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After the funeral
Soon after Mummy dies, the family solicitor asks to speak with Mycroft.
The young man braces himself for the worst.
The solicitor had worked with Father when he was alive – had, in fact known him since their university days. He is kind, and he is at least competent. Mycroft trusts him, as far as someone like Mycroft will trust anyone.
He shakes the older man’s hand, and sits across the desk from him, laces his fingers together in his lap, and waits. The solicitor seems to be trying to find the best way to break the news, and it takes all his will power not to yell at him to just say what’s on his mind.
“They don’t want him,” the man says, eventually.
Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“None of them want your brother. They think he’s too … difficult.”
Mycroft blinks once, twice. “And is that the exact word they used?”
The solicitor looks down at the blotter on his desk. “No.”
“Rude, then. Intransigent. Insufferable.”
“Troubled.” The solicitor will not meet his eyes, and it infuriates Mycroft. “Abnormal.”
Mycroft feels bile rise in his throat. He enunciates the word exaggeratedly, turning each syllable into a discreet unit heavy with contempt. “Ab-NOR-mal. And what, might I ask, do they regard as normal?”
“Mycroft –“
“Their simpering little angels with their bland good looks and their disproportionate sense of entitlement? The meek who shall inherit their exalted positions right in the middle of the bell curve?”
“Mycroft!”
“They don’t want my brother?” Mycroft fumes. “They do not deserve him. They should be begging to take him. They should be falling to their knees and kissing the ground he walks on. They should be bathing his feet with their tears.”
The solicitor takes a deep breath, then hands him a document. “As Sherlock is a minor, there are certain legalities –“
Mycroft practically leaps out of his chair, crossing the room in a few steps to look out of the large French windows. “I will do it myself,” he says, through clenched teeth.
The solicitor pauses, frowns. “You mean -- take care of the legalities?”
Mycroft swivels around to look at the solicitor, hardly bothering to disguise his scorn. “Raise him, of course.”
The older man is startled. “But you are barely an adult yourself, Mycroft. You have your studies -- your whole life ahead of you. Are you aware --”
“Of course, I am aware; of anything and everything that you think is relevant to this question.” Mycroft turns away, fixes his gaze on an empty patch of green in the middle distance. “I am eighteen. I am responsible. And I am far more capable of raising my brother than all of our relatives put together and multiplied a hundredfold. A thousandfold.”
The solicitor stands, moves away from the desk toward Mycroft. “Mycroft, it would be a tremendous responsibility. You would have to give up so much. I understand you are reading law and finance at Oxford. And you are a young man, you will meet people, make friends –“
Mycroft narrows his eyes, wrinkles his nose as though he can smell something foul. “Friends? You talk to me about making friends when my brother’s life -- his very future -- hangs in the balance?”
The older man puts a hand on Mycroft’s shoulder, but Mycroft shrugs it off. “I appreciate everything you have done for us, Mr. Pike,” he says coldly. “But I believe that in this matter, despite my youth, I am the best judge of what is in my brother’s best interests. I cannot agree to have him uprooted from the only life and the only world that he knows. And I certainly will not agree to have him disappear into a system where he will no doubt suffer irreparable harm. I will raise him myself.”
“Mycroft. Think about your own future. About the sacrifices you will have to make. They are not insignificant.”
“I have thought about it, Mr. Pike. I have done little else over the last year, as my mother’s illness progressed.” He turns, focuses that unnerving, pale blue stare at the solicitor. “And I think you will someday see, as I do, that there is no sacrifice too great.”
He pivots away from the window and walks to the door, then stops. “Please make all the necessary arrangements. I am almost certain that no one will give a damn about the fate of an 11-year-old boy of some means. But I promise you this: if anyone challenges my guardianship of Sherlock, I will spend every penny that we have, move heaven and earth -- summon the very powers of hell to destroy them.”
He looks all over the vast, empty house, and his voice echoes in the halls as he calls out his brother’s name.
