The Lucifer Effect
Title: The Lucifer Effect
Rating: PG
Characters: John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes
Words: ~4,000
Summary: Originally posted as a fill for this prompt on sherlockbbc_fic. "AU. Where John (in his early twenties) is still at uni and his psychology prof gives him an assignment questioning the aloof, mysterious, highly intelligent[, psychopathic] Mycroft Holmes." In short, Mycroft Holmes is Hannibal Lecter, and John Watson is Clarice Starling.
“Watson. Before you go, could I speak with you for a moment?”
John looked up from the books he was stowing away in his bag. Other students were mingling in small groups and discussing in low voices, the occasional bright laugh piercing the air before falling again. Eight rows down, at the front of the lecture hall, Dr Roche was looking up at him, expectant.
“Er, yes,” John said. “Certainly. Just a second.”
John could think of only a few reasons why Dr Roche would need a word with him: he’d done something brilliant, done something terrible, or there was something his professor needed. He hoped it was the first, of course, but if it was the last, then he wasn’t bothered. He liked Roche. Psychology wasn’t the field he was interested in, but the class was a requirement, and it was one of the more interesting non-medical requirements he’d sat through. His marks were good, and Roche seemed to like him. He smiled as John approached, straightening up. If the smile was slightly nervous, John wrote it off as a normal part of his character; he wasn’t the most sedate of men.
“John. Thank you.” Dr Roche glanced around the room. Two groups of students still remained, both moving towards the doors, entirely ignoring John and the professor. He cleared his throat, fixing that nervous smile. “I have a bit of a mission for you, if you’d care to accept it. I think you’re just the right sort for it.”
John hitched his heavy bag higher on his shoulder. “What sort of mission, sir?” The secret-agent wording felt strange on his lips, and they twitched slightly with a suppressed smile.
“I’ve been asked to assign a student to a bit of field work - purely investigative, no counseling involved,” he added, seeing John’s concerned change of expression. “It’s part of a study being conducted by a friend of mine. She’s researching an aspect of antisocial personality disorder - psychopathy, you know. It involves sending students to interview noted examples of individuals with the disorder.”
“Why doesn’t she send her own students?”
“She has,” Roche said, looking slightly amused. “Most of the interviews went well. Psychopaths aren’t the easiest individuals to get answers out of, but approached from the right direction, a conversation can be had.”
“Most?”
“There was one,” Roche said, “who was a bit trickier. Dionaea threw five students at him before finally giving up and asking me if I might have a better match for him. I’m more familiar with his case. I worked closely with his doctor for a number of years.”
“And your better match is me?” John frowned. “I’m not sure, sir. Psychology really isn’t my field - not that I don’t find it interesting, it’s just that it isn’t something I’m particularly passionate about--”
“Then I think you’ll be perfect for this,” Roche said. He set a hand on John’s shoulder. “I promise that you won’t find yourself at all in over your head. It’s a series of questions. You’re good with people. You can get him to answer. I believe the reason the patient snubbed the other students was for their over-earnest psychological approach.” He smiled. “I don’t think you could put that on if you tried, if you’ll pardon me.”
John still hesitated, ignoring the rebuke of his bedside manner. “I’m still not sure.”
“If you do this and write me a paper about the experience, I’ll waive your final exam.”
John sighed. He thought for a moment.
“Deal.”
The nerves began when a man in blue scrubs kindly requested that John relinquish any items on his person which might be used as a weapon. The pile built slowly in a little white tray at the front desk of the locked ward: keys, pen, coins, small pocketknife, mobile. They sat in a sad little heap, and John looked down at them, feeling the slow coil of steel around his stomach. The tech was giving him an uncertain smile when someone appeared at his shoulder.
“Are you the one from Roche’s class?”
John spun, surprised. The man in front of him looked rushed, perhaps vaguely annoyed, and his voice conveyed the same sentiments. He was wearing a suit, in stark contrast to the men and women passing in and out of the rooms along the hall, all of them clad in dark blue scrubs. He was frowning at John.
John blinked at him. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry. John Watson.” He raised a hand to shake.
The man ignored it. “I doubt you’ll get anything out of him. Holmes is an impossible case. They can throw as many eager psych students as they want at him. None of you are going to stick.”
“I’m a medical student.” John lowered his hand, narrowly keeping the edge out of his voice.
The man paused. Then he smirked. “Patrick Roche thinks he can crack him with a medical student,” he said. “I can’t say that I wouldn’t like to see it done.” The man turned. “Come on. I’ll take you to him. He’s all set up for you.”
John followed close, casting one look back over his shoulder at the front desk, where the tech was tucking the little white tray safely away.
“My name is Nathaniel Karras. I’ve been Holmes’s doctor for about six years now.” Karras spoke without looking back at John, walking down the hall at a fair pace, forcing John to hurry to keep up with his long strides. “He was admitted at age twenty-four after being tied to a series of violent deaths over a number of years in London. His family is beyond wealthy, more money than the Queen, so he didn’t go to prison. He came here. For rehabilitiation.”
