Devils in the Details

Chapter Fourteen // Souls of Kindred

INSIDE OF THE FLAT AT 221B BAKER STREET

"Will Graham, former homicide detective," Mycroft began. "Went on to teach at an FBI academy, coming from a very humble start. He had to build his life up to get as far as he did. He became very successful for a while, however, working under Jack Crawford. He even became an honorary agent, an FBI profiler in order to catch some more ruthless criminals."

Mycroft relayed the information without a catch - it was something he knew by heart and could recite in his sleep. That much, at least, was made evident by the slight smirk that played across his face. He knew precisely what he was doing.

"Not long ago, he became a figure of authority for a girl named Abigail Hobbs. Her father had been killed by Will himself, due to the fact Garret Jacob Hobbs was a serial killer known as the Minnesota Shrike. But Will immediately took the young girl under his wing, although he was not alone in this. Unfortunately, the girl was murdered. Many suspect that Will killed her - even he wonders it himself."

Mycroft took in a breath before he allowed himself to continue, taking the opportunity to make sure all focus in the room remained on him and everything he was saying. Of course, he didn't have any reason to worry.

"Will Graham is an empath who can place himself with the minds of others - including serial killers. He finds the roots of murders by thinking just like them. Of course, he would end up starting to wonder why it was so easy for him to do such a thing - perhaps he's capable of killing. Perhaps he's more than capable, he's-

"Hang on," John said, interrupting Mycroft's speech. "You said you were going to explain why you wanted us to give up the case. Now you're just spilling out a bunch of facts about Will. How is that supposed to help anything?"

At first, he got no real reply. All he could see was the slight smile that stretched across Mycroft's face. He'd been trying to get someone to ask that exact question.

"You must be wondering how exactly I am aware of this much information about Will Graham, about how I have memorised so much of it clearly and accurately," Mycroft said.

"I can't say that I'm not," Will said bitterly. It was as if half of his life had been spilled out on a table for everyone to stare at. He hardly wanted to listen to all of those details about himself, so he'd never want them to be shared out with everyone. But indeed, he did mark it down as strange that Mycroft knew so much about him.

"That's because he was not born as William Graham. He was born as William Holmes."

No one in the room moved. The silence was as still as stagnant water, the air seeming as if it had never been moved by sound and would never be moved by sound. It was nearly as if they had all ceased to breathe on top of this - their world froze in place.

"Yes, indeed. Will Graham is my younger brother," Mycroft said.

John opened his mouth, readying himself to throw out accusations of the man kidding them around for whatever reason, but he soon realised that Mycroft was being completely serious about it. No, it was true. Indeed, Will was actually a Holmes brother.

"That can't be right," Sherlock said. His face began to pale, however - he knew somewhere within him that it could easily be true, almost too easily. "No, that can't be it. How could I have the name William within my full name if our parents had another child by the same name?"

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes," Mycroft said softly, letting out a forced chuckle. "William Sherlock Scott Holmes. The William wasn't given to you at birth, Sherlock. No, we had to lead to you believe that William was part of your name in order to explain why you heard it so many times as a child. It turned out being a simple way to fix a major problem."