A/N: Finally gotten around to posting this second chapter! This is maybe not as polished as it could be, but I really wanted to focus on moving forward with the next chapters for this and my other WIP, so I decided to just go ahead and get this posted.
Chapter 2: Highs and Lows
Mycroft is sitting in the kitchen of the family home, having recently returned from a long trip abroad. Their parents are away on one of their American excursions, so for the moment it is only the two brother's sharing the space.
Sherlock is still completing his studies at uni, but after an incident with his flatmates, Sherlock was forced to move out, and so he ended up back here, sleeping in his childhood bedroom.
For his part, Mycroft is reading the newspaper contemplatively, sipping his morning tea and nibbling at a scone, when he is interrupted by a very loud—
"Hello, brother dear!"
Looking up, Mycroft says mildly, "You're awfully chipper for 7 in the morning, Sherlock."
"Is it seven already?
"Yes, it is. Maybe if you bothered to invest in a watch—although, can you even tell time?"
"Of course I can."
"Well, it did take you until the age of twelve to learn how to tie your shoes."
"That wasn't important."
They lapse into silence for a few minutes, as Mycroft returns to his breakfast and paper, while Sherlock wanders around the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets.
Irritated at the noise and shuffling around, Mycroft asks, "Is there something in particular that you're looking for, or are you simply trying to be as tiresome as possible?"
"I'm bored."
"And you think you'll find the solution to that in the cupboard, do you?"
"Want to play a round of cards? Or operation? Or scrabble? Or Cluedo?"
"Sherlock—"
"How about deductions?"
"Really—"
"I'll start. You're dressed for work, and you're up rather early, which is curious behavior for a Sunday—"
"It's Tuesday, and I'm always up this early, which you would know if you bothered to get out of bed at a reasonable hour."
"Fine, it's Tuesday. So you're preparing to go to work—but if today is Tuesday, and you're planning to go to the office, then why didn't you shower before getting dressed? You always shower before going to work. More curious—why are you eating breakfast? You always wait until you're on the way to the office for that. I would say there's only one possible conclusion."
"I have no idea—"
"Clearly you're planning on an early morning workout. Of course, if you were like most people, you wouldn't bother putting on a suit first. You'd just leave in your workout clothing, but I suppose you may not want all of London to see you in that frankly alarming Lycra get up that you seem to favor for reasons unknown."
"Are you done yet?"
"I'm only just getting started. Now, where was I? Oh yes, you arrived home quite late last night. Some after work socializing, perhaps? But with whom? You couldn't possibly—"
"Sherlock, what in god's name—"
"It's not your turn yet."
"I'm not taking turns, and I'm not playing your bloody game. What on earth have you done to yourself?"
"I have no idea what you're implying."
"I'm not implying anything. I'm asking why you're behaving like—"
Mycroft stops mid speech as a very unwanted deduction hits him full force.
Sherlock is too busy inspecting the dust on the bookshelf to notice the way his brother abruptly clenches his jaw or the lines of tension that suddenly stand out on his face.
"Sherlock, even you could not possibly be foolish enough to experiment with 'street drugs.'"
That's enough to distract Sherlock from his examinations of the dust patterns. He turns around to face Mycroft and says, as calmly as possible, "Of course not."
Mycroft quickly stands up and closes the distance between them, and silently inspects his brother's appearance—
Faster breathing patterns, inflamed nasal mucous membranes, visible jugular pulse, tachychardia, perspiration, tremors, excitability
Then Mycroft steps back and spins around on his heel so his back is to Sherlock. He brings one hand up to scrub his face then abruptly lets it drop back to his side.
Finally he says in a dangerously low voice, "Cocaine? Really, Sherlock?"
Sherlock doesn't respond. Instead he swiftly turns around and leaves the room, and a moment later he flings the front door open and walks out into the streets.
He doesn't even bother closing the door behind him.
Sherlock doesn't return home for another the next twelve hours.
He spends the better part of the morning walking around London, completely absorbed in his manic thoughts, with occasional breaks to have fevered conversations with random passersby.
When he feels the high begin to fade and the glow die down, he disappears into the loo or a back alley and does another line.
Around two in the afternoon, he tires of walking the streets and hails a taxi. A short time later he is back in the lab, where he spent the better part of the next six hours simultaneously running four different experiments with another line here or there to keep the high going.
His brain has always been a force to be reckoned with but now, with the cocaine—it's like an otherworldly machine.
Or at least that's how it feels as he races around lab, stopping to jot down notes about his conclusions, further avenues of exploration, anything to capture the brilliant insights that keeps flooding his brain.
The whole time he can't help but marvel at the way that the world seems so bright and exciting and new. He feels powerful and energized and not even remotely bored.