Karras stopped suddenly outside of a door and turned to John. John only just kept himself from crashing into the man. Karras looked directly at him, holding his attention at close proximity, keeping their eyes together. “That is never going to happen, Mr Watson. Mycroft Holmes is a lost cause. The only thing we can do is keep him locked away.” Karras stepped infinitesimally closer. “This is something you need to understand before you walk in to that room. Holmes is a psychopath of the highest caliber. Those murders committed in London? He didn’t do them himself. He organized them. Like a wedding planner. This is a creature with such intelligence, and such a dearth of emotion, that he can hardly be called human at all. You need to know that. You need to know that whatever he says to you, whatever he does, he is lying. And if it isn’t a lie, then it’s a ploy.” Karras glanced through the window in the door, crosshatched with wire. “He’s bolted to the floor and chained to the table, but that doesn’t keep him from getting into your head. Do not move any closer than the chair set out for you, do not give him anything he asks for, and for God’s sake, do not let him into your head.”
John stared at Karras, whose face was inches from his, whose voice was so deadly-serious it made his body hum with fearful anticipation. “Is that the speech you give all of his visitors?”
Karras stepped back. “What visitors?” He keyed a code into the electronic pad next to the door. “There’s a white button next to the door on the inside. Buzz it when you want to be let out. If something goes wrong, there’s another button. That one will be obvious.” Something in the door clicked, and Karras reached out to swing it open. “Good luck,” he said. He gestured John into the room, and John went.
The door closed behind him with the resounding clunk of the lock. Beside the door was the white button Karras had spoken of. Next to that was a bright red one.
The room was surprisingly large, about the size of a classroom, and entirely white. A table sat at the center, long and wide, with chairs set on either side of it. One chair was empty. The other held a man.
He was not what John expected. He held himself upright in a way that spoke of what John assumed was a history of formal boarding schools and social functions, if his family was really as rich as Karras had let on. His hair was dark, only fading in small patches by his temples, giving him a distinguished appearance - making him look older than he was. He was dressed in white scrubs, from head to toe. His hands were folded on the table - and his wrists were chained through a steel loop on the tabletop. His feet were chained through a similar loop on the floor, and they were bare.
He had the casual smile of a man being introduced at a dinner party.
“Another student, I see,” he said, and the smile stayed, unwavering, thoroughly disarming. “I will admit that Dr Dionaea has a wealth of patience and no end of possible candidates. But wait,” he said suddenly, tilting his head very slightly as though it would give him a better view of John, still standing just inside of the doorway. “You’re different, aren’t you? You aren’t one of hers.”
John hesitated, then nodded. “I’m not one of Dr Dionaea’s students, no. How could you tell?”
Mycroft Holmes waved a hand, an it was nothing gesture. “Trivial observations. You aren’t the sort she would send. The others were - quite eager.” His eyes shone with humor. “I can’t say that I was the same. May I ask your name?”
Another hesitation. “Watson,” John said. “John Watson.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr Watson. Please do sit down. I promise that I don’t bite.” He paused. “At least, I haven’t yet.”
John frowned and didn’t move from the doorway.
Holmes chuckled. “A joke. In poor taste, I’m afraid. Who did send you, if not our friend Rebecca Dionaea?”
“I’m a student of Dr Patrick Roche. You’ve met him, I believe.”
Holmes looked delighted. His smile redoubled. “Dr Roche! I remember him well. Is he teaching now? How nice for him. I know that it was his passion. Really, Mr Watson, it’s quite all right for you to sit.”
John crossed the room and pulled out the chair. After a cursory glance at the chains binding Holmes in place, he sat down and folded his hands on the table. He was struck by the strangeness of the situation, watching Holmes from across the table, his very relaxed nature, his very pleasant face. It was much like they were meeting for lunch, to discuss some sort of business. The dynamic was nothing at all like he was expecting, and he was certainly thrown by it. But there was something there, something beneath the smile - an insincerity, solid and immovable, sunk right into the very bones of the man. All the world’s a stage, John thought. The words were unbidden, but no less apt for that.
“If I recall correctly, Roche was interested in the psychology of groups,” Holmes said, steepling his fingers together, making the chains rattle. “Social psychology, as it were. We had many a good conversation on the subject. Particularly on the Standford Prison Experiment. Are you familiar with it?”
“I can’t say that I am,” John said honestly.
Holmes smiled indulgently. “It’s early in the term yet. You’ll come to it eventually.” He sat back against his chair, relaxing into it. “I’ve always considered Philip Zimbardo a bit of a loose cannon - not entirely held together, you see. But that’s what makes a scientist interesting, don’t you think? The things that he will do for his experiment. The lengths he will go to for a result.” The smile widened, and became something different. Something that made John sit a little straighter in his chair. “You’ll learn all of this soon enough, but the Stanford Prison Experiment was a study gone bad. Twenty-four university students were chosen to participate, half as guards and half as prisoners. The study was intended to go on for fourteen days, but was shut down after only six. The ‘prison’ was nothing but a basement, but the students internalized their roles so well that they became guards to prisoners, and prisoners to guards. They lost their sense of identity to the roles that they had been assigned. They were either faceless authority figures or powerless, demoralized creatures, nothing but the numbers on their uniforms.” He paused, taking John in for a moment. “I’m sorry, is all of this terribly boring to you?”
John hesitated. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few folded sheets of blue paper, slowly, and smoothed them before him on the table. “I’ve been asked to give you this questionnaire. It’s a series of--”
“You haven’t read them,” Holmes said. The corner of his mouth rose. “Have you?”
John paused. “No,” he admitted, after a moment. “I haven’t read them.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I’m not sure what you’re--”
“I think it’s because you know that the questions aren’t important.” Holmes splayed a hand, given just enough space by the chains to rest the tips of his fingers against the papers. “You could tell, somewhere, that the study isn’t really about me. It’s about you. Your reactions.” He tapped the papers. “That’s why you didn’t read the questions. That’s why you came at all. That’s why you aren’t nervous, Mr Watson. Or at least, not nervous about me reaching across this table and murdering you.” He said it with a smile, and it was the sort of upsetting combination that sent men screaming. “You’re nervous because you want to impress me. I find that admirable, if a little mad.”
