TITLE: The Other One

CHAPTER/TITLE: Chapter Eight/Meet the Family

RATING: T (violence/language)

A/N:

Review please?

Chapter Eight: Meet the Family

The detective had to make sure it hadn't come from himself, his emotions breaking free, before bursting from his room.

Merlin was on the couch now, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, his head and face littered with bandaging. His previously limp form was now thrashing and twitching like a madman's.

Where was John?

Sherlock hurled himself forward and dropped to Merlin's side. John was soon behind him, having practically bolted from a the kitchen, a warm compress in his clutches.

"Don't touch him," John warned warily.

"I know that," Sherlock spat. "I don't touch you when you're having a nightmare, why would I do so to him?"

John was struck speechless. Of course Sherlock knew of John's dreams. How could he not when the morning following one, John's throat would be hoarse from assumed screaming. The detective never mentioned the dreams to his flatmate and John wasn't about to share them voluntarily, but he still knew. He was Sherlock after all. Not only did he possess those astute observational skills, there was also the matter that the world's only consulting detective hardly ever slept. How many nights was Sherlock downstairs, conducting an experiment or playing his violin, only to be interrupted by the cries of a haunted man? John continually tried to ignore thinking on it. But Sherlock actually witnessing the dreams? John could only flush with wounded pride.

"Merlin," Sherlock soothed in a soft, yet firm, voice that John wasn't sure he had ever heard from the man. "Merlin. You are safe now. You are alright. John is here - I am here, Sherlock. It is Sherlock, Merlin, and I am here. You are alright. Listen to me. Listen. You. Are. Safe. You are at my flat. Wherever you think you are, you are not there. Whatever you think is happening to you, is not. It is all in your mind. Wake up, Merlin."

John almost couldn't believe the scene in front of him was real. His brain flashed back to his own nightmares, to a voice, repeating similar phrases. He would hear the familiar baritone amidst memories of Afghanistan, of the pool with Moriarty, of watching Sherlock fall - and of dreams - of Sherlock dying again, of Mrs. Hudson being held hostage and killed, of Lestrade turning up as a victim in one their cases, of Molly in the morgue, but this time on a slab, of Harry drinking herself to death. Through all of it, real nightmares or fictional dreams, he would hear these words and be drawn back to consciousness and clarity. It was always brief, his eyes slitting open and then sliding closed once more. Several times John swore he saw Sherlock at his bedside, but always dismissed the shadowed figure as his semi-conscious imagination.

Had it really been his friend all along?

No longer wounded pride, but something akin to sentiment sprang rosily across his cheeks.

Merlin was mumbling something now in a language John failed to recognize. The odd and ancient words surprised the doctor and he wondered worriedly if the boy had taken a fever.

But what shocked him even more - was when Sherlock responded in the same tongue.

Merlin's body calmed, the young man now barely stirring in slumber. He was just cresting wakefulness when Sherlock abruptly stood and stalked once more out of the room.

Still reeling from everything he had just witnessed, it took John a moment to push himself forward. He was at Merlin's side just as the boy cracked open his eyelids. The blue irises were glowing with confusion and John vaguely wondered if that was how he looked when Sherlock spoke to him in his sleep and then disappeared before his flatmate was fully awake.

Merlin glanced around at his new surroundings curiously, but John could tell that he wasn't merely gaining his bearings. Merlin was searching for something, or more specifically, someone.

"What happened?" Merlin asked groggily as he made to sit up.

John quickly assisted his patient in finding a more comfortable position before answering.

"What do you remember?" John prompted, sitting himself down on the coffee table as he pulled it back to its original location.

"I was playing cards with some guys," Merlin swallowed, his eyes searching as his memory did the same. "Pretty right awful card players, too." Merlin cracked a crease of a smile until he looked down at his body.

Suddenly, Merlin was frantic. He tried to push himself off the couch, but John leapt forward and held him down.

"Where are they? Did they take them?"

"Merlin," John ordered, his doctor and soldier voice melding together. "You need to calm down. You're sick. You could make yourself worse."

"I don't care," Merlin shook his head and fumbled with the blankets that entrapped him. "Where are my clothes?"

John wordlessly handed Merlin the pile of wet rags and the boy immediately tore through them.

"No, no, no," Merlin scrubbed his fingers through his hair, almost reminding John of Sherlock. "They took them."

"Yeah," John sighed sympathetically, "you were picked clean when we found you. I'm sorry. What is it they took?"

