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Sherlock woke to the insistence pounding of a fist on his bedroom door. He lazily cracked one eye open as he called out, voice still laden with the remnants of slumber. "I'm sleeping! Come back later!" he groaned out, rubbing his eye with one hand.
His response, however, was ignored as his older brother barged into the room, the door flying open as he did. The lock had broken a few months ago, and Sherlock lacked the skills, knowledge, or funds to get it replaced to prevent exact situations like this from happening. He made sure to scrub his eyes of any lingering sleep so he could appropriately glare at the shadow in the doorway, running a hand through his midlength hair.
Mycroft stood there imposingly as he frowned, arms folded across his chest.
"Sherlock."
Sherlock said nothing, rolling over and letting out a dramatic snore as he pretended to be asleep, tucking the blanket up tight over him. Mycroft walked over and yanked the blanket off of him with a grunt, clearly unimpressed at his brother's antics. Sherlock groaned, rolling over onto his front in bed, looking up at his brother with half lidded eyes.
Mycroft scoffed as he saw his brother's lack of movement. "You were supposed to be up half an hour ago!" he scolded, hand resting on his hip. "We need to leave in fifteen minutes!"
Sherlock sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes, waving Mycroft off as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Relax, it's not going to take me that long to get ready. What, five minutes for that stupid suit, another five for the even stupider tie, and then five to grab a quick bite to eat! And then we'll be off in good order, with plenty of time to spare. You're just a freak about being on time, I'm afraid!"
Mycroft's upper lip curled, disdain evident in every inch of his body. "Fine. Treat today as a joke. If I have to be the one that steps up, then I will."
He stormed out of the room, fists clenched, slamming the door behind him. Sherlock lay on his back for a few more seconds, firmly solidifying himself in being in the land of the awake, before sighing and swinging his legs up and out of bed, crossing the room to his creaky old wardrobe.
The suit that hung on the front of it was a hand-me-down from Mycroft, something that his older brother had gotten from a wealthy noble he'd been apprenticed to a year or so ago who had taken a liking to Mycroft. He'd given it to his brother when he'd left for university.
Sherlock was sixteen now, and Mycroft was twenty three. His older brother was a year and a half graduated, and Sherlock was attending the local school in their village. It was funny how quickly time passed when you weren't paying attention to it.
Sherlock sighed as he began to get changed. First it was the pants, then the slightly off white shirt (with a stiff starched collar), accompanied by a navy suit jacket. He turned and looked at the small cracked mirror on the wall, adjusting his collar with a grimace.
He quickly made his bed and headed out to the living room. His brother was sitting on the armchair closest to the wall. Mycroft frowned when he saw Sherlock. "Where's your tie?"
Sherlock shrugged. "It wasn't with the suit." His brother huffed and stood up. "This is why I asked you to get it out the night before, so we could iron out any hiccups." He started towards the door of the room, steps heavy. "I think that we still have some bread from the other week. Try to have some before we go. I won't have you passing out from an empty stomach and leaving me to have to deliver the eulogy."
Sherlock did just that - carefully slicing and eating two slices of bread over the sink while his brother rummaged around in the adjacent room for a tie to go with the suit. "Here we go," Mycroft said as he reentered the room. "I could have sworn that I had a matching tie tucked along with that jacket, but it seems to have gone missing. Father might have…regifted it to someone."
"Pawned it, you mean," Sherlock replied through a mouthful of bread as he took the fabric from his brother, scrutinising it. Mycroft stepped past him to pick out the slightly larger bread crumbs and throw them in the bin, turning on the tap to wash away the remnants. "What are you waiting for? Put it on."
Sherlock stood there for a long moment, looking between the tie and Mycroft. An incoherent mumble from Sherlock caught Mycroft's attention. "Speak up, Sherlock, I can't hear you over the water."
"I don't know how to tie it."
The confession was soft, quiet. Mycroft shut off the water and stared at him for a long moment, unsure of whether his brother was simply trying to avoid wearing it, but the faint tinge of red on Sherlock's dissuaded any such idea.
Mycroft rolled his eyes and beckoned his brother closer with one hand. Sherlock obliged, holding out the fabric.
Mycroft took the tie from him and started to tie it. "A simple double Windsor knot should suffice for this. It's bad form for you to not be wearing black, but we'll have to make do." "It doesn't feel like a simple tie," Sherlock grumbled as he watched his brother's hands move.
Mycroft snorted. "You'll have to wear a tie in whatever profession you go into when you're older, Sherlock." "Then I'll simply have to do a job that doesn't require one."
Mycroft finished tying his brother's tie and grabbed him firmly by the shoulders. "Sherlock. You are more than clever enough to go into a job where you need to dress up a little. Jobs that don't have you doing that won't challenge you enough in life. A job that won't require you to be professional is one that you will be bored in. You need a job that makes you work, Sherlock."
