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Most people assumed that Mycroft didn’t remember his biological mother. It made sense- he’d been only three when she passed, and he never spoke of his memories of her. He remembered, though. He remembered his mother’s green eyes and her frizzy orange hair. He remembered going with her to her work at the university and playing quietly under her desk as she lectured, falling asleep to her voice echoing over the crackly sound system. He remembered Mummy- who was only his godmother at the time. Mummy’s cubicle was right next to his mother’s, and he remembered how she’d play with him when she wasn’t busy, and sneak him sweeties which she kept in the top drawer of her desk.
He remembered his mother’s funeral in a vague series of sense memories. He remembered the sickly sweet smell of the bright flowers. He remembered Mummy holding him and crying quietly. He remembered a wooden box, and he remembered that no one had allowed him to look inside.
He remembered a tall, angry looking man. The man had held him badly, and Mycroft had screamed until Mummy took him back.
“I don’t want it.” The man had said.
“He is your son.” Mummy had said, in that tone of voice that meant she was very, very angry. “But we will take him in, because he deserves better than a father like you.”
So Mycroft went to live with Mummy and a smiling, friendly man he soon came to know as ‘Father’. It was just the three of them, and Mycroft was quite happy with them, even if he missed his biological mother sometimes. He was glad he was with them and not with the angry man, his biological father.
Three years later, Mycroft found a pamphlet from a fertility clinic on the coffee table and the box of a pregnancy test in the rubbish bin. Even at six years old, he could deduce what that meant- Mummy and Father were trying to have another child. What Mycroft couldn’t deduce was why they needed another one, when they already had him. No, that was a lie - he did know. When Mummy’s friends came to look at him, they told Mummy and Father how kind and loving they were, for taking him in. Then they asked, ‘Don’t you want one of your own?’. Adopted children weren’t ‘real’ children. Of course Mummy and Father would want to have a proper child.
Nearly a year later, Mummy went to hospital, and Father and Mycroft waited outside her room until she was finished having the baby. Then they were called inside.
‘It’s a girl!” Mummy told them. “Isn’t that nice? A little boy and a baby girl. Perfect.” She was wrong, but they wouldn’t find out for another decade and a half.
The baby suckled at Mummy’s breast, and when it was done Father got to hold it. He bounced it gently, looking utterly delighted by the little pink-wrapped bundle.
“Do you want to hold her?” Mummy asked.
“No.” Mycroft said.
Father laughed. “It’s all right, just be careful. She won’t break; she’s stronger than she looks.”
Father showed Mycroft how to hold her, how to support her big, heavy head. The baby squinted at Mycroft, and Mycroft looked back at her. He hoped Father was right, because she really didn’t look very strong at all. He resisted the urge to drop her, just to check.
Six months later, Mycroft had to admit that baby Sherlock was growing on him. She was much bigger now, and had started actually doing things, like smiling and crawling and babbling. She even knew a couple of words. Her favourite was ‘Of’, an even worse bastardisation of Mycroft’s name than Mummy’s ‘Mikey’. Still, he forgave her for it, because most babies at her age didn’t know any words at all, and because he was quite pleased at being the baby’s favourite. He could always calm her when she was crying (she cried a lot, far more than Mycroft ever did), and she would crawl after him as he was walking about the house, trying to see what he was up to.
Sherlock was a fast crawler on a determined journey towards standing. She would grab onto furniture and haul herself into a standing position. Sometimes, instead of furniture, she would use Mycroft’s trousers. Sometimes, she would only succeed in pulling them down. Mummy, unhelpful woman, took photographs instead of scolding Sherlock. Mycroft scowled and got Father to get him a pair of suspenders.
Mycroft in school was quiet and clever. He got good marks and kept his head down. When Mycroft’s old teachers heard that Mycroft’s little sister was joining their class, they were in for quite a surprise. Sherlock was almost as clever as her brother, but in every other respect completely different. She was loud, brash, a firecracker. She asked questions constantly, and was never satisfied with the answer. She picked fights with her teachers, with her peers, and though they were usually just arguments, she was never afraid to get into a scuffle.