One of the maids, Millicent, catches up with him, touches him lightly on the arm, signals to him to follow her. They walk noiselessly down the long corridor to the library. Mycroft frowns at her; I was here just minutes ago – no Sherlock. She shakes her head, motions with her hands: look in the cabinet under the globe. She smiles, backs away, leaves him to it.
When her footsteps have faded, he enters the room again, feet light and soundless on the carpet. He stops in front of the globe, then folds his long body into lotus position on the floor in front of the cabinet. He’s certain that Sherlock can see him through the tiny slits where the doors of the cabinet fit into the frames.
To start the conversation, Mycroft clears his throat. When his brother doesn’t respond, he begins.
“The last time you hid in there, you were six. You had a torch and you were reading Solzhenitsyn. It was a tight fit then, and it must be an even tighter fit now, since you’ve grown so tall. You didn’t bring a torch, so I don’t suppose you’re reading. You thought, therefore, that I would have returned with Mr. Pike, and that certain discussions pertaining to your welfare would take place inside this room. You chose this particular hiding place because it’s the nearest you could position yourself to hear those discussions without being observed.”
“The gardener tends to the hydrangeas in the east wing in the early afternoon, and when I arrived, he said he had just seen you. Millicent begins to dust this part of the house at precisely 2pm on Thursdays, so by my calculations, you have been in there nearly 40 minutes. Factoring in the time, the interior volume of this cabinet, your height and weight and the rather limited number of positions that you could assume while you’re in there, I am willing to wager that your right leg is currently in a state of agony due to impeded blood circulation.”
A single derisive snort from inside the cabinet.
Mycroft continues. “Very soon, the sensation of pins and needles in your left leg will give way to the same searing pain that is shooting through your right. Your buttocks are numb, too, and your lower back is screaming for relief. In the interest of your extremities and your spinal health, may I implore you, dear brother, to quit your hiding place and speak to me like a civilised young man.”
“Piss off, Mycroft.” Such a small voice, but so angry.
Mycroft changes his position, moving closer; this time he rests his back against the exterior wall of the cabinet, with Sherlock to his right.
“He didn’t come back with me, Sherlock. Mr. Pike.” Mycroft loosens his necktie, unbuttons his cuffs, folds them up to his elbows with unhurried, scrupulous precision. “I told him to fix things.”
“Fix things?”
“Yes. You see, Aunt Fleur and Uncle Mason, Uncle Jack and Aunt Viola … none of them –“
“I didn’t imagine any of them would,” Sherlock laughs bitterly, a sound that saddens Mycroft like nothing else in the world. “So there’s only one option left, then.”
“Must you always be so negative, dear brother?”
“Because that’s how the world works, Mycroft, we’re all pushed around like pawns on a chessboard.”
“You seem to forget that you and I are exceptional chess players.”
“Oh, the world bloody well doesn’t care, Mycroft,” Sherlock dismisses him coldly. “I may have intellectual and analytical capabilities to rival an Oxford don, but to the rest of the world, I am merely an 11-year-old boy without a father and a mother and no one to care for him, and therefore the responsibility of the state.”
Mycroft inhales, pleads silently to a God he doesn’t even believe in for forbearance. “No one to care for you, Sherlock? Isn’t that a little theatrical, even for you?”
“There’s nothing you can do about it, Mycroft.”
“If you’d come out of there and talk to me man-to-man, you would see that there is.” Mycroft doesn’t talk to his younger brother like a child; it had been clear, from a very early age, that Sherlock demanded – indeed, commanded – respect, and it was something that Mycroft always gave willingly. The older boy now brings his mouth closer to the sliver of a gap between the cabinet door and the frame, as if his voice will be able to slip through it. “I told Mr. Pike that I would take guardianship of you. I instructed him to make the necessary arrangements.”
A long silence, and then: “But you’re too young.”
“Eighteen is the age of majority, Sherlock.”
Another few moments of silence.
