Dragon Pressure

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 9.

Truth be told, I have Uncle Martin’s memories. The answer for the how? question is almost funny. However, it’s pretty simple. The floor was wet, he slipped so not to fall he grabbed the nearest object - my neck. And I didn’t wear a garbo.

Then I just saw…

…a little ginger-haired boy playing that he is an aeroplane (one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, actually)…

…a young but very crest-fallen Martin sitting on the edge of a bed in a dim and dirty room…

…Martin in his captain uniform walking toward GERTIE with Douglas who is teasing him as usual…

…Martin and Molly lying on their back in dead fallen leaves on a warm autumn afternoon, laughing so hard they almost cry…

And I still have these. There are very sad moments, mainly from the early ages but there are also very nice ones. Because Martin has Molly and their children and there is always Douglas, Carolyn and Arthur, and as a matter of fact neither his brothers weren’t too bad.

‘Trust my luck’, he said when he recovered himself. ‘I didn’t want to fall so I just kicked myself out. Funny, isn’t it?’

Trust my luck, not the worst man to hold his memories.

Madhouse (diary of R.H.) 8.

I like the Crieff-children but I think I have the closest relationship with Lily. Maybe because she is the eldest or just because I touched her. It was an accident, a very shocking and stupid accident.

Molly invited me to spend the weekend with them. No problem at all. My special feature have started to work but they knew about it. I shared a room with Lily. No problem at all. She knew my safety rules.

Sometimes I have nightmares. Well, I regularly have them. Random memories of mine, memories of other people… It’s terrifying what people have in their minds. And mostly I know them.

Lily was born to be a nice girl with a warm heart. She just wanted to help. She climbed into my bed to wake me up. She was only five, in the middle of the night, a bit sleepy. She grabbed my arm to shake me. My naked arm. She screamed, I woke up, I screamed, she blacked out.

I paniced. What if I killed her…? I still don’t know the borders of my damned mutant thing. If she had been alive, Martin would have killed me. If she had been dead, Martin would have burnt me after skinning me then threwn off to the bin.

‘Lily…? Lily, please, wake up. Come on, girl… Please, please, please…’ I was desperate.

Then Martin and Molly came in. Light was switched on.

‘What happened…? Good Lord.’ Martin knelt down next to Lily. ‘Lily…’

‘Please, Martin, take care of Ginny and Luna. They are crying.’

‘But… Is she…?’

‘She is alive.’

‘What if she inherited my inner-ear problem?’

‘Then her inner-ear feels a bit uncomfortably at the moment. Now, please, go.’

Molly is a pathologist, she can discern a cadaver from a living one, as I’v already mentioned. Martin is very fond of his daughters, as I’ve already said it.

…

Unless this black-out thing Lily was unharmed. She recovered quickly and the Crieff-parents didn’t conceive a dislike for me for the rest of my life. Well, this was a very unease situation for a while but somehow Lily didn’t seem to mind it.

‘You were screaming. Did you have a nightmare?’ She asked me later.

‘Just the usual one.’

‘Do you often have nightmares?’

‘Apparently… yes. And do you often meet that black-haired boy?’

‘Do you know about Sev?’

‘I have all your memories, little girl, don’t forget it.’

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 7.

A few days ago Molly called me. Molly is Uncle Martin’s wife, working at St Bart’s as a pathologist so also a friend of my father. Kind of. Sometimes she invites me to visit them or asks to look after their children, the usual stuff. As she did this time.

‘We have tickets for the theatre for Tuesday evening. I wanted to see Long Day’s Journey Into Night so badly and Martin don’t have a flight next week so it seemed to be a perfect programme. Could you come and look after the lovelies? I’ll make dinner, you only have to tie them to their seats and make sure that they go to bed in time.’

‘Okay, I’ll be there.’

‘Thanks a lot. See you on Tuesday, around six, right?’

So yesterday I was running up and down in the flat like the White Rabbit, screaming I’m late.

‘What’s wrong?’ Kurt appeared with his usual surprising and brimstone-smelling pop.

‘I’m late.’

‘Are you going to a date?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Molly asked me to look after the children in the evening.’

‘All the four of them?’

‘Yes. And now, please, let me go, I’ll have to be there in… five minutes.’

