New Fic: Five Times Sherlock Resented Mycroft 1/2
Title: Five Times Sherlock Resented Mycroft (and the One Time Sherlock’s Resentments Collided with Mycroft’s Envies)
Author: jupiter_ash
Rating: PG13
Beta: trillsabells
Word Count: 13K
Pairings: None present but past Sherlock/OC.
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes created by ACD, Sherlock owned by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
Summary: Pretty much what the title says.
Warnings: More Holmes sibling rivalry and jealousy, but also some less than PC 1980s insults, drug use and an awkward moment of a mild sexual nature.
Author’s Note: The sequel and follow up to Five Times Mycroft was envious of Sherlock. Both stories can technically stand alone, but make more sense if you read both.
So this is the story that Sherlock demanded that I wrote because he wanted his side to be told and he made sure it was that little bit longer than his brother’s story. Typical boys. Always in competition.
Thanks to trillsabells for betaing although since several changes have been made since then any mistakes or errors are all mine.
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Sibling rivalry is inevitable. The only sure way to avoid it is to have one child. - Nancy Samalin
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“He’s always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners.” - Mycroft, “A Study in Pink”
*-*-*
“So you’ll be there.”
Mycroft leant on his umbrella, his head tipped slightly to one side with that expression on his face, the ‘slightly disproving, disappointed, distrusting’ one. The very same expression he had been subjected to for years, or more accurately for pretty much as long as he could remember.
“Yes,” he said knowing that the fastest way of getting rid of his brother was to simply agree.
Mycroft straightened up. “And do try to be on time.”
The front door opened and then there was the sound of feet coming up the stairs. John’s feet, normal pace and weight so no bags of shopping.
“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, waving his brother away just as John entered. He had a quip ready on the tip of his tongue regarding the current financial crisis to help force him to go but fortunately could save it for another day as Mycroft consented to take his leave, nodding to John on his way out.
“What was that about?” John asked as he settled in his normal chair once he had moved the letters and magazines that had been thrown there.
“Dinner,” he replied somewhat absently.
“So, not a case then?” John said almost looking disappointed.
Interesting. He lowered his book to steeple his fingers below his chin.
“No, no. No case. Just old family obligations and celebrations.”
“Oh, right,” John said. “Well I guess that would give me the chance to finish writing up The Mistaken Identity.”
He grimaced. “If you must give them such theatrical names can’t you use a bit of imagination?”
John pursed his lips together in that way he did when torn between amusement and mild annoyance, his fingers rising briefly from where his hands were resting on the chair arms.
“What would you call it then?”
He didn’t bother to stop the small, one sided smile. “The Man with the Twisted Lip.”
He returned to his book and his mind unwillingly to his brother. They had always had a difficult relationship, which was of course mainly Mycroft’s fault. Resentful his brother had called him in the past. Well of course he was resentful; he had Mycroft as an older brother. Who could compete with Mycroft?
Perfect Mycroft.
*-*-*
ONE
*-*-*
When he had been born Mycroft already was. That wasn’t particularly remarkable as by definition to be a younger sibling there first had to be an older one. In their case it was more of the fact that the older sibling in question was Mycroft that played the greatest significance, especially when you then added to it the considerable differences in their personalities and talents and the rather sizable age gap between them.
Mycroft had already existed and, therefore, had already been making his mark on the world in terms of intelligence, brilliance and stature. Mycroft’s achievements and talents had naturally set the bar for all and any siblings who were to follow, and as the only following sibling it was he who found himself thrust into Mycroft’s deep and all consuming shadow.
As such there was not one moment in which his existence was not inescapably linked with his elder brother’s. They had the same parents, the same privileges, and the same insight. They were alike in many ways and yet the seven years difference spread out between them like a chasm, vast and impassable.
It did not take him long to realise that there was little that he could do that Mycroft had not already tried and usually first excelled at. There was nowhere he could go, no book he could read, no new fact he could discover that had not been first visited, read or known by his brother. As he grew and learnt, it dawned on him the true depth and width of Mycroft’s shadow and it started to frustrate him. For once he wanted to be the first to go somewhere, to do something, to know something, but instead he had been cast in the role of catch up and Mycroft had a seven year head start.
The frustrations led to impatience, the impatience to recklessness. He wanted to be able to do what his brother did, read what his brother read, go where his brother went, but he wasn’t allowed.
Instead he was forced to follow, seven years behind and desperate to draw level but being thwarted at every opportunity. However close he got Mycroft was still out of reach, but more than that Mycroft was always that little bit better. His IQ was a few points higher, his concentration that little bit sharper, his natural ability that little bit keener.
He thought he would have been able to cope had it just been the age gap between them. After all, being seven years Mycroft’s junior he could not be compared to his brother as they stood, that would hardly be fair, but he soon noticed that he wasn’t even good enough to beat his brother when Mycroft had been ‘his’ age. Everything was either what Mycroft had or would have done.
“Sherlock, you need to practice your Latin. Mycroft already knew all this by your age.”
“Sit still boy, your brother never fidgeted like you do.”
“You need to work on your handwriting. No, don’t curve your ‘f’s like that, see how your brother does it.”
And then the killer, the one that seemed to follow him around his childhood like a teddy bear tied by string to his wrist.
“Oh Sherlock, why can’t you be more like your brother?”
Perfect Mycroft! That was what he kept hearing. Whenever Mycroft did anything he took his time and did it perfectly. He, on the other hand, always seemed to find that there was something else he wanted to do more, something equally fascinating or important that would distract him. So he hurried through his work, making small errors along the way, impatient and distracted, always eager but never perfect.
Passionate, that was what Miss Langsley had called him when they had laughed and danced around the music room.
Passionate Sherlock and Perfect Mycroft.
He didn’t mind being passionate, but he wanted to be perfect, because when people called him passionate it was just them making up for the fact he wasn’t perfect. He wanted to be perfect, but he couldn’t.
There were a few things that he was better at than Mycroft or achieved faster, but none of them really mattered because none of them were really important.
He apparently started to walk far younger than Mycroft had. While Mycroft had finally taken his first unaided steps at fourteen months, he had done so at ten months and by fourteen months had been running everywhere, climbing stairs and reaching for things that he shouldn’t have been.
He learnt how to ride a bike far sooner than Mycroft, and then discovered he was rather good at music and art, but even in this he felt Mycroft’s shadow, for as well as he could play a piece - either on piano or later violin - he did so with passion and flourish, while Mycroft played - piano only - with precision and perfection.
Perfect Mycroft struck again.
Even in art, where he had flourished in a world of colour and impressionism, Mycroft stayed with simple watercolour, where people praised Mycroft for his attention to detail while failing to grasp the intricate sweep of his acrylics or oils. It didn’t matter that Mycroft would tell him how stunning his pictures were, because no one else got it. No one else saw the world like he did, with its layers and overlapping colours, with all the facts and meanings pressing down on everything, with the noise and the light and the feelings all crashing in. No one, except perhaps Perfect Mycroft.
Then there was of course the fact he was constantly getting into trouble.
Of course he was getting into trouble. Intense curiosity and an impulsive nature more often than not led to him having to explain his actions sometimes to Father, but far more frequently to Mummy and he grew to hate the disappointed look she would get. It wasn’t as if he had meant to flood the bathroom, or get lost in that shop, or kill one of Mycroft’s fish. Climbing that tree had seemed like a good idea at the time, and it wasn’t his fault that the little girl hadn’t appreciated the wonder and beauty of that spider. How was he supposed to know that glass shatters if it gets too hot too quickly, that certain pollen stains and that Mummy’s diamond necklace is not for experimenting on?
Apparently Mycroft hadn’t been like that. Mycroft had sat quietly and read books. Mycroft hadn’t scared Mummy by disappearing. Mycroft hadn’t called other children idiots and made them cry. Mycroft hadn’t sliced the skin off the top of his thumb while playing with Father’s razor.
It was always Mycroft this and Mycroft that.
Some days he just wished that Perfect Mycroft would go away.
And then Perfect Mycroft did.
*-*-*
TWO
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When he was six years and five months old, it became blindingly obvious that it was finally time for him to leave home. Thinking through the situation, he carefully packed his favourite books, his flute and a change of clothing. Then he went to sit on the trunk currently in the front hallway. It was going to be a grand adventure, a chance to finally get away and learn something, an opportunity to meet new people like him and like Mycroft. He was so excited he could barely sit still, but forced himself to just like Mycroft had showed him, calming his mind and waited.
It never occurred to him that they would say no.
“Sherlock, dearest, what are you….” Mummy had started but it was Mycroft who stopped her, Mycroft who at thirteen was now nearly as tall as Mummy, who looked at him sadly before sitting next to him on the trunk.