“You have school. And friends. Things to do. Places to be.”
Mycroft puts a hand out, touches the honey-coloured wood of the cabinet door with long, gentle fingers. “I have a brother. Everything else is secondary.”
Mycroft starts to count backwards from 20 to one.
At the count of seven, the cabinet door opens. At five, Sherlock pokes his head out, the dark, glossy curls slightly flattened from spending nearly an hour inside this tiny space. At two, he crawls out, lies on the floor and lays his head on his brother’s thigh.
“My legs hurt, Mycroft,” he whispers. There is a dampness on Mycroft’s trouser leg where Sherlock’s cheek is resting. He does not touch his brother; neither of them can abide unnecessary contact. This, Sherlock’s head in his lap, is sufficient; indeed, it will last them both the rest of the year.
“Foolish boy,” Mycroft chides him mildly. “Why do you never listen to me? Is this to be a lifelong pattern, hmmm?”
“You talk too much,” Sherlock mumbles.
They stay in the library like this, without exchanging any further words, until darkness falls outside.
After the high
Mycroft receives the call at a meeting of party backbenchers who are planning a revolt. He has maintained a façade of scrupulous neutrality these last few months, and this is a crucial moment. The slightest miscalculation – a misreading of individual loyalties and intentions -- and the government of the day could fall, and with it, three key pieces of legislation that Mycroft has worked tirelessly for four years to push through parliament.
But when the police call, Mycroft is on his feet, slipping silently out the door.
Nigel Thorne notices his rapid exit, rushes after him, grabs his arm.“They’re voting in half an hour, Holmes, where are you off to?”
“A matter of the utmost importance has come up, Nigel, I do apologise. There is nothing further that I can do here, so close to the vote. And thus I am making myself more useful elsewhere.”
“More important than this?” Thorne hisses at him, lips curled in an ugly snarl. “Do I need to remind you what could happen to you or me if this revolt succeeds?”
Mycroft looks down witheringly at the hand on his arm. “No, Nigel. You don’t.”
“Then get back in there.” Thorne releases him, gives him a lingering glare, then turns and disappears inside the room.
Mycroft adjusts his jacket, smoothes back his hair, and proceeds down the steps and outside the building to the waiting car.
About an hour later, Mycroft finds himself trying to prevent his brother from crawling out of a window in his 9th-floor flat. Sherlock is nauseous and paranoid, babbling like a child and yet still so very coherent, discussing the details of a case from the newspapers while ranting at the room, at the universe, at Mycroft.
When Mycroft touches him in repeated attempts to calm him down, he tries to claw at his face, those long fingers aiming straight for the eyes. Mycroft moves fast when he needs to, but Sherlock is faster and deadly accurate with his aim, and Mycroft needs to act quickly before he’s blinded. He’s left with no choice but to hold his brother from behind, pinning his arms to his chest like a human straightjacket, dragging him down to the floor where Mycroft can better control him.
Mycroft is tired, so very tired. His back aches, his head is throbbing with a persistent migraine, and all he wants at this moment is to shrug off this nightmare of a day along with the rest of his clothes and sink into his own bed. But he can’t, because his brother is plummeting off a cocaine high and there’s no telling what he will do when he hits the ground.
“It wasn’t the husband, how could it have been, he was at his mistress’ home, it was obvious,” Sherlock jabbers, all the while trying to twist his too-slender body out of Mycroft’s grasp. His bony legs are everywhere, trying to gain purchase, trying to maneuver the rest of him -- and Mycroft as well -- into a standing position so he can wriggle away. Mycroft hooks his long legs over and through his brother’s; they look like octopi, spooning. “Why won’t you let me go, Mycroft, I need to piss, it’s too hot, your body’s too hot, it’s all that excess weight you carry, why isn’t the air conditioning working, the dust in here is making me sneeze.” He writhes and squirms and scratches at Mycroft, leaving thin lines of blood seeping through the sleeve of his jacquard shirt.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft whispers against his brother’s hair, the sweaty unwashed tangle of it. “Please.”
