Sherlock Holmes fic: Insistence On Sameness 1/2
Title: Insistence On Sameness
Author: joe_pike_junior
Summary: "My brother wishes to relocate from our country house and take lodgings in London. I am willing to pay you to assist my brother in achieving that goal." AU: Holmes is autistic. Holmes, Watson, and Mycroft, with guest appearances by Moriarty and Mrs. Hudson. >10,000 words.
Notes: Gen, no warnings. I wouldn't have been able to finish this without the help of
nightdog_barks, daasgrrl and hannahrorlove. DW
The title is taken from an early explanation of one of the characteristics of autism. This fic is set in the Victorian era and thus predates the understanding of the brain and mind that we have today. Psychiatry as we know it was in its infancy. The term autism did not exist.
Posted in accordance with a prompt on the shkinkmeme community, here.
...
Watson wakes suddenly, in the half-light of his hotel room. The blood-bright details of a battlefield dream slip away like hot sand, and then he hears the clash of metal-rimmed carriage wheels on stone outside. A newspaper boy bawling headlines. London. He's in London.
Artist's war exhibition! Daily Graphic! Sketches and photographs from the seat of war!!
Watson smooths down his moustache, the gesture comforting and automatic, and lets his eyes dart around the familiar-unfamiliar surfaces of the room: the dirty grey light filtering through the curtains, roughly closed against the morning light, spine-cracked books stacked on top of his wooden trunk, the coat from his only civilian suit hanging limp and discarded over the back of the chintz easy chair.
Watson is ten pounds underweight and weakened by fever and pain. He is poor. He is alive.
...
Watson is dressing himself slowly when a telegram arrives. He only just remembers to tip the boy; he doesn't get many telegrams. He darkly suspects that it might be the Army reconsidering their decision to cut him loose with half-pay. No such luck.
WATSON NO LUCK REGARDING ROOMS BUT A MAN CALLED HOLMES SEEKING DOCTOR STOP
SAID WORK WOULD BE SUITABLE FOR QUOTE VETERAN OR LOAFER ENDQUOTE
SHALL I ARRANGE MEETING QUERY
LOOK AFTER YOURSELF OLD CHAP
STAMFORD
Watson feels vaguely ashamed in having attracted Stamford's pity, and now his plain, no-nonsense attempts at assistance. Stamford was the same at Bart's: always friendly, always unassuming, and Watson spent two long winter days goading him toward a more systematic understanding of visceral anatomy out of nothing more than admiration for that quality in him. He is an easy man to like.
Watson leaves the flimsy on top of the scratched desk with the rest of his scanty correspondence. As he buttons his waistcoat he does the same old tired calculation in his head: dividing eleven shillings and sixpence into tobacco and luncheon and the outstanding hotel bill and the comforting emptiness of the green baize card table at his club. By the time he has sat himself creakily on the end of the bed to pull on his socks, Watson realises that he is composing a reply to the telegram in his head.
...
The upper floor of the Diogenes club smells vaguely of shoe polish and newspaper. It is a comforting smell, a normal smell. The silence is disquieting. Watson can hear his own shoes moving over the carpet, and when Mycroft Holmes comes forward to shake his hand Watson can hear a loose floorboard creaking under his bulk. He is a tall man, broad at the shoulders, his waistcoat straining over a generously-proportioned gut.
Mycroft ushers him into something called the Stranger's Room. The first words he says to Watson are "We can talk here."
Watson doesn't quite know what to make of this strange silent club, of this tall man with searching grey eyes that have already raked over his stiff leg and his frayed cuffs, so he stammers out a thank you and sits.
"I understand from Mr. Stamford that you underwent training at Bart's?"
"Yes, sir."
He feels vaguely uncomfortable under Mycroft's gaze. It is the same way he felt being studied for signs of wrongdoing by the house master at school. Mycroft looks away, pouring himself a cup of tea, and Watson takes out his cigarettes.
"Do you have any experience with mental incompetence, doctor?"
"I worked in the clinic at Bart's for some three years. I came into some contact with it there."
"Mmm," Mycroft Holmes says. Then he reaches abruptly forward and transfers a cucumber sandwich onto his plate. Watson does the same, and he has a mouthful of soft bread and butter and cucumber that is better than anything he's eaten in days when Mycroft speaks again, his tone light, as if commenting on the weather.
"You do have a brother, don't you?"
Watson swallows painfully, shifts back in his chair. "I -- yes -- how did you know?"
"You're wearing his watch. Tell me, Dr. Watson, do you love your brother? Despite his intractable alcoholism and chronic carelessness?"
Watson stands up, the abrupt movement sending a shock of pain through his leg: it causes a cold sweat to break out at the small of his back. He dashes his napkin onto the table, the back of his neck hot.
He thinks of his brother, too: John I need a loan old chap and I'm awfully sorry to have to do this to you again, the sad carelessness in his eyes.
"I don't know how you came to know my business, Mr Holmes," Watson says, stiffly. "But this excursion into my private affairs is unwelcome."
Mycroft Holmes remains seated, his face mild, and Watson begins to feel awkward, standing at the table in this bizarre club that is as silent and as dignified as a funeral procession, and his anger begins to drain away.
"Your watch, Dr. Watson, has been wound with an unsteady hand and not well cared for. Forgive me for my dramatic streak, you'll find that my brother has no such flaw. I am asking because I want you to understand my devotion to my own brother. He is not an idiot, Dr. Watson, merely backward. In some ways he is a genius, in some ways he is no more developed than a child."
Watson sits. Eleven shillings and sixpence. He cannot afford not to. "A savant?"
Mycroft nods. "My brother is fixated on crime-solving techniques, and he has spent a vast portion of the last four years devoting himself to a system for solving crimes. When someone such as my brother gets a notion into his head, it is very hard to dissuade him from it."
"I understand." And Watson puts his hand into his pocket and closes it around the cold silver surface of his brother's watch.
"He feels himself drawn to this city. He has attempted to run away to London twice already. I have business that keeps me here, and the servants at the house are growing too old to manage him. He was ejected from the train near Eastbourne last time, for not having a ticket. He was found wandering the high street and taken in by a police officer, whom he extensively questioned on local crime. The police officer was charmed by him, according to our groom, who I fear was made older by the ordeal of finding him. Next time we may not be so lucky. Some people are able to perform admirably under pressure, Dr. Watson. I imagine that you are such a person. My brother is not."
Watson turns this over in his mind. He has always had a descriptive imagination, and now he imagines a different version of the man before him, wandering the high street of a seaside town.
"Why was he wandering? Could he not find his way back to the train station or the telegraph office and send you a wire?"
"It is something to do with being overwhelmed by distractions, as I understand it. Not much is known. I have hypothesised that my brother has little ability to find the order in chaos, as it were. He finds some situations overwhelming."
And now the image that rises unbidden to Watson's mind is a dusty field in Afghanistan, ringing with gunshots and screams and the bass rumbling of hooves. There is a young man on the stretcher before Watson, dumbly allowing for his shirt to be cut away from his body, his hands slack at his sides. Then there is a volley of gunfire less than a hundred feet away, and the young private takes his hands and puts them over his ears and screams in a broken wail that begs for a slap or a shot of morphine. Yes, Watson thinks he understands.
