Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Sherlock?”

He should be paying attention, someone was talking to him after all, and later Donovan would make some snide comment about how disrespectful he was.

Or perhaps she’ll spit out something about his lack of focus, distraction, catching him in a moment of normalcy. Tell him he’s just like the rest of them. The words acid on his tongue, baiting him, a force to remind everyone that it is he that is the monster, not her. Never her.

Strange though, that he is considered the monster, isn’t it? That he is the freak. The one to be avoided, to be kept at a distance, to be called upon only when he is useful, because he is too harsh and too blunt but when was he ever the one to start the barrage of insults? When attacked he responds, is that not the norm? His insults? Nothing more than observations. They’re insults? Childish name-calling and casually thrown out inaccuracies. He treats them how they treat him, he always has, and yet he is always the one considered to be at fault.

“Sherlock!”

The voice is distant, a whisper at the edge of his consciousness.

“Sherlock! Are you even listening?”

The answer should be obvious, even for Lestrade, but apparently not. Sherlock shakes his head, the movement barely noticeable, and opens his mouth to speak but there is only silence. His brain has locked itself in place, frozen its concentration on the body in the midst of the crime scene, and everything else is unimportant.

Lestrade, John, Sally, the other officers. They mean nothing. Background decoration, background noise, distractions he had to ignore.

Or perhaps distractions he should be welcoming.

“Sherlock!”

He was beside the body now. When had that happened? Normally he would have made Lestrade clear everyone out, always prefering to work without the prying eyes of others to judge him. He was never fond of their accusing stares, their half-whispered muttereings of how he couldn’t possibly know that but today he couldn’t hear them, even if he tried.

“Sherlock?” a softer voice asked, a hand gently placed on his forearm. He jumped slightly at the touch, wretched his arm free, unconsciously took a step backwards.

Slowly he raised his eyes from the body to meet John’s questioning look. John, whose eyes were always soft, always caring. John, whose words were never harsh, never accusing. John, who meant so much to him, more than he could ever voice.

John who he should tell the truth too. His mouth opened, words on the tip of his tongue, but he could not speak. A rare moment indeed, so often he had too many words to say and not enough time in which to speak but now he had all the time to speak and no words to say.

No, that was incorrect. He had the words but did not have the presence of his own mind to form them into an order resembling anything close to a sentence.

John’s eyes briefly dropped to where is hand still remained, hovering above Sherlock’s arm, before raising them again to meet Sherlock’s gaze.

“What are you not telling us?” John’s voice was barely above a whisper.

John, caring John. John, who always knew what to say, what to ask. John, who could read him in a way unrivelled by any other. John, who he trusted above anyone else. John, who he was suddenly desperate to be away from.

He shouldn’t be here. Sherlock knows that. He should tell Lestrade that bringing him here was a mistake. Sherlock knows that as well. He should leave. Sherlock knows that he can’t.

He has had this nightmare before.

Mycroft will be here soon. Sherlock knows that. Mycroft would wake him up. Sherlock knows that as well. This is a nightmare. Sherlock knows that it is not.

His mouth opens, words formed in the back of his throat, but only silence escapes. He can’t say the words, he can’t make it real, he has to believe this is a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare. His mouth closes, leaving a thick silence in its wake, and his eyes plead with John. Begging him to somehow understand what he cannot voice. He tries again, mouth opens and closes but still no words are spoken. He closes his eyes, tries desperately to organize his thoughts into words he can say but his mind refuses to co-operate. His thoughts frozen, time paused, the world around him has melted away until the only image he can see is the older lady’s body, pale and lifeless, and so very still.

Clothing torn, bloody nails from a desperate attempt to save her own life. Clumps of hair matted with blood from where the butt of a gun had struck her forceably behind her left ear. Ripped underwear, indicating that a terrible act had occured that he was desperate not to let his mind name.

Rape.

His eyes snapped open, a strangled sob escaped his lips. His eyes darted back and forth between the victim’s too-pale face and the dark-red blood that had pooled where her legs joined her body. Blood that was not entirely dry, that if he touched it it would be sticky, would leave his fingers stained pink. His eyes drifted to the piece of rough wood, splintered and covered in blood, that lay not far from the body.

Wood. Raped. Brutal. Conscious at the time.

He closed his eyes, pressed the heel of his hands hard against his eyelids. Stop!he shouted in his mind. His thoughts were beginning to whirl back into motion. He had to stop it, he had to turn it off, he had to.

“Stop what?”

Sherlock eye’s snapped open, he was not awarethat he had spoken out loud, and he turned his head to watch as John, who was knelt down beside him, gently pulled his hands away from his face. He frowned, confused, and looked down. He was on his knees but he doesn’t remember when that had happened. His hands were shaking even as John held his wrists lightly. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his blurred vision.

“Stop what?” John repeated and once again Sherlock’s mouth opened but closed again with no words spoken. He was still staring at his hands, wondering why he could not stop their shaking, when he suddenly became acutely aware of the beat of his own heart and the taste of bile in the back of his throat.

