"Ultra Infirmitatibus Meis"
Chapter 5
"Hey brother..."
For the first few minutes Sherlock watched the interaction between his two siblings in silence. Noticing how utterly still and unmoved by anything his brother looked, despite Eurus reopening and rubbing salt into old wounds that healed years ago.
The more he looked at Mycroft, the more he had to remind himself that the elder Holmes was human.
If he didn't focus on the rise and fall of the elder Holmes's chest, he would have mistaken him for a statue.
When the Morse code messages were exchanged…
The detective's heart stopped.
Mycroft stood up, Eurus began screaming…
Sherlock's Mind-Palace started to crumble into pieces around him.
"This," Lady Smallwood's voice pulled the curly-haired man out of the impending destruction happening in his head. "is why I called you here, Sherlock." The elder woman looked deep into the younger Holmes's eyes, worry for a dear friend shining brightly in her own. "This confrontation happened over an hour ago, but the visible change in your brother's behavior started long before his chat with Eurus."
The world's only consulting detective nodded, not knowing what to say.
"Before…before he left for Sherrinford we…had a conversation about your sister's situation now that she proved herself capable of bypassing the island's security."
Sherlock's throat went dry.
He knew what that meant.
He just never thought he'd see the day Mycroft would allow it to happen.
A real death in the Holmes family.
No more smokescreens…no more games…
"Sherlock…Sherlock I don't think I'll be able to override his decision, if it's ever made final." Lady Smallwood spoke up, trying to snap the younger man from his trance.
Before the second Holmes has the chance to reply…
The door opened…and in came Mycroft himself.
"Lady Smallwood I need you to-" The ginger man cut himself off when he noticed the lady had company. "Ah…apologies. I wasn't aware you had company." He began backpedaling towards the door. "Perhaps I shall return later-"
But before Mycroft can disappear Sherlock bolted from his seat, and rounded on him.
"Mycroft Magnus Holmes!" He bellows, face red in anger.
The elder Holmes raised an eyebrow at that, his face blank, and doesn't say anything.
Despite the complete silence, it was clear he doesn't like what he sees, the cold aura gathering around him convey his feelings on the situation so well, words are not needed.
Sherlock, as usual, ignores this completely, opting to instead to yell right to the taller man's face.
"Have you lost your mind?!" His voice is so loud it goes up a few octaves. "What is all this talk about 'handling Eurus'?! How can you even think of doing something like this to her, she's your sister!"
He hoped to make Mycroft fell guilty, or at least explain himself.
But he just…stood there.
Watching the detective with eyes so emotionless and icy, Sherlock has to double-check if this is really his brother he's talking to and not an ice statute that just came to life.
It isn't long before the younger Holmes begins to shiver under the older one's cold stare, his earlier anger and bravado rapidly disappearing, the air around them starting to feel as if someone left the freezer open.
After a long minute of nothing but the adrenaline-filled beats of Sherlock's heart, filling the air…
Mycroft finally spoke up.
"So…" The single word came out sounding low and calculated, like it was spoken by an unfeeling robot and not an overprotective older brother that would give his very life if it meant saving his family. "This is the infamous Sherlock Holmes." The younger man watched with increasing alarm, as the familiar eyes gazed at him as if this was the very first time they ever met in person. "The rumors about you aren't wrong," His eyes narrowed, stare cold enough to freeze lava. "you really are causing more headaches than you're worth."
The minute those words leave Mycroft's mouth the younger man blisters back, looking as if he was slapped.
Mycroft may have called him 'foolish' during their many feuds…
He may have slipped in the occasional 'ungrateful brat' when he was really angry…
But Mycroft never, ever, called him 'worthless'.
Even Lady Smallwood shrinks in her seat, both bewildered and afraid.
"W-What?" Words barely make their way through the detective's mouth, as his throat feels as if it has a noose tightening around it with every breath he takes.
"I understand your sister's predicament may seem alarming to you," The older man stated, each word carefully chosen, as if this was a chess match and not a conversation between siblings. "But I'm afraid you have no say in the matter." He didn't sound regretful, nor did it look like it tears him up to say it. It was like talking to a computer program on legs, than a human. "and neither do your parents."
"What…?" Sherlock echoes himself, sounding as if air was literally punched out of his lungs.
"It is to my understanding that, in the official records, she was pronounced dead a very long time ago. Something that is sadly not true, as proven by events taking place during the past few weeks." He pulled out the pocket watch he always carried over his heart, and gazed at its high class appearance. "I have simply decided to…remedy that."