Mycroft clears his throat, as if finding a lost thread. "My brother wishes to relocate from our country house and take lodgings in London. I am willing to pay you to assist my brother in achieving that goal."
Yes, Watson thinks, if he offers I'll accept. I must be mad.
"Can your brother speak, Mr. Holmes?"
Mycroft's mouth twists: a bitter smirk. "My brother is fluent in three languages and has been bombarding me with an outline of an impenetrable treatise he is writing on ciphers. He cannot engage in idle chatter, he cannot find his way through a crowded railway station, and if he were not prompted to dress warmer he would go out in a hailstorm wearing nothing but his shirtsleeves."
"I see," Watson says.
"You have been informed of our situation, Dr. Watson. You have not yet seen."
There is a pregnant silence, broken only by the remote sounds of the street outside, insulated by the suffocating quiet of this club. Watson joined his club so that he might partake in conversation, something to break the monotony. Why did Mycroft join this club?
Watson swallows. "I think that I would like to see."
Mycroft puts one of his meaty hands into the inner pocket of his immaculate suit coat and draws out a chequebook.
Watson leaves the Diogenes club five pounds richer. It is a staggering amount. He orders himself a new suit, at Mycroft's request, and he takes a double whiskey and a good meal at his club. Then he goes looking for lodgings.
...
Mycroft sends Watson thick letters on an expensive cream paper, full of practical instructions. My brother does not tolerate being interrupted when he is in the middle of an experiment, and he may very quickly become unreasonable. My brother becomes disoriented in noisy unfamiliar places. His handwriting is neat and unhurried.
In the later letters Mycroft is more personal. My brother attended the same prep school as I until his eccentricities and behaviours became intolerable to the masters. He was tutored at home from age nine. It seems that the schoolmasters recommended that the younger Holmes was intractably mentally deficient and should be institutionalised. Mycroft has underlined this passage with an angry stroke of his pen. They did not understand, Mycroft writes. They did not care to see.
...
The Holmes country house is large and cold and draughty, like every other country house Watson has ever visited. It makes Watson glad that he inherited nothing more substantial than cufflinks from his own father. Perhaps Mycroft feels connected to his own history, here, but Watson sees it as nothing more than a white elephant, the physical embodiment of a decayed minor title.
A stooped old butler with white, wispy hair takes Watson's coat. The interior of the house is less imposing -- old, comfy furniture and knickknacks discarded with the nonchalance of old money. Mycroft does have money, Watson decides: but not an unlimited amount. It is probably a strain on him financially, supporting his brother.
The library smells comfortingly of books; Watson is glad to take the weight off his feet. There is a pile of newspapers on the table, rumpled as if they have been read all the way through and discarded. A large assortment: a local daily, a French newspaper, several editions of the London Times and the county weekly.
There are voices in the corridor: Mycroft's soft rumble overlaid by another voice, higher, thinner. Mycroft opens the door and walks through it, two or three steps ahead of his brother.
The younger Holmes is around twenty-five, and extraordinarily thin. He has the same pale grey eyes as Mycroft, but where Mycroft's are intense his are searching. He is wearing an immaculate grey morning suit with an old pair of brogues, dusty and worn down to a slant at the heel. He has a beard, trimmed roughly with scissors. It is jet-black and looks incredibly incongruous on his thin pale face. His hands are long and thin and white and they never stop moving.
"Sherlock," Mycroft says. "This is John Watson."
Watson stands, doesn't hold out his hand. Sherlock Holmes doesn't come forward. He stands to one side of Mycroft, pulling at the fingers of his right hand with the left. He doesn't look Watson in the eye, either, but seems to glance at the side of his face.
"Hullo," he says. "I am Sherlock Holmes."
"I'm very pleased to meet you," Watson says. "Your brother Mycroft has told me that you wish to move to London. I am--"
"--Yes," Sherlock cuts Watson off, his voice rapid and almost monotone. "My brother said that you would help me find rooms in London. He also told me not to ask you about money, which is rude. Tell me, Watson, did you serve at Maiwand? I perceive that you have served in Afghanistan and the timing of your wound would place you at that battle."
"Oh dear," Mycroft says.
Something grey crowds in at the periphery of Watson's vision and he has to sit down. He clears his throat so that he can trust his voice. There is a bitter taste in his mouth; shock.
"You are extraordinarily perceptive." Sherlock Holmes nods, walks over to the table. His face betrays nothing.
"Sherlock," Mycroft says. "We've discussed this." He glances back, then turns to Watson, his brow creased. "I apologise if my brother's revelations startle you."
Watson nods, swallows again. "You have startled me," Watson says, addressing himself to Sherlock, who is now sifting restlessly through the newspapers. "But I am very interested in gaining an insight into your reasoning process."
"It is so very simple," Sherlock Holmes says. He explains himself in full, addressing the space to the side of Watson in the same rapid, low voice. Watson sees something in his eyes finally, an intensity, and he imagines that if Sherlock Holmes wishes to solve crimes, very little will stop him. Mycroft glances at Watson, his eyebrows raised, as if to say now you see.
Watson decides that he will follow Sherlock Holmes to London.
...
It is Mycroft's idea that they should move Holmes' things to London gradually. His existence revolves very much around routine, and this comfortable pattern must be upset as little as possible.
Watson has found lodgings in Baker Street. The rooms are large and well-appointed and the landlady seemed tolerant when Watson mentioned a few of Holmes' eccentricities, such as his violin playing and his chemical experiments.
As soon as the train is underway, Holmes shrinks back in his seat and stares out the window, putting his long nervous hands together at the fingertips again and again. After a while he begins to hum. Watson is attempting to read over some notes in his notebook, but the noise is insidious and distracting.
"What's that, Sherlock?" Mycroft's question is automatic, comfortable, like a question he's asked a hundred times before.
"Mozart," Holmes says. "Clarinet concerto."
"Mmm," Mycroft says. "The noise becomes rather distracting in the close confines of a railway carriage. I wonder if you might give the doctor and I the pleasure of hearing you sing. That might work better."
Holmes' singing voice surprises Watson. It is a rich tenor, strong and technically superb. He sings something in French that Watson doesn't recognise, but it is beautiful and infinitely preferable to the humming. He's smiling.
Watson crosses his legs and settles further back in his seat. As he does so he glances at Mycroft. There's an extraordinary expression on his face, something like pride and sadness mixed.
Watson turns his face back to the scenery, and after a while Holmes stops singing, and the carriage is silent.
The telegraph poles mounted at the side of the railway line whip by, the wires mounted on them moving up and down hypnotically. Sherlock Holmes fixes his eyes on them, tracing invisible calculations onto the leather seat.
...
It is almost midnight. Watson puts down his book and finishes his brandy. He stands up. Holmes remains absorbed in his collection of newspaper clippings, a catalogue of the macabre.
"I am going to retire."
"Yes," Holmes says, bent over his clippings.
Watson swallows down on the things he wants to say, his irritation only sharpened by the schoolroom smell of Holmes' glue and the burn of the brandy in his throat. He closes the door softly behind him.