Sherlock rolled his eyes and tried to step back, accustomed to these sort of tirades that his brother liked to go on about his future, but Mycroft's grip on his arms tightened. "Sherlock, stop. Promise me. Promise you won't end up like Father. Promise you'll make a life for yourself." Despite Sherlock's jerking, it was clear that Mycroft wasn't going anyway. "I promise, I promise!" Sherlock exclaimed, pulling away.
Mycroft let him go after a moment, making his brother stumble back. "...Alright, then. Go clean your teeth."
Sherlock turned to leave, pausing in the doorway. "Should I wake Father up?" he asked softly, head turning back slightly to look at his brother. Mycroft went silent for a moment. "Check in his room. If he's coherent enough, then try to rouse him. If he's still comatose, leave him be."
Sherlock nodded. He walked down the corridor to the small bathroom, brushing his teeth quickly, making sure not to get any toothpaste on his suit in the process. Dealing with Mycroft's disappointment was something he couldn't be bothered with.
He begrudgingly placed his toothbrush to the side, swinging open the door to go see what state his father was in. Before he could though, his breath caught in his throat as he saw the small pink atomizer that had once belonged to his mother resting next to the window.
He picked it up with one hand, turning the glass bottle over. She'd bought it on a whim on a day trip to London five years ago, Sherlock remembered. She'd fussed and hummed about whether the purchase was worth the price. She'd eventually decided to not buy it, but Sherlock had come back just before the store closed and purchased it with the money he'd saved up from helping people with odd jobs around town.
She'd been delighted, Sherlock remembered. She'd scolded him for buying something so expensive, but had gushed over it and thanked him regardless.
He associated the smell with her, the soft scent of rosewater ingrained into every memory he had of her.
Sherlock turned it over in his hands, examining the design carefully, before giving the pump a single short squeeze, the fine mist showering over him. Sherlock inhaled slowly, absorbing the smell, as he set the bottle down and started to walk down the corridor like a man on a mission.
He quietly cracked the door at the end of the hall open, unsure of whether or not he hoped his father would be cognizant or not. The stench that wafted from the room provided him with enough of an idea of what he was going to find.
As he fully stepped into the room though, the smell only grew worse. The space smelled stale, with a tinge of booze around the edges. Clothes were strewn over the floor, bottles of beer lay overturned on the desk. Filth laced every corner of the room.
Sherlock's father lay on the bed, face down, coated in something that Sherlock hoped wasn't the man's own vomit. It was going to be a nightmare to get it out if it was. Despite his continued presence in the room however, the man continued to snore loudly as slept, unaware of his son looking at him.
He'd gotten worse after Mother died, Sherlock thought. He hadn't been a particularly wonderful father before - always out late at night, coming home with a lipstick stain on his collar, smelling of licorice and fruit and something darker that he could never quite name.
Sherlock knew that his father had been seeing a rota of three women consistently since he was seven, but he knew that there had been a million and one more mistresses that he saw more infrequently.
His mother had only found out two years ago, right after she got sick.
Sherlock gingerly made his way over the floor, trying to not step on any of the clothes, or roll back on the few beer bottles that had migrated to the floor.
He grunted as he shifted his father from resting on his front to lying on his back. The man burbled incomprehensibly as Sherlock rolled him over, coughing egregiously. His breath reeked of alcohol, a mix of cheap beer, cheap whisky, cheap something.
Sherlock was certain that if given the opportunity, his father would down disinfectant if it would get him drunk.
Sherlock sighed as he stepped back from where his father was now snoring on his back, closing the door in the process. He ambled back to the living room, unwilling to face what was coming, tugging at his tie to try and get some more breathing room. That starched collar was really starting to get to him.
Mycroft stood there, checking the time on his silver pocket watch. He snapped it shut as Sherlock approached.
"No sign of life?" he asked. Sherlock shook his head. "Breathing, though. I rolled him onto his side so he wouldn't choke." The two paused for a long moment. "Reeked of booze though," Sherlock added. It was a case of the fork being found in the kitchen though - the sky was blue, the grass was green, and their father smelled of booze.
"We should probably start to go," Mycroft said. Sherlock hummed but made no move to follow Mycroft as he began to walk towards the door. When he didn't hear his brother move at all, Mycroft turned to face him.
"Sherlock. I know you don't agree with this, or want this, or desire anything to do with this. But you know you need to be there. She'd want you to be there."
"I know," Sherlock responded quietly. "But I don't want to."
Mycroft sighed. "Sometimes in life we don't have a choice, I'm afraid." He turned again and started to leave. "Come on. It's meant to rain, and we don't have two umbrellas."
