One-Shot: Choices
Title: Choices
Author: Jaelijn
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: triggering topic, depression, drug abuse
Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, cameo appearance of OCs
Prompt: suicide attempt
Summary: Mycroft Holmes comes to visit his younger brother, and makes a shocking discovery.
Author's Note: Written for the "suicide attempt" square on my hc_bingo card. Mycroft's POV. This is set in Sherlock Holmes's early career, shortly after he takes up his profession, that is, he is still very young.
This is not supposed to be an accurate description of someone with suicidal tendencies, and I do not wish to cause offence to someone who has experienced such periods. Please avoid this ficlet if you feel that my possibly incorrect descriptions might disturb you.
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I have always kept a very close look out for my younger sibling, ever since the grave shock he has received from the continuing abuse by our father and the absence of a mother, not speaking about the death of Aunt Celine, which has severely preoccupied Sherlock for many weeks. After he had recovered from this initial madness, I had noticed an increased tendency towards depressions, even more so than in our earlier life.
Boredom has always greatly bothered my dear brother, and failure even more so. I saw the dangers in his chosen profession, and I spoke a word of warning, but, as usual, Sherlock chose to ignore it. I had warned him that the irregularity which needs has to occur in the practice of a private detective, and the harsh circumstances of the investigations as well as the minute fee would only enhance his depression. Prolonged periods of boredom would be unavoidable, and there was no doubt about it that Sherlock's kind heart, which he hid so expertly under his aloof exterior, would reduce his fee even more. He has remarked to me more than once, whilst begging for funds, that he had omitted a rightfully earned fee. Naturally, this led to one or the other disagreement between us. It is said that I am the more human of us both, but I do think that upon occasions such as these, Sherlock has the greater patience and compassion for our fellow men, maybe due to the fact that his own living conditions were not the best.
I have first-hand knowledge of the conditions of his flat, with the serious draft which has caused him more than once to seek refuge in the Diogenes Club, and, subsequently, in my company, which he usually shuns. Other than that, the flat lacks the possibility to use gas, reasonably warm water, or even light a fire that will warm more than just the hearthrug.
However, these observations are quite beside the point.
What troubled me more than any of these conditions, which, after all, Sherlock had chosen for himself, was the fact that his first few cases were great successes, allowing my brother to float upon a wave of praise and contentment. I, however, am cursed with the ability to foresee a great variety of events that may, or may not, occur in the future, among which was, and the most likely, the fact that pride doth come before the fall, and that the success would not fail to wane with time.
As a matter of fact, Sherlock carried through the first calm in the succession of cases with admirable calm and patience I would not have thought him capable of. It was, or so I assumed, greatly aided by the fact that he had only just made his name a household's worth with a certain Inspector Lestrade and the prime minister, no less. However, the fall did come, and it was no less grave than I had suspected.
It was in a rather cheery morning in July, a warm day, not overly hot or humid, but just so that a man may enjoy himself and the fact that he is alive. My little brother's mood had always waxed and waned with the temperature, and I fully expected him to be perfectly fine. I wouldn't, in fact, have spend any thought on him, had I not heard of a serious troubling occurrence in my neighbour's household, albeit via my somewhat talkative landlady, which I thought would suit Sherlock just fine, in addition to supplying him with an ample fee. Men who had the money to lodge in Pall Mall also were able to pay him what he deserved for his services.
It was therefore that I left my customary circle to visit my brother in his run-down home - he would not have the money to pay a cab, or a telegram to the Diogenes. The landlady allowed me in after a sinister and close scrutiny which invariably reminded me of the old governess I had had in my early youth, until she succumbed to some illness and died, after which my parents had not thought it necessary to engage a new employee. I had, by that time, been ten years old, and was suddenly responsible for looking after a little sibling of three years, which had been as far removed from my previous duties as I could possibly conceive. However, I feel that neither Sherlock nor I were the worse for it. If anything, it has strengthened our brotherly bond, and allowed me to control him even now.
Be that as it may, once in the hallway I was left to my own devices, and with a sigh climbed the flight of stairs up to the attic room which had become Sherlock's home. It was a deplorably small chamber which barely had enough space for a bed and a desk. My little brother had, therefore, proceeded to sleeping on a mattress alone, which he stows under the desk at day, and before the fireplace at night. I do believe it was sheer luck that he had not yet succeeded in igniting himself in his sleep - Sherlock has always been a disturbingly noisy sleeper.
However, this practice allows my brother to conserve enough room for two chairs, one of which is reserved for the clients which may be forced to call upon him there, should no other meeting place suffice. I was very conscious of the fact that Sherlock despised those conditions, for they disturbed his clients, if it did not keep them away entirely. It was probably his obstinacy and audacity which had allowed his to form a contact with this inspector rather than the confidence his residence inspired.