Watson comes awake in the soft pre-dawn light of his room. He can hear Holmes' violin in the next room. Watson wishes that he had some sort of musical knowledge. That way he could furnish a description of the music in his own internal language. In the darkness of his room the muffled sound is sorrowful and complex. Watson thinks about getting up, talking to Holmes, but the lassitude of sleep reclaims him and he drifts off again.
It is almost lunchtime when Holmes arises.
"Good day," Watson says. Holmes grunts. His hair is unkempt and he is wearing only his nightshirt. He's very thin. Watson can see the shadow that his collarbone makes against his chest.
Watson goes to the doorway and calls down to Mrs. Hudson, asking her for a fresh pot of tea.
"I heard you playing the violin last night. Couldn't you sleep?"
"No," Holmes says abruptly. He opens the first of the morning newspapers with a business-like rustling noise and sits down at the table.
Mrs. Hudson arrives with the tea, and Watson pours a cup for Holmes and sets it before him. Holmes puts the paper aside and thanks Watson formally.
"Any interesting murders?"
"Alas, no."
Truth be told, Watson has missed these small domestic moments. It is such a drastic change from the blank walls of his hotel room, from that blank life entirely devoid of contact and responsibility.
...
Holmes is perhaps the most eccentric conversationalist Watson has ever known.
He knows next to nothing about current events, yet he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of crime. At breakfast he entertains Watson with an exhaustive and orderly description of all the smuggling activity in Sussex over the last twenty years. At tea, it is pickpocket techniques, and at a time when most civilised people are thinking of turning in to bed, Holmes treats Watson to a dispassionate account of deaths by strangling and how they differ from hangings.
He speaks of politics with a childlike naivete, and most of his knowledge of history is the colourless rote learning he must retain from his schooling. He is dismissive of any subjects that don't hold his interest.
About three weeks after they move into their lodgings, the curiosity becomes too much for Watson. He decides to question Holmes over breakfast, when he is least distracted and the least likely to ignore him.
"Holmes, how exactly do you plan to establish yourself as a private detective?"
Holmes throws back his head and laughs. He has a strange laugh, grating in its own way, and although Watson finds nothing he has said funny he cannot help but smile. Holmes can be so disarming.
"I am already established, Watson. I have created my own unique position as a consulting detective to the police and the general public."
"I see," Watson says, although he doesn't.
Holmes takes his toast and goes to stand by the open window. It has become a habit: Watson has decided it is so he can listen to the traffic. Holmes clears his throat, and then he starts to speak through a mouthful of his toast. "I am not a private detective. Private detectives and government detectives alike lay their problems before me, and I advise them."
"And why come to London?"
Holmes turns to the window and gazes out at the street. Watson wonders what he sees. Late winter slush on the streets, swept aside by carriages and hansom cabs. People scurrying to and fro to escape from the cold and the acrid fog. It is so noisy here, in this vast dirty city where all the dregs of the empire are drained. Watson has tried to understand what it is like inside Holmes' head, but he cannot, not really. He hears Mycroft's voice: Nobody really knows what his interior life is like, doctor. I find it easy to read the desires and inner thoughts of other men, but my brother is not other men.
"It is much quieter there," Holmes says, vacantly, and then he leaves his toast on the windowsill and goes over to his desk, rummaging around in the drawers.
"Last year I corresponded at length with a police surgeon at Scotland Yard. Do you know much about poisons, doctor? This case was a most engaging one..."
So Watson learns a great deal he does not wish to know about the undetectable ways that a man can be poisoned in his drink and in his food. He also learns that it takes a minimum of six hours for mail from London to reach the Holmes' country house from London. That the lane leading to the small country post office is hard-packed black dirt overlaid with a little gravel.
He also learns that Holmes has established himself as a consulting detective, a repository of information, a problem-solving machine.
...
Holmes is scrupulously and formally polite to Mrs. Hudson when he remembers himself, and dismissive when he doesn't.
"What would you like for luncheon, Mr. Holmes? Mutton curry or cold roast beef?"
"Neither," Holmes says, without putting down his newspaper. His voice is slightly muffled by stem of his pipe, a blackened old thing producing vile clouds of thick blue smoke. Holmes smokes a rough blend of shag -- according to Mycroft he picked up the habit from their old gardener and can be persuaded to smoke nothing else.
"I can hardly be expected to cook something else for you when Dr. Watson will be taking luncheon at his club." There is some asperity in their landlady's voice, but Holmes goes on reading the newspaper, his face impassive.
"Holmes," Watson says, turning from his desk. "Mrs. Hudson was presenting you with a limited choice. As I will be taking lunch at my club and it is the scullery maid's day off, those are the only two options."
Holmes takes his pipe out of his mouth and rustles his newspaper. "I don't like cold roast beef," he says, his voice higher than usual. "It is unhygienic and the texture is vile."
"I think that Holmes would like the mutton curry, please," Watson says, before Mrs. Hudson condemns them both to a diet of dry toast and sardines.
Watson spends a pleasant afternoon at his club, only slightly marred by the knowledge that Holmes is alone at their rooms. He and Mycroft have agreed that Holmes must be left alone, Mycroft tapdancing his way around the word independent without actually saying it.
Watson returns to Baker Street in the early evening, some ten shillings richer and considerably cheered.
"Did you have a pleasant afternoon?" Watson pours himself a cup of tea and lights a cigarette, taking a seat by the fire. Holmes does not move from the settee, where he is sitting wrapped in an old dressing gown, bent over a chemistry journal. His pipe is empty, and he is tapping it absently against his teeth.
"I have been reading about the ring structure of benzene. And Mrs. Hudson is frightened of me."
"Frightened of you? Holmes, what--"
"It has been almost 30 years since Kekulé suggested that the benzene ring consisted of alternating single and double bonds. There is much evidence for the cyclic nature of the molecule. And you have been playing billiards. There is a characteristic smudge of blue chalk in the fold between your thumb and index finger."
Watson looks up at Holmes, at that impassive pale face, made even more ascetic-looking by the unruly beard that straggles up his cheeks. There are many things he does not know about Holmes. There are many things he could be capable of.
"Why was Mrs. Hudson frightened of you, Holmes?" Watson is very careful to keep his voice level.
Watson knows that he could overpower Holmes, if he wished. Mrs. Hudson would not fare so well. He has a sort of wiry strength in his thin limbs, and the leverage of height.
"Oh, I do not know. She said I looked a fright sitting here. I do not imagine why I frighten her now, since she has seen me sitting here many times before."
"Oh," Watson says, smiling in his relief. "What exactly did she say?"
" 'You look a fright Mr. Holmes, sitting there in your old dressing gown and with that black beard,' " Holmes' mimicry is eerily accurate. It is Watson's turn to laugh. Holmes turns back to his chemistry, humming softly to himself.
"Oh, Holmes," Watson says, and he waits until Holmes is looking at him, his grey eyes flicking across Watson's cheek, restless. "That is a figure of speech. She means that you look slightly strange."
"Oh," Holmes says, something like satisfaction in his voice. "That makes much more sense." Watson wonders if that is how he feels when he solves a mystery.
...
Holmes' silences have a way of making Watson uneasy. Holmes sits on the settee, and opposite him in the chair sits a woman that Watson knows by reputation only. She is the wife of a duke, well known for her society parties and her philanthropy. She is beautiful and intimidating and breathtakingly wealthy.