“You can’t come, Sherlock,” Mycroft said to him gently, reaching over with a bigger hand to cover his smaller fingers that were clutching the bag that contained everything he cared about.
“Of course I can,” he had said firmly, because it was just so obvious. He had tightened his grasp on his bag. “I’ve packed everything. I’m ready. Look.”
He tried to show Mycroft how thorough he had been. He had even packed some food, just in case there wasn’t any when they arrived. And he had packed enough for Mycroft too.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft had said stopping him. “You can’t come.”
He frowned, not really understanding why Mycroft was saying such a thing. He had packed, he had clothes and food and books. He didn’t have as much as Mycroft had of course, but then Mycroft was bigger so naturally he would have more things. It was possible that Mummy would miss them, but she had Father and she would understand.
“But you’re going,” he said, “so I’m going too.”
That was how it worked. They had always done everything together, even when he had hated it. It was inconceivable to him that something as ridiculous as “school” would change that.
“It doesn’t work that way I’m afraid,” Mycroft said. “Only I can go. You have to stay here and look after Mummy.”
“But,” he said sucking in a deep breath as what Mycroft was saying to him finally started to show new meaning, “that means you’re going without me.” He gasped. “You’re leaving me! You can’t go. No. No. No!” He dug his fingers into Mycroft’s arm and buried his head on his brother’s chest, wrapping his other arm tightly around Mycroft’s waist. “You can’t,” he declared, his words muffled by clothing. “You can’t! I won’t let you.”
“Sherlock….”
“No! No! No! I’ll be good!”
“Sherlock.”
“You can’t leave me. You can’t.”
He felt Mycroft’s arm wrap around his thin shaking body.
“I’m not leaving you,” Mycroft said in that patient voice of his. “But I have to go away. I’m sure you and Mummy can come visit me, and I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Christmas? But Christmas was ages away. Weeks and weeks and weeks. What was he supposed to do with all that time? He wouldn’t have anyone to talk to. He wouldn’t be able to creep into Mycroft’s room late at night to talk when he was supposed to be asleep. Who was going to test him on the periodic table or his German verbs? Who was going to sneak him one of those books he wasn’t supposed to be reading? Who was going to answer his questions properly and not just tell him that he was too young? Who was going to play the piano while he and Mrs Langsley danced around the room? Who was going to listen to him practice his flute? Who was going to get him into a headlock and mess up his hair until he squealed to be let go? Who was going to come up with some fun new experiment, or berate him for getting dirty, or slip him sweets when Mummy wasn’t looking?
Who was going to understand him when no one else did?
He pulled away and narrowed his eyes, stabbing a finger into his brother’s chest. “If you go I will never forgive you and, and, and I will never speak to you again.”
It did not have the result he wanted.
Mycroft just sighed. “Please refrain from making this harder than it already is,” he said instead. “I have to go and you have to stay here.”
Stay here? Stay here?
He stared at Mycroft with all the fury his six year old body was capable of. “I hate you,” he shouted and then he ran, bag in hand, pushing past Mummy and ignoring all cries of his name.
Mycroft was leaving him. No, Mycroft was abandoning him.
Reaching his room, he slammed the door and wedged his chair below the handle before throwing himself onto his bed, screaming into his sheets. He ignored the knocking on the door, the turning of the handle and the calling of his name.
He hated Mycroft. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated him! It wasn’t fair. Going off and leaving him here. Abandoning him.
He stirred from the bed only when he heard Father’s BMW pulling away up the drive. Rushing to the window he was just in time to see the black car disappearing from view and Mycroft obviously with it.
Howling he grabbed his side lamp and threw it at the wardrobe, then he tore the sheets from his bed, pounding his fists into the mattress, before grabbing the bow he and Mycroft had spent the summer carving and testing and shot all his homemade arrows at the wall one after another as quickly as his shaking arms could manage. Then he collapsed on top of the sheets now strewn across his floor, sobbing like he had never done before.
Despite the age gap and the animosity between them, Mycroft and he had been close, or at least as close as two brothers like them would ever be. Mycroft had always been there - whether he had wanted him to be or not. He had always been the stable influence in his life; as tutors had come and gone, as Mummy spent more time in her room, as Father’s meetings continued to take him away for weeks on end. Mycroft had always been there; testing him on his maths or French pronunciation, taking him to the park to feed the ducks, or helping him with his “experiments”, Mycroft had been the one he could rely on.
Now Mycroft was gone.
He lay there until the tears dried on his cheeks, until they stopped knocking on his door, until his body decided to tell him it was well past lunch time.
Then he lay there some more.
Eventually he reached for his flute and started to play. He stopped after a few shaky breaths, frowning in confusion. It wasn’t working. He tried to blow again but it still wasn’t coming out right. That was just so typical. His head was hurting, his hands were shaking and now his flute was broken.
He tossed it onto the bed in disgust, but what did it matter anyway? It wasn’t as if Mycroft was around to encourage him.
He stayed in his room for three days and night, going out only when he needed the bathroom or to retrieve the trays of food and drinks left by his door, and only when he knew that no one else was around. On the third day he also found a letter propped up against his glass of orange juice. He recognised Mycroft’s handwriting on the envelope instantly, the smooth slide of his favourite Parker fountain pen, the slight flourish on the ‘k’ at the end of Sherlock.
He took it into his room and opened it with eagerness and trepidation.
‘My Dear Sherlock,’ he read. ‘I am sad that we did not part on the best of terms…’
It was a letter of regret but not apology, and ended with the expressed hope that Sherlock would write back to him. It was all Sherlock could do not to screw up the letter and throw it at the wall.
He did, however, finally join the rest of the family for dinner that evening, where fortunately neither Father nor Mummy made comment about his rather lengthy absence. Having said very little during the meal, he then, over dessert, asked for writing paper and a new pen. If he were to write to Mycroft then of course he was going to have the best equipment.
Father took him to town the very next day and they returned with the best (within reason since he was still only six) that Basildon Bond and Parker had to offer for the purpose, and he set about his new task.
Over the next few months he told Mycroft all about the things he had been forced to learn, how dull Mr Avery his new general tutor was, how the neighbour’s cat had caught a bird, how Mummy hadn’t let him out in the rain which was horrible because it had been raining nearly every day. He told Mycroft how Mummy had thought it a good idea for him to meet with some children of his own age, how stupid the other children had been, and how of course he hadn’t known what would happen when he tried to cut Courtney’s hair with the paper scissors, that was why he had tried it, and anyway her bunches were silly and she looked better without them. He wrote about all sorts of things, of what the two of them could do at Christmas when Mycroft finally came home, how Father had been away on trips a lot, how Uncle Horden and Aunt Vivian had come to visit. He poured out his heart into those letters.
He never sent them.
Mycroft of course wrote to him, telling him about Harrow, about the teachers and his new friends. He both loved and hated receiving the letters. He loved getting them but scowled as he was reminded again that Mycroft was off having fun and he was stuck here being bored.
It wasn’t fair.
But it served Mycroft right not getting any letters back.
Then December came and Mycroft returned home. He was taller than he remembered, smart in his uniform but in need of a hair cut. Sat on the stairs he was struck by the thought that he had really missed his brother, that he was glad that he was home and that they had so much to talk about.
They looked at each other for a long moment and he was torn between wanting to hit him for abandoning him with idiots, or to hug him for coming back. He wanted to say something clever, something that would show how much he had missed him, something that proved he had noticed that Mycroft had been a way.
He opened his mouth.
“You’re late,” he said because it was true, before adding, “and you’ve got fat.”
He wrinkled his nose. Okay, so it wasn’t fat exactly, but he had definitely put on a little weight while he had been away, lots of good eating and not enough chasing after a hyperactive younger sibling. That just meant they would have to make up for it while Mycroft was here.
He was interrupted from seeing Mycroft’s reaction by the ringing of the telephone. Of course it turned out to be for Mycroft, one of his new school friends.
Taking advantage of the distraction he rushed back upstairs and headed straight for his secret hiding place. It seemed silly now that he hadn’t posted those letters. How was Mycroft supposed to know what he had been doing and what they were supposed to talk about? If he gave them over now then at least Mycroft would be able to read them and then everything would be alright, they would be all caught up and everything would go back to how it had always been.
Hurrying back downstairs he was just in time to hear Mycroft talking to his friend.
“No, no,” Mycroft was saying in a strange tone of voice that he had never heard his brother use before. It sounded so silly, so grownup, so much like Father. “You haven’t interrupted anything important. I was just talking to my younger brother… yes, quite, that younger brother… well, you know how tedious they can be.” And then he laughed, a false, slimy laugh that made his blood run cold and his fingers tighten around the letters in his hand.