There being seven years between them, Sherlock and Mycroft were never in the same school at the same time. However, the Primary school Sherlock attended shared a field with Mycroft’s secondary school. Sometimes during recess Sherlock would venture out in search of Mycroft, her favourite big brother. Once, she caught him at a rather inconvenient time.
“Hello, Piggy.”
The class was reading Lord of the Flies, and some boys had noticed a certain similarity between Mycroft and one of the characters. It wasn’t that Mycroft was particularly like Piggy in character, but he was chubby and wore glasses, and that was enough for the idiots in Mycroft’s class. Between that and Mycroft’s shock of bright orange hair, he was something of an easy target for small-minded bullies.
Mycroft stumbled backwards, trying to put distance between himself and the other boys. He could easily lash back at them, if he chose; Simpson, a raging Oedipus complex; Hughes, he said he had diarrhoea just now, but he was really sucking off his boyfriend in a toilet stall. Carson, well, he didn’t have any big secrets; but he was the sort of idiot who can barely tell left from right, and everyone knew it.
He could, but he chose not to. This wasn’t his moment to show what he could do. His time would come, but it hadn’t come yet.
Simpson laughed. “Careful there, Piggy. Wouldn’t want you to crack your head open on a rock.”
It wasn’t even a clever quip, but the other two boys laughed sycophantically. Mycroft clutched his book (Dante’s Inferno) to his chest, and fumed silently. He could destroy these boys, cut them to ribbons using only words of one syllable. They belonged in the seventh circle of hell, with other violent, mean people, immersed in a river of boiling blood and fire, shot with arrows every time they tried to escape. Mycroft indulged himself in picturing this, but didn’t say anything.
Sherlock had no such restraint. Seeing some boys harrassing her big brother, she loosed a battle cry and charged at the boys, assailing them with fists and teeth. It was quite the sight, she with her pinafore and her blonde curls, all of seven years old and small for her age, taking on three boys twice her age and nearly twice her size.
Luckily for Sherlock, awful as the boys were, they weren’t quite awful enough to hit her back, possibly because she was a girl, or because she was a young child, or maybe both. Still, Carson put her in a rather nasty headlock, and laughed at how her little face was slowly turning red as she struggled to get out.
“Let her go, Carson,” said Hughes, “you don’t want her to pass out.”
Carson let her drop to the floor. Sherlock scrambled to her feet, looking like she might actually decide to start for a second round.
“Sherlock.” Mycroft said sharply.
Sherlock glanced back at him and huffed, scowling. She went to stand by Mycroft, folding her arms and glared hard at the three boys.
“Who’s this?” Simpson asked. “Your new bodyguard? Should’ve asked for a bigger model.” Carson and Hughes echoed his false laughter.
Mycroft placed a proprietary hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “My sister.” He said, as smoothly and calmly as he could.
Hughes raised an eyebrow, looking between Mycroft’s face and Sherlock’s. “Your sister? Doesn’t look much like you. Sure you didn’t steal her?”
Sherlock sneered at them. “Mycroft’s adopted.” She said, as though it should have been obvious; and to her, it was. From their hair to Mycroft’s nose to the shapes of their bodies, it was as obvious as the fact that they were both Caucasian.
Mycroft closed his eyes, sighing internally. Stupid, clumsy Sherlock, with her clumsy inability to keep herself from correcting people, and her stupid ignorance of how people reacted to adopted children. Mycroft had known that, when he was her age, but she wasn’t as clever as he was, and just because Mummy and Father treated them the same, she didn’t realise that other people thought differently.
The three boys hooted with laughter. “You’re adopted, Holmes? What, Daddy didn’t want you?” Simpson taunted.
“Oh, oh!” Hughes exclaimed. He drew himself up, putting on a stern look. “Mister and Missus Holmes donate a great deal every year to our school fund.” He burst into peals of laughter. “Because they love charity, right? That’s what you are, eh, Holmes?”
