Fic: One for Sorrow, Seven for a Secret
Title: One for Sorrow, Seven for a Secret
Author: Lilithemm
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Warnings: Kid!Sherlock
Beta: leopardseals
Notes: Just posting this for my friend Lilithemm :)
Summary: Several vignettes from Sherlock's life, left untold.
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told,
Young Sherlock watches birds with his mother and brother all the time. Yet another Saturday is spent beside the pond next to the woods, scarcely moving or blinking, certainly not talking. Mycroft doesn't have to show that he's ahead today, as usual; Sherlock can see the neat cursive in his journal from here. Great spotted woodpecker, 1. Red kite, 1. Widgeon, 2. Tree sparrow, 3. Chaffinch, 2.
Sherlock's not giving up but he hears a fierce caw and he looks up into the trees nearer to them. There are so many crows that it takes him a full three seconds to count all seventeen of them. He peers at them curiously, all silken black and uncompromising dignity.
"Mummy?" he says quietly.
"Yes, Sherlock?"
"Why don't we count the crows?"
Mycroft makes the faintest sound of disdain. "They're not worth it, obviously."
"Why not?"
"Common creatures, you see them everywhere. No distinctive plumage, a horrible call, and they’re carrion eaters. Disgusting, really." He's not even spared a glance for them, he's dismissed them so unequivocally, but Sherlock is intrigued nonetheless. Carrion; at the age of six he knows what that means, and he'd like to see it, actually, the crows ripping through desiccated flesh and absorbing it, cleansing the world of its remains. Quite nice, he thinks.
Their mother sees him still observing them and smiles faintly. "How many, Sherlock?" she asks softly.
"Crows? Seventeen."
She nods at his notebook and watches him set it down. "Highly intelligent birds, crows, even if they aren't much to look at."
Sherlock looks up at them again. He thinks they're quite beautiful, actually, with no distracting colors. Pure, shining ebony.
"Do you know what a group of crows is called?" his mother queries.
"Murder," Mycroft mutters, ever the know-it-all.
"What?" Sherlock asks, a trifle louder than he'd intended in his surprise.
His brother rolls his eyes. "A murder of crows. Be quiet."
And Sherlock is silent, but he doesn't stop watching the crows.
It’s his name, Sherlock decides after two years of school. His awful name. That must be the reason he has no friends. Well there’s Graham, of course, but he doesn’t quite count. He’s a bit dull, really, and the only reason they sit together at lunch is that Graham hasn’t got any friends either. Except the one in Derbyshire that he’s always going on about. Boring.
Except Sherlock notices that Mycroft’s got friends, and Mycroft’s name is equally strange. Or is it? He can’t be sure. So he goes in search of his mother. She is in the sitting room, ensconced in her favorite chair, regarding the pouring rain outside with an odd expression of resigned distaste. He comes and stands next to her stockinged legs. “Mummy, do we have strange names?”
“You and your brother?” she clarifies, meticulously adjusting the collar of his shirt and observing him with her sharp eyes. He nods. “They’re unusual, certainly.”
“Why?” he asks urgently.
“Well, your father and I have very ordinary names. We wanted our children to have something more exciting. Your father had a friend with the surname of Mycroft, and he thought it would do for a Christian name as well.”
“And me?”
She smiles. “I saw your name on a sign somewhere, many years ago, and it stayed with me. It’s more common as a surname as well, though not in these parts. And I liked Shylock, from Shakespeare, but I didn’t want to give you that name. So when you were born, Sherlock just seemed right.”
“But what does it mean?” he demands, unsatisfied.
His mother’s smile broadens ever so slightly, and she reaches out to touch one of his short dark curls, a moment so uncharacteristic that he shivers in surprise. “Bright hair,” she informs him, and he grins, delighted.
Learning about his name helps, but he still can’t grasp why Mycroft has friends when he doesn’t. His brother has school friends, with whom he actually interacts outside of school. They’ve come to the house an average of 2.4 times each, and each time Sherlock was sternly admonished not to bother them under any circumstances. But Sherlock has observed the interactions between them when he can, watching from the kitchen, listening from his room. He notes the change in Mycroft, the way he alters his personality for the benefit of these so-called pals. He’s kinder, softer...duller, Sherlock realizes with some surprise as he eavesdrops. Why?
