New Fic: Five Times Sherlock Resented Mycroft 2/2

[jupiter_ash]

Previous part of the story: Five Times Sherlock Resented Mycroft

...And the One Time

*-*-*

“Wait, Sherlock,” John said, placing a hand on his arm.  “Are you certain I’m invited?”

“Of course,” he said aiming for a tone of voice that would put John more at ease and not belay any of the anxiety he himself was for some reason feeling.  “And even if not, I refuse to have to spent time with my brother without some moral support.  Come along.”

As much as he was looking forward to this afternoon, he was not about to face it alone.  Events where he and Mycroft were forced to be social to each other while reminiscing about the past tended to end rather badly - and in the past often with Mummy in tears - but there was every possibility that John’s presence would help temper their sibling rivalry to more acceptable levels.  If not, well the restaurant looked expensive and Mycroft was paying.  Served him right.

Unfortunately they were already late, which did little to help his mood.

He rubbed at his right cheek.  The blow had been glancing but enough to cause a little soreness even now.  Of course his assailant - a Mr Justin Pennington of Kentish Town - had been quickly apprehended by John who had in all essence manfully wrestled him to the ground, but only after the initial attack.  Then Lestrade - once he and his team had arrived - had demanded statements and other pointless paperwork which had taken time to get out of.  So all in all, rather a little later than planned.

He already received three texts from Mycroft each one less subtle than the last.  Clearly they must have already started and cracked open a bottle of something, his brother was always less likely to call and more likely to text when there was good food and drink in front of him.  Idiot.  He was going to work himself into an early grave if he continued like that, just like father.

“So who’s this person we’re meeting?” John asked matching him stride as they searched for a cab.

“Old teacher of ours,” he said.  “Very important lady in many respects.  I owe her a great deal, and if I recall correctly, probably a good number of new outfits.”  He smiled at the memory.  “Certain paints are notoriously hard to get out of fabric.”

“Right,” John said but wisely left it there.

They were twenty-eight minutes late in the end.  Not as bad as it could have been and they were quickly shown into the small private room Mycroft’s assistant had no doubt organised on his behalf.

It was almost like stepping back in time.

By his reckoning it had been the best part of twenty years since he had last seen her and in all that time she had barely changed at all.  She was smaller of course, but then he was over a foot taller than his thirteen year old self, and her hair had turned silver and her face had more lines, but that only added even more character to her features.  Her eyes, her smile, her laugh, she was undoubtedly the same person who had spent hours guiding his pencils or brushes, who had forced him to practice his scales over and over again, who had giggled when he had trodden on her toes while dancing.   She had inspired him to express himself in new ways, she had listen to him complain about Mycroft, about Father, about Mummy, she had hugged him when he had most needed it.

“Sherlock Holmes,” she said, rising to her feet as they entered delight clearly written across her face.  “Oh, just look at you.  Your hair, your height, I would have barely recognised you.”

But he would have recognised her anywhere.

“Miss Langsley,” he said and opened his arms to sweep her into a hug.

She even smelt nearly the same.  A different perfume and deodorant, but the rest he remembered.  It was like warm summers and sweet drinks, bright flowers and dancing bees.

She even laughing the same way and he couldn’t help but blush slightly as she pressed a sweet kiss to his cheek.

“It’s Mrs Heath now,” she said drawing away but keeping hold of his hands.  “I got married.”

Yes, he had hardly failed to notice her wedding ring.

“But I would much rather you called me Rebecca.”

Rebecca?  He knew she had a first name, everyone had a first name, but somehow it just sounded wrong.  To him she would always be Miss Langsley, although for her he would try and at least remember to call her as she requested.  It was only polite after all.

And thinking of polite, he took the opportunity to introduce John.

“Miss Langsley… Rebecca… my flatmate, colleague and friend, Doctor John Watson.”

He could barely keep the smile off his face and the delight out of his voice.  He was almost positively giddy with excitement that he could introduce John to his favourite tutor.  They had had so many conversations while he had been young, particularly after Mycroft had abandoned him for Harrow, about friends and other people.  She had always insisted that he would be able to make and keep friends despite, up until that point, all evidence to the contrary.  And she had been right, even if it had taken quite a few years for John to wander into his life.

