Bonus Fic: Blood Brothers, Part 1/3
Dec. 14th, 2015 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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holmesticeTitle: Blood Brothers
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dioscureantwins
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/Mycroft, Sherlock/Victor Trevor, Billy Wiggins, OC’s
Rating:Explicit
Warnings: emotional and physical violence, homicide, lots of blood, incest
Beta: the amazingcherrytide was so kind as to help me. She’s a wonderful writer and an incredibly kind and resourceful beta. Thanks to her this has become a much better story than it would have been otherwise.
Summary: As if aware the deal was about to be struck Sherlock lifted his gaze from the violin to lock it with Mycroft’s over the honey-coloured waves of hair artfully coiled around Victor Trevor’s head. Sherlock winked. That moment the boy hit a wrong key. The discordant note had several of the younger ladies cry out in alarm. Exasperation and distaste flitted over Sherlock’s face before he tilted his torso solicitously towards the distraught musician, encouraging him to continue.
The sun’s rays slanting through the window were still surprisingly warm for October. Mycroft levered himself up to bank the fire, the benefit of which was feeble at the best of times, with most of the warmth sucked straight into the chimney. Then he stood in front of the window and gazed through the small, opaque sheets of glass at his brother who was directing Billy in laying out new plots in the kitchen garden.
A gust of wind rattled the big chestnut’s branches which were mostly empty already with only a few leaves clinging to them in stubborn defiance of their fate. Mycroft sighed and returned to his accounting books. Their message was unambiguous; no matter how many hours and days he’d wasted refusing to accept the inevitable. They’d have to leave soon, before the winter storms that would have turned the journey into an even more dismal experience. At dinner he would break the news to Sherlock. The hateful news.
Mycroft balled his fists to quell the familiar anger and anxiety he felt swelling in his chest. Just two more, he reminded himself, maybe three, depending on how good a catch the next one would be. Just two and they’d be provided for. They’d live here, unencumbered by worries of money, status, prying neighbours.
Just two more for the two of them.
That evening Mycroft told Sherlock. His little brother lifted his gaze from the scrawny quail he’d been dissecting on his plate and sighed.
“Are you sure?”
Mycroft nodded. “There’s barely enough left for the tailor, the passage and an adequate hotel.”
A wry look twisted his brother’s beautiful features. “Oh well, the money wouldn’t last forever, obviously. Except, not such another dreadful bore, Mycroft. I still don’t know what was worse to endure, his conversation or those sweaty hands—ugh.” His shudder of horror was part theatrics, part genuine. The latter half tore at Mycroft’s heart and turned chewing his bite of undercooked quail into an even more unappetising venture.
Palm upwards, he slid his hand over the table, willing Sherlock to grasp his fingers. The boy clasped the stem of his glass instead, raised the heavy crystal to his lips, stared defiantly at his elder sibling over the rim as he sipped the wine that was the colour and viscosity of blood.
“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice was both a warning and a caress. He fought not to show he was holding his breath, waiting.
Smiling, Sherlock put down the glass and laid his hand on top of Mycroft’s. “Stop your fretting. I don’t mind. It means nothing to me.”
“I hate it,” Mycroft hissed.
Sherlock shrugged. “As do I. But it must be done.” With a deft motion he reversed their arms and brought Mycroft’s hand to his mouth to nuzzle the back with moist lips.
“Yes,” agreed Mycroft, heart veering wildly between relief and aching jealousy. “It must be done.”
***
Once the house was filled with light and gaiety and cheerful voices chiming in the hallways. Not a day went by without a barouche or coach depositing a fresh party of guests at the foot of the great stairs that wound down from the front terrace like halves of a cut through nautilus shell. They were welcomed by the picture of marital felicity that were Mycroft’s parents; man and wife offering the comforts of their home to whoever dared brave the rough roads through the inhospitable terrain that made up this part of the Queen’s domains. The valley where the house was situated was sunny enough, with a gentle brook murmuring amidst willowed banks and woods that provided plenty of sport for the gentlemen in autumn.
Mycroft often stood between his parents as they greeted their friends, rigged up in a thistle-hued velvet jacket and midnight blue pantaloons, their hands resting lightly on his shoulders. Mamma (Mummy, however he was only allowed to address her thus if no one else was present) on the left and Father on his right.
Every evening his mother sat down at the piano to divert the assembly with music, songs of Schubert and the works of Chopin, played from sheets that were sent straight from London. Father’s eyes never left his wife’s elegant figure and their gazes would lock as the sound of the last notes she’d played died away.
The hours Mycroft didn’t spend in the company of his tutor, Mr Talbot, he was busy practising the violin with his music master, fencing with his fencing master, dancing with his dancing master and riding his pony with the youngest stable lad. The happiest evening of his life arrived the night his mother imparted to her gathered friends Mycroft would accompany her. They’d been rehearsing together in secret, a recital of Beethoven’s Frühling sonata and though he made four mistakes it was evident nobody noticed save for his teacher and Mummy who played on nevertheless. At the end she bent over with some difficulty – her waist, which had always been so narrow Father could span it easily with his hands, had thickened lately – and the silk of her ebony tresses brushed his face as she kissed him on the top of his head.
***
If nowadays Mycroft wanted to remember what his mother had looked like he only had to glance at his brother around whose head eddied the same soft dark curls and whose skin was the same pale ivory – even at the height of summer. True, her face had been a perfect oval, but Sherlock’s eyes were hers as well as the shape of his mouth.
***
A few weeks later, on the morning of Twelfth Night, Mummy kept to her room. Soon after the guests were leaving, pressing Father’s hands and wishing him much joy in the tides to come, promising to return soon with their chases lumbering under the weight of presents. Father thanked each of them, insisting they visit again at their earliest convenience. He waited until the last carriage rolled down the drive before turning to address Mycroft, “Come, my boy. In a few hours you’ll be greeting your new baby brother.”
They waited in the library; Mycroft with his new atlas that had multi-tinted maps of every country in the world and Father with his newspapers, humming softly under his breath. Save for the occasional rustle of paper and the heavy ticking and loud chiming of the clock on the mantelpiece the house around them was as quiet as the snow-covered fields outside.
The screaming started late in the afternoon, a horrible noise of an agony too great to be borne. Footsteps clattered through the corridor and there were hurried commands, anguished whisperings.
Father was at the door in three strides. “What?” he bellowed at Wiggins, who had just raised his fist for a deferential knock on the ancient oak.
“It’s… it’s her Ladyship… My Lord…,” the butler stammered, straining his voice over the ceaseless wailing. Father shoved the man aside and loped down the corridor to the central stairs, which he took two steps at a time. Mycroft evaded Wiggins’ grasp and followed short on Father’s heels. They had just reached the top of the stairs when the howling stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
Father froze in his steps, as did Mycroft, the sudden silence booming in their ears. His hand sought the shelter of Father’s but the long fingers where clenched into fists and when Mycroft looked he saw a trickle of red running between the knuckles. That, he realised with shock, was blood. Father’s blood, drawn from flesh pierced by his own nails. It fell on the waxed floorboards in fat wine-coloured dribs.
Then, as unexpected as the silence had been, the air was ripped by a single piercing cry. Fast as an arrow Father shot down the corridor to Mummy’s room.
“My Lord, no.” The housekeeper tried to block Father’s passage but she was swept aside as if she were nothing but a scarecrow fashioned of last year’s straw.
Never before had Mycroft seen so much blood, the bedding was soaked with it. Mummy’s skin shone whiter than ever against the sodden crimson sheets and the deep black curls that rippled over the pillows and her bosom were like the shadow of death. Near the bedstead a strange woman was standing with a dripping red thing in her hands.
“It’s a boy,” she said. The thing opened its mouth and the same high-pitched squeal rang through the room. Legs shaking visibly in his tapered pantaloons Father stumbled towards the bed and collapsed beside it, clasping Mummy’s alabaster hand in his and kissing it over and over. His shoulders heaved.
“Darling,” he sobbed. “My love, my life, oh my precious violet.”
That was when Mycroft understood his mother had died.
***
The love they made that night was quiet and lingering, both of them aware they wouldn’t have the opportunity to savour the other for several months, perhaps as much as half a year. Mycroft felt Billy’s craving gaze through the keyhole, even as he thrust into his brother’s body and murmured endearments against his panting lips, but for once he ignored the servant, not bothering to show off Sherlock’s slender frame, the proud erection that sprang forth from its thatch of dark curls. Instead Mycroft screened the view with his back and when Sherlock tipped over the edge – arching on the sheets, his warm sperm spilling over the cup of their twined fingers – the knowledge his eyes solely were feasting on the riveting sight heightened the intensity of his release.
