Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes © Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Part VIII —
DeathMental
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You once seemed to love
the tumbling of infarction
the oddments of destruction
the effort to stay:
a blackmaildecayLife lies in your heart like in a coffin
Stop faking suffering like a child
Bonds of silk and vows of lead weight
in rotten milk - this was your feast plateNow all your veins burst
all fears and wrongs
Hell won't tolerate hymns
Soap&Skin — DeathMental
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Sherlock is 16 and Mycroft is 23.
And Sherlock will remember this always.
(He will of course attempt to repress it, like he does with all bad things. He divides them into smaller and smaller bundles. Tiny aerosols, poisoning him.)
There will be bruises on his neck in the form of a hand and bruises in his mind after his mother and father's gazes.
He acknowledges them as his parents and has the natural bond of affection with them, but there is nothing apart from that. Nothing. He likes to think he keeps their relationship very professional. Mycroft, however, evokes a different response. After all, it is his hand on Sherlock's neck. He reeks of something ancient, like Destruction.
Mycroft is home for his Christmas break and their parents prayed for a lovely Christmas Eve where the brother would set their differences aside—but instead Sherlock runs away again and Mycroft has to drag him out from some shithole.
They want to say something.
Anything.
"You should have done this a long time ago," Mycroft says condescendingly to his parents, and he sounds like an adult. He has a giant stick up his arse and when he pulls it out it's only to beat people with it. He pulls Sherlock up the stairs, and their parents say nothing.
"Let me go!" Sherlock screams, and his tiny lungs wheezes and his shallow bones rattle from abstinences in Mycroft's iron grip. He is so weak, and thin. Much thinner than last time they met, which was a year ago, when his brother helped him empty his guts in a restroom. Sherlock swears on his life that it'll never happen again. "Let me go you son of a bitch!"
"Not very flattering when we have the same mother, brother dear," Mycroft drawls, and throws Sherlock into his old childhood room. The walls are blue and the bed is soft. "Go to sleep, Sherlock. I want you to sleep the addiction off."
He slams the door shut and locks it.
Sherlock is on his feet at once. He bangs his tiny little fists against the door, screaming obscurities, hating, hating, hating. It doesn't take long before he starts crying, a scrawny sixteen year old boy, crying for food and comfort and heroin. He calls his parents' names first. "Mommy mommy daddy daddy please help me..." But he is soon calls Mycroft's, knowing he is the real adult. "Big brother, I'm sorry, I won't do it anymore, just please..." No one comes. He's cold and tired and wet from the rain, and smells like overcooked cabbage from the dumpster he dived in trying to escape his brother.
The worst begins 12 hours after his last dosage.
He sweats like a pig. Tears come uninvited and his eyes are dry, snot running continuously. The few hours—minutes, mostly—he manages to sleep are plagued with fever dreams. Abstract, hysterical things, making him wake screaming. He whispers heroin in his sleep. The Christmas food on his nightstand taste like ashes in his mouth.
On his worst, he throws himself against the walls and door until he wears himself out and collapses. He accidently shits himself on the fourth day.
It goes on like that for a while until the worst has surpassed. It is first when he mostly stays in bed, docile and sickly, he's allowed to go out of his room. His parents set up a replication for Christmas, but they need to open his presents for him. Science sets. Books. Nothing brings him joy. His birthday is on the 6th of January and he doesn't even blow out the candles. He has no friends. Had one—Ill Boy, a philosophy fanatic with Manic Depression. He died of an overdose last year, and he's repressed the memory of waking up to a friend that choked on his own spit.
They ship him off to an intuition quickly after that and Mycroft still won't look him in the eye.
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Sherlock is 36 and Mycroft is 44.
It is the same ordeal.
Swung into the office, beaten and bloated, landing on all fours on the floor. The door is locked. But Sherlock isn't a little boy anymore. He isn't!
There is a video playing in the background.
'No no no no no...'
"You need to get better," Mycroft says from the other side of the door. "You need to focus."
"John is out there!"
"No, little Brother. He's..."
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
The horrible video plays in the background.
John, sitting there. He looks worse than last time. Pus oozes from his many wounds. It's painful to watch. The bar up at the window tells that the file's name is J_2, which means Mycroft covered one. Where is J_3?
Then he realizes this one has sound.
"Smile for the camera, John," a voice says. Moran? The cameraman hurries over to the half dead army doctor, "John here tried to commit suicide, such a naughty boy!"
John spits blood. "Liar."
The image jars and the screaming begins again.
Someone has cut an M into John's chest.
Sherlock thinks: I need to get out of here.
I need to get out.
[21 possible exit routes—]
Sherlock smashes the chair through the door, breaking it.
'I am not losing you to that monster again, John.'
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The man is dressed in clothes similar to Sherlock's. Blue scarf. Black wool coat. He wears a wig, and he has a resigned look about him. Dead eyes.
John holds him at gunpoint. The bandages are back on.
"This is for killing him, isn't it? You blame me."
"No," John says. "This is for killing me."
The last thing the man hears is a click.
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They run, soldiers in a never ending war, the adrenaline as good as any drug.
"John!"
"Sherlock."
They are at the same place where John was shot.
"He said you weren't real."
"I am very real, Sherlock."
And it is all Sherlock needs to hear. They reunite and Sherlock wraps his arms around him, weeping. John holds him. Holds him like no one did.
The building explodes behind them.
John smiles.
He thinks about lights, flickering.
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(Another video arrives at Sherlock's phone, but he doesn't check it.)
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A/N: Bedroom scene is inspired by Trainspotting, and the Holmes parents' reactions are inspired by Alex' folks in A Clockwork Orange. Sherlock's responses to withdrawal are researched and realistic.