“I feel ill and I’m hot, Mycroft, it makes me want to vomit, please let me go, the woman did it herself, it’s obvious. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me? I hate you, Mycroft. It feels so good but it ends so fast, and I want to kill you.”
“You can kill me later, Sherlock. Right now I need you to be still and wait with me. Can you do that?”
“Wait with you, what are we waiting for? I need another case or I’ll go mad, why won’t anyone listen?”
“I listen to you. I’m always listening.”
“That doesn’t count,” Sherlock says scornfully, stabbing Mycroft right through his carefully concealed, plausible-deniability heart.
But still Mycroft understands. He lays his cheek on a spot just between his younger brother’s shoulder blades, hears his voice rumbling there through bone and muscle and skin. “I know, Sherlock. I know.” He rocks Sherlock gently, jumble of long sibling limbs on the floor, and the rhythm gradually helps to calm him down.
Soon after his brother falls into a deep but restless sleep, Mycroft is informed that the revolt has failed. Thorne and a few other MPs are clamouring to see him. Small men celebrating small victories. He turns off his phone and leaves it on a table in the living room.
Mycroft yearns for one victory alone, and in this small room, this smothering darkness, it's a victory that's maddeningly out of reach.
He doesn’t sleep a wink all night. He sits on the floor beside the bed where Sherlock sleeps and waits for the sun to come up.
After the Woman
The wallpaper in the Prime Minister’s waiting room is a luxurious ombrione fabric, the pattern a robin’s-egg-blue against a background of the palest grey. That Mycroft has never noticed this before is not a good sign; it means that he has been kept waiting for some time, and he has never been kept waiting before. Twenty-five years in the civil service, and he has always had easy access to the most privileged corridors of power in the land, never lingering long enough in waiting rooms like this to even notice the wallpaper.
When the door opens, the Prime Minister’s private secretary does not smile at him as she usually does. Wordlessly, he rises and he is ushered into the room.
The prime minister is looking out the window with his back to Mycroft. Seated on couches and chairs are the Home Secretary; the heads of Defence Intelligence and the Secret Intelligence Service; the Queen’s private secretary, Harry Seward; and the US ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.
The portly gentleman quietly fuming in one corner of the room is the deputy director of the US Central Intelligence Agency. If looks could kill, Mycroft should be dying on the carpet by now, the room sprayed bright with his arterial blood.
“Mycroft,” the prime minister says.
Mycroft settles into a vacant spot on the couch beside Harry, who gives him a conspiratorial wink that is both reassuring and vaguely unsettling. Mycroft smiles back thinly, lips pressed tight, the smile never reaching his eyes.
“We are of course very pleased that your people have managed to access the contents of Miss Adler’s phone,” the prime minister continues, drawing away from the window. “We understand that your brother was instrumental in this?”
“His brother should be arrested and tried,” barks the CIA deputy chief.
“His brother,” the prime minister says, quietly but emphatically, “has helped to avert a number of major crises, both political and security-related, for both our countries.”
“His brother,” the bulldog pushes on, “killed one of my men.”
The Home Secretary throws his hands up in frustration. “We’ve been over this before, George. It was corollary damage. How was Holmes to know that the safe was booby-trapped?”
“Nevertheless, there must be consequences, Mr. Secretary,” the US envoy interposes. “We simply cannot go back to our people empty-handed. Doing so could have grave repercussions on our bilateral ties.”
“I want him arrested,” the CIA man insists.
Mycroft runs a hand over his jacket as though brushing off imaginary lint.
“Gentlemen,” he begins. “I was responsible for bringing my brother into this situation. He was only acting as his professional responsibilities required. If you have any … disciplinary measures in mind … I, and I alone, will bear the consequences.”
“Very noble of you,” the CIA man sneers.