***
At the funeral Father shocked the congregation by leaping into the grave shortly after four men had taken pains to lower the coffin into the earth with the greatest possible care.
The women shrieked in horror while the men hollered at Father to bear his adversity like a man and berated him for the bad example he set his sons. Father clawed at the coffin lid, begging to be buried together with his beloved violet, his hair wild and tears streaking his face.
“The poor man has lost his reason,” Mr Talbot muttered. Yet it was he who coaxed Father out of the grave, together with Wiggins and the aid of a pair of sturdy lumberjacks. The small troupe slunk to a coach that had been summoned hastily and Father was whisked out of sight.
Two months later the situation hadn’t improved. The door to Father’s room remained stubbornly locked. The only ones allowed inside were Wiggins and Mr Talbot, who shook their heads and pursed their lips whenever Mycroft asked them how Father was doing.
“He’s got it bad, Master Mycroft,” Wiggins let slip one day to be reprimanded with a disapproving stare from Mr Talbot.
“Your padre moltissimo…ah… loved your madre,” the violin master, who hailed from Italy, sighed dramatically as they sat practising together and Mycroft wanted to hit the man over the head with his violin for he’d loved his mother just as much and he drenched his pillows with fresh torrents of tears every night.
The worst Mycroft had to endure was the mewling that rose from the cot near the fire in the schoolroom; each squeak from the thing that had murdered Mummy a fresh stab straight into Mycroft’s heart. The woman who had assisted at the birth had fled the premises once chaos erupted, together with the housekeeper, Mummy’s maid and – as they discovered soon after – the jewellery that hadn’t been locked in the strongbox. The cook and maids and the footmen were too busy to care for the baby so it was planted out of everybody’s way in the schoolroom. Billy, Wiggins’ eleven-year-old son, was allotted the task of looking after the little boy.
Billy had been born deaf. The other servants considered him stupid because he was dumb but Mr Talbot declared the lad clever enough. Father and child communicated with their eyes and a kind of sign language Mr Talbot had mastered as well. Being in such close proximity to the mute for so many hours every day Mycroft quickly copied the motions, effectively ordering Billy about and warning him to keep the hateful thing out of his sight.
The mute smothered his ward with attention, feeding him from a bottle of his own devising and never wrinkling his nose as he changed the soiled windings that stank to high heaven. So far the child hadn’t been named. Mr Talbot and Wiggins referred to it as ‘your baby brother’; the other servants never mentioned the thing that had disrupted their lives so abysmally.
“Your father won’t hear of your baby brother, let alone the need to christen him,” Mr Talbot sighed after another extended session in Father’s room.
“He’s right,” Mycroft asserted in hot tones. “It’s spawn of the devil and the final proof God doesn’t exist for He would have let Mamma live and killed that nasty thing instead.”
“Mycroft!” His tutor shook his head and laid a comforting arm around Mycroft’s shoulders. “My dear boy, don’t let grief cloud your mind as well. One of you must remain strong and alert. If you’d care to observe the babe you’d see he’s your dear mother’s child. Your baby brother is innocent of the crime you accuse him off. Every expecting mother knows her unborn child may be the death of her and yet she loves it as passionately as if she were already cradling it at her bosom.”
Gently but insistently Mr Talbot guided Mycroft towards the crib where the baby lay gurgling with Billy on his knees beside it, glowering mistrustfully from beneath eyebrows unusually thick for a boy his age.
“We’ll discuss your statement’s theological implications later,” Mr Talbot said. “But for now, please look at your brother, Master Mycroft. He needs you.”
***
“Well, what say you, brother dear?”
Sherlock pranced before the tailor’s man-high looking glass, regarding his reflection with a self-satisfied smirk. His pale hand smoothed over the waistcoat’s crimson satin.
This year’s fashion promoted an even slimmer cut of jackets, waistcoats and pantaloons. London’s dandies’ latest fancy was a boon to their finances for it meant they could get away with the order of just one new morning suit for Sherlock while the rest of his and Mycroft’s wardrobe was reworked to suit the new look. The style allowed Sherlock to flaunt his assets; a circumstance which appeared to delight him far too much to Mycroft’s liking. He found no amusement in the idea of strange eyes sweeping over his brother’s form, assessing him, imagining what was hidden beneath the clothes, picturing him without the jacket and waistcoat and the marble of his chest shimmering between the parted lapels of his half-open shirt… .
The pain of his own nails driving into his flesh shook Mycroft out of his nightmare. He pressed his handkerchief against the small wounds to staunch the bleeding.
“It will do,” he murmured between thin lips.
***
Spring arrived and still Father didn’t stir from his room.
“Perhaps we should find out about your family,” Mr Talbot said. “I’ve discussed it with Mr Wiggins. He doesn’t know of any living members but the name of Holmes is an ancient one Surely you must have some.”
“Do you have family, Mr Talbot?” asked Mycroft, gently sliding his finger out of his litte brother’s grasp and using it to stroke at the whispy dark locks that crowned the baby’s head .
Mr Talbot’s elongated honest face with the small auburn moustache looked dejected even though he was smiling at Mycroft. “There’s always the exception to the rule. I had a mother and a sister I loved very much. The sweating sickness took them when I was seventeen years old. I never knew my father. The ship that was bringing him back from India sunk off the African coast.”
“Oh, Mr Talbot.”
“There’s no need for commiseration, Master Mycroft, though it’s very kind of you. It all happened a long time ago. Now we should go to the library and see if there’s anything to connect you and this little fellow here with people willing to care for you. Shall we bring him along? It’s his future as well after all.”
As they walked down the passages between walls hung with portraits of forebears that hailed back to the Middle-Ages, Mycroft’s spirits perked up a little. Perhaps there’d be an obscure uncle living overseas, serving the Queen’s interests in some exotic whereabouts like India or Singapore, who didn’t know of his cousins’ existence and would come hurrying over to remind Father of his obligations to his rank, his children and the people dependent upon him.
Billy carried the baby while Mycroft held the little stuffed ball and the silver rattle his brother entertained himself with when he wasn’t sleeping or eating or putting his foot in his mouth. If his foot was unavailable he’d put the rattle’s handle to the same purpose and chew at it with his toothless jaws. Mr Talbot had explained all babies did that because their mouth was their means of exploring their surroundings. Even Mycroft had once done so he maintained, an assertion Mycroft had dismissed on the grounds he had far too much dignity to engage in such a ludicrous act. He’d only accepted the possibility when the reedy and dry and six foot tall Mr Talbot ceded that – naturally – there must have been a time he had done so as well.
The library smelt musty and unused. They opened the shutters to reveal sheets covering the club chairs and display cases as well as the huge desks manning the window niches.
After helping Billy to make himself and the baby comfortable on the central rug in front of the mantelpiece Mycroft and Mr Talbot bent to their task.
“Now, what is our subject, Master Mycroft?”
“Genealogy, Mr Talbot.”
“Excellent.”
There was a whole bookcase dedicated to the study of family lineage and history. They made a neat little stack of The Complete Peerage, Burke’sPeerage, Debrett’s Peerage and Collin’s Peerage of England, those being the volumes most likely to provide them with the desired information.
To his astonishment Mycroft found his hand was trembling as he turned the leaves. He learned that Father’s name was Mycroft, and Mummy’s name had been Violet. So Father had been calling her name when he jumped into the grave, Mycroft mused. Father’s father had been named Mycroft as well but the name of Mummy’s father had been Sherlock apparently, as his father’s had been. As far as Mycroft could determine both Mummy and Father had been their parents’ only surviving children and the same held true for his grandparents and their parents before them.
A coppery tang furred Mycroft’s tongue. He’d bitten his lip so hard he’d drawn blood. The look on Mr Talbot’s face perfectly mirrored his distress.
“At least we now know of a name for my brother,” Mycroft forwarded.
“Yes,” Mr Talbot concurred. “That seems best. Your father will most likely approve so we might as well call the boy Sherlock until he’s properly christened.”
By the time they were celebrating Sherlock’s first birthday Mycroft was certain his brother would never be baptised. Father excepted, the whole household still undertook the six-mile-journey to the village every Sunday to attend church. With each week that passed the minister threw more disconcerted looks at Sherlock who sat squirming in the family pew throughout the service, understandably incapable of appreciating the word of God. He yet had to speak the first of his own. Otherwise he was perfectly healthy; already running quite fast on his short legs.
That summer Mr Talbot showed Mycroft Father’s address book.