Somehow, though even he doesn't exactly know how, the curly-haired man managed to swallow open his throat enough to speak.
"So…this is it?" He rasped out, voice strained. "You're just going to sign the papers and just…let it happen?!" Sherlock demanded recovering his earlier vigor.
Mycroft raises an eyebrow in a way that would normally suggest faint amusement at the idiocy unfolding before him. And when the usual playful spark in the ice-blue eyes is instead replaced with cold indifference, Sherlock's heart sunk just a little bit lower than it already was.
"Isn't that what she deserves?" He asks in that same monotone, almost-dead voice. "She's hardly been the model citizen since she broke free from her little cage."
"She's family!" The detective could barely believe he was having this conversation. His mind could not wrap around the fact that he had to argue about the value of familial loyalties with Mycroft, the most loyal to a fault person he had the fortune to meet.
"What she is, is a criminal." The elder Holmes doesn't yell out his answer like Sherlock did, he didn't have to. His voice took such a low and dominating tone, everyone around him was forced to listen. "She committed mind manipulation, high property damage, and murdered innocent people. Yet you, the man who sent similar cases to prison with his own hands, are trying to defend her." His eyes narrowed again. "Tell me, Mr. Holmes…would you have me spare the life of your old nemesis, Jim Moriarty, simply because he happened to provide you with interesting cases?"
Sherlock found enough strength to growl.
"He has nothing to do with this!" He yells out. "He wasn't a family member!"
"Ah but he has everything to do with this, Mr. Holmes." Mycroft's smile was mirthless, and empty. "After all, wasn't he simply an extension of your sister's conscious? A way for her to interact with the outside world without actually being in it? His plans to engage you in that pointless game of 'Cat and Mouse' we're all implanted into him during their five-minute meeting, so I don't see why one shouldn't view them as simply a puppet and his puppeteer…" He snorted at the stubborn silence that could be heard on Sherlock's end. "Pawn or Mastermind, they are still criminals that fully deserve what is coming to them." He then lowers his head, a distant look of sadness appearing on his face. "Familial love never saved anyone…it is pointless to even try… As a thirst for blood, once awakened, can never we satisfied." Ice-blue eyes looked up then, still emotionless…still empty. "It can only result with more people dying for their amusement."
But, instead of being angry, Sherlock looks at the man in his older brother's body with concern and worry.
None of that sounded like the man he grew up with...
Mycroft wouldn't let Eurus's actions get in the way of protecting her.
Mycroft wouldn't look upon his own kin as if they were bloodthirsty monsters.
Mycroft would never give up like this.
"Mycroft…" The detective took a tentative step forwards, voice soft and quiet as if he was speaking with a frightened animal and not his elder brother. "What happened to you?"
The fox-haired man looked down at him, face devoid of emotion and eyes looking more like colored glass marbles, than windows to one's soul.
"Nothing." Came the cool response, tone betraying nothing. "Why?"
Sherlock wants to tell him.
Wants to scream out everything that's wrong with this situation.
To demand the location of his real brother, as he must have been replaced with an android look-alike.
To throw an enormous temper tantrum until Mycroft acts like himself again.
But…couldn't.
His tongue, usually unstoppable to the point of irritation, felt glued to his bottom jaw, forcing the detective to stay unusually quiet.
All he could do was hope the desperation and unspoken questions in his eyes, were enough for the elder man to deduce what would normally be spoken in a loud flow for angry shouts and gestures.
But, even if the strategy worked…Mycroft didn't show it.
His face remained the stoic mask of indifference, not matter what Sherlock threw at it.
Even when the elder spoke, it didn't give the results the curly-haired man was hoping for.
"If that's all, then I'm afraid I must be off." He then turns around and is fully prepared to leave the room, not paying any attention to the shocked looks on Sherlock and Lady Smallwood's faces.
"Mycroft!" The detective's vocal chords finally decide to work again.
The politician doesn't even look irritated with constantly being stopped from returning to his duties like he would a few days ago, and the younger Holmes began to question his ability to feel or even express any kind of emotion, at this point.
Mycroft, or someone wearing his skin, simply turned towards the detective with an expectant look in his eyes.
"Please…you can't do this." Sherlock looked close to tears, sounding like a six-year-old trying to talk an elder sibling out of running away from home, than he did an adult Consulting Detective. "It isn't like you."
The representative of the British Government didn't respond for a long time, only looked at him with a cool and uninterested stare.
"Why?" Mycroft asked in return. "I'm afraid I do not follow your line of thinking."
He turns around, and then looks over his shoulder at Sherlock.
"Isn't this how the 'Iceman' is supposed to act?"