fic: Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon - House-Sherlock crossover - 13/15
Title: Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon
Writer: Ariana
Alternate links: Catch up with the whole story on AO3
Status of work: WIP - chapter 13 out of 15
Characters and/or pairings: Sherlock/John, Sherlock/Irene, Sherlock/OFC, most of the casts of House M.D. and Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for House season 8 and Sherlock season 2. Includes frank discussions of sexual activity, but nothing on screen.
Length: 4242 words in this part
Author's note: crossover with House M.D. Based on the video “Cat’s in the Cradle” by daasgrrl. Spelling and punctuation follow the norms of the character who is speaking in dialogues, so both British and American conventions are used.
Betas: as usual, many thanks to rranne, emelye_miller, and zinelady, and to FishieMishie for joining in as well. :-)
Summary: Sherlock’s unexpected visit to Princeton-Plainsboro, ostensibly on a case, threatens to turn House’s life upside down as he has to face up to a secret he has kept for thirty years.
This week: House and Mycroft hold vigil over an unconscious Sherlock.
Read Chapter 12 on LiveJournal
Chapter 13
It was lunchtime; a steady flow of employees and visitors were crossing the hospital’s main lobby and flooding into the cafeteria, laughing and talking, filling the air with the din of human activity. House watched them from the mezzanine balcony for a while, unusually taking no pleasure from his observations.
His leg was aching. He swallowed two Vicodin to dull the pain even though it had only been an hour since the last dose. He promised himself they would be the last before lunch. Better be careful; if anything else happened to Sherlock...
He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept all night; the operation seemed to have gone well, even with Kleber’s interference. But what if he’d made the wrong decision afterwards? Perhaps he should have just let Sherlock’s body recover before giving him anything else. What if it made things worse? What if he started bleeding out again or developed a clot instead? For that matter, what if it was too late anyway and the stroke had done irreparable damage…
House firmly dismissed those thoughts and watched Wilson come in, friendly with the staff as always, caring and empathetic. Normal. House had successfully avoided him all morning and didn’t intend to break his run of luck. He turned away and took the elevator down to the basement exit where Sherlock had gone to smoke the previous day.
A cleaner appeared, no doubt intending to take her cigarette break there; she gave House one when he asked, but didn’t stick around to smoke with him. Wise move. House stood just outside the door and blew smoke at the No Smoking sign in the drizzle. The cigarette tasted bitter and unfamiliar after all these years.
“Bad night, huh?” said Wilson, coming to stand beside him. He was carrying a box. House sighed; he had long since given up trying to understand Wilson’s knack for appearing when he was least wanted. “Chase told me about Sherlock... That’s terrible. I’m really sorry. I mean the poison and then the stroke... I hope the antidote really was in that batch.”
“Yeah. I hope so too, because I’ve dosed them both with one of the preparations.”
Wilson’s eyes widened with surprise. “You gave them... But you can’t have tested it. How do you know you chose the right one?”
“I don’t.” House kept his gaze well away from Wilson’s shocked expression. “Sherlock’s condition was deteriorating even faster than Watson’s. He had the stroke at six a.m. - Chase couldn’t make it back on time and Kleber is an idiot. I had to operate on Sherlock myself to drain the hemorrhage. He’s still unconscious.” House swallowed. “It’s too early to say whether there will be any permanent damage. If there is... if it happens again...”
“Sure. You wanted to cure him as quickly as possible. You should have gotten a second opinion, though,” said Wilson gently. “Sherlock is your son, House. Foreman is going to be all over you for operating on a family member. You’re just not objective.”
“No. But I’m usually right.”
“Let’s hope so,” agreed Wilson, looking worried. He paused a long time and then lifted the box he was holding. “I meant to drop this off when I took Dominika back to your place, but I forgot.” He handed House the shoe box of photos that he had stolen from the apartment the previous day. “I’ve got to say he was a very ugly child,” he added, obviously trying to cheer House up a little.
House smiled wryly. “Takes after his dad. Lucky all my early pictures are in black and white.”
He extinguished the cigarette and opened the box. Despite what he had just said, he didn’t think Sherlock looked much like him at all beyond a superficial similarity in their coloring and height. There was a faint look of House’s maternal grandfather, especially in the wedding picture Adler had shown them, but the cheekbones were a genetic mystery.
The topmost photo was one a passer-by had taken at Stacy’s request, that day they’d visited Princeton University. House had forgotten how young he’d still been then, with a full head of mousy brown hair. Stacy was sitting beside him, a strand of dark hair blown across her handsome face. Even Sherlock looked happy, giving the camera a timid smile; so ordinary with his short spiky hair and smooth young face. He didn’t look like a kid who would be overdosing in some stranger’s bathroom less than two weeks later. They just looked like a normal family.
House closed the box angrily. “Sherlock is an idiot.”
“Yeah. Just like his dad,” said Wilson. “Listen, House, I don’t know what you’re doing down here, but you should be with him, be there when he wakes up.”
“What, hold his hand and talk to him while he’s unconscious? You know I’m not the type,” said House, though he had to smile at Wilson’s well-meaning naiveté. “Besides, his brother is here. Not that he’s the type to hold Sherlock’s hand and talk to him while he’s unconscious either.”
“Oh, so that’s what you’re doing down here. You’re avoiding his brother because he blames you for what has happened to Sherlock.”
House glared at him, about to protest that Mycroft had no reason to blame him, but Wilson just raised his eyebrows and House smiled grimly.
