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"Just take the picture alrea— No, Redbeard, get back up here!"
On the cloudy beach, three things happen simultaneously: the shutter of an instant camera clicks, a dog bounds off the pile of rocks, and a sudden strong breeze kidnaps a felt pirate hat. Some chaos ensues.
"Sherlock!" The elder of the two boys goes after the hat, which is being blown in the opposite direction of the rampant Irish setter and younger brother. Luckily, it gets caught on a rock before being swept out at sea and the boy grabs it before turning to rejoin his brother. The beach behind him, however, is empty; not a single person interrupting the miles of mildly dreary shoreline, not another sound amid the gentle crashing waves and the occasional bird call
"Mycroft, look!"
The shout comes from... somewhere, although Mycroft can't immediately tell where. There are the rough shapes of wet footprints all around on the rocks, not in enough of a pattern to draw any conclusion, and it takes distant barking and giggles to figure out where to go.
He finds them behind the next rock jetty over, crouched over an isolated pool of seawater. When Mycroft reaches them, he sees that floating in the water there is a sodden blue handkerchief and three bottle caps.
Sherlock looks up from his treasure and jumps up, waving him over excitedly. He seems utterly unconcerned with both the momentary loss of his treasured hat and the reprimand on Mycroft's face as he approaches. The curls on his head are stiff with sea salt and his eyes are shining with excitement, though, and Mycroft finds himself unable to follow through with the somewhat angry tirade he had formulated while looking for his errant brother.
"Take care of your belongings," he says as he puts the hat back on Sherlock's head. He takes a second to pull it down a little further. "Wouldn't want our captain to get lost at sea."
Sherlock smiles widely and pats Redbeard's head. His sleeves, which were pushed up around his elbows, start to slip back down his arm, but he doesn't notice as he is too excited to notice. "That's what I've got my first mate for. Isn't that right, Redbeard?"
The dog jumps up at the sound of his name and Sherlock laughs again, an infectious thing that even Mycroft cannot fully resist. He smiles briefly and then, to counteract any outward and unnecessary fondness, he says, "Of course, brother mine."
Sherlock's nose wrinkles at the term of endearment, as intended, and Mycroft hands him the photo as his grin slides into something more snarky. He had had the presence of mind to pocket it before running down the beach, although looking at it now, it hadn't been particularly worth the effort.
"It's all blurry!" Sherlock whines, frowning at the photo in his hand. The bottom right corner is a blur of fur, his hat balanced on the back of his head and about to fly off, and it hasn't quite developed properly thanks to being exposed to early in the thrill of the chase. But amidst the chaos of the frame, Sherlock's smile is clear, as bright and warm as the yellow of his sweater.
"I don't know," Mycroft says with consideration. "I quite like it." There's corner of the corkboard above his desk that doesn't have school notes covering it about the same shape
Sherlock sticks his tongue out but doesn't argue when Mycroft sticks the photo back in the pocket of his flannel shirt.
"Anyway," Sherlock says as he kneels back down next to the little pool, "look, Myc, clues!" He pokes at one of the bottle caps with his plastic sword, turning it over in the water.
"Clues to what?"
Sherlock shrugs and looks up at Mycroft. "Deduce it?"
There is an eagerness in his face that is too often missing and Mycroft can only oblige. He squats down at the edge of the pool, red boots squishing in the wet clay usually covered by rocks. Despite the fact fact that they'd been out by the water all afternoon he had somehow managed not to get wet and he wasn't going to give Sherlock the opportunity to "correct" that
"May I?"
Sherlock hands him the sword, his knees ending up in the water without him noticing. Mycroft carefully stays out of the pool, using the sword to point and poke at the assortment of "clues".
"Two of the bottle caps are twistable, you can see the little ridges on the inside, but someone's used a bottle opener on them anyway. Based on the brands it's a recent change, so these must be people used to the routine of having to use an opener."
"How do you know it's two people?" Sherlock interrupts.
"One dent is deeper than the other; different amounts of strength applied to each. I suppose it could be one person, but since it's a habit it's more likely to be two." There is a second before Sherlock looks away where Mycroft can see the look of awe on his face and he doesn't know quite what to do with it.
"Alright." Sherlock nods. "But what about the other one?"
