Work Text:
for today’s (May 8) prompt “always” by @notjustamumj
first posted on my tumblr
Funny thing is that for yesterday’s prompt “candlelight” I wrote a ficlet titled “Always”. Therefore, it is only fitting to write a companion piece/sequel titled “Always, again”.
Always, again
So, here we are again.
In a plane of all possible locations.
My brother Sherlock and I.
He is high as a kite and looking up at me unfocused and with a moronic half smile on his face. I am calm and detached - at least on the outside – and looking at the current list of narcotics he has taken.
I raise an eye brow.
He has developed quite a tolerance in the meantime. It would be impressive were it not that he is deliberately destroying his body and also maiming his brain in the process as well. I feel like slapping him in the face to force him to realize what he has done this time. The combined drugs on this list would mean certain death via overdose for everybody else.
It is not Sherlock’s first overdose. There have been three in his addicted past but, as far as he himself convincingly claims nowadays, they all have been unintentional and accidental.
This one clearly is not.
This one he has planned a long time before he has even set his foot on the plane.
I am afraid that this is exactly what he had intended to happen to himself, though. Deliberate suicide. Possibly delayed long enough so that the cardiac arrest would have happened when the plane was high in the air. Too far away to reach any sort of emergency personnel. Or breathing arrest. Whatever would have set in first.
Thankfully Moriarty’s scheme intervened just in time to have the plane return to the runway mere minutes after taking off. Miss Me. Well, I would never have thought that I would feel grateful for him to return. Like I do now. I will wonder how he managed this trick later. There are more pressing things to ponder right now.
Such as…
Did Sherlock actually believe I am cold-hearted enough to only grant him a choice between lifelong imprisonment or certain death while working undercover as an agent?
He has always been less smart than me, of course.
But after I have invaded Serbia for him, did actual legwork which I abhor, after all the strings he knows I had to pull to rescue him from being flailed alive to death in this vile torture cell? He still thought I would do this to him? So that he chose death before death could choose him?
Astonishingly, I feel that I am hurt. After all this time, when now was the least appropiate time I would have needed him to believe as much, of all things he now chose to believe that I have never cared about him.
As if I would not have had contingency plans for his mission in Eastern Europe and meanwhile his exonaration in England.
So.
Yes.
It is decided.
Now it is the right time, now it is high time because maybe it is the last time I have the possibility. To finally state what he means to me. Make it absolutely clear that he understands what I say.
I have already tried to do so at Christmas before he has drugged us all and has gone dragon slaying in Appledore. Your loss would break my heart I have said, how could he have misunderstood?
My dear baby brother, I have protected you all my life, if you wanted to or not. If you realized. If you hated me for it. Though that last one is not an “if” actually.
I have been so close to losing you again.
I fold the list and put it away into my notebook.
I will say it now. Look him into the eyes and let him deduce my soul. I suppose he will be surprised what he will find there. Not knowing what to do with them. My feelings. Most likely he will resort to insult or ignore me anyway.
I take a deep breath and brace myself for Sherlock’s inevitable derision, relieved and afraid at the same time to finally say it out loud.
“I was there for you before. I’ll be there for you again. I’ll always be there for you.”