Chapter Text
Chapter Two: Say, can ye minister to diseasèd mind?
Of a wonder, Sherlock was (mostly) as good as his word over the next week. He accepted, and used, topical pain patches John got for his ribs; he said (and Mrs. Hudson confirmed) that he was sleeping “as needed”; he even showed up at John’s surgery on time to have the renewed stitches removed from his back with only a minimal sulk. And John, very slowly, began to relax.
The morning of the eighth day after Sherlock’s poisoning, he and John were still working the human trafficking case, on their way to the scene of yet another murdered prostitute, when John was called in unexpectedly to work in the surgery. Sherlock, already deep in the thrall of a case that had multiple murders with no visible sign of injury and three possible lines of connection to their traffickers, told John to go with no real concern. He did notice, though, the sideways look John gave him and sighed with exasperation. “John. I promised. I’m fine, and I would tell you if I wasn’t. Just go—I’ll work the crime scene with Lestrade and give you the results later.” He strode off, coat swirling.
John ended up working the next nine hours straight, stopping only when Mary told him he’d had a call come in minutes before on the mobile phone he’d left sitting in his coat pocket. John stretched, turned off his desk light and took the phone, glancing at the message display. Lestrade? He cued up the message while Mary stood in front of him with a questioning look.
Lestrade didn’t even identify himself, just jumped in. “John? You need to call me right now, or come to Baker Street if you can’t call. If I don’t hear from you in ten minutes I’m going to have to call Mycroft.”
John couldn’t punch the number in fast enough. Greg answered on the first ring. “Thank Christ. Look, mate, you need to come to Baker Street.”
John could hear noises in the background, and could tell from Greg’s voice that he was doing something else while talking. “I’m on my way,” John said, while hurriedly mouthing to Mary where he was going. She called after him that she’d meet him there as soon as she could break free. “What’s wrong?” Out at the street, he thrust up one arm for a taxi and was lucky enough to land one as quickly as Sherlock always could. He climbed in and gave the cabbie the address, waving his free hand to emphasize the need to hurry.
“It’s—I dunno, really. Sherlock hurt himself a bit today. Nothing serious, or so I thought—he climbed into this rubbish pile at the murder scene and laid his leg open on some sharp bits. Popped right back up and kept working for the next hour, happy as a lark. And then we’re standing by my car wrapping things up and he just…fell. No warning, so I couldn’t catch him, and he raps his head right hard on the street. Out cold.”
“I tried to pick him up and realized that his trousers were soaked with blood—he’d been bleeding out that whole time and never said a word. Knowing him, he didn’t even notice. And it was really dark in the warehouse where we were, so no one saw. So we carted him off to be stitched up and get his head checked. They gave him some blood, and said that should do the trick now the bleeding was stopped. He woke up properly about midway through and was pretty stroppy about them wanting him to stay overnight. So I was due to go off duty anyway, and I asked if they’d let him go if I agreed to stay with him for the next 12 hours. We got back here about 4, and I laid down on the sofa for a bit since I’d been up all night. Sherlock was just wandering about being snarky about everything like he does, you know, so I didn’t worry about it much. He didn’t really mind my being there, he was just put out in general.”
“So what’s wrong?” John interjected. “It would help if I knew what we’re dealing with.”
“When I nodded off two hours ago he was thinking in his chair. Set an alarm on my mobile to check him. And then I woke up an hour ago and, well… he’s out of his head, seems like.” And hearing John’s quick intake of breath, “No, not like concussion. I know what that looks like, and his pupils are a little dilated but fine. He’s just, well, he’s not making sense. I know he’s clean so it’s not drugs. And his scan at the clinic was fine—no head injury to speak of. He don’t seem to know me, either, and he’s afraid. John, I’ve known him for years, man and boy, but I have never heard him make sounds like this. So please, can you hurry?”
Thankfully John’s taxi pulled up just at that point. He threw money at the cabbie, thrust open the front door and ran full-break up the stairs. Then he heard exactly the sounds he feared: that heartbreaking, gasping conversation of the damned from Sherlock.