John’s mouth was dry. “It’s our madness that makes us interesting,” he said, his eyes not leaving Holmes’s face.
Holmes was delighted by the answer. John could see his eyes gleam as he sat further forward, leaning as though in confidence across the table. “I thought that we should start with all of our cards on the table, given the circumstances. You may think that I’ve ruined the study, having shattered your illusions on the subject, but I remain a psychopath, and you remain the man you are, and your reactions will be, if not admissible as data, at least interesting on a purely exemplary level.”
John sat back against his chair. “The study is on student reactions to psychopaths?”
Holmes waved a hand, another loose gesture. “Reaction to psychopathy in general. It’s an attractive concept. The previous visitors made it obvious what the true aim of their coming was, even if they were unaware. You were an interesting subject to choose. We’ve had the earnest men and women with their shaking hands and mental cataloguing of my condition, their research into my background and into the concept of psychopathy as a whole. Now we have Mr John Watson. Medical student, early twenties, no particular interest in psychology but a deep interest in people, in what turns a person in a particular direction. Good, bad. The lamb or the devil. You did no research on me before you came here today, did you? Your professor told you all you needed to know. Psychopath, he said. And you came running.”
John stared. His heart was hammering his chest, paced by the run of words from Holmes’s mouth. ”How?” John managed. “How could you know any of that?”
“It’s written on your very skin, Mr Watson. The whole of you is just sitting at the surface, waiting to be read.” Holmes folded his hands in his lap, pulling the chains tight, making them rattle against the table. “My fondness for Dr Roche has grown, now,” he said. “He decided to send me someone I might find interesting.”
John didn’t understand the twist of pride in his chest at those words, and didn’t feel the need to explore it any deeper. “You’re a psychopath, Mr Holmes. You aren’t supposed to like anything.”
Mycroft’s lips twitched. He raised his eyebrows. “The Stanford Prison Experiment ended prematurely, due to unforeseen problems with the participants. They became their roles to a point where continuation of the study would endanger the emotional well-being of all involved. It may have endangered their lives, if allowed to go on a bit further than that. I’ve found that it is always the unexpected result that is the most important. Take, for example, the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures.”
“I’ve heard of that one,” John said. “With the electric shocks. Am I right? Milgram let the subjects think that they were shocking a man with progressively higher voltage, and if they asked to stop and check that the man was all right, the person giving the test would tell them that their responsibility was to carry out the instructions. They weren’t responsible for the well-being of the man.”
Mycroft nodded, watching him, interested. “Do you know the percentages of the results? How many people completed the experiment all the way to 450 volts, and how many stopped when the man started crying for help?”
“I know that it was surprisingly high.”
“Sixty-five percent administered the full 450 volts. Do you know the percentage that Milgram expected?”
John shook his head.
Mycroft smiled. “Three percent. The results were staggering. There were three X’s over the number 450 on the board. There is no mistaking the meaning of that.”
John frowned. “I can’t imagine that anyone could call that sort of test ethical. What were the participants meant to do with the knowledge that they could easily kill a man, given the right circumstances? I wouldn’t be able to think of myself the same way after that.”
Mycroft shrugged. “I doubt that you would be among those who continued the experiment. But that is the point, don’t you see? Such experiments would never be funded, much less carried out, when it is so necessary for the participants to be unharmed by the proceedings. It’s the unexpected turns in these studies that make them truly valuable. It was the chance taken. It was the depth of the role.” Mycroft leaned forward once more, his expression darkening, but not losing the offhand smile, the shallow and unnatural upward tilt of his lips as he spoke. “I find it so interesting, Mr Watson, that we get the best psychological results from the most terrible situations. University students living in misery and fear when in reality they are free to leave whenever they want. Men flipping switches slowly up a control panel as they listen to screams from the next room. We are all capable of evil. It is written into us. Carved into our brains. Submit. Follow instructions. Do not question.” He cocked his head. “How much would it take to convince a man to take the life of another? Not much, we’ve learned. We can bypass morality with authority. Responsibility. 38 people were aware that Kitty Genovese was being stabbed to death, but none of them came to her aid. The reports are inaccurate, but the bottom line is true: when everyone sees, no one is responsible. Let us all stab Caesar. The bystander effect. Diffusion of responsibility. These are things that are inherently human.”
John’s hands were tight on the arms of his chair. He swallowed, and it seemed to echo in the room, to bounce off of the white walls and back to him. Something internal was humming. He felt as though he was watching the scene from somewhere behind and above himself. He let his face show nothing.
“What I’m saying,” Mycroft said, “is that evil is ubiquitous. It is omnipresent. You have an interest in the evil of man, John, but to say that is to say you have an interest in man, full stop. The serpent is all of us. I’ve arranged the deaths of twenty-eight people, and who is to say that they didn’t deserve it? Who is to say that the men you will kill in the army - don’t look so shocked, please, it is unbefitting of your intelligence - who is to say that those men will deserve it? Where is the line drawn between good and evil? Can you walk me there and point it out to me? Can you say, ‘This is what we have decided, this is the definition of good’? I don’t think you can, John. And it’s time to consider the idea of not trying anymore.”