“But he isn’t Holmes, is he? Right? What’s your real name, Piggy?” Simpson crowed.
Sherlock looked about ready to charge them again. Mycroft’s grip tightened on her shoulder. He would let out his anger with her later. For now, they had to present a united front.
“Come on, Sherlock.” He steered her away, steadfastly ignoring the other boys’ mocking laughter.
Later, in the evening, Mycroft sneered at Sherlock across the dinner table. Sherlock folded her arms, scowling him. “What does it matter?” She argued. “They’re idiots who’ll never do anything important, and you don’t even like them. It was obvious, anyway.”
Mycroft scoffed. “You’re too small and stupid to understand.” He didn’t want to explain it to her, especially not with Mummy and Father listening in. He didn’t want to worry them.
Sherlock frowned. Mycroft never dismissed her like that. He was the one who would always patiently explain things to her, or teach her the way to figure it out for herself. “Fine.” She snapped. She got down from her chair, storming off to her room.
After a few days, Sherlock forgave Mycroft, forgetting the slight with the ease of a young child. However, it seemed that Mycroft had not forgiven her. While he behaved normally at home, no matter how often she went out to the field, she never caught sight of Mycroft’s red head of hair among the clusters of secondary school boys.
Sherlock didn’t know that Mycroft was just trying to protect her. The word had got around to his peers that he was adopted- that was the newest topic for their teasing. While he never cared much what they thought of his hair and his weight, this one fact was the thing that really bothered him. He knew that if Sherlock saw it happen, she would know immediately how he felt. She would feel bad, and then she would tell Mummy and Father and they would feel bad, and none of that would actually help Mycroft. Still, he didn’t think he could stand being in that school any longer than necessary.
Mycroft used his own pocket money which he’d saved to secretly take his ‘A’ Levels privately, bypassing his GCSE’s entirely. Even at fourteen years old, he did incredibly well, getting himself a place at Oxford studying philosophy, politics, and economics.
“That’s amazing, Mycroft!” Mummy exclaimed when he presented his letter of acceptance at dinner. “But why didn’t you tell us you were doing this? We would have supported you.”
Mycroft glanced down at his plate. “I didn’t want to say until I was sure I’d succeeded.” He muttered.
That wasn’t true - he’d been confident of success, but he hadn’t wanted them to ask why he was suddenly so interested in graduating early. Sherlock, human lie detector incapable of keeping her mouth shut that she was, refused to let that pass.
“He’s lying.” She said, folding his arms. “I bet it’s because he’s tired of us now. That’s why he wants to go away.”
Mycroft scrubbed a hand through his hair, sighing. That was Sherlock all over, too perceptive and yet not perceptive enough. Of course it wasn’t her or their parents whom he wanted to escape.
Sherlock came out of her sulk in time to see Mycroft off to university, though she was silent and sulky the whole drive to the train station. Just as he was about to leave, she thrust a small parcel into his hand.
“You’re not allowed to forget about us.” She muttered. “Or find a new family.”
Mycroft tugged Sherlock into a hug. She slumped sideways against him, resting her head against his stomach. “I won’t. Why do you think I would?”
“Well, you’ve done it before,” She pointed out.
Mycroft frowned. “That’s completely different, Sherlock.”
Sherlock half-shrugged. “Nevertheless. You’re not allowed to change your mind, even if you find a cleverer family.”
Mycroft ruffled her hair. “Impossible, but all right, I won’t.”
Mycroft’s train pulled into the station, and Sherlock stepped back. “Don’t have too much fun,” she told him, as he received one last hug and kiss from Mummy.
Mycroft laughed; it was such a Sherlock thing to say. “Be good for Mummy and Father,” he responded. Sherlock laughed right back at him.
