The List

Part 1

"List"

Chapter 1 : Prologue

Mycroft took a deep breath in as he looked up at the building he was about to enter. It was an abandoned warn down old factory that he knew junkies stayed in.

Just 25 minutes ago he got a call from a payphone and all he heard was his brothers very gruff and weak voice say in broken words 'same place'.

Mycroft entered the building and quickly began looking for the younger Holmes.

This has been happening more often than not and it was really starting to become a huge pain for Mycroft who always, still, reminds Sherlock to call him if he ever needs him. The phone calls come at all hours and are usually Sherlock asking to be picked up or asking about chemistry and mixing of things that Mycroft usually pieces together that Sherlock had already done the concoction but was at least smart enough to check in before he was too far gone in his own world to get help.

Mycroft walked past the homeless people with a disgusted look on his face. Peering down at each one and turning his nose up at them when he sees they're not who he is looking for.

Then he hears a familiar grunt from a few meters down and he immediately runs to the young boys side.

Upon reaching the boy he can see that he is convulsing. Terribly.

In the dim lighting from a candle he can see the boy shaking and sweating as his body jerks and twists.

"Sherlock!" Mycroft almost yells, disturbing the others around.

"Fuck sakes." Mycroft takes the young boy and rolls him on his side.

He starts patting the boys pockets looking for something that he too often is looking for on his brother.

A list.

"Jesus christ Sherlock." Mycroft swears under his breath as he quickly scans the note.

He brushes the curls from his baby brothers face and takes in a deep breath.

Sherlock had stopped convulsing but starts violently shaking all over.

Mycroft crosses his legs and puts the boys head into his lap.

He pats his brothers head while he hums a familiar tune to him that their mother used to sing when they were children.

Mycroft watches his brothers pulse, checks his pupils and monitors his breathing while he sits with him.

It feels like hours pass before sherlocks eyes dart open. He stared up, not really focused on anything, he looked empty.

After a few moments his eyes looked as if they were finally filled with life and he made eye contact with the older Holmes. Neither of them said a word for a very long time and as the moments passed, a single tear fell from sherlocks eye which was quickly brushed away by his brother.

Mycroft sat with Sherlock for quite some time before he was able to get him up to walk out of the building to his car. The pair had not yet spoken a word to each other and after loading sherlock into the car, Mycroft sat behind the wheel and rested his head down on it.

"I can't keep doing this. I can't keep mummy and daddy in the the dark. I can't do this in my own anymore sherl, you're really starting to scare me and I don't know what to do the day I show up and you're dead."

Sherlock slumped down in the seat.

"Nothing else makes it stop Myc."

"You just have to learn how to organize the thoughts. Teach them that YOU have control over them and not them over you."

Sherlock spoke shakily "I can't do it Myc, everything is too much. I don't know why I'm even still here."

Mycroft felt pain in his chest and sighed while reaching over and grabbing sherlocks shoulder "it's because you have a purpose, you may not see it but you do and I see so much potential in you." Mycroft then started the car and drove down the alley that was now pitch black as night had come.

Sherlock was in and out of it as they drove, both from the drugs and from his own dissociative mind.

Mycroft drove for what felt like forever and eventually parked on a big hill overlooking some of the cities beautiful lights.

"I'm going to teach you something tonight."

Sherlock looked at Mycroft confused as he turned off the car and lights.

"Imagine your mind is like a big room with lots of drawers. In each of those drawers are memories, information- the works. Imagine standing in the middle of the room with a big pile of everything you've ever heard, learnt, saw or experienced and now you have to organize it into the drawers. Then, whenever you need to get something, go to that drawer, open it up and all you need will be right there."

Sherlock still continued to look a bit confused but also intrigued.

"Can it be like a big hallway with other hallways and rooms?"

"Of course brother mine, it can be whatever you'd like."

The two brothers sat in the car until the sun started to rise, Sherlock ran away into his mind and started the long process of creating and building his mind palace. The pair barely spoke all night as Mycroft was in and out of sleep and Sherlock was busy building away. He found it very relaxing and it opened his eyes to the fact that he can choose what he needs to think about and when.

Before Mycroft started up the car to leave he turned to his young brother, just barely 18 years old and said "no more Sherl, no more phone calls, no more pick ups. No more. It's time to get better and learn how to use your brain to its advantages."

In that moment Sherlock was feeling on top of the world with this new found talent and felt that he could conquer anything. Little did the young boy know that yes, for now this new technique will help but it wouldn't be too long before Mycroft got a call in the middle of the night from a raspy voice saying "corner of 11th and oxford."

It took Sherlock years before he learnt that in order to keep himself busy he had to be solving something, experimenting with something or just doing something that made his brain work. Until that point, the drugs were the only thing he could turn to, to make the overwhelmingness stop.