“Mr Wiggins and I have spoken about this for a long time, Master Mycroft. It looks like the situation won’t improve so we’ve agreed I will write your parents’ friends to inform them of the state of affairs and ask for them to intervene.”
“And you think they will react? It’s been more than a year and we haven’t heard from any of them.”
“No doubt they are all busy and ignorant of the actual circumstances. At least one of them will come over once they’re aware of the lie of the land.”
“Perhaps,” Mycroft ventured cautiously.
For a week the variation of Mr Talbot’s quill scratching on paper enlivened the schoolroom’s daily tune, together with the screeches of chalk on slate from Sherlock who sat imitating the tutor with his tongue peeking out between his lips in concentration.
After that they waited. They waited for what felt to Mycroft like ages. Every now and then Edward, the third footman, came bearing a single sheet of paper with a great seal on a silver platter. Each time Mr Talbot would reach for the letter and start reading eagerly only for his face to fall shortly after.
“Viri infortunati procul amici,” he’d mutter, but he needn’t have bothered with the undertone for his countenance told Mycroft everything he needed to know.
***
“I’m bored.”
Mycroft sighed. They’d boarded the vessel less than twenty hours ago. If Sherlock was already tired of the ship and its diversions this shortly after embarking Mycroft could look forward to a sapping voyage.
“You can’t have deduced the occupations and extramarital affairs of all our fellow-passengers already?”
Sherlock sniffed and took up an inspection of his nails. “Dull. Not interested.”
“No? It amused you well enough last time.” Too much, in fact. The stunned silence that had descended on the Captain’s table after Sherlock’s loud revelation – complete with listed evidence –of the affair the lady seated in the place of honour at the Captain’s right was conducting with both her husband’s valet and her maid had vigorously rebuffed every weapon Mycroft subsequently prised from his arsenal of distracting conversation topics. Thankfully that had been their last evening aboard the ship.
“Oh lord, that again.” Sherlock threw his elegant frame over the sofa and lay simmering there, regarding Mycroft with a mixture of fury and exasperation and a demand for entertainment.
“Have you studied the American newspapers yet?” Mycroft suggested patiently. “Or you could start practicing those Paganini Caprices?” He sorted through the sheets of music on the music stand they’d put up in the corner next to the cabin’s small sideboard. Space was always so infuriatingly lacking aboard these vessels. Their home might be desolate and as warm and welcoming as an igloo ruin but at least it boasted plenty of room. Pulling forth the sought sheet he pivoted to summon his brother.
Sherlock had loosened his cravat and undone his collar and the buttons of his waistcoat. His fingers were smoothing the silky triangle of skin between clavicle and sternocleidomastoid. Slyly, calculatingly. Two crimson spots highlighted his cheekbones and added further lustre to his dilated pupils.
“No.” Mycroft willed his voice to sternness, inwardly relieved at succeeding admirably well.
Sherlock pouted, trailed his other hand over the inside of his thigh, eyes skimming over Mycroft for effect from beneath half-lowered lids. When Mycroft retained his stance he scowled and straightened to spit, “You’re as maddeningly dull as the rest. I’m bored, you’re bored, we’ve nothing better to do.”
“My sincere congratulations. With your eloquent speech you’ve outdone the Bard himself in phrasing the tender sentiment. Unfortunately I must decline. Remember where we are.”
“I know exactly where we are,” shouted Sherlock. “On a ship filled with dunces and nothing but water for miles around. No one we recognise, no one who cares!”
“They will care once they discover something to judge and condemn,” Mycroft hissed. “As you know very well. We can’t have them prying. It would mean the end of everything you’ve worked for, of us. Re-order your clothing. Now!”
Eyes spewing fire Sherlock capitulated nevertheless and began re-buttoning his collar.
“I hate you,” he spluttered for he was too stubborn to concede defeat with grace. “You and your fears. Nobody will notice for no one ever notices anything that doesn’t concern themselves. They’re stupid and irrational.”
Every word was a slash at Mycroft’s soul with a newly whetted sword, further deepening the gash of guilt already festering in his soul. If he were a braver man – a better man – he’d stride the twelve feet separating them to comfort his sibling with caresses and endearments. He could muss those delectable curls at the very least, trail his fingers through their silky softness and scratch the scalp to send Sherlock purring and scrunch shut his eyes in delight. Instead, Mycroft turned to the music stand to spare himself the pageant of his brother’s misery and the unpleasant reminder of his impotence.
“A concise if rather crude characterisation of humanity at large,” he offered. Sherlock’s answer to that observation was the faint susurration of silk fashioned into a knot a la Byron. It would have to do.
***
The summer solstices invariably brought sadness with them for the longest day of the year had been Mummy’s birthday. Six years ago on the very same day the house had been filled to overflowing with guests. They’d spilled out onto the garden’s many terraces to walk in pairs and admire the borders or lounge in chairs placed at advantageous spots, converse and play croquet or tennis on the lawns. Now the only people moving about the gardens were the gardeners and the little troupe of four for their daily turn after Mycroft and Sherlock had finished their lessons.
The window shutters of Father’s room remained closed, even on the hottest days.
One day they were playing a game, which consisted of Billy and Mycroft throwing a ball at each other over Sherlock’s head and Sherlock dashing from one to the other in attempts to secure it when Mycroft dared at last pose the question that had been brooding in his mind for ages.
“Father will never leave his room again, will he?” he asked Mr Talbot, his gaze lodged on the shuttered windows and launching the ball at Billy. Sherlock squeaked with excitement and waved his little arms.
Slowly, Mr Talbot shook his head. “No, I regret to say I don’t think he ever will.”
“He’s not interested in us, in managing the house. You and Wiggins do all the work.”
“And we do it gladly. Your father’s mind is very much occupied with other concerns, Master Mycroft. He’s still mourning your mother’s demise.”
Mycroft chewed upon that answer, catching the ball and holding it out to Sherlock in turn. Then he ventured the only logical conclusion. “You mean Father wants to die.”
Mr Talbot nodded. “Yes, that’s his most fervent wish. But he fears that in killing himself he’ll forgo his chances of seeing your mother in the Hereafter.”
“But that’s preposterous. Heaven and hell don’t exist.”
“Probably not,” confirmed Mr Talbot smilingly. “Though I strongly advise you to be less outspoken amongst others and never to share your opinion with the poor minister. But a tiny voice in your father’s head forcibly reminds him of the possibility there may be a life after death. The idea of incurring God’s wrath and being separated from your mother forever stays his hand.”
“Poor Father,” Mycroft said. He meant it. However Mr Talbot shook his head again. “Those were my sentiments for the first year, Master Mycroft. But I’ll be candid and confess my sympathy has been transferred elsewhere by now. Your mother was cut out of sterner stuff. Rather than bewailing her loss your father ought to be following the example she set him.”
Shortly after that conversation Mycroft devoted many hours to the study of law and equity. Mr Talbot kept silent and gestured for Billy to accompany Sherlock to the stables for his riding lesson.
“What have you learned?” he asked one day, after Mycroft had closed the last heavy volume with an ostentatious show of irritation.
“You already know, don’t you?” accused Mycroft. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Think, Master Mycroft.” The tutor consulted his little silver hunter watch that dangled from an old-fashioned short fob. “It’s time for your fencing lesson,” he said.
The frustration of his impotence kept Mycroft silently fuming for several months. The leaves were already turning colour again when the door to Father’s room suddenly opened just as Mycroft was crossing the corridor and a figure appeared on the threshold. With some difficulty Mycroft recognised the gaunt grey spectre looming in the doorway as his father. The man had lost three stone at least. Flaming eyes stared at Mycroft out of sockets as dark as the earth of Mummy’s grave.
“You,” the figure said roughly, his voice gravelly and unused. “Wiggins doesn’t answer the bell. Find him for me. And make sure this get posted.”
A sealed letter was thrust into Mycroft’s hand and the door shut into his face. Mycroft dashed to the butler’s pantry where he found Wiggins and Edward and the second footman, Michael, polishing the silver.
“The mice must have had a go at the bell cord again,” Wiggins complained after putting the right postage onto the envelope and sending Edward off to the head groom with it. “Apologies, Master Mycroft. The vermin is particularly persistent this autumn.”
An hour later the butler came staggering into the schoolroom, his already pale cheeks the hue of the chalk they used on the slates. “May I have a word?” he addressed Mr Talbot.