Sherlock was back under his desk, the flat once again near-dark. Greg Lestrade stood nervously in the doorway to the kitchen, flexing his hands as if wishing for something, anything, he could actually do to make this stop. His lip was split and he had the beginnings of a black eye. John came to him first to take a look but Greg flinched away. “I’m fine. Really. I tried to make him come out and he, he fought me.” He gave a wobbly chuckle. “Fights dirty, little bastard.” He looked back at Sherlock. “It goes in a cycle, like. He spends time speaking in whatever language that may be, talking, pleading, to someone named Pasha. And then he…” Greg took a breath and plowed on, “it’s like he’s a kid, a little kid, and something awful’s happened to him. And he calls to someone named Abel, and he cries and tries to stop himself, and he’s so frightened he shakes. It’s just… it’s horrible. We have to fix this, John. How do we fix this?”
John went to his knees in front of the desk. “I’m not sure. I’ve seen part of this before, though. At the time we thought it was the drug …” John caught Greg’s expression, “no, not that kind of drug, an accidental poisoning a week ago. We had his stomach pumped and he was fine.” John realized distantly that someone not familiar with Sherlock’s “normal” life would find that last sentence a little disturbing. John reluctantly came to a decision. “Greg, I’m going to contact Mycroft after all. Maybe this is something Sherlock’s had for years that we just haven’t seen.”
“He won’t thank you for that, you know.”
“I don’t think he’s in any position right now to care. And I certainly don’t.” John pulled out his mobile and texted Mycroft. Something’s wrong with Sherlock. You need to come to Baker Street now.
His phone pinged two minutes later. On my way.
Before Mycroft arrived, John managed to convince Greg to go home. He suspected that neither Sherlock nor Mycroft would appreciate an audience for this conversation. Greg left on the condition that John call him, no exceptions, to let him know what happened. John settled on his knees in front of the desk and hoped he’d have a resolution to offer.
As Greg left, Sherlock reached the point in his cycle where he reverted to English. Lestrade was right: this was a terrified child, calling for Abel, then sobbing, his fists crammed into his mouth to try and stop the noise. John had seen Sherlock cry before, tears both fake and real: the easy, pretty tears of manipulation, or the choking despair of the rooftop at Barts. But nothing like this—this utter desperation and fear. It was unbearable to listen to, to the point where he tried to touch Sherlock’s hands, only to have him gasp and scuttle further away.
The door below abruptly clattered open and swift footsteps came up the stairs. Mycroft strode in, looking distinctly non-Mycroftish. Looking, in fact, somewhat frantic and far from his normal calm, acerbic self. “What’s wrong? Did he take something?” Mycroft snapped. Just then he caught sight of Sherlock under the desk, and heard the sounds, and his face… changed. “Oh”, he breathed. It was clear that for Mycroft, at least, this was not something new.
John looked at Mycroft, who slowly went to his knees next to John. “You’ve seen this, then. You know what this is?”
“Yes, but not in many years. I thought perhaps he had outgrown it, for lack of a better word. The last time this happened, at least the last time I knew of it, was when he was still at uni.” Mycroft suddenly moved smoothly under the desk and grabbed Sherlock’s arms. Sherlock exploded into motion, fighting mercilessly to break loose while keening high in his throat. And Mycroft—John stared—Mycroft quickly and ruthlessly subdued him without apparent effort, managing to hold Sherlock’s thrashing arms and legs in a tight, competent grip. “John.” Mycroft snapped. “A sedative is in order, don’t you think?” And when John didn’t immediately move, “Now, please!”
John, released from his momentary shock, hurried to his kit and injected Sherlock with a dose that would put him under quickly. He put aside his bag and turned to Mycroft, and saw one of Sherlock’s expressions on his brother’s face. “Really, John. Did you seriously believe that, just because I choose not to use force as a general rule, I am incapable of doing so?” John’s face apparently told Mycroft his answer. “Oh, for God’s sake. I was Sherlock’s first instructor in martial arts, though I am aware that, if he were fully alert, he may well surpass me these days. I no longer practice as I ought.”
By now Sherlock was relaxing slowly, his eyes closing and body sagging. Mycroft shifted so that his back was braced against the wall and Sherlock’s head laid in his lap. Mycroft’s hand rested loosely in Sherlock’s hair. “He was a very pretty little boy, as I’m sure you can imagine,” he said reflectively. “And we both went to public school—I knew very well the potential for disaster there. I made sure he could protect himself, at least physically, before he entered.”
