Sherlock (BBC): The Captive Mind
Title: The Captive Mind
Author: Vescaus @ the_thinktank
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: PG15 (for rather sad and upsetting themes)
Words: 6.5k
Notes: Title taken from the beautifully written and insightful book by poet Czesław Milosz.
Many thanks again to Undunoops on Insanejournal for the beta and lovely feedback.
Summary: Wisdom comes with age and experience and the passage of time will force you to face the inescapable facts of life: family, memory, loss and love.
The Captive Mind
By Vescaus
An upside to working a busy day, John thinks to himself as he climbs the stairs, is that you will come home to the tranquillity of your home and relax. However, he soon realises, given the unpredictability of his current life, a peaceful evening is not in store for him tonight. Behind the door, he can hear the muffled voices of two people having an increasingly agitated argument inside the flat. The sharp clipped tones of the men shooting back retorts of equal intensity are easily distinguishable and John groans, not sure he is capable of handling another quasi-domestic between the Holmes brothers.
He hasn’t quite grasped how to umpire a game where the rules are intricately subtle on every occasion.
Before he can make a decision on what to do, the door is wrenched open and the argument is clearer.
“…don’t think you can guilt me,” Sherlock spits with such venom back into the room that John pauses in his ascent. “Seeing as you refuse to leave, I will instead.”
He barrels past John, knocking him into the banister on the way down without apology or remorse. Sherlock hasn’t even noticed his presence. John’s reactions are still quick enough to grab onto the banister and prevent himself from tripping all the way down the stairs. By the time he has recovered it is too late to call out to Sherlock, who has stormed furiously out of the house, leaving the door wide open in his wake.
Seeking some clarification before he chases after Sherlock, he looks up to where Mycroft is now standing at the top of the stairs.
“Uh, what on earth…?” John begins in confusion, pulling himself to his feet.
“I apologise,” Mycroft interrupts. “I did not mean to agitate him so much.”
“Well that’s…good job. Doesn’t really answer my question, though.”
For the first time, John sees Mycroft not in his usual stiff and elegant posture with a crooked smile but as a man who looks…tired. His shoulders are slumped and his expression is pinched what could be described as anguish. John instantly regrets having snapped at him because the argument was obviously about something more than an overactive man and his seemingly intrusive older sibling. Sherlock is rarely so verbally spiteful to his brother; Mycroft never takes it so personally.
“It’s not my place to say,” Mycroft replies, straightening. “You should ask him. But if he does tell you, let him know what I’m asking isn’t punishment.”
*
John arrives at Regents Park with Sherlock’s coat and finds him as expected, sitting cross legged on a bench, his fingers steepled together in deep concentration as he stares at the trees in front of him. John feigns interest in the tourists, dog walkers and commuters for a while before he realises Sherlock will not be forthcoming with explanations. “Mind telling me what that was about then?”
Sherlock’s head snaps round as if he’s only just noticed it’s John sitting beside him. The surprise is then quickly replaced with a dour expression. “He wants me to go and see Mother. Apparently I can no longer avoid it. It is an awkward affair because she is not with us anymore.”
“Oh,” John responds, nodding in understanding. He considers for a moment whether his next words are the right ones to say. Under any normal circumstances, they would be, but no circumstance these days is normal. He can’t imagine how to treat Sherlock in grief. Even though their relationship had deepened over the past few months, it was rare for them to confide in each other on personal issues, such as family, and the baggage of history they both evidently dragged with them as they moved forward.
“Do you want me to come with you? Cemeteries are depressing so if you need support-”
“What?” Sherlock interrupts him rudely, facing him in perplexion. “No. No, she’s not dead.”
“But you said - ”
Sherlock responds with impatience. “She is still with us physically. But not spiritually, mentally, if you wish to call it that.”
Suddenly John understands and it’s worse. “Oh, I see. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need sympathy,” Sherlock snaps loudly, with a roll of his eyes.
His harsh rebuke stings John momentarily. He knew Sherlock abhorred the pointless apology that social etiquette requires one to say in such a situation; however his reaction is surprisingly brusque. “So why don’t you want to see your mum?”
“Well, she’s not my mother, is she? Not anymore.”
There are moments like these when John cannot help but stare at Sherlock as if he is an alien who has just been beamed down in front of him and declared unprovoked war on humanity. The way he rationalised made a mockery of the moral instinctiveness instilled in John.
“Wha…?” John blurts, unable to stop himself. “Are you serious?”
Sherlock stands up and walks a few feet away, as if he wants to run away from the conversation with him as he had run away from Mycroft’s. Like a child, he could target his soul attention on something he wanted but avoid others entirely.
“Deadly,” he answers with conviction. “What good will it do to see her? In the last decade her mind has corroded so much that she can barely remember my name, what I look like, or how old I am now. She recognises nothing and no one.”
“That’s why she needs company like yours occasionally,” John insists.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Talking to her is an unbearably cyclical exercise, repeating obvious facts that she has always known and should know. It’s not a conversation, just reiteration. It will accomplish nothing but confuse her and irritate me.”
John stands up to face him. “Can you hear yourself speaking sometimes? Have you just deleted her from your mental computer for the last ten years?”
“Why not!” Sherlock cries back, matching John’s tone. “She deleted me.”
“Not consciously, Sherlock. Not by choice. Just because she has forgotten you, doesn’t mean you can forget about her. You don’t have the same excuse she does.”
“I know the reasons,” Sherlock snaps. “Plaques and tangles of protein build up in the brain’s nerve system. And while it is fascinating how chemicals can render a person almost null and void, it does not change the fact that while she may be my mother by blood, the woman who raised me has ceased to exist as a person. That person is dead after all.”
As bubble of anger bursts and rains silence down on them, John wonders how long Sherlock has been using that justification as an excuse. It takes a special level of patience to deal with Sherlock in these instances. Maybe that is why their relationship could never be mere friendship. John had invested so much emotional effort into Sherlock, whose mind rationalises so much that its empirical outlook of the world failed to take into account the poignant aspects of life and death. Yet John could discern that beneath Sherlock’s terse references to his mother’s condition - the inescapable passage of time - there was a raw emotion that could not be boxed away so neatly. In the moment he heard the Holmes brothers briefly discuss their mother he could detect the care that underlay their tones.
“Sherlock,” John now says, calmly, taking his hand and leading him back to the bench to sit down. The skin on skin contact seems to jerk Sherlock out of his momentary reverie and he looks at John in the eye for the first time. “Sherlock, if your mum has taken a turn for the worse, then you should see her.”
Sherlock’s eyes soften and show a hint of impressed amusement. “How did you know she was ill?” he asks curiously.
“Well, you’ve spent a long time avoiding her. I’m guessing Mycroft is too lazy to cause this much hassle unless something is really wrong.” John smiles back at Sherlock and then cocks his head sympathetically. “He says it’s not a punishment, whatever that means.”
“That depends on what one defines as punishment.”
“All I’m saying,” John interrupts, “is if you miss this opportunity and something happens to her, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”
Sherlock smiles mirthlessly and stands up, pulling on John’s hand as they make their way towards the café they frequent. “Oh, John, true words but therein lies Mycroft’s crafty manipulation. The punishment is not to regret what I will or won’t do in the future. It is to regret what I have already done.”
*
Southern Trains rattles its way out of the built up suburbs of West London and reaches the open countryside of Surrey. Village after village flashes by in a blur as they make their way to Sussex. Sherlock has spent most of the journey from Victoria on his website but then the laptop battery splutters and dies. Bored, he gets up to explore the train in an effort to occupy his mind and distract himself from their destination.
“Don’t irritate anyone,” John warns him, watching him slink into the next carriage.
In his medical career, John had come across few people with Alzheimer’s that he had personally treated. He knew what to expect, though: he’d read the textbook and been presented with cases when he was in med school.
Out in Afghanistan, he dabbled rarely with diagnostics and long term treatments. He was engaged in the less sophisticated art of meatball surgery.