“How can you know what I’m looking for?” John asked hotly, overcoming the overwhelming strangeness and the speed at which the situation devolved into - whatever this was, a lecture or an intervention. “And why would it matter to you?”
Mycroft let out a breath that sounded almost like a sigh. “I’ve seen men spend their entire lives searching for something good. It is a waste of their abilities. Particularly in a man like you. You are training to be a doctor, but you plan to join the army. The desire to help and the desire to harm, or to aid those who desire to arm, are two deeply conflicting things, John, but they exist in equal parts inside of you, and they haven’t rent your soul apart yet. You hate it, but it is more of a strength than any other quality you possess. There is nothing wholly good in this world, and no matter how deeply you look, some things will never be anything but wholly evil. I am the only person who is able to tell you this, because I may be the only person you will ever meet who is able to see the world without the film of fear and doubt and emotion that you must look through at all times.”
One of John’s hands had strayed too far across the table as he sat listening with rapt attention and ignoring the silent battle of agreement and disagreement raging in his mind. Mycroft pulled the chain from his left wrist as far as it would go and placed his hand over John’s, trapping it there, cool and smooth, and John had the half-hysterical thought that Mycroft’s heart rate had probably not yet risen past seventy-five beats per minute, while John’s own pulse raced and jumped in his neck, and his heart pounded at the base of his throat.
“You must understand, John,” Mycroft said, forcing their eyes to lock across the table, “that there is nothing pure in you. You are tainted by the things you want, or don't want. Every thought, every emotion you have is run through a filter to determine whether it is appropriate. I have no such filter. I am the only person who is able to tell you that the world you are searching for does not exist. Lucifer fell here, if he ever fell at all. And it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.”
John let the words sink into him. He let his eyes rest on Mycroft’s cool, pale hand over his, long fingers splayed and soft against his. “What if I choose not to believe that?” he asked.
Mycroft pulled his hand away and sat back against his chair. “Then there will be a lot of disappointment in your life,” he said. “And you will end up wishing that you had taken my advice.”
John watched Mycroft carefully. “I think you’re wrong about that,” he murmured.
Mycroft cast his eyes to the ceiling. “The broken idealist,” he sighed. “That’s your future. I wish you luck in it.”
John raised an eyebrow. “We’re finished, then?”
Mycroft smirked. “You’ve had your conversation, Mr Watson. It has no doubt been an interesting one. And I think you might be back. There’s no harm in ending here.”
John felt somehow cheated, but he pushed it away. He slowly rose out of his chair. “If I shake your hand, will you break my wrist?”
“What do you think?” Mycroft asked.
John paused, then offered his hand. “It was - interesting to meet you, Mr Holmes.”
Mycroft accepted it and shook lightly. “The pleasure was all mine, Mr Watson. Have fun attempting to condense this afternoon into a few typewritten pages.”
John’s mouth twitched with a smile, but he didn’t bother to ask How. He only turned and walked for the door, buzzing to be let out without looking back. After a pause, the lock clicked, and he let himself into the hall. The door closed behind him.
He took one long, complicated breath.
The door at the front of the ward was thrown open.
“-ridiculous, Karras. Five of them wasn’t enough? And how did this happen without my knowledge?”
“You aren’t his guardian, Sherlock. There was no reason to contact you.”
Karras was walking down the hall towards John, tailed by a tall young man with dark, curly hair. He was younger than John. Hardly out of school, he thought. And the level of aggressive agitation he seemed to bring out of Karras warmed the very cockles of John’s heart for one spiteful moment. He straightened up as they approached.
“You’re finished?” Karras asked. He was looking John over with one eyebrow raised, maybe looking for bite marks, who knew. “Well, you seem to be in one piece.”
The young man huffed. “He hardly hurt the others. He was just his usual bastard self. Their poor fragile little nerves couldn’t handle the full brunt of his ridiculous personality.” He stepped forward, looking John up and down, forcing Karras to step back. He had a presence that was larger and much older than his person. And cold, familiar eyes beneath the mop of his hair.
“You’re his brother,” John said before thinking.
The young man smirked. “Brilliant deduction. I take it you didn’t flee the room in tears like the others.”
John shrugged. “We had a conversation. It ended. I left. It was fine.”
The young man’s eyebrows knit together. He scrutinized John more critically, with an intensity that made his skin prickle and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He felt once again like he was passing a test. “What did you talk about?” When John opened his mouth to answer, the young man waved it away. “No, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.” He held out a hand. “My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
John took it. “John Watson.”
Sherlock shook, nodded, and dropped his hand. “Give my regards to Dr Roche when next you see him, Mr Watson. And good luck in your classes.”
With that he turned, buzzed the door and went inside. John heard a brief shout containing the word matchmaker from Sherlock, and then the door swung closed.
Karras passed a hand wearily over his forehead and down his face. “That family,” he said. “The kid’s on his way to being just like his brother. Ten years from now, he’ll be in here right next to him, unless someone manages to tether him down. Collect your things at the front desk. You can show yourself out.” The doctor turned and walked off down the hall, fingers rubbing his forehead as though warding off pain.
It took five steps before the words washed over John in the proper arrangement. Unless someone manages to tether him down. Matchmaker. Mycroft’s strange advice, given as though it was important to him that John take it.
It didn’t take a genius to join the dots.
John stood stock still, in the middle of a closed mental ward, and began to laugh.