Watson is sitting in the chair by the window. From there he can see the side of the Duchess' haughty face and the fur stole draped over one arm. Her story is a long one and she tells it without a single interruption from Holmes. When she finishes telling it, a brittle silence descends. She clears her throat expectantly, proper even in her indignation.
"And you want to know a little more about this young man," Holmes finally says, as if he can barely rouse himself.
"Yes, Mr. Holmes," the Duchess says as she rises from her chair. There is an air of finality in her tone. "Will you do it?"
"No," Holmes says.
The Duchess hesitates in the act of pulling her stole back over her shoulders, her face like stone.
"Why?"
"Because I don't like you," Holmes says, his voice flat and cold, and he rises from the settee and makes to leave the room, turning his back on the Duchess and her generous fee and the easy matter of evaluating the gambling habit of her youngest daughter's suitor. "Watson will see you out."
Watson does not see the Duchess out so much as he is swept outside in the wake of her fury. Holmes does not take the case.
...
A still spring morning, crisp and cool, the air mercifully clear. Watson is sitting at his desk writing, and Holmes has spent the morning pacing back and forth, reading newspapers and furiously smoking his pipe.
"It's no good."
"Hmm?" Watson says, not turning from his desk.
Holmes mumbles the same phrase under his breath as he goes over to the bookshelf and rapidly pages through a book. Watson puts down his pen when he hears Holmes thump it closed.
"It's no good," Holmes says again. "I shall have to go to the Reading Room at the British Museum."
"Indeed?" Watson has just written himself into a comfortable rhythm, and he is not comfortable in being torn away from it.
"Yes!" Holmes rushes over to the mantlepiece and stuffs his tobacco pouch into his pocket. He is wearing his shirtsleeves and the same disreputable old brogues that he invariable wears. He goes to his desk and opens the drawers, rifling through them. He finally takes out a piece of card, which he shows to Watson. It is printed, and Holmes' name has been filled in using that watery ink so beloved of bureaucrats.
The Principal Librarian of the British Museum wishes to inform Mr Sherlock Holmes that a reading ticket will be delivered to him on presenting this note, etc etc. Watson has friends whose medical researches have compelled them to use the Reading Room, although he always found the University Library to be cosy and welcoming enough.
"Well, Holmes, do you wish to go now?"
"Yes, Watson! The Museum is at Great Russell Street, London, WC."
Watson gets up and picks up his blazer from where it lies draped over the back of the settee. "Very well. Go and put on your waistcoat and your blazer and your coat."
In his excitement Holmes often forgets these things, or becomes confused when putting them on. Watson would be lying if he said he did not find it intriguing, that a man with the breadth of experience and knowledge that Holmes has should be confounded by these simple tasks. Why he sometimes forgets to put his stockings on, why his fingers fumble as he ties his shoelaces with agonising slowness.
In the cab Holmes frowns a lot and splays his hands flat over his thighs, but he invariably does that in cabs. When they reach their destination Holmes hops eagerly out of the cab and then stands there, waiting anxiously while Watson pays the cabbie.
"Well, Holmes," Watson says as he hops down from the cab with his walking cane under his arm, "Isn't it impressive?"
"I don't know," Holmes says, with the same harried frown on his face.
"What do you mean you do not know?" Watson smiles and gestures at the majestic Grecian columns that flank the front of the building, at the sculptures on the pediment.
"I don't know," Holmes says, his voice rising a half-octave, and Watson takes him by the elbow and leads him up the steps. When they are finally standing in the cool quiet of the reading room, Holmes speaks again. "It is too much. There is too much."
Watson leaves Holmes sitting quietly at a reading table by himself, immersed in his research. He goes to consult with a librarian and spends a very unsatisfactory two hours reading a number of books written by alienists. Holmes' problem is not one of thinking, a neurosis. It is an organic problem, one that medicine has no answer for.
...
"I suppose I was twelve or so, when I first noticed. I came home from my first half away at school and discovered that my brother seemed so much different from the other boys. I had not noticed it before. Perhaps it was because I had grown, or maybe it was being immersed in that environment. I do not know."
Watson and Mycroft are partaking in Mycroft's only form of exercise: the short walk from his rooms to the Diogenes club.
"How old was he then?"
"Five. His chief occupation was lining my old lead soldiers up across the nursery floor." Mycroft pauses, as if he has entered another line of thought. "I remember a boy in my form complaining that his younger brother chattered all the time, wondering if his brother screamed and kicked over vases for unfathomable reasons."
Watson takes out his cigarette case and lights a cigarette. Mycroft likes to talk when he walks, likes to rumble and rant and build up a head of steam before he swaps the clattering London thoroughfare for the cloistered environment of his club.
"I bloodied a cousin's nose once when she threw a bucket of water on Sherlock, because she was curious about what his reaction would be. His reaction was loud. I could not understand how somebody could be so cruel. I do now. Some people seem to gain enjoyment from finding a creature or person that they are somehow superior to and highlighting that superiority."
They walk on companionably for another ten yards or so. Watson prefers walking alongside Mycroft to Holmes. Holmes walks too fast and does not consider Watson's leg.
"Was your brother older, Dr. Watson?"
Watson goes on walking, his eyes focused on the grey cobblestones in front of their feet. It rained less than an hour ago, and the stones are slick. Greasy puddles reflect the grey sky.
"Er, yes." Mycroft speaks in the past tense, Watson dimly realises.
"You inherited his watch?" So that is how he knows. The blasted watch. Watson would be rid of it if it were not the last feeble reminder that he has of his family.
"And his debt."
"Oh, I am sorry."
"I'm sure you know as well as I that you cannot pick your family."
"Indeed," Mycroft says, and he smiles to himself.
"Just before I went up to Cambridge my father came and spoke to me for a long time. I think he'd wanted a son to go up to Oxford as he did, and he'd just realised that Sherlock wouldn't be going to University. Sherlock had quite possibly the most long-suffering tutor in the world. He was already studying chemistry at a near-undergraduate level, but he could hardly be induced to read a nursery primer aloud. My father and I spoke of many things: my ambitions at University, the house and lands, family. And just after he leaned over and knocked out his pipe into the coals he looked straight at me and said 'Don't forget your brother.' He rightly assumed that I was harbouring resentful feelings for Sherlock, that I wanted to forget him. He told me that he thought Sherlock had abilities to counteract his detriments, that I must try to make the best life for him that I could."
Watson says nothing. He can understand Mycroft's feelings. Holmes can be so bullheaded, so cold, so frustrating.
"The next time I came back to the house, Sherlock came into the library to greet me. He looked me up and down from across the room, put his head to the side, and said 'Your room is on the western side of the Quadrangle and you went to see your Maths tutor this afternoon.' He had just turned thirteen. I understood. I began to be less angry at him as I grew older. I realised that he cannot help being the way he is. And I think that it cannot be easy, having a mind such as his."
"No," Watson says. "It does not seem easy."
Mycroft turns and gives Watson another of his raking, searching glances. They have reached the door to the club, and they do not continue the conversation until they have reached the Stranger's Room.
"I am glad that you and my brother have established such rapport. I can not imagine a better outcome for him. I must thank you, truly."
Watson takes a scalding sip of tea, nods. He does not know what to say.