He remembers being in a village somewhere near Lashkar Dah during Operation Zafar, as the British tried to assert control over Helmand. The village looked like a thousand others they’d recently encountered. Deserted, haunted by the silence of dejection and death. Those inhabitants who dodged the bullets and bombs of bloodied fighting to drive out the Taliban had fled with what possessions they could. Only a few brave souls had stayed behind, unwilling to abandon their homes and choosing to meet their fate, whoever might hold it.
On a patrol through the village, checking for those who may have been wounded, John’s battalion came across an old couple, the husband defending his home defiantly, waving an ancient AK47 in the air and screaming wildly at them.
“His name is Koshan,” the Afghani National Policeman and their translator informed them. “His wife says he has been unwell for a long time. He believes you are Russian soldiers hunting them down and coming here to kill his family.”
The decrepit gun is waved in their direction again and John lifts his own weapon warily. He doesn’t really want to shoot an old confused man who seemed to live in completely different time. In a time when the Soviet Union was still an abominable threat and where the mujehedin were united freedom fighters, not fractured remnants of a country fraught with infighting. The last Afghanistan Koshan remembered was a warzone…it still wasn’t much better. Only the political alignments of the world had shifted, the track changed direction and he remained stranded.
“He wants to know where his son is.” A son, it turned out, who had died twenty five years ago.
Sherlock suddenly returns, flopping down next to him and jerking John out of his thoughts. He fidgets intensely, lifts his legs to rest on the edge of the worn seat and bites his thumbnail in concentration as they pull into the penultimate station. John takes out his iPhone, handing it to Sherlock who snatches it quickly and begins to search through the millions of apps for something distracting. Slowly, John is mastering the art of entertaining Sherlock even without the use of a bedroom behind closed doors.
John never found out what happened to Koshan. He had left with the helplessness of a doctor who, when the wounds were not physical, recognises the limitations of medicine in the relief of suffering.
*
The house before them is not the stately mansion John had been expecting. It is a beautiful home, a small island in a sea of green countryside, fresh, uncluttered and far removed from the bustle of London. There are newly planted rhododendrons dotted underneath large windows and an old makeshift bird box nailed to a tree. The normality of it surprises John. Sherlock is also staring, but with defiance and with trepidation, as if this place, which had only existed in his dreams, had suddenly become real. Inside the house lies a dormant and up until now repressed nightmare.
They are welcomed by a woman who Sherlock introduces as Meniki, his mother’s live-in carer. Sherlock candidly refers to her as the one who has replaced the two siblings as the constant in their mother’s life. Without further niceties, he glides along a darkened corridor to an impressive wooden staircase, John shuffling slowly behind, carrying their bags. By the time he finds Sherlock’s room with Meniki’s help and dumps the bags on their bed, Sherlock is standing by a large window, overlooking acres of garden.
“The last time I spoke to her was there,” Sherlock says dully, as John joins him. He nods slightly towards a swinging wooden bench out across the lawn, staring intently at the old and darkly corroded wood, patched with moss and scuff marks “I was trying to tell her something important. Something I wanted to do…”
He breaks off and exhales sharply, unable to tear his troubled expression away from the bench. He folded his arms folded tightly across his chest. John can feel the frustration rolling off Sherlock in waves, but he cannot yet determine why.
“She wasn’t listening to me,” Sherlock suddenly continues and John listens supportively, for the first time hearing Sherlock let slip a small personal story. “She was just talking about her flowers and thought I was the gardener. Even when I insisted it was me she started talking about ‘Sherlock’ as if she didn’t recognise I was standing right in front of her. And suddenly…when she looked at me and was herself again. She called me darling and asked me if I was all right and needed anything. That she didn’t know what she’d done was unnatural.”
John hugs him from behind, hands resting on the taut chest, kissing the back of his neck gently, repeatedly. He hoped it felt like comfort. Quietly, he asks if Sherlock wants him to come downstairs to visit his mother as well. Sherlock declines, saying it would only confuse her more. However the quickness with which Sherlock replies tells John that it isn’t her feelings he’s sparing.
*
When Sherlock goes downstairs, John’s curiosity gets the better of him. Rather than remain cooped up in a bedroom which Sherlock had stripped of his childhood self, he ventures out in exploration, to the walls of the hallway and staircase.
Black and white and coloured photographs in various frames adorn the walls they had walked along a few moments ago. Some are still life studies but most are of people; some John doesn’t recognise and some John can identify as Mycroft and Sherlock, in various stages of life. They had been snapped candidly - or at least with attempted candidness. Occasionally, a photograph can be spotted where the boys turn at the wrong moment and notice the camera, a look of surprise, shock or annoyance on their faces. Entranced, John soaks in the sight of these secret windows in time.
There are several of a woman who, John assumes, is Sherlock’s mother; she has to be. She has passed those same high cheekbones, the pale complexion and wavy dark hair down to Sherlock. But her eyes, exotic like Sherlock’s, are alight with joy. In every photograph she is smiling or laughing. She hugs her indignant looking sons and seems almost carefree. As he memorises her, John can see the classical elegance and poise she presented but the glowing warmth and open affection too. It undoubtedly made her a superb mother.
John doesn’t know how long he spends shuffling along looking at each photograph individually, building a picture of Sherlock’s lost youth, but suddenly he’s at the bottom of the stairs. He feels an odd combination of happiness, relief and sympathy. He is thankful that Sherlock’s childhood had been loving but at the same time these frozen snaps are brief little slices of a time that can never be experienced again.
The Holmes household now is a place where John can hear the ghostly laughter of a once happy and loud childhood simply echo faintly through unnervingly silent and still halls. This house of beautiful nostalgic museum pieces seems to suffocate everything affected by the unbearable malady of the present. Life moves on, but with that ever present sense of unease.
“She always liked taking photographs, especially of us,” Mycroft suddenly speaks, making John jump; he hadn’t been aware of Mycroft presence in the house but he isn’t surprised. “She always wanted to capture every moment. That became ever more important to her the worse she became. Of course, Sherlock hated having his photograph taken. No, he just used to scowl like he was being forcibly fed a lemon.”
John chuckles, looking at one he presumes is Sherlock at about eight years old, glaring. He knows the camera is aimed at him, but he continues to look down over a chessboard, pretending to concentrate on a move, whilst visually showing displeasure. The contrast in the black and white photograph highlights his face and darkens the glint in those sharp, shrewd eyes.
“How did it happen?” John asks, curiously. “I mean, when did you realise?”
Mycroft walks over to him, looking at the photograph of Sherlock. “She was an extraordinary woman, Mummy, somewhat of a renaissance woman. Elegant, intelligent and passionate. She used to play chess, believing it was a game which kept the mind sharp and focused. Try as we might, Sherlock and I could never beat her in our weekly sessions.
“And one day, Sherlock did. Consistently. Sometimes, when she got up to make herself tea, because Sherlock spent an awfully long time planning his moves, she would return to forget what her strategy was - what her next moves would be. Once, she never even returned to the game and Sherlock found her at the back of the garden, believing she was in the villa in France. There was no denying something was evidently wrong after that. Apparently even chess, as stimulating as it can be, is no guarantee that the brain won’t fail with age.”
“Oh God,” John says quietly, mournfully. “Sherlock worked it out, didn’t he?”
“Sherlock did what he is best at: making sound deductions from the information available to him.”
Mycroft takes a purposeful step forward and John turns his head to look at him. “Doctor Watson, I feel as though I should clarify something important. Sherlock might be callous when he refers to her, but do not doubt that he loves her very much.”
“I know,” John replies solemnly, refusing to look at Mycroft and continuing to stare at the photographs. He looks at Sherlock’s glaring face, snapped at a moment when youth and innocence lived in a safe and comforting world. “He’s just afraid of her. He’s afraid that one day he will become like her.”
John knew, the avid researcher that Sherlock was, he kept the relevant information. He was well aware that direct descendants have a higher likelihood of developing the symptoms. And because John knows Sherlock, he feels the fear thrumming through him, not the bitterness. Through her, Sherlock sees his potential future self. He faces the realisation that one day he too could be trapped inside his own mind, losing control of his self-definition, his mind hollowed out to a shell of his former precise self. Sherlock never cared if he lost his life; he cared about losing his mind.