Getting weary of listening to inane conversation on everything from cricket and Churchill, he abandons his wall and knocks on Mycroft’s door when they’ve gone. “What is it, Sherlock?” he says resignedly, though not unkindly.
“Why do you act differently?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “With your friends? You’re not like you are with me.”
His brother smiles with indulgent condescension. “We all act differently with different people, Sherlock. Don’t you behave differently in front of Mummy and Daddy?”
“Yes, but it’s more,” Sherlock protests emphatically. “You’re not...like you at all. With them.”
Mycroft sighs, and says almost kindly, “People don’t like it when you’re always clever. You’ve got to hide it, let them think they’re clever sometimes. Then they like you, and when they like you, they’ll do things for you. Do you understand?”
“But why?” Sherlock demands. “Why is it bad to be clever?”
“Because most people aren’t,” Mycroft insists, “and they don’t like to be reminded of it.”
“How do you stop being clever, though?” he asks, perplexed.
Mycroft rolls his eyes. “You keep it inside. You don’t say everything you know. Think on it.” And he shuts the door.
Sherlock is a bit stunned, but he does think about it. Tries it, even; he restrains himself from showing off in school, when he can, and says nice things to other kids, when he can. It doesn’t win him friends, but there’s a lessening of animosity. He continues to yearn, however, for someone he could talk to, someone he could be himself around, who might just like to hear him being clever, perhaps even tell him he’s clever once in awhile. He aches for a friend most in the middle of the night, when he can’t sleep and he feels so utterly alone. Just one.
Sherlock is nine, and when his mother calls for him to come for his bath he leaps up and skips to the washroom, he's so excited. He shrugs off all of his clothes and steps gingerly into the hot water; it's scalding and his sensitive skin reddens instantly, but he doesn't care. He settles into the water, dunks his head in when he thinks he can stand it, and amuses himself by analyzing the wrinkles on his fingertips until his mother comes in with an apron on to wash him.
She starts with his hair, long enough to be unruly, and comments that it's due for a trim while she gently massages his scalp. Once she picks up a washcloth and starts soaping his neck he is tingling with the excitement of being touched, something that happens only on bathing days and only when Mummy puts her left hand directly on his skin to steady him. He's standing up, half out of the water and shivering a little, when Mycroft comes to the door, hoping they're done so he can take his own bath. He sighs heavily at the sight of his naked little brother. "Aren't you a bit old for this?" he says cuttingly before turning on his heels and stalking back to his room.
Stung, Sherlock sits down heavily, splashing water all over his long-suffering mother. "Sherlock!" she cries, dismayed.
"Close the door, Mummy?" he pleads, thoroughly ashamed, though he can't see why. "Please?"
She sighs and obliges. She comes back to the tub, where her younger son is trying very hard to roll himself into a ball. She moves a lock of hair away from his forehead. "Don't mind everything your brother says, Sherlock," she tells him quietly. "It's all right."
He looks at her searchingly, then reaches a resigned hand for the washcloth. "I can do it myself."
She smiles a little sadly. "Of course you can, but you shan’t. Stand up," she commands, and her comforting hands are around him again. "I'd come in and find you half-washed and staring into space because you've thought of something."
"I think about a lot of things," he admits.
"I know," she assures him. "But you can't always lose yourself in your thoughts."
Sherlock is eleven and hasn't been touched by anyone in his family in over a year. It's Christmas and and there isn't likely to be any physical affection even then, especially after presents have been opened. He's already read one of the three books given to him; his mother's gift, of course. He sits at the supper table, eating sparsely and waiting for his father's first shaft to fly. Physical punishment isn't needed when you've got geniuses for sons; a searing insult will do far more damage. Sherlock is determined to go as long as he possibly can without upsetting his mother. But it's Mycroft, home from university and impossibly smug, who starts the blows.