...
The second part is here.
Author: joe_pike_junior
Summary: "My brother wishes to relocate from our country house and take lodgings in London. I am willing to pay you to assist my brother in achieving that goal." AU: Holmes is autistic. Holmes, Watson, and Mycroft, with guest appearances by Moriarty and Mrs. Hudson. >10,000 words.
Notes: Gen, no warnings. I wouldn't have been able to finish this without the help of
nightdog_barks, daasgrrl and hannahrorlove. DW
The title is taken from an early explanation of one of the characteristics of autism. This fic is set in the Victorian era and thus predates the understanding of the brain and mind that we have today. Psychiatry as we know it was in its infancy. The term autism did not exist.
Posted in accordance with a prompt on the shkinkmeme community, here.
...
Watson wakes suddenly, in the half-light of his hotel room. The blood-bright details of a battlefield dream slip away like hot sand, and then he hears the clash of metal-rimmed carriage wheels on stone outside. A newspaper boy bawling headlines. London. He's in London.
Artist's war exhibition! Daily Graphic! Sketches and photographs from the seat of war!!
Watson smooths down his moustache, the gesture comforting and automatic, and lets his eyes dart around the familiar-unfamiliar surfaces of the room: the dirty grey light filtering through the curtains, roughly closed against the morning light, spine-cracked books stacked on top of his wooden trunk, the coat from his only civilian suit hanging limp and discarded over the back of the chintz easy chair.
Watson is ten pounds underweight and weakened by fever and pain. He is poor. He is alive.
...
Watson is dressing himself slowly when a telegram arrives. He only just remembers to tip the boy; he doesn't get many telegrams. He darkly suspects that it might be the Army reconsidering their decision to cut him loose with half-pay. No such luck.
WATSON NO LUCK REGARDING ROOMS BUT A MAN CALLED HOLMES SEEKING DOCTOR STOP
SAID WORK WOULD BE SUITABLE FOR QUOTE VETERAN OR LOAFER ENDQUOTE
SHALL I ARRANGE MEETING QUERY
LOOK AFTER YOURSELF OLD CHAP
STAMFORD
Watson feels vaguely ashamed in having attracted Stamford's pity, and now his plain, no-nonsense attempts at assistance. Stamford was the same at Bart's: always friendly, always unassuming, and Watson spent two long winter days goading him toward a more systematic understanding of visceral anatomy out of nothing more than admiration for that quality in him. He is an easy man to like.
Watson leaves the flimsy on top of the scratched desk with the rest of his scanty correspondence. As he buttons his waistcoat he does the same old tired calculation in his head: dividing eleven shillings and sixpence into tobacco and luncheon and the outstanding hotel bill and the comforting emptiness of the green baize card table at his club. By the time he has sat himself creakily on the end of the bed to pull on his socks, Watson realises that he is composing a reply to the telegram in his head.
...
The upper floor of the Diogenes club smells vaguely of shoe polish and newspaper. It is a comforting smell, a normal smell. The silence is disquieting. Watson can hear his own shoes moving over the carpet, and when Mycroft Holmes comes forward to shake his hand Watson can hear a loose floorboard creaking under his bulk. He is a tall man, broad at the shoulders, his waistcoat straining over a generously-proportioned gut.
Mycroft ushers him into something called the Stranger's Room. The first words he says to Watson are "We can talk here."
Watson doesn't quite know what to make of this strange silent club, of this tall man with searching grey eyes that have already raked over his stiff leg and his frayed cuffs, so he stammers out a thank you and sits.
"I understand from Mr. Stamford that you underwent training at Bart's?"
"Yes, sir."
He feels vaguely uncomfortable under Mycroft's gaze. It is the same way he felt being studied for signs of wrongdoing by the house master at school. Mycroft looks away, pouring himself a cup of tea, and Watson takes out his cigarettes.
"Do you have any experience with mental incompetence, doctor?"
"I worked in the clinic at Bart's for some three years. I came into some contact with it there."
"Mmm," Mycroft Holmes says. Then he reaches abruptly forward and transfers a cucumber sandwich onto his plate. Watson does the same, and he has a mouthful of soft bread and butter and cucumber that is better than anything he's eaten in days when Mycroft speaks again, his tone light, as if commenting on the weather.
"You do have a brother, don't you?"
Watson swallows painfully, shifts back in his chair. "I -- yes -- how did you know?"
"You're wearing his watch. Tell me, Dr. Watson, do you love your brother? Despite his intractable alcoholism and chronic carelessness?"
Watson stands up, the abrupt movement sending a shock of pain through his leg: it causes a cold sweat to break out at the small of his back. He dashes his napkin onto the table, the back of his neck hot.
He thinks of his brother, too: John I need a loan old chap and I'm awfully sorry to have to do this to you again, the sad carelessness in his eyes.
"I don't know how you came to know my business, Mr Holmes," Watson says, stiffly. "But this excursion into my private affairs is unwelcome."
Mycroft Holmes remains seated, his face mild, and Watson begins to feel awkward, standing at the table in this bizarre club that is as silent and as dignified as a funeral procession, and his anger begins to drain away.
"Your watch, Dr. Watson, has been wound with an unsteady hand and not well cared for. Forgive me for my dramatic streak, you'll find that my brother has no such flaw. I am asking because I want you to understand my devotion to my own brother. He is not an idiot, Dr. Watson, merely backward. In some ways he is a genius, in some ways he is no more developed than a child."
Watson sits. Eleven shillings and sixpence. He cannot afford not to. "A savant?"
Mycroft nods. "My brother is fixated on crime-solving techniques, and he has spent a vast portion of the last four years devoting himself to a system for solving crimes. When someone such as my brother gets a notion into his head, it is very hard to dissuade him from it."
"I understand." And Watson puts his hand into his pocket and closes it around the cold silver surface of his brother's watch.
"He feels himself drawn to this city. He has attempted to run away to London twice already. I have business that keeps me here, and the servants at the house are growing too old to manage him. He was ejected from the train near Eastbourne last time, for not having a ticket. He was found wandering the high street and taken in by a police officer, whom he extensively questioned on local crime. The police officer was charmed by him, according to our groom, who I fear was made older by the ordeal of finding him. Next time we may not be so lucky. Some people are able to perform admirably under pressure, Dr. Watson. I imagine that you are such a person. My brother is not."
Watson turns this over in his mind. He has always had a descriptive imagination, and now he imagines a different version of the man before him, wandering the high street of a seaside town.
"Why was he wandering? Could he not find his way back to the train station or the telegraph office and send you a wire?"
"It is something to do with being overwhelmed by distractions, as I understand it. Not much is known. I have hypothesised that my brother has little ability to find the order in chaos, as it were. He finds some situations overwhelming."
And now the image that rises unbidden to Watson's mind is a dusty field in Afghanistan, ringing with gunshots and screams and the bass rumbling of hooves. There is a young man on the stretcher before Watson, dumbly allowing for his shirt to be cut away from his body, his hands slack at his sides. Then there is a volley of gunfire less than a hundred feet away, and the young private takes his hands and puts them over his ears and screams in a broken wail that begs for a slap or a shot of morphine. Yes, Watson thinks he understands.