John found himself charmed, oddly—both by Mycroft’s unconscious hand movements through Sherlock’s curls, and by this window into their shared childhood. But--”What happened? Where did this,” and he waved his arm over the tableau of Sherlock under the furniture, “come from? And why now, after so long?”
Mycroft sighed. “As to why now, I can only speculate. We can speak of that shortly. As to how it happened… the spring Sherlock turned 9, he formed a friendship, or a fascination, with a much older boy named Abel. This boy was a little older than I, as a matter of fact, but in another era he would have been referred to as ‘simple’. Slow, really, and very childlike. But he had a true gift with animals, especially birds, and that was Sherlock’s major interest at the time. And Abel didn’t find Sherlock’s interests or level of knowledge unusual—after all, virtually everyone knew more than Abel did about everything.”
Mycroft shifted slightly, and Sherlock made a mild sound of protest. “One day Sherlock didn’t come home for luncheon. My mother was annoyed but not alarmed—even then he had the tendency to become completely enrapt in his interests. But when he still hadn’t come home by dinner, my parents became seriously alarmed. My father and the neighbors gathered all of the available folk in the district and went out looking. I, as it happened, was off at a gathering of students from my school, so I wasn’t aware until my father sent a car for me at 10 that evening that anything was wrong. By the time I arrived, the police had been called and there were hints of potential foul play. A neighbor child had seen Sherlock that morning with Abel, and Abel was also missing.” Mycroft saw John’s face. “No, John, it’s not what you’re thinking. But you’re correct, that is certainly what the police were thinking—this pretty little boy, with a much older male friend, going missing.”
“Around 2 AM, my mother collapsed. Sherlock gets that from her—the tendency to push the body beyond its limits. My father was dealing with the police, so the handling of the local search fell to me. I had just turned 17 but looked older, and I was tall. No one questioned that I should be in charge. I set up a grid pattern that was considerably more organized than what had gone on before, and we set out again. We searched until well past dawn, with no results. And then, by the grace of God, I realized something. You remember I told you about Sherlock’s fascination with birds?” John nodded. “His particular delight was owls. Abel had found a nest in a tumbledown barn on a strip of unused land. Sherlock had told me all about it a couple of weeks before, and insisted I come with him to see. The minute I saw the barn, though, I forbade him ever going again. It was at least a hundred years old, if not more—timber framing leaning every which way, parts already collapsed.”
Mycroft shifted again. Apparently the floor wasn’t as comfortable as it once was.
“As soon as I told Sherlock not to come back, I knew there was a problem. You know how he is—if he wants to do something badly enough, he will do it, full stop. So I had what I thought at the time was a perfect solution. I would frighten him. I would frighten him so badly that he would never think of going back in that barn.” Mycroft closed his eyes momentarily. “As I’m sure you suspect, it was a mistake, one that Sherlock and I both paid dearly for. But at the time…well. I told him that barns like that were almost certainly infested with very large, very hungry rats. After all, most barns have them. But once the people were gone, there was no longer any reliable source of grain to eat, so the rats would be hungry and much more likely to turn to other food sources. Sherlock already knew that rats could, and did, eat meat if it was available. So I told him of real reported cases of people falling asleep, or being trapped, in abandoned buildings and being eaten alive by rats. I went into some detail—I was very thorough, pointing out that someone who was trapped would be in the worst possible situation, since they couldn’t move out of reach. And I thought, I really thought, that he believed me.”
John felt a sense of dread. It was clear now that something terrible had happened to Sherlock in that barn. But it was also clear that Mycroft needed to tell this story, as much for himself as for Sherlock.
“We set out for the barn. I led, since I was the only one familiar with it. When we got there, I think my heart stopped for a moment. It was down. It was rubble—no portion of it higher than 8 feet at most, and wood like kindling everywhere. My first instinct, I confess, was to start crawling through immediately, tearing wood off as I went. Luckily one of the adults knew better—he sent a runner back to the house to have the fire unit called, and the police sent for a mobile crane. While we waited, though, we crawled as close as we dared, and called for both of them. And suddenly we heard this sound—this horrible, choking, sobbing sound that just went on and on. I called to him—I knew it was him—but he was lost to it. My father arrived at some point; he called as well, and I believe they had to restrain him to keep him from climbing inside. Thank God no one thought to go wake my mother.”