He jerked his wrists free from John’s grasp, squeezed his eyes shut, and once again pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids so hard that stars danced in his vision but it did little to stop his thoughts. Thoughts that rushed through his mind as fast as his blood rushed through his own body.

“Can’t. Stop.” He muttered. Not exactly a complete sentence but what more could he manage when his thoughts were as coherent as his current ability to speak?

“What’s up with the freak?”

Sherlock visubly shuddered at the words he knew could only be spoken by Sally. He knew he should answer, find some scathing reply to shut her up, but his focus was not on such trivial things as incompetent police officers and petty grudges.

“Really Sally? Just -”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock whispered but he might as well have screamed it with how quiet the room went.

“Sorry, what?” John asked, returning his attention to Sherlock. The consulting detective was now hugging himself tightly, eyes still screwed shut tightly.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock repeated but his voice was almost inaudible and John could not be sure he had heard his best friend correctly.

“Do you want me to call Mycroft?“ John asked but he got no further response from his friend. It was an odd request coming from Sherlock and it sent alarm bells off in his mind. Frowning he reached forward, placed a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder in an attempt to get his attention.

Sherlock’s eyes flew open and the panic that swirled in them as he stared at John made John’s heart skip a beat, or two, or three.

Sherlock’s mouth formed the name "Mycroft” but no sound came out this time. His eyes darted back and forth from John to the face of the victim on the floor beside them, willing John to put the pieces together. Pleading for John to understand what he could not say.

“Wake up,” Sherlock whispered.

John’s brow furrowed, his mouth repeating Sherlock’s words as if trying to make sense of them. Sherlock’s eyes were still rapidly dating between John and the victim’s face and as John finally noticed he turned to look, really look, at the victim for the first time.

There was a moment of silence where time seemed to pause before John choked out, “Oh God,” as his hand flew up to cover his mouth. “Oh my God,” he repeated as his voice got louder, his words coming out faster and faster as realization hit him, “OhmyGod.”

“John?” Sherlock’s voice brought John’s attention back to his friend and the pleading look in Sherlock’s eyes made John’s heart crack, splinter in two. He took a shaking breath, tried to calm his suddenly racing heart. Panicking would help neither him nor Sherlock. He had to stay calm, for Sherlock.

“John?”

That one word, his name, was asking so much more of him than John could provide.

Please John, tell me this isn’t real. Please John, tell me I’m wrong. Please John, wake me up from this nightmare. Please John, make everything better.

John shook his head ever-so-slightly. “I’m so sorry Sherlock,” John whispered as he reached out towards his friend but Sherlock pulled back from him as his eyes went wide at John’s words.

Sherlock shook his head rapidly. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how the nightmare was supposed to go. Mycroft was always here by now and John had never been in this nightmare to begin with. Why was everything out of order? Backwards? Scrambled like the eggs John had made for breakfast this morning.

This isn’t a nightmare. The thought bounced around in Sherlock’s head, refused to be ingnored, and Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut once again. This is reality.

Sherlock heard someone talking, faint words at the edge of his mind. “Mycroft,” and “Lestrade brought us,” and “yes, I know,” and “he’s stopped responding,” and “he’s waiting?” The words faded away after that, swallowed up by the grey fog the was beginng to creep upon his mind. Someone placed their hands on his shoulders but he paid them no heed. They shook him gently, called out is name, but he ignored them. So faint their presence was it was hardly worth acknowledging.

None of it matters anyways. The only person that mattered now was Mycroft. Mycroft would wake him up, Mycroft would fix this, Mycroft would do what no one else could. If he could think clearly, if his mind had not become the roaring eye of an upcoming storm, he would be berating himself for so quickly slipping into this black hole where only his brother knew the way out.

This is a nightmare.

Is it?

No.

He presses his hands to his ears. Instinct, reflex response, useless. He knows that voices in your head can’t be blocked out by covering your ears. Stupid. Childish response. Illogical reaction. Shut-up!

“Sherlock?”

Who was trying to talk to him now? Couldn’t they see that he was busy trying to change reality because damn it he was not going to accept this. This. Is. A. Nightmare.

It has to be. The other… No! Don’t think about it. It doesn’t mean— it can't— he will not believe it. He will lie, and lie, and lie through grinding teeth. Clenched fists and unfocused eyes will betray him but he will lie through it all. He will lie until he believes the lie.

“His mom.”

Words so faint he hardly heard them. He wished he hadn’t. Two words, barely a whisper, etched into his brain as if acid had burned them there. Echoing in his mind, bouncing off his skull, back and forth like a mad game of ping pong where no one missed yet everyone lost.

A strangled sob. Bile choked back. Eyes squeezed tighter. Hands pressed harder against his ears. He was so cold. His chest felt gnarled; chewed up and spit out. He was too aware of his heartbeat. Elevated. He struggled for a proper breath. Air felt like water, heavy and fluid and altogether foreign. Breaths too shallow, too rapid. Panic. Light-headed. Thoughts chaotic, disjointed, and disconnected from the present. Shaking. Shock.