As for myself, I lacked the founds to supply two households, and while Sherlock and I get along well once we do meet, we can scarcely stand being under one roof for any greater length of time, since our bickering tends to get out of its way.
At any rate, such a short visit was rather amusing in its own way, for we do like each other at heart, and our little exchanges are a pleasant way to starve off the boring trivialities of existence.
I had the grace to knock on the door before I opened it without waiting for an answer from inside. I was certain that Sherlock would ignore any strange sounds if he did not, in fact, expect any visitors. He had explained to me once that there were many sounds in the walls and the ceiling which he had longs since attributed to various animals, his vast knowledge no doubt infallibly identifying them. As it was, there was something blockading the door, and I rattle at it until the handle came off and remained in my hand. The attic was a real furnace in this kind of weather, the sun burning down mercilessly on the timbre roof. I could not fathom how it was possible for my little brother to remain here on such a day, but then, it was no real surprise - after all, he had no where else to go but the club, which was out of the question if he desired to avoid me. Also, he was looked down upon by the fellow members, for Sherlock was by nature a very active and not easily quieted man, even though he could be extremely calm and patient if it suited his needs. As for venturing out into the park or another public location, it was - aside from the fact that Sherlock despised social gatherings with all his soul - not very conductive to his thought process. While I have never experienced any difficulty of concentrating on the subject at hand, I did know that Sherlock was easily distracted from his complicated turn of thought, which were very necessary for his line of work, by any sound or outside stimulus. Such stimuli could not fail to occur in a public location on so splendid a day.
I assumed, therefore, that he was working on a case and had cramped the door with something to keep out visitors.
"Sherlock? Open up, little brother. I have a case for you."
Surprisingly, there was no answer from within, not even a gruff 'go away'. I stared down at the handle in my hand. "I have broken your door, my boy. Wouldn't you like to let me in, in order to fix it?"
When there was still no response, I used my considerable bulk against the door - it is, on occasion, rather useful to be somewhat corpulent - and, unsurprisingly, it gave way in such manner as that it was immediately unhinged and toppled with a bang over the chair that had been placed in its way and into the room.
At first, I thought the room, the air of which shimmered with heat while the window was tightly closed - was unoccupied, but then of course this was utterly impossible since the chair had been placed behind the door from the inside. "Sherlock, where are you?"
In truth, the room hardly let itself to concealment, however, there was the one placed before the fire, where the sleeping mattress still lay, that was not visible from where I stood at the door - the table was rather in the line of my vision. It was therefore only natural to assume that this was the place where my little brother had hidden himself from the world.
"Come now, Sherlock. I know you have noticed my presence. Kindly rise and let us resume those chairs to talk about the matter which I have come to lay before you. It is a pretty little problem, and while I have not yet looked into the matter deeply enough to draw any conclusions, I am sure it would delight you."
There was some faint sound of movement then, which I took as an invitation to fully enter and approached this rather uncomfortable bedstead. To my very great surprise, Sherlock lay flat on the mattress, his face pressed into a much worn pillow, his arms clutch around his stomach and his face cramped with pain.
"Good heavens, brother mine!"
I knelt at his side as quickly as my mass could possibly allow it, and shook him by the shoulders, which evicted a groan, but nothing more. While I pride myself on having a vast knowledge on a variety of subjects, the most important of which are politics and little siblings, I am far from calling myself an expert in medical matters. However, when I see a prostate figure in obvious pain without any signs of illness or fever, a bottle with milky liquid deposited on the floor beside the mattress and a syringe lying on the same, seemingly slipped from the person's hand, even I am able to draw the correct conclusions.
"Sherlock!" I did not hesitate to slap him, bringing him back to consciousness. His breathing hitched, and for a moment, I feared to have erred in my actions, but then his eyelids fluttered open and he stared at me, startled, trying vainly to push me away. However, his body had not the energy left for any such exertion. "What are you doing here?", he whispered, even though the sharp edge in his voice suggested that he would rather have snarled it.
"I come with a case, which you would have heard, had you not been drugged out of your mind! Goodness, Sherlock, what is this?" I held up the bottle I had found, and removed the syringe from his reach as he attempted to hide it.
"Leave me alone, Mycroft..."
"No, I shan't leave this room, and neither will you, until I have a full and precise explanation of this! Sherlock, you have seen the effect of drugs in our father - how can you be so foolish as to use some vile stuff on yourself!"
"Don't scream at me!"
"Well, you very rightly deserve it!"
Suddenly, his face fell, and his defiance, even in his weakness, collapsed completely, as did he. Curling to a ball as was his habit when feeling miserable, even as a child, Sherlock turned away from me, facing the fireplace, his face once again hidden in the soft fabric of the mattress.