Their conversation’s substance soon became apparent. One after the other the staff were called to Father’s study to be dismissed and handed a letter of recommendation and the equivalent of ten years wages by Wiggins. They trooped past the schoolroom clutching the folded sheet of paper and small linen purse, the youngers’ voices loud in indignation, those of the elderly hushed in worry and dismay.
“What’s Father up to?” Mycroft enquired after he heard the voices of his violin master and fencing master arguing behind the firmly shut door. He wasn’t sorry to see the last of their backs, nor that of the dancing master’s. With a pang of guilt he reminded himself Sherlock might not share his feelings. His playing was already far more advanced than Mycroft’s and unlike Mycroft he loved all kinds of physical exercise. He cast his brother a quick glance. The boy sat hunched over his Aeneid translation, refusing to acknowledge Mycroft’s stare so Mycroft switched it to his tutor who still hadn’t answered his question.
“Hastening the journey,” the man now replied. “Your father’s patience is wearing thin. Don’t worry, Master Mycroft. Mr Wiggins and I will bide with you.”
“But who’s to wait upon us?” Mycroft was astonished at Mr Talbot’s easy acceptance of their plight. He remembered the months with the letters. Perhaps Mr Talbot had already foreseen this exact scenario. Knowing his tutor it was unlikely he would admit as much.
“No one,” the man was smiling angelically, as if they were embarking upon a grand adventure. “We’ll lock up the greater part of the house and look after the animals and the kitchen garden ourselves. There’s a whole library with shelves dedicated to farming. It can’t be too difficult.”
Never before in his life had Mycroft been so glad to see his bed in the evenings even though the sheets’ smell was decidedly less fresh after Billy’s promotion to head of the laundry as well as its sole employee.
One day they were harvesting string beans, and utilising the monotonous task to go through book twenty-two of the Iliad. Mr Talbot recited the dactylic hexameters and Sherlock translated them first into Latin and English, then Mycroft took over to set them into French, German, and Italian respectively before refashioning them back into Classical Attic, when they discerned the rattle of a great many carriages on the drive. Billy, who’d been spreading out sheets and shirts and underwear on the lawn, came running up at them, gesticulating excitedly and pointing back at the drive.
They rounded the left wing corner just in time to discern Father hovering on the terrace and see a long string of vehicles draw to a halt. Father spread his arms like he used to. For a few seconds Mycroft wanted to weep with joy for his parent had clearly come to his senses after all these years and sent for his friends to help him put his life back in shape. Then the first carriage’s door was thrown open wide and Mycroft’s hopes were dashed to the ground as he caught sight of the man’s attire. Mr Talbot’s shocked wheeze confirmed his assessment.
“LeFeuvre,” Father boomed in false bonhomie.
“Holmes, how delightful to meet again,” the lout’s cry rang equally artificial. “As you can see I’ve followed your injunctions to the letter. You demanded gay company and I’ve scoured the upper echelons of London’s premises for their crown jewels. They know every trick in the book and a few others besides.”
Though his cravat, the cut of his greatcoat and the shape of his hat proclaimed him the worst of riffraff the man’s accent was cultured; unlike that of the rabble that now spilled out of the rest of the carriages. Men and women were dolled up in garish clothes in gaudy colours, the women’s necklines so low their breasts were almost fully exposed, their cheeks rouged into a semblance of good humour that never reached their eyes. They engulfed the terrace and its immediate environs, squealing and commenting on the long journey, criticising the austerity of the house’s façade.
“This won’t do,” Mr Talbot murmured. His thin lips formed a red slash of disapproval beneath the auburn moustache. After hastily scribbling Wiggins a message in the small notebook he habitually carried he signed at Billy to fetch his father. Mr Talbot’s hands flew to give Billy further instructions while he talked to Mycroft. “Master Mycroft and Master Sherlock, you go up to the schoolroom, lock the door and open it only to Billy and me. Three short knocks, two long and a short one again.”
“But—,” protested Mycroft.
“Now!” The tutor’s tone brooked no argument.
The house outside the schoolroom was eerily quiet as if holding its breath in anticipation of a tempest. Mycroft brushed off Sherlock’s questions until the boy let off and installed himself in a corner to glare at Mycroft.
Suddenly the whole house seemed to shake with an uproar of terrifying laughter followed by explosions and a single high cackle. At this Sherlock started to cry. He held out his arms to Mycroft who lifted him off the floor and cradled his head against his shoulder. Mycroft’s knees were knocked against each other by the trembling of his legs as he stood watching the door.
At long last the agreed upon signal was pounded upon the door and Mycroft dashed forward to open it for Billy who was carrying a tray with bread and cheese and a jug of milk. All he did when Mycroft accosted him was slant his gaze away from Mycroft’s and start eating. The sight and smell of the food nauseated Mycroft. When Billy urged Sherlock to drink some milk at least the boy shook his head. His eyes were huge and liquid in the fast fading evening light.
Night had descended and Billy and Sherlock were asleep in a corner by the time Mr Talbot’s knock sounded on the door. To Mycroft’s consternation his tutor’s usually meticulous attire was in disarray and a gash ran over his cheek. The blood had dripped onto the linen of his cravat – which had until then retained a semblance of cleanliness in spite of Billy’s efforts – and stood out in bright ruby splotches against the stern black of his greatcoat. This garment’s right sleeve was hanging from the shoulder by a few threads only. The small watch no longer dangled from its fob.
“What I feared has come to pass,” he answered Mycroft’s query while warding off attempts at succour and refusing the offer of bread and milk. “Your Father has taken leave of his senses. That man you saw is the Marquess LeFeuvre. His name is a household word for everything vile and wicked. He was rusticated from Cambridge for… for reasons you’re too young to understand.”
A cold hand closed itself around Mycroft’s heart at those words. He had recently turned fourteen. For a while he had seriously contemplated applying to the Queen to strip Father of his responsibilities and install them in Mycroft, reasoning he was better equipped to manage a household than the living ghost that was its nominal head. What could be so nefarious Mr Talbot refused to tell him about it?
“But how does Father know this man?” he exclaimed.
“From Cambridge, I suspect. Every young man of means is granted a brief spell of tomfoolery to better appreciate the comforts of marriage after. Most men adhere to the pattern. Once your Father met your mother the Marquess Leighton LeFeuvre’s attractions must have paled into the insignificance they warrant.”
In trying to slip off the coat the sleeve came lose. It slithered to the floor from whence Mr Talbot picked it up with an air of distaste. He shook the dust loose from the sleeve and flattened the cloth on the lectern.
“Your father has found the perfect solution to his theological conundrum. If you want to meet your maker proclaiming innocence of the crime of self-murder the Marquess LeFeuvre is the man to hire and do the job for you.”
The hand squeezed and Mycroft felt the rush of blood to his head.
“You mean Father has hired that man to murder him,” he cried out.
Mr Talbot nodded, his expression grim. “I’m afraid so. It will be less quick than a stab with the knife though. Drink and dissolution will do in your father. Forgive me, Master Mycroft, but for your sake and that of your brother I hope his wish will soon be granted for that means not all the spoils will be gone once he breathes his last.”
Bile filled Mycroft’s mouth. The idea of Mr Talbot uttering such a sentiment was inconceivable. His next thought was for Sherlock, slumbering trustingly in the corner.
“Sherlock?” he said.
“Don’t worry.” Mr Talbot laid his hand on Mycroft’s shoulder. “Master Sherlock and you and Billy will come to no harm. Mr Wiggins and I have his word. Strangely, the man preserves an odd sense of honour.”
“But how?” Mycroft asked but all he got for an answer was a shake of the head.
“Don’t ask me, Master Mycroft. Just trust me, please.”
Author:
dioscureantwinsCharacters/Pairings: Sherlock/Mycroft, Sherlock/Victor Trevor, Billy Wiggins, OC’s
Rating:Explicit
Warnings: emotional and physical violence, homicide, lots of blood, incest
Beta: the amazing
cherrytide was so kind as to help me. She’s a wonderful writer and an incredibly kind and resourceful beta. Thanks to her this has become a much better story than it would have been otherwise.Summary: As if aware the deal was about to be struck Sherlock lifted his gaze from the violin to lock it with Mycroft’s over the honey-coloured waves of hair artfully coiled around Victor Trevor’s head. Sherlock winked. That moment the boy hit a wrong key. The discordant note had several of the younger ladies cry out in alarm. Exasperation and distaste flitted over Sherlock’s face before he tilted his torso solicitously towards the distraught musician, encouraging him to continue.
The sun’s rays slanting through the window were still surprisingly warm for October. Mycroft levered himself up to bank the fire, the benefit of which was feeble at the best of times, with most of the warmth sucked straight into the chimney. Then he stood in front of the window and gazed through the small, opaque sheets of glass at his brother who was directing Billy in laying out new plots in the kitchen garden.