“Yes, indeed,” Mycroft continued, “who needs them?”
And then he was laughing again.
Sherlock drew away from the door, blinking rapidly as his eyes started to itch and water. ‘Tedious’ Mycroft had said, not ‘important’, ‘who needs them’.
It was bad enough that he had been abandoned here while Mycroft had gone off having fun, but now he had also been replaced. Mycroft didn’t need him any more. He had new friends, a new life, and he was obviously not supposed to be apart of it.
Screwing up the letters he rushed to the main room where Mummy had the open fire lit, and without hesitation he threw them onto it. Stepping back, he watched briefly as the letters caught, the edges of the fine paper curling before being engulfed in the yellow flame. Then turning he ran back up stairs and barred himself once more in his room.
If Mycroft wanted to replace him that was fine with him. He didn’t care. He could cope without Mycroft. He didn’t need him. He didn’t want him.
He didn’t need anyone.
*-*-*
THREE
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If there was one thing he prided himself on it was his memory. He had an excellent memory, which while not eidetic was able to hold vast amounts of information that he could recall quickly. He had once described it to John as being like a computer hard drive, where he saved the important information and deleted the inconsequential. Of course it wasn’t quite as simple as that, some things were harder to delete than others, but the illustration was close enough.
His memory was far better and far sharper than the great majority of people and it also went back further. In the few conversations he had either been apart of or overheard and in the research he had subsequently carried out on the matter, he discovered that he had more memories from younger childhood than most and on the whole they were sharper and went back further as well. They were not quite the same as his later memories which were clearer and better defined, but he recognised these as the memories that they were.
Most of them had Mycroft in it.
This was hardly a surprise because Mycroft had played a rather large part in his early childhood at least. He had memories of the house and of Mummy of course, and once or twice of his father - ones he knew weren’t Mycroft on account of the moustache - but the majority were of Mycroft.
He remembered riding on Mycroft’s shoulders and gripping onto his hair. He remembered being swung round and laughing as the air rushed past his face. He remembered a book being read to him.
The one thing he remembered the most though was the fact that Mycroft was always bigger than him. It was Mycroft who would get things off the high shelves for him, Mycroft who would hold things above his head so they were out of reach, Mycroft who always seemed so big and so grownup.
According to Mummy he had always been a rather small child, always at least one size behind Mycroft in clothing at the same age. He suspected that his skinny build had not aided matters particularly, for where he was slim, Mycroft was broad. Where he was small Mycroft had always been big.
One of his greatest wishes growing up was that he was going to be as big as Mycroft one day.
Then Mycroft stopped growing - that is Mycroft stopped growing upward, he had a bad habit of growing outward though - and he knew that all he had to do now was to wait to catch up.
It never crossed his mind that he wouldn’t.
He wasn’t the smallest in his year at Harrow but by then Mycroft was off in the real world, finishing his degree and then moving to London. Most of the other boys started their growth spurts before him though and he was gone fourteen before his body started to lengthen and Mummy was having to buy him new trousers because he had grown out of them and not because he had ruined them in some other fashion.
By the time he was seventeen and at cousin Violet’s wedding he was all long limbs and awkward movements. His hair, which had been changing since he had been about eleven, was now nearly as dark as Mycroft’s and, hating the shorter haircut Mummy had forced him to have, he had brushed out the curls and raided her straighteners. He hadn’t seen Mycroft for nearly five months before that and he had been hoping - hoping - that maybe finally he would be able to look his brother in the eye.
He had still been too short.
And of course Mycroft had looked incredibly grownup and stylish in his suit, like morning suits had been made for him - okay, so technically that particular suit had been - while he just felt awkward and silly in his.
And it wasn’t as if he had wanted to go to the wedding anyway. Most the people there were utterly tedious. His uncle and aunts pinched his cheeks or slapped him on the shoulder while recalling any embarrassing thing he had done that they had been privy too - he was sure that stripping off to run round the garden naked when it was a heat wave was perfectly fine when you were three, but he did not need to be told about it - and Mycroft spent most of the reception not particularly wanting to be associated with him if the narrowed lipped not amused expression when that girl had gasped and stared at him had been anything to go by. Yes, yes, he was the awkward, antisocial one, he didn’t need it pointed out, thank you very much.
It took him years to lose the awkwardness, even going as far as practicing the dance moves Miss Langsley had taught him as a child in an attempt to bring his wayward limbs under his control and make him that little bit more graceful. For the most part it seemed to work.
He didn’t bother working on the antisocial part.
The dancing, however, did not help him in his goal in being taller than Mycroft.
By the time he was nearly twenty he knew he had finally stopped growing. He measured in at one hundred and eighty-four centimetres tall, or in more conventional measurements, six foot and half an inch.
Considering where he had started from that wasn’t bad at all.
Except Mycroft had to beat him, even in that, because at six feet and one inch tall, Mycroft would always be the bigger brother.
*-*-*
FOUR
*-*-*
When he was seventeen he declared to Mummy that he wanted to be a research chemist. She was delighted. Mycroft had had his reservations of course, raising his eyebrow in that annoying way he had picked up somewhere, but supported him with a,
“Well, if that’s what you want to do, dear brother.”
In truth he had no idea what he wanted to do or wanted to be. He was brilliant at a lot of things but he lacked both the necessary patience and perfection to turn them into careers. Boredom was something that stalked him constantly and he doubted he could find something he could give his life to. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to try though.
Mycroft’s career was of course flourishing. No one was quite sure what it was he did, but he was working in London, at the Ministry of Defence and whatever it was it was all hush-hush and very important. Mummy was so proud. He wanted to make Mummy proud of him as well, so rather than rebelling or fighting, he took her most common words to heart and would use Mycroft as his life template.
That meant University.
He actually had no issue with University, was in fact looking forward to it. Finally he would be able to get away from these narrow minded cretins he was forced to interact with at school and meet some people who were just as bright and interesting as him. The one good thing about Harrow, however, was that he was virtually guaranteed to get into any university or college of his choice, almost regardless of how he managed to do on his A-Levels.
He chose Cambridge.
The family tradition was for Oxford, but he had no desire to walk the hallowed halls his father and brother had trod. At least with Cambridge he would not be forced to hear people mention Mycroft’s name or say how brilliant his brother was, or how sad it was that his father had passed away.
Yes, okay, so Father was not coming back, but in all honesty he had barely known the man. How was he supposed to miss someone who had not really been there in the first place?
He had been fighting to escape Mycroft’s shadow for as long as he could remember, so it made sense not to put himself back into it willingly. So Cambridge it was.
Cambridge was… well it was pretty at least, and he appreciated the history in a detached sort of way, but other than that it was a major disappointment. He had hoped to find like minded people, individuals who saw the world if not in the same way he did then at least differently to everyone else. He had hoped to meet the Van Goghs, the Einsteins, the Turings. Instead he met people like Sebastian.
Sebastian ‘call me Seb’ Wilkes was a good example of the (new) moneyed, moderately intelligent, public school fop that seemed to flit around Cambridge as if they owned the place. His father had been someone big in the city and the son was happy to flash around cash and brag about his prowess in a loud voice. Sebastian gave him a headache, his words saying one thing, his body language something completely different, and he had very few interests outside of money, cars and girls. Sebastian was going to be a banker or something in the city, he claimed. He didn’t doubt it, from the little he had seen of the financial world he suspected ‘Seb’ would fit in perfectly.
Rather it was him who found he didn’t fit in, even here.
For the first few weeks he did his best to mingle and get by. He went to classes, read his course texts, handed in assignments, was polite to his fellow students. It became clear rather quickly though that even here he was an outsider and a misfit. However, he was determined to make a go of it.
He made it through his first year due to the library, amateur dramatics and Victor Trevor.
The library gave him access to different worlds and fields of study that he simply hadn’t come across before then. His grasp of languages allowed him to read articles and periodicals the way they had been originally written without the need for a translation, even if he did have to keep a relevant language dictionary on hand while doing so.
The amateur dramatics allowed him to become someone else. When it all became too much, when the people around him became too much, he could immerse himself in being anyone but himself. He watched and made a point of studying people, their body language and mannerisms and found he was rather the mimic, able to take what he had seen and turn it back on people. It also gave him the ammunition to be able to fake it, to get through day-to-day life without either going mad or killing someone.
Then there was Victor, whose accidental friendship led to an emotional outlet he had not realised he needed. Each time they met up he vented about what had happened now, how imbecilic his course mates were, how narrow-minded his tutors, how bored he was as a whole, and each time Victor would laugh and they would go for coffee and for a short while everything would be alright.