‘Well, I could take you. We would be there in a minute. And I could help you with them. I think it would be fun.’

‘All right. And what do you want in return?’

‘Nothing. You’re getting paranoid, Rogue.’

‘Can we just go?’

‘You’re the supreme commanber.’ He answered and grabbed my hand. He didn’t black out because I always wear gloves (always), except while I am sleeping. Long-sleeved clothes, pantaloons, gloves… not hundred percent but less risky.

Teleportation may not the most comfortable transporting way but fast enough. We arrived right in the middle of the Crieff-house’s living-room. I guess Kurt loves to show off with his ability, because of these pretty little things about it like scaring to death Molly and Martin, amuse the little ones… etc.

‘Good Lord’ Martin sighed as he saw us.

‘Sorry but we were afraid of being late.’ Kurt explained.

‘Never mind, it’s okay. But we must leave or we will be late, really.’

‘I can take you there if you’d like.’ Kurt offered but Molly just smiled.

‘Now, guys… Be nice as always, listen to Rogue, don’t explode the house and eat your dinner.’ Martin hugged all of them, twice. ‘We’ll come late so you can get your goodnight-kisses now.’

Seeing them hugging and kissing made me a bit envious. They are so lucky in some way. Never afraid of that you’ll kill someone with your touch.

‘Bye, honey. Good-night, sweetheart.’ Molly kissed them, too, and they left. We stood in the window until they disappeared on the corner, walking hand in hand, so lovely and perfect couple for my frozen heart.

‘And what now?’ Ginny asked.

Martin and Molly have four children - three girls and a boy.
Lily is the oldest with her eight years. She inherited a beautiful auburn hair from her father and a very kind temper from her mother. Oh, and one day she will be a witch, the signs are clear, inheried from her grandmother. Her godfather is DI Lestrade who also often looks after for the Crieff-children; he is very good with every children, well, he has got five own.
 

Ginny and Luna are twins but not the identical ones. Ginny is auburn hair but Luna has a very fair hair. Molly always says that her father (who died years ago) was blonde, too. This light air clearly fits Luna because she is a natural dreamer. They’re only five years old but they are completely different already. Ginny is everything but not the moony type. And they get on well, I can say.
 

Ron is the youngest, only three years old. He takes after his father with his auburn hair and his very bad luck. To take care of him is always a bit sticky because you can’t know what will go wrong but something will, it’s almost sure.

And now Ron were in the same flat with the master of the chaos, also known as my brother. Please, God, let us survive the evening.

‘Are you hungry?’

‘Not yet.’ Ginny refused my question. ‘Can we play something?’

‘Oh, God, yesss.’ Kurt answered taking her hands and started to dance with her. ‘Tell me what you want, my little princess. Sail the sea like a pirate? Fly over the moon? Capture a castle?’

‘Which one?’ Lily asked eagerly.

‘Brynffanigl!’ Luna screamed enthusiastically.

‘Nooo, little lady, you just invented it.’

‘I’m afraid, no. It sounds to me rather Welsh.’ I corrected Kurt and Luna nodded.

‘So then, a trip to Wales? Fasten your seat-belts, my dear ladies, because I’ll teleportate you right there.’ Kurt joked. I hoped that he had been joking.

‘Will you?’ Lily started to get excited.

‘Can I bring Freddy?’ Little Ron asked and he climbed to the sofa and sat next to me.

‘Who? Freddy?’

‘He is my bear. Dad brought it for me from Washington. I know where it is because he shew it to me in a map. But I don’t know where this Bnfff thing is. Can we go to Washington instead?’

‘There aren’t any castles in Washington.’ Ginny protested.

‘How would you know? You’ve never been there.’ Ron exclaimed. Little children are so logical.

‘Well, we could easily check it.’ Luna mentioned in a sleepy voice. Then she just glanced at Kurt innocently.

‘Good idea.’ Lily approved. ‘We could bring the dinner. Mum made spaghetti, it’s easy to deliver.’

‘But Kurt can’t transportate all the five of us and himself.’ I remonstrated before everything could go into something dangerous or at least silly.

‘Are you sure?’ Ginny seemed to be disappointed.