On the train, Mycroft unwrapped the package carefully. It was a little hand-bound book, just several sheets of paper tucked between two raggedly cut pieces of cardboard, the whole thing bound with a purple ribbon laced through several holes punched into the side. ‘FAMILY’, proclaimed the front cover in colourful cut-and-pasted letters above a photograph of the four of them. Apparently Sherlock had picked up Father’s penchant for scrapbooking. In the flyleaf, in Sherlock’s messy scrawl, it said; ‘NOT made by Sherlock Cassandra Holmes. Mycroft do not speak of this!!’ Mycroft chuckled quietly to himself. Sherlock was melodramatic as ever. The rest of the book consisted mainly of printed snapshots pasted carefully in with captions here and there. Mycroft tucked the book into his satchel bag. As instructed, he never mentioned the book to Sherlock, but he kept it the rest of his life.
Mycroft’s time came when he was in Oxford. His classes and assignments, finally complex enough to challenge him, didn’t take up so much of his time as to prevent him from something approaching a social life. Finally, he had peers with whom he could hold a conversation. It was true that there were still idiots among them, and equally true that even the the cleverest among them was far outstripped by Mycroft’s lightning-fast mind. Even so, they were something of a diversion, and if they initially underestimated him due to his age, they soon learned not to.
In university, among Britain’s finest, he learned how to make connections, how to speak in a manner that implied wealth and breeding. He learned how to hold himself to seem taller and older. Every interaction was a game, one he quickly mastered. When he graduated at seventeen years old, he was perfectly poised for a fast-track career to the top.
Mummy, Father, and Sherlock attended his graduation. When he met them afterwards, adorned in cap and gown, Mummy hugged him and kissed his cheek, and Father patted him proudly on the back. Sherlock glared at him.
“You’re not coming home,” she said accusingly.
Mycroft sighed. Of course, she couldn’t wait until they’d all sat down to dinner to let him make his announcement. “No, I’m not. I’ve received a very good job offer, which will require me to live in London.” Sherlock didn’t respond to that, except to radiate discontent all through dinner, picking moodily at her food.
It seemed ten year-old Sherlock did not forgive as easily as seven year-old Sherlock. Over the three days Mycroft was at home packing his things in preparation for his move, Sherlock avoided him like the plague, neither speaking to nor interacting with him more than absolutely necessary. Perhaps fourteen year-old Mycroft might have made an attempt to make amends. Seventeen year-old Mycroft, fresh out of uni with great prospects ahead of him, had bigger fish to fry. Packed and ready for the great adventure of the adult world, he loaded his bags into a taxi and left. He didn’t look back. Perhaps if he had, he’d have spotted a slight figure crouched in the fork of the wild cherry tree in their front garden, peering through the leaves with a mournful look as she wondered at all the ways Mycroft was distancing himself from their family.
It wasn’t just the physical distance that bothered Sherlock. She wasn’t an idiot, she knew that Mycroft would have a better career if he went to London, but in everything he did, Mycroft created distance between himself and the family who raised him. He spoke differently now, dressed differently. It wasn’t an obvious difference, but it was strong enough that if you weren’t in the know, you would never guess that Mycroft was one of them.
That might have been the end of it, little Sherlock left behind as her big brother pursued his career and drifted slowly further and further away, except that Sherlock had never been one to go down without a fight.
When Mycroft had been in university, he hadn’t given much thought to how much of Sherlock’s childhood he was missing. She wrote often, after all, and though ever dynamic in personality, she physically didn’t change much between seven and ten years old. At some point while he was away in London, that all changed.
He came home every year for the holidays, and every time he did it felt like she’d grown a head taller. The year he turned nineteen, he came home to find Sherlock’s blonde curls abruptly turned a rich, dark brown.
“No, it’s not dyed.” Father said, laughing, as he caught sight of Mycroft’s surprised look. “It just sort of happened.”
The following year, Mycroft returned home to find Sherlock had grown breasts. This was really more of a shock than it should have been, seeing as they’d all known it would happen eventually. Sherlock seemed equally discomfited with this development as Mycroft was- she’d developed something of a slouch, and had taken to wearing clothes several sizes too large.
