The Madness Was A Man

Dead By My Father's Crimes

The table was set for three, elegantly so. Sherlock sat quietly at his place in the table, waiting for the master of the house to retreat downstairs to meet his sons. And yet such an entrance was unlikely, they knew that before, and even when they set the table for three they made portions only for two. Ever since their father began to scream at night, he had rather lost his appetite. The house was cast in a dark shadow, one that may only be clouding in their eyes, rather than physically imposing on the sunshine. The setting sun shone beautifully into the colored windows, and yet all the same it seemed dreadfully silent, still...ghastly. As if they were mourning the loss of a loved one, before anyone had even died.
"He's not coming, Sherlock." Mycroft murmured, dropping his pocket watch back into his pocket and setting himself towards the rather pathetic meal they had made together. They couldn't afford a cook anymore, nor a servant to serve them their meals. They had degraded into commoners, for when the madness had taken hold the funds were beginning to run terribly low. With their father no longer in the working condition the boys were left to fend for themselves, and drain their finances as they went along unaided. Such a house seemed so dismal without a proper staff to care for it. Large halls, built with the purpose of housing maids, butlers, and valets, all stood terribly empty at the south end of the house. The halls were deserted, the corners filled with cobwebs, and the floors remained untrodden though they still creaked throughout the nights. Sherlock was used to the quiet, even though he was able to remember a time when servants still aided the majestic family in their daily troubles. Gone were the days when the Holmes were regarded, gone just as soon as the madness seeped into the blood of another.
"I'm not hungry." Sherlock admitted quietly, staring unenthusiastically at the bland meal which he himself had put together, knowing that it would never be worthy to pass through his lips. His stomach growled, but in protest rather than hunger, yet the look on Mycroft's face was enough encouragement for him to lift the spoon towards his own plate.
"You must eat, Sherlock. We need to stay healthy, if not for ourselves then for Father." Mycroft encouraged.
"What does he need our health for? It's not like he cares about us anyway. It's not like he even recognizes us any longer." Sherlock snarled. Mycroft pounded his fist against the table, rattling the unused silverware against the marble and drawing the fearful attention of his timid younger brother. For a moment he sat sternly, admiring the startled silence he was able to attract, yet his black eyes remained fierce, and foreboding.
"He is sick, Sherlock, not in body but in mind. He needs us more than ever, to wait on him, to keep him clean, to keep this house running as it should. The responsibly of our family dynasty falls upon our shoulders, and I shall not let you go about starving yourself in selfish retaliation." Mycroft growled.
"It's not retaliation. It's disgust." Sherlock corrected, though he lifted his fork to his mouth and swallowed his first bite of dinner hesitantly. Mycroft forced a smile at him, nodding his head in approval before going on to try it for himself. Just as Sherlock did, he forced it down, and yet so as to prevent being a hypocrite he nodded stiffly and continued on, keeping up his so called strength for the good of the family, while sacrificing his taste bud's momentary enjoyment. Dinner was as concluded just as glumly as it began, with the only words passing between them being no more than arguments and complaints. Mycroft was already feeling parental, for evidently he could sense that his younger brother was soon going to be without a strong adult role model. Yet Mycroft's idea of good parenting fell somewhere within the lines of a strict boarding school's code, and forced Sherlock to sit up straight, mind his manners, and pick his words intelligently before speaking. It was an art which had been perfected by Mycroft, quite on his own determination, and yet he ensured Sherlock that it would be skills like that which would make him into a prim and proper gentleman, ready to marry for money and keep the Holmes family alive.
"Ought we to take him a plate?" Mycroft presumed, staring down at their father's empty plate.
"He might think we're torturing him." Sherlock protested.