Mycroft casts a weary glance at him. He’s angry, and his anger is rooted in sentiment: a career intelligence man who’s lost one of his people, and he is taking it hard. Mycroft feels sorry for him; in another world, he might have offered him his hand in sincere apology. He may yet do this, if opportunity allows.
It’s the diplomat whom he truly detests, oh-so-proper and polite and coolly unctuous. “Might I suggest some well-deserved vacation time for Mr. Holmes, then? A period of six months to a year, perhaps?”
Harry Seward rises from his chair. “If I may,” he says. “As our friend here –“ and he indicates Mycroft with a slight tilt of the head “-- has brought the Adler incident to a successful conclusion, I believe we should be thanking him instead of chastising him.”
“Nevertheless, it is the Queen’s desire that this matter be closed in the most amicable fashion, with outcomes that are satisfactory to all.”
The prime minister nods. “We will discuss amongst ourselves the appropriate measures. Rest assured that my office will inform you through the proper channels of any decisions that have been taken.”
The CIA deputy chief can barely contain his anger; the ambassador however merely narrows his eyes. “I trust, Prime Minister, that these measures will not be purely cosmetic.”
The prime minister is a patient man, but test his patience too far and he will react. “It saddens me, Mr. Mitchell, that my word does not seem adequate to satisfy your requirements.” The words are harmless enough, but they are delivered in a scathing tone.
The envoy backpedals quickly, and he reminds Mycroft of a black mamba retreating. “That certainly is not the case, Prime Minister.”
Mycroft tunes out the rest of the conversation, choosing instead to silently calculate the values of m such that the roots x1 and x2 of x2 - 2m x + m = 0 satisfy the condition x13 + x23 = x12 + x22.
When he has worked this out, he finds himself alone with the prime minister and Harry.
“I’m sorry, Mycroft. I’m suspending you from all your duties for the next three months. All, except for one.”
Mycroft does not speak.
“The investigation into James Moriarty.”
As he stands outside Downing Street waiting for his car to pick him up, Mycroft feels a hand on his shoulder. It’s Harry.
“Cheer up, Mycroft,” he says brightly. “These three months will just fly by.”
“Mm, yes, indeed.”
Harry turns sober almost immediately. “Her Majesty wanted me to convey to you privately … the family’s gratitude.”
The black car slides up in front of them.
“You may tell Her Majesty that I am always at her disposal. Good day, Harry.”
After the Fall
It’s a surprise, really, when John asks to see him ... after. He’s prepared for the inevitable recriminations. All part and parcel of being Sherlock’s much-loathed older brother: a role he never auditioned for but was cast in anyway. A role he nevertheless proved surprisingly good at, at least insofar as inspiring loathing was concerned.
When John turns up at his office, they sit across from each other in silence for several minutes. Mycroft braces himself. It seems he is always bracing himself where anything to do with Sherlock is concerned, even now after he is gone.
John finally musters the strength to speak; when he does, he points to a small, framed photograph on Mycroft’s desk.
“May I see it?”
Mycroft takes the photograph, hands it over to John: Sherlock at three, in blue, striped pyjamas, arms and legs locked around a ten-year old Mycroft. They are both laughing at the person behind the camera.
“You look happy here, both of you. Who took this?”
“Father. It was Sherlock’s birthday. He wanted a parrot and got one.”
“The pirate thing.”
Mycroft nods.
John stares at the photograph a while, then hands it back with a question. “What happened?”
“To the parrot?”
“Between the two of you. How did things get so bad?”
Mycroft frowns. “If you are looking for one specific, life-changing event, John, I fear I must disappoint you." How does one explain the accumulated weight of years, of expectations unmet and good intentions misinterpreted, of words carelessly flung and paths forking ever wider apart? "At any rate, any discussion of the past is pointless now.”
John looks away.
“He called me. Just before he jumped off the roof.”
Mycroft lowers his gaze to the photograph in his hands. “Of course he did. I am hardly surprised.”