~~~~~
Notes:
For more information on the incidents and concepts mentioned in this fic, follow the links:
The Stanford prison experiment
Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures
The murder of Kitty Genovese / the bystander effect
Diffusion of responsibility
The Lucifer effect
Rating: PG
Characters: John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes
Words: ~4,000
Summary: Originally posted as a fill for this prompt on sherlockbbc_fic. "AU. Where John (in his early twenties) is still at uni and his psychology prof gives him an assignment questioning the aloof, mysterious, highly intelligent[, psychopathic] Mycroft Holmes." In short, Mycroft Holmes is Hannibal Lecter, and John Watson is Clarice Starling.
“Watson. Before you go, could I speak with you for a moment?”
John looked up from the books he was stowing away in his bag. Other students were mingling in small groups and discussing in low voices, the occasional bright laugh piercing the air before falling again. Eight rows down, at the front of the lecture hall, Dr Roche was looking up at him, expectant.
“Er, yes,” John said. “Certainly. Just a second.”
John could think of only a few reasons why Dr Roche would need a word with him: he’d done something brilliant, done something terrible, or there was something his professor needed. He hoped it was the first, of course, but if it was the last, then he wasn’t bothered. He liked Roche. Psychology wasn’t the field he was interested in, but the class was a requirement, and it was one of the more interesting non-medical requirements he’d sat through. His marks were good, and Roche seemed to like him. He smiled as John approached, straightening up. If the smile was slightly nervous, John wrote it off as a normal part of his character; he wasn’t the most sedate of men.
“John. Thank you.” Dr Roche glanced around the room. Two groups of students still remained, both moving towards the doors, entirely ignoring John and the professor. He cleared his throat, fixing that nervous smile. “I have a bit of a mission for you, if you’d care to accept it. I think you’re just the right sort for it.”
John hitched his heavy bag higher on his shoulder. “What sort of mission, sir?” The secret-agent wording felt strange on his lips, and they twitched slightly with a suppressed smile.
“I’ve been asked to assign a student to a bit of field work - purely investigative, no counseling involved,” he added, seeing John’s concerned change of expression. “It’s part of a study being conducted by a friend of mine. She’s researching an aspect of antisocial personality disorder - psychopathy, you know. It involves sending students to interview noted examples of individuals with the disorder.”
“Why doesn’t she send her own students?”
“She has,” Roche said, looking slightly amused. “Most of the interviews went well. Psychopaths aren’t the easiest individuals to get answers out of, but approached from the right direction, a conversation can be had.”
“Most?”
“There was one,” Roche said, “who was a bit trickier. Dionaea threw five students at him before finally giving up and asking me if I might have a better match for him. I’m more familiar with his case. I worked closely with his doctor for a number of years.”
“And your better match is me?” John frowned. “I’m not sure, sir. Psychology really isn’t my field - not that I don’t find it interesting, it’s just that it isn’t something I’m particularly passionate about--”
“Then I think you’ll be perfect for this,” Roche said. He set a hand on John’s shoulder. “I promise that you won’t find yourself at all in over your head. It’s a series of questions. You’re good with people. You can get him to answer. I believe the reason the patient snubbed the other students was for their over-earnest psychological approach.” He smiled. “I don’t think you could put that on if you tried, if you’ll pardon me.”
John still hesitated, ignoring the rebuke of his bedside manner. “I’m still not sure.”
“If you do this and write me a paper about the experience, I’ll waive your final exam.”
John sighed. He thought for a moment.
“Deal.”
The nerves began when a man in blue scrubs kindly requested that John relinquish any items on his person which might be used as a weapon. The pile built slowly in a little white tray at the front desk of the locked ward: keys, pen, coins, small pocketknife, mobile. They sat in a sad little heap, and John looked down at them, feeling the slow coil of steel around his stomach. The tech was giving him an uncertain smile when someone appeared at his shoulder.
“Are you the one from Roche’s class?”
John spun, surprised. The man in front of him looked rushed, perhaps vaguely annoyed, and his voice conveyed the same sentiments. He was wearing a suit, in stark contrast to the men and women passing in and out of the rooms along the hall, all of them clad in dark blue scrubs. He was frowning at John.
John blinked at him. “Yes,” he said. “Sorry. John Watson.” He raised a hand to shake.
The man ignored it. “I doubt you’ll get anything out of him. Holmes is an impossible case. They can throw as many eager psych students as they want at him. None of you are going to stick.”
“I’m a medical student.” John lowered his hand, narrowly keeping the edge out of his voice.
The man paused. Then he smirked. “Patrick Roche thinks he can crack him with a medical student,” he said. “I can’t say that I wouldn’t like to see it done.” The man turned. “Come on. I’ll take you to him. He’s all set up for you.”
John followed close, casting one look back over his shoulder at the front desk, where the tech was tucking the little white tray safely away.
“My name is Nathaniel Karras. I’ve been Holmes’s doctor for about six years now.” Karras spoke without looking back at John, walking down the hall at a fair pace, forcing John to hurry to keep up with his long strides. “He was admitted at age twenty-four after being tied to a series of violent deaths over a number of years in London. His family is beyond wealthy, more money than the Queen, so he didn’t go to prison. He came here. For rehabilitiation.”