‘Well, I am capable of many things…’ Kurt started but I hissed. ‘Okay, okay, you’re the boss. What’s your solution?’

‘I say let’s have dinner first.’

‘Right. But can we eat in the room?’ Ginny negotiated.

‘What’s your problem with the dining-room?’ Lily asked.

‘Nothing but it’s more fun.’

‘Don’t tell your parents. None of you.’

‘Hurray! Let’s try to knit a scarf of spaghetti!’ Kurt suggested. Hurray, my borther is infantile.
But he was right. I needed him because things seems to go easily with him. I am okay with children if they are the Crieff-ones but he helped me a lot. For example, he entertained them while I did the wash-up. Oh and he is a much better story-teller than me.

‘Dad and Mum always tells us a bedtime-story.’ Ginny complained. They were all tucked in their blanket, Ron already fell asleep and the others were half-sleeping, too.

‘Sorry but I can only offer myself. Will it be all-right, guys? Because I know a good tale about the very-green dragon who met three little princesses and together they saved the poor blue boy from the horrible parrot king of the horrible parrots…’

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 6.

I don’t know how my grandmother came up with the idea of the name Holmes but it was clever. Not as if I had any problems with McGonagall but somehow it doesn’t seem to be too… practical. She didn’t want to use her own surname and this stuff was a bit funny around the father so she created one. Have I mentioned yet that she was clever?

Then my grandmother met Mr Crieff and they got married - what a chance to live happily ever after. Their son is called Martin Crieff-Holmes but he only uses Crieff (I mean, Captain Crieff), maybe because Crieff doesn’t fit anything. Even Uncle Martin says that it’s a duh-duh-dhfff name, completely useless for gaining respect. And he uses it instead of Holmes! Who can understand the mind of a supreme commander?
He might be a Richardson, I fancy it even it’s a stupid idea as Dogulas is not his official step-father. He just has these paternal caring for Martin and I like to call him my step-grandfather. Because I deserve one. Other children have four grandparents while I don’t have any, it’s not fair. It hardly explains why I am so bad at socials but I need one granddad at least so I chose him. Douglas Richardson is the sarcastic caring type which is pretty okay for me. Not too much fluff, you know.

I’m glad I am a Holmes-girl. Maybe if my mother lived with us and was an ordinary and boring person, I could be Rogue Darkholmes. I’d only need to put the S in.

So there are the Holmes, the Crieffs, the Watsons, the Gibbs, the Freemans, a Richardson, a Shappey and a Knapp-Shappey… and I might count my mother who is a Darkholme-girl, and I am a bit confused about my brother’s actual surname, because he remains to call himself Wagner after the composer. Oh and don’t forget about Minerva McGonagall.
And yet we are a family. 

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 5.

Rules for 221B Baker Street

First of all, don’t bore us. Thank you for your appreciation.

Kurt sometimes teleportates while he is sleeping. If he appears in your room or in your bed, don’t kill him. If your touch can be deadly, don’t even touch him.

Shapeshifters are detected. Don’t try.

If you’re Mycroft Holmes, think over why you came here. Maybe you can tell it in a text, can’t you?

Cluedo is not allowed to come into the house.

If you’re John Watson, check that you brought milk. Thank you.

You can put eyeballs freely into the fridge. Fish-fingers and human fingers are also welcomed.

If you’re a certain detective inspector, bring us cases. If you don’t have any, bring sweets at least.

You can talk about aeroplanes, maybe we just won’t listen. We already know everything about them.

The colour of your skin won’t bother anyone. Really.

Neither you sexual orientation will harass the occupants of the flat but please, don’t share your lovesick problems with us.

Experiments are allowed, just try not to explode the entire flat. Every kind of explosions and bombs against us are forbidden.

Mrs Hudson is our landlady, not house-keeper. God save her.

You shouldn’t touch the skull. It might bite you, noone could know.

Half-American members of the family must have tea with the British ones if convenient. Especially when John Watson is here, too, and brings jam and milk.

You can always find a lemon here if you need one. Well, in the fridge, no, but anywhere else.

221B Baker Street is a child friendly place. To a certain extent.

Ohana means family and I just don’t understand why we wrote it here.

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 4.