And he was a doctor, that had to count for something surely.

Ah, yes, John had certainly met with full approval.

“Interesting case?”

He had almost forgotten about his brother and those texts.

“I take it the husband did not take too kindly to being caught.”

Of course Mycroft would take the opportunity to point out just how clever he was, that he could sit at this table and deduce the outcome of the case simply from his face and John’s clothes, and only he would do so in such a smug condescending way.

“It was moderately distracting, yes,” he said grabbing his seat and making sure John did likewise.  He tried not to wince as his eyes scanned across the dining table.  Expensive restaurant, expensive food, lots of calories.  Trust Mycroft to ignore the fact Father had died young from a heart attack and that he had been very close to going the same way even younger not that long ago, not helped by that huge amount of weight he had gained in his mid to late twenties.

“I see you’ve started without us,” he said nodding at the half drunk bottle of wine.  “Off the diet again today?”

“One treat is not unreasonable,” Mycroft said with a look that suggested that that wasn’t what he had wanted to say.  “But we can not all be bless with your… metabolism.”

Metabolism?  He raised an eyebrow.  Just because he got off his arse and actually did things rather than ruling the world from the comforts of his bottom.

It was the warm hand over his that stopped the words at the tip of his tongue, and his brother forgotten he retrained his attention to his dearest teacher.

“You’re looking well,” she said squeezing his hand just like she used to when he was concentrating and doing well at his studies.  A little encouragement, recognition of his achievements, no one had ever praised him in quite the same way she had, well, not until John had come along and called him brilliant.

“Mycroft tells me you’re some kind of detective now,” she continued.

“Consulting Detective,” he said, his mouth twitching into first a half smile and then a full beam.  “The only one in the world.  I invented the job.”

“Of course you did,” she said with a laugh.  “That’s just so very you.  You were never one for convention.  So what sort of things do you get to consult and detect?”

They told her about the man with the twisted lip and then the Soho vampire, which obviously went onto that rather embarrassing phase in his childhood when he had been obsessed with vampires and the gothic having been given a copy of Dracula for his ninth birthday.

“That explains the coat,” John had said his face relatively straight while he chewed his steak.

More stories were shared, some by himself, some by Rebecca and some by Mycroft.  John in turn seemed to enjoy them but seem rather surprised by the fact they had been home schooled before attending boarding school.  Surely that had been a given?

“That was the last time I really saw them,” Miss Langsley said referring to the week before he had been due to start at Harrow, the day she had spent telling him that he would enjoy his new school and would be able to make lots of new friends and would no doubt forget all about the lessons they had had together, just as it should be.

She had been wrong of course, but he had forgiven her for that.  He suspected he would forgive her nearly anything.

“Sherlock was thirteen,” she continued, “Mycroft obviously already at Oxford.”

The first day of the new stage of his life, she had described it to the skinny, awkward thirteen year old him.  A new adventure.  The world at his feet, and then no doubt university and the opportunity to become anyone he wanted to be.

“Did you go to Oxford, Sherlock?”

He shifted uncomfortably.

“Cambridge,” he said ignoring the way Mycroft’s eyes had shifted momentarily across to him.

“How wonderful,” Miss Langsley said brightly.  “Did you enjoy it?”

No.  No, he had not enjoyed it.

“It was hateful,” he said memories flooding back to him.  The boring classes, the tedium and frustration, making and losing an ally in Victor, remembering the feel of Mark’s hands in his hair.

“Sherlock rather decided that University was not for him,” Mycroft said in that infuriatingly neutral tone of his, as if he understood, really understood.  He must have seen, he had taken a good enough look around his room when he had come to visit, and yet he had still seemed so… disappointed.

He glared at him.

“I lack Mycroft’s skill in dealing with mediocrity and sycophants,” he said not bothering to pull the punch, and anyway, it was completely true.  “The lectures were boring, the tutors were uninspiring and my fellow classmates were mostly imbeciles.  I tolerated it for eighteen months before deciding my time could be far better spent elsewhere.”