Karras stopped suddenly outside of a door and turned to John. John only just kept himself from crashing into the man. Karras looked directly at him, holding his attention at close proximity, keeping their eyes together. “That is never going to happen, Mr Watson. Mycroft Holmes is a lost cause. The only thing we can do is keep him locked away.” Karras stepped infinitesimally closer. “This is something you need to understand before you walk in to that room. Holmes is a psychopath of the highest caliber. Those murders committed in London? He didn’t do them himself. He organized them. Like a wedding planner. This is a creature with such intelligence, and such a dearth of emotion, that he can hardly be called human at all. You need to know that. You need to know that whatever he says to you, whatever he does, he is lying. And if it isn’t a lie, then it’s a ploy.” Karras glanced through the window in the door, crosshatched with wire. “He’s bolted to the floor and chained to the table, but that doesn’t keep him from getting into your head. Do not move any closer than the chair set out for you, do not give him anything he asks for, and for God’s sake, do not let him into your head.”
John stared at Karras, whose face was inches from his, whose voice was so deadly-serious it made his body hum with fearful anticipation. “Is that the speech you give all of his visitors?”
Karras stepped back. “What visitors?” He keyed a code into the electronic pad next to the door. “There’s a white button next to the door on the inside. Buzz it when you want to be let out. If something goes wrong, there’s another button. That one will be obvious.” Something in the door clicked, and Karras reached out to swing it open. “Good luck,” he said. He gestured John into the room, and John went.
The door closed behind him with the resounding clunk of the lock. Beside the door was the white button Karras had spoken of. Next to that was a bright red one.
The room was surprisingly large, about the size of a classroom, and entirely white. A table sat at the center, long and wide, with chairs set on either side of it. One chair was empty. The other held a man.
He was not what John expected. He held himself upright in a way that spoke of what John assumed was a history of formal boarding schools and social functions, if his family was really as rich as Karras had let on. His hair was dark, only fading in small patches by his temples, giving him a distinguished appearance - making him look older than he was. He was dressed in white scrubs, from head to toe. His hands were folded on the table - and his wrists were chained through a steel loop on the tabletop. His feet were chained through a similar loop on the floor, and they were bare.
He had the casual smile of a man being introduced at a dinner party.
“Another student, I see,” he said, and the smile stayed, unwavering, thoroughly disarming. “I will admit that Dr Dionaea has a wealth of patience and no end of possible candidates. But wait,” he said suddenly, tilting his head very slightly as though it would give him a better view of John, still standing just inside of the doorway. “You’re different, aren’t you? You aren’t one of hers.”
John hesitated, then nodded. “I’m not one of Dr Dionaea’s students, no. How could you tell?”
Mycroft Holmes waved a hand, an it was nothing gesture. “Trivial observations. You aren’t the sort she would send. The others were - quite eager.” His eyes shone with humor. “I can’t say that I was the same. May I ask your name?”
Another hesitation. “Watson,” John said. “John Watson.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr Watson. Please do sit down. I promise that I don’t bite.” He paused. “At least, I haven’t yet.”
John frowned and didn’t move from the doorway.
Holmes chuckled. “A joke. In poor taste, I’m afraid. Who did send you, if not our friend Rebecca Dionaea?”
“I’m a student of Dr Patrick Roche. You’ve met him, I believe.”
Holmes looked delighted. His smile redoubled. “Dr Roche! I remember him well. Is he teaching now? How nice for him. I know that it was his passion. Really, Mr Watson, it’s quite all right for you to sit.”
John crossed the room and pulled out the chair. After a cursory glance at the chains binding Holmes in place, he sat down and folded his hands on the table. He was struck by the strangeness of the situation, watching Holmes from across the table, his very relaxed nature, his very pleasant face. It was much like they were meeting for lunch, to discuss some sort of business. The dynamic was nothing at all like he was expecting, and he was certainly thrown by it. But there was something there, something beneath the smile - an insincerity, solid and immovable, sunk right into the very bones of the man. All the world’s a stage, John thought. The words were unbidden, but no less apt for that.
“If I recall correctly, Roche was interested in the psychology of groups,” Holmes said, steepling his fingers together, making the chains rattle. “Social psychology, as it were. We had many a good conversation on the subject. Particularly on the Standford Prison Experiment. Are you familiar with it?”
“I can’t say that I am,” John said honestly.
Holmes smiled indulgently. “It’s early in the term yet. You’ll come to it eventually.” He sat back against his chair, relaxing into it. “I’ve always considered Philip Zimbardo a bit of a loose cannon - not entirely held together, you see. But that’s what makes a scientist interesting, don’t you think? The things that he will do for his experiment. The lengths he will go to for a result.” The smile widened, and became something different. Something that made John sit a little straighter in his chair. “You’ll learn all of this soon enough, but the Stanford Prison Experiment was a study gone bad. Twenty-four university students were chosen to participate, half as guards and half as prisoners. The study was intended to go on for fourteen days, but was shut down after only six. The ‘prison’ was nothing but a basement, but the students internalized their roles so well that they became guards to prisoners, and prisoners to guards. They lost their sense of identity to the roles that they had been assigned. They were either faceless authority figures or powerless, demoralized creatures, nothing but the numbers on their uniforms.” He paused, taking John in for a moment. “I’m sorry, is all of this terribly boring to you?”
John hesitated. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few folded sheets of blue paper, slowly, and smoothed them before him on the table. “I’ve been asked to give you this questionnaire. It’s a series of--”
“You haven’t read them,” Holmes said. The corner of his mouth rose. “Have you?”
John paused. “No,” he admitted, after a moment. “I haven’t read them.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I’m not sure what you’re--”
“I think it’s because you know that the questions aren’t important.” Holmes splayed a hand, given just enough space by the chains to rest the tips of his fingers against the papers. “You could tell, somewhere, that the study isn’t really about me. It’s about you. Your reactions.” He tapped the papers. “That’s why you didn’t read the questions. That’s why you came at all. That’s why you aren’t nervous, Mr Watson. Or at least, not nervous about me reaching across this table and murdering you.” He said it with a smile, and it was the sort of upsetting combination that sent men screaming. “You’re nervous because you want to impress me. I find that admirable, if a little mad.”