Vivienne always tells that she wants to be a writer. She says our family is silly enough to be written about. Yeah, I think so, we are exactly the mock-heroic type.

Once she confessed it to dad. It was years ago, during one of her regular visits, in the living-room of Baker Street 221B, our headquarters (or should I say flat? home). Uncle Mycroft and Phileas, his son, my terrible cousin was also there. I still don’t know why, maybe my aunt got rid of them so she sent them for a little walk. To live “family-life” or something like this. So they were also there, watching as my sister tried to teach Kurt how to play comics-scrabble. Dad likes this game, too, and he must love Vivienne - how else could he have been in the same room with his elder brother for an hour?

Well, our living-room was quite crowded. Maybe Vivienne thinks bigger audience is the better, because abuptly she announced that she was going to be a writer.

‘Okay’, it was father’s only reaction.

‘Do you need a new blogger, brother? Bored of John?’ Mycroft Holmes as trying to be funny. Ha-ha.

‘Thank you for your comment.’ I can imagine these old wars in the children’s room. Oh, wait. I’ve got memories of their childhood, accidentally.

‘What did you want to be, dad, when you was younger?’ Vivienne, eager as always.

‘Initially, he wanted to be a pirate’, Instead of dad, Uncle Mycroft answered.

‘I said thank you, Mycroft.’

‘And what did you want to be father?’ Somehow Phileas got curious about his father’s things. Their family reunions must be fun.

‘Why, what are you now, Uncle Mycroft?’ Living in America didn’t help Vivienne to understand every member of our very unusual family.

‘He’s the Queen!’ Kurt sounded victorious.

‘You’re old enough to know that I was joking when I said it’, I snapped. They always involve me in these stupid conversations…

‘Yep, I know but it’s still funny.’

Now, if I think of it, it’s pretty obvious how Vivienne can get inspiration of our family for her future novels. I hope one day she will write about a boy who ended up as a pirate…

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 3.

I’ve already mentioned my little blue brother and the other half-stuff. Well, to be exact, I’ve got two half-brothers and two half-sisters. We’re from three different women (my father is soooo changable) but Kurt, the blue one and I don’t have the same father. It’s pretty complicated so let’s start from the beginning.

With my 16 ages, I am the youngest of the Holmes-daughters. Actually, I’m younger than my brother, Sheldon but he is a prat and we don’t see each other very often and Holmes-daughters sounds rather cool. I haven’t known about him for 11 ages and I’ve seen him three or four times. Not the closest relationship. Maybe, if he wasn’t so annoying, we could have great movie marathons. But he is a real geek, the intelligent but weird type - I’ve never thought anybody could be that clever and nerve-racking as dad until I met Sheldon. He is a theoretical physicist and I told everything with this, I think. He must have been raised by very patient step-parents.

His twin-sister, Abby is quite different. She is cute - still cute at the age of 20 with her gothic style and I say it and I’m not too sentimental. She is very friendly and once she put me up to visit her. She lives in America with her stepfather, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Funny name, you could say but really… think of Sherlock and Mycroft. Nothing extraordinary. Gibbs is a soldier but not very frightening and Abby is very clever and she was really kind with me and I was only 13 and I can say it was a good trip. Something not messy about my life at last.
Abby usually writes me long e-mails. About everything. She visits Sheldon since she knows that she’s got a brother. She likes him. I think Abby doesn’t have problems with geeks at all.

So, they are the twins. Their mother was a physicist, met my father, got pregnant,  left the Earth to travel in space and time with a double-headed then with a double-hearted man, dropped two children out in America before vanishing totally. My dad wasn’t too meticulous when he told about her. Actually, he seems to be rather shy while he’s talking about our mothers. He might think it’s not my business. He also must knows that I’d eavesdrop when he discusses these things with the skull. (Yeah, he’s got a real skull on the mantelpiece. I just call him Yorick.)

I barely know my own mother and yet I haven’t even met with the other women but I can say that Vivienne’s mother, Linda is the most normal among all of them. I mean, she is an autist but according to Vivienne’s stories she must be funny and creative and strong-minded - these ordinary things. Her name is Linda Freeman and Vivienne is a Freeman, too. She is my step-sister (what a surprise) at the age of 19 now and she’s got all the social skills that her parents miss. Well, if anyone is a result of an experiment, she surely is. I think I like her.