“Yeah. I guess he does.” He wished he hadn’t finished the cigarette; there was nothing to occupy his hands now. He opened the box again and gave Wilson the photograph on the top. “Sherlock came to find me after his mom died. Turned up on the doorstep. That was when I lived with Stacy.” He laughed shortly. “He’d lost his suitcase so we had to borrow clothes from a neighbor. For the first week, things were okay. He liked Stacy and I guess she stopped us from arguing. But then she had to go to a conference, and things... Things kind of went downhill.”
“You fought?” asked Wilson, handing back the photo.
“I hit him.”
Wilson said nothing, waiting for House to continue.
“He got high. I had some pot and he smoked it all and nearly set fire to our kitchen. I knew Stacy would freak out when she saw the black marks on the cabinets, but Sherlock refused to clean it up, so I did exactly what my dad would have done and I hit him.”
Sherlock reeled back in surprise, one hand to his cheek, his eyes flashing angrily.
“Hey, that hurt!” he exclaimed.
“It’ll hurt more if you don’t clean this up!” yelled House.
“You have no right to do that!”
“I’m your father!” shouted House. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”
Sherlock’s small eyes narrowed for a moment, though aside from his initial reaction, he seemed unfazed by the blow. “Is that what yours did? Mine never laid a finger on me.”
“I can tell,” snapped House, still angry at his son’s defiance but equally furious at himself for losing control. For becoming just like the man he was pretty certain wasn’t his father. “Might have done you some good.”
“Yes, he sometimes speculated about that. Mind you, he could go weeks without talking to me when he was in a strop. He’s a bit senile now, though.” To House’s astonishment, Sherlock started opening the cabinets in the kitchen. “They used to threaten to cane me at school, but it’s been illegal in state schools for years so even private ones are getting nervous about it.” He was clearly still high, but searching methodically through the cupboards. “Cleaning products, where are you? Oh... there you are.” He pulled out a bottle. “Ah, we have this one back home too. It tastes disgusting and causes a nasty rash when applied cutaneously, though you could probably kill yourself with it if you could get past the taste.” He poured a small quantity onto a sponge and dabbed at the black marks on the cabinets. “If I wanted to commit suicide, I’d put it into a capsule, or perhaps a condom; it’s caustic enough that it might eat through the latex in your stomach. Although actually condoms are surprisingly solid.”
“Been experimenting with them, have you?” said House, almost surprised that Sherlock even knew what a condom was. He picked up a sponge and started cleaning too.
“Of course. The nurse was handing them out to us all at school. A bit pointless, in my opinion, as it was perfectly obvious which ones of us were sexually active. They should have simply handed the condoms out to them and saved themselves the bother of giving some to the rest of us. Anyway, Victor and I conducted scientific tests in the lab to assess their resistance.”
“So you’ve never actually used one properly?”
“Of course not,” said Sherlock nonchalantly, still scrubbing. “I go to an all boys school. Opportunities haven’t exactly been forthcoming and girls aren’t really my thing anyway.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that,” muttered House, already feeling better now that he felt a plan coming on.
After all, even though House himself wasn’t allowed to touch these days, he did still know a few hookers who would be only too happy to show Sherlock how to use a condom.
“I felt guilty so I screwed up worse. I got a hooker for him and he got drugs off her. Then I took him to a party and he took three ecstasy pills and OD’ed in their bathroom.” Telling Wilson all this was surprisingly easy; House wondered why he hadn’t done it years ago. “Next day, his brother came to take him away, and that was the last time I saw him until he turned up a few days ago.”
Wilson said nothing for a moment, while he formulated a comforting banality. “Well, kids like to experiment. I mean, he must have your addictive personality.”
“Sure he does. After he’d been with me, he went back to England, became a junkie and dropped out of college a couple years later.” House focused on some litter on the ground. “He could have been anything he wanted to be, but he came to visit me and he became a drug addict.”
“And then the most famous detective in the UK,” said Wilson immediately. “According to the British Times, 346 people came forward to testify that he wasn’t a fake at the inquest into his death. Another paper worked out that he had been instrumental in something like 120 arrests and convictions. He’s done a lot of good.”
House gave him a quizzical look, amused in spite of himself by Wilson’s logic. “You think the measure of a person’s worth is how many people they’ve helped? Guess that puts us high on the list then.”
“No. Yes... Well, it shows Sherlock led a good life in the end, right?” said Wilson lamely.
“No, it shows he was a jerk who had a hobby that incidentally helped other people. A jerk who then lied to all those people for three years by pretending none of them mattered enough to stop him committing suicide. There’s gonna be a lot of pissed off people when he comes back.” House shook his head. “No, I messed up and he’s screwed up like the best of us.”
“Okay, so he’s screwed up, but that doesn’t make it your fault,” said Wilson, adopting a different tack. “If everyone is screwed up anyway, then it wouldn’t have made any difference if you were there or not, or if you gave him drugs or not. He’d still be screwed up. I’ve smoked cannabis but I never became an addict. You weren’t an addict before your leg. Sherlock didn’t become an addict just because you hit him once and gave him pot. Something else must have happened when he was at college. But the point is, he’s clean now and he still helped all those people.”
House’s sarcastic retort was cut short by his pager going off. He read the brief message from Park a couple of times, a slow smile forming on his lips.
“Good news?” asked Wilson tentatively.