Then Victor graduated and he started his second year with less to look forward to and an interest that was wearing thin.
Needing a physical outlet he took up boxing. It was reckless of course, anything that might damage his fingers for playing the violin was irresponsible, but it was also brilliant. It hurt. It made his heart thud and his blood rush, but it made him feel so alive. He spent hours pushing weights, adding some muscle tone to his lithe form, before branching out into some basic martial arts, and through all that he ran. He ran for miles and miles and miles. Within weeks he knew Cambridge like the back of his hands, no part of the city or University having been missed by his feet. The physical exhaustion forced his body to switch off enough for sleep and the drive to keep himself moving kept his brain occupied for extended periods, but it was obvious even to him that try as he might he was never going to be able to outrun himself.
He stopped going to lectures. He knew it all anyway and there was nothing that irritated him more than being forced to sit and listen to someone who refused to engage in discussion or debate. He doubted he would really be missed.
He tried to avoid most people, which was hardly a problem as most people made an effort to either avoid him or refused to go out of their way to engage him.
Then he met Mark. Mark was fascinating, handsome in a quirky sort of way, and intelligent in a non traditional way. He wasn’t like the other fools and plebeians around, he was the sort of unique genius he had been desperate to meet here. They hit it off right away.
Two months into their acquaintance Mark came back to his room. They had been laughing about something, something that had no doubt seemed important and witty at the time at least but got forgotten when Mark leant over and pressed his lips against his. It felt strange but not entirely unwelcome and then the next thing he knew they were lying on the bed and he could taste the sweetness of the wine in Mark’s mouth.
One of Mark’s hands was in his hair, his mouth whispering how much he loved it - the length, the softness, the curls - in between kisses. It all felt a little awkward to him. No one touched his hair except him, the hairdresser, Mummy and perhaps Mycroft. He could feel an odd sensation building at the base of his head, one he couldn’t decide whether he liked or not. He wanted to say something but his voice refused to work, his limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated and turning his head only sent Mark’s hands deeper into his hair.
He felt strange and light headed and Mark’s fingers were doing something in his hair that he didn’t understand. Then Mark’s other hand reached under his shirt, stroking his chest and he knew he had to get out of there. It was all too much, too fast, his senses were overloading with too much new information and he had to stop it.
He tried to push Mark away, tried to ask him to leave, but his head, his mouth, his arms, nothing seemed to work properly. Mark’s hand reached further down, toying with the waist of his jeans, doing things that made his head spin and his stomach churn.
Closing his eyes, he pressed his hands to Mark’s chest and pushed. Then when that didn’t work as well as he had hoped, he shouted, lashing out verbally until Mark finally got the hint and the door slammed behind him.
He felt dizzy and sick and even a scorching hot shower wasn’t enough to rid himself of the ghosting feeling of Mark’s touch over his body. The memories and sensations tumbled over and over and over again in his mind, tormenting him, mocking him. His skin itched, his scalp ached, and nothing would stop the feeling of Mark’s fingers racking through his hair, adding to that almost painful sensation at the base of his head. The curls, the length, the feel, Mark had whispered. The curls, the length, the feel.
Grabbing his boxers and dressing gown he rushed to his neighbour’s door, not bothering to explain as he barged in and headed for the bathroom. The hair clippers were right where he had deduced they would be and grabbing them he shouted that he would return them soon before heading back to his own room.
Plugging it in he set it on the third setting and without hesitation watched as his dark curls fell around him. Anything to stop the memories, the sensations.
He barely recognised the man who stared at him in the mirror once he finished. He looked older, harder, far, far less pretty.
Mummy was going to hate it. For once he truly did not care. The feel of the fingers had gone.
Four days later Mycroft turned up.
Of course Mycroft turned up, that was what always happened. Perfect Mycroft, with his suits and his superior attitude and his oh so sympathetic voice. Mycroft, who had gone easily through Oxford, forging connections, greasing the right palms, laughing at the right jokes. Mycroft who had a talent for fitting in regardless, for whom nothing ruffled him, nothing disturbed him, nothing got to him.
He had tried to be like Mycroft, to force himself through this tedious existence, to try and find a place to fit in, but if this had proved anything, anything at all, then it proved once and for all that he was not Mycroft, he could never be Mycroft and he should stop trying.
“Why can’t you be more like your brother?” Mummy had always said.
Well, Mummy dear, he thought about saying, he had tried, he really had, but it had been an unparalleled disaster.
He dropped out of Cambridge.
No amount of arguing or crying or disappointed expressions was enough to make him reconsider.
“I trust you know what you’re doing, Sherlock,” Mycroft had said softly once Mummy had retreated back to her room.
No, he had had no idea what he was doing, but he did know what he was not doing; he was not going to pretend to be someone he wasn’t.
Not any more.
*-*-*
FIVE
*-*-*
He discovered cocaine four days, six hours and twenty-two minutes after they buried Mummy.
It was so brilliant that he wondered how he had never thought to try it before.
Mummy’s funeral had been horrible.
Mycroft had taken care of all the details of course, organised the funeral and the wake, delivered the eulogy and thanked the minister. For the most part all he had had to do was stand there unsmiling, politely accepting the commiserations of the other mourners and trying not to look as if he wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He had delivered the reading, drawing on his dramatic training to smother his natural unemotional response and replace it with a more acceptable, more appropriate version. It had been very moving apparently.
Mycroft thanked him afterwards. It wasn’t too clear what he was being thanked for - for the reading? For being there? For not having made some sort of scene? - but he accepted it stoically while being painfully reminded that Mycroft, for better or for worse, was pretty much all he had left.
The realisation was crushing.
Mummy’s death had been sudden but not unexpected. She had been fading for years, spending more time in her room or in bed, until finally she had succumbed to pneumonia and passed away.
They had both been there right at the end, their sibling hostility and resentments put aside for this one final moment. She left each of them letters although neither showed the other what their one contained. He could guess what Mycroft’s had said though; how proud she was, how well he was doing, how responsibility for the family home and estate now passed to him as the first born.
His of course had been about her desire for him to find contentment, to find purpose, how much she loved him and how he should never feel that he can not go to his brother for help. Even at the end though there was a sense of disappointment, that he wasn’t settled like Mycroft, happy like Mycroft, successful like Mycroft.
Perfect Mycroft.
He read the letter over and over again until he knew every comma, every pause, every word she had not written. The words ended up dancing round and round and round in his head, unceasing, unyielding, moving faster and faster until there was nothing else.
Then he pushed the plunger into his arm and suddenly they all disappeared.
Everything disappeared. The worry, the sense of disappointment, all the things that had seemed important now faded into a haze of drugs and heightened senses.
He got thrown out of his flat and he didn’t care. He forgot to eat, forgot to sleep, forgot to pay bills, but more than that he forgot what a disappointment he had always been.
He stumbled onto a crime scene - “you are a crime scene” - and was delighted when he solved it within minutes. He got arrested - “trespassing, possession and being a right pain in the arse” - and ended up shivering in a cell. He got set upon by another prisoner - “who you staring at you posh, skinny, fag?” - only to find his boxing and martial arts training coming in extremely useful.
Of course it was Mycroft who sorted it all out.
Mycroft who appeared to be once again indulging in one too many high class business dinners. Mycroft in his fancy suits and his fancy car and his fancy apartment. (Tropical fish, really? What was he thinking? And what did he mean he wasn’t allowed near them? What was he, five?).
Perfect Mycroft, with his perfect life. It had always been so easy for him. Mycroft had never had an older brother with whom he could never truly compete, hadn’t had to constantly hear the immortal words, ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother’, had never tried to be someone else and failed miserably even in that.
Perfect Mycroft with his job he excelled at, with his responsibilities and his power. Mycroft who always looked elegant and in control, who was smarter and more accomplished and taller. Mycroft who had never felt out of place in his own skin, who never had to battle issues of sexuality or physical awkwardness, who had the world at his feet, who everyone respected and looked to for help and support.
Perfect Mycroft.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, curled up on the bed in the spare room, shaking his way through the withdrawal.
Too many thoughts. Too many sensations.
Perfect Mycroft. Always Perfect Mycroft.
He didn’t hear the response but he could deduce. Because around Perfect Mycroft everything was perfect, and he needed the perfect brother to go with this perfect life.
Passionate Sherlock was not enough. Would never be enough. Perfection was key. Perfection was everything.
He was not perfect, therefore he was nothing.
“We can always do with someone of your talents, Sherlock. Working together. Think about it.”
So easy for Mycroft. A place, a purpose, a plan. Successful.
Perfection.
That so wasn’t him.
