literature

Dark Mirror : Prologue

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Dark Mirror

Prologue:

"Sherlock Holmes!"

Mycroft's strident voice punctured the silence of 221b and jerked Sherlock from his contemplation of the morphine syringe that lay on the table before him, capped and in a plastic bag. He reached to sweep the incriminating evidence under a pile of newspaper, but his brother was too quick. Scooping up the needle—pilfered from St. Barts, he had no doubt—Mycroft shook it in Sherlock's face.

"This is not reasonable, Sherlock!" he snapped. His face was hard and his lips set in a tight line. "You know better—you learned better, years ago. Or so I thought."

Sherlock spread his hands as if to say I don't know what you're going on about, and sat back on the couch, feigning nonchalance. Mycroft sighed, looked at the evidence of Sherlock's desperation, and dropped the offending object into his coat pocket.

"You know what John would say about this," he said.

Sherlock refused to look up. "Yes, well," he said, clearing his throat. "That's rather the point, now isn't it?" He stood, unfolding to his full height, and straightened the rumpled button-down shirt he wore under his dressing gown. "And I will point out that it has obviously not been used."

Mycroft narrowed his eyes, and Sherlock sighed. "Why are you here?" he asked, stepping around his brother and disappearing into the small kitchen.

Mycroft turned to follow him with his gaze, and took a seat in Sherlock's armchair. "I came to check on you," he answered. "You haven't left Baker Street in weeks."

Sherlock smirked at his brother over the top of a tea canister. "That you've seen."

Mycroft's hand went to the small bulge in his coat pocket. "Yes," he admitted. "That I've seen."

Sherlock began to rifle through the kitchen—a mess at the best of times and now looking as if a small tornado had ripped through—for clean cups to use.

"Detective Inspector Lestrade called me today," Mycroft said, raising his voice to be heard. He leaned back and gazed at the ceiling, wondering if he even wanted to know what the dark smudge above his head consisted of. "He said you've turned down three cases in the last month. He's worried about you, believe it or not. Aren't you getting tired of sitting around, Sherlock? Doing nothing but—"

A thunderous crash yanked Mycroft to his feet, but he had to duck just as fast, to avoid the teacup aimed at his head. Sherlock stood in the center of a puddle of tea and broken crockery, his face livid with rage. He was panting, and his steel-grey eyes blazed.

"I don't want to think!" he shouted, hurling the second teacup at Mycroft. The elder Holmes dodged, and it shattered against the wall behind him. "I don't want to think, I don't want to remember—I don't want to see everything playing in front of my mind like a movie I can't turn off!"

"Sherlock—"

"The one time it really mattered," the lanky young detective continued, stalking toward Mycroft and clenching his fists, "The one time I really needed to think, needed to figure it out—I failed. I missed clues so obvious a child could have—"

"Sherlock." Mycroft halted his brother's tirade with an upraised hand. "You did everything you could."

Sherlock stared at him, a muscle in his jaw pulsing with tension. Mycroft, usually immune to his brother's 'moods,' had to suppress the urge to step back. "You did everything you could," he repeated.

It was as if the words cut through the puppeteer's strings holding Sherlock upright. He wilted, all of the fire and energy sapped out of him in a long sigh. He sank into the armchair across from Mycroft—John's chair—and massaged his temples with long, white, trembling fingers.

"That's the worst of it, you know," he said, his voice now so low that Mycroft had to strain to hear. "I did everything I possibly could…And I still failed. If I could have just thought a little faster, made connections in just a fraction less time…"

Mycroft Holmes, so unused to feeling much besides irritation, calculation, and satisfaction, felt his heart soften. This man—his little brother—suddenly shrank from a masterful young man into a grieving little boy. Mycroft opened his mouth as if to say something—but then closed it, and let out a long sigh through his nose.

"No one blames you for any of this, Sherlock," he said at last. His brother looked up sharply, and Mycroft inclined his head. "No one but yourself. However, personal regrets aside, I cannot allow you to continue holing yourself up in your flat for weeks on end. Ah—" he held up a forestalling hand, and Sherlock bit back his protests. "I know you don't want to work with the Yard just yet. There is a position available on my staff and I think it might interest you. You would be tracking the cyber trails of Moriarty's gang."

Mycroft, as skilled as his brother at following someone's train of thought through their facial expression and other cues (even if he wasn't quite so brazen about his gift), knew the exact moment when Sherlock decided.

"I'm interested," the dark-haired detective said. He stood and tugged his shirt straight.

"Good."

"Under one condition."

"Yes?"

Sherlock's face, so open a second before, turned as hard and expressionless as a concrete wall. "I will follow the trail, but when the chase ends—I make the kill."

Mycroft examined his brother for a long moment, scrutinizing the younger Holmes' face as if looking for something in particular. Finally satisfied, he nodded.

"Agreed."

Sherlock cracked a feral smile. "Wonderful. Let's go." He scooped a jacket from the table and headed for the door, grabbing up his scarf and coat as he went.

Mycroft quirked an eyebrow. "Now?"

Sherlock didn't even wait to see if his brother was following him. "Now," he called over his shoulder, starting down the stairs. "The sooner we start, the sooner I can rid the world of John Watson's killer."

...To be Continued...

We've all seen The Reichenbach Fall. We know what happened. We know how Moriarty decided to "burn" Sherlock. But what if he had chosen a different way? What if he had decided to really burn Sherlock's 'heart? What might it have looked like? Well…Maybe something like this. NO SLASH. Go elsewhere for that. WARNING: rated Teen for brief mentions of drugs and potential violence to come.
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Tigzzz's avatar
*gasp*
I need to know what happened!!!!