“Yeah. Sherlock is still unconscious, but Watson is starting to show signs of improvement.” He grinned at Wilson. “Guess we have our answer about my abilities at least.”
House looked through Watson’s door. He was not exactly the picture of health - hardly surprising given that he was suffering the after-effects of liver failure and heart surgery, and still had two broken limbs - but the results of the first tests Park and Taub had run looked reassuring. Watson was talking animatedly with one of the nurses; he had certainly perked up since his ‘deathbed’ kiss with Sherlock the previous night.
House turned to look into Sherlock’s room next door. The blinds were closed but House could just catch a glimpse of Mycroft where one of the blinds was bent, creating a gap. House raised his eyebrows; Mycroft was not only talking to his unconscious brother, but also holding his hand.
Unable to resist this opportunity, House slid the door open. Mycroft immediately straightened up, releasing Sherlock’s hand.
“There’s no shame in loving your brother, you know,” said House.
“I am not ashamed,” said Mycroft calmly. He leaned further back in the chair. “But I prefer not to have an audience.”
House walked over to the window on the opposite side of the bed. The room was reflected in the glass, against the backdrop of the gray day outside. Sherlock’s reflection made him look like any other patient, his features half obscured by the oxygen mask and the bandage wrapped around his head, and his body lost among all the tubes and wires monitoring him and keeping him alive.
House turned back towards the bed and glanced up at the encephalograph readings. “If you have anything sentimental to tell him, now’s the time. He’s still out cold.”
“Thank you, but I believe I have unburdened myself sufficiently for one morning,” said Mycroft, his dispassionate tone at odds with his words.
From: Holmes, Mycroft
To: greghouse@aol.com
Date: Mon, 21 November 2000 17:31:45 GMT
Subject: Sherlock Holmes
Dr House,
It has come to my attention that you have been conducting an email conversation with my younger brother over the past few years.
As you may know, Sherlock is a troubled young man; he is currently in a rehabilitation centre where he has no access to any means of communication. It is my belief that there is a direct connection between his contact with you and his current substance dependence. I am therefore requesting that you henceforth cease all contact with him.
Yours sincerely,
Mycroft Holmes
From: SH
To:
Date: Sun, 7 January 2001 02:36:15 GMT
Subject: Ignore my brother!
Hello everyone.
My brother hacked into my email account while I was away, got all my email contacts, and told a lot of you not to contact me anymore. Apparently, you’re bad influences and responsible for my “substance dependence” - as if I were some kind of easily-influenced junkie.
For anyone who is concerned about me: the occasional use of a small amount of cocaine simply helps me think. It isn’t my fault weaker spirits let it ruin their lives. I am quite capable of living without it, as indeed I have proved by passing all the tests in the ghastly clinic he sent me to with flying colours.
Business as usual will therefore resume.
Sherlock
PS: Vic, you should tell your wife about the barmaid at the Red Lion.
PPS: House, I need to go to Florida urgently. I’m going to need your help.
“It’s strange to see Sherlock so still. He is usually in perpetual motion, a maelstrom of activity,” continued Mycroft thoughtfully. His hand resting on his lap twitched, perhaps fighting the desire to hold Sherlock’s hand again. “What is his prognosis? Given your usual reckless attitude to safety procedures, I assume you have already administered the number 2 antidote?”
“No, number 4.”
Mycroft looked alarmed and straightened up in his chair. “Sherlock said you should use number 2. I may have doubts about my brother’s sanity at times, but he is an outstanding forensic scientist, and his knowledge of poisons in particular is unparalleled.”
“Sure.” House lowered his eyes to one of Sherlock’s immobile hands, firmly dismissing the doubts crowding his mind. He wondered if holding it would make him feel any better. “But he’s a forensic pathologist. His specialty is finding out what kills people. I’m a medical doctor. I know what cures them.”
“I see.” Though House wasn’t looking at him, he could feel Mycroft’s gaze boring into him. “Well. Let’s hope for all our sakes that your professional judgment is better than your attitude would suggest.”
“It is,” said House, trying to sound confident. He met Mycroft’s gaze. “I chose the right antidote. Watson is hitting on one of the nurses already, no doubt trying out some of that famed British humor on her.”
Mycroft raised an arched eyebrow. “Yes. The world is full of gay men but my brother likes to make life hard for himself.” He sighed. “When do you think Sherlock will wake up?”
“I don’t know,” said House, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. “The blood tests my colleagues ran earlier show some signs of improvement. The antidote is working on him, same as it is for Watson.” He breathed in deeply. “Sherlock’s main problem right now is the after-effect of the stroke. Three-quarters of stroke victims suffer some kind of permanent or temporary disability; anything from a mild limp to a loss of cognitive abilities.”
He met Mycroft’s eye and realized they both understood the implications. Sherlock would be miserable without his superior intellect.
Mycroft closed his eyes a moment, digesting the information. “I suppose I’ve always known it would come to this eventually as soon as he evaded my surveillance: Sherlock lying in hospital facing certain death or, even worse, a loss of his faculties. My brother is, as you so succinctly put it this morning, an idiot with a death wish.”
“You thought he’d end up in hospital if you weren’t there to protect him?”
“I have rarely been proven wrong.” Mycroft exhaled slowly. “You think I’m overprotective. You think I’m stifling my grown-up brother’s freedom.” He shook his head. “You obviously don’t know Sherlock very well. He has a brilliant mind, but the self-preservation instincts of a lemming. He’ll try anything and do anything if it will stop him being bored, or better still, prove him right. You think I’m overprotective, but you have no idea how much Sherlock needs protecting.”