Someone grabbed a hold of his wrists. It was a gentle touch but still he shuddered, tried to pull into himself further, tried to escape into his own mind. He failed miserably. Tried again, desperate, but whoever held his wrists was not letting go anytime soon. Their presence an anchor, ensuring his entrapment in this reality he was desperate to flee.

This. Is. A. Nightmare.

Chapter Text

It was a call out of the blue, from Lestrade. On a random day, on a random week, of a random month.

"Sherlock needs you."

Zero context, zero information of what he was walking in to. He had already deduced that it was a crime scene he would be walking in to but why Sherlock needed him in that moment he could not fathom. He could never had fathomed.

Until he was standing there, in all his own glory and all his own air of importance.

Their mother. Lying there.

Dead.

Raped.

A victim of unimaginable circumstances. His brother kneeling there, in a tortured world of his own. John beside him, trying his best to understand but without really understanding.

Their mother. A victim. His brother, inconsolable. And him, Mycroft, brought in to somehow fix this unfixable problem. Lestrade standing there with pleading eyes and no way of possibly knowing at all what this situation actually was.

Their. Mother.

And here he was, the big brother... the BIG brother... called in to fix a situation that was absolutely unfixable.

He had all the learned planning, controlled logic, and set-up abilities of the greatest politicians in the world. Yet here his younger brother, with the most raw and uncontrollable deductive abilities he has ever known, had reached this scene before him.

How had that happened?

Sherlock never should have been brought here before him. With all the surveillance he had at his fingertips how had this scene slipped his people's notice?

Their mother. Dead. A victim of rape and murder. Facts Mycroft knew that Sherlock's mind had already figured out. Facts that he knew Sherlock would be determined to believe were a nightmare.

Because Sherlock has had this nightmare before.

Mycroft knew this. Sherlock often had this nightmare. His younger brother was alway terrified that one day he would come across his own mother's, or his own father's, crime scene. Mycroft, for his part, had always assured him that that would never happen. He had always assured Sherlock that their parents had the best security by them at all times.

Mycroft had been wrong.

This wasn't a nightmare anymore. This was real life. This was a real. life. nightmare.

Their mother. Dead.

The crime scene was there, right in front of him. Right in front of Sherlock. For the first time in a very, very long time Mycroft found himself at a lost for words and, even worse, at a lost for action.

What was he supposed to do? Turn back time? Prevent this from ever happening? He was powrful, yes, but not that powerful. Not even close.

In this moment he wished, more than anything, that he was that powerful.

Instead he stood there, at the doorway, frozen in spot. Sherlock kneeled in on himself, John looking up at him pleading for help, and Mycroft doing everything he could to reconcile his own grief with the knowledge that he had to take control.

He had to take control. Right now. Yet he found himself unable to because this was their mother.

His mother.

Dead.

His brother.

He found himself frozen in the same nightmare that Sherlock was. The same nightmare they both wished desperately, begged desperately, to not be true. It was true though.

He had to take action.

He had to do something.

But what? What could he possibly do? What could he say to Sherlock to make this truth not true?

Nothing. He couldn't say anything. He couldn't do anything. He was frozen, just the same as his brother, only he had to keep an image that his brother didn't.

Where his brother was weak, in image and politics, he was strong. He had to be strong. He had to do something.

So he walked forward. If there was one thing he could do right now it was put one foot in front of the other. So that is what he did until he found himself in front of Sherlock. He kneeled down in front of his younger brother, almost shoulder to shoulder with John, put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder and opened his mouth to speak but did not know what to say.

There was nothing to say.

So he did the only thing he could think of. He pulled his brother into a hug and for once, Sherlock did not protest nor try to pull away.

"We will find out who did this," he heard himself say, though it did not sound like his own voice, "together."

"But right now," he continued, "John is going to take you to my car. I will stay here and examine the scene, but you, I think you should go."

"This is a nightmare," Sherlock whispered and Mycroft felt his heart crack just a little bit. How he wished it was just another one of Sherlock's nightmares.

"I'm sorry Sherlock," he heard himself say, though his voice didn't sound quite like his own, "but not this time."

The strangled sob that escaped from his brother nearly broke his own facade. He had to be strong though, for the both of them, and he focused on that more than anything.

Suddenly Sherlock pulled away from his grasp and he watched as his brother pulled his knees in tighter to himself and pressed his hands against his ears as if to block out the voices with his owns hands.

Voices that Mycroft knew were in Sjerlock's own head. Voices that he knew, and that Sherlock knew, could not be silenced with hands. Sherlock was panicking. Sherlock was in shock.

What was Mycroft to do about that? He was all but sure he was in shock himself. He simply did not have the luxury of Sherlock to let his shock show. After all it was not just Sherlock's mother that laid dead before them.

It was their mother.

His mother.

It. Wasn't. A. Nightmare.

It was their nightmare now though. They were living it. And he would be dammed if they didn't find their way out of it together.

After all, Sherlock had come to far too fall now. He was there to help him, if Sherlock would let him. And, more importantly, John was there to help him now too, and surely Sherlock would let John help.

Right?

Mycroft could only dream that to be true. In the end, dreaming John could help was better than living in the nightmare that Sherlock and him were now in.