It's wonderful, so wonderful that he's willing to ignore the way his heart feels like it's on the verge of exploding, how his face seemed to be on fire, and the way his hands shake with enough force that he had to call in the lab tech to help him use the pipette.
He's wrapping up one of the experiments when he notices the shift from elation to restless irritability. He feels tired, worn out, but also on edge.
He considers doing another line, reached into his pocket, and realizes there's nothing left.
Probably for the best, really. He could use a little rest, even though that voice in his brain is still screaming—
More more more more more more more more
It had always been there, that niggling little voice, that demanding, hungry, desperate feeling—that want, that need—but it had been shapeless, formless.
Until now.
Whereas before it had just been craving for more of something, now he knows exactly what he wants.
More drugs.
After all, how could he not want more of something that feels this good? Why would he ever want this feeling to stop?
He doesn't. He wants it to go on forever.
But when he tracks down Walter, the first thing the homeless man says to him is—
"You look kind of strung out, mate."
"I feel fine," Sherlock bites out.
Walt is undeterred by the sharp response. "Maybe you should give it a rest for awhile, all I'm saying."
"If I wanted to listen to a lecture, I would go talk to my brother. Now if you don't want to sell me anything—and don't think I'm unaware of how overpriced this is—"
"Look, I'm not saying I won't sell it to you, but I'm all out right now."
Before Sherlock can respond, Walt adds, hastily, "I should have more by tomorrow. If you want, I could drop by and—"
Immediately, Sherlock interjects with, "No, meet me here, tomorrow at 5."
"Yeah, sure, no problem Sherl."
"And don't call me that."
"Okay, whatever you like. Just go home and relax."
At the word relax, Sherlock scoffs as he turns around and flags a taxi to take him back home.
He prays that his brother will be out of the house when he returns, but once again luck is not on his side.
When he walks into the house, he sees his brother there, in his usual chair pretending to read the newspaper.
As Sherlock enters the room, Mycroft looks up and says, "Hello, brother dear. Did you have an enjoyable day parading around London like a common junkie?"
In no mood for Mycroft's jabs, Sherlock snapped, "Go to hell, Mycroft."
"Such language. It looks like your new friends are influencing your vocabulary as well as your drug consumption. What other lovely habits should we be expecting you to add to your repertoire? Breaking and entering, perhaps? A spot of assault and battery? "
Sherlock feels a deep rage starting to take hold as the restless, gnawing irritability find a perfect target in his irritating, vexing, smug older brother.
However, with his last reserve of good sense, Sherlock tries to walk out the room without saying anything more. His brother has other plans, though.
"We need to talk, Sherlock."
"No, I really don't think we do."
"Sit down, now, or I will be calling Mummy."
Sherlock rolls his eyes but decides that compliance will likely be the fastest way to get Mycroft to leave him alone.
So, he sits down on the couch and stares up at the ceiling, legs crossed, with his right foot moving back and forth in the air convulsively as his fingers unconsciously beat out a rhythm on the couch cushion.
Mycroft takes it all in—the nervous movements, the traces of perspirations—but does his best to keep his tone level, as he says, "Promise me you won't ever do this again."
Contemptuously, Sherlock says, "Stop pretending to be Mummy. I don't have to promise you anything."
Ignoring the jab, Mycroft says, "This is ridiculous, Sherlock. You're far too smart to be engaging in such reckless behavior."
"I thought I was stupid. Isn't that what you always say?"
"Come, come, now is not the time to rehash petty arguments—"
At that, Sherlock stands up abruptly, shouts, "Fuck off," and leaves the room.
He locks himself in his bedroom to keep Mycroft out, but immediately he feels like the walls are closing in. Everything grates on his nerves, from the ticking of the clock on the wall, to the constriction of his clothing, to the slight coolness of the air, and especially the occasional sound that came from Mycroft moving around in the house.
For awhile he stares at the ceiling and tries to sink into the safe place within his brain—a trick he developed as a young boy. He finds it most useful these days as a way to aid in storing and retrieving useful information, but originally his mind palace served as an escape hatch.
Whenever the world becomes too overwhelming—whether it be because of boredom, his brother, or some other myriad insult from the external world—he can just lose himself in his mind. He would spend hours exploring and creating. He learned how to hide away his emotions and forget where to find them. What started as a room gradually became many rooms until eventually it turned into a castle.
But now, even that doesn't give him relief. It takes effort—even after all these years—it takes some measure of concentration to immerse himself in the world of his mind, and he's just too tired.
Besides, why should he have to fight to stay sane when he's just discovered an easier way?
Eventually, he gets out of bed and starts to pace in circles, around and around, mumbling under his breath, his movements becoming more and more fevered.
When he tires of pacing, he digs around in his closet until he finds his secret stash of cigarettes—the one that Mycroft hadn't even managed to locate. After a quick sear to find some matches, he opens the window, lights a cigarette, and relishes the minor relief that the nicotine provides. It's only a partial relief, but it's something.