‘Unburdening himself’ had evidently put Mycroft in a talkative mood. “He was a day boy at school; he would wander away for hours on his way home without telling anyone, because it never occurred to him other people didn’t know where he was. When he was at university, after both our parents had died, I’d get calls from his tutors telling me he had missed several weeks of lessons. When he stopped going altogether, I had to use a private detective to find him and ended up calling the police in the hope of knocking some sense into him. I tried to force him to stay at home with me, I put him into rehab, I got him jobs, but nothing ever stuck.” He pursed his lips a moment, his eyes on his brother’s obscured features. “So in the end, I let him go. I got people to follow him instead, paid his roommates and casual acquaintances to report on his activities. I used every resource at my disposal to, if not keep him safe, at least ensure that I would be the first to know if he was hurt.”
“I guess everyone needs a hobby,” commented House. He thought about the way Wilson and, for a time, Cuddy, had always seemed to be in league to interfere when he got into trouble. “Did you get Watson to spy on him too?”
“No. He refused.” Mycroft steepled his fingers and smiled wryly. “He had known Sherlock less than two days and was already fiercely loyal to him.”
“Love at first sight?” said House with amusement, remembering what Watson had said. It felt like weeks ago.
Mycroft looked doubtful. “Watson had just been invalidated home from Afghanistan. He had a poor relationship with his only family and suffered from a psychosomatic limp and suicidal depression. He was an adrenaline junkie in need of a pet project and he latched onto my brother. I’ll admit he surprised me when he refused to spy on Sherlock. My brother’s previous attempts at forging a stable relationship had involved less scrupulous young men.”
House thought for a split second. “Like his friend Victor?”
“Yes, Victor Trevor.” Mycroft raised his eyebrows. “Special advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs now.”
“Ah, going places, huh?”
“Hardly. He’s a Liberal Democrat,” said Mycroft disdainfully. “I used him to keep track of Sherlock while he was with you. It wasn’t difficult to convince the egregious little pipsqueak to let me read his chat transcripts. But then the idiot started bragging about his new girlfriend and Sherlock stopped talking to him. In a way, it was lucky my brother ended up in hospital. He had refused to reveal his exact location to Victor, but I’d learned enough to place a watch on hospital admissions in Princeton.” He looked over at his brother. “Given the likelihood that he would eventually seek you out, I was monitoring your hospital again this time around. I’ve waited seven months to hear any news of him this time. When Sherlock really wants to hide, even I can’t find him. You can imagine my relief when the first sign of him was a routine blood test ordered in your hospital a couple of days ago. I didn’t know that I would once again find him laid up in hospital on arrival.” He observed House. “I take it the DNA test answered your question, by the way?”
House looked down at the worn but spotless floor and laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, he’s still my son.”
“Evidently.” Mycroft was still staring at House, his eyes narrowed appraisingly. “And you actually care for him too. But why? You only met him once. You don’t know anything about him. A mere DNA test is hardly a sufficient basis for an emotional bond.”
House met Mycroft’s cold gaze and put the box he was holding on the bed between them. Mycroft picked it up with a frown, but his expression turned to surprise when he opened it and saw the letters and photographs inside. He pulled out the one of Sherlock with the home computer and stared at it a moment before he spoke again.
“The ZX Spectrum was my father’s present to me for my twelfth birthday. He didn’t understand technology himself, but he did understand its power.” Mycroft smiled wanly. “I wasn’t interested. I enjoyed the games you could buy on cassette, but I preferred chess or draughts in the real world. Sherlock, on the other hand, immediately took to it. He was only five years old, but he could copy programmes out of books and run them practically before he knew how to read. Mrs Carter, our housekeeper, I suppose you would call her, though she was theoretically just the cook, used to take him to the computer shop in town.” He smiled fondly. “He worshiped Mrs Carter. They used to watch Coronation Street together in secret. She adored him. But then -” He looked over at Sherlock to check that he was still asleep. “- I suppose we all did.”
“Even your father?”
Mycroft frowned as if it had never occurred to him that his father might object to Sherlock’s existence. “Yes, my father was very proud of him too.”
It seemed that with the floodgates open, there was no stopping Mycroft now. His voice faltered a little as he glanced at his brother.
“You see, when I was a child, I was often promised a sibling. A little brother or sister to play with. But every time, it would end the same way; my mother would return from the hospital, ashen-faced and determined to throw herself into some new endeavour. Then one day, she met you-” He looked House over with disdain before turning to look at Sherlock again. “-and this happened. He happened and our lives were never the same again.” He looked through the papers in the box. “I had no idea she had kept you so thoroughly informed about his life.”
“Yeah. I never replied to any of them, but she just kept sending letters and photographs. Guess she thought some day I’d appreciate them.” He met Mycroft’s gaze briefly and lowered his eyes. “She was right. When you told me he’d died, I read everything in that box again and-” House looked down at the floor again. “Your mom was a smart woman.”
“Yes. She certainly was.”
“Soppy sods.”
House looked up with a start. Mycroft rolled his eyes. Sherlock was observing them both through narrowed eyes.
“How long have you been awake, Sherlock?” asked House; the encephalogram chart was normal again.
“Dunno,” said Sherlock, his voice still slurred and unusually quiet. He grinned at them through the oxygen mask. “Something ‘bout ev’ryone adoring me?”