The year Sherlock turned fifteen, Mycroft entered the house to find Sherlock artfully posed on the sofa, exuding a carefully constructed air of nonchalance which fooled exactly no one. Mycroft stared in consternation.
“What have you done with your hair?”
Mummy came out of the kitchen to hug him, ruffling Sherlock’s awkward, lopsided haircut as she passed. “Welcome home, Mycroft.” She said warmly. “Sherlock did it himself. The hairdresser wouldn’t cut it short enough for his tastes.”
Mummy gave Mycroft a meaningful look. Behind her, Sherlock set his jaw defiantly as if he was daring Mycroft to comment.
“It looks awful.” Mycroft said honestly. He spent most of his work day politely lying to people; he wasn’t about to start doing it with his own family, too. “We’ll have to get you to a proper barber, little brother. Or find you a hat. Can’t have you looking like that in the Christmas pictures”
Sherlock visibly relaxed, even as he scowled at Mycroft. “I won’t buzz it off. It’ll look ridiculous when it starts growing back.”
“You look ridiculous now.” Mycroft sniped back.
“Enough of that, now.” Mummy efficiently ran intervention, herding Mycroft into the kitchen. “Mikey, you must try these lemon curd tartlets. I got the recipe from Mrs Pearson next door, but I swear she’s holding something back. It’s not quite the same-”
Apparently, coming out wasn’t the only thing Sherlock had done that year. Following in Mycroft’s footsteps, Sherlock had finished his ‘A’ levels early and applied for university.
“He’ll be studying in London. Isn’t that lovely?” Mummy said cheerfully.
“So you’ll be able to keep an eye on him, Mycroft.” Father added.
Sherlock frowned. “No one was keeping an eye on Mycroft when he went to Oxford. I’ll be older than he was.”
Mummy and Father shared a grimace. Mycroft had never at any age had Sherlock’s propensity to attract all kinds of trouble.
“Well, there was no one around at Oxford to keep an eye on Mycroft.” Mummy said diplomatically. “But since Mycroft is living in London anyway, I’m sure we’ll all feel better to know that you’re doing all right.”
Sherlock, though not fooled in the slightest, allowed himself to be mollified. When the autumn term at Queen Mary started, he packed up his things and went to stay in Mycroft’s guest room.
It had been years since Mycroft had had to share a house with Sherlock for an extended period of time. It was an unmitigated disaster. Sherlock found Mycroft’s sweets hoard and alternated between stealing from it and teasing Mycroft about its existence. Sherlock never picked up after himself. Mycroft was constantly nagging Sherlock about his school work. Sherlock played his violin while Mycroft was trying to sleep. They both breathed a sigh of relief when Sherlock moved into student housing for his second year of study.
At first, Sherlock’s new housemates found his violin playing equally as annoying as Mycroft had. However, being students, and thus both used to a variety of housemates as well as prone to keeping unusual hours themselves, they soon got over it. In fact, most decided that, so long as he wasn’t a in snit about something, his playing was quite soothing, and one young man in particular found himself especially intrigued by the enigmatic violinist.
For the first six months, Sherlock hardly interacted with his housemates. He was a bit of a ghost to them, the image helped along by the fact that he lived in the attic, and seemed to neither eat nor sleep nor, indeed, go for classes. Without Mycroft to nag at him, he attended lectures which interested him, and skipped those which didn’t. Administration tolerated it because he aced all his modules regardless. Possibly Mycroft might also have had something to do with it. Sherlock chose not to think on it.
At any rate, the students living with Sherlock eventually grew rather fond of their resident ghost, which put them in the interesting position of being the group of people who liked him the most, out of all the people Sherlock had encountered in his lifetime, barring of course his own family. From this Sherlock easily inferred that he was liked best by people when they didn’t know him at all, a viewpoint that would go unchallenged for nearly two decades.