Mycroft’s head was down now, as if speaking only to Sherlock. John had to lean forward to hear.
“They finally reached him about 2 hours later. He was not severely injured—dehydrated, of course, and a broken ankle. But he had been pinned under timbers for almost 20 hours, unable to move more than a few inches. Abel was dead—underneath the main fall of beams about 10 feet away. He had been dead for some time, though from what Sherlock told us, much later, it had not been immediate. He had cried to Sherlock for help for some time, help that Sherlock was unable to give. And then, of course, Sherlock had remembered about the rats.” Mycroft stopped talking, and John almost wished that he could quit now. He could see the toll this was taking.
But Mycroft took a deep, shuddering breath and continued, as if to purge himself of it once and for all. “Sherlock was of course very bright, for all I tried to convince him otherwise. And knowing about the rats, he first was concerned that they would attack Abel. But as time passed, Sherlock’s mind turned to his own situation, and he realized that he was now in what I had described, in intimate detail, as the worst possible place to be—awake, aware and trapped in the barn with the rats. So he decided that he mustn’t make noise—that noise could draw the rats to him.”
“But he was, after all, just a terrified little boy, in pain and alone, so he was not completely successful in not crying, and he ended up using his hands to try to stop the sounds. And that,” and here Mycroft’s voice cracked a bit, “that is the sound you hear. That poor child whose idiot brother frightened him enough to put him in that state, and didn’t remember where he was most likely to be for 10 bloody hours.” Mycroft’s hand shook in Sherlock’s curls. John sat and waited. There was nothing he could say that would help. And after a bit, Mycroft shifted, moved, picked Sherlock up like a child and carried him to bed.
Mycroft stayed in Sherlock’s room for some time, and John went about picking things up, giving him space to collect himself.
When he came back out, he was “Mycroft” again—armor appropriately in place, calm and collected. “I apologize for putting you through that, John. But you needed to know, and I find that I am not quite as … removed from those events as I would prefer to believe.” He strode over and sat carefully in Sherlock’s battered chair. “Now, as to where things go from here. He will probably not be himself for a day or two, if past spells are any indication. He may well have an additional episode in that time, but it should be brief and self-limited. If necessary, light sedation is appropriate. He will almost certainly remember none of this, and I would suggest you not tell him I was here until after he has recovered. He will not take it well, I assure you. But at some point he will need to know what happened, and that you are aware of the source. Feel free to share that information with Inspector Lestrade as you feel warranted (and yes, John, of course I know he was here).”
John had the grace to smile, and received a slight glint from Mycroft in return.
“Now, as to the larger question—why now? After more than a decade?” Mycroft tented his fingers in what was apparently the Holmes family manner. “You are the medical professional, John, so I defer to your judgment. But I can tell you that, in the past, this occurred after some combination of physical and mental stress. You know, of course, the physical stresses Sherlock has been subject to recently. The mental…well, certainly his homecoming has been stressful, for everyone involved. But I also suspect that much occurred in Sherlock’s time away that has challenged his emotional balance. I know that his most recent operation prior to his return certainly did. Has he told you of any of those… adventures?”
John sighed. “No, actually. I told him I didn’t need to know.” John smiled again, slightly, but Mycroft did not.
Mycroft was clearly choosing his words carefully. “John, I am trying to explain to you that there were events during his time away that were…damaging to Sherlock. He did not walk away from England unscathed to begin with, mentally or physically; he believed that everyone he cared about thought him a fraud, and he knew the potential was there that he might never be able to return. He spent two years virtually alone, in considerable danger. He had very occasional contact with me, but could share nothing of his activities—any possible line of communication could be vulnerable to Moriarty’s creatures.”