Anywhere else.  Eighteen months of his life had been spent trying to do as Mycroft had done, while the previous eighteen years had been spent trying to catch his brother up.  For someone of his intelligence it had taken him far, far too long to realise that it just pointless.  Trying to be Mycroft was simply not worth it.  He had to find out who Sherlock was, so that was what he had done.

“Not all of us can be Mycroft,” he finished levelling his gaze on his brother.

Mycroft in turn just gave him one of those smiles that he had come to dislike.  The one that Harrow had taught him, Oxford had perfected and the Government had utilised.

“I just did what I could,” Mycroft said.

A first in PPE, commendations, connections, a job on graduation, a ‘oh Mycroft, I’m so proud of you’ from Mummy the day she got to wear her new specially purchased hat.

“Yes, yes,” he said knowing that his voice was snappish but already reaching the point of not caring, “I am well aware of what you can do.  Our mother and just about everyone else were more than free with telling me.”

‘Look at your brother, doesn’t he look smart’.

‘Mycroft’s done well.  Bit tough on you having to follow that.’

‘Twenty years and he’ll be ruling the world’.

“Mummy was just rather upset by your decision to drop out,” Mycroft said.

He almost snorted.

“Mummy was just upset that I wasn’t you.”

‘You just haven’t thought this through, love.  Look at your brother….’

“She only ever wanted to best for you.”

“No, she wanted me to be you,” he snapped.  “Which is a ridiculous idea.  Why inflict such an ordeal on the world?  Not that that stopped Mummy from trying.  All I ever heard was, ‘why can’t you be more like your brother?’”

“Sherlock.  Mycroft.”

“I’m sure Mummy didn’t mean it like that,” Mycroft said his jaw tightening.  “She mostly cared about you finding something that made you happy.  Like your music.”

It was an old argument.

“Yes, so you insist,” he said in a tone that even Mycroft could not fail to realise was derision, “but the only person who cared about my music, truly cared, was Miss Langsley.”

Something flashed across Mycroft’s face, the hint of emotion that even his great and near omnipotent brother had failed to suppress, before his eyebrows pulled together in a rather impressive frown.

“That’s not true,” Mycroft said firmly.  “I always cared about your music.”

He had to stop himself from laughing.  “You humoured me,” he said coolly.  “There’s a difference.  You only encouraged me to try the flute because there was no way I could compete with you on the piano.”

“Compete with me?”

He waited for the denial that was doubtlessly coming; the false haughty laugh with the tipping back of the head, but it did not come.  Instead Mycroft’s frown only deepened, his eyes holding his as if searching for something.

He met the gaze boldly, refusing to back down.

“You have always been the far better musician,” Mycroft finally said his face turning slightly in one of the few tells he had not been able to suppress completely over the years.  “That was obvious when at five you were playing the same pieces I was at twelve.  I only encouraged you to try the flute because you lost interest in the piano and your talents were far too good to go to waste.”

“I didn’t lose interest in the piano,” he shot back clutching onto the one part of those sentences that at least made sense. “I just realised it was pointless.  It was obvious I was never going to be able to play it like you.”

“Like me?”  The considered look was back.

This was ridiculous.  Surely Mycroft knew.  He knew everything.  Fine, if he wanted to play it this way he would spell it out to him.

“Perfectly,” he said.

There, he had said it.  Listening to Mycroft play had always been a form of excruciating torture.  Not because it had been bad but because every note had been perfect, in the right place, at the right time, nothing missed, nothing slipped, nothing fudged or slurred.  Perfect.  Not like his playing where he would constantly miss notes or improvise because his sight reading wasn’t up to scratch.  He covered it with enthusiasm and flourish, or as other people had called it, passion.  It was just one more thing where he didn’t quite measure up.

“You played the flute?”

He had almost forgotten about John, but grasped the distraction for what it was.

“Yes,” he said making an effort to rein his temper in and ignore the look Mycroft was still giving him.  “For a while at least.”