“He has good reason. Sherlock looked up to Mummy because she was very good to him. To both of us, but to Sherlock especially. She recognised that Sherlock has phenomenal talent and potential and would seek to use it in his everyday life. So she would develop these skills he had in observation and judgement and channel them into something productive. But she also knew he would be severely handicapped if his education was not holistic. She expanded his horizons. She made him learn an instrument; we travelled regularly to France with her to learn languages. We attended functions, went to plays and concerts. Otherwise he would be completely disconnected from the world around him.”
“She did well.”
“He was not an easy child but Mummy had a firm hand too. She would never fail to reprimand him if he put a foot wrong socially and she made sure we were close. Believe it or not, Doctor, we did not always act the way you see us. She tried to make sure Sherlock could engage with people in some shape or form, with correct manners and etiquette.”
“Yes, he might need a refresher course in that,” John remarks quietly.
“Admittedly, Sherlock’s patience and self-control lapsed when he moved to London and began to live alone. In more ways than one. Of course, I have tried my best to watch over him, it was the last promise Mummy made me swear to. And with all the power I possess I always have and always will provide the same guiding hand, despite his resistance. I was beginning I was alone in my efforts. Until he met you, of course.”
John ceases to pay attention to the photographs and looks at Mycroft in shock, the older Holmes smirking slightly.
“You see now why I always found you so interesting, Doctor Watson. You have a hold over him the same way Mummy did. He respects you and he loves you. Of course, your relationship is different you’ll be pleased to know,” Mycroft adds with a crooked smile and John can’t help but blush furiously at the revelation that Mycroft knew. Then again, Sherlock never felt the need to be discreet when it came to public displays of affection.
However, he can’t also help but feel uncomfortable. “Does that annoy you? That I took her place?”
“I do find it remarkable that there are people who are willing to dedicate themselves to Sherlock.”
“One second, are you telling me your squabbling is because she paid more attention to him?” John asks in disbelief, wondering if it could really be that simple.
Mycroft just scoffs in reply. “Do think more of me, Doctor Watson, I am not that petty. I was aware from a young age that Sherlock required special attention and I do not begrudge him Mummy’s attention. Mummy treated us for who we were and nurtured us accordingly. So it has nothing to do with sibling rivalry over our talents, either, which we possess in equal amounts. Sherlock likes to make you think so because it distracts from the real reason.”
John sits on the stairs in frustration and stamps his feet as he does so. “Then what? I don’t understand why you can’t just get along like normal people.”
Mycroft stares at John for a moment and then opens his mouth to answer but the sound of the door opening further down the hall causes them both to turn their heads.
Sherlock walks out of the room. He closes the door behind him gently before purposefully marching over to where they stand by the staircase, posture rigid and face stony. As soon as he spots Mycroft, he pauses, one foot on the bottom step on which John is sitting and a hand resting on the dark wooden banister. For a moment, the two brothers are engaged in a fierce stare. John can see the tell-tale anger smouldering in the eyes - that embedded contempt he reserves especially for Mycroft - but also hurt, disappointment and maybe even regret swirling in that grey sea. John cannot recall a time he has ever seen a melting pot of emotions so vividly on Sherlock’s face.
His eyes flicker back to the eight year old Sherlock on the wall, where annoyance was directed at simpler matters.
Then, wordlessly, Sherlock composes himself walks past them both and up the stairs, ignoring John’s hand which reached to brush his legs. The sound of a slamming door follows.
“I should check on him,” John says, breaking the tense silence that has ensued.
“There’s no point,” Mycroft replies dismissively. “He will not be conversational for a while. Come, Meniki has the most remarkable Ceylon tea.”
*
Mycroft pours the tea from a china set as they sit in what John can only call a drawing room. It is filled with bookshelves; in the corner there is a violin stand and several score sheets. It looks unsettlingly like their own living room in Baker Street.
“I was already working in London when the symptoms began to show,” Mycroft begins. “When the diagnosis was confirmed, I did everything in my power to arrange the best possible care for her. I was organising Meniki’s visa from Sri Lanka, who I had met whilst on a trip. Sherlock had finished university studies and was itching to leave the confines of home. London was calling him again. All I asked Sherlock to do was wait a little longer.”
He hands the cup to John who takes it with both hands, but doesn’t sit down. Not even the prospect of tea can calm the agitation slipping through Mycroft’s normally calm and collected mask. Finally takes the armchair opposite John, the small round table separating them.
“I have asked myself time and time again whether investing more time in Sherlock during this period would have prevented the outcome. The strain of seeing Mummy regressing on a daily basis was obviously too much for him. I don’t think he could stand watching the woman whom he idolised, who had the sharpest mind he knew, literally disappear before his eyes. In hindsight it was foolish of me to think he could play such a demanding caregiving role. Sherlock requires constant mental stimulation; something Mummy was always able to provide him. When she became ill, he had nothing keeping him at home.”
Mycroft pauses and takes a sip of tea, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “So he left. He packed his bags and decided not to tell her he was leaving because, in his mind, he believed he was sparing her feelings. And left for London. That was the last time he was home.”
John glances out to the swinging wooden bench he can see through the window, a physical aging reminder of Sherlock’s estrangement from home.
“Mycroft,” he says gently, trying to not patronise him with pity. He puts down his cup and leans forward. “It’s not your fault. Sherlock would have left with or without your help.”
“It is not only that he left her,” Mycroft snaps, looking at him with the same flare he sees in Sherlock’s. “Maybe if he had taken his leave once the dementia had set in, it would never have mattered. Unfortunately, that was not he case. Instead, he left at that crucial early stage where she was still aware of what was happening to her, that her memory was failing and that soon, she would cease to remember anything, including her children. So one of the last things she remembered was that her son left her; and every time I had to explain why and watch the same reaction.”
I wasn’t the one that upset her…Mycroft.
This time John says nothing but stares at the table. He thinks he should be bitter towards Sherlock, the way Mycroft is. What Sherlock had done was indeed selfish and cruel. But John hadn’t been there…who was he to judge someone who lost their mother?
“Do you think Sherlock defined himself as a sociopath?” Mycroft continues in that acidic tone. “I did that for him during the one and only terrible argument we had over the issue. In a moment of fury I used that very word to explain how he could be so heartless as to abandon his mother at a time when she was frightened by what was happening and needed the familiarity that he could provide. To look after her for once the way she had always looked after him.”
“You’re still angry at him,” John realises.
“We are both angry because it has developed beyond that. Since that fight, Mummy is used like some political weapon when we feel the need to attack each other with our faults. Which disappoints me more because Mummy was so upset by our growing estrangement. Of course, in time she forgot, so Sherlock, ever the logical one, won in the end.”
Mycroft sighs regretfully at his sardonic outburst, a habit both brothers seemed incapable of breaking when talking to or about each other. “I know it was Sherlock’s own way of handling a situation that he could not grasp, but he handled it poorly. So we don’t discuss is directly.”
“Maybe you should,” John finally says, finding his voice hoarse.
“What’s done is done. While Sherlock and I may regret the things we have said to each other, they were still said. It has no impact on Mummy now.”
“Stop using her as an excuse,” John says, a low edge to his voice. “You’re no better than Sherlock. It impacts on you and your entire relationship with him. She wouldn’t want it to continue.” Even as he says it, he can feel the words turn bitter in his mouth.
And Mycroft knows it. He places the cup back on its saucer with polite care. “Forgive me my brashness, Doctor, but I think your pot is calling my kettle black,” he responds, his voice with an equally hardened edge that John has never heard.
John thinks of Harriet, their arguments and his own mother’s vain attempts to find ways to institute peace in their own war. She used to tell them that once she was gone, they would only have each other. But he and Harriet were opposite personalities, never destined to work together. There was still hope for the two Holmes brothers.
“Maybe so,” he replies, not allowing himself to be patronised, “but it’s not too late to fix things.”
Mycroft sighs again with dramatic patience as he stands up, brushing down his suit. “Since Mummy became ill I have learnt, as you very well know, Doctor, that even if one possesses knowledge and power some things in life cannot be fixed; they can only be managed.”