He turned, as soon as he was able to, and walked away
*-*-*
And The One Time
Author: jupiter_ash
Rating: PG13
Beta: trillsabells
Word Count: 13K
Pairings: None present but past Sherlock/OC.
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes created by ACD, Sherlock owned by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
Summary: Pretty much what the title says.
Warnings: More Holmes sibling rivalry and jealousy, but also some less than PC 1980s insults, drug use and an awkward moment of a mild sexual nature.
Author’s Note: The sequel and follow up to Five Times Mycroft was envious of Sherlock. Both stories can technically stand alone, but make more sense if you read both.
So this is the story that Sherlock demanded that I wrote because he wanted his side to be told and he made sure it was that little bit longer than his brother’s story. Typical boys. Always in competition.
Thanks to trillsabells for betaing although since several changes have been made since then any mistakes or errors are all mine.
*-*-*
Sibling rivalry is inevitable. The only sure way to avoid it is to have one child. - Nancy Samalin
*-*-*
“He’s always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners.” - Mycroft, “A Study in Pink”
*-*-*
“So you’ll be there.”
Mycroft leant on his umbrella, his head tipped slightly to one side with that expression on his face, the ‘slightly disproving, disappointed, distrusting’ one. The very same expression he had been subjected to for years, or more accurately for pretty much as long as he could remember.
“Yes,” he said knowing that the fastest way of getting rid of his brother was to simply agree.
Mycroft straightened up. “And do try to be on time.”
The front door opened and then there was the sound of feet coming up the stairs. John’s feet, normal pace and weight so no bags of shopping.
“Yes, yes,” he replied quickly, waving his brother away just as John entered. He had a quip ready on the tip of his tongue regarding the current financial crisis to help force him to go but fortunately could save it for another day as Mycroft consented to take his leave, nodding to John on his way out.
“What was that about?” John asked as he settled in his normal chair once he had moved the letters and magazines that had been thrown there.
“Dinner,” he replied somewhat absently.
“So, not a case then?” John said almost looking disappointed.
Interesting. He lowered his book to steeple his fingers below his chin.
“No, no. No case. Just old family obligations and celebrations.”
“Oh, right,” John said. “Well I guess that would give me the chance to finish writing up The Mistaken Identity.”
He grimaced. “If you must give them such theatrical names can’t you use a bit of imagination?”
John pursed his lips together in that way he did when torn between amusement and mild annoyance, his fingers rising briefly from where his hands were resting on the chair arms.
“What would you call it then?”
He didn’t bother to stop the small, one sided smile. “The Man with the Twisted Lip.”
He returned to his book and his mind unwillingly to his brother. They had always had a difficult relationship, which was of course mainly Mycroft’s fault. Resentful his brother had called him in the past. Well of course he was resentful; he had Mycroft as an older brother. Who could compete with Mycroft?
Perfect Mycroft.
*-*-*
ONE
*-*-*
When he had been born Mycroft already was. That wasn’t particularly remarkable as by definition to be a younger sibling there first had to be an older one. In their case it was more of the fact that the older sibling in question was Mycroft that played the greatest significance, especially when you then added to it the considerable differences in their personalities and talents and the rather sizable age gap between them.
Mycroft had already existed and, therefore, had already been making his mark on the world in terms of intelligence, brilliance and stature. Mycroft’s achievements and talents had naturally set the bar for all and any siblings who were to follow, and as the only following sibling it was he who found himself thrust into Mycroft’s deep and all consuming shadow.
As such there was not one moment in which his existence was not inescapably linked with his elder brother’s. They had the same parents, the same privileges, and the same insight. They were alike in many ways and yet the seven years difference spread out between them like a chasm, vast and impassable.
It did not take him long to realise that there was little that he could do that Mycroft had not already tried and usually first excelled at. There was nowhere he could go, no book he could read, no new fact he could discover that had not been first visited, read or known by his brother. As he grew and learnt, it dawned on him the true depth and width of Mycroft’s shadow and it started to frustrate him. For once he wanted to be the first to go somewhere, to do something, to know something, but instead he had been cast in the role of catch up and Mycroft had a seven year head start.
The frustrations led to impatience, the impatience to recklessness. He wanted to be able to do what his brother did, read what his brother read, go where his brother went, but he wasn’t allowed.
Instead he was forced to follow, seven years behind and desperate to draw level but being thwarted at every opportunity. However close he got Mycroft was still out of reach, but more than that Mycroft was always that little bit better. His IQ was a few points higher, his concentration that little bit sharper, his natural ability that little bit keener.
He thought he would have been able to cope had it just been the age gap between them. After all, being seven years Mycroft’s junior he could not be compared to his brother as they stood, that would hardly be fair, but he soon noticed that he wasn’t even good enough to beat his brother when Mycroft had been ‘his’ age. Everything was either what Mycroft had or would have done.
“Sherlock, you need to practice your Latin. Mycroft already knew all this by your age.”
“Sit still boy, your brother never fidgeted like you do.”
“You need to work on your handwriting. No, don’t curve your ‘f’s like that, see how your brother does it.”
And then the killer, the one that seemed to follow him around his childhood like a teddy bear tied by string to his wrist.
“Oh Sherlock, why can’t you be more like your brother?”
Perfect Mycroft! That was what he kept hearing. Whenever Mycroft did anything he took his time and did it perfectly. He, on the other hand, always seemed to find that there was something else he wanted to do more, something equally fascinating or important that would distract him. So he hurried through his work, making small errors along the way, impatient and distracted, always eager but never perfect.
Passionate, that was what Miss Langsley had called him when they had laughed and danced around the music room.
Passionate Sherlock and Perfect Mycroft.
He didn’t mind being passionate, but he wanted to be perfect, because when people called him passionate it was just them making up for the fact he wasn’t perfect. He wanted to be perfect, but he couldn’t.
There were a few things that he was better at than Mycroft or achieved faster, but none of them really mattered because none of them were really important.
He apparently started to walk far younger than Mycroft had. While Mycroft had finally taken his first unaided steps at fourteen months, he had done so at ten months and by fourteen months had been running everywhere, climbing stairs and reaching for things that he shouldn’t have been.
He learnt how to ride a bike far sooner than Mycroft, and then discovered he was rather good at music and art, but even in this he felt Mycroft’s shadow, for as well as he could play a piece - either on piano or later violin - he did so with passion and flourish, while Mycroft played - piano only - with precision and perfection.
Perfect Mycroft struck again.
Even in art, where he had flourished in a world of colour and impressionism, Mycroft stayed with simple watercolour, where people praised Mycroft for his attention to detail while failing to grasp the intricate sweep of his acrylics or oils. It didn’t matter that Mycroft would tell him how stunning his pictures were, because no one else got it. No one else saw the world like he did, with its layers and overlapping colours, with all the facts and meanings pressing down on everything, with the noise and the light and the feelings all crashing in. No one, except perhaps Perfect Mycroft.
Then there was of course the fact he was constantly getting into trouble.
Of course he was getting into trouble. Intense curiosity and an impulsive nature more often than not led to him having to explain his actions sometimes to Father, but far more frequently to Mummy and he grew to hate the disappointed look she would get. It wasn’t as if he had meant to flood the bathroom, or get lost in that shop, or kill one of Mycroft’s fish. Climbing that tree had seemed like a good idea at the time, and it wasn’t his fault that the little girl hadn’t appreciated the wonder and beauty of that spider. How was he supposed to know that glass shatters if it gets too hot too quickly, that certain pollen stains and that Mummy’s diamond necklace is not for experimenting on?
Apparently Mycroft hadn’t been like that. Mycroft had sat quietly and read books. Mycroft hadn’t scared Mummy by disappearing. Mycroft hadn’t called other children idiots and made them cry. Mycroft hadn’t sliced the skin off the top of his thumb while playing with Father’s razor.
It was always Mycroft this and Mycroft that.
Some days he just wished that Perfect Mycroft would go away.
And then Perfect Mycroft did.
*-*-*
TWO
*-*-*
When he was six years and five months old, it became blindingly obvious that it was finally time for him to leave home. Thinking through the situation, he carefully packed his favourite books, his flute and a change of clothing. Then he went to sit on the trunk currently in the front hallway. It was going to be a grand adventure, a chance to finally get away and learn something, an opportunity to meet new people like him and like Mycroft. He was so excited he could barely sit still, but forced himself to just like Mycroft had showed him, calming his mind and waited.
It never occurred to him that they would say no.
“Sherlock, dearest, what are you….” Mummy had started but it was Mycroft who stopped her, Mycroft who at thirteen was now nearly as tall as Mummy, who looked at him sadly before sitting next to him on the trunk.
