sto morendo dal crepacuore, fratello mio

[punchmeitssubtext]

It was something of a given that the Holmes brothers tended to intrude on one another's privacy without either warning or apology. After a difficult adolescence and young adulthood, it had very nearly become habit (which, in retrospect, probably explained a good deal of the resentful and angry behavior), although that habit had somewhat faded after Sherlock's false death and resurrection.

Until today, at least.

The door of Mycroft's home banged open, and Sherlock stormed in, bringing a gust of the rain and muggy air from outdoors with him as if it were generated by the billowing drape of his coat. With no explanation aside from several furiously muttered obscenities, he slammed the door behind him and then practically threw himself onto his brother's couch, curling up in an awkward, angry ball.

Comments

[the_government]

"Sherlock, do come in. Take a seat" Mycroft comes in from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, a small towel thrown over his shoulder, holding two steaming cups of tea. He sets one on the end table next to his balled-up brother.

Sherlock so rarely visits him, let alone with such impulsivity. The childish display of irritation is of course, all too familiar.

He rolls his eyes, but doesn't say another word. Moving to the armchair opposite the couch, he sips his tea and waits for his brother to unburden himself.

[punchmeitssubtext]

There's a very long moment of silence; on anyone else it would read as almost agonized, but this is Sherlock, who can barely admit when he's hungry or tired or coming down with the bubonic plague.

Finally he lets out a frustrated huff into the couch cushions.

"He keeps saying it," he mutters, without looking over at his brother.

[the_government]

Mycroft winces. There's no need to ask what was said or who was saying it. There's only one person and one sentence that could elicit this sort of response.

He knows. Oh god, does he know. It's why he prefers to keep his sexual encounters brief and anonymous, generally. He had a few lovers that he had hoped to keep, for ease, for convenience, and this had always happened. In an endorphin-filled haze they ended up murmuring those words in his ear, and well, that was it, wasn't it?

Though he knew it wasn't exactly the same with his brother. Where his own companions were easily discarded, Sherlock could sooner cut off his own hands than cut John out of his life.

"ah. And is it the feeling of --it that bothers you? Or merely the enforced repetition of...it."

It's cruel, perhaps, of him to make light of his brother's emotional immaturity. But caring never was his strong suit.

[punchmeitssubtext]

After a heartbeat or two Sherlock rolls onto his back--and for the first time in a long time, none of the tiny signs of vulnerability in his expression and body language are feigned. For the first time in entirely too long he trusts his brother, albeit reluctantly, with his own confusion. Because nobody, nobody else understands what it's like in his head, how all the information flows together and sorts itself and gets tangled up at the wrong moments.

"You know, most of the time it's perfectly fine," he says. "It's just there: okay, another established fact, I can move on to something else. But then--sometimes, for no reason at all, it just..."

He looks very much as if he wants a cigarette. Or a stiff drink.

"It expands. I don't have the vocabulary for it. It's--it's like Rimsky-Korsakov, or Hawking, or... god, I don't know. It pushes everything else out. I can't think."

[the_government]

"An entirely new and singular sensation for you, I'm sure." Mycroft smiled around the lip of the mug.

He knew that, if Sherlock was capable of feeling love, he would feel it for John Watson. He also knew that there was little he could do to make his brother recognize the fact that he was experiencing a feeling much less hope that it would be a reciprocation.

Still all the facts pointed toward an illogical attachment between the two. And what was more illogical than love?

"I know the idea of not being able to think is...disconcerting" he begins, hesitantly "but, and you'll forgive me for stating the obvious, you've just compared it to one thing you cherish, and one thing you once struggled to understand, and then deleted when you decided it was unnecessary"

He pauses, taking a sip.
"Brother, nobody understands love."

[punchmeitssubtext]

Sherlock makes a frustrated noise and brings both hands up to his face, pressing his palms against his eyes. His fingers are shaking, very slightly, just as they did by the fire at Baskerville. This is like fear and it isn't. It's more dangerous.

"Everyone uses that word," he manages, rather weakly. "There needs to be a better one."

Because how can he describe to his brother what goes through him every time John's mouth closes over his lower lip, every time John's thumb traces the line of his cheekbone? How can he possibly explain what happens when he says something that makes John laugh, or when one of them instinctively grabs the other's hand to go tearing off after a suspect?

How can he articulate what happens in his chest every time he hears those three words, directed at him and only him, and knows that they're the truth?

"It's debilitating," he says at last. If Mycroft doesn't understand, he's not sure how he can keep going.

[the_government]

"It is indeed. And also foolish and irrational. Because you feel like you're losing control of everything you knew, because suddenly there's this, person in your life that you'd do anything for. Because you feel" He wrinkles his nose in distaste.

"I'm not the most experienced. I've only loved once, and it wasn't the same. I didn't know how to do it. Me!" He laughs sharply, bitterly.

"It's an ache inside you even when it's good. And you're constantly distracted."