He walks toward the heavy wooden door and before exiting, turns to face John again, his natural demeanour returned. “I did not tell you this to satisfy your curiosity, Doctor, or change your well formulated opinion of Sherlock.”
“Then why?”
“It may be a very faded family portrait you see before you, but a portrait nonetheless. And you should consider your place in it now next to Sherlock.”
John remains seated in the silent living room after Mycroft leaves, unable to move with the weight of the information he now possesses.
He thinks of Koshan, the man who was still waiting in hope for news of his son. At least he would always have hope, futile as it was. For once, John believes in the phrase ignorance is bliss. He is thankful that the Holmes matriarch, captive in her mind and her room next door, would continue to live completely unaware that her two sons, into who she had poured her heart and soul, would never reconcile. It’s a sickening irony that is not taught in med school.
*
John helps Meniki clean the china and listens to her talk. She speaks of her home in Sri Lanka as a nurse and of her journey to Britain. She is full of stories about Mrs Holmes and their escapades; like the time she accidentally put ground pepper instead of cocoa powder into the cake mix, prompting Meniki to label everything in the kitchen; like one time she gave Meniki a violin performance and began playing Hayden which morphed seamlessly into Mozart without her even noticing; and when she left the house once without informing anyone and Meniki found her speaking to a young boy as if she was sixteen again.
It was a string of bittersweet anecdotes said with light-hearted kind humour which, after the depressingly heavy discussion he’d had with Mycroft, was a welcome relief.
“She used to say, always keep the good memories,” Meniki says optimistically, when she sees John’s still despondent face. “She does not remember much anymore, but when she does, it is always the happy times.”
*
John sits on the bed, his fingers gently shifting through Sherlock’s hair as the man lies on his chest, combing through the dark strands. He hadn’t asked how Sherlock’s chat with his mum had gone. He’d returned to the room after another hour with a plate of sandwiches kindly made by Meniki to find Sherlock already in his pyjamas on top of the covers. His posture was screaming with tension, emitting defensive vibes. When it was apparent Sherlock still wouldn’t eat, he made the bold move to climb next to him, wrapping an arm around his thin waist to pull him close and offer the only form of comfort he could. It took a few moments to seep through but soon enough, the tautness ease and Sherlock rolled over, attaching himself to John like a limpet.
“Do you think she would have liked me?” John suddenly asks instead, breaking the comfortable silence.
He feels a bit odd talking about this omnipotent woman he has never met in the past tense. But it was hard not to follow the brothers’ nuances. Mycroft called her Mummy, because she always was and always will be. Maybe Sherlock had once called her that a long time ago, before he left. Now, she was just Mother, an impersonal pronoun for the impersonal woman she had become. Someone with whom the intimate connection had been slowly severed.
“I didn’t think you cared what people thought.”
John chuckles softly, his fingertips tracing the outline of Sherlock’s inherited cheekbones. “I don’t anymore. Unless that someone is the protective mother of the boy who spends most of his waking days now with one person. And who does things with that boy that she might not have expected.”
Sherlock doesn’t smile but shrugs morosely in response, playing with a loose thread on John’s woollen jumper. “Does it matter what she thinks?” he replies after a moment, his voice surprisingly devoid of emotion.
John feels he must break this repetition. “Of course it does! Sherlock, she is your mum. She always has and always will want what’s best for you, whether she remembers you or not. It’s intuitive. It’d be nice to know if she would approve of me.”
Sherlock is quiet for a moment as he thinks, considers and analyses, collating the information he has and making judgements.
“She would have adored you,” he finally responds quietly after a few moments. “You are very similar in many ways. So you are exactly the person she hoped I would find in the future. It would ease the constant fear she had of me living in perpetual loneliness.”
“Then at least she would have been happy.”
Suddenly, Sherlock pulls away from John’s embrace and gets up, heading over to the large window. His back is now rigid with tension and his hand has lifted to bite at the abused thumbnail again. John knows he’s looking at the wooden bench, that symbolic representation of failure and regret, which had only deepened as the bench had rotted.
“Sherlock?” John asks carefully, sitting up, trying to gauge Sherlock’s emotions.
Sherlock takes a slow deep breath. “I never thought of how awful it must have been,” he says quietly, his voice lower than normal. “I never even considered the short term implications of what I had done because I rationalised that in the long run, it didn’t matter. If she eventually couldn’t remember I lived here, how would she know I had gone. Or not told her…”
Sherlock’s voice chokes off at the end, as if he is reliving a horror. John wonders if the young Sherlock had stood in that very spot, staring out at his mother as she sat on the bench…did he decide to leave without using the empathy he employed now? Did he initially decide to tell her? Instantly, John jumps off the bed and turns Sherlock to face him, seeing a flicker of unexpected dread before Sherlock paints on his typical stoicism.
“Would you leave, John, if I ever lost my mind and started to forget myself, my work, even you? What would you do if I was no longer myself?”
In fact, John has been trying to avoid thinking hypothetically. He can’t imagine a future where Sherlock is not utilising his brain to its full potential, saving the vital information he believes will be beneficial and deleting what won’t be. He can’t imagine a time when Sherlock won’t be firing off immediate and accurate conclusions based on the observations he has made of the world around him. When Sherlock is making cutting and witty remarks to people he likes and dislikes. But try as he might, Sherlock is not a machine. He’s human, and on occasion he faces the inevitability of mortality, just as John had faced a bullet.
John doesn’t want to punish Sherlock by adding to Mycroft’s reminder that he’d done wrong. Sherlock is being punished with the belated remorse that comes with age wisdom and didn’t believe he deserved pity. So John puts his feet in the shoes of a young Sherlock who had stood at a window and believes that he is stronger and braver than the man who decided to desert someone he loved.
“I will never leave, Sherlock,” he promises, wrapping the sentence in as much earnestness as he can muster.
To reinforce this, he kisses Sherlock, a hand resting on the back of his neck and his thumb lightly tracing Sherlock’s jawline. He can feel the tension rush out of Sherlock again as he does so, a grateful exhale of breath as he returns John’s affection with an edge of rough desperation.
With a last emphatic kiss, he pulls Sherlock back towards the bed, lifting the covers and manoeuvring him between the sheets. Even though it is barely ten o’clock, John can see the mental exhaustion of the day has taken its toll on Sherlock. John begins to strip off his own clothing, pulling at his thick jumper and then his jeans, placing both their folded clothes neatly on a chair. All the while he can feel Sherlock’s dark eyes watching his every move from where he is curled on his side.
“Would you like to meet her?” Sherlock suddenly asks, his voice quiet and tentative but eyebrows raised in curiosity.
In that moment of clarity, John understands why Sherlock didn’t want him to see his mother. From the information he’d accumulated over the day, he has built a picture in his mind of a wonderfully strong but maternal woman. He wants to imagine they would come round and he and Mrs Holmes would laugh and joke about how they control Sherlock while Sherlock scowls at them both. He could imagine Sherlock and Mycroft laughing at John’s ability to be checkmated in five moves and her reprimanding them both for being too cruel. He wants to think he would be added to the wall of good moments, as part of Sherlock’s life. He wants to imagine a world where the brothers snipe good naturedly not spitefully. And really, John doesn’t want this illusory world he has mentally created to be tainted. Somebody should know her only for how she was.
He thinks back to his lectures on Alzheimer’s a long time ago and remembers that although the memory might fade, the personality does not. A person’s spirit is forever intact. Somewhere, her humour, her warmth, her strength, her intelligence still shines through.
John smiles as he walks back over to Sherlock, sitting beside his hip, his lips ghosting over his forehead in a delicate kiss.
“I would love to,” John replies softly.
Sherlock’s hands slide around his waist to pull John down on top of him, twisting their bodies. John willingly follows, knowing exactly where he fits.
The End
A/N: I know these are rather depressing themes but I wanted to tackle something like this, as I currently help my friend through her difficult time and to use it as the background to Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship and that brief mention we heard of their mother. I hope you enjoyed it! And I would appreciate any feedback and/or constructive criticism you can provide me with on this topic.