Writer: Ariana
Alternate links: Catch up with the whole story on AO3
Status of work: WIP - chapter 13 out of 15
Characters and/or pairings: Sherlock/John, Sherlock/Irene, Sherlock/OFC, most of the casts of House M.D. and Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for House season 8 and Sherlock season 2. Includes frank discussions of sexual activity, but nothing on screen.
Length: 4242 words in this part
Author's note: crossover with House M.D. Based on the video “Cat’s in the Cradle” by daasgrrl. Spelling and punctuation follow the norms of the character who is speaking in dialogues, so both British and American conventions are used.
Betas: as usual, many thanks to rranne, emelye_miller, and zinelady, and to FishieMishie for joining in as well. :-)
Summary: Sherlock’s unexpected visit to Princeton-Plainsboro, ostensibly on a case, threatens to turn House’s life upside down as he has to face up to a secret he has kept for thirty years.
This week: House and Mycroft hold vigil over an unconscious Sherlock.
Read Chapter 12 on LiveJournal
Chapter 13
It was lunchtime; a steady flow of employees and visitors were crossing the hospital’s main lobby and flooding into the cafeteria, laughing and talking, filling the air with the din of human activity. House watched them from the mezzanine balcony for a while, unusually taking no pleasure from his observations.
His leg was aching. He swallowed two Vicodin to dull the pain even though it had only been an hour since the last dose. He promised himself they would be the last before lunch. Better be careful; if anything else happened to Sherlock...
He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept all night; the operation seemed to have gone well, even with Kleber’s interference. But what if he’d made the wrong decision afterwards? Perhaps he should have just let Sherlock’s body recover before giving him anything else. What if it made things worse? What if he started bleeding out again or developed a clot instead? For that matter, what if it was too late anyway and the stroke had done irreparable damage…
House firmly dismissed those thoughts and watched Wilson come in, friendly with the staff as always, caring and empathetic. Normal. House had successfully avoided him all morning and didn’t intend to break his run of luck. He turned away and took the elevator down to the basement exit where Sherlock had gone to smoke the previous day.
A cleaner appeared, no doubt intending to take her cigarette break there; she gave House one when he asked, but didn’t stick around to smoke with him. Wise move. House stood just outside the door and blew smoke at the No Smoking sign in the drizzle. The cigarette tasted bitter and unfamiliar after all these years.
“Bad night, huh?” said Wilson, coming to stand beside him. He was carrying a box. House sighed; he had long since given up trying to understand Wilson’s knack for appearing when he was least wanted. “Chase told me about Sherlock... That’s terrible. I’m really sorry. I mean the poison and then the stroke... I hope the antidote really was in that batch.”
“Yeah. I hope so too, because I’ve dosed them both with one of the preparations.”
Wilson’s eyes widened with surprise. “You gave them... But you can’t have tested it. How do you know you chose the right one?”
“I don’t.” House kept his gaze well away from Wilson’s shocked expression. “Sherlock’s condition was deteriorating even faster than Watson’s. He had the stroke at six a.m. - Chase couldn’t make it back on time and Kleber is an idiot. I had to operate on Sherlock myself to drain the hemorrhage. He’s still unconscious.” House swallowed. “It’s too early to say whether there will be any permanent damage. If there is... if it happens again...”
“Sure. You wanted to cure him as quickly as possible. You should have gotten a second opinion, though,” said Wilson gently. “Sherlock is your son, House. Foreman is going to be all over you for operating on a family member. You’re just not objective.”
“No. But I’m usually right.”
“Let’s hope so,” agreed Wilson, looking worried. He paused a long time and then lifted the box he was holding. “I meant to drop this off when I took Dominika back to your place, but I forgot.” He handed House the shoe box of photos that he had stolen from the apartment the previous day. “I’ve got to say he was a very ugly child,” he added, obviously trying to cheer House up a little.
House smiled wryly. “Takes after his dad. Lucky all my early pictures are in black and white.”
He extinguished the cigarette and opened the box. Despite what he had just said, he didn’t think Sherlock looked much like him at all beyond a superficial similarity in their coloring and height. There was a faint look of House’s maternal grandfather, especially in the wedding picture Adler had shown them, but the cheekbones were a genetic mystery.
The topmost photo was one a passer-by had taken at Stacy’s request, that day they’d visited Princeton University. House had forgotten how young he’d still been then, with a full head of mousy brown hair. Stacy was sitting beside him, a strand of dark hair blown across her handsome face. Even Sherlock looked happy, giving the camera a timid smile; so ordinary with his short spiky hair and smooth young face. He didn’t look like a kid who would be overdosing in some stranger’s bathroom less than two weeks later. They just looked like a normal family.
House closed the box angrily. “Sherlock is an idiot.”
“Yeah. Just like his dad,” said Wilson. “Listen, House, I don’t know what you’re doing down here, but you should be with him, be there when he wakes up.”
“What, hold his hand and talk to him while he’s unconscious? You know I’m not the type,” said House, though he had to smile at Wilson’s well-meaning naiveté. “Besides, his brother is here. Not that he’s the type to hold Sherlock’s hand and talk to him while he’s unconscious either.”
“Oh, so that’s what you’re doing down here. You’re avoiding his brother because he blames you for what has happened to Sherlock.”
House glared at him, about to protest that Mycroft had no reason to blame him, but Wilson just raised his eyebrows and House smiled grimly.