A gust of wind rattled the big chestnut’s branches which were mostly empty already with only a few leaves clinging to them in stubborn defiance of their fate. Mycroft sighed and returned to his accounting books. Their message was unambiguous; no matter how many hours and days he’d wasted refusing to accept the inevitable. They’d have to leave soon, before the winter storms that would have turned the journey into an even more dismal experience. At dinner he would break the news to Sherlock. The hateful news.
Mycroft balled his fists to quell the familiar anger and anxiety he felt swelling in his chest. Just two more, he reminded himself, maybe three, depending on how good a catch the next one would be. Just two and they’d be provided for. They’d live here, unencumbered by worries of money, status, prying neighbours.
Just two more for the two of them.
That evening Mycroft told Sherlock. His little brother lifted his gaze from the scrawny quail he’d been dissecting on his plate and sighed.
“Are you sure?”
Mycroft nodded. “There’s barely enough left for the tailor, the passage and an adequate hotel.”
A wry look twisted his brother’s beautiful features. “Oh well, the money wouldn’t last forever, obviously. Except, not such another dreadful bore, Mycroft. I still don’t know what was worse to endure, his conversation or those sweaty hands—ugh.” His shudder of horror was part theatrics, part genuine. The latter half tore at Mycroft’s heart and turned chewing his bite of undercooked quail into an even more unappetising venture.
Palm upwards, he slid his hand over the table, willing Sherlock to grasp his fingers. The boy clasped the stem of his glass instead, raised the heavy crystal to his lips, stared defiantly at his elder sibling over the rim as he sipped the wine that was the colour and viscosity of blood.
“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice was both a warning and a caress. He fought not to show he was holding his breath, waiting.
Smiling, Sherlock put down the glass and laid his hand on top of Mycroft’s. “Stop your fretting. I don’t mind. It means nothing to me.”
“I hate it,” Mycroft hissed.
Sherlock shrugged. “As do I. But it must be done.” With a deft motion he reversed their arms and brought Mycroft’s hand to his mouth to nuzzle the back with moist lips.
“Yes,” agreed Mycroft, heart veering wildly between relief and aching jealousy. “It must be done.”
***
Once the house was filled with light and gaiety and cheerful voices chiming in the hallways. Not a day went by without a barouche or coach depositing a fresh party of guests at the foot of the great stairs that wound down from the front terrace like halves of a cut through nautilus shell. They were welcomed by the picture of marital felicity that were Mycroft’s parents; man and wife offering the comforts of their home to whoever dared brave the rough roads through the inhospitable terrain that made up this part of the Queen’s domains. The valley where the house was situated was sunny enough, with a gentle brook murmuring amidst willowed banks and woods that provided plenty of sport for the gentlemen in autumn.
Mycroft often stood between his parents as they greeted their friends, rigged up in a thistle-hued velvet jacket and midnight blue pantaloons, their hands resting lightly on his shoulders. Mamma (Mummy, however he was only allowed to address her thus if no one else was present) on the left and Father on his right.
Every evening his mother sat down at the piano to divert the assembly with music, songs of Schubert and the works of Chopin, played from sheets that were sent straight from London. Father’s eyes never left his wife’s elegant figure and their gazes would lock as the sound of the last notes she’d played died away.
The hours Mycroft didn’t spend in the company of his tutor, Mr Talbot, he was busy practising the violin with his music master, fencing with his fencing master, dancing with his dancing master and riding his pony with the youngest stable lad. The happiest evening of his life arrived the night his mother imparted to her gathered friends Mycroft would accompany her. They’d been rehearsing together in secret, a recital of Beethoven’s Frühling sonata and though he made four mistakes it was evident nobody noticed save for his teacher and Mummy who played on nevertheless. At the end she bent over with some difficulty – her waist, which had always been so narrow Father could span it easily with his hands, had thickened lately – and the silk of her ebony tresses brushed his face as she kissed him on the top of his head.
***
If nowadays Mycroft wanted to remember what his mother had looked like he only had to glance at his brother around whose head eddied the same soft dark curls and whose skin was the same pale ivory – even at the height of summer. True, her face had been a perfect oval, but Sherlock’s eyes were hers as well as the shape of his mouth.
***
A few weeks later, on the morning of Twelfth Night, Mummy kept to her room. Soon after the guests were leaving, pressing Father’s hands and wishing him much joy in the tides to come, promising to return soon with their chases lumbering under the weight of presents. Father thanked each of them, insisting they visit again at their earliest convenience. He waited until the last carriage rolled down the drive before turning to address Mycroft, “Come, my boy. In a few hours you’ll be greeting your new baby brother.”
They waited in the library; Mycroft with his new atlas that had multi-tinted maps of every country in the world and Father with his newspapers, humming softly under his breath. Save for the occasional rustle of paper and the heavy ticking and loud chiming of the clock on the mantelpiece the house around them was as quiet as the snow-covered fields outside.
The screaming started late in the afternoon, a horrible noise of an agony too great to be borne. Footsteps clattered through the corridor and there were hurried commands, anguished whisperings.
Father was at the door in three strides. “What?” he bellowed at Wiggins, who had just raised his fist for a deferential knock on the ancient oak.
“It’s… it’s her Ladyship… My Lord…,” the butler stammered, straining his voice over the ceaseless wailing. Father shoved the man aside and loped down the corridor to the central stairs, which he took two steps at a time. Mycroft evaded Wiggins’ grasp and followed short on Father’s heels. They had just reached the top of the stairs when the howling stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
Father froze in his steps, as did Mycroft, the sudden silence booming in their ears. His hand sought the shelter of Father’s but the long fingers where clenched into fists and when Mycroft looked he saw a trickle of red running between the knuckles. That, he realised with shock, was blood. Father’s blood, drawn from flesh pierced by his own nails. It fell on the waxed floorboards in fat wine-coloured dribs.
Then, as unexpected as the silence had been, the air was ripped by a single piercing cry. Fast as an arrow Father shot down the corridor to Mummy’s room.
“My Lord, no.” The housekeeper tried to block Father’s passage but she was swept aside as if she were nothing but a scarecrow fashioned of last year’s straw.
Never before had Mycroft seen so much blood, the bedding was soaked with it. Mummy’s skin shone whiter than ever against the sodden crimson sheets and the deep black curls that rippled over the pillows and her bosom were like the shadow of death. Near the bedstead a strange woman was standing with a dripping red thing in her hands.
“It’s a boy,” she said. The thing opened its mouth and the same high-pitched squeal rang through the room. Legs shaking visibly in his tapered pantaloons Father stumbled towards the bed and collapsed beside it, clasping Mummy’s alabaster hand in his and kissing it over and over. His shoulders heaved.
“Darling,” he sobbed. “My love, my life, oh my precious violet.”
That was when Mycroft understood his mother had died.
***
The love they made that night was quiet and lingering, both of them aware they wouldn’t have the opportunity to savour the other for several months, perhaps as much as half a year. Mycroft felt Billy’s craving gaze through the keyhole, even as he thrust into his brother’s body and murmured endearments against his panting lips, but for once he ignored the servant, not bothering to show off Sherlock’s slender frame, the proud erection that sprang forth from its thatch of dark curls. Instead Mycroft screened the view with his back and when Sherlock tipped over the edge – arching on the sheets, his warm sperm spilling over the cup of their twined fingers – the knowledge his eyes solely were feasting on the riveting sight heightened the intensity of his release.
***
At the funeral Father shocked the congregation by leaping into the grave shortly after four men had taken pains to lower the coffin into the earth with the greatest possible care.
The women shrieked in horror while the men hollered at Father to bear his adversity like a man and berated him for the bad example he set his sons. Father clawed at the coffin lid, begging to be buried together with his beloved violet, his hair wild and tears streaking his face.
“The poor man has lost his reason,” Mr Talbot muttered. Yet it was he who coaxed Father out of the grave, together with Wiggins and the aid of a pair of sturdy lumberjacks. The small troupe slunk to a coach that had been summoned hastily and Father was whisked out of sight.
Two months later the situation hadn’t improved. The door to Father’s room remained stubbornly locked. The only ones allowed inside were Wiggins and Mr Talbot, who shook their heads and pursed their lips whenever Mycroft asked them how Father was doing.
“He’s got it bad, Master Mycroft,” Wiggins let slip one day to be reprimanded with a disapproving stare from Mr Talbot.