Sebastian Wilkes lived on the second floor of the student house Sherlock was living in. To him, Sherlock was like an exotic creature, rarely seen in the wild, and Sebastian was determined to have him. In the end Sherlock fell surprisingly easily. Never having been wooed before, he was utterly charmed by the flowers and poetry his housemate sent his way.
The month-long courtship was almost fairy-tale like in its clichéd charm. They went on picnics in the park and museum dates. They went to the cinema and purposely picked movies they didn’t really want to see. It was never meant to last. They were destined to end, specifically when Sherlock got his pants off in front of Sebastian.
It was after an evening out, a walk in the park with cones of fish and chips from an excellent chippy Sherlock had discovered near campus. They held hands as they ran up the rickety stairs to Sherlock’s attic room, Sebastian’s hands sneaking up the back of Sherlock’s shirt.
Sebastian shut Sherlock’s door behind them, pressing him up against it as they kissed heatedly. “Let me make love to you.” he whispered into Sherlock’s ear. Sherlock wrapped his hands around Seb’s wrists, walking backwards to topple them clumsily onto his bed.Sherlock grinned against Seb’s lips, both their hands eagerly wandering.
Sebastian insinuated a hand into the front of Sherlock’s jeans. There was a long, frozen moment. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. Sebastian frowned back at him.
“You didn’t tell me.” He accused.
Sherlock stood, straightening his shirt. “I thought it was fairly obvious. Not my fault you’re an idiot.” His tone was ice cold.
Sebastian’s expression softened, and he put a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “It’s all right, you know. I mean, I like girls as much as I like guys, so-”
Sherlock batted Sebastian’s hand away, eyes hard as flint. “Get out.” He said flatly.
Sebastian laid a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Now, be reasonable-”
The rest of whatever he was planning to say was lost as Sherlock shoved him out the door and slammed it in his face.
Mycroft had to admit, much as he loved his little brother, he’d been quite glad when Sherlock decided to move into student housing. He kept an eye on him, of course, but Sherlock miraculously seemed to be keeping out of trouble, poor school attendance aside. That, at least, was not too difficult to smooth over.
Sherlock being Sherlock, of course, it was never to last. Mycroft watched with consternation as Sherlock began hanging around another boy, one Sebastian Wilkes. Mycroft’s background check threw up nothing suspicious. Wilkes had good grades, no criminal record, an affluent family. All in all, he had a clean record. He was, by all accounts, an irritatingly smug little shit, but then, so was Sherlock. In essence he was an ordinary boy, and that was worrisome, because Sherlock had never got along with ordinary people in his life.
Mycroft’s concern only grew as it became clear that Sherlock’s new relationship was not merely platonic in nature. Of course Sherlock couldn’t just stop at making friends. As always, he had to dive in head first. As tempted as Mycroft was to intervene somehow, he held back, deciding to wait and see how things would play out. Even if Mycroft succeeded in warning him off that particular relationship, Sherlock would hardly learn that way. He would only be annoyed and resentful, and then three months later take up with some other boy. Mycroft knew he only had to wait, and everything would end in tears. Even so, that didn’t mean that he was happy to return one evening to find Sherlock curled up on his sofa in an irritable ball that only thinly disguised his upset.
Mycroft headed to the kitchen and poured the both of them a generous measure of brandy. He went back to the living room and pushed a glass into Sherlock’s hands, sitting down next to him.
Sherlock took a sip and sputtered. “This isn’t tea.”
Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Of course it isn’t. Does it smell like tea? It isn’t even hot, or in a teacup. I thought you could do with something stronger.”
Sherlock sniffed at the brandy, then lifted it to his lips, tipping his head back and swallowing it in one go. Mycroft lowered his eyebrows at him.
“That was a cognac.”
“Oh dear.” Sherlock said blandly.
Mycroft sighed. “I knew it would end like this.”
“Then you should’ve given me something cheaper.” Sherlock retorted.
“Don’t be deliberately obtuse, it doesn’t suit you. That wasn’t what I was talking about.”