“You can’t come, Sherlock,” Mycroft said to him gently, reaching over with a bigger hand to cover his smaller fingers that were clutching the bag that contained everything he cared about.
“Of course I can,” he had said firmly, because it was just so obvious. He had tightened his grasp on his bag. “I’ve packed everything. I’m ready. Look.”
He tried to show Mycroft how thorough he had been. He had even packed some food, just in case there wasn’t any when they arrived. And he had packed enough for Mycroft too.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft had said stopping him. “You can’t come.”
He frowned, not really understanding why Mycroft was saying such a thing. He had packed, he had clothes and food and books. He didn’t have as much as Mycroft had of course, but then Mycroft was bigger so naturally he would have more things. It was possible that Mummy would miss them, but she had Father and she would understand.
“But you’re going,” he said, “so I’m going too.”
That was how it worked. They had always done everything together, even when he had hated it. It was inconceivable to him that something as ridiculous as “school” would change that.
“It doesn’t work that way I’m afraid,” Mycroft said. “Only I can go. You have to stay here and look after Mummy.”
“But,” he said sucking in a deep breath as what Mycroft was saying to him finally started to show new meaning, “that means you’re going without me.” He gasped. “You’re leaving me! You can’t go. No. No. No!” He dug his fingers into Mycroft’s arm and buried his head on his brother’s chest, wrapping his other arm tightly around Mycroft’s waist. “You can’t,” he declared, his words muffled by clothing. “You can’t! I won’t let you.”
“Sherlock….”
“No! No! No! I’ll be good!”
“Sherlock.”
“You can’t leave me. You can’t.”
He felt Mycroft’s arm wrap around his thin shaking body.
“I’m not leaving you,” Mycroft said in that patient voice of his. “But I have to go away. I’m sure you and Mummy can come visit me, and I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Christmas? But Christmas was ages away. Weeks and weeks and weeks. What was he supposed to do with all that time? He wouldn’t have anyone to talk to. He wouldn’t be able to creep into Mycroft’s room late at night to talk when he was supposed to be asleep. Who was going to test him on the periodic table or his German verbs? Who was going to sneak him one of those books he wasn’t supposed to be reading? Who was going to answer his questions properly and not just tell him that he was too young? Who was going to play the piano while he and Mrs Langsley danced around the room? Who was going to listen to him practice his flute? Who was going to get him into a headlock and mess up his hair until he squealed to be let go? Who was going to come up with some fun new experiment, or berate him for getting dirty, or slip him sweets when Mummy wasn’t looking?
Who was going to understand him when no one else did?
He pulled away and narrowed his eyes, stabbing a finger into his brother’s chest. “If you go I will never forgive you and, and, and I will never speak to you again.”
It did not have the result he wanted.
Mycroft just sighed. “Please refrain from making this harder than it already is,” he said instead. “I have to go and you have to stay here.”
Stay here? Stay here?
He stared at Mycroft with all the fury his six year old body was capable of. “I hate you,” he shouted and then he ran, bag in hand, pushing past Mummy and ignoring all cries of his name.
Mycroft was leaving him. No, Mycroft was abandoning him.
Reaching his room, he slammed the door and wedged his chair below the handle before throwing himself onto his bed, screaming into his sheets. He ignored the knocking on the door, the turning of the handle and the calling of his name.
He hated Mycroft. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated him! It wasn’t fair. Going off and leaving him here. Abandoning him.
He stirred from the bed only when he heard Father’s BMW pulling away up the drive. Rushing to the window he was just in time to see the black car disappearing from view and Mycroft obviously with it.
Howling he grabbed his side lamp and threw it at the wardrobe, then he tore the sheets from his bed, pounding his fists into the mattress, before grabbing the bow he and Mycroft had spent the summer carving and testing and shot all his homemade arrows at the wall one after another as quickly as his shaking arms could manage. Then he collapsed on top of the sheets now strewn across his floor, sobbing like he had never done before.
Despite the age gap and the animosity between them, Mycroft and he had been close, or at least as close as two brothers like them would ever be. Mycroft had always been there - whether he had wanted him to be or not. He had always been the stable influence in his life; as tutors had come and gone, as Mummy spent more time in her room, as Father’s meetings continued to take him away for weeks on end. Mycroft had always been there; testing him on his maths or French pronunciation, taking him to the park to feed the ducks, or helping him with his “experiments”, Mycroft had been the one he could rely on.
Now Mycroft was gone.
He lay there until the tears dried on his cheeks, until they stopped knocking on his door, until his body decided to tell him it was well past lunch time.
Then he lay there some more.
Eventually he reached for his flute and started to play. He stopped after a few shaky breaths, frowning in confusion. It wasn’t working. He tried to blow again but it still wasn’t coming out right. That was just so typical. His head was hurting, his hands were shaking and now his flute was broken.
He tossed it onto the bed in disgust, but what did it matter anyway? It wasn’t as if Mycroft was around to encourage him.
He stayed in his room for three days and night, going out only when he needed the bathroom or to retrieve the trays of food and drinks left by his door, and only when he knew that no one else was around. On the third day he also found a letter propped up against his glass of orange juice. He recognised Mycroft’s handwriting on the envelope instantly, the smooth slide of his favourite Parker fountain pen, the slight flourish on the ‘k’ at the end of Sherlock.
He took it into his room and opened it with eagerness and trepidation.
‘My Dear Sherlock,’ he read. ‘I am sad that we did not part on the best of terms…’
It was a letter of regret but not apology, and ended with the expressed hope that Sherlock would write back to him. It was all Sherlock could do not to screw up the letter and throw it at the wall.
He did, however, finally join the rest of the family for dinner that evening, where fortunately neither Father nor Mummy made comment about his rather lengthy absence. Having said very little during the meal, he then, over dessert, asked for writing paper and a new pen. If he were to write to Mycroft then of course he was going to have the best equipment.
Father took him to town the very next day and they returned with the best (within reason since he was still only six) that Basildon Bond and Parker had to offer for the purpose, and he set about his new task.
Over the next few months he told Mycroft all about the things he had been forced to learn, how dull Mr Avery his new general tutor was, how the neighbour’s cat had caught a bird, how Mummy hadn’t let him out in the rain which was horrible because it had been raining nearly every day. He told Mycroft how Mummy had thought it a good idea for him to meet with some children of his own age, how stupid the other children had been, and how of course he hadn’t known what would happen when he tried to cut Courtney’s hair with the paper scissors, that was why he had tried it, and anyway her bunches were silly and she looked better without them. He wrote about all sorts of things, of what the two of them could do at Christmas when Mycroft finally came home, how Father had been away on trips a lot, how Uncle Horden and Aunt Vivian had come to visit. He poured out his heart into those letters.
He never sent them.
Mycroft of course wrote to him, telling him about Harrow, about the teachers and his new friends. He both loved and hated receiving the letters. He loved getting them but scowled as he was reminded again that Mycroft was off having fun and he was stuck here being bored.
It wasn’t fair.
But it served Mycroft right not getting any letters back.
Then December came and Mycroft returned home. He was taller than he remembered, smart in his uniform but in need of a hair cut. Sat on the stairs he was struck by the thought that he had really missed his brother, that he was glad that he was home and that they had so much to talk about.
They looked at each other for a long moment and he was torn between wanting to hit him for abandoning him with idiots, or to hug him for coming back. He wanted to say something clever, something that would show how much he had missed him, something that proved he had noticed that Mycroft had been a way.
He opened his mouth.
“You’re late,” he said because it was true, before adding, “and you’ve got fat.”
He wrinkled his nose. Okay, so it wasn’t fat exactly, but he had definitely put on a little weight while he had been away, lots of good eating and not enough chasing after a hyperactive younger sibling. That just meant they would have to make up for it while Mycroft was here.
He was interrupted from seeing Mycroft’s reaction by the ringing of the telephone. Of course it turned out to be for Mycroft, one of his new school friends.
Taking advantage of the distraction he rushed back upstairs and headed straight for his secret hiding place. It seemed silly now that he hadn’t posted those letters. How was Mycroft supposed to know what he had been doing and what they were supposed to talk about? If he gave them over now then at least Mycroft would be able to read them and then everything would be alright, they would be all caught up and everything would go back to how it had always been.
Hurrying back downstairs he was just in time to hear Mycroft talking to his friend.
“No, no,” Mycroft was saying in a strange tone of voice that he had never heard his brother use before. It sounded so silly, so grownup, so much like Father. “You haven’t interrupted anything important. I was just talking to my younger brother… yes, quite, that younger brother… well, you know how tedious they can be.” And then he laughed, a false, slimy laugh that made his blood run cold and his fingers tighten around the letters in his hand.