Of course, his brother smells the smoke after Sherlock starts in on his third cigarette, and Mycroft comes banging on the door, and so Sherlock puts out the final cigarette, and yells at Mycroft, "Piss of."
Finally, at just past 1 am, he hears his brother retire to his own room. After waiting 30 minutes to make sure Mycroft wouldn't re-emerge, Sherlock carefully opens the door to his room—not wanting to alert Mycroft to his movements—and enters the hall, walking quietly past his brother's bedroom door, until he reaches the toilet.
He flips on the light, closes the door behind him, and then stares at himself in the mirror. He's pale—well paler than usual—his hair is sticking out in every direction—again, more than usual—and when he tilts his head up he can see the pulse throbbing along his jugular vein.
He's certainly looked better, but even at his worst, at least he will always look better than Mycroft.
(Looks and physical fitness are the only two things he's ever consistently bested his brother at.)
He turns on the tap and holds his hand under the cool water then splashes some of the water on his face.
There's still a bad taste in his mouth from the cocaine post-nasal drip so he opens the medicine cabinet to look for a bottle of mouthwash.
As he reaches for the bright blue bottle, his eyes catch sight of a very different bottle.
A medicine bottle—still partially filled with pills and the words Mycroft Holmes and oxycodone on the label.
Ah yes, a remnant from when Mycroft had to have his tonsils removed a few years back.
(What a blessed event that was. His brother could barely speak for days.)
And maybe he's been blessed twice. A spot of oxycodone—a synthetic opioid that could calm the storm, ease the demands of his brain, that cry of more more more more more more more.
What's the harm? He's already made his foray into buying street drugs. Borrowing a few pills that Mycroft never plans on taking hardly bears comparison.
Satisfied with his internal rationalization, Sherlock grabs the bottle and tucks it in his dressing gown, and then leaves the loo, making his way to the living area.
He sits down on the sofa, his legs stretched out lengthwise, his head reclining on the armrest, and pops two of the pills without bothering to check the dosage.
After 15 minutes of watching crap telly and waiting for the pills to take effect, he gets up and decides to pour himself a glass of wine. It's not his usual custom—it's more in line with Mycroft's taste—but it seems the thing to do.
After half an hour and half a glass of wine, he feels the effects start to take hold. The faint—but pleasant—buzz, the sense of ease, the calm, the quiet.
Sherlock decides to pop another pill, and then a few minutes later, another because, why not?
After awhile, the pure pleasure, the sense of ease gives way to an overwhelming sense of tiredness. Usually he hates sleeping, fights it with all his might, but now, it seems so inviting.
He could get up and go to the bed, but his bedroom is so far away, the sofa seems more than adequate.
Without a second thought, he turns over so that he's on his side, with his head on one end of the couch and his feet hanging off the other.
The heaviness is so overpowering, so welcoming, so appealing, although he only as a few moments to enjoy it because almost immediately after closing his eyes, he drifts off into the comforting embrace of the alcohol and the opiates.
Mycroft has been tossing and turning for the last several hours, unable to sleep, unable to relax. All he can think about is Sherlock, his foolish brother.
How could Sherlock be so careless?
And more to the point, what will they do about this mess?
Just after 3 am, Mycroft gives up and gets out of bed. If he can't sleep, he might as well distract himself by catching up on some paperwork for the office.
As he walks down the hall, he sees Sherlock's door slightly ajar. When he peers in, he finds Sherlock's bed is empty and the room is deserted.
There are no other sounds in the house, but he makes his way to the living room where the light is still on, and there Mycroft sees Sherlock, on his side, using his hands as a pillow for his head, completely sound asleep.
For a moment, Mycroft forgets his anger, distracted by the sight of his brother looking so peaceful, so comfortable, so relaxed.
It reminds him of the early years. Sherlock was such a happy child, so bright and full of life, so smart—although not as smart as Mycroft, of course but still, far ahead of any of his peers.
But he had a spark that Mycroft could never hope to have. An energy, a force of will—
And Mycroft had such high hopes for him.
Sherlock did well in school at first. Sure, he got into trouble occasionally for antagonizing some of the other children—and yes, he got involved in more than a few disastrous experiments—and of course, there was more than a fair bit of mischief, like when he was eight and insisted on doing all his homework in ancient Greek, even after Mycroft explained that none of the teachers would be able to understand it, which was probably the point.
(After Mycroft heard his parents discussing the teacher's threat to fail Sherlock if he didn't stop turning in his assignments in foreign languages, Mycroft stayed up late each night translating Sherlock's homework in his best imitation of Sherlock's penmanship, which he then slipped into Sherlock's bag. Fortunately, Sherlock quickly tired of that particular trick, although to this day, Mycroft can still expertly forge his brother's handwriting.)