Sherlock curled into a tighter ball. “It was a poor segue. We need to work on your conversational skills.”
“You’re avoiding the point.”
“I’m not, I’m just waiting for you to finish your monologue.” Sherlock muttered.
Mycroft sighed and got up, heading to the kitchen again for a cup of tea, this time. He sat down to Sherlock again, taking the empty brandy glass from him and giving him the teacup.
“Ordinary people, they’ll never understand you. Not just because of your gender, but simply because of who you are. Your intellect sets you far apart. Precisely because of that, it doesn’t matter what they think, and you know that. You said it yourself about a decade ago.”
Sherlock sniffed. “Yes, that would be the time you got so upset over some secondary school bullies that you wouldn’t speak to me for a year.”
Mycroft shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what they think, only what they do. Ordinary people will never be equal to you, only useful. Having relationships can be a strength, if you know how to use them. They become a weakness when you allow idiots to hold power over you.”
“You sound like a supervillain from a TV show.” Sherlock muttered into his tea. He gulped it down and stood. “Well, thanks ever so for that, Mycroft.” He said, voice falsely cheery. “I’ll show myself out now.” In a few long strides he was gone, the door banging shut in his wake.
Mycroft was hardly optimistic enough to imagine even for a second that his little chat with Sherlock would actually get through to the boy. Of course not, Sherlock was hard-headed and stubborn as he was reckless. He didn’t only get right back to messing about with ordinary people, he had to up the ante as well.
Sherlock’s newest relationship, forged barely two weeks after his last one ended, was fortunately platonic in nature. In every other sense it was significantly more disastrous than the last one. Victor Trevor was not a harmless, if irritating young man. Mycroft’s background checks dug up past incidences of bullying, drug use, sexual assault. He was, in a word, dangerous. Mycroft had to intervene.
However, Mycroft hadn’t got to where he was by being impulsive. He kept a weather eye out, biding his time, waiting for Trevor to make a mistake. He left it too late, and at his little brother’s bedside as Sherlock recovered from his first overdose, Mycroft lashed out in terror and anger.
Sherlock liked to comment frequently on his older brother’s dislike of legwork. There was a good reason for that. Sherlock thrived on being in the moment, on chasing and being chased, on the pound and throb of adrenaline. It cleared his thoughts, made him faster, better. Mycroft was the opposite. He needed to be removed, needed time to consider a situation from every angle. He was a puppetmaster, directing others to do his bidding. Throwing his personal emotions into the mix clouded his mind terribly. It drove him to do things that he would not otherwise do; things like finding Victor Trevor and confronting him in his own apartment; things like pulling out a gun; things like firing it.
Mycroft had killed men before; in self-defense, in defense of the state. This was different. In the end it wasn’t hard to cover up. He edited a few details, threatened a few people. Victor Trevor’s flatmate went to prison. No one had to know.
Sherlock knew, when he woke up. It was too much of a coincidence. He overdoses, and his dealer gets into a deadly altercation. He never mentioned that deduction, but he never looked at Mycroft the same way again.
If Mycroft had hoped the overdose or the death of his dealer might stop Sherlock’s new drug habit, he was very wrong. Sherlock found new dealers. His addiction worsened. The next time Sherlock overdosed, he woke up in rehab.
Sherlock stayed clean long enough to finish university. Mycroft watched over him like a hawk, but at the same time, someone else had captured his focus. Charles Augustus Magnussen, media mogul and blackmailer, was gaining power, slowly but surely. He had to be taken down. The day Mycroft began working to take Magnussen down, he received with two words that stopped him in his tracks.
Victor Trevor.
Thus began a stalemate that would last nearly two decades. In the meantime Sherlock left school, and immediately ran into difficulties. It seemed no one wanted to hire a chemist with a drug history. Sherlock floated for several years. He composed stacks of compositions and dismissed all of Mycroft’s suggestions of performing or publishing them. He spent a year sleeping on the streets, wandering all day through London’s streets and learning every nook and cranny, flipping off the security cameras that turned to follow him as he passed. He took cocaine and morphine casually, easily breaking out of whatever rehabilitation centre Mycroft decided to stick him in. Then one day he stumbled across a crime scene, and things changed.