I realised only then, and maybe I have been guilty of exaggerating my abilities for logical reasoning if I failed to see the signs, that this was by no means the regular effect of recreational, or even addictive drug use. This had been something much worse - an attempted suicide.
The pain in the chest indicated a heart attack, or at least a minor irritation of this vital rhythm, and I could only assume that Sherlock had in fact come very close to dying. I had no doubt that my intervention had nothing to do with his failure, but rather a miscalculation of the amount needed on his part. As such, it seemed very possible that he would try again once I was out of the room, should I fail to discover and remove the source of this desperate act.
"Sherlock, I believe I am very much in the right to reprimand you for your action, but I know that it will do neither of us any good."
He did not respond, but I perceived a slight, constant tremor in his shoulders, a symptom which I had seldom observed, but recognised none the less. He was crying, without emitting a sound, as he had learned to do it in a household where the tiniest weakness was instantly severely punished.
"Sherlock, look at me. I want to help."
"You can't."
"Brother mine, I do know you very well, and if you pardon me for saying so, you have survived all of your previous periods of boredom."
He sat up to glare at me, only to fall back onto the mattress with a grimace of pain. "I am not bored!"
"Well, what then?"
He stared at the ceiling for a very long time, saying nothing, his thumb brushing thoughtlessly over the reddish puncture mark on his arm, where I could perceive many others, some very old already. He had been using the drug for quite some time, then, and was certainly an expert in measuring the correct amount of it, as he should be with a mind as precise as his. However, I wished he would use it for a more profitable purpose. Also, this observation quite excluded any possibility of an accident. He had very consciously, if not in his right frame of mind, made a faithful decision.
"Sherlock, please answer me."
"I have miscalculated."
"Of which you should be glad. If you had injected the appropriate amount, I wouldn't have been able to rouse you out of this drug's stupor..."
"It's cocaine. And I was not referring to the drug. I have failed. I am a failure."
"A case, then. Do not say I did not warn you."
"Yes! Yes, of course you did. As I said, I am a failure. I cannot recognise the truth even if it is dangled right in front of me."
"Sherlock!"
"Leave me be! And give me back the syringe, so I can relieve us both of a burden!"
"Sherlock!" I grasped his chin in my hand and forced him to look at me, which was probably not the best, or even the scientific course of action, however, I could not think of another way. "You will desist immediately."
Suddenly, his eyes were watering again, and he sank against me where I knelt on the edge of his bedstead, sobbing painfully against my chest. "I'm sorry, Mycroft. I just can't continue... I..."
"Now, tell me quietly, and calmly, what has happened."
"I failed. Simple as that."
"I'm sure it is not."
Then, he related the entire case to me between sobs and periods of crying where his throat would constrict so far that he failed to utter any word at all. I had not planned to extent the visit into a longer stay, and was, in fact, expected at Whitehall, however, I could not leave my brother when he was in so dire need of assistance. I had no doubt that this suicide attempt had been prompted by a depression combined with the failure in a case, and I could but hope that, in future, Sherlock's pride would stop him from taking so extreme a measure ever again.
It was almost exactly as I had expected. Sherlock had first had a row with his landlady, since he had failed to pay the room (even though I seriously doubted that this chamber was worth any of the money he paid for it) upon which she had threatened to evict him should he not obtain the rent within the next week. Faced with the decision to either look for new lodgings or beg myself for money, Sherlock decided to take a third route, namely unravelling one of the mysteries which the Rich are facing every day. Usually, he would have considered so simple a exercise below him, but needs must, after all.
"It was a trivial matter, Mycroft. Or so I thought. I assured him that it was a mere paranoia, and that he needn't worry. There were, after all, no signs at all which indicated a pre-eminent attack... And dreams are hardly a ground on which I base facts... I was wrong. There must have been signs. I must have overlooked something. There can't be any other explanation."
"To err is human, brother mine."
"That may well be so, but it is entirely my fault that a woman is dead, a husband driven to madness, and six children robbed of their beloved mother! I am certain there must have been signs of this madman's presence on the premises! Footprints, the stub of a cigar, anything... I was too cocksure, too arrogant to believe that her anxiety was real, and based on more than superstitious beliefs on the meaning of dreams... And now, she is dead, and it is entirely my fault, and I can't pay the rent, and I will never have a case again, not after this scandal, and Lestrade blamed me, and I will have to leave the flat... I just can't..."
"Now, now, Sherlock." I patted his head slowly. "I am sure we will find a solution to every one of your problems."
"I could not stop my mind from racing... The cocaine calms me... But it doesn't last, and I can still see the corpse of that woman... Mycroft..."
"My dear boy, I suggest you make yourself presentable and accompany me to outside. I will pay your rent, and your door, which I have rather ruined, I am afraid, and then we will go around the corner to this charming little café to drink a cup of tea and eat a biscuit, and we shall talk the entire matter over."
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