“The only operation I have complete information on, other than Sherlock’s own records, is a portion of his last one, before I came to get him out. And if he has led you to believe that he considers it ‘old news’, he is lying, either to you or to himself. It involved a great deal of death, a great deal of pain, and much of it Sherlock believes he was personally responsible for. It was one of the reasons I chose to extract him when I did. It was certainly not because his presence here was essential. Did you really believe, John, that we were unaware of Lord Moran’s ambitions?”
John thought on that one. “How on Earth did you get Sherlock to believe it, then?” But even as he said it he knew the answer. “Oh, I see. He wanted to believe it. He enjoyed the thought that he was the only one who could solve it, and he also desperately wanted a reason to come home.”
Mycroft did smile this time. “Yes, precisely. Yet another point I suggest you not raise with him, however.”
John realized that they were still dancing around the issue. “So, where does that leave us? What can we do about it? If he were my patient rather than my friend I’d make a strong recommendation of therapy, but we both know how well that would work; he usually mocks me when I go, and I can’t imagine a therapist who could deal with him. He’d know everything the therapist was going to say before they said it, and manipulate them every time he went. He’s very good at that.”
Mycroft sighed. “That is certainly what he did as a child and teenager.” Seeing the look on John’s face, though, he grew instantly icy. “John, I assure you that our parents took every possible care of Sherlock. Of course they sent him for therapy after his accident. You’ve met them; do you seriously believe they would disregard such an obvious need?”
John wiped his hands over his face. “Christ, Mycroft, I’m sorry. I don’t honestly know what I was thinking. Should have known better.”
Mycroft huffed. “Apology accepted. So, back to our…dilemma. I think we are both of a mind that professional intervention is unlikely to succeed, even if Sherlock could be convinced to participate.” Mycroft stopped and cut his eyes sideways at John. “I know this is a great deal to ask, but I see no other options. Would you be willing to speak with Sherlock? Try to get him to tell you something of his experiences? I am far from an expert on feelings.” John resisted the urge to grin at Mycroft’s lip curl as he spoke. “But I am aware that Sherlock is currently at the mercy of his. It’s like a poison that needs to be released. And he cares a great deal for you, and respects your opinion, even if it’s not always obvious.”
John thought about that a bit before answering. He knew how uncomfortable Mycroft must be with all of this, but John was in much the same state himself. “Look, you know I want to help. But I’m out of my depth here—I’m terrible at therapy as a patient, and I’m certainly not qualified to administer it to anyone else.”
Mycroft sighed. “No one expects that, John. All I am asking is that you listen. We both know there are no guarantees; it’s entirely possible that Sherlock will refuse to speak with anyone, including you. I would attempt to influence him but that would almost certainly have the opposite of the intended effect. But I fear doing nothing.”
And John couldn’t disagree with that. He got up and paced around the room; he suddenly needed to move. “All right. All right. I’ll do what I can. You know that. But you have to understand that, whatever Sherlock says to me, I will not be sharing it with you. Under any circumstances. Are we clear on that?”
Mycroft looked mildly offended. “I wouldn’t expect otherwise.” He paused. “And that is why I will not share what I already know about Sherlock’s last operations unless you really feel it necessary. It is not my story to tell.”
John chose not to argue with that statement—certainly that wasn’t the approach Mycroft had taken at their first meeting, but he liked to believe that Mycroft knew him better now.
Mycroft gathered himself up and prepared to leave, with one last glance into Sherlock’s bedroom. And John, knowing that he might well find himself the subject of Mycroft’s disdain, couldn’t stop himself. “Mycroft? You were only a child yourself, you know.”
Mycroft gave him one of those meaningless half-smiles and shook his head slightly. He paused at the top of the stairs, though, his back to John. “John…I hope you know how very much I, we, owe you. If you ever need anything, of any kind, you have only to ask.” And then he moved briskly down the stairs.
Thirty seconds later, Mary came trotting up them, to find John standing at the top with a bemused expression on his face. “What? Why are you just standing there?” she asked as she came over for a hug.
John grinned. “Well, I’m not sure, but I think I just had a male bonding experience with Mycroft Holmes.”
Mary peered out the window. “Was that who that was? Nice car.”
John laughed. “Oh yeah, Mycroft always has nice cars. Maybe someday I’ll actually ride in one voluntarily.”