"Three hours and twenty-eight minutes to read a five hundred and fifty-seven page book in simple English, Sherlock. Not much better than last year."
Sherlock lashes out before he can stop himself. "At least I didn't spend the day reading cheap American political takeover novels by Tom Clancy."
But puberty in the form of his wavering voice betrays him, and Mycroft's steady tenor is sure and strong. "And the mystery novels you've got in the fifth drawer of your dresser?"
"Ellis Peters," their father murmurs ominously. "As ever you poison your mind with useless paperbacks, Sherlock."
Sherlock retains just enough control to keep from crying, and from admitting that the books were borrowed from his mother's secret stash in the kitchen cupboard.
At fourteen Sherlock's insomnia is no better, and his mother’s paperbacks no longer suffice to lull him to sleep. However, he's developed a technique for dealing with it: memory overload. He memorizes everything: lists, brands, colors, plants, serial numbers, anything to keep from sinking into the semblance of emotion. He's inputed the periodic table of elements long ago, but now he's taking biology and there's tons of stuff he can shove in his brain until it refuses to accept anymore and he finally falls asleep. Occasionally he gets side-tracked by noises; Mycroft's breathing as he turns in bed, on the rare occasions he comes home. Mum getting up and sitting in the living room, sleepless as he; he's only once tried joining her, to sit in silence beside her until she couldn't take the sound of him thinking anymore and sent him back to bed. The occasional call of a crow. He likes that.
Just now he hears murmurs from his parents' bedroom, and he doesn't wait to find out if they are sounds of reproductive processes that clearly his parents never should have tried, or sounds of strife that will never reach Mycroft's ears but are no less alarming for being so quiet. Hurriedly he calls to mind the lowest members of the animal kingdom. He'll start with the sponge and go as high as he can, reviewing the phylum down to the species and adding in relevant points, in order and listing everything he knows or should know as he goes, until he passes out or glazes over just enough so that he can ignore his mother's eyes in the morning.
Mycroft’s home for another Christmas, and Sherlock has spent the better part of the day ignoring his older brother. The dinner itself was almost pleasant; their parents are delighted with Mycroft’s government post, eager to hear all about it, and their second son is in some favor with their father as well, now he’s going to Cambridge next year. Sherlock endures Mycroft’s little tease about Cambridge, having gone to Oxford himself, but his reply is quite mild. Their mother looks so delighted with the pair of them that he can’t bear to break the calm, so he parries Mycroft’s self-satisfied pronouncements in his head only. He’s simply pleased that his few comments show how his voice has settled into a rich baritone much lower and edgier than his older brother’s voice.
After dinner the rare good mood of the family extends to an invitation to play some carols on his violin, which he does with simple pride. Once his father goes back to discussing politics with Mycroft again, Sherlock helps his mother with the dishes--not much, he admits--and then filches his father’s newspaper to look for crime scenes back in his room. He stays there, sprawled on his bed with the sooty paper spread out before him, only leaving when summoned for a Christmas drink. He is almost put off by the cordiality of this family party, but he kisses his mother on the cheek before returning to his room, and he turns off the light so he won’t be bothered again. He reads just as well with his small, bright torch.
Sherlock hears his mother coming to check if he’s asleep, and he quickly feigns the breathing of a sleeper until she steps away from the door, satisfied. Except Mycroft starts talking to her, and ever the active listener, Sherlock can’t help eavesdropping.
“Bit early for a seventeen-year-old to fall asleep, isn’t it?” Mycroft wonders.
“He’s probably tired from trying not to argue all day,” their mother says placidly. “He’ll wake up in the middle of the night.”
“You’ll miss him when he leaves home,” his older brother notes, and Sherlock is surprised that his voice bears no grudge.
“Dearly,” she agrees simply, and Sherlock is surprised again; touched, even.
“You’ll want me to keep an eye on him while he’s a student, of course,” Mycroft muses, as if it’s a government directive rather than his mother’s wishes he contemplates.
“Always, Mycroft.” Her voice is quite serious. “You’ve got to keep an eye on him always. I can’t once he leaves home, but you can.”