Author: Vescaus @ the_thinktank
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: PG15 (for rather sad and upsetting themes)
Words: 6.5k
Notes: Title taken from the beautifully written and insightful book by poet Czesław Milosz.
Many thanks again to Undunoops on Insanejournal for the beta and lovely feedback.
Summary: Wisdom comes with age and experience and the passage of time will force you to face the inescapable facts of life: family, memory, loss and love.
The Captive Mind
By Vescaus
An upside to working a busy day, John thinks to himself as he climbs the stairs, is that you will come home to the tranquillity of your home and relax. However, he soon realises, given the unpredictability of his current life, a peaceful evening is not in store for him tonight. Behind the door, he can hear the muffled voices of two people having an increasingly agitated argument inside the flat. The sharp clipped tones of the men shooting back retorts of equal intensity are easily distinguishable and John groans, not sure he is capable of handling another quasi-domestic between the Holmes brothers.
He hasn’t quite grasped how to umpire a game where the rules are intricately subtle on every occasion.
Before he can make a decision on what to do, the door is wrenched open and the argument is clearer.
“…don’t think you can guilt me,” Sherlock spits with such venom back into the room that John pauses in his ascent. “Seeing as you refuse to leave, I will instead.”
He barrels past John, knocking him into the banister on the way down without apology or remorse. Sherlock hasn’t even noticed his presence. John’s reactions are still quick enough to grab onto the banister and prevent himself from tripping all the way down the stairs. By the time he has recovered it is too late to call out to Sherlock, who has stormed furiously out of the house, leaving the door wide open in his wake.
Seeking some clarification before he chases after Sherlock, he looks up to where Mycroft is now standing at the top of the stairs.
“Uh, what on earth…?” John begins in confusion, pulling himself to his feet.
“I apologise,” Mycroft interrupts. “I did not mean to agitate him so much.”
“Well that’s…good job. Doesn’t really answer my question, though.”
For the first time, John sees Mycroft not in his usual stiff and elegant posture with a crooked smile but as a man who looks…tired. His shoulders are slumped and his expression is pinched what could be described as anguish. John instantly regrets having snapped at him because the argument was obviously about something more than an overactive man and his seemingly intrusive older sibling. Sherlock is rarely so verbally spiteful to his brother; Mycroft never takes it so personally.
“It’s not my place to say,” Mycroft replies, straightening. “You should ask him. But if he does tell you, let him know what I’m asking isn’t punishment.”
*
John arrives at Regents Park with Sherlock’s coat and finds him as expected, sitting cross legged on a bench, his fingers steepled together in deep concentration as he stares at the trees in front of him. John feigns interest in the tourists, dog walkers and commuters for a while before he realises Sherlock will not be forthcoming with explanations. “Mind telling me what that was about then?”
Sherlock’s head snaps round as if he’s only just noticed it’s John sitting beside him. The surprise is then quickly replaced with a dour expression. “He wants me to go and see Mother. Apparently I can no longer avoid it. It is an awkward affair because she is not with us anymore.”
“Oh,” John responds, nodding in understanding. He considers for a moment whether his next words are the right ones to say. Under any normal circumstances, they would be, but no circumstance these days is normal. He can’t imagine how to treat Sherlock in grief. Even though their relationship had deepened over the past few months, it was rare for them to confide in each other on personal issues, such as family, and the baggage of history they both evidently dragged with them as they moved forward.
“Do you want me to come with you? Cemeteries are depressing so if you need support-”
“What?” Sherlock interrupts him rudely, facing him in perplexion. “No. No, she’s not dead.”
“But you said - ”
Sherlock responds with impatience. “She is still with us physically. But not spiritually, mentally, if you wish to call it that.”
Suddenly John understands and it’s worse. “Oh, I see. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need sympathy,” Sherlock snaps loudly, with a roll of his eyes.
His harsh rebuke stings John momentarily. He knew Sherlock abhorred the pointless apology that social etiquette requires one to say in such a situation; however his reaction is surprisingly brusque. “So why don’t you want to see your mum?”
“Well, she’s not my mother, is she? Not anymore.”
There are moments like these when John cannot help but stare at Sherlock as if he is an alien who has just been beamed down in front of him and declared unprovoked war on humanity. The way he rationalised made a mockery of the moral instinctiveness instilled in John.
“Wha…?” John blurts, unable to stop himself. “Are you serious?”
Sherlock stands up and walks a few feet away, as if he wants to run away from the conversation with him as he had run away from Mycroft’s. Like a child, he could target his soul attention on something he wanted but avoid others entirely.
“Deadly,” he answers with conviction. “What good will it do to see her? In the last decade her mind has corroded so much that she can barely remember my name, what I look like, or how old I am now. She recognises nothing and no one.”
“That’s why she needs company like yours occasionally,” John insists.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Talking to her is an unbearably cyclical exercise, repeating obvious facts that she has always known and should know. It’s not a conversation, just reiteration. It will accomplish nothing but confuse her and irritate me.”
John stands up to face him. “Can you hear yourself speaking sometimes? Have you just deleted her from your mental computer for the last ten years?”
“Why not!” Sherlock cries back, matching John’s tone. “She deleted me.”
“Not consciously, Sherlock. Not by choice. Just because she has forgotten you, doesn’t mean you can forget about her. You don’t have the same excuse she does.”
“I know the reasons,” Sherlock snaps. “Plaques and tangles of protein build up in the brain’s nerve system. And while it is fascinating how chemicals can render a person almost null and void, it does not change the fact that while she may be my mother by blood, the woman who raised me has ceased to exist as a person. That person is dead after all.”
As bubble of anger bursts and rains silence down on them, John wonders how long Sherlock has been using that justification as an excuse. It takes a special level of patience to deal with Sherlock in these instances. Maybe that is why their relationship could never be mere friendship. John had invested so much emotional effort into Sherlock, whose mind rationalises so much that its empirical outlook of the world failed to take into account the poignant aspects of life and death. Yet John could discern that beneath Sherlock’s terse references to his mother’s condition - the inescapable passage of time - there was a raw emotion that could not be boxed away so neatly. In the moment he heard the Holmes brothers briefly discuss their mother he could detect the care that underlay their tones.
“Sherlock,” John now says, calmly, taking his hand and leading him back to the bench to sit down. The skin on skin contact seems to jerk Sherlock out of his momentary reverie and he looks at John in the eye for the first time. “Sherlock, if your mum has taken a turn for the worse, then you should see her.”
Sherlock’s eyes soften and show a hint of impressed amusement. “How did you know she was ill?” he asks curiously.
“Well, you’ve spent a long time avoiding her. I’m guessing Mycroft is too lazy to cause this much hassle unless something is really wrong.” John smiles back at Sherlock and then cocks his head sympathetically. “He says it’s not a punishment, whatever that means.”
“That depends on what one defines as punishment.”
“All I’m saying,” John interrupts, “is if you miss this opportunity and something happens to her, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”
Sherlock smiles mirthlessly and stands up, pulling on John’s hand as they make their way towards the café they frequent. “Oh, John, true words but therein lies Mycroft’s crafty manipulation. The punishment is not to regret what I will or won’t do in the future. It is to regret what I have already done.”
*
Southern Trains rattles its way out of the built up suburbs of West London and reaches the open countryside of Surrey. Village after village flashes by in a blur as they make their way to Sussex. Sherlock has spent most of the journey from Victoria on his website but then the laptop battery splutters and dies. Bored, he gets up to explore the train in an effort to occupy his mind and distract himself from their destination.
“Don’t irritate anyone,” John warns him, watching him slink into the next carriage.
In his medical career, John had come across few people with Alzheimer’s that he had personally treated. He knew what to expect, though: he’d read the textbook and been presented with cases when he was in med school.
Out in Afghanistan, he dabbled rarely with diagnostics and long term treatments. He was engaged in the less sophisticated art of meatball surgery.