"Well if he doesn't want to eat it we won't force him, but perhaps it would be a nice gesture all the same." Mycroft decided. Sherlock sighed heavily, yet bowed his head in agreement. This would be the hundredth plate they had left for their father, and so it would also be the hundredth plate that would be left uneaten, and untouched. He had not eaten in weeks, which the doctor warned was not a good sign at all. It was a disease of the brain, yet somehow it was eating him alive from the inside. Sherlock quietly filled his father's plate with whatever was left of their meal, and with one last passing glance to his brother he began down the dark hallway, and up the staircase to where his father slept. It was quiet, as it mainly was when there was still light outside. Yet just as soon as the sun would set, then the screaming would begin. Shrieks of terror, shrieks pleading for help, crying for rescue. As if something inside of the room was going to hurt him, something inside of that empty room... Sherlock crept up the wooden stairs, holding fast to the thick banister as he moved throughout the oil lit house, the china plate rattling nervously between his fingers. He never liked to see his father like this; he never liked to see him suffering. Sherlock was not yet eighteen, he could still remember a time of happiness. When his father, brother, and he would enjoy this house in all of its glory, and bathe in the rich rays of sunshine that surrounded the rolling green hills which surrounded them. Yet winter had come, and with it darkness...with it madness. The hills never were green any longer, and the sun never shone quite as brightly. Laughter ceased to ring, and a smile was a rare luxury among the miserable members of the Holmes household. Sherlock neared the bedroom, hesitating outside of the wooden door to hear if his father was asleep or not. He would prefer that the old man be still, though he hardly slept anymore at all. If he did it was with open eyes, fearful eyes, bloodshot and exhausted, staring eternally at a wall which would never move, and had never moved, throughout his duration in that bed. It was quiet, and so Sherlock turned the large brass knob, helping himself into the room. It was illuminated with as many lamps as they saw fit, fighting away any darkness which might prove to scare their poor father. In every corner there was a flame concealed in glass, causing the entire room to flick in odd patterns, causing Sherlock's shadow to move against his will, and fragment as one flame darted opposite of its neighbor. The room stunk like rotting flesh, yet as far as Sherlock could tell his father was still very much alive. Unless his bottom half had died long before, and his legs were being consumed by termites and fermenting under the thick blankets that had laid undisturbed since the man had grown ill. The boys didn't have it within their power to move the man, for he refused to be touched even by familiar hands. The man himself lay under the covers, with his hands clutching onto the fabric as if it was life support, his face screwed up into that constant expression of fear. He was old and gray, with a matted beard growing down into the blankets, and unwashed gray hair strewing about his pillow and beyond. He was a terrifying sight, aged fifty years in but a week of his madness, and forever looking afraid.
"Father, I brought you something to eat." Sherlock muttered, though he knew that his words went unheard. He picked up the last plate; one left from breakfast this morning, and replaced it on the nightstand with the gruel from tonight's feast. His father didn't even move, save for the occasional tremble. His eyes were still, and yet they were alert. He wasn't asleep; no he was rather fixated upon something, not letting it out of his sight despite the room being completely empty.
"Are you feeling any better?" Sherlock asked, lingering his gaze upon his father for a minute longer, for pity's sake if nothing else. The man said nothing, and did not respond. Sherlock sighed heavily, glancing towards were his father's eyes were strained. Not to his surprise he saw nothing, save for the flickering of the lamps which he had left there. The room was empty, and yet his father felt content with staring... Sherlock turned to leave, deciding that his work here was concluded before it had even begun, when suddenly his father let out a scream, one which was rather early considering the sun was still up. He screamed louder than he ever had, throwing his hands up to cover his face, as if something had just lunged to attack him...
"Father!" Sherlock exclaimed, going to his aid rather instinctively, and pulling his arms away from his face. The man was screaming, writhing, and fighting against what could only be described as air. There was no other figure, no other motion, and yet still the man had been startled to the point of hysterics. Sherlock grasped at the man's weak arms, trying to pull them down, trying to keep him from losing his mind all together. Yet he was yelling, screaming for help yet his cries were formed into nothing more than incoherent fluctuations of shrieks. He was afraid, afraid for his life... And yet finally his hand clutched onto Sherlock, clutched onto something solid, and his eyes narrowed, focused, and stilled...
"He'll get me tonight my boy." he whispered, in a voice rougher than sandpaper and entirely unrecognizable. Sherlock gasped, finding now that his father's bloodshot eyes were focused on him instead of the wall. He was turning his attention away from the enemy, if for one last moment with his son.
"But he won't have my sons...no I won't let him take my sons." Mr. Holmes growled, shaking Sherlock's arm with what little strength he had left in his body. "I'll take him with me, you'll see. And you and your brother you leave this house, you run from this house and never return."
"Father, you're...you're not making any sense." Sherlock admitted in a pained voice, a sob breaking just below his throat and forcing its way into his mouth. "Who are you talking about, who's here?"