“Do you mean forever, Mummy?” his brother asks, and his teasing tone and casual address indicates that now he’s surprised.
“He’s not like you, Mycroft. He can’t pretend to be anything he’s not for more than a few minutes, he’s still got no friends, and he’s getting worse now that he’s so interested in crime scenes. Wants to be a detective, rather than a chemist. I’m worried. I even had the school psychiatrist talk to him. Sherlock’s a borderline sociopath, he said, and though I don’t agree at all, it’s clear he isn’t quite well. He’s brilliant, possibly even smarter than you, but he could very easily hurt himself and others.” She sighs. “I’m sorry, but...”
“I’ll take care of him,” Mycroft says with more sincerity than Sherlock has ever heard from his mouth, and she is relieved.
Sherlock, however, is furious. Shocked. Scared. Hurt, mostly. He just mastered himself for a day, for them, and they speak of him in his own hearing, even if they don’t know he’s listening, like a damaged thing in need of surveillance. His father and Mycroft together could not inflict the same pain that his mother just unleashed softly, kindly, unconsciously.
Was it unconscious, though? Does she not know that Sherlock sleeps as poorly as she does herself, and has learned to control his breathing to hide it? He ponders this for much of the sleepless night, before coming to a decision. He will rip his mother firmly from his heart once he leaves, and he will perfect his pretenses. He will learn to sham excellently, but only for his own purposes. He will become a detective, a private one he thinks, and he’ll give up on the hope of friendships, or anything more. After all, he’s a sociopath, apparently, and that’ll be a nice way to avoid intimacy and all of the countless hurts it seems to cause. Unless that one perfect person comes along, he will be content to be himself. Sherlock Holmes. He starts to like the name.
In bed in his own flat, 221B Baker Street, years later. Another sleepless night, but startlingly different. He's not alone; he's got John Watson next to him, all warmth and sleep and uncomplicated affection. He looks over at John again; he’s sleeping peacefully.
Sherlock heard the first time John woke up from an Afghan-steeped nightmare in their flat, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it until a particularly harrowing vision brought John down to their kitchen for a cup of warm milk, and Sherlock went out to inquire if John was OK. That's all he would have done if John hadn't been so obviously injured, aching for warmth, and he knew that feeling all too well himself. By the time Sherlock very hesitantly reached for his hand John had already put his arms around Sherlock and held on for dear life, and Sherlock couldn't help but do the same.
Now John sleeps in his bed every night, and suddenly insomnia isn't so very bad at all, when he can look to the side and see that dear man with his mouth open and his limbs very slightly askew, or hear that soft, even breathing. Best is when John slides next to Sherlock and puts an arm over his chest, his face very close to Sherlock's bright hair.
John sighs contentedly. "Are you awake, Sherlock?"
"Yes."
"Well you shouldn't be," says the doctor with authority. "Can't sleep?"
Sherlock shrugs. "Happens often enough. I can't turn my mind off so easily."
John snuggles closer. "You know what often helps me? A nice warm soak. Why don't you try it?"
Sherlock smiles. "Tempting, but no."
"Don't want to move, do you?"
"No." A moment of doubt. "Why, do you want me to?"
"Of course not, you sod," John says dismissively, kissing the skin behind his ear.
Sherlock smiles at the most delightful insult he's ever heard, from someone who does think him clever and isn’t afraid to say it. Someone who listens, tells him when he’s too much but doesn’t reject him for who he is. John drifts back to sleep and Sherlock almost starts to descend into this delicious warmth when he hears a soft caw in the distance. Just one. And then two, three. A murder of crows is convening on Baker Street, and he couldn't be happier. He closes his eyes.
Eight for wishes,
Nine for treasure,
Ten for years of endless pleasure,
Eleven for a love so true,
Twelve to spend an eternity with you.
Author: Lilithemm
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Rating: PG
Warnings: Kid!Sherlock
Beta: leopardseals
Notes: Just posting this for my friend Lilithemm :)
Summary: Several vignettes from Sherlock's life, left untold.