Mycroft clears his throat, as if finding a lost thread. "My brother wishes to relocate from our country house and take lodgings in London. I am willing to pay you to assist my brother in achieving that goal."
Yes, Watson thinks, if he offers I'll accept. I must be mad.
"Can your brother speak, Mr. Holmes?"
Mycroft's mouth twists: a bitter smirk. "My brother is fluent in three languages and has been bombarding me with an outline of an impenetrable treatise he is writing on ciphers. He cannot engage in idle chatter, he cannot find his way through a crowded railway station, and if he were not prompted to dress warmer he would go out in a hailstorm wearing nothing but his shirtsleeves."
"I see," Watson says.
"You have been informed of our situation, Dr. Watson. You have not yet seen."
There is a pregnant silence, broken only by the remote sounds of the street outside, insulated by the suffocating quiet of this club. Watson joined his club so that he might partake in conversation, something to break the monotony. Why did Mycroft join this club?
Watson swallows. "I think that I would like to see."
Mycroft puts one of his meaty hands into the inner pocket of his immaculate suit coat and draws out a chequebook.
Watson leaves the Diogenes club five pounds richer. It is a staggering amount. He orders himself a new suit, at Mycroft's request, and he takes a double whiskey and a good meal at his club. Then he goes looking for lodgings.
...
Mycroft sends Watson thick letters on an expensive cream paper, full of practical instructions. My brother does not tolerate being interrupted when he is in the middle of an experiment, and he may very quickly become unreasonable. My brother becomes disoriented in noisy unfamiliar places. His handwriting is neat and unhurried.
In the later letters Mycroft is more personal. My brother attended the same prep school as I until his eccentricities and behaviours became intolerable to the masters. He was tutored at home from age nine. It seems that the schoolmasters recommended that the younger Holmes was intractably mentally deficient and should be institutionalised. Mycroft has underlined this passage with an angry stroke of his pen. They did not understand, Mycroft writes. They did not care to see.
...
The Holmes country house is large and cold and draughty, like every other country house Watson has ever visited. It makes Watson glad that he inherited nothing more substantial than cufflinks from his own father. Perhaps Mycroft feels connected to his own history, here, but Watson sees it as nothing more than a white elephant, the physical embodiment of a decayed minor title.
A stooped old butler with white, wispy hair takes Watson's coat. The interior of the house is less imposing -- old, comfy furniture and knickknacks discarded with the nonchalance of old money. Mycroft does have money, Watson decides: but not an unlimited amount. It is probably a strain on him financially, supporting his brother.
The library smells comfortingly of books; Watson is glad to take the weight off his feet. There is a pile of newspapers on the table, rumpled as if they have been read all the way through and discarded. A large assortment: a local daily, a French newspaper, several editions of the London Times and the county weekly.
There are voices in the corridor: Mycroft's soft rumble overlaid by another voice, higher, thinner. Mycroft opens the door and walks through it, two or three steps ahead of his brother.
The younger Holmes is around twenty-five, and extraordinarily thin. He has the same pale grey eyes as Mycroft, but where Mycroft's are intense his are searching. He is wearing an immaculate grey morning suit with an old pair of brogues, dusty and worn down to a slant at the heel. He has a beard, trimmed roughly with scissors. It is jet-black and looks incredibly incongruous on his thin pale face. His hands are long and thin and white and they never stop moving.
"Sherlock," Mycroft says. "This is John Watson."
Watson stands, doesn't hold out his hand. Sherlock Holmes doesn't come forward. He stands to one side of Mycroft, pulling at the fingers of his right hand with the left. He doesn't look Watson in the eye, either, but seems to glance at the side of his face.
"Hullo," he says. "I am Sherlock Holmes."
"I'm very pleased to meet you," Watson says. "Your brother Mycroft has told me that you wish to move to London. I am--"
"--Yes," Sherlock cuts Watson off, his voice rapid and almost monotone. "My brother said that you would help me find rooms in London. He also told me not to ask you about money, which is rude. Tell me, Watson, did you serve at Maiwand? I perceive that you have served in Afghanistan and the timing of your wound would place you at that battle."
"Oh dear," Mycroft says.
Something grey crowds in at the periphery of Watson's vision and he has to sit down. He clears his throat so that he can trust his voice. There is a bitter taste in his mouth; shock.
"You are extraordinarily perceptive." Sherlock Holmes nods, walks over to the table. His face betrays nothing.
"Sherlock," Mycroft says. "We've discussed this." He glances back, then turns to Watson, his brow creased. "I apologise if my brother's revelations startle you."
Watson nods, swallows again. "You have startled me," Watson says, addressing himself to Sherlock, who is now sifting restlessly through the newspapers. "But I am very interested in gaining an insight into your reasoning process."
"It is so very simple," Sherlock Holmes says. He explains himself in full, addressing the space to the side of Watson in the same rapid, low voice. Watson sees something in his eyes finally, an intensity, and he imagines that if Sherlock Holmes wishes to solve crimes, very little will stop him. Mycroft glances at Watson, his eyebrows raised, as if to say now you see.
Watson decides that he will follow Sherlock Holmes to London.
...
It is Mycroft's idea that they should move Holmes' things to London gradually. His existence revolves very much around routine, and this comfortable pattern must be upset as little as possible.
Watson has found lodgings in Baker Street. The rooms are large and well-appointed and the landlady seemed tolerant when Watson mentioned a few of Holmes' eccentricities, such as his violin playing and his chemical experiments.
As soon as the train is underway, Holmes shrinks back in his seat and stares out the window, putting his long nervous hands together at the fingertips again and again. After a while he begins to hum. Watson is attempting to read over some notes in his notebook, but the noise is insidious and distracting.
"What's that, Sherlock?" Mycroft's question is automatic, comfortable, like a question he's asked a hundred times before.
"Mozart," Holmes says. "Clarinet concerto."
"Mmm," Mycroft says. "The noise becomes rather distracting in the close confines of a railway carriage. I wonder if you might give the doctor and I the pleasure of hearing you sing. That might work better."
Holmes' singing voice surprises Watson. It is a rich tenor, strong and technically superb. He sings something in French that Watson doesn't recognise, but it is beautiful and infinitely preferable to the humming. He's smiling.
Watson crosses his legs and settles further back in his seat. As he does so he glances at Mycroft. There's an extraordinary expression on his face, something like pride and sadness mixed.
Watson turns his face back to the scenery, and after a while Holmes stops singing, and the carriage is silent.
The telegraph poles mounted at the side of the railway line whip by, the wires mounted on them moving up and down hypnotically. Sherlock Holmes fixes his eyes on them, tracing invisible calculations onto the leather seat.
...
It is almost midnight. Watson puts down his book and finishes his brandy. He stands up. Holmes remains absorbed in his collection of newspaper clippings, a catalogue of the macabre.
"I am going to retire."
"Yes," Holmes says, bent over his clippings.
Watson swallows down on the things he wants to say, his irritation only sharpened by the schoolroom smell of Holmes' glue and the burn of the brandy in his throat. He closes the door softly behind him.
Watson comes awake in the soft pre-dawn light of his room. He can hear Holmes' violin in the next room. Watson wishes that he had some sort of musical knowledge. That way he could furnish a description of the music in his own internal language. In the darkness of his room the muffled sound is sorrowful and complex. Watson thinks about getting up, talking to Holmes, but the lassitude of sleep reclaims him and he drifts off again.