“Yeah. I guess he does.” He wished he hadn’t finished the cigarette; there was nothing to occupy his hands now. He opened the box again and gave Wilson the photograph on the top. “Sherlock came to find me after his mom died. Turned up on the doorstep. That was when I lived with Stacy.” He laughed shortly. “He’d lost his suitcase so we had to borrow clothes from a neighbor. For the first week, things were okay. He liked Stacy and I guess she stopped us from arguing. But then she had to go to a conference, and things... Things kind of went downhill.”
“You fought?” asked Wilson, handing back the photo.
“I hit him.”
Wilson said nothing, waiting for House to continue.
“He got high. I had some pot and he smoked it all and nearly set fire to our kitchen. I knew Stacy would freak out when she saw the black marks on the cabinets, but Sherlock refused to clean it up, so I did exactly what my dad would have done and I hit him.”
Sherlock reeled back in surprise, one hand to his cheek, his eyes flashing angrily.
“Hey, that hurt!” he exclaimed.
“It’ll hurt more if you don’t clean this up!” yelled House.
“You have no right to do that!”
“I’m your father!” shouted House. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”
Sherlock’s small eyes narrowed for a moment, though aside from his initial reaction, he seemed unfazed by the blow. “Is that what yours did? Mine never laid a finger on me.”
“I can tell,” snapped House, still angry at his son’s defiance but equally furious at himself for losing control. For becoming just like the man he was pretty certain wasn’t his father. “Might have done you some good.”
“Yes, he sometimes speculated about that. Mind you, he could go weeks without talking to me when he was in a strop. He’s a bit senile now, though.” To House’s astonishment, Sherlock started opening the cabinets in the kitchen. “They used to threaten to cane me at school, but it’s been illegal in state schools for years so even private ones are getting nervous about it.” He was clearly still high, but searching methodically through the cupboards. “Cleaning products, where are you? Oh... there you are.” He pulled out a bottle. “Ah, we have this one back home too. It tastes disgusting and causes a nasty rash when applied cutaneously, though you could probably kill yourself with it if you could get past the taste.” He poured a small quantity onto a sponge and dabbed at the black marks on the cabinets. “If I wanted to commit suicide, I’d put it into a capsule, or perhaps a condom; it’s caustic enough that it might eat through the latex in your stomach. Although actually condoms are surprisingly solid.”
“Been experimenting with them, have you?” said House, almost surprised that Sherlock even knew what a condom was. He picked up a sponge and started cleaning too.
“Of course. The nurse was handing them out to us all at school. A bit pointless, in my opinion, as it was perfectly obvious which ones of us were sexually active. They should have simply handed the condoms out to them and saved themselves the bother of giving some to the rest of us. Anyway, Victor and I conducted scientific tests in the lab to assess their resistance.”
“So you’ve never actually used one properly?”
“Of course not,” said Sherlock nonchalantly, still scrubbing. “I go to an all boys school. Opportunities haven’t exactly been forthcoming and girls aren’t really my thing anyway.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that,” muttered House, already feeling better now that he felt a plan coming on.
After all, even though House himself wasn’t allowed to touch these days, he did still know a few hookers who would be only too happy to show Sherlock how to use a condom.
“I felt guilty so I screwed up worse. I got a hooker for him and he got drugs off her. Then I took him to a party and he took three ecstasy pills and OD’ed in their bathroom.” Telling Wilson all this was surprisingly easy; House wondered why he hadn’t done it years ago. “Next day, his brother came to take him away, and that was the last time I saw him until he turned up a few days ago.”
Wilson said nothing for a moment, while he formulated a comforting banality. “Well, kids like to experiment. I mean, he must have your addictive personality.”
“Sure he does. After he’d been with me, he went back to England, became a junkie and dropped out of college a couple years later.” House focused on some litter on the ground. “He could have been anything he wanted to be, but he came to visit me and he became a drug addict.”
“And then the most famous detective in the UK,” said Wilson immediately. “According to the British Times, 346 people came forward to testify that he wasn’t a fake at the inquest into his death. Another paper worked out that he had been instrumental in something like 120 arrests and convictions. He’s done a lot of good.”
House gave him a quizzical look, amused in spite of himself by Wilson’s logic. “You think the measure of a person’s worth is how many people they’ve helped? Guess that puts us high on the list then.”
“No. Yes... Well, it shows Sherlock led a good life in the end, right?” said Wilson lamely.
“No, it shows he was a jerk who had a hobby that incidentally helped other people. A jerk who then lied to all those people for three years by pretending none of them mattered enough to stop him committing suicide. There’s gonna be a lot of pissed off people when he comes back.” House shook his head. “No, I messed up and he’s screwed up like the best of us.”
“Okay, so he’s screwed up, but that doesn’t make it your fault,” said Wilson, adopting a different tack. “If everyone is screwed up anyway, then it wouldn’t have made any difference if you were there or not, or if you gave him drugs or not. He’d still be screwed up. I’ve smoked cannabis but I never became an addict. You weren’t an addict before your leg. Sherlock didn’t become an addict just because you hit him once and gave him pot. Something else must have happened when he was at college. But the point is, he’s clean now and he still helped all those people.”
House’s sarcastic retort was cut short by his pager going off. He read the brief message from Park a couple of times, a slow smile forming on his lips.
“Good news?” asked Wilson tentatively.