“Yes, indeed,” Mycroft continued, “who needs them?”
And then he was laughing again.
Sherlock drew away from the door, blinking rapidly as his eyes started to itch and water. ‘Tedious’ Mycroft had said, not ‘important’, ‘who needs them’.
It was bad enough that he had been abandoned here while Mycroft had gone off having fun, but now he had also been replaced. Mycroft didn’t need him any more. He had new friends, a new life, and he was obviously not supposed to be apart of it.
Screwing up the letters he rushed to the main room where Mummy had the open fire lit, and without hesitation he threw them onto it. Stepping back, he watched briefly as the letters caught, the edges of the fine paper curling before being engulfed in the yellow flame. Then turning he ran back up stairs and barred himself once more in his room.
If Mycroft wanted to replace him that was fine with him. He didn’t care. He could cope without Mycroft. He didn’t need him. He didn’t want him.
He didn’t need anyone.
*-*-*
THREE
*-*-*
If there was one thing he prided himself on it was his memory. He had an excellent memory, which while not eidetic was able to hold vast amounts of information that he could recall quickly. He had once described it to John as being like a computer hard drive, where he saved the important information and deleted the inconsequential. Of course it wasn’t quite as simple as that, some things were harder to delete than others, but the illustration was close enough.
His memory was far better and far sharper than the great majority of people and it also went back further. In the few conversations he had either been apart of or overheard and in the research he had subsequently carried out on the matter, he discovered that he had more memories from younger childhood than most and on the whole they were sharper and went back further as well. They were not quite the same as his later memories which were clearer and better defined, but he recognised these as the memories that they were.
Most of them had Mycroft in it.
This was hardly a surprise because Mycroft had played a rather large part in his early childhood at least. He had memories of the house and of Mummy of course, and once or twice of his father - ones he knew weren’t Mycroft on account of the moustache - but the majority were of Mycroft.
He remembered riding on Mycroft’s shoulders and gripping onto his hair. He remembered being swung round and laughing as the air rushed past his face. He remembered a book being read to him.
The one thing he remembered the most though was the fact that Mycroft was always bigger than him. It was Mycroft who would get things off the high shelves for him, Mycroft who would hold things above his head so they were out of reach, Mycroft who always seemed so big and so grownup.
According to Mummy he had always been a rather small child, always at least one size behind Mycroft in clothing at the same age. He suspected that his skinny build had not aided matters particularly, for where he was slim, Mycroft was broad. Where he was small Mycroft had always been big.
One of his greatest wishes growing up was that he was going to be as big as Mycroft one day.
Then Mycroft stopped growing - that is Mycroft stopped growing upward, he had a bad habit of growing outward though - and he knew that all he had to do now was to wait to catch up.
It never crossed his mind that he wouldn’t.
He wasn’t the smallest in his year at Harrow but by then Mycroft was off in the real world, finishing his degree and then moving to London. Most of the other boys started their growth spurts before him though and he was gone fourteen before his body started to lengthen and Mummy was having to buy him new trousers because he had grown out of them and not because he had ruined them in some other fashion.
By the time he was seventeen and at cousin Violet’s wedding he was all long limbs and awkward movements. His hair, which had been changing since he had been about eleven, was now nearly as dark as Mycroft’s and, hating the shorter haircut Mummy had forced him to have, he had brushed out the curls and raided her straighteners. He hadn’t seen Mycroft for nearly five months before that and he had been hoping - hoping - that maybe finally he would be able to look his brother in the eye.
He had still been too short.
And of course Mycroft had looked incredibly grownup and stylish in his suit, like morning suits had been made for him - okay, so technically that particular suit had been - while he just felt awkward and silly in his.
And it wasn’t as if he had wanted to go to the wedding anyway. Most the people there were utterly tedious. His uncle and aunts pinched his cheeks or slapped him on the shoulder while recalling any embarrassing thing he had done that they had been privy too - he was sure that stripping off to run round the garden naked when it was a heat wave was perfectly fine when you were three, but he did not need to be told about it - and Mycroft spent most of the reception not particularly wanting to be associated with him if the narrowed lipped not amused expression when that girl had gasped and stared at him had been anything to go by. Yes, yes, he was the awkward, antisocial one, he didn’t need it pointed out, thank you very much.
It took him years to lose the awkwardness, even going as far as practicing the dance moves Miss Langsley had taught him as a child in an attempt to bring his wayward limbs under his control and make him that little bit more graceful. For the most part it seemed to work.
He didn’t bother working on the antisocial part.
The dancing, however, did not help him in his goal in being taller than Mycroft.
By the time he was nearly twenty he knew he had finally stopped growing. He measured in at one hundred and eighty-four centimetres tall, or in more conventional measurements, six foot and half an inch.
Considering where he had started from that wasn’t bad at all.
Except Mycroft had to beat him, even in that, because at six feet and one inch tall, Mycroft would always be the bigger brother.
*-*-*
FOUR
*-*-*
When he was seventeen he declared to Mummy that he wanted to be a research chemist. She was delighted. Mycroft had had his reservations of course, raising his eyebrow in that annoying way he had picked up somewhere, but supported him with a,
“Well, if that’s what you want to do, dear brother.”
In truth he had no idea what he wanted to do or wanted to be. He was brilliant at a lot of things but he lacked both the necessary patience and perfection to turn them into careers. Boredom was something that stalked him constantly and he doubted he could find something he could give his life to. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to try though.
Mycroft’s career was of course flourishing. No one was quite sure what it was he did, but he was working in London, at the Ministry of Defence and whatever it was it was all hush-hush and very important. Mummy was so proud. He wanted to make Mummy proud of him as well, so rather than rebelling or fighting, he took her most common words to heart and would use Mycroft as his life template.
That meant University.
He actually had no issue with University, was in fact looking forward to it. Finally he would be able to get away from these narrow minded cretins he was forced to interact with at school and meet some people who were just as bright and interesting as him. The one good thing about Harrow, however, was that he was virtually guaranteed to get into any university or college of his choice, almost regardless of how he managed to do on his A-Levels.
He chose Cambridge.
The family tradition was for Oxford, but he had no desire to walk the hallowed halls his father and brother had trod. At least with Cambridge he would not be forced to hear people mention Mycroft’s name or say how brilliant his brother was, or how sad it was that his father had passed away.
Yes, okay, so Father was not coming back, but in all honesty he had barely known the man. How was he supposed to miss someone who had not really been there in the first place?
He had been fighting to escape Mycroft’s shadow for as long as he could remember, so it made sense not to put himself back into it willingly. So Cambridge it was.
Cambridge was… well it was pretty at least, and he appreciated the history in a detached sort of way, but other than that it was a major disappointment. He had hoped to find like minded people, individuals who saw the world if not in the same way he did then at least differently to everyone else. He had hoped to meet the Van Goghs, the Einsteins, the Turings. Instead he met people like Sebastian.
Sebastian ‘call me Seb’ Wilkes was a good example of the (new) moneyed, moderately intelligent, public school fop that seemed to flit around Cambridge as if they owned the place. His father had been someone big in the city and the son was happy to flash around cash and brag about his prowess in a loud voice. Sebastian gave him a headache, his words saying one thing, his body language something completely different, and he had very few interests outside of money, cars and girls. Sebastian was going to be a banker or something in the city, he claimed. He didn’t doubt it, from the little he had seen of the financial world he suspected ‘Seb’ would fit in perfectly.
Rather it was him who found he didn’t fit in, even here.
For the first few weeks he did his best to mingle and get by. He went to classes, read his course texts, handed in assignments, was polite to his fellow students. It became clear rather quickly though that even here he was an outsider and a misfit. However, he was determined to make a go of it.
He made it through his first year due to the library, amateur dramatics and Victor Trevor.
The library gave him access to different worlds and fields of study that he simply hadn’t come across before then. His grasp of languages allowed him to read articles and periodicals the way they had been originally written without the need for a translation, even if he did have to keep a relevant language dictionary on hand while doing so.
The amateur dramatics allowed him to become someone else. When it all became too much, when the people around him became too much, he could immerse himself in being anyone but himself. He watched and made a point of studying people, their body language and mannerisms and found he was rather the mimic, able to take what he had seen and turn it back on people. It also gave him the ammunition to be able to fake it, to get through day-to-day life without either going mad or killing someone.
Then there was Victor, whose accidental friendship led to an emotional outlet he had not realised he needed. Each time they met up he vented about what had happened now, how imbecilic his course mates were, how narrow-minded his tutors, how bored he was as a whole, and each time Victor would laugh and they would go for coffee and for a short while everything would be alright.
