#eurus holmes

[humourless-holmes]

Boredom is dreadful, I do pity you. Do you like games, Eurus?

-♠️

I answer would depend on the game. What game are you proposing we play?

[the-secret-sister]

I that am lost, oh, who will find me;

Deep down below the old beech tree?

Help succour me now, the east wind blows,

Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go.

Be not afraid to walk in the shade

Save one, save all, come try!

My steps - five by seven

Life is closer to Heaven

Look down, with dark gaze, from on high

Without your love, he’ll be gone before.

Save pity for strangers, show love the door.

My soul seek the shade of my willow’s bloom

Inside, brother mine -

Let Death make a room.

Before he was gone - right back over my hill.

Who now will find him?

Why, nobody will.

Doom shall I bring to him, I that am queen.

Lost forever, nine by nineteen.

[the-secret-sister]

[rome-theeempire]

I measure if I'm in enemy territory by your reaction to these characters

[becoming-pathological]

Come to 221B this evening, 8pm. Important. -SH

At exactly 8pm, a knock came at the door and when Sherlock opened it, Mycroft stood there looking mildly annoyed.

"Yes, brother mine?"

Sherlock simply took a step back and gestured him in. At the dramatic silence Mycroft rolled his eyes but entered the flat, reading his surroundings. A fire crackled in the fireplace, making the room warm and unusually cozy. A cocktail cart stood beside Sherlock's armchair.

"Do make this quick, will you?" Mycroft complained. "I've been dealing with a skirmish of sorts in Dubai all evening and I would like to rest."

"Then rest."

Sherlock motioned to John's armchair and approached the cocktail cart. "Brandy?"

Mycroft looked displeased at the seat he was offered but took it regardless, raising a brow at the sight of the crystal decanter Sherlock was pouring from.

"New addiction for the holidays?" He tried.

Sherlock made eye contact as he handed his brother a lowball glass of brandy but said nothing, instead settling into the adjacent armchair with his own glass and gazing into the fireplace. Shadows played over the sharp angles of his face.

Mycroft scoffed after they sat in silence for a few moments.

"I don't have time for your moodiness, Sherlock. Out with it, please."

Sherlock sipped from his glass and met his gaze once more.

"Tomorrow is Friday--"

"Stunning deduction--"

"-- which means it will be a month since you visited Eurus."

Mycroft scowled at first, but quickly it melted into an expression of guilt and annoyance that Sherlock had been keeping track.

"Yes, well."

He did not continue the thought, but relented to a sip of brandy. It was a very fine vintage, he was surprised to find. Similar to what he might drink at his Diogenes club.

"You didn't call me here to scold me." It wasn't a question.

Sherlock inhaled deeply and shook his head before returning his eyes to the fire.

"No."

Mycroft was going to stab something if the silence didn't let up soon, but decided (perhaps in the spirit of Christmas) to simply wait. Sherlock always made him wait.

Together, the Holmes boys shared a drink and watched the fire for several minutes. Wind whistled outside the flat, bringing the beginnings of a snowfall to London.

"I can't imagine what it was like to tell our parents that she was dead."

Mycroft's eyes were no longer on the fire, though Sherlock's remained.

"What is so urgent about this conversation? You said it was urgent."

"I said it was important."

Sherlock sent a pointed look his way.

Mycroft sighed in defeat and settled further into the armchair, adjusting his grey waistcoat.

"Fine. Yes. It was... hard. But it had to be done."

Mycroft studied him again.

"You don't feel sorry for her, do you? After she murdered your friend? And tortured us like that?"

"She is still my sister," Sherlock replied, his voice alarmingly gentle. The concept of having a younger sister was still new to him, and he struggled with the emotions surrounding it. "Just as she is yours."

"Yes. Well. If only siblings came with gift receipts for return," Mycroft remarked dryly, grimacing into a sip of brandy. "I remember thinking something similar after you were born."

Sherlock looked over at him.

"You would never return me, Mycroft."

For the first time since he'd arrived, Mycroft's expression softened. He swallowed and looked down into his glass while swirling the last of its contents.

Sherlock, seeing that the meaning of his words had landed, mercifully occupied the silence with refilling both of their glasses.

"I wouldn't return you, either."

Mycroft glanced up at him, the look on his face a heartbreaking mixture of hopeful and insecure.

"No?"

"No," Sherlock repeated. "I believe there are policies against returning damaged goods."

Mycroft's expression became guarded while he sorted through the intention of the words.

"Then neither of us would be eligible for return, I'm afraid."

When it became clear that Sherlock had nothing to retort, the quiet became comfortable again and they resumed gazing into the fireplace.