— — —
The funeral was quite nice, all things considered. The heavens opened halfway through the minister giving the sermon as they stood around the casket, soaking almost everyone bar those who had had the foresight to bring an umbrella.
There had been a large enough turnout, with the two coherent members of the Holmes family, their mother's friends, some of the townsfolk who would have interacted with her, and a few family members from elsewhere in the isle
The casket had, quite generously, been paid for by Mycroft's employer. A niggling thought grew in Sherlock's mind that Mycroft's job probably wasn't entirely what he described it to be. A clerk's office wouldn't have been willing to splurge on an oak casket lined with walnut around the edges.
At the final 'amen', the crowd began to disperse, some going to the church hall for refreshments, others leaving the grounds all together to hail a carriage to go home. Sherlock didn't think that they'd have much luck in this weather.
Sherlock didn't leave, however. He could vaguely hear his brother talking to people as they walked down the pathway to the hall, thanking them for coming, sharing memories of his mother, saying that it was much too young, so full of life, wasn't right, but she was with the Lord in heaven now, so it was alright.
It was not alright.
Sherlock didn't know how long he stood there for, looking at the fresh dirt on the grave (when had that happened?), the engraving on the tombstone bold against the slate.
He had a strange, irrational thought to dig her up with his hands. To get her out of the dirt and into the sunlight. She should be at home, sitting by the sill doing the needlepoint she loved so much.
She should be tucking him into bed, smoothing his hair back from his forehead and giving him a little kiss and whispering 'goodnight' to him.
She should be stood outside the small village school waiting for him after she'd gone and bought the produce from the farmer's market twenty minutes away by foot, ruffling his hair as he ran up to her and hugged her, head barely coming up to above her waist before they started to walk home, where she'd make a warm, filling dinner that heated Sherlock up down to the bone.
But she wasn't, and she wouldn't be ever again.
A hand on his shoulder snapped Sherlock out of his thoughts. "There's tea in the hall, and I think a few parishioners made refreshments as well," Mycroft said. Sherlock dragged his gaze away from the grave and looked at his brother.
Mycroft's hair had gone a little curly from the rain, Sherlock thought. His brother seemed unbothered by the state of his hair though (a rare occurrence), and was instead looking at Sherlock with what could only be described as a look of concern.
The two stared at each other for a long moment.
Sherlock had never seen his brother look so worried before.
The dark sky rumbled above them and the rain, which had been easing up into a drizzle, suddenly began to pour down with a vengeance.
Neither of them moved, however. Mycroft stepped past Sherlock to look at the grave himself. Sherlock looked away as his brother had a moment to himself with their mother. The rain ran down his face in rivulets and Sherlock tilted his head up towards the sky. Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance as the two of them stood together.
In a way, it felt sadder than the actual funeral had been. It was just the two of them now, really. Their father had one foot in the grave anyway, with all of his drinking.
Mycroft drew in a shaky breath as he stepped back from the grave. He turned back to look at his brother, reaching into his pocket. "I…I was meant to give this to you later on, per Mother's request. But…now seems as good a time as any to do so."
He produced a small skull ring, silver in colour, looking like something out of a detective novel. Sherlock looked at it in confusion. "What's this?" he asked.
"It was Mother's," Mycroft replied. Sherlock's confusion only grew as he shook his head, dismissing Mycroft's words. "Mother had only three rings. Her engagement, her wedding, and the one that she bought for herself when she was my age."
Mycroft smiled, despite the circumstances. "She had more of a wild side than you knew about. She belonged to a…I suppose you could say it was a secret society, but it was more of a club. She'd gather with her friends and read gothic novels secretly. It started when she was sixteen and continued even after you were born."
The smile turned fond. "I remember waking up one night to the sound of the front door opening. She was tipsy, not drunk in the way that Father often is." Sherlock snorted. "Understatement of the century." Mycroft ignored him and continued. "The ring caught my attention in the moonlight as she slipped through the door. Like you said, she only ever wore three other rings, so seeing such a thick ring caught me by surprise." He looked down at the ring with a somewhat fond smile on his face. "She looked so happy, Sherlock. So alive."
After a moment, Mycroft held the ring out to Sherlock. "She wanted you to have it. I think that she knew that you had a curious spirit, to say the very least." Sherlock turned the ring over in his hand as he took a closer look at it, before slipping it on.
"Fits like a glove," he commented, a hint of surprise on his face. Mycroft put one firm hand on his shoulder. "She would be proud of you."
The statement was firm, resolute. Sherlock nodded, his throat suddenly feeling thick. Mycroft started to walk down the path, before he called out to his brother. "Come whenever you're ready, Sherlock."
Sherlock stood there beside the grave for some time, looking at the ring and at the tombstone, before walking away, resolved.
He would make sure that his Mother's curious spirit continued to live through him.