“Why did you stop?”

Because his flute had been faulty, or because, as he had realised when he was older, he had been faulty.

“I became dissatisfied with it when I realised I couldn’t play it when angry or upset.”

“You told Mummy it made your head feel dizzy,” Mycroft said in a strange tone of voice while still watching him as if he was some sort of curious exhibition.

“Obvious,” he said before allowing the conversation to move onto something less perilous.  Of course the subject of his volatile relationship with his brother naturally returned and he was not about to take the blame for the fraternal tensions between them.

“Well, it was Mycroft’s fault,” he pointed out knowing full well that he was sounding sulky and childish but he was not about to take the blame for something that lay in completely the other direction.

Of course Mycroft denied it looking all innocent with his raised eyebrows and surprised protest of, “My fault”.  As if he wasn’t fully aware that it was his entire fault.  “If I recall, you were the one who started ignoring me.”

“After you abandoned me,” he said.

“I didn’t abandon you,” Mycroft said.  “I went to school.”

As if there was a difference.

“Yes, and left me with Mummy and all those idiots she kept making me socialise with.”

That had been horrible.  Mummy had decided that it hadn’t been healthy for him to spend so much time either by himself or in the company of adults, so had foisted him off onto anyone and everyone they knew who had children of a similar age.  It had been a disaster.  Now he saw that Mummy had only wanted to help him learn how to make friends and be more social, but children were rarely kind, especially to those who were different.  Especially to those who had no concept that they were different.

Weirdo.  Freak.  Spastic.

Courtney had deserved to lose her bunches after what she had said and done to him.

“I can hardly be blamed for that,” Mycroft said.

Except if Mycroft hadn’t left then he would never have found out how strange they were.  If Mycroft hadn’t left he wouldn’t have been dumped by the one person in the world who understood him.  If Mycroft hadn’t been so bloody perfect he might have found someone else.

“Yes,” he said “but you were always the perfect one.”

“And you were the passionate one,” Mycroft said.

He bristled.  “Passionate but not perfect,” he pointed out.  “Second class.  Not as good.”

Mycroft laughed, that small, fake, insincere one.  “That’s not true, you’re brilliant.  I’ve always said so.”

He scowled.  “And yet clearly not as brilliant as you.  Mummy always made that so very clear.”

Mycroft pulled a face.  “Don’t be so childish, Mummy never compared us.”

“Never compared you to me, you mean,” he said putting down his folk, his appetite suddenly gone.  “I was forever being told to be more like you.”

“And yet she spent far more time with you than she did with me.”

“Hardly.”

“Of course she did.”  Mycroft gave a brief wave of his hand as if it was so obvious and not worth discussing.

“Scolding me, shouting at me, telling me off, maybe,” he said bitterly thinking about all the times he hadn’t been allowed out of Mummy’s sight just in case he did something silly, dangerous, or naughty, while Mycroft was allowed to go and do whatever he liked.

“Partly, perhaps,” Mycroft said before raising an eyebrow, “but everything we did revolved around you.  ‘I’m sorry, Mycroft, we can’t do that, Sherlock would never sit still long enough’. ‘I’m sorry, Mycroft, you know Sherlock won’t eat that’.  ‘I’m sorry, Mycroft, we’ll get you another goldfish, you know what your brother’s like’.

He groaned.  He should have known.  Mycroft had never forgiven him about that.  Never.

“I was five,” he said with protest.  “You had fish, I needed fish.  It was as simple as that.”

“You killed one of them.”

“I didn’t mean to.  It was an experiment.”

“You never asked.”

“You weren’t there.”

“You could have waited.”

“You wouldn’t have let me anyway.”

“They were my fish.  I was well within my entitlement to prohibit you from experimenting on them.”

It was all about bloody Mycroft.  Everything had always been about Mycroft.

“You went out of your way to stop me from doing anything interesting.”   That had been another topic of argument over the years.

“I went out of my way to keep you safe.”