John’s mouth was dry. “It’s our madness that makes us interesting,” he said, his eyes not leaving Holmes’s face.
Holmes was delighted by the answer. John could see his eyes gleam as he sat further forward, leaning as though in confidence across the table. “I thought that we should start with all of our cards on the table, given the circumstances. You may think that I’ve ruined the study, having shattered your illusions on the subject, but I remain a psychopath, and you remain the man you are, and your reactions will be, if not admissible as data, at least interesting on a purely exemplary level.”
John sat back against his chair. “The study is on student reactions to psychopaths?”
Holmes waved a hand, another loose gesture. “Reaction to psychopathy in general. It’s an attractive concept. The previous visitors made it obvious what the true aim of their coming was, even if they were unaware. You were an interesting subject to choose. We’ve had the earnest men and women with their shaking hands and mental cataloguing of my condition, their research into my background and into the concept of psychopathy as a whole. Now we have Mr John Watson. Medical student, early twenties, no particular interest in psychology but a deep interest in people, in what turns a person in a particular direction. Good, bad. The lamb or the devil. You did no research on me before you came here today, did you? Your professor told you all you needed to know. Psychopath, he said. And you came running.”
John stared. His heart was hammering his chest, paced by the run of words from Holmes’s mouth. ”How?” John managed. “How could you know any of that?”
“It’s written on your very skin, Mr Watson. The whole of you is just sitting at the surface, waiting to be read.” Holmes folded his hands in his lap, pulling the chains tight, making them rattle against the table. “My fondness for Dr Roche has grown, now,” he said. “He decided to send me someone I might find interesting.”
John didn’t understand the twist of pride in his chest at those words, and didn’t feel the need to explore it any deeper. “You’re a psychopath, Mr Holmes. You aren’t supposed to like anything.”
Mycroft’s lips twitched. He raised his eyebrows. “The Stanford Prison Experiment ended prematurely, due to unforeseen problems with the participants. They became their roles to a point where continuation of the study would endanger the emotional well-being of all involved. It may have endangered their lives, if allowed to go on a bit further than that. I’ve found that it is always the unexpected result that is the most important. Take, for example, the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures.”
“I’ve heard of that one,” John said. “With the electric shocks. Am I right? Milgram let the subjects think that they were shocking a man with progressively higher voltage, and if they asked to stop and check that the man was all right, the person giving the test would tell them that their responsibility was to carry out the instructions. They weren’t responsible for the well-being of the man.”
Mycroft nodded, watching him, interested. “Do you know the percentages of the results? How many people completed the experiment all the way to 450 volts, and how many stopped when the man started crying for help?”
“I know that it was surprisingly high.”
“Sixty-five percent administered the full 450 volts. Do you know the percentage that Milgram expected?”
John shook his head.
Mycroft smiled. “Three percent. The results were staggering. There were three X’s over the number 450 on the board. There is no mistaking the meaning of that.”
John frowned. “I can’t imagine that anyone could call that sort of test ethical. What were the participants meant to do with the knowledge that they could easily kill a man, given the right circumstances? I wouldn’t be able to think of myself the same way after that.”
Mycroft shrugged. “I doubt that you would be among those who continued the experiment. But that is the point, don’t you see? Such experiments would never be funded, much less carried out, when it is so necessary for the participants to be unharmed by the proceedings. It’s the unexpected turns in these studies that make them truly valuable. It was the chance taken. It was the depth of the role.” Mycroft leaned forward once more, his expression darkening, but not losing the offhand smile, the shallow and unnatural upward tilt of his lips as he spoke. “I find it so interesting, Mr Watson, that we get the best psychological results from the most terrible situations. University students living in misery and fear when in reality they are free to leave whenever they want. Men flipping switches slowly up a control panel as they listen to screams from the next room. We are all capable of evil. It is written into us. Carved into our brains. Submit. Follow instructions. Do not question.” He cocked his head. “How much would it take to convince a man to take the life of another? Not much, we’ve learned. We can bypass morality with authority. Responsibility. 38 people were aware that Kitty Genovese was being stabbed to death, but none of them came to her aid. The reports are inaccurate, but the bottom line is true: when everyone sees, no one is responsible. Let us all stab Caesar. The bystander effect. Diffusion of responsibility. These are things that are inherently human.”
John’s hands were tight on the arms of his chair. He swallowed, and it seemed to echo in the room, to bounce off of the white walls and back to him. Something internal was humming. He felt as though he was watching the scene from somewhere behind and above himself. He let his face show nothing.
“What I’m saying,” Mycroft said, “is that evil is ubiquitous. It is omnipresent. You have an interest in the evil of man, John, but to say that is to say you have an interest in man, full stop. The serpent is all of us. I’ve arranged the deaths of twenty-eight people, and who is to say that they didn’t deserve it? Who is to say that the men you will kill in the army - don’t look so shocked, please, it is unbefitting of your intelligence - who is to say that those men will deserve it? Where is the line drawn between good and evil? Can you walk me there and point it out to me? Can you say, ‘This is what we have decided, this is the definition of good’? I don’t think you can, John. And it’s time to consider the idea of not trying anymore.”
“How can you know what I’m looking for?” John asked hotly, overcoming the overwhelming strangeness and the speed at which the situation devolved into - whatever this was, a lecture or an intervention. “And why would it matter to you?”