He remembers being in a village somewhere near Lashkar Dah during Operation Zafar, as the British tried to assert control over Helmand. The village looked like a thousand others they’d recently encountered. Deserted, haunted by the silence of dejection and death. Those inhabitants who dodged the bullets and bombs of bloodied fighting to drive out the Taliban had fled with what possessions they could. Only a few brave souls had stayed behind, unwilling to abandon their homes and choosing to meet their fate, whoever might hold it.
On a patrol through the village, checking for those who may have been wounded, John’s battalion came across an old couple, the husband defending his home defiantly, waving an ancient AK47 in the air and screaming wildly at them.
“His name is Koshan,” the Afghani National Policeman and their translator informed them. “His wife says he has been unwell for a long time. He believes you are Russian soldiers hunting them down and coming here to kill his family.”
The decrepit gun is waved in their direction again and John lifts his own weapon warily. He doesn’t really want to shoot an old confused man who seemed to live in completely different time. In a time when the Soviet Union was still an abominable threat and where the mujehedin were united freedom fighters, not fractured remnants of a country fraught with infighting. The last Afghanistan Koshan remembered was a warzone…it still wasn’t much better. Only the political alignments of the world had shifted, the track changed direction and he remained stranded.
“He wants to know where his son is.” A son, it turned out, who had died twenty five years ago.
Sherlock suddenly returns, flopping down next to him and jerking John out of his thoughts. He fidgets intensely, lifts his legs to rest on the edge of the worn seat and bites his thumbnail in concentration as they pull into the penultimate station. John takes out his iPhone, handing it to Sherlock who snatches it quickly and begins to search through the millions of apps for something distracting. Slowly, John is mastering the art of entertaining Sherlock even without the use of a bedroom behind closed doors.
John never found out what happened to Koshan. He had left with the helplessness of a doctor who, when the wounds were not physical, recognises the limitations of medicine in the relief of suffering.
*
The house before them is not the stately mansion John had been expecting. It is a beautiful home, a small island in a sea of green countryside, fresh, uncluttered and far removed from the bustle of London. There are newly planted rhododendrons dotted underneath large windows and an old makeshift bird box nailed to a tree. The normality of it surprises John. Sherlock is also staring, but with defiance and with trepidation, as if this place, which had only existed in his dreams, had suddenly become real. Inside the house lies a dormant and up until now repressed nightmare.
They are welcomed by a woman who Sherlock introduces as Meniki, his mother’s live-in carer. Sherlock candidly refers to her as the one who has replaced the two siblings as the constant in their mother’s life. Without further niceties, he glides along a darkened corridor to an impressive wooden staircase, John shuffling slowly behind, carrying their bags. By the time he finds Sherlock’s room with Meniki’s help and dumps the bags on their bed, Sherlock is standing by a large window, overlooking acres of garden.
“The last time I spoke to her was there,” Sherlock says dully, as John joins him. He nods slightly towards a swinging wooden bench out across the lawn, staring intently at the old and darkly corroded wood, patched with moss and scuff marks “I was trying to tell her something important. Something I wanted to do…”
He breaks off and exhales sharply, unable to tear his troubled expression away from the bench. He folded his arms folded tightly across his chest. John can feel the frustration rolling off Sherlock in waves, but he cannot yet determine why.
“She wasn’t listening to me,” Sherlock suddenly continues and John listens supportively, for the first time hearing Sherlock let slip a small personal story. “She was just talking about her flowers and thought I was the gardener. Even when I insisted it was me she started talking about ‘Sherlock’ as if she didn’t recognise I was standing right in front of her. And suddenly…when she looked at me and was herself again. She called me darling and asked me if I was all right and needed anything. That she didn’t know what she’d done was unnatural.”
John hugs him from behind, hands resting on the taut chest, kissing the back of his neck gently, repeatedly. He hoped it felt like comfort. Quietly, he asks if Sherlock wants him to come downstairs to visit his mother as well. Sherlock declines, saying it would only confuse her more. However the quickness with which Sherlock replies tells John that it isn’t her feelings he’s sparing.
*
When Sherlock goes downstairs, John’s curiosity gets the better of him. Rather than remain cooped up in a bedroom which Sherlock had stripped of his childhood self, he ventures out in exploration, to the walls of the hallway and staircase.
Black and white and coloured photographs in various frames adorn the walls they had walked along a few moments ago. Some are still life studies but most are of people; some John doesn’t recognise and some John can identify as Mycroft and Sherlock, in various stages of life. They had been snapped candidly - or at least with attempted candidness. Occasionally, a photograph can be spotted where the boys turn at the wrong moment and notice the camera, a look of surprise, shock or annoyance on their faces. Entranced, John soaks in the sight of these secret windows in time.
There are several of a woman who, John assumes, is Sherlock’s mother; she has to be. She has passed those same high cheekbones, the pale complexion and wavy dark hair down to Sherlock. But her eyes, exotic like Sherlock’s, are alight with joy. In every photograph she is smiling or laughing. She hugs her indignant looking sons and seems almost carefree. As he memorises her, John can see the classical elegance and poise she presented but the glowing warmth and open affection too. It undoubtedly made her a superb mother.
John doesn’t know how long he spends shuffling along looking at each photograph individually, building a picture of Sherlock’s lost youth, but suddenly he’s at the bottom of the stairs. He feels an odd combination of happiness, relief and sympathy. He is thankful that Sherlock’s childhood had been loving but at the same time these frozen snaps are brief little slices of a time that can never be experienced again.
The Holmes household now is a place where John can hear the ghostly laughter of a once happy and loud childhood simply echo faintly through unnervingly silent and still halls. This house of beautiful nostalgic museum pieces seems to suffocate everything affected by the unbearable malady of the present. Life moves on, but with that ever present sense of unease.
“She always liked taking photographs, especially of us,” Mycroft suddenly speaks, making John jump; he hadn’t been aware of Mycroft presence in the house but he isn’t surprised. “She always wanted to capture every moment. That became ever more important to her the worse she became. Of course, Sherlock hated having his photograph taken. No, he just used to scowl like he was being forcibly fed a lemon.”
John chuckles, looking at one he presumes is Sherlock at about eight years old, glaring. He knows the camera is aimed at him, but he continues to look down over a chessboard, pretending to concentrate on a move, whilst visually showing displeasure. The contrast in the black and white photograph highlights his face and darkens the glint in those sharp, shrewd eyes.
“How did it happen?” John asks, curiously. “I mean, when did you realise?”
Mycroft walks over to him, looking at the photograph of Sherlock. “She was an extraordinary woman, Mummy, somewhat of a renaissance woman. Elegant, intelligent and passionate. She used to play chess, believing it was a game which kept the mind sharp and focused. Try as we might, Sherlock and I could never beat her in our weekly sessions.
“And one day, Sherlock did. Consistently. Sometimes, when she got up to make herself tea, because Sherlock spent an awfully long time planning his moves, she would return to forget what her strategy was - what her next moves would be. Once, she never even returned to the game and Sherlock found her at the back of the garden, believing she was in the villa in France. There was no denying something was evidently wrong after that. Apparently even chess, as stimulating as it can be, is no guarantee that the brain won’t fail with age.”
“Oh God,” John says quietly, mournfully. “Sherlock worked it out, didn’t he?”
“Sherlock did what he is best at: making sound deductions from the information available to him.”
Mycroft takes a purposeful step forward and John turns his head to look at him. “Doctor Watson, I feel as though I should clarify something important. Sherlock might be callous when he refers to her, but do not doubt that he loves her very much.”
“I know,” John replies solemnly, refusing to look at Mycroft and continuing to stare at the photographs. He looks at Sherlock’s glaring face, snapped at a moment when youth and innocence lived in a safe and comforting world. “He’s just afraid of her. He’s afraid that one day he will become like her.”
John knew, the avid researcher that Sherlock was, he kept the relevant information. He was well aware that direct descendants have a higher likelihood of developing the symptoms. And because John knows Sherlock, he feels the fear thrumming through him, not the bitterness. Through her, Sherlock sees his potential future self. He faces the realisation that one day he too could be trapped inside his own mind, losing control of his self-definition, his mind hollowed out to a shell of his former precise self. Sherlock never cared if he lost his life; he cared about losing his mind.