Mycroft tries to remember what it felt like, so many years ago, the fullness and the emptiness at the same time, the feel of soft curls tickling his neck, warm breath over his shoulder, a small sleepy voice asking for one more chapter, the weight of carrying the small boy up to his room and tucking him under the covers, so carefully, the most precious thing in the world.

"I miss it sometimes" he whispers, his expression resigned and almost remorseful, catching Sherlock's eyes with his gaze.

[punchmeitssubtext]

There's a soft, mirthless laugh from his brother; his grey eyes reflect only misery and frustration.

"Do you remember that one Christmas, when we were boys, and half of Dad's family showed up to dinner? When I broke the vase?"

The memory is fuzzy for him, distant and a little warped by time, but he can still recall most of the incident. But what he remembers most keenly is that sense of knowing he could bring all the endless chatter in the room to a halt, if only for a moment.

Of knowing there was a way of getting relief from something overwhelming.

[the_government]

Mycroft nods, half-smiling. He had been older than Sherlock, the memory was clearer for him. Sherlock had always been uncomfortable around large groups of people, and with the wine and the Christmas crackers it had grown much too loud for him. The vase crashing to the floor had brought everything to a blessed stop. Sherlock had been sent to bed, Mycroft had taken a lecture for not watching him well enough, and later that night had snuck him some king cake, acting surprised when Sherlock's piece contained the baked-in trinket.

"I know it seems like too much."

Mycroft sat back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together

"But do you really want it to stop?"

[punchmeitssubtext]

Sherlock lowers his hands, still trembling faintly--it's a huge feeling, even when he has someone to talk to about it--and looks over at his brother, long and searching.

"It never stops."

He means John first and foremost, but he also remembers that piece of cake with the cat's eye marble baked into it. He'd carried that damn thing everywhere with him for twenty years; in fact he still regrets having gotten high enough to lose it.

And now the shaking is partly fear. Sherlock knows now, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he has a heart. He knows he's capable of something he can't understand or dissect logically. His heart hammers in his chest; every breath nearly burns.

The words are huge in his mind, but they stick in his throat, threatening to choke him.

[the_government]

Mycroft stands, the tea forgotten, he takes deliberate steps to sit at Sherlock's side, casting an arm about those shaking shoulders, grasping his trembling hands in a solid grip. He pulls his brother into a sideways embrace, tucking the dark curls beneath his chin. His eyes close, and he sighs.

"It doesn't, does it?"

It's so familiar, so simple, so hard to remember how and why they'd lost this, now that they'd both come back together. So painful to feel the what-might-have-beens against the realities, so good to feel the future potential.

It's not ok, so he doesn't say that. And he doesn't know if it'll ever get better, or easier.

"I know, my brother" he whispers, Sherlock's hair just as soft beneath his lips as it was 25 years ago. "I know."

[punchmeitssubtext]

He tenses, but only for a brief moment. Some part of his mind is screaming that this is stupid, this is childish... but Mycroft understands. He knows how much this hurts, how badly it throws him off balance, how confusing and frustrating it is to feel something and not be able to resist it.

Sherlock lets out a weak, shaky laugh, and the tension drains slowly out of his shoulders.

"This..." The words start to tumble out of him, still halting and unsure but by now so strong that he can't hold them back. "This is really it, isn't it? Not just chemistry. Because you can alter chemistry, you can control chemistry, and I... Jesus, Mycroft, there's so much of it."

It's an odd collision of the past and present. He's leaning into his brother as if they were still young enough not to have years' worth of cold, jagged barriers between them... and yet he's seeking the comfort of his only family for a reason a child can't begin to grasp.

[the_government]

"The great mystery...I'm afraid it's one neither of us can solve."
Mycroft makes a huffing noise that's halfway between a laugh and a sob, his face turned, cheek resting on the top of Sherlock's head.

He wonders if John knows just how grateful he is. Sure, he's been meddlesome and antagonistic, but John has done something he couldn't- made his brother a better man. John knows how to love, and does it not only well, but easily. John had found his lost younger brother and brought him back home.

John deserves to know this...this weight that rests on his brother's psyche, this illogical attachment. Even though he probably wont understand, as nobody fully really understands a Holmes, he's come the closest. He's done the best of anyone so far.

Mycroft takes a deep breath.

"I know you haven't told him....that." he begins softly, "But have you told him anything? Have you tried?"

"Remember the king cake? Sometimes it's easier to show."

[punchmeitssubtext]

Sherlock's eyes are closed, and his breathing is uneven, like he's just run a mile. And yet this is a moment of calm: a rare, treacherous tenderness between them that allows him to be safe. Once, while slipping in and out of the delirium of cocaine withdrawal, he'd started howling as if raw sound could propel him back into the safety of the past, of knowing he was not in fact alone.

And he's not alone, not now. In fact--in fact he's so full he doesn't know what to do.

He thinks about sitting on the couch with John, watching really rather terrible films but enjoying them because they make John happy. He thinks about the two dozen songs he's learned on the violin (rock songs mostly, and a handful of things you'd hear people bellowing in a pub). He thinks about waking up next to someone in the morning, and curling up next to someone at night even during the descent into sleep. Everything, everything that isn't the work is a confession.