“Your padre moltissimo…ah… loved your madre,” the violin master, who hailed from Italy, sighed dramatically as they sat practising together and Mycroft wanted to hit the man over the head with his violin for he’d loved his mother just as much and he drenched his pillows with fresh torrents of tears every night.
The worst Mycroft had to endure was the mewling that rose from the cot near the fire in the schoolroom; each squeak from the thing that had murdered Mummy a fresh stab straight into Mycroft’s heart. The woman who had assisted at the birth had fled the premises once chaos erupted, together with the housekeeper, Mummy’s maid and – as they discovered soon after – the jewellery that hadn’t been locked in the strongbox. The cook and maids and the footmen were too busy to care for the baby so it was planted out of everybody’s way in the schoolroom. Billy, Wiggins’ eleven-year-old son, was allotted the task of looking after the little boy.
Billy had been born deaf. The other servants considered him stupid because he was dumb but Mr Talbot declared the lad clever enough. Father and child communicated with their eyes and a kind of sign language Mr Talbot had mastered as well. Being in such close proximity to the mute for so many hours every day Mycroft quickly copied the motions, effectively ordering Billy about and warning him to keep the hateful thing out of his sight.
The mute smothered his ward with attention, feeding him from a bottle of his own devising and never wrinkling his nose as he changed the soiled windings that stank to high heaven. So far the child hadn’t been named. Mr Talbot and Wiggins referred to it as ‘your baby brother’; the other servants never mentioned the thing that had disrupted their lives so abysmally.
“Your father won’t hear of your baby brother, let alone the need to christen him,” Mr Talbot sighed after another extended session in Father’s room.
“He’s right,” Mycroft asserted in hot tones. “It’s spawn of the devil and the final proof God doesn’t exist for He would have let Mamma live and killed that nasty thing instead.”
“Mycroft!” His tutor shook his head and laid a comforting arm around Mycroft’s shoulders. “My dear boy, don’t let grief cloud your mind as well. One of you must remain strong and alert. If you’d care to observe the babe you’d see he’s your dear mother’s child. Your baby brother is innocent of the crime you accuse him off. Every expecting mother knows her unborn child may be the death of her and yet she loves it as passionately as if she were already cradling it at her bosom.”
Gently but insistently Mr Talbot guided Mycroft towards the crib where the baby lay gurgling with Billy on his knees beside it, glowering mistrustfully from beneath eyebrows unusually thick for a boy his age.
“We’ll discuss your statement’s theological implications later,” Mr Talbot said. “But for now, please look at your brother, Master Mycroft. He needs you.”
***
“Well, what say you, brother dear?”
Sherlock pranced before the tailor’s man-high looking glass, regarding his reflection with a self-satisfied smirk. His pale hand smoothed over the waistcoat’s crimson satin.
This year’s fashion promoted an even slimmer cut of jackets, waistcoats and pantaloons. London’s dandies’ latest fancy was a boon to their finances for it meant they could get away with the order of just one new morning suit for Sherlock while the rest of his and Mycroft’s wardrobe was reworked to suit the new look. The style allowed Sherlock to flaunt his assets; a circumstance which appeared to delight him far too much to Mycroft’s liking. He found no amusement in the idea of strange eyes sweeping over his brother’s form, assessing him, imagining what was hidden beneath the clothes, picturing him without the jacket and waistcoat and the marble of his chest shimmering between the parted lapels of his half-open shirt… .
The pain of his own nails driving into his flesh shook Mycroft out of his nightmare. He pressed his handkerchief against the small wounds to staunch the bleeding.
“It will do,” he murmured between thin lips.
***
Spring arrived and still Father didn’t stir from his room.
“Perhaps we should find out about your family,” Mr Talbot said. “I’ve discussed it with Mr Wiggins. He doesn’t know of any living members but the name of Holmes is an ancient one Surely you must have some.”
“Do you have family, Mr Talbot?” asked Mycroft, gently sliding his finger out of his litte brother’s grasp and using it to stroke at the whispy dark locks that crowned the baby’s head .
Mr Talbot’s elongated honest face with the small auburn moustache looked dejected even though he was smiling at Mycroft. “There’s always the exception to the rule. I had a mother and a sister I loved very much. The sweating sickness took them when I was seventeen years old. I never knew my father. The ship that was bringing him back from India sunk off the African coast.”
“Oh, Mr Talbot.”
“There’s no need for commiseration, Master Mycroft, though it’s very kind of you. It all happened a long time ago. Now we should go to the library and see if there’s anything to connect you and this little fellow here with people willing to care for you. Shall we bring him along? It’s his future as well after all.”
As they walked down the passages between walls hung with portraits of forebears that hailed back to the Middle-Ages, Mycroft’s spirits perked up a little. Perhaps there’d be an obscure uncle living overseas, serving the Queen’s interests in some exotic whereabouts like India or Singapore, who didn’t know of his cousins’ existence and would come hurrying over to remind Father of his obligations to his rank, his children and the people dependent upon him.
Billy carried the baby while Mycroft held the little stuffed ball and the silver rattle his brother entertained himself with when he wasn’t sleeping or eating or putting his foot in his mouth. If his foot was unavailable he’d put the rattle’s handle to the same purpose and chew at it with his toothless jaws. Mr Talbot had explained all babies did that because their mouth was their means of exploring their surroundings. Even Mycroft had once done so he maintained, an assertion Mycroft had dismissed on the grounds he had far too much dignity to engage in such a ludicrous act. He’d only accepted the possibility when the reedy and dry and six foot tall Mr Talbot ceded that – naturally – there must have been a time he had done so as well.
The library smelt musty and unused. They opened the shutters to reveal sheets covering the club chairs and display cases as well as the huge desks manning the window niches.
After helping Billy to make himself and the baby comfortable on the central rug in front of the mantelpiece Mycroft and Mr Talbot bent to their task.
“Now, what is our subject, Master Mycroft?”
“Genealogy, Mr Talbot.”
“Excellent.”
There was a whole bookcase dedicated to the study of family lineage and history. They made a neat little stack of The Complete Peerage, Burke’sPeerage, Debrett’s Peerage and Collin’s Peerage of England, those being the volumes most likely to provide them with the desired information.
To his astonishment Mycroft found his hand was trembling as he turned the leaves. He learned that Father’s name was Mycroft, and Mummy’s name had been Violet. So Father had been calling her name when he jumped into the grave, Mycroft mused. Father’s father had been named Mycroft as well but the name of Mummy’s father had been Sherlock apparently, as his father’s had been. As far as Mycroft could determine both Mummy and Father had been their parents’ only surviving children and the same held true for his grandparents and their parents before them.
A coppery tang furred Mycroft’s tongue. He’d bitten his lip so hard he’d drawn blood. The look on Mr Talbot’s face perfectly mirrored his distress.
“At least we now know of a name for my brother,” Mycroft forwarded.
“Yes,” Mr Talbot concurred. “That seems best. Your father will most likely approve so we might as well call the boy Sherlock until he’s properly christened.”
By the time they were celebrating Sherlock’s first birthday Mycroft was certain his brother would never be baptised. Father excepted, the whole household still undertook the six-mile-journey to the village every Sunday to attend church. With each week that passed the minister threw more disconcerted looks at Sherlock who sat squirming in the family pew throughout the service, understandably incapable of appreciating the word of God. He yet had to speak the first of his own. Otherwise he was perfectly healthy; already running quite fast on his short legs.
That summer Mr Talbot showed Mycroft Father’s address book.
“Mr Wiggins and I have spoken about this for a long time, Master Mycroft. It looks like the situation won’t improve so we’ve agreed I will write your parents’ friends to inform them of the state of affairs and ask for them to intervene.”
“And you think they will react? It’s been more than a year and we haven’t heard from any of them.”
“No doubt they are all busy and ignorant of the actual circumstances. At least one of them will come over once they’re aware of the lie of the land.”
“Perhaps,” Mycroft ventured cautiously.
For a week the variation of Mr Talbot’s quill scratching on paper enlivened the schoolroom’s daily tune, together with the screeches of chalk on slate from Sherlock who sat imitating the tutor with his tongue peeking out between his lips in concentration.
After that they waited. They waited for what felt to Mycroft like ages. Every now and then Edward, the third footman, came bearing a single sheet of paper with a great seal on a silver platter. Each time Mr Talbot would reach for the letter and start reading eagerly only for his face to fall shortly after.
“Viri infortunati procul amici,” he’d mutter, but he needn’t have bothered with the undertone for his countenance told Mycroft everything he needed to know.
***
“I’m bored.”