Mycroft pokes at the aforementioned red cap with the sword, edging it closer to where Sherlock is sitting across from him on the other side of the water. "You tell me."
Turning it over in his tiny fingers, Sherlock squints at the little piece of metal in obvious concentration. After a moment he says, "It's got rust on some of it. None of the other ones have any."
"So..."
"So it was here longer than the other two?"
Mycroft nods and Sherlock jumps up in triumph, bouncing around the rocks and almost sliding into the puddle. The wind picks up momentarily and Mycroft tucks one hand in a pocket, the other still loosely holding the sword at his side.
"Should we start home now?" He asks as Sherlock clamps down a hand on his hat to keep from losing his hat again. "The wind is coming."
"The Wind?" Sherlock asks warily, the capitalization evident in his small voice.
For a brief second Mycroft contemplates answering yes, but they've been having a good day and Mycroft isn't particularly in the mood to deal with the inevitable backlash the whole walk home.
"Just the wind," he says.
Sherlock looks suspicious but calls over Redbeard and starts walking in the direction of home regardless. As they make their way back down the shore he asks, "So what about the handkerchief?"
Mycroft raises an eyebrow. "In the pool?"
Sherlock nods and glances away, giving Mycroft the last bit he needed. "Didn't you figure anything out about it?"
"I do hope you picked it up before we left, at least," Mycroft says.
With an exasperated sigh Sherlock pulls the wet handkerchief out of his pocket. "How did you know, you weren't even there!"
"You can't fool me, Sherlock," Mycroft says with a wry smile. "Your hand was still wet when I found you, the water was rippling out from where the top most part of the handkerchief was, and, most tellingly, one corner was still dry."
"But it could've been somebody else!" Sherlock protests. He wrings the handkerchief out with frustration.
"There's no one else around for miles," Mycroft says. He waits a moment before continuing, "Also it is the exact same type as the one currently tied around the neck of your best friend."
Sherlock kicks a particularly large rock as Redbeard looks up at them oblivious, wagging tongue, maroon handkerchief, and all.
When Redbeard starts barking at something further ahead and Sherlock doesn't react, Mycroft quietly says, "You did almost get me, though. You're improving." He doesn't want to discourage Sherlock too early, not when he really is getting better, and besides, it's nice to have someone moderately clever around.
Of course, Mycroft should have seen Sherlock's response coming. Turning around to face him, Sherlock steals back his sword and starts skipping backwards with a taunting smile. "Of course I am," he says as he jabs at the air around Mycroft, "and one day I'll be even cleverer than you."
"More clever," Mycroft corrects, even though he knows they're both perfectly acceptable comparative forms. He bats away the sword but Sherlock continues smiling, unperturbed, and shouts something pirate-y after Redbeard.
They must have travelled much farther than Mycroft had originally estimated because it seems like the shoreline goes on forever. All there is in front of them is what seems like miles and miles of beige rock and grey water, occasionally interrupted by huge piles of rock covered in moss. The skyline is flat and grey, a mirror of the sea beneath, and more empty than foreboding. If he were prone to more poetic musings, Mycroft would say it felt as though the only color left in the world was in Sherlock's yellow jumper and his own red rubber boots.
Sherlock bouncing between running ahead with the dog and falling back to pester Mycroft is a stark contrast to the rest of the beach, and Mycroft can't help but notice every detail of his little brother, both out of sheer boredom and the fact that he can't help but catalog these things subconsciously.
His eyes narrow slightly and before the cycle can begin again he reaches over to pull at the shoulder of Sherlock's sweater. The seam where the sleeve meets the torso is torn, obviously clumsily sewn back together with the remaining yarn that unravels with one tug. "Sherlock, what have you done this time?"
Sherlock shrugs the hand off and pulls the loose end of yarn tighter, almost completely erasing the tear. "Nothing. Quit snooping."
"Grandmother got you this for your birthday just a few months ago and you've already ruined it. What happened?"
Redbeard barks and trods off in search of something neither of the boys can see or hear, but Mycroft doesn't notice, more interested in Sherlock's reaction. He watches as his brother swings his sword angrily at the ground, throwing rocks into the air and sometimes the water as well, as he follows the dog.
"Sherlock..." Mycroft says warningly.