Mycroft let out a breath that sounded almost like a sigh. “I’ve seen men spend their entire lives searching for something good. It is a waste of their abilities. Particularly in a man like you. You are training to be a doctor, but you plan to join the army. The desire to help and the desire to harm, or to aid those who desire to arm, are two deeply conflicting things, John, but they exist in equal parts inside of you, and they haven’t rent your soul apart yet. You hate it, but it is more of a strength than any other quality you possess. There is nothing wholly good in this world, and no matter how deeply you look, some things will never be anything but wholly evil. I am the only person who is able to tell you this, because I may be the only person you will ever meet who is able to see the world without the film of fear and doubt and emotion that you must look through at all times.”
One of John’s hands had strayed too far across the table as he sat listening with rapt attention and ignoring the silent battle of agreement and disagreement raging in his mind. Mycroft pulled the chain from his left wrist as far as it would go and placed his hand over John’s, trapping it there, cool and smooth, and John had the half-hysterical thought that Mycroft’s heart rate had probably not yet risen past seventy-five beats per minute, while John’s own pulse raced and jumped in his neck, and his heart pounded at the base of his throat.
“You must understand, John,” Mycroft said, forcing their eyes to lock across the table, “that there is nothing pure in you. You are tainted by the things you want, or don't want. Every thought, every emotion you have is run through a filter to determine whether it is appropriate. I have no such filter. I am the only person who is able to tell you that the world you are searching for does not exist. Lucifer fell here, if he ever fell at all. And it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.”
John let the words sink into him. He let his eyes rest on Mycroft’s cool, pale hand over his, long fingers splayed and soft against his. “What if I choose not to believe that?” he asked.
Mycroft pulled his hand away and sat back against his chair. “Then there will be a lot of disappointment in your life,” he said. “And you will end up wishing that you had taken my advice.”
John watched Mycroft carefully. “I think you’re wrong about that,” he murmured.
Mycroft cast his eyes to the ceiling. “The broken idealist,” he sighed. “That’s your future. I wish you luck in it.”
John raised an eyebrow. “We’re finished, then?”
Mycroft smirked. “You’ve had your conversation, Mr Watson. It has no doubt been an interesting one. And I think you might be back. There’s no harm in ending here.”
John felt somehow cheated, but he pushed it away. He slowly rose out of his chair. “If I shake your hand, will you break my wrist?”
“What do you think?” Mycroft asked.
John paused, then offered his hand. “It was - interesting to meet you, Mr Holmes.”
Mycroft accepted it and shook lightly. “The pleasure was all mine, Mr Watson. Have fun attempting to condense this afternoon into a few typewritten pages.”
John’s mouth twitched with a smile, but he didn’t bother to ask How. He only turned and walked for the door, buzzing to be let out without looking back. After a pause, the lock clicked, and he let himself into the hall. The door closed behind him.
He took one long, complicated breath.
The door at the front of the ward was thrown open.
“-ridiculous, Karras. Five of them wasn’t enough? And how did this happen without my knowledge?”
“You aren’t his guardian, Sherlock. There was no reason to contact you.”
Karras was walking down the hall towards John, tailed by a tall young man with dark, curly hair. He was younger than John. Hardly out of school, he thought. And the level of aggressive agitation he seemed to bring out of Karras warmed the very cockles of John’s heart for one spiteful moment. He straightened up as they approached.
“You’re finished?” Karras asked. He was looking John over with one eyebrow raised, maybe looking for bite marks, who knew. “Well, you seem to be in one piece.”
The young man huffed. “He hardly hurt the others. He was just his usual bastard self. Their poor fragile little nerves couldn’t handle the full brunt of his ridiculous personality.” He stepped forward, looking John up and down, forcing Karras to step back. He had a presence that was larger and much older than his person. And cold, familiar eyes beneath the mop of his hair.
“You’re his brother,” John said before thinking.
The young man smirked. “Brilliant deduction. I take it you didn’t flee the room in tears like the others.”
John shrugged. “We had a conversation. It ended. I left. It was fine.”
The young man’s eyebrows knit together. He scrutinized John more critically, with an intensity that made his skin prickle and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He felt once again like he was passing a test. “What did you talk about?” When John opened his mouth to answer, the young man waved it away. “No, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.” He held out a hand. “My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
John took it. “John Watson.”
Sherlock shook, nodded, and dropped his hand. “Give my regards to Dr Roche when next you see him, Mr Watson. And good luck in your classes.”
With that he turned, buzzed the door and went inside. John heard a brief shout containing the word matchmaker from Sherlock, and then the door swung closed.
Karras passed a hand wearily over his forehead and down his face. “That family,” he said. “The kid’s on his way to being just like his brother. Ten years from now, he’ll be in here right next to him, unless someone manages to tether him down. Collect your things at the front desk. You can show yourself out.” The doctor turned and walked off down the hall, fingers rubbing his forehead as though warding off pain.
It took five steps before the words washed over John in the proper arrangement. Unless someone manages to tether him down. Matchmaker. Mycroft’s strange advice, given as though it was important to him that John take it.
It didn’t take a genius to join the dots.
John stood stock still, in the middle of a closed mental ward, and began to laugh.
~~~~~
Notes:
For more information on the incidents and concepts mentioned in this fic, follow the links:
The Stanford prison experiment
Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures
The murder of Kitty Genovese / the bystander effect
Diffusion of responsibility
The Lucifer effect