PARA/DOX

Time Will Tell

There used to be more color in Mycroft's eyes. In fact Sherlock remembered them to be a shade of brown, with sparkles of blue hidden throughout. That is, in the rare occasions he was able to see them. He remembered the pale complexion his brother had, though despite that blanched skin there had always been a shade of pink hidden underneath, a splash of color that had been reserved for when he still benefited from the oxygen in the room. Though today his colors were, by all accounts, perfectly erased. The world Sherlock saw was drained of all color, a black and white memory which hosted his blinking brother, the man who was fading in and out of perspective. He wasn't anything more than a shadow, displayed by crafted eyes. Mycroft was not supposed to be here, all laws of science denied it. Though Sherlock sat quietly on his bed, staring at his brother as the figure wandered aimlessly around the room, lost in some version of time itself.
"Mycroft, do you know where you are?" Sherlock called out to him, twisting the wires on his aviator sunglasses between his fingers. His brother stumbled, as if the carpet had suddenly sprouted a new obstacle. He walked into the wall, headfirst.
"Sherlock?" the boy whispered anxiously, pulling his fingers through his hair and staring madly throughout the room. "Sherlock?" he whispered again. He was unable to see his brother no matter which direction his black eyes traveled, he was lost within a layer, the wrong layer, of their once shared bedroom. Sherlock clenched his jaw, trying to hold back the tears that were beginning to creep towards the corners of his eyes. They stung, salty and suppressed; though he used whatever willpower he had to keep them back. It wasn't the time to cry, not now.
"Mycroft, where are you? What do you see?" Sherlock called out.
"I don't...I don't know." Mycroft gave a low groan, shaking his head and sitting down in midair, suspended in a chair that had long since been moved. His long legs were crossed, his feet still covered with the shoes he was buried in. His will, written in pen at the age of seventeen, had insisted he be buried in his finest suit. Somehow Mycroft seemed to know he would need to make good impressions in all decades of remaining time.
"It's been six years, Mycroft. Don't you remember?" Sherlock wondered. He leaned forward, catching his elbows upon his knees as he studied the lines that were beginning to form in his brother's smooth, youthful face. He never aged since his death, his hair would never turn gray, his teeth would never loosen in his gums. And yet he was beginning to wither, wither from overuse. His skin may not wrinkle and yet it would begin to dry, his eyes may never lose their sharp focus and yet they would begin to dim. Mycroft didn't have a life force to drain, and yet his sprit, what was left of it, was beginning to grow tired of hosting his image. Most people's spirits were buried with their bodies. They vanished once their last breath was taken. And yet Mycroft, along with his little brother, did not know when their last breath was destined to be. It could have been ten thousand years ago, it could still be coming in the next century. They were not subjected to time; no in fact they were children of the very concept.
"I don't see you." Mycroft admitted. "I see...I see an old radio. Mother's radio, I think."
"This was her bedroom before ours." Sherlock agreed. He looked closer around the room, at what he was seeing this particular moment. It was still his bedroom, though most of the knickknacks had been cleared from the dresser tops. His brother's bed was arranged, made up in that neat style that Mycroft had perfected as a child. A glass of water was upon his bedside table, still cold. It was their own past, though it was still relatively unfamiliar.
"It keeps shifting." Mycroft admitted. "Shifting every time I move, I'm not just spectating..."
"You're moving through." Sherlock finished. Mycroft hung his head in his hands, shivering as if the world he was currently sitting in had dropped many degrees colder. Sherlock knew first hand that the house had not always been fitted with a radiator. He had once watched his great grandfather poking at coals in the fire, tending the flames in an attempt to distribute the heat evenly throughout the house.
"Death is so confusing." Mycroft complained.
"Life is so confusing." Sherlock added on, ensuring that neither of them began to pity themselves in excess demand. "I wish I could be there with you. I'd rather be with you."
"Don't say things like that. You don't want this." Mycroft growled in protest, his body blinking more rapidly now, as if he was fading even farther away from Sherlock's perceived timeline. As the years between their experiences lengthened the layers got deeper, until at last neither boy could hear or see his brother at all. Sherlock would be stuck sometime in the early 2010's while Mycroft may involuntarily fade into the shifting representations of the Precambrian period.
"You wanted it." Sherlock corrected, remembering the planned and precise passing of his brother. It had been a young age, a healthy age. It had been intentional.
"I didn't know the consequences." Mycroft snarled in return. Sherlock didn't bother to respond, he knew that anything he said would be taken as an opportunity for a lecture. He merely lifted his head, watching as his brother began to fade against the wall paper, his hunched form curled within the layers of his suit jacket.
"I'll see you again, Mycroft." Sherlock muttered. Mycroft didn't respond, he didn't even appear to have noticed the voice. He was fading now, too far gone. It was no use lingering within the past, not if all that was left for him had disappeared. Sherlock pushed his sunglasses onto his face, staring through the filtered lenses at the world he had left not minutes earlier. His own bedroom, his own arrangement of items. His brother's bed, stripped of sheets but left with the patchwork quilt overtop of the bare mattress. It was a sentimental thing, presumably. His mother's way of forgetting her oldest son was dead.