It is almost lunchtime when Holmes arises.
"Good day," Watson says. Holmes grunts. His hair is unkempt and he is wearing only his nightshirt. He's very thin. Watson can see the shadow that his collarbone makes against his chest.
Watson goes to the doorway and calls down to Mrs. Hudson, asking her for a fresh pot of tea.
"I heard you playing the violin last night. Couldn't you sleep?"
"No," Holmes says abruptly. He opens the first of the morning newspapers with a business-like rustling noise and sits down at the table.
Mrs. Hudson arrives with the tea, and Watson pours a cup for Holmes and sets it before him. Holmes puts the paper aside and thanks Watson formally.
"Any interesting murders?"
"Alas, no."
Truth be told, Watson has missed these small domestic moments. It is such a drastic change from the blank walls of his hotel room, from that blank life entirely devoid of contact and responsibility.
...
Holmes is perhaps the most eccentric conversationalist Watson has ever known.
He knows next to nothing about current events, yet he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of crime. At breakfast he entertains Watson with an exhaustive and orderly description of all the smuggling activity in Sussex over the last twenty years. At tea, it is pickpocket techniques, and at a time when most civilised people are thinking of turning in to bed, Holmes treats Watson to a dispassionate account of deaths by strangling and how they differ from hangings.
He speaks of politics with a childlike naivete, and most of his knowledge of history is the colourless rote learning he must retain from his schooling. He is dismissive of any subjects that don't hold his interest.
About three weeks after they move into their lodgings, the curiosity becomes too much for Watson. He decides to question Holmes over breakfast, when he is least distracted and the least likely to ignore him.
"Holmes, how exactly do you plan to establish yourself as a private detective?"
Holmes throws back his head and laughs. He has a strange laugh, grating in its own way, and although Watson finds nothing he has said funny he cannot help but smile. Holmes can be so disarming.
"I am already established, Watson. I have created my own unique position as a consulting detective to the police and the general public."
"I see," Watson says, although he doesn't.
Holmes takes his toast and goes to stand by the open window. It has become a habit: Watson has decided it is so he can listen to the traffic. Holmes clears his throat, and then he starts to speak through a mouthful of his toast. "I am not a private detective. Private detectives and government detectives alike lay their problems before me, and I advise them."
"And why come to London?"
Holmes turns to the window and gazes out at the street. Watson wonders what he sees. Late winter slush on the streets, swept aside by carriages and hansom cabs. People scurrying to and fro to escape from the cold and the acrid fog. It is so noisy here, in this vast dirty city where all the dregs of the empire are drained. Watson has tried to understand what it is like inside Holmes' head, but he cannot, not really. He hears Mycroft's voice: Nobody really knows what his interior life is like, doctor. I find it easy to read the desires and inner thoughts of other men, but my brother is not other men.
"It is much quieter there," Holmes says, vacantly, and then he leaves his toast on the windowsill and goes over to his desk, rummaging around in the drawers.
"Last year I corresponded at length with a police surgeon at Scotland Yard. Do you know much about poisons, doctor? This case was a most engaging one..."
So Watson learns a great deal he does not wish to know about the undetectable ways that a man can be poisoned in his drink and in his food. He also learns that it takes a minimum of six hours for mail from London to reach the Holmes' country house from London. That the lane leading to the small country post office is hard-packed black dirt overlaid with a little gravel.
He also learns that Holmes has established himself as a consulting detective, a repository of information, a problem-solving machine.
...
Holmes is scrupulously and formally polite to Mrs. Hudson when he remembers himself, and dismissive when he doesn't.
"What would you like for luncheon, Mr. Holmes? Mutton curry or cold roast beef?"
"Neither," Holmes says, without putting down his newspaper. His voice is slightly muffled by stem of his pipe, a blackened old thing producing vile clouds of thick blue smoke. Holmes smokes a rough blend of shag -- according to Mycroft he picked up the habit from their old gardener and can be persuaded to smoke nothing else.
"I can hardly be expected to cook something else for you when Dr. Watson will be taking luncheon at his club." There is some asperity in their landlady's voice, but Holmes goes on reading the newspaper, his face impassive.
"Holmes," Watson says, turning from his desk. "Mrs. Hudson was presenting you with a limited choice. As I will be taking lunch at my club and it is the scullery maid's day off, those are the only two options."
Holmes takes his pipe out of his mouth and rustles his newspaper. "I don't like cold roast beef," he says, his voice higher than usual. "It is unhygienic and the texture is vile."
"I think that Holmes would like the mutton curry, please," Watson says, before Mrs. Hudson condemns them both to a diet of dry toast and sardines.
Watson spends a pleasant afternoon at his club, only slightly marred by the knowledge that Holmes is alone at their rooms. He and Mycroft have agreed that Holmes must be left alone, Mycroft tapdancing his way around the word independent without actually saying it.
Watson returns to Baker Street in the early evening, some ten shillings richer and considerably cheered.
"Did you have a pleasant afternoon?" Watson pours himself a cup of tea and lights a cigarette, taking a seat by the fire. Holmes does not move from the settee, where he is sitting wrapped in an old dressing gown, bent over a chemistry journal. His pipe is empty, and he is tapping it absently against his teeth.
"I have been reading about the ring structure of benzene. And Mrs. Hudson is frightened of me."
"Frightened of you? Holmes, what--"
"It has been almost 30 years since Kekulé suggested that the benzene ring consisted of alternating single and double bonds. There is much evidence for the cyclic nature of the molecule. And you have been playing billiards. There is a characteristic smudge of blue chalk in the fold between your thumb and index finger."
Watson looks up at Holmes, at that impassive pale face, made even more ascetic-looking by the unruly beard that straggles up his cheeks. There are many things he does not know about Holmes. There are many things he could be capable of.
"Why was Mrs. Hudson frightened of you, Holmes?" Watson is very careful to keep his voice level.
Watson knows that he could overpower Holmes, if he wished. Mrs. Hudson would not fare so well. He has a sort of wiry strength in his thin limbs, and the leverage of height.
"Oh, I do not know. She said I looked a fright sitting here. I do not imagine why I frighten her now, since she has seen me sitting here many times before."
"Oh," Watson says, smiling in his relief. "What exactly did she say?"
" 'You look a fright Mr. Holmes, sitting there in your old dressing gown and with that black beard,' " Holmes' mimicry is eerily accurate. It is Watson's turn to laugh. Holmes turns back to his chemistry, humming softly to himself.
"Oh, Holmes," Watson says, and he waits until Holmes is looking at him, his grey eyes flicking across Watson's cheek, restless. "That is a figure of speech. She means that you look slightly strange."
"Oh," Holmes says, something like satisfaction in his voice. "That makes much more sense." Watson wonders if that is how he feels when he solves a mystery.
...
Holmes' silences have a way of making Watson uneasy. Holmes sits on the settee, and opposite him in the chair sits a woman that Watson knows by reputation only. She is the wife of a duke, well known for her society parties and her philanthropy. She is beautiful and intimidating and breathtakingly wealthy.