Mycroft sighed. They’d boarded the vessel less than twenty hours ago. If Sherlock was already tired of the ship and its diversions this shortly after embarking Mycroft could look forward to a sapping voyage.
“You can’t have deduced the occupations and extramarital affairs of all our fellow-passengers already?”
Sherlock sniffed and took up an inspection of his nails. “Dull. Not interested.”
“No? It amused you well enough last time.” Too much, in fact. The stunned silence that had descended on the Captain’s table after Sherlock’s loud revelation – complete with listed evidence –of the affair the lady seated in the place of honour at the Captain’s right was conducting with both her husband’s valet and her maid had vigorously rebuffed every weapon Mycroft subsequently prised from his arsenal of distracting conversation topics. Thankfully that had been their last evening aboard the ship.
“Oh lord, that again.” Sherlock threw his elegant frame over the sofa and lay simmering there, regarding Mycroft with a mixture of fury and exasperation and a demand for entertainment.
“Have you studied the American newspapers yet?” Mycroft suggested patiently. “Or you could start practicing those Paganini Caprices?” He sorted through the sheets of music on the music stand they’d put up in the corner next to the cabin’s small sideboard. Space was always so infuriatingly lacking aboard these vessels. Their home might be desolate and as warm and welcoming as an igloo ruin but at least it boasted plenty of room. Pulling forth the sought sheet he pivoted to summon his brother.
Sherlock had loosened his cravat and undone his collar and the buttons of his waistcoat. His fingers were smoothing the silky triangle of skin between clavicle and sternocleidomastoid. Slyly, calculatingly. Two crimson spots highlighted his cheekbones and added further lustre to his dilated pupils.
“No.” Mycroft willed his voice to sternness, inwardly relieved at succeeding admirably well.
Sherlock pouted, trailed his other hand over the inside of his thigh, eyes skimming over Mycroft for effect from beneath half-lowered lids. When Mycroft retained his stance he scowled and straightened to spit, “You’re as maddeningly dull as the rest. I’m bored, you’re bored, we’ve nothing better to do.”
“My sincere congratulations. With your eloquent speech you’ve outdone the Bard himself in phrasing the tender sentiment. Unfortunately I must decline. Remember where we are.”
“I know exactly where we are,” shouted Sherlock. “On a ship filled with dunces and nothing but water for miles around. No one we recognise, no one who cares!”
“They will care once they discover something to judge and condemn,” Mycroft hissed. “As you know very well. We can’t have them prying. It would mean the end of everything you’ve worked for, of us. Re-order your clothing. Now!”
Eyes spewing fire Sherlock capitulated nevertheless and began re-buttoning his collar.
“I hate you,” he spluttered for he was too stubborn to concede defeat with grace. “You and your fears. Nobody will notice for no one ever notices anything that doesn’t concern themselves. They’re stupid and irrational.”
Every word was a slash at Mycroft’s soul with a newly whetted sword, further deepening the gash of guilt already festering in his soul. If he were a braver man – a better man – he’d stride the twelve feet separating them to comfort his sibling with caresses and endearments. He could muss those delectable curls at the very least, trail his fingers through their silky softness and scratch the scalp to send Sherlock purring and scrunch shut his eyes in delight. Instead, Mycroft turned to the music stand to spare himself the pageant of his brother’s misery and the unpleasant reminder of his impotence.
“A concise if rather crude characterisation of humanity at large,” he offered. Sherlock’s answer to that observation was the faint susurration of silk fashioned into a knot a la Byron. It would have to do.
***
The summer solstices invariably brought sadness with them for the longest day of the year had been Mummy’s birthday. Six years ago on the very same day the house had been filled to overflowing with guests. They’d spilled out onto the garden’s many terraces to walk in pairs and admire the borders or lounge in chairs placed at advantageous spots, converse and play croquet or tennis on the lawns. Now the only people moving about the gardens were the gardeners and the little troupe of four for their daily turn after Mycroft and Sherlock had finished their lessons.
The window shutters of Father’s room remained closed, even on the hottest days.
One day they were playing a game, which consisted of Billy and Mycroft throwing a ball at each other over Sherlock’s head and Sherlock dashing from one to the other in attempts to secure it when Mycroft dared at last pose the question that had been brooding in his mind for ages.
“Father will never leave his room again, will he?” he asked Mr Talbot, his gaze lodged on the shuttered windows and launching the ball at Billy. Sherlock squeaked with excitement and waved his little arms.
Slowly, Mr Talbot shook his head. “No, I regret to say I don’t think he ever will.”
“He’s not interested in us, in managing the house. You and Wiggins do all the work.”
“And we do it gladly. Your father’s mind is very much occupied with other concerns, Master Mycroft. He’s still mourning your mother’s demise.”
Mycroft chewed upon that answer, catching the ball and holding it out to Sherlock in turn. Then he ventured the only logical conclusion. “You mean Father wants to die.”
Mr Talbot nodded. “Yes, that’s his most fervent wish. But he fears that in killing himself he’ll forgo his chances of seeing your mother in the Hereafter.”
“But that’s preposterous. Heaven and hell don’t exist.”
“Probably not,” confirmed Mr Talbot smilingly. “Though I strongly advise you to be less outspoken amongst others and never to share your opinion with the poor minister. But a tiny voice in your father’s head forcibly reminds him of the possibility there may be a life after death. The idea of incurring God’s wrath and being separated from your mother forever stays his hand.”
“Poor Father,” Mycroft said. He meant it. However Mr Talbot shook his head again. “Those were my sentiments for the first year, Master Mycroft. But I’ll be candid and confess my sympathy has been transferred elsewhere by now. Your mother was cut out of sterner stuff. Rather than bewailing her loss your father ought to be following the example she set him.”
Shortly after that conversation Mycroft devoted many hours to the study of law and equity. Mr Talbot kept silent and gestured for Billy to accompany Sherlock to the stables for his riding lesson.
“What have you learned?” he asked one day, after Mycroft had closed the last heavy volume with an ostentatious show of irritation.
“You already know, don’t you?” accused Mycroft. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Think, Master Mycroft.” The tutor consulted his little silver hunter watch that dangled from an old-fashioned short fob. “It’s time for your fencing lesson,” he said.
The frustration of his impotence kept Mycroft silently fuming for several months. The leaves were already turning colour again when the door to Father’s room suddenly opened just as Mycroft was crossing the corridor and a figure appeared on the threshold. With some difficulty Mycroft recognised the gaunt grey spectre looming in the doorway as his father. The man had lost three stone at least. Flaming eyes stared at Mycroft out of sockets as dark as the earth of Mummy’s grave.
“You,” the figure said roughly, his voice gravelly and unused. “Wiggins doesn’t answer the bell. Find him for me. And make sure this get posted.”
A sealed letter was thrust into Mycroft’s hand and the door shut into his face. Mycroft dashed to the butler’s pantry where he found Wiggins and Edward and the second footman, Michael, polishing the silver.
“The mice must have had a go at the bell cord again,” Wiggins complained after putting the right postage onto the envelope and sending Edward off to the head groom with it. “Apologies, Master Mycroft. The vermin is particularly persistent this autumn.”
An hour later the butler came staggering into the schoolroom, his already pale cheeks the hue of the chalk they used on the slates. “May I have a word?” he addressed Mr Talbot.
Their conversation’s substance soon became apparent. One after the other the staff were called to Father’s study to be dismissed and handed a letter of recommendation and the equivalent of ten years wages by Wiggins. They trooped past the schoolroom clutching the folded sheet of paper and small linen purse, the youngers’ voices loud in indignation, those of the elderly hushed in worry and dismay.
“What’s Father up to?” Mycroft enquired after he heard the voices of his violin master and fencing master arguing behind the firmly shut door. He wasn’t sorry to see the last of their backs, nor that of the dancing master’s. With a pang of guilt he reminded himself Sherlock might not share his feelings. His playing was already far more advanced than Mycroft’s and unlike Mycroft he loved all kinds of physical exercise. He cast his brother a quick glance. The boy sat hunched over his Aeneid translation, refusing to acknowledge Mycroft’s stare so Mycroft switched it to his tutor who still hadn’t answered his question.
“Hastening the journey,” the man now replied. “Your father’s patience is wearing thin. Don’t worry, Master Mycroft. Mr Wiggins and I will bide with you.”
“But who’s to wait upon us?” Mycroft was astonished at Mr Talbot’s easy acceptance of their plight. He remembered the months with the letters. Perhaps Mr Talbot had already foreseen this exact scenario. Knowing his tutor it was unlikely he would admit as much.