He’d solved a crime once before; Carl Powers, the boy who drowned. No one had listened to him. He remembered clearly the way the officer had nodded and smiled, listened to his explanation, then patted his shoulder and said, “That’s a very nice story, darling. You’ve got such a good imagination. What’s your mummy’s number? Would you like some hot chocolate while we wait for her to come pick you up?” He’d been infuriated.
Things were different now. He wasn’t a little eleven year old girl, easily dismissed. He was a tall man with a loud voice and he barged into the crime scene, rattling out deductions as fast as he could get them out of his mouth. This time, someone listened; a Detective Inspector, prematurely greying, freshly promoted, with a newborn at home; eager to prove himself, longing to get home to his family, and above all, not an idiot. Even as he called someone to get Sherlock off the crime scene he was taking notes.
Now that something had finally piqued Sherlock’s interests, he pursued it with his usual dogged determination. With his knowledge of London and information from his Homeless Network, he turned up at Inspector Lestrade’s next crime scene, and the next, and the next.
“What’s your number?” Inspector Lestrade asked eventually. “I’ll call you, next time.”
Sherlock made his website. Other parts of Scotland Yard began to contact him. Sherlock had found his calling, and so the next time Mycroft decided to stick Sherlock back in rehab he went willingly.
Mycroft kept watch over Sherlock as vigilantly as before. Even without the drugs, Sherlock remained a danger to himself, constantly rushing headlong into harmful situations without waiting for backup. Mycroft maintained a close eye, and made sure to consult Sherlock on cases often enough to justify to his bosses the liberties he took in the name of protecting his little brother.
Sherlock never could stay away from ordinary people. Though he fancied himself all aloof and mysterious, the truth was, he picked up friends and acquaintances like he was trying to build a collection. There were the homeless he’d got to know from his years on the streets, and a growing number of appreciative clients. There was the infatuated pathologist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and the grateful ex-wife of the drug lord Mycroft had sent Sherlock to Florida to take down.
There was also John. John Watson, the final proof that Sherlock could not and would never learn to be like Mycroft. John Watson, the man who made Sherlock fall in love, the man Sherlock died for.
Mycroft never understood it. John was, objectively speaking, a terribly ordinary sort of man. Actually, Mycroft quite liked him, most of the time. Steady nerves, loyal to a fault, excellent in a crisis- Mycroft could hardly have found a better companion for Sherlock if he’d tried. However, the lengths to which Sherlock went for his unassuming little ex-army doctor far, far outweighed any of the objective benefits of his presence in Sherlock’s life.
Mycroft didn’t understand it, but he knew it well. Sherlock died for John, was tortured for him, submitted himself to a man he found repulsive, all for the sake of John’s continuing happiness. From that, Mycroft made an extremely simple deduction- should anything happen to John Watson, Sherlock Holmes would be utterly destroyed. Mycroft also made a second deduction- as long as he had John Watson by his side, Sherlock Holmes would be all right.
In the end, it all came down to these two simple facts, and one more- Mycroft Holmes was a hypocrite. In all his lectures to Sherlock about the disadvantages of caring, he omitted one glaring, damning fact. Mycroft cared, deeply, for his little brother. He’d lied for him. He’d killed for him. He would die for him, if he had to.
In the last moments of his life, Mycroft Holmes had a split-second decision. Where would Magnussen’s bullet find its place? Mycroft Holmes, or John Watson? In Mycroft’s work he chose who lived or died on a daily basis. To make this one, he had all the information he needed. Here are the facts again. One, if John died, Sherlock would never recover. And two, Mycroft would do anything for his little brother.
Split-second decision made, Mycroft took two steps and leapt into the path of Magnussen’s oncoming bullet.