Then Victor graduated and he started his second year with less to look forward to and an interest that was wearing thin.
Needing a physical outlet he took up boxing. It was reckless of course, anything that might damage his fingers for playing the violin was irresponsible, but it was also brilliant. It hurt. It made his heart thud and his blood rush, but it made him feel so alive. He spent hours pushing weights, adding some muscle tone to his lithe form, before branching out into some basic martial arts, and through all that he ran. He ran for miles and miles and miles. Within weeks he knew Cambridge like the back of his hands, no part of the city or University having been missed by his feet. The physical exhaustion forced his body to switch off enough for sleep and the drive to keep himself moving kept his brain occupied for extended periods, but it was obvious even to him that try as he might he was never going to be able to outrun himself.
He stopped going to lectures. He knew it all anyway and there was nothing that irritated him more than being forced to sit and listen to someone who refused to engage in discussion or debate. He doubted he would really be missed.
He tried to avoid most people, which was hardly a problem as most people made an effort to either avoid him or refused to go out of their way to engage him.
Then he met Mark. Mark was fascinating, handsome in a quirky sort of way, and intelligent in a non traditional way. He wasn’t like the other fools and plebeians around, he was the sort of unique genius he had been desperate to meet here. They hit it off right away.
Two months into their acquaintance Mark came back to his room. They had been laughing about something, something that had no doubt seemed important and witty at the time at least but got forgotten when Mark leant over and pressed his lips against his. It felt strange but not entirely unwelcome and then the next thing he knew they were lying on the bed and he could taste the sweetness of the wine in Mark’s mouth.
One of Mark’s hands was in his hair, his mouth whispering how much he loved it - the length, the softness, the curls - in between kisses. It all felt a little awkward to him. No one touched his hair except him, the hairdresser, Mummy and perhaps Mycroft. He could feel an odd sensation building at the base of his head, one he couldn’t decide whether he liked or not. He wanted to say something but his voice refused to work, his limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated and turning his head only sent Mark’s hands deeper into his hair.
He felt strange and light headed and Mark’s fingers were doing something in his hair that he didn’t understand. Then Mark’s other hand reached under his shirt, stroking his chest and he knew he had to get out of there. It was all too much, too fast, his senses were overloading with too much new information and he had to stop it.
He tried to push Mark away, tried to ask him to leave, but his head, his mouth, his arms, nothing seemed to work properly. Mark’s hand reached further down, toying with the waist of his jeans, doing things that made his head spin and his stomach churn.
Closing his eyes, he pressed his hands to Mark’s chest and pushed. Then when that didn’t work as well as he had hoped, he shouted, lashing out verbally until Mark finally got the hint and the door slammed behind him.
He felt dizzy and sick and even a scorching hot shower wasn’t enough to rid himself of the ghosting feeling of Mark’s touch over his body. The memories and sensations tumbled over and over and over again in his mind, tormenting him, mocking him. His skin itched, his scalp ached, and nothing would stop the feeling of Mark’s fingers racking through his hair, adding to that almost painful sensation at the base of his head. The curls, the length, the feel, Mark had whispered. The curls, the length, the feel.
Grabbing his boxers and dressing gown he rushed to his neighbour’s door, not bothering to explain as he barged in and headed for the bathroom. The hair clippers were right where he had deduced they would be and grabbing them he shouted that he would return them soon before heading back to his own room.
Plugging it in he set it on the third setting and without hesitation watched as his dark curls fell around him. Anything to stop the memories, the sensations.
He barely recognised the man who stared at him in the mirror once he finished. He looked older, harder, far, far less pretty.
Mummy was going to hate it. For once he truly did not care. The feel of the fingers had gone.
Four days later Mycroft turned up.
Of course Mycroft turned up, that was what always happened. Perfect Mycroft, with his suits and his superior attitude and his oh so sympathetic voice. Mycroft, who had gone easily through Oxford, forging connections, greasing the right palms, laughing at the right jokes. Mycroft who had a talent for fitting in regardless, for whom nothing ruffled him, nothing disturbed him, nothing got to him.
He had tried to be like Mycroft, to force himself through this tedious existence, to try and find a place to fit in, but if this had proved anything, anything at all, then it proved once and for all that he was not Mycroft, he could never be Mycroft and he should stop trying.
“Why can’t you be more like your brother?” Mummy had always said.
Well, Mummy dear, he thought about saying, he had tried, he really had, but it had been an unparalleled disaster.
He dropped out of Cambridge.
No amount of arguing or crying or disappointed expressions was enough to make him reconsider.
“I trust you know what you’re doing, Sherlock,” Mycroft had said softly once Mummy had retreated back to her room.
No, he had had no idea what he was doing, but he did know what he was not doing; he was not going to pretend to be someone he wasn’t.
Not any more.
*-*-*
FIVE
*-*-*
He discovered cocaine four days, six hours and twenty-two minutes after they buried Mummy.
It was so brilliant that he wondered how he had never thought to try it before.
Mummy’s funeral had been horrible.
Mycroft had taken care of all the details of course, organised the funeral and the wake, delivered the eulogy and thanked the minister. For the most part all he had had to do was stand there unsmiling, politely accepting the commiserations of the other mourners and trying not to look as if he wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. He had delivered the reading, drawing on his dramatic training to smother his natural unemotional response and replace it with a more acceptable, more appropriate version. It had been very moving apparently.
Mycroft thanked him afterwards. It wasn’t too clear what he was being thanked for - for the reading? For being there? For not having made some sort of scene? - but he accepted it stoically while being painfully reminded that Mycroft, for better or for worse, was pretty much all he had left.
The realisation was crushing.
Mummy’s death had been sudden but not unexpected. She had been fading for years, spending more time in her room or in bed, until finally she had succumbed to pneumonia and passed away.
They had both been there right at the end, their sibling hostility and resentments put aside for this one final moment. She left each of them letters although neither showed the other what their one contained. He could guess what Mycroft’s had said though; how proud she was, how well he was doing, how responsibility for the family home and estate now passed to him as the first born.
His of course had been about her desire for him to find contentment, to find purpose, how much she loved him and how he should never feel that he can not go to his brother for help. Even at the end though there was a sense of disappointment, that he wasn’t settled like Mycroft, happy like Mycroft, successful like Mycroft.
Perfect Mycroft.
He read the letter over and over again until he knew every comma, every pause, every word she had not written. The words ended up dancing round and round and round in his head, unceasing, unyielding, moving faster and faster until there was nothing else.
Then he pushed the plunger into his arm and suddenly they all disappeared.
Everything disappeared. The worry, the sense of disappointment, all the things that had seemed important now faded into a haze of drugs and heightened senses.
He got thrown out of his flat and he didn’t care. He forgot to eat, forgot to sleep, forgot to pay bills, but more than that he forgot what a disappointment he had always been.
He stumbled onto a crime scene - “you are a crime scene” - and was delighted when he solved it within minutes. He got arrested - “trespassing, possession and being a right pain in the arse” - and ended up shivering in a cell. He got set upon by another prisoner - “who you staring at you posh, skinny, fag?” - only to find his boxing and martial arts training coming in extremely useful.
Of course it was Mycroft who sorted it all out.
Mycroft who appeared to be once again indulging in one too many high class business dinners. Mycroft in his fancy suits and his fancy car and his fancy apartment. (Tropical fish, really? What was he thinking? And what did he mean he wasn’t allowed near them? What was he, five?).
Perfect Mycroft, with his perfect life. It had always been so easy for him. Mycroft had never had an older brother with whom he could never truly compete, hadn’t had to constantly hear the immortal words, ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother’, had never tried to be someone else and failed miserably even in that.
Perfect Mycroft with his job he excelled at, with his responsibilities and his power. Mycroft who always looked elegant and in control, who was smarter and more accomplished and taller. Mycroft who had never felt out of place in his own skin, who never had to battle issues of sexuality or physical awkwardness, who had the world at his feet, who everyone respected and looked to for help and support.
Perfect Mycroft.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, curled up on the bed in the spare room, shaking his way through the withdrawal.
Too many thoughts. Too many sensations.
Perfect Mycroft. Always Perfect Mycroft.
He didn’t hear the response but he could deduce. Because around Perfect Mycroft everything was perfect, and he needed the perfect brother to go with this perfect life.
Passionate Sherlock was not enough. Would never be enough. Perfection was key. Perfection was everything.
He was not perfect, therefore he was nothing.
“We can always do with someone of your talents, Sherlock. Working together. Think about it.”
So easy for Mycroft. A place, a purpose, a plan. Successful.
Perfection.
That so wasn’t him.
He turned, as soon as he was able to, and walked away
*-*-*
And The One Time