“No one,” the man was smiling angelically, as if they were embarking upon a grand adventure. “We’ll lock up the greater part of the house and look after the animals and the kitchen garden ourselves. There’s a whole library with shelves dedicated to farming. It can’t be too difficult.”
Never before in his life had Mycroft been so glad to see his bed in the evenings even though the sheets’ smell was decidedly less fresh after Billy’s promotion to head of the laundry as well as its sole employee.
One day they were harvesting string beans, and utilising the monotonous task to go through book twenty-two of the Iliad. Mr Talbot recited the dactylic hexameters and Sherlock translated them first into Latin and English, then Mycroft took over to set them into French, German, and Italian respectively before refashioning them back into Classical Attic, when they discerned the rattle of a great many carriages on the drive. Billy, who’d been spreading out sheets and shirts and underwear on the lawn, came running up at them, gesticulating excitedly and pointing back at the drive.
They rounded the left wing corner just in time to discern Father hovering on the terrace and see a long string of vehicles draw to a halt. Father spread his arms like he used to. For a few seconds Mycroft wanted to weep with joy for his parent had clearly come to his senses after all these years and sent for his friends to help him put his life back in shape. Then the first carriage’s door was thrown open wide and Mycroft’s hopes were dashed to the ground as he caught sight of the man’s attire. Mr Talbot’s shocked wheeze confirmed his assessment.
“LeFeuvre,” Father boomed in false bonhomie.
“Holmes, how delightful to meet again,” the lout’s cry rang equally artificial. “As you can see I’ve followed your injunctions to the letter. You demanded gay company and I’ve scoured the upper echelons of London’s premises for their crown jewels. They know every trick in the book and a few others besides.”
Though his cravat, the cut of his greatcoat and the shape of his hat proclaimed him the worst of riffraff the man’s accent was cultured; unlike that of the rabble that now spilled out of the rest of the carriages. Men and women were dolled up in garish clothes in gaudy colours, the women’s necklines so low their breasts were almost fully exposed, their cheeks rouged into a semblance of good humour that never reached their eyes. They engulfed the terrace and its immediate environs, squealing and commenting on the long journey, criticising the austerity of the house’s façade.
“This won’t do,” Mr Talbot murmured. His thin lips formed a red slash of disapproval beneath the auburn moustache. After hastily scribbling Wiggins a message in the small notebook he habitually carried he signed at Billy to fetch his father. Mr Talbot’s hands flew to give Billy further instructions while he talked to Mycroft. “Master Mycroft and Master Sherlock, you go up to the schoolroom, lock the door and open it only to Billy and me. Three short knocks, two long and a short one again.”
“But—,” protested Mycroft.
“Now!” The tutor’s tone brooked no argument.
The house outside the schoolroom was eerily quiet as if holding its breath in anticipation of a tempest. Mycroft brushed off Sherlock’s questions until the boy let off and installed himself in a corner to glare at Mycroft.
Suddenly the whole house seemed to shake with an uproar of terrifying laughter followed by explosions and a single high cackle. At this Sherlock started to cry. He held out his arms to Mycroft who lifted him off the floor and cradled his head against his shoulder. Mycroft’s knees were knocked against each other by the trembling of his legs as he stood watching the door.
At long last the agreed upon signal was pounded upon the door and Mycroft dashed forward to open it for Billy who was carrying a tray with bread and cheese and a jug of milk. All he did when Mycroft accosted him was slant his gaze away from Mycroft’s and start eating. The sight and smell of the food nauseated Mycroft. When Billy urged Sherlock to drink some milk at least the boy shook his head. His eyes were huge and liquid in the fast fading evening light.
Night had descended and Billy and Sherlock were asleep in a corner by the time Mr Talbot’s knock sounded on the door. To Mycroft’s consternation his tutor’s usually meticulous attire was in disarray and a gash ran over his cheek. The blood had dripped onto the linen of his cravat – which had until then retained a semblance of cleanliness in spite of Billy’s efforts – and stood out in bright ruby splotches against the stern black of his greatcoat. This garment’s right sleeve was hanging from the shoulder by a few threads only. The small watch no longer dangled from its fob.
“What I feared has come to pass,” he answered Mycroft’s query while warding off attempts at succour and refusing the offer of bread and milk. “Your Father has taken leave of his senses. That man you saw is the Marquess LeFeuvre. His name is a household word for everything vile and wicked. He was rusticated from Cambridge for… for reasons you’re too young to understand.”
A cold hand closed itself around Mycroft’s heart at those words. He had recently turned fourteen. For a while he had seriously contemplated applying to the Queen to strip Father of his responsibilities and install them in Mycroft, reasoning he was better equipped to manage a household than the living ghost that was its nominal head. What could be so nefarious Mr Talbot refused to tell him about it?
“But how does Father know this man?” he exclaimed.
“From Cambridge, I suspect. Every young man of means is granted a brief spell of tomfoolery to better appreciate the comforts of marriage after. Most men adhere to the pattern. Once your Father met your mother the Marquess Leighton LeFeuvre’s attractions must have paled into the insignificance they warrant.”
In trying to slip off the coat the sleeve came lose. It slithered to the floor from whence Mr Talbot picked it up with an air of distaste. He shook the dust loose from the sleeve and flattened the cloth on the lectern.
“Your father has found the perfect solution to his theological conundrum. If you want to meet your maker proclaiming innocence of the crime of self-murder the Marquess LeFeuvre is the man to hire and do the job for you.”
The hand squeezed and Mycroft felt the rush of blood to his head.
“You mean Father has hired that man to murder him,” he cried out.
Mr Talbot nodded, his expression grim. “I’m afraid so. It will be less quick than a stab with the knife though. Drink and dissolution will do in your father. Forgive me, Master Mycroft, but for your sake and that of your brother I hope his wish will soon be granted for that means not all the spoils will be gone once he breathes his last.”
Bile filled Mycroft’s mouth. The idea of Mr Talbot uttering such a sentiment was inconceivable. His next thought was for Sherlock, slumbering trustingly in the corner.
“Sherlock?” he said.
“Don’t worry.” Mr Talbot laid his hand on Mycroft’s shoulder. “Master Sherlock and you and Billy will come to no harm. Mr Wiggins and I have his word. Strangely, the man preserves an odd sense of honour.”
“But how?” Mycroft asked but all he got for an answer was a shake of the head.
“Don’t ask me, Master Mycroft. Just trust me, please.”
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Date: 2015-12-17 05:11 am (UTC)It really bothered me that there was no comments on your story (as of yet) and decided to read it despite the fact that I don't like Holmescest (I'm not quite sure why, and I've been pondering the question for a few days now, and I can't quite put my finger on it. But I do think that this pairing makes sense on paper… as in I can see Sherlock with someone like Mycroft and vice versa. Anyway, I won't bore you with my ramblings, because I don't think I actually have a point to make except that I've been thinking a lot.)
Anyway, I enjoyed your first chapter. You are clearly a very talented writer and storyteller.
I liked how you set up the story; going back and forth between events of the past and present. I'm still learning the craft of writing and that's one thing I struggle with; showing the reader what happened in the past without writing 3000 words of exposition.
I also enjoyed your plot. It's clever, atmospheric, and original. Mycroft and Sherlock's portrayal rang true.
Now, for some specifics… I really like the idea that Mycroft took violin lessons when he was young. It seems so plausible and I quite like the mental image of Mycroft with a violin in hand.
I also enjoyed Mr Talbot's words of wisdom.
The sex between the brothers was well written and loving ( It still felt weird to read though… again not sure why exactly.) I was extremely intrigued as to what Billy the servant's role was in this context. Mycroft usually lets him watch?
I haven't read the rest of the story yet, but I'm extremely happy I don't need to wait and can just go ahead and read the next chapter. It's very late here, so it won't happen until tomorrow.
Really good job, mystery author!
More in the next few days,
OpalJade.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-26 08:48 am (UTC)The reason for the taboo to exist makes perfect sense, of course, from a biological POV. But, as I had Sherlock point out in the third part of the story, they don't have to worry about that aspect of their relationship.
Also, in the series Moftiss have created a universe in which Sherlock and Mycroft are above society's norms and laws. So Holmescest is basically an expansion of that idea into the realm of sexuality. Or so I think. :) And, as I'm convinced all the sniping we see in the series is just a means to an end to hide their deep affection I think their relationship is a loving one.
Thank you for your very kind words about my writing. I had to smile about your comment on my background story for I always feel I need way more than 3,000 words. I wish I knew how to write a short story.