PARA/DOX

The Brother of the Blind

When Sherlock eventually stumbled out of the closet he wasn't sure how much time he had wasted inside. For all he knew it could have been days, long enough for a search party to hunt aimlessly. Moriarty might have already raised the alarm, though as Sherlock finally emerged there was a surprising lack of commotion. Perhaps he hadn't been missed at all. Figures. Sherlock kicked at the wall a couple of more times, rubbing his raw eyes and slouching his way back across the hall. His glasses were tangled up in his fingers, one of the lenses shattered from his unintentional mood swing. He had hit them a couple of times against the wall, somehow blaming the cheap pair of sunglasses for his inability to express his emotions. Perhaps he should've had a mature conversation, rather than go jumping towards John's face like a child. There was a way to go about this, surely. Oh he was blessed to have such an easy first encounter with love! Musgrave had practically leapt into his lap, that boy had been his constant and pesky shadow for as long as Sherlock could tolerate it. Eventually he just got absorbed into his life, one way or another Musgrave cemented his position in the boy's heart. But what of John Watson? He was older, more experienced, and much, much busier. Perhaps he didn't have time for love, perhaps he had no interest. Or worst of all, perhaps he was straight. Sherlock nearly barreled into a scientist (he could hear a small squeak) as he curved sharply to kick the wall again. It was a childish way of expressing anger, though there was nothing quite so satisfying than stubbing your toe with all your strength. As he was muttering curses Sherlock began to hear voices, deafening octaves that grew into a familiar tone in his ear. At first he thought he had been caught by one of the administrators, as if that familiar voice was just Moriarty's muffled into a more pleasant tone. For a while Sherlock hesitated on the wall, his palms pressed against the paint and his breath coming in fleeting gasps. The voice continued, loud now, as if it was pressed against his ear. When Sherlock turned he was caught with a figure, a figure that belonged neither in the past nor in the present. A figure that was, by all means, lost and found.
"Mycroft!" Sherlock exclaimed, starting backwards before leaning forward, trying to catch his arms across his brother's shoulders before they fell aimlessly through the open air. Of course he was not solid; he was a mere memory, a traveling paradox. Sherlock's heart stopped, the shock of his encounter with John somehow overshadowing the utter whiplash his brother's face gave him. All Sherlock could do was blink, gape, and listen closely.
"Sherlock, no! No, what are you doing here? I told mother never...never to let you here!" Mycroft exclaimed, his face blinking as he struggled to solidify himself into the same timeline. He was reaching his hands out, batting at Sherlock's cheeks in an attempt to cradle his face once more.
"I've been here three years, Mycroft. Where have you been to miss all that?" Sherlock snarled. His eyes were squinted, his fists balled. Though he could not explain why.
"I've been everywhere and nowhere. I've been to a million blinks of time, never the proper one to collide with my brother. Not until now." Mycroft breathed, a smile flitting onto his face as if he was embarrassed to look too pleased. His eyes were sunken in, his frame withered and exhausted. Somehow the time had taken more from his body than he had died with, now he was made of mere bones sticking out from under his loose fitting shirt and trousers. The man's hair was even beginning to fall, his brown locks missing in sizable chunks around his head. He was being drained, slowly but surely, not unlike a lethal poison.
"They've made a time machine. John Watson...well I suppose you don't know him, he's done it. He's put it all together." Sherlock explained hastily, not knowing what else he could talk about. Mycroft wasn't going to be here for long; certainly he had to get the most pressing details first.
"With your help?"
"In one way or another." Sherlock admitted meekly. He was aware that his voice was being heard not just in this timeline but in the present. Undoubtedly he looked insane, talking to himself in the middle of the crowded hall.
"Sherlock, I didn't want this life for you. They do terrible, terrible things." Mycroft warned.
"I know. I've adapted. I'm resisting as best I can." Sherlock debated whether or not Mycroft would like to know about his body guard. It seemed a reasonable thing to mention, though at what cost was the knowledge? It could be another three years until they saw each other again, maybe longer. Could Mycroft sit with that knowledge, could he live with it even in death?
"Why are you here?" Sherlock asked at last. "I'd have thought this was the last place you'd like to go."
"I uh...I don't know." The man lied, his fingers crossing anxiously together. "I just travel aimlessly, to the places I remember."
"Have you been the house?" Sherlock wondered.
"Only in the past. The closest I've gotten to the present was still in the era of our father." Mycroft admitted. Sherlock nodded, dropping his gaze before snapping his eyes back up with an oncoming epiphany.
"Mycroft, did you know anything more about our father?" he asked at last. The man trembled suddenly, his entire body blinking once out of existence before finally taking hold in the present moment. He looked troubled, though with such a gaunt face there was no opportunity to look a bit more at ease.
"He was...well he was an allusive thing." Mycroft began. "I didn't know much about him, no."
"Victor said you were researching, he said..."
"Victor? You know Victor?" Mycroft interrupted, stepping forward all at once, with his transparent body nearly passing through his brother's in his urgency.
"Yes, but that's not the point."
