professor- James Moriarty.
Author's Note: Can't wait to hear what you think of it- always love to see comments!