“He has good reason. Sherlock looked up to Mummy because she was very good to him. To both of us, but to Sherlock especially. She recognised that Sherlock has phenomenal talent and potential and would seek to use it in his everyday life. So she would develop these skills he had in observation and judgement and channel them into something productive. But she also knew he would be severely handicapped if his education was not holistic. She expanded his horizons. She made him learn an instrument; we travelled regularly to France with her to learn languages. We attended functions, went to plays and concerts. Otherwise he would be completely disconnected from the world around him.”
“She did well.”
“He was not an easy child but Mummy had a firm hand too. She would never fail to reprimand him if he put a foot wrong socially and she made sure we were close. Believe it or not, Doctor, we did not always act the way you see us. She tried to make sure Sherlock could engage with people in some shape or form, with correct manners and etiquette.”
“Yes, he might need a refresher course in that,” John remarks quietly.
“Admittedly, Sherlock’s patience and self-control lapsed when he moved to London and began to live alone. In more ways than one. Of course, I have tried my best to watch over him, it was the last promise Mummy made me swear to. And with all the power I possess I always have and always will provide the same guiding hand, despite his resistance. I was beginning I was alone in my efforts. Until he met you, of course.”
John ceases to pay attention to the photographs and looks at Mycroft in shock, the older Holmes smirking slightly.
“You see now why I always found you so interesting, Doctor Watson. You have a hold over him the same way Mummy did. He respects you and he loves you. Of course, your relationship is different you’ll be pleased to know,” Mycroft adds with a crooked smile and John can’t help but blush furiously at the revelation that Mycroft knew. Then again, Sherlock never felt the need to be discreet when it came to public displays of affection.
However, he can’t also help but feel uncomfortable. “Does that annoy you? That I took her place?”
“I do find it remarkable that there are people who are willing to dedicate themselves to Sherlock.”
“One second, are you telling me your squabbling is because she paid more attention to him?” John asks in disbelief, wondering if it could really be that simple.
Mycroft just scoffs in reply. “Do think more of me, Doctor Watson, I am not that petty. I was aware from a young age that Sherlock required special attention and I do not begrudge him Mummy’s attention. Mummy treated us for who we were and nurtured us accordingly. So it has nothing to do with sibling rivalry over our talents, either, which we possess in equal amounts. Sherlock likes to make you think so because it distracts from the real reason.”
John sits on the stairs in frustration and stamps his feet as he does so. “Then what? I don’t understand why you can’t just get along like normal people.”
Mycroft stares at John for a moment and then opens his mouth to answer but the sound of the door opening further down the hall causes them both to turn their heads.
Sherlock walks out of the room. He closes the door behind him gently before purposefully marching over to where they stand by the staircase, posture rigid and face stony. As soon as he spots Mycroft, he pauses, one foot on the bottom step on which John is sitting and a hand resting on the dark wooden banister. For a moment, the two brothers are engaged in a fierce stare. John can see the tell-tale anger smouldering in the eyes - that embedded contempt he reserves especially for Mycroft - but also hurt, disappointment and maybe even regret swirling in that grey sea. John cannot recall a time he has ever seen a melting pot of emotions so vividly on Sherlock’s face.
His eyes flicker back to the eight year old Sherlock on the wall, where annoyance was directed at simpler matters.
Then, wordlessly, Sherlock composes himself walks past them both and up the stairs, ignoring John’s hand which reached to brush his legs. The sound of a slamming door follows.
“I should check on him,” John says, breaking the tense silence that has ensued.
“There’s no point,” Mycroft replies dismissively. “He will not be conversational for a while. Come, Meniki has the most remarkable Ceylon tea.”
*
Mycroft pours the tea from a china set as they sit in what John can only call a drawing room. It is filled with bookshelves; in the corner there is a violin stand and several score sheets. It looks unsettlingly like their own living room in Baker Street.
“I was already working in London when the symptoms began to show,” Mycroft begins. “When the diagnosis was confirmed, I did everything in my power to arrange the best possible care for her. I was organising Meniki’s visa from Sri Lanka, who I had met whilst on a trip. Sherlock had finished university studies and was itching to leave the confines of home. London was calling him again. All I asked Sherlock to do was wait a little longer.”
He hands the cup to John who takes it with both hands, but doesn’t sit down. Not even the prospect of tea can calm the agitation slipping through Mycroft’s normally calm and collected mask. Finally takes the armchair opposite John, the small round table separating them.
“I have asked myself time and time again whether investing more time in Sherlock during this period would have prevented the outcome. The strain of seeing Mummy regressing on a daily basis was obviously too much for him. I don’t think he could stand watching the woman whom he idolised, who had the sharpest mind he knew, literally disappear before his eyes. In hindsight it was foolish of me to think he could play such a demanding caregiving role. Sherlock requires constant mental stimulation; something Mummy was always able to provide him. When she became ill, he had nothing keeping him at home.”
Mycroft pauses and takes a sip of tea, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “So he left. He packed his bags and decided not to tell her he was leaving because, in his mind, he believed he was sparing her feelings. And left for London. That was the last time he was home.”
John glances out to the swinging wooden bench he can see through the window, a physical aging reminder of Sherlock’s estrangement from home.
“Mycroft,” he says gently, trying to not patronise him with pity. He puts down his cup and leans forward. “It’s not your fault. Sherlock would have left with or without your help.”
“It is not only that he left her,” Mycroft snaps, looking at him with the same flare he sees in Sherlock’s. “Maybe if he had taken his leave once the dementia had set in, it would never have mattered. Unfortunately, that was not he case. Instead, he left at that crucial early stage where she was still aware of what was happening to her, that her memory was failing and that soon, she would cease to remember anything, including her children. So one of the last things she remembered was that her son left her; and every time I had to explain why and watch the same reaction.”
I wasn’t the one that upset her…Mycroft.
This time John says nothing but stares at the table. He thinks he should be bitter towards Sherlock, the way Mycroft is. What Sherlock had done was indeed selfish and cruel. But John hadn’t been there…who was he to judge someone who lost their mother?
“Do you think Sherlock defined himself as a sociopath?” Mycroft continues in that acidic tone. “I did that for him during the one and only terrible argument we had over the issue. In a moment of fury I used that very word to explain how he could be so heartless as to abandon his mother at a time when she was frightened by what was happening and needed the familiarity that he could provide. To look after her for once the way she had always looked after him.”
“You’re still angry at him,” John realises.
“We are both angry because it has developed beyond that. Since that fight, Mummy is used like some political weapon when we feel the need to attack each other with our faults. Which disappoints me more because Mummy was so upset by our growing estrangement. Of course, in time she forgot, so Sherlock, ever the logical one, won in the end.”
Mycroft sighs regretfully at his sardonic outburst, a habit both brothers seemed incapable of breaking when talking to or about each other. “I know it was Sherlock’s own way of handling a situation that he could not grasp, but he handled it poorly. So we don’t discuss is directly.”
“Maybe you should,” John finally says, finding his voice hoarse.
“What’s done is done. While Sherlock and I may regret the things we have said to each other, they were still said. It has no impact on Mummy now.”
“Stop using her as an excuse,” John says, a low edge to his voice. “You’re no better than Sherlock. It impacts on you and your entire relationship with him. She wouldn’t want it to continue.” Even as he says it, he can feel the words turn bitter in his mouth.
And Mycroft knows it. He places the cup back on its saucer with polite care. “Forgive me my brashness, Doctor, but I think your pot is calling my kettle black,” he responds, his voice with an equally hardened edge that John has never heard.
John thinks of Harriet, their arguments and his own mother’s vain attempts to find ways to institute peace in their own war. She used to tell them that once she was gone, they would only have each other. But he and Harriet were opposite personalities, never destined to work together. There was still hope for the two Holmes brothers.
“Maybe so,” he replies, not allowing himself to be patronised, “but it’s not too late to fix things.”
Mycroft sighs again with dramatic patience as he stands up, brushing down his suit. “Since Mummy became ill I have learnt, as you very well know, Doctor, that even if one possesses knowledge and power some things in life cannot be fixed; they can only be managed.”