"Stay away from him!" Mycroft warned, his face paling past its usual skeletal complexion into something much more serious. "Don't ever let him get close to you. He's a snitch."
"I know, and we've discussed. But that's..."
"He told you?" Mycroft exclaimed, his hands passing through Sherlock's shoulders as he attempted to take hold and shake sense into the wiry frame of his baby brother.
"Yes, but he's moving past it. He's grown out of being so...so unruly. He's a good man." Sherlock assured.
"Not to me."
"He told me, actually. He told me what happened between the two of you. If it helps, he did love you. I should even go so far as to say he still does." Sherlock explained, trying to get the words in before Mycroft faded away from him, into a past that did not offer so much emotional trauma. The man's eyes creased, he stepped away with a short breath, as if the news had knocked into his chest with enough force to drain his lungs of the air they had stored. That is, if these hallucinations were able to hold onto something as solid as air.
"I do believe he's still lying. Don't trust him, not ever." Mycroft warned.
"I know, don't worry. But that's not the point. Not to me, at least. But Mycroft, he told me that you were looking into things before you died, things the agency didn't want you to know about. What were they? And how did you find them?" Sherlock insisted, keeping his voice dropped low in case there were any eavesdroppers wandering these halls. Sherlock was blind to the present pedestrians, though he had a mind to trust the mindless wanderings of the prehistoric scientists.
"Sherlock, I don't want them to catch you too." Mycroft muttered.
"At least tell me what they're about. Tell me where I can find lies, and I'll go from there on my own." Sherlock insisted.
"They knew about us before they let on." Mycroft admitted.
"Were we manipulated? Were we their creation?" Sherlock wondered, trying to confirm his everlasting suspicions. Mycroft closed his eyes, though he shook his head gingerly.
"No, not officially. But we were products of their creation, just...accidentally." He admitted.
"Was our father a time traveler?" Sherlock wondered.
"That much I never discovered. But he was arrested, arrested before you got the chance to know him. That was one of their first moves as an agency, to come and collect our father."
"So he didn't leave voluntarily, not like mom said?" Sherlock clarified.
"He loved us, so far as I could tell." Mycroft assured. "My suspicions are that he's from the future, that somehow...somehow future DNA got mixed with the past. They called me a paradox, Sherlock, and I could expect they do the same to you."
"Do you think he's here now? I mean...time travel is just starting now. What if he's one of the scientists?" Sherlock suggested anxiously.
"His name was William Holmes. Though that might have been an alias." Mycroft admitted. "Do you remember what he looks like?"
"Vaguely, but the older version. He could be as young as me by now. Who knows when he found himself lost in the past?" Sherlock pointed out. Mycroft hummed, nodding his head and blinking more rapidly. Sherlock could tell his time here was fading; soon the boy would be lost to the next time zone, whichever was chosen. It was strange to look at his older brother, strange to have surpassed him in age.
"Sherlock, I don't have much more time." Mycroft admitted. "I already hear new voices."
"Mother died." Sherlock said at last, figuring it would be impossible for Mycroft to have noticed. The boy's face dropped, though he didn't look entirely surprised.
"I figured that might happen eventually."
"Well ya, eventually it would have. It was cancer. She uh...she went pretty quick." Sherlock admitted, dropping his gaze and trying to suppress any emotions that were flooding prematurely.
"What about you, outside of all this? Colleges, girlfriends?"
"No and never. The agency is my life, unfortunately. I live here, I work here. They won't let me go to college." Sherlock admitted. "Oh...and it would seem on the side of girlfriends that we have more in common than we once thought."
"Don't ever, ever lay a hand on Victor." Mycroft warned, jabbing a warning finger into his brother's face to emphasize the command.
"No of course not. He's yours, in life and death." Sherlock assured.
"Ha, as if I'd want him." Mycroft scoffed.
"You stop that. He told me enough to make all your denials worthless." Sherlock insisted with a little chuckle. Mycroft blushed, a happy sight to see a little bit of human coloring within those ghostly cheeks. Even dead, nine years dead, he was still embarrassed about his early love.
"I'm proud of you, Sherlock. But I beg you to tread carefully. Don't go poking around in the agency's business. You won't like what you find, and most importantly they won't like it when they find you."
"I'm their puppet, but sometimes I can pull my own strings. I'll figure things out, one way or another." Sherlock assured.
"Don't do anything stupid." Mycroft warned, regaining his brotherly pose in an attempt to strike fear into his normally cooperative brother. Sherlock smirked, figuring his answer was better left unsaid. Thankfully there was no answer needed, for as soon as Mycroft's words left his mouth he began to glitch, like a television program that was beginning to lose signal. His entire body wavered, blinking in and out, some parts abandoning the whole. He was being thrown into a new time zone, a new snapshot. Sherlock stepped back, afraid to be caught into the production and dragged away as well. As soon as his foot hit the ground behind him, his brother had vanished. All that was left for Sherlock was empty air, empty air and the massive hairdo of a female scientist entering the room right behind where Mycroft used to stand.