“You were always Mummy’s favourite.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mycroft said as if he had just made up something completely preposterous rather than just pointing out the obvious.  “That was you, her golden child, quite literally if you recall.”

Oh no, not the blond locks again, the ones that had given him his name in the first place.

“Ha, as if she ever cared about that,” he said grinding his teeth together.  “From what she dressed me in she probably wanted a girl, and anyway, I was never as good as you.”

“I was seven years older.  You just couldn’t wait to grow up.”

“That’s because you always got to do the more interesting things.”

“Which you got to do far sooner than I ever did.”

“That’s hardly my fault,” he said.  “Do you have any idea what it was like knowing that you were the one that got everything?”

“I got everything?”

That incredulous, wide eyed look of astonishment really did not suit his brother.  It hadn’t suited him when he had been twelve and it did not suit him now.

“Yes, everything,” he threw back.  “Look at you, you’re older, brighter, taller.”

“I can hardly do anything about my age or height, but you’re just as bright, just as brilliant, and you got the artistic talent and the looks.”

“Artistic talent?”  As if anyone had ever cared about that.  Art in any form did not matter, considered at best a pleasant diversion but not of substance or worth.

“You speak twenty-two languages fluently,” he pointed out sharply, “thirteen of them like a native, understand and can get by with half a dozen more, and that doesn’t include Latin, Ancient Greek, Aramaic, Old Testament Hebrew, Esperanto, Sign Language, Semaphore and Morse Code.  Have I missed any?”

Mycroft didn’t respond.

“I, on the other hand, only managed to master less than half of those.  You may remember how disappointed Mummy was.”

‘You need to try harder, love, practice getting your lips around those sounds’.

“And you think some ability with a brush and a bow is going to make up for that?”

Mycroft was silent for a moment, obviously weighing up his words.  “You have more talent with language than I have with the artistic pursuits,” Mycroft finally said.

As if that was even close to being true.

“You waltz,” he said, “Mummy put your watercolours up on the wall, you nailed Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.”

“I attempt to not tread on my partner’s toes or embarrass myself,” Mycroft replied his eyebrows pulling together, “my watercolours went with Mummy’s colour scheme, and it took me five years of hard practice to nail the first movement of Moonlight Sonata.  It took you less than six months.”

Five years?  Mycroft was obviously exaggerating.  Nothing took him five years to perfect, and while it was true that the gentle watercolour scenes of English countryside had gone with Mummy’s decoration she would have had more reason than that to hang them up.  Although it was true that Mycroft had never seemed too comfortable dancing but he had always put that down to him being annoyed or frustrated with his partner.

Was this Mycroft - the great and perfect Mycroft - admitting that there were some things that he wasn’t as good at?

“And yet,” he found himself saying the words coming from a part of him that had been there for as long as he could remember but he had never dared give voice too until now, “Mummy made no effort to hide the fact she loved you more, and you never bothered to pretend that I was anything more than a nuisance and an inconvenience.”

The room fell silent.

He could hear the muffled noise from the main dining room, the ticking of the annoyingly post modern clock on the wall, the air whistling past his teeth as he sucked in his breath.  He could feel everyone looking at him, see their expressions out of the corner of his eyes even as he kept his gaze fixed on his brother.  Miss Langsley’s troubled and sad look, John’s lips pressed together and sucked into his mouth, and Mycroft’s expression of wide eyed shock, as if it was unthinkable that he could even dare to consider such an incredible fallacy let alone voice it.  It was like Father’s funeral all over again, when he had upset them with his apparently cold and unfeeling behaviour, as if he should care more about a man he had barely known and towards the end had rarely seen.

He watched silently as Mycroft made to no doubt chide him for his words, but then his brother’s mouth had closed again, lips pressing together tightly as if realising there was nothing that could be said.

He had gone too far this time, he knew it.  There would be no going back from this.

Scowling, he rose to his feet, the room suddenly feeling far too claustrophobic and small.

“Come along, John,” he said forcing his voice to remain steady, “we’re leaving.  Miss Langsley, I hope you enjoy what remains of your birthday.”