Sherlock remembered now. The week after Eurus had been taken away, he'd been inconsolable. Traumatized. Grieving a death that he felt responsible for at the age of six.

Mycroft, then thirteen years of age, spent the entirety of that week at his side, holding his baby brother as he sobbed. Rocking him back and forth. Soothing him.

Sherlock remembered the feeling of Mycroft's cashmere sweater, soaked with his own tears, against his cheek. The sound of Mycroft shushing him like a practiced mother of four.

"You were a good brother, Mycroft."

Sherlock cleared his throat and rubbed his fingertips together.

"You are a good brother."

He didn't dare look up from the fire, but heard something akin to a sniffle.

"So are you, brother dear."

[indecisiveavocado]

eurus is a Mystery, and the Sherlock Holmes stories are about mysteries

the core of the original Holmes stories was the way they were rooted in rationality. not necessarily perfectly. they had their issues, of course.(but they were surprisingly good for the time period. as i discovered when i read dracula. but i am heroically not ranting about bram stoker right now and you all should be thanking me). however, fundamentally, Sherlock Holmes was a rational being.

even when conan doyle was being fooled into thinking fairies were real, he recognized, quite wisely, that (to quote him in a different context) "the created is not the creator". in the sussex vampire Holmes himself says that "[n]o ghosts need apply". fundamentally, conan doyle's Holmes is a creature of rationality, predicated on the reassuring belief that there is always an explanation, that the Things at the edges of polite victorian society can be explained, deconstructed, analyzed; that they are, if not perfectly rational, comprehensible. there is no magic, there is little unexplained; the stories have their factual errors and inconsistencies, but the fundamental premises are not outlandish. everything has an explanation. the world can be placed into nice neat boxes and given labels. it's a very reassuring worldview.

to put it simply: the Sherlock Holmes stories are about mysteries, not Mysteries. mysteries follow some unspoken, higher-up rules, beliefs about how the world operates. perhaps there is a murder; but a reason can be found. there are clues. things occur in chronological order; perhaps they are not revealed in chronological order, but they happen in that, there are no time loops and no one is in two places at once. there is such a thing as the impossible. there are limits to things that can be done. Mysteries take those beliefs, beliefs you may not even realize you had, and explore what happens when those rules are broken. they are creatures of horror, more than mystery. they do not owe you explanations or rationality.

and at first, Sherlock was a fine mystery show! the cabbie in ASiP didn't use dark magic. it required some suspension of disbelief, but it was reasonable, believable, the suspension merited by the nature of the stories (i assume they got bits of the uk legal system wrong, but it's not as if crime stories set in the us are well-known for their accurate portrayals of the legal system.)

but then along comes eurus, who is a clear Mystery. she takes the basic principle of Sherlock Holmes -- that there is always an explanation, that even the most seemingly perplexing things can be comprehended, that even the things that appear to break the rules really do follow some rules, that the eldritch beings at the gates are really phosphorus-covered dogs -- and says, "to hell with that." 

and if you take what she is at face value, if you say she has magic powers and is a Mystery, a lot of the issues are resolved!

she shoots john with a tranquilizer gun and runs off? It's okay, she's a Mystery. she can't be understood.

she brainwashes anyone, like, instantly? it's okay, she has magic powers. she can't be understood.

those powers don't work on john, despite him being with her for a long period of time deliberately trying to be vulnerable? it's okay, she's a Mystery. she chose not to use her magic powers on John. why? she can't be understood.

and a genre switch can be done well. it would be difficult to pull off here -- a central tenet of mysteries is that there will be no Mysteries. but it can be done! unfortunately, moffat (and gatiss but this feels more moffat-y tbh and also i like him less so: moffat) seemed to believe that being an old white guy made his stories necessarily perfect, and character development and plot and coherency can go down in the mysterious well (it's okay, she has magic powers to erase wells from everyone's memories and, presumably, make victor trevor's parents forget they ever had a child) with victor trevor. 

(and also, eurus's magic powers and Mystery don't even resolve everything, necessarily! where's rosie in all of this? who knows! eurus arranged for babysitting or something. how does john get unchained considering how fast the water's going up? i guess her powers extend to levitating other people also! i think it was @plaidadder who got caught up in the issue of the body of the therapist she was impersonating and how that worked so i guess she can. like. magically preserve people or mess with their [and animals'] sense of smell now!)

[mycienlockets]

BBC Holmes siblings, you are so dear to me

[mycienlockets]

"When I grow up, I will be brave enough to fight the creatures that you have to fight beneath the bed each night to be a grown up."

I can talk about Holmes siblings trauma all day actually