Maybe I am not absolutely hopeless, look, I get on well with my sisters. All right, I don’t see them too often.
But I can see and hear my little brother, Kurt everyday and he’s okay with me. He lives with us because our dear mother left him here when he was just a baby. His father is somebody nicknamed Magneto, a mutant, of course, father revealed it. And he raised Kurt because anyone can say anything but my dad is a good man. With two mutant children to live, really. Kurt is blue and as a teleporter not a shapeshifter he can’t change it. Luckily, since the Avatar it’s okay to be blue.
He is fifteen, the age of ‘I am a funny and cool guy’. You can imagine it. Still, he is a good boy.

Sometimes I wonder if everybody is so okay around me why I am such a mess.
Well, they are not okay. They aren’t ordinary and we all have our defects. I don’t dare to say we love each other but we keep on trying. 

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 2.

Mothers’ Day

I don’t know where is my mother now. We don’t really see each other too much. Sometimes, not too often, she appears here which is kind of funny because her relationship with my father is very interesting. Sometimes I wonder how I can exist at all. It’s not a comforting idea that I am the result of an experiment. But somehow they still need to help each other occasionally.

My mother’s name is Raven Darkholme but she prefers to call herself Mystique. I think she is a spy or something like this but it doesn’t matter. Not really extraodinary in our family. She is a shapeshifter which is very useful because she can change her blue skin to somebody else. So she is the responsible for my mutant DNA and this seems to be pretty clear but when I was little, I always thought that my father was a telephatic mutant because of his deductive skills.

I’m not glad to have several people’s memories in my head but secretly I wish I’d have touched my mother. Ever. Maybe she kissed me or hugged me when I lived with her but I’ve my “speciality” since the age of 11 so no chance. Moreover, I was never a nice person, not a cuddly toddler or a cute baby. Not that my mother was a kind and lovely woman, really. That’s why I am interested if she has any feelings for someone else than herself.

I have many wishes. I’d like to know my grandmother. That one who could get two sons from Darth Vader then an other one from a certain Mr Crieff. She must have been very extraordinary, particularly thinking of that Vader-case. But she died before I could have met her, she died before she could have raised her sons. My step-uncle, Martin was only three years old, he had a really complicated childhood. Uncle Mycroft was old enough to take care of him and my dad but little Martin was always different. Emotional and sentimental. He must have missed his mother.
She was a witch. She died in a battle, fighting against the most powerful dark wizard of the century who killed her at last. She was a great woman, clever and talented, and she did the right thing. With taking part in the war she protected her family. But her sons really whould have needed their brave mother.
I would like her, I think. Because she was a good woman and her name was Minerva McGonagall.

Madhouse (diary of R. H.) 1.

My name is Rogue Holmes. I am a mutant and my family is a mess. A freaky-deaky cracky-whacky mess of various people. For example, my father is a consulting detective (to tell you the truth, the only one in the world, he invented the job), and I’ve got a blue stepbrother and sometimes he teleports. I mean, not sometimes but all the times. Ohh, and one of my uncle is simply the British government, and actually my grandfather is Darth Vader. Not joking.

(Something just exploded in my head and created an alternative universe and life instead of my brain. And it said, Darth Vader is the father of the Holmes-brothers. Sorry.)

When I wrote grandfather, I thought of my biological one. Because I’ve got a step-granddad, too. I also have step-sisters and a step-uncle and I’ve already mentioned one of my step-brothers but I’ve got an other one. I am steps away from my family. Except my father who raised me. Well, that’s raising stuff is under process.

I am 16 years old and I can’t touch anyone skin to skin. Not joking. I won’t joke, anyway, I am not a good-humoured girl. They call me intovert and shy. The real fun is that not my problems are the biggest. I need to write about them, about my family and these other complicated people around me. I have them in my head, their memories and feelings, and this is already the madhouse and sometimes I am wondering if I am crazy.

(It’ll be very-very alternative and cross-overed.)

They call me strange. I can feel what a mess I am. But they also say that I can turn my coat-collar up just like my father. Well, it’s a point to start, isn’t it?