“Sherlock,” she said softly, her hand reaching out to cover his, “you need to sit down.”

No, sitting was not on his current plan of action.  Not now.  Instead he offered her a remorseful smile and apologised for their behaviour.

He saw his brother rise to his feet, speaking his name, prompting him to only want to get out of there all the faster.

“I believe you’ve said enough, Mycroft,” he all but spat.  “John, come on.”

“Sherlock.  Mycroft.  Sit down, now.”

He froze.  It was like a Pavlovian instinct.  He had not heard that voice speaking like that in a good number of years and yet everything in his body wanted to obey and go and sit down because otherwise there would be no dessert at supper or he wouldn’t be allowed to try that new piece on the violin.

He risked a glance at Mycroft, glad to see that his brother was frozen also in a state of confusion.  Then Mycroft sat and it was clear they were all expecting him to do so.

He reluctantly retook his chair and John followed.

“Now, boys,” Miss Langsley said when they were all once again sat.  “It is quite obvious that you two have rather a lot of talking to do.”

He rolled his eyes, ready to point out that that was quite clearly the case and to just look at what had just happened, but he wasn’t allowed to comment, Miss Langsley heading him off now as effectively as she had done when he had been a child.

“It is quite clear that the issues you had as children have only increased with age,” she continued firmly, “and they obviously need addressing.  Now, I am no fool to think that everything can be sorted out in one sitting, so don’t look at me like that, Mycroft.”

He smirked slightly, eager as always to revel in Mycroft’s telling off.

“But in a moment,” Miss Langsley continued without even a pause, “I am going to request that John here accompanies me for a trip to the small gallery I saw just down the road.  When we get back I expect both of you to still be in this room.  What you do while we are away is up to you, but first I would just like to remind you of a fond memory of mine.”

Another memory, because they had served so well already today.

“Mycroft you must have been about eight as Sherlock you were about seventeen months old.  Your mother had allowed you to go to the park and feed the ducks, or dacks as you used to call them back then Sherlock.”

He scowled, refusing to look at anyone.  It was hideous that his childhood errors should be brought up time and time again.  Dacks, ducks, what did it matter?

“It was one of your favourite past times, Sherlock,” Miss Langsley continued.  “And yours too, Mycroft believe it or not.  In fact it helped bring about your first sentence, Sherlock.  Do you remember what that was, Mycroft?”

Mycroft got that thoughtful look again before reply, “I believe it was akin to, ‘No, no, no, my dacks.’”

He scowled more deeply clenching his fist.  Had Mycroft really needed to say it like that?

“Almost right,” Miss Langsley said with a small smile.  “Actually, what he said was, ‘No, no, no, My, dacks.’”

And that was special because… oh.  Oh!

“You used to take him to the park.  You used to play with him, read to him, bounce him up and down.  Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear, you used to sing to him.  Did you never realise, Mycroft, love?” Miss Langsley said softly while looking across at his brother.  “It wasn’t ‘my’ he was saying, as in belonging to him, it was ‘My’ as in short for Mycroft.   ‘No, no, no, Mycroft, look, there are the ducks’.”

OH!

It was glaringly evident the moment the realisation crossed his brother’s mind, the crinkling of the skin between his eyebrows, the narrowing of his lips, the slight widening of the eyes.  Really, his brother was being just so obvious that it was almost painful to watch.

“Good, you’re both now using those brilliant minds of yours,” Miss Langsley said rising to her feet.  “John, I believe that is our cue to leave them to it.  And boys.”

He looked at her but avoided her gaze, shifting his eyes to just past her ear in the exact same way he had done as a child.

“Use this opportunity wisely.”

Then she was gone and John - the traitor - following after.  Within seconds it was just the two of them, him and Mycroft, and every little thing that had ever been or not been said, every moment of resentment and every piece of bitterness lurked beside them.

*-*-*

AN: Technically there should be another part, a final scene, or even the final scene.  It hasn't been written.  Apparently the brothers are far better at fighting than making up, but I hope at some point to round the series off with a third part.  However, I do also have a lot of other fics to be writing as well.