Watson is sitting in the chair by the window. From there he can see the side of the Duchess' haughty face and the fur stole draped over one arm. Her story is a long one and she tells it without a single interruption from Holmes. When she finishes telling it, a brittle silence descends. She clears her throat expectantly, proper even in her indignation.
"And you want to know a little more about this young man," Holmes finally says, as if he can barely rouse himself.
"Yes, Mr. Holmes," the Duchess says as she rises from her chair. There is an air of finality in her tone. "Will you do it?"
"No," Holmes says.
The Duchess hesitates in the act of pulling her stole back over her shoulders, her face like stone.
"Why?"
"Because I don't like you," Holmes says, his voice flat and cold, and he rises from the settee and makes to leave the room, turning his back on the Duchess and her generous fee and the easy matter of evaluating the gambling habit of her youngest daughter's suitor. "Watson will see you out."
Watson does not see the Duchess out so much as he is swept outside in the wake of her fury. Holmes does not take the case.
...
A still spring morning, crisp and cool, the air mercifully clear. Watson is sitting at his desk writing, and Holmes has spent the morning pacing back and forth, reading newspapers and furiously smoking his pipe.
"It's no good."
"Hmm?" Watson says, not turning from his desk.
Holmes mumbles the same phrase under his breath as he goes over to the bookshelf and rapidly pages through a book. Watson puts down his pen when he hears Holmes thump it closed.
"It's no good," Holmes says again. "I shall have to go to the Reading Room at the British Museum."
"Indeed?" Watson has just written himself into a comfortable rhythm, and he is not comfortable in being torn away from it.
"Yes!" Holmes rushes over to the mantlepiece and stuffs his tobacco pouch into his pocket. He is wearing his shirtsleeves and the same disreputable old brogues that he invariable wears. He goes to his desk and opens the drawers, rifling through them. He finally takes out a piece of card, which he shows to Watson. It is printed, and Holmes' name has been filled in using that watery ink so beloved of bureaucrats.
The Principal Librarian of the British Museum wishes to inform Mr Sherlock Holmes that a reading ticket will be delivered to him on presenting this note, etc etc. Watson has friends whose medical researches have compelled them to use the Reading Room, although he always found the University Library to be cosy and welcoming enough.
"Well, Holmes, do you wish to go now?"
"Yes, Watson! The Museum is at Great Russell Street, London, WC."
Watson gets up and picks up his blazer from where it lies draped over the back of the settee. "Very well. Go and put on your waistcoat and your blazer and your coat."
In his excitement Holmes often forgets these things, or becomes confused when putting them on. Watson would be lying if he said he did not find it intriguing, that a man with the breadth of experience and knowledge that Holmes has should be confounded by these simple tasks. Why he sometimes forgets to put his stockings on, why his fingers fumble as he ties his shoelaces with agonising slowness.
In the cab Holmes frowns a lot and splays his hands flat over his thighs, but he invariably does that in cabs. When they reach their destination Holmes hops eagerly out of the cab and then stands there, waiting anxiously while Watson pays the cabbie.
"Well, Holmes," Watson says as he hops down from the cab with his walking cane under his arm, "Isn't it impressive?"
"I don't know," Holmes says, with the same harried frown on his face.
"What do you mean you do not know?" Watson smiles and gestures at the majestic Grecian columns that flank the front of the building, at the sculptures on the pediment.
"I don't know," Holmes says, his voice rising a half-octave, and Watson takes him by the elbow and leads him up the steps. When they are finally standing in the cool quiet of the reading room, Holmes speaks again. "It is too much. There is too much."
Watson leaves Holmes sitting quietly at a reading table by himself, immersed in his research. He goes to consult with a librarian and spends a very unsatisfactory two hours reading a number of books written by alienists. Holmes' problem is not one of thinking, a neurosis. It is an organic problem, one that medicine has no answer for.
...
"I suppose I was twelve or so, when I first noticed. I came home from my first half away at school and discovered that my brother seemed so much different from the other boys. I had not noticed it before. Perhaps it was because I had grown, or maybe it was being immersed in that environment. I do not know."
Watson and Mycroft are partaking in Mycroft's only form of exercise: the short walk from his rooms to the Diogenes club.
"How old was he then?"
"Five. His chief occupation was lining my old lead soldiers up across the nursery floor." Mycroft pauses, as if he has entered another line of thought. "I remember a boy in my form complaining that his younger brother chattered all the time, wondering if his brother screamed and kicked over vases for unfathomable reasons."
Watson takes out his cigarette case and lights a cigarette. Mycroft likes to talk when he walks, likes to rumble and rant and build up a head of steam before he swaps the clattering London thoroughfare for the cloistered environment of his club.
"I bloodied a cousin's nose once when she threw a bucket of water on Sherlock, because she was curious about what his reaction would be. His reaction was loud. I could not understand how somebody could be so cruel. I do now. Some people seem to gain enjoyment from finding a creature or person that they are somehow superior to and highlighting that superiority."
They walk on companionably for another ten yards or so. Watson prefers walking alongside Mycroft to Holmes. Holmes walks too fast and does not consider Watson's leg.
"Was your brother older, Dr. Watson?"
Watson goes on walking, his eyes focused on the grey cobblestones in front of their feet. It rained less than an hour ago, and the stones are slick. Greasy puddles reflect the grey sky.
"Er, yes." Mycroft speaks in the past tense, Watson dimly realises.
"You inherited his watch?" So that is how he knows. The blasted watch. Watson would be rid of it if it were not the last feeble reminder that he has of his family.
"And his debt."
"Oh, I am sorry."
"I'm sure you know as well as I that you cannot pick your family."
"Indeed," Mycroft says, and he smiles to himself.
"Just before I went up to Cambridge my father came and spoke to me for a long time. I think he'd wanted a son to go up to Oxford as he did, and he'd just realised that Sherlock wouldn't be going to University. Sherlock had quite possibly the most long-suffering tutor in the world. He was already studying chemistry at a near-undergraduate level, but he could hardly be induced to read a nursery primer aloud. My father and I spoke of many things: my ambitions at University, the house and lands, family. And just after he leaned over and knocked out his pipe into the coals he looked straight at me and said 'Don't forget your brother.' He rightly assumed that I was harbouring resentful feelings for Sherlock, that I wanted to forget him. He told me that he thought Sherlock had abilities to counteract his detriments, that I must try to make the best life for him that I could."
Watson says nothing. He can understand Mycroft's feelings. Holmes can be so bullheaded, so cold, so frustrating.
"The next time I came back to the house, Sherlock came into the library to greet me. He looked me up and down from across the room, put his head to the side, and said 'Your room is on the western side of the Quadrangle and you went to see your Maths tutor this afternoon.' He had just turned thirteen. I understood. I began to be less angry at him as I grew older. I realised that he cannot help being the way he is. And I think that it cannot be easy, having a mind such as his."
"No," Watson says. "It does not seem easy."
Mycroft turns and gives Watson another of his raking, searching glances. They have reached the door to the club, and they do not continue the conversation until they have reached the Stranger's Room.
"I am glad that you and my brother have established such rapport. I can not imagine a better outcome for him. I must thank you, truly."
Watson takes a scalding sip of tea, nods. He does not know what to say.
...
The second part is here.