"Your cards."

John and Merlin both turned their heads in unison at Sherlock's sudden voice and looming presence in the threshold.

Merlin's eyes widened just as they had done when he had first saw Sherlock.

"No," Merlin whispered. "I thought – you – you were a dream. I was just playing with those guys."

"Actually, you were just running, from us." the detective continued, entering the room in a round a bout fashion." The answer to why, I am not certain but am determined to find. The card game you're referring to happened sometime earlier today or yesterday, by my deductions. The men you won against, they were angry. Found you tonight and stole your cards. But not just any cards,"

Sherlock strolled along the walls casually as he spoke, keeping himself and his gaze drawn away from the both of them.

"You carried three decks. Two for tricks and games. Anyone who knows you would think those were the only two you own. But there was a third, kept in your jacket breast pocket and in a hard case. All the other pockets on your clothing were worn through with holes. Not that one. It had been mended, more than a dozen times. Could be seen as obsessive, but for the other evidence. Considering the style of the coat and the amount of instances you had that pocket mended, I'd say you had the jacket since you ran away. It was the only thing you ever stole, well, almost, the only thing. It was far too big for you then, so why take it? Sentiment. Some emotional attachment -"

"Sherlock -" John warned to no avail.

"Same with the deck of cards. You had them as long as you had that jacket. This coat is in ruins, and not just from living on the streets seeing as you've been doing so and still managed to maintain those cards. It's been purposefully neglected, except the pocket. So, whatever sentimental value you attached to it initially was broken. You didn't ask for it when you woke. You asked for your clothes. First, that tells me you no longer care for the jacket or its previous owner whom you stole it from. Second, you didn't want John knowing what you were really looking for. That's why you keep the cards hidden. It's not just to protect them. They're secret. Your secret. A secret so big you'd do anything to protect it. Even refuse proper medical treatment. Even lie. So what? Lying isn't a big deal to most people, but to you? You could be pick pocketing and conning people broke with your talents. And yet you perform magic tricks? You've got far too good of a moral compass to lie without a very good reason for doing so."

"Sherlock, stop." John stood now.

"And then there's the bit when we found you," Sherlock plowed forward mercilessly, though still keeping his body and gaze distant while Merlin sank fearfully back into the couch. "You called out for help, but didn't want it from the hospital - or us. So, what are you hiding that you wouldn't want doctors or us, rather, me, to discover? Hm? Doctors and detectives ask questions. Questions you don't want to answer. Or maybe can't answer. He has been known to make threats when it suits him. But I doubt you would be scared of him anymore. So, you're choosing to hide something. Maybe it wasn't your choice at first, but it is now. Or, at least, you think it is. You don't know what to think. You're trying to hide and yet you came to London? Here? Why? Why now? You're obviously conflicted seeing as you came all this way and yet continued to lie."

"Sherlock, stop this," John stepped forward. "He's sick. Whatever this is, stop. For crying out loud, Sherlock, he just died!"

"Oh, don't be dramatic, John," Sherlock puffed and waved his hand. "He's done it before. Apparently it's something of a family tradition. Coming back from the dead."

"What the hell are you on about?" John pressed.

"Your deck of cards was missing something, wasn't it?" Sherlock trampled over the question.

Merlin barely nodded. His face was almost as white as it had been when they first found him on the shore, his eyes as terrified as when he thought he was going to a hospital.

There was a sharp silence as Sherlock stormed into his bedroom, only to return seconds later. He thrust something into Merlin's quaking hands, looking at the boy for the first time since he started his speech.

"I thought I told you long ago that nothing good ever comes from lying - or stealing." Sherlock hissed. "I show you no sympathy in your loss as the item that you were robbed of, was first taken, from me."

"You?" John's jaw dropped. "He stole from you? How is that even possible?"

"Oh, it would have been quite simple," Sherlock scowled, "considering we shared a bedroom."

John verbally and physically stumbled, started and staggered.

"You - what?" John glanced back and forth between the two, until his gaze landed on the item still sitting in the palm of Merlin's hand.

A joker.

"Well, John, your first meeting of Mycroft was certainly atypical of how one normally goes about being introduced to one's flatmate's family members. It stands that you should meet my other brother in such a similarly unique fashion."

John was worried for a moment that he had actually quite literally fallen to the floor. But that had just been his brain tumbling on its side.

"Your what?" John snapped the "t" in his teeth.

"John, I'd like you to meet my brother. My younger, dead, brother."