"The very same man...dead by my father's crimes." He whispered, and with a great shiver released his grip and fell back onto his pillows. Whether asleep or dead Sherlock could not imagine, he did not even care in that moment. He took a great breath of fear, shaking his head violently and racing out the doorway in a panic.
"Mycroft! Mycroft!" Sherlock screamed, racing down the hallway just as fast as his feet would carry him, fleeing down the stairwell and nearly slamming into the back wall as he descended.
"Sherlock, what is it?" Mycroft asked with something of a growl, staring up from his book as if he was greatly inconvenienced by his brother's sudden outburst.
"Father spoke to me." Sherlock announced, leaning heavily and panting on the door of the library, pointing rather weakly upstairs to where the man must have laid silent once more. Mycroft's eyes widened, and he got to his feet powerfully.
"Has he regained himself?" he asked with a pitiful spark of hope. An impossible spark, being as though those words seemed only to interrupt the madness like the eye of a storm. It could only get worse from here, presumably.
"No, no it was ramblings. But he mentioned a man, a man dead by his father's crimes. He's speaking of grandfather, is he not?" Sherlock insisted.
"Well of course, unless he had another father!" Mycroft exclaimed. "But no...don't listen to a word. He's been told all his life that he was destined down that same path. I fear that he began to believe it."
"Well you can't deny there's some connection, surely Mycroft it's passed by blood!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"Don't believe that, Sherlock. Don't accept it. Or you'll end up like him, raving mad in his own filth!" Mycroft insisted, slamming his book down onto his chair and marching past Sherlock with a shove. "Did he say anything else, anything coherent?"
"Something about...something about that he'll be caught tonight. He was making it sound like it was all going to be over." Sherlock admitted, following in his brother's footsteps like a lost puppy as he trailed once more up the stairs.
"Did he hear you at all?" Mycroft wondered.
"He answered my question." Sherlock admitted weakly.
"Then perhaps he will hear me as well." Mycroft decided, opening the door to their father's door before hesitating, and holding his arm up to block Sherlock's entrance. "Perhaps you might want to stay outside." Sherlock could do nothing to protest, yet if his father was coherent he might have wanted to be there to at least say goodbye. Yet his brother's will was as good as gospel, and so Sherlock stayed obediently outside while his brother entered, closing the door on his face. Sherlock heaved something of a defeated breath, standing patiently outside the door before relocating himself to the other side of the hall, leaning against the wooden paneling before sliding miserably down to the floor. The portraits on the wall stared shamefully at him, so many generations of Holmes men watching their pitiful grandson, watching him be so helpless in the midst of a crisis! He was making no one proud, he was living up to no expectations save for that of the commoners. The townspeople wanted to watch the Holmes family lose their mind, not for any vendetta of course, no just for their own morbid amusement. It was something of a game for them, watching the lives of many men lost to insanity. Sherlock was next, next in line to be the townspeople's plaything. That was of course if he let the idea into his head, and the madness into his heart. There came a scream from inside the bedroom, enough so that Sherlock raised his defeated head, staring at the door and expecting a response. Yet the scream had not been recognizable, nor had it been afraid. It was not his father screaming, but Mycroft, yelling desperately in an attempt to be heard by ears that had long since been turned off. Pleading to be listened to, pleading to be recognized. It was an agonizing chorus of begs, all muffled by the thick wooden door as the eldest son begged for instructions, begged for a goodbye. Mycroft was lost in the world, now that he was the master of the house. Mycroft was hopeless, and still clinging to the idea that he would not be the oldest Holmes alive in this family. Sherlock shuttered fearfully, as if a cold breeze had passed through his body while the air and house were still. It was fear which made him shiver, it was the fear of the unknown, the fear of what laid in that bed, and the fear of what crept along the walls of that bedroom, unseen to all but one pair of strained eyes. Sherlock ran his hands through his dark curls, etching his fingernails through his scalp for clarity, for a feeling that was something other than fear. And at last, his brother returned. The man opened the door swiftly, and with one quick glance he turned and stormed back down to his bedroom, the door slamming behind him and hiding any actual evidence that their father had ever been present. Sherlock hadn't seen much of his brother; only view enough of his eyes to see that he had been crying throughout the duration of his interview.