He walks toward the heavy wooden door and before exiting, turns to face John again, his natural demeanour returned. “I did not tell you this to satisfy your curiosity, Doctor, or change your well formulated opinion of Sherlock.”
“Then why?”
“It may be a very faded family portrait you see before you, but a portrait nonetheless. And you should consider your place in it now next to Sherlock.”
John remains seated in the silent living room after Mycroft leaves, unable to move with the weight of the information he now possesses.
He thinks of Koshan, the man who was still waiting in hope for news of his son. At least he would always have hope, futile as it was. For once, John believes in the phrase ignorance is bliss. He is thankful that the Holmes matriarch, captive in her mind and her room next door, would continue to live completely unaware that her two sons, into who she had poured her heart and soul, would never reconcile. It’s a sickening irony that is not taught in med school.
*
John helps Meniki clean the china and listens to her talk. She speaks of her home in Sri Lanka as a nurse and of her journey to Britain. She is full of stories about Mrs Holmes and their escapades; like the time she accidentally put ground pepper instead of cocoa powder into the cake mix, prompting Meniki to label everything in the kitchen; like one time she gave Meniki a violin performance and began playing Hayden which morphed seamlessly into Mozart without her even noticing; and when she left the house once without informing anyone and Meniki found her speaking to a young boy as if she was sixteen again.
It was a string of bittersweet anecdotes said with light-hearted kind humour which, after the depressingly heavy discussion he’d had with Mycroft, was a welcome relief.
“She used to say, always keep the good memories,” Meniki says optimistically, when she sees John’s still despondent face. “She does not remember much anymore, but when she does, it is always the happy times.”
*
John sits on the bed, his fingers gently shifting through Sherlock’s hair as the man lies on his chest, combing through the dark strands. He hadn’t asked how Sherlock’s chat with his mum had gone. He’d returned to the room after another hour with a plate of sandwiches kindly made by Meniki to find Sherlock already in his pyjamas on top of the covers. His posture was screaming with tension, emitting defensive vibes. When it was apparent Sherlock still wouldn’t eat, he made the bold move to climb next to him, wrapping an arm around his thin waist to pull him close and offer the only form of comfort he could. It took a few moments to seep through but soon enough, the tautness ease and Sherlock rolled over, attaching himself to John like a limpet.
“Do you think she would have liked me?” John suddenly asks instead, breaking the comfortable silence.
He feels a bit odd talking about this omnipotent woman he has never met in the past tense. But it was hard not to follow the brothers’ nuances. Mycroft called her Mummy, because she always was and always will be. Maybe Sherlock had once called her that a long time ago, before he left. Now, she was just Mother, an impersonal pronoun for the impersonal woman she had become. Someone with whom the intimate connection had been slowly severed.
“I didn’t think you cared what people thought.”
John chuckles softly, his fingertips tracing the outline of Sherlock’s inherited cheekbones. “I don’t anymore. Unless that someone is the protective mother of the boy who spends most of his waking days now with one person. And who does things with that boy that she might not have expected.”
Sherlock doesn’t smile but shrugs morosely in response, playing with a loose thread on John’s woollen jumper. “Does it matter what she thinks?” he replies after a moment, his voice surprisingly devoid of emotion.
John feels he must break this repetition. “Of course it does! Sherlock, she is your mum. She always has and always will want what’s best for you, whether she remembers you or not. It’s intuitive. It’d be nice to know if she would approve of me.”
Sherlock is quiet for a moment as he thinks, considers and analyses, collating the information he has and making judgements.
“She would have adored you,” he finally responds quietly after a few moments. “You are very similar in many ways. So you are exactly the person she hoped I would find in the future. It would ease the constant fear she had of me living in perpetual loneliness.”
“Then at least she would have been happy.”
Suddenly, Sherlock pulls away from John’s embrace and gets up, heading over to the large window. His back is now rigid with tension and his hand has lifted to bite at the abused thumbnail again. John knows he’s looking at the wooden bench, that symbolic representation of failure and regret, which had only deepened as the bench had rotted.
“Sherlock?” John asks carefully, sitting up, trying to gauge Sherlock’s emotions.
Sherlock takes a slow deep breath. “I never thought of how awful it must have been,” he says quietly, his voice lower than normal. “I never even considered the short term implications of what I had done because I rationalised that in the long run, it didn’t matter. If she eventually couldn’t remember I lived here, how would she know I had gone. Or not told her…”
Sherlock’s voice chokes off at the end, as if he is reliving a horror. John wonders if the young Sherlock had stood in that very spot, staring out at his mother as she sat on the bench…did he decide to leave without using the empathy he employed now? Did he initially decide to tell her? Instantly, John jumps off the bed and turns Sherlock to face him, seeing a flicker of unexpected dread before Sherlock paints on his typical stoicism.
“Would you leave, John, if I ever lost my mind and started to forget myself, my work, even you? What would you do if I was no longer myself?”
In fact, John has been trying to avoid thinking hypothetically. He can’t imagine a future where Sherlock is not utilising his brain to its full potential, saving the vital information he believes will be beneficial and deleting what won’t be. He can’t imagine a time when Sherlock won’t be firing off immediate and accurate conclusions based on the observations he has made of the world around him. When Sherlock is making cutting and witty remarks to people he likes and dislikes. But try as he might, Sherlock is not a machine. He’s human, and on occasion he faces the inevitability of mortality, just as John had faced a bullet.
John doesn’t want to punish Sherlock by adding to Mycroft’s reminder that he’d done wrong. Sherlock is being punished with the belated remorse that comes with age wisdom and didn’t believe he deserved pity. So John puts his feet in the shoes of a young Sherlock who had stood at a window and believes that he is stronger and braver than the man who decided to desert someone he loved.
“I will never leave, Sherlock,” he promises, wrapping the sentence in as much earnestness as he can muster.
To reinforce this, he kisses Sherlock, a hand resting on the back of his neck and his thumb lightly tracing Sherlock’s jawline. He can feel the tension rush out of Sherlock again as he does so, a grateful exhale of breath as he returns John’s affection with an edge of rough desperation.
With a last emphatic kiss, he pulls Sherlock back towards the bed, lifting the covers and manoeuvring him between the sheets. Even though it is barely ten o’clock, John can see the mental exhaustion of the day has taken its toll on Sherlock. John begins to strip off his own clothing, pulling at his thick jumper and then his jeans, placing both their folded clothes neatly on a chair. All the while he can feel Sherlock’s dark eyes watching his every move from where he is curled on his side.
“Would you like to meet her?” Sherlock suddenly asks, his voice quiet and tentative but eyebrows raised in curiosity.
In that moment of clarity, John understands why Sherlock didn’t want him to see his mother. From the information he’d accumulated over the day, he has built a picture in his mind of a wonderfully strong but maternal woman. He wants to imagine they would come round and he and Mrs Holmes would laugh and joke about how they control Sherlock while Sherlock scowls at them both. He could imagine Sherlock and Mycroft laughing at John’s ability to be checkmated in five moves and her reprimanding them both for being too cruel. He wants to think he would be added to the wall of good moments, as part of Sherlock’s life. He wants to imagine a world where the brothers snipe good naturedly not spitefully. And really, John doesn’t want this illusory world he has mentally created to be tainted. Somebody should know her only for how she was.
He thinks back to his lectures on Alzheimer’s a long time ago and remembers that although the memory might fade, the personality does not. A person’s spirit is forever intact. Somewhere, her humour, her warmth, her strength, her intelligence still shines through.
John smiles as he walks back over to Sherlock, sitting beside his hip, his lips ghosting over his forehead in a delicate kiss.
“I would love to,” John replies softly.
Sherlock’s hands slide around his waist to pull John down on top of him, twisting their bodies. John willingly follows, knowing exactly where he fits.
The End
A/N: I know these are rather depressing themes but I wanted to tackle something like this, as I currently help my friend through her difficult time and to use it as the background to Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship and that brief mention we heard of their mother. I hope you enjoyed it! And I would appreciate any feedback and/or constructive criticism you can provide me with on this topic.