"All the time," he murmurs, with a strange kind of exhaustion in his voice. "I can't get away from it. From him. Even--he went up to Edinburgh yesterday to see an aunt of his, she's far more ill than he's letting on. And do you know what I said? 'Call me if there's a double homicide.' For God's sake. There should be a rule book. If there was a procedure, I could memorise it and then we wouldn't be in this mess."

True, John had laughed, in that short and huffing way that meant he was only partly irritated. But then he'd responded with a You too, idiot, and left, and now he... well, he feels the absence.

"The last time I ever said it--" and he hears his own voice crack, and hates himself for it, for admitting this at all-- "was to Dad. At his funeral. I can't manage this."

[the_government]

Mycroft pulls away slightly, his arm moving from around Sherlock's back to grip his nearest shoulder. He takes a deep breath.

"The last time I said it was the day I left for university."

It had been through a layer of solid oak, and the blasting of Verdi's "Dies Irae" (dramatic even then) had made sure no sullen pre-teen ears had heard.

He stops for a moment, thinking about what Sherlock had just told him, and then his somber expression cracks into a faint smile.

"Do you realize...you've just asked for a rule book? My brother, following rules?" He grins wider, ruffling Sherlock's unruly curls. "I would suspect some sort of grave illness had befallen you."

He looks at his brother, thinking how much he's changed. How much they've both grown, mistakes made along the way of course, but they're solving them now. Learning that being "the best" isn't always being the smartest or the most in control.

"Look at us, brother. Sitting here bemoaning ourselves. We're being ridiculous." His smile is wider now, the first smile that's felt real to him in a long time.

"Has there ever been anything we couldn't do?"

[punchmeitssubtext]

Some part of his brain has already tucked that implicit admission away for later: he'll put it in context, process the old anger and that strange ringing wistfulness that he'd once driven out with drugs, figure out some subtle way of antagonizing him to even the score. But for now, Sherlock makes no effort to pull away, though he does wrinkle his nose and duck a little when he feels Mycroft ruffling his hair.

"Cluedo," he points out dryly. "Three-legged races. Quiche."

He thinks, rather suddenly and for the first time in quite a while, of Victor--Victor, with his slow smile and enormous laugh, whose kisses were electric but ultimately meaningless. Experience, he's learned, is a nearly infallible teacher.

Most of the time, anyway.

"Besides, you've always been ridiculous, what with your--your pocket squares and the bespoke umbrellas. This is different."

[the_government]

Mycroft waived his hand airily. "I suppose we could succeed at those if we cared enough to try. And I beg pardon, I've always been ridiculous? Where you prance around in flapping coats and too-tight shirts? Hmph" His voice is sharp, but a twist of his mouth and the twinkle in his eye shows he's making fun in jest.

He fingers the knot in his tie, still perfectly taut as always, the pin keeping it from slipping. He sighs, leaning back on the sofa, his hand returning to rest on his brother's shoulders- a point of contact, keeping them grounded together in physicality is doing wonders for their relationship so far.

"It is different. It matters. Why is this sentiment, why this one man matters to you above any other."

A thought occurs to him, and he looks at Sherlock quizzically. His brother had always flamboyantly rejected normality, pushing any human emotions out of his system. But this emotion...even though it pained him, his brother clung to. Much the same as he himself had clung to his wreck of a brother, even as the downward spiral of drugs turned him into someone unrecognizable.

"You haven't tried to quell this attraction using chemical means, though. That's...quite interesting."

[punchmeitssubtext]

Sherlock makes a soft, contemplative sound; he's still leaning very slightly against Mycroft's shoulder, as if it's a muscle memory from his childhood days. As a little boy he'd quickly discovered that leaning on his brother afforded him an excellent view of Mycroft's sketchbook, or the sheet music he was reading, or something he might be building for school. It was a safe position, a position of knowledge and warmth, and now that he's older it's a little startling that that hasn't changed.

"It wouldn't work," he says. "It's too different. And anyway the problem isn't the attraction. It's..."

He pauses, trying to think of the right words, the right way to communicate the shape of this thing that's so wholly outside the realm of their experience.

Briefly, he recalls one of Mycroft's secretaries--an ambitious but anxious man whose accent placed his upbringing near Cornwall. While his brother was consciously careful not to betray himself, that secretary had given them away in a very specific manner. Every so often Mycroft would say something, or make a reference to their strange childhood, and the man would have an unconscious moment of looking utterly surprised... as if he were hearing certain words in certain combinations for the first time, as if he had suddenly stepped into totally unknown territory and found it fascinating.

He'd been replaced by Anthea four months later. But the image stuck with Sherlock; if he'd noticed it, he knows, Mycroft must have picked up on it too.

"I'm never bored," he finally manages. And it's true: while they have something that passes for a domestic routine, John is constantly surprising him. The cocaine had been an escape, a way of speeding up the world around him, but its effects had been predictable. Even now that he and John are intimate, he's constantly discovering things.