“Yeah. Sherlock is still unconscious, but Watson is starting to show signs of improvement.” He grinned at Wilson. “Guess we have our answer about my abilities at least.”
House looked through Watson’s door. He was not exactly the picture of health - hardly surprising given that he was suffering the after-effects of liver failure and heart surgery, and still had two broken limbs - but the results of the first tests Park and Taub had run looked reassuring. Watson was talking animatedly with one of the nurses; he had certainly perked up since his ‘deathbed’ kiss with Sherlock the previous night.
House turned to look into Sherlock’s room next door. The blinds were closed but House could just catch a glimpse of Mycroft where one of the blinds was bent, creating a gap. House raised his eyebrows; Mycroft was not only talking to his unconscious brother, but also holding his hand.
Unable to resist this opportunity, House slid the door open. Mycroft immediately straightened up, releasing Sherlock’s hand.
“There’s no shame in loving your brother, you know,” said House.
“I am not ashamed,” said Mycroft calmly. He leaned further back in the chair. “But I prefer not to have an audience.”
House walked over to the window on the opposite side of the bed. The room was reflected in the glass, against the backdrop of the gray day outside. Sherlock’s reflection made him look like any other patient, his features half obscured by the oxygen mask and the bandage wrapped around his head, and his body lost among all the tubes and wires monitoring him and keeping him alive.
House turned back towards the bed and glanced up at the encephalograph readings. “If you have anything sentimental to tell him, now’s the time. He’s still out cold.”
“Thank you, but I believe I have unburdened myself sufficiently for one morning,” said Mycroft, his dispassionate tone at odds with his words.
From: Holmes, Mycroft
To: greghouse@aol.com
Date: Mon, 21 November 2000 17:31:45 GMT
Subject: Sherlock Holmes
Dr House,
It has come to my attention that you have been conducting an email conversation with my younger brother over the past few years.
As you may know, Sherlock is a troubled young man; he is currently in a rehabilitation centre where he has no access to any means of communication. It is my belief that there is a direct connection between his contact with you and his current substance dependence. I am therefore requesting that you henceforth cease all contact with him.
Yours sincerely,
Mycroft Holmes
From: SH
To:
Date: Sun, 7 January 2001 02:36:15 GMT
Subject: Ignore my brother!
Hello everyone.
My brother hacked into my email account while I was away, got all my email contacts, and told a lot of you not to contact me anymore. Apparently, you’re bad influences and responsible for my “substance dependence” - as if I were some kind of easily-influenced junkie.
For anyone who is concerned about me: the occasional use of a small amount of cocaine simply helps me think. It isn’t my fault weaker spirits let it ruin their lives. I am quite capable of living without it, as indeed I have proved by passing all the tests in the ghastly clinic he sent me to with flying colours.
Business as usual will therefore resume.
Sherlock
PS: Vic, you should tell your wife about the barmaid at the Red Lion.
PPS: House, I need to go to Florida urgently. I’m going to need your help.
“It’s strange to see Sherlock so still. He is usually in perpetual motion, a maelstrom of activity,” continued Mycroft thoughtfully. His hand resting on his lap twitched, perhaps fighting the desire to hold Sherlock’s hand again. “What is his prognosis? Given your usual reckless attitude to safety procedures, I assume you have already administered the number 2 antidote?”
“No, number 4.”
Mycroft looked alarmed and straightened up in his chair. “Sherlock said you should use number 2. I may have doubts about my brother’s sanity at times, but he is an outstanding forensic scientist, and his knowledge of poisons in particular is unparalleled.”
“Sure.” House lowered his eyes to one of Sherlock’s immobile hands, firmly dismissing the doubts crowding his mind. He wondered if holding it would make him feel any better. “But he’s a forensic pathologist. His specialty is finding out what kills people. I’m a medical doctor. I know what cures them.”
“I see.” Though House wasn’t looking at him, he could feel Mycroft’s gaze boring into him. “Well. Let’s hope for all our sakes that your professional judgment is better than your attitude would suggest.”
“It is,” said House, trying to sound confident. He met Mycroft’s gaze. “I chose the right antidote. Watson is hitting on one of the nurses already, no doubt trying out some of that famed British humor on her.”
Mycroft raised an arched eyebrow. “Yes. The world is full of gay men but my brother likes to make life hard for himself.” He sighed. “When do you think Sherlock will wake up?”
“I don’t know,” said House, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. “The blood tests my colleagues ran earlier show some signs of improvement. The antidote is working on him, same as it is for Watson.” He breathed in deeply. “Sherlock’s main problem right now is the after-effect of the stroke. Three-quarters of stroke victims suffer some kind of permanent or temporary disability; anything from a mild limp to a loss of cognitive abilities.”
He met Mycroft’s eye and realized they both understood the implications. Sherlock would be miserable without his superior intellect.
Mycroft closed his eyes a moment, digesting the information. “I suppose I’ve always known it would come to this eventually as soon as he evaded my surveillance: Sherlock lying in hospital facing certain death or, even worse, a loss of his faculties. My brother is, as you so succinctly put it this morning, an idiot with a death wish.”
“You thought he’d end up in hospital if you weren’t there to protect him?”
“I have rarely been proven wrong.” Mycroft exhaled slowly. “You think I’m overprotective. You think I’m stifling my grown-up brother’s freedom.” He shook his head. “You obviously don’t know Sherlock very well. He has a brilliant mind, but the self-preservation instincts of a lemming. He’ll try anything and do anything if it will stop him being bored, or better still, prove him right. You think I’m overprotective, but you have no idea how much Sherlock needs protecting.”