The younger man leans forward, elbows on knees, rubbing his hands together as if he’s cold. “Did you know anything, Mycroft? Did you know he was going to do this? Did you know – why?”
“John, my brother was as much a mystery to me as he was to everyone around him. I could no more explain his final actions than I could throw a rope around the moon and draw it closer to the earth.”
“You mean, he didn’t – call you? Text you, or anything? Before he …”
“You misjudge my place in Sherlock’s esteem.” Mycroft takes a deep breath, averts his eyes. “Let me explain a fundamental truth to you about my brother and myself. Every man has a list of the things that he values most. No doubt Sherlock explained to you his theory about fire – how it exposes one’s priorities.”
“I long ago accepted that where my brother’s priorities were concerned, I was always going to be at the very bottom of the list.”
John shakes his head. “I don’t believe that.” He points a finger at the other man. “You don’t believe that.”
Mycroft does not move. “I don’t begrudge you your place on Sherlock’s list, John. Your friendship … improved him. Made him a better man.”
“But this fact remains: in his final moments, my brother did not have a thought to spare for me. It’s only fitting, really. I failed him. Not once. Many times.”
Mycroft replaces the photograph in its usual place on his desk. “And, as you rightly pointed out before he died … I failed him when it mattered the most.”
John opens his mouth to protest, but Mycroft silences him with one hand. “I am rather tired, John. It has been a long day. If you would be so kind as to close the door when you leave.”
John stands at the door for a minute, trying to think of something to say. In the end, he can’t.
After all
Mycroft is scribbling marginalia on a classified document in his precise, slanting script when a familiar shadow darkens his doorway. He does not bother to look up.
“To what do I owe this honour, dear brother?”
Sherlock walks into the library slowly, as though he is seeing this room for the first time in his life.
“I was curious as to why you hadn’t seen fit to barge in on me yet.”
Mycroft sighs, continues writing. “I was aware that you had returned. I knew you wanted to see John and the others first. Re-establish yourself in their lives. If you had wanted anything from me, I am sure you would have found a way to let me know.”
“It’s not like you,” Sherlock says, easing himself into one of the chairs across Mycroft’s desk. “To keep your nose out of my business.”
“Yes. Well. Perhaps I learned a lesson or two in your absence.”
Sherlock observes him silently, noting the care with which he applies himself to ignoring his brother.
“I should like to see your list someday.”
The pen in Mycroft’s hand stills, and he finally looks at Sherlock, pale and thin in the soft glow of the library lamps. “I beg your pardon?”
“John came to see you, three years ago. He said you spoke of lists and priorities. I should very much like to see your list, although I imagine I already know what is on it.”
Mycroft caps the pen and lays it on top of the document with exaggerated care, then folds his hands together over his stomach and leans back in his chair.
“It was a time of great distress for both John and me, Sherlock. I may have said things that were … trite and maudlin. Believe me, it is a matter of no consequence.”
“On the contrary, Mycroft. It is a matter of great consequence.”
Mycroft opens his mouth to speak, but Sherlock interrupts him. “Perhaps I, too, have learned certain lessons in my absence. Chief amongst them being to correct misimpressions as soon as I have the chance.”
“Really. And what – misimpression of mine have you come here to correct?”
“You told John that you were at the bottom of my list.” Sherlock stands, crosses the room to stand at the window behind Mycroft’s chair. “Let me say this but once, and as unequivocally as possible.”
“There would not even be a list, brother. Were it not for you.”
Mycroft closes his eyes, allows his head to drop almost to his chest.
Five words. Paltry, really, if one measured such things as ordinary people do. But then again, he and his brother are anything but ordinary.
It’s enough, then; more than enough.
What a strange feeling, as though someone has torn into his chest cavity, reached in and taken a firm hold of his heart. Such exquisite pain.
Sherlock lays a gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Good night, Mycroft.”
Mycroft covers it briefly with his own.
“Good night, Sherlock.”