"It was nothing!" Sherlock shouts, still not looking up. "I was playing in the yard and my sleeve got caught on a bush and I didn't notice, alright! I already fixed it so Mummy wouldn't find out, just leave it alone."
A quick sweep of the aforementioned sleeve reveals no pulled stitches, something Mycroft doubted could even be fixed, especially given Sherlock's apparent ineptitude at sewing. Thoughts float unbidden to the surface of his mind—Sherlock's careful consideration of his outfit that morning when he left the house, the odd bit of snapped metal on the floor in the kitchen, when Sherlock wore that sweater every day for a month when he got it, the care he took for all his clothes, slight redness in his eyes when he returned from running errands with their mother—and it doesn't take much longer for Mycroft to figure it out.
"Sherlock." His tone is more gentle than usual and Sherlock wrinkles his nose again at it. "What happened to your suspenders?"
They both stop, Redbeard continuing on without them. Waves crash gently against the rocky shore and a gull cries in the distance. Sherlock has pulled his sleeves over his hands, straining the wobbly stitches once more, and he flinches when Mycroft reaches out again.
"Was it—?"
"Nothing." Sherlock takes a swing at the ground once more, even angrier.
"Sherlock, if those boys are still—"
"It's nothing, Myc, leave me alone."
Sherlock stalks away while Redbeard, who had wandered back to the conversation (or lack thereof), stays sitting at Mycroft's feet. When Sherlock realizes no one is following, he turns back around to glare at them both. Mycroft schools his features to be as guardedly concerned as he can, hoping that Sherlock will recognize the offer for help or, if not, not be too offended.
Mycroft reaches down absentmindedly to scratch Redbeard behind the ears as Sherlock approaches. "Come to make us both walk the plank?" He asks
"Traitors," Sherlock replies, but he kneels next to Redbeard in the sand and straightens his neckerchief lovingly regardless.
"Every captain needs their crew," Mycroft supplies.
When Sherlock stands up they make eye contact and he nods just once, readjusting his hat. They walk in fragile silence, a precarious unspoken understanding that sways beneath their feet and threatens to throw them both overboard at any minute. While they hadn't been particularly close earlier, Sherlock following his own path more than an arm's reach away is a tangible difference. His sword drags through the wet sand, bright yellow sneakers soaked and muddy, and the trail he leaves behind is thin and wavering but constant.
The worn wooden staircase connecting the beach and the road is in sight when either finally says something.
"They called me a bumblebee," Sherlock says. "Cuz of the black pants and suspenders and my yellow sweater. They said it looked like bumblebee stripes."
"I thought you liked bees," Mycroft says.
Sherlock nods. "But they made it seem like a bad thing. They said I was always buzzing around annoying everyone, that they would swat me out of the air if they could. They tried.
Mycroft considers it for a moment. Sometimes he forgot that he was double Sherlock's age. For all their differences, they had, in Mycroft's eyes, the most important thing in common, and sometimes he was so relieved to have someone at least closer to his level that he forgot he had had so much more time to learn the rules of the world.
"Did you know," he finally says, "that without bees our way of life would completely collapse? They pollinate around seventy percent of the globes crops, collapsing not only our food chain but that of many other species as well, not to mention all the agricultural economies that would be in ruin. In England alone—"
Mycroft cuts off, recognizing the growing distant look on Sherlock's face, and continues, "People everywhere see bees as either something harmless and cute or an annoying pest to be rid of immediately with whatever repellent may be at hand, but without them we would have nothing. Bees don't care what people think; they pollinate and propagate and keep the world turning, and they sting like hell if they need to."
Neither says anything, each unused to either giving or receiving that kind of pep talk. Then, before the conversation fully drifts away, Sherlock smiles.
"You said a naughty word," he points out. "Wait 'til I tell Mummy."
Mycroft only raises an eyebrow. "What happened to the pirate code? Isn't there something about loyalty in that?"
Sherlock appears to consider it for a moment before nodding in semi-reluctant agreement.
"We'll have to hold a meeting with the rest of the crew to confer. Redbeard!"
With that he takes off running down the last stretch of beach, Mycroft following at a more sedate pace, his trusty first mate leading the way. Maybe the sea wasn't quite so grey after all.