‘Unburdening himself’ had evidently put Mycroft in a talkative mood. “He was a day boy at school; he would wander away for hours on his way home without telling anyone, because it never occurred to him other people didn’t know where he was. When he was at university, after both our parents had died, I’d get calls from his tutors telling me he had missed several weeks of lessons. When he stopped going altogether, I had to use a private detective to find him and ended up calling the police in the hope of knocking some sense into him. I tried to force him to stay at home with me, I put him into rehab, I got him jobs, but nothing ever stuck.” He pursed his lips a moment, his eyes on his brother’s obscured features. “So in the end, I let him go. I got people to follow him instead, paid his roommates and casual acquaintances to report on his activities. I used every resource at my disposal to, if not keep him safe, at least ensure that I would be the first to know if he was hurt.”
“I guess everyone needs a hobby,” commented House. He thought about the way Wilson and, for a time, Cuddy, had always seemed to be in league to interfere when he got into trouble. “Did you get Watson to spy on him too?”
“No. He refused.” Mycroft steepled his fingers and smiled wryly. “He had known Sherlock less than two days and was already fiercely loyal to him.”
“Love at first sight?” said House with amusement, remembering what Watson had said. It felt like weeks ago.
Mycroft looked doubtful. “Watson had just been invalidated home from Afghanistan. He had a poor relationship with his only family and suffered from a psychosomatic limp and suicidal depression. He was an adrenaline junkie in need of a pet project and he latched onto my brother. I’ll admit he surprised me when he refused to spy on Sherlock. My brother’s previous attempts at forging a stable relationship had involved less scrupulous young men.”
House thought for a split second. “Like his friend Victor?”
“Yes, Victor Trevor.” Mycroft raised his eyebrows. “Special advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs now.”
“Ah, going places, huh?”
“Hardly. He’s a Liberal Democrat,” said Mycroft disdainfully. “I used him to keep track of Sherlock while he was with you. It wasn’t difficult to convince the egregious little pipsqueak to let me read his chat transcripts. But then the idiot started bragging about his new girlfriend and Sherlock stopped talking to him. In a way, it was lucky my brother ended up in hospital. He had refused to reveal his exact location to Victor, but I’d learned enough to place a watch on hospital admissions in Princeton.” He looked over at his brother. “Given the likelihood that he would eventually seek you out, I was monitoring your hospital again this time around. I’ve waited seven months to hear any news of him this time. When Sherlock really wants to hide, even I can’t find him. You can imagine my relief when the first sign of him was a routine blood test ordered in your hospital a couple of days ago. I didn’t know that I would once again find him laid up in hospital on arrival.” He observed House. “I take it the DNA test answered your question, by the way?”
House looked down at the worn but spotless floor and laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, he’s still my son.”
“Evidently.” Mycroft was still staring at House, his eyes narrowed appraisingly. “And you actually care for him too. But why? You only met him once. You don’t know anything about him. A mere DNA test is hardly a sufficient basis for an emotional bond.”
House met Mycroft’s cold gaze and put the box he was holding on the bed between them. Mycroft picked it up with a frown, but his expression turned to surprise when he opened it and saw the letters and photographs inside. He pulled out the one of Sherlock with the home computer and stared at it a moment before he spoke again.
“The ZX Spectrum was my father’s present to me for my twelfth birthday. He didn’t understand technology himself, but he did understand its power.” Mycroft smiled wanly. “I wasn’t interested. I enjoyed the games you could buy on cassette, but I preferred chess or draughts in the real world. Sherlock, on the other hand, immediately took to it. He was only five years old, but he could copy programmes out of books and run them practically before he knew how to read. Mrs Carter, our housekeeper, I suppose you would call her, though she was theoretically just the cook, used to take him to the computer shop in town.” He smiled fondly. “He worshiped Mrs Carter. They used to watch Coronation Street together in secret. She adored him. But then -” He looked over at Sherlock to check that he was still asleep. “- I suppose we all did.”
“Even your father?”
Mycroft frowned as if it had never occurred to him that his father might object to Sherlock’s existence. “Yes, my father was very proud of him too.”
It seemed that with the floodgates open, there was no stopping Mycroft now. His voice faltered a little as he glanced at his brother.
“You see, when I was a child, I was often promised a sibling. A little brother or sister to play with. But every time, it would end the same way; my mother would return from the hospital, ashen-faced and determined to throw herself into some new endeavour. Then one day, she met you-” He looked House over with disdain before turning to look at Sherlock again. “-and this happened. He happened and our lives were never the same again.” He looked through the papers in the box. “I had no idea she had kept you so thoroughly informed about his life.”
“Yeah. I never replied to any of them, but she just kept sending letters and photographs. Guess she thought some day I’d appreciate them.” He met Mycroft’s gaze briefly and lowered his eyes. “She was right. When you told me he’d died, I read everything in that box again and-” House looked down at the floor again. “Your mom was a smart woman.”
“Yes. She certainly was.”
“Soppy sods.”
House looked up with a start. Mycroft rolled his eyes. Sherlock was observing them both through narrowed eyes.
“How long have you been awake, Sherlock?” asked House; the encephalogram chart was normal again.
“Dunno,” said Sherlock, his voice still slurred and unusually quiet. He grinned at them through the oxygen mask. “Something ‘bout ev’ryone adoring me?”