Of course, the good times couldn't last. He watched Sherlock go through the transformation that each person has to traverse as they come terms with the realization that he's surrounded by idiots who could never understand his—vastly superior and more complex—inner emotional life.
But that's what Mycroft was for. He was there to shape Sherlock's interests, to coach him on how to interact with the masses, and to listen to all of Sherlock's rants about the frustrations of dealing with those "imbeciles."
(It was a major triumph when Mycroft finally convinced Sherlock to stop using that word to the students' and teachers' faces.)
Mycroft knew it wasn't easy. After all, he went through the same thing, and he didn't have the benefit of an enlightened older brother to help guide him.
(It's one of the reasons why he begged his parents to give him a sibling—and how he hoped it would be a brother. Someone who would be like him, someone who would understand the joys and the perils and the trials of being like this.)
But then something happened—something changed. Sherlock drifted away from him, and that bright, vibrant boy turned into a moody, melancholy young man.
Of course, there's nothing unusual about an angst-ridden fifteen year old, but Sherlock wasn't usual. Everything he did had to be taken to the extreme.
There was the time—shortly after Mycroft left for uni—that their poor, misguided, well-meaning parents tried to force Sherlock to "get involved."
(Orchestra would seem the obvious choice given Sherlock's near virtuosity at the violin, but unfortunately he was permanently banned shortly after that incident with—well, Mycroft tries not to remember that particular fiasco. The aftermath probably took years off of their parents lives.)
Mycroft will never know why his parents thought a sport would be a good choice for Sherlock, although it was probably because that's what normal kids did, and they so desperately wanted Sherlock to be normal, with the same intensity that Mycroft wanted Sherlock not to be normal.
After extorting several bribes from their parents, Sherlock acquiesced. He chose track, probably because it would involve the least interaction with other kids. Unsurprisingly, he got himself kicked off the team in short order, after he slipped the star runner a laxative shortly before a major competition.
When their parents tried to get him to pick a different activity, Sherlock locked himself in his room and refused to leave—or eat or speak.
After three days—and half a week of missed school—Mycroft received a frantic phone call from Mummy, and he managed to convince them to give up on their ill-fated attempt to make Sherlock normal.
(Sherlock left his room after that, although he refused to speak to any of them for another full week.)
Sherlock could never be normal, no matter how hard his parents tried.
Mycroft's worst fear used to be that Sherlock would be stupid, but now—well, he wouldn't mind Sherlock being an idiot as long as he was a happy idiot.
But he's not—happy, that is.
Mycroft had been sure that going off to uni would be good for Sherlock. He would have room to explore his academic interests, and maybe he would find his peers slightly more tolerable.
And things did get better—sort of, sometimes, but now—
Now they're dealing with this.
It's so hard to imagine Sherlock snorting a line of cocaine when Mycroft sees him here, asleep on the sofa.
Mycroft can't help but smile fondly at his memories of a much younger—much smaller—Sherlock falling asleep on this very same couch when they were boys, because he always insisted on staying up late to watch telly with Mycroft, even when it was long past his bedtime.
Things were so much easier back then.
Mycroft had concerns but he never thought—could never possibly have imagined—that Sherlock would turn to drugs.
Forcing himself to stop ruminating on the subject, Mycroft redirects his attention to the present moment. Deciding that it would be wisest not to wake Sherlock, Mycroft picks up a blanket from the back of the sofa. As he prepares to drape it over his brother, he catches sight of something small, something plastic, that is just barely visible from where it's rolled under the furniture.
It wasn't there earlier, Mycroft certainly would have noticed when he was reading the paper that evening.
Mycroft feels the stirrings of something in his gut—dread—but he doesn't focus on it, doesn't analyze it too closely. Instead, he bends down, and picks up the object.
A bottle, a prescription bottle—an empty prescription bottle—with the words Mycroft Holmes and oxycodone on the label.
Mycroft feels his heart stop, as he catches sight of the empty wine glass, and the slow—but thankfully visible—breathing patterns of his younger brother.
As he sinks down into the empty chair, he feels like the world is spinning.
To his brother's sleeping form, in a quiet, pained voice, Mycroft asks, "Sherlock, what have you done?"
But Mycroft doesn't need an answer, and Sherlock doesn't give him one.
A/N: I hope you liked this second chapter! I'm really enjoying writing this story. It's a great opportunity to fill in some of the back story and explore the relationship between the two brothers further.
Oh, and as you may have noticed, that final line from Mycroft is meant to echo Mycroft's remark when he's in the helicopter at the end of His Last Vow.
If you have a minute, I'd be really grateful for any feedback about the story so far! I'm doing my best to keep everyone as in character as possible, which isn't always easy, but hopefully I've done a decent job.
Thanks for reading :)