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret,
Never to be told,
Young Sherlock watches birds with his mother and brother all the time. Yet another Saturday is spent beside the pond next to the woods, scarcely moving or blinking, certainly not talking. Mycroft doesn't have to show that he's ahead today, as usual; Sherlock can see the neat cursive in his journal from here. Great spotted woodpecker, 1. Red kite, 1. Widgeon, 2. Tree sparrow, 3. Chaffinch, 2.
Sherlock's not giving up but he hears a fierce caw and he looks up into the trees nearer to them. There are so many crows that it takes him a full three seconds to count all seventeen of them. He peers at them curiously, all silken black and uncompromising dignity.
"Mummy?" he says quietly.
"Yes, Sherlock?"
"Why don't we count the crows?"
Mycroft makes the faintest sound of disdain. "They're not worth it, obviously."
"Why not?"
"Common creatures, you see them everywhere. No distinctive plumage, a horrible call, and they’re carrion eaters. Disgusting, really." He's not even spared a glance for them, he's dismissed them so unequivocally, but Sherlock is intrigued nonetheless. Carrion; at the age of six he knows what that means, and he'd like to see it, actually, the crows ripping through desiccated flesh and absorbing it, cleansing the world of its remains. Quite nice, he thinks.
Their mother sees him still observing them and smiles faintly. "How many, Sherlock?" she asks softly.
"Crows? Seventeen."
She nods at his notebook and watches him set it down. "Highly intelligent birds, crows, even if they aren't much to look at."
Sherlock looks up at them again. He thinks they're quite beautiful, actually, with no distracting colors. Pure, shining ebony.
"Do you know what a group of crows is called?" his mother queries.
"Murder," Mycroft mutters, ever the know-it-all.
"What?" Sherlock asks, a trifle louder than he'd intended in his surprise.
His brother rolls his eyes. "A murder of crows. Be quiet."
And Sherlock is silent, but he doesn't stop watching the crows.
It’s his name, Sherlock decides after two years of school. His awful name. That must be the reason he has no friends. Well there’s Graham, of course, but he doesn’t quite count. He’s a bit dull, really, and the only reason they sit together at lunch is that Graham hasn’t got any friends either. Except the one in Derbyshire that he’s always going on about. Boring.
Except Sherlock notices that Mycroft’s got friends, and Mycroft’s name is equally strange. Or is it? He can’t be sure. So he goes in search of his mother. She is in the sitting room, ensconced in her favorite chair, regarding the pouring rain outside with an odd expression of resigned distaste. He comes and stands next to her stockinged legs. “Mummy, do we have strange names?”
“You and your brother?” she clarifies, meticulously adjusting the collar of his shirt and observing him with her sharp eyes. He nods. “They’re unusual, certainly.”
“Why?” he asks urgently.
“Well, your father and I have very ordinary names. We wanted our children to have something more exciting. Your father had a friend with the surname of Mycroft, and he thought it would do for a Christian name as well.”
“And me?”
She smiles. “I saw your name on a sign somewhere, many years ago, and it stayed with me. It’s more common as a surname as well, though not in these parts. And I liked Shylock, from Shakespeare, but I didn’t want to give you that name. So when you were born, Sherlock just seemed right.”
“But what does it mean?” he demands, unsatisfied.
His mother’s smile broadens ever so slightly, and she reaches out to touch one of his short dark curls, a moment so uncharacteristic that he shivers in surprise. “Bright hair,” she informs him, and he grins, delighted.
Learning about his name helps, but he still can’t grasp why Mycroft has friends when he doesn’t. His brother has school friends, with whom he actually interacts outside of school. They’ve come to the house an average of 2.4 times each, and each time Sherlock was sternly admonished not to bother them under any circumstances. But Sherlock has observed the interactions between them when he can, watching from the kitchen, listening from his room. He notes the change in Mycroft, the way he alters his personality for the benefit of these so-called pals. He’s kinder, softer...duller, Sherlock realizes with some surprise as he eavesdrops. Why?
Getting weary of listening to inane conversation on everything from cricket and Churchill, he abandons his wall and knocks on Mycroft’s door when they’ve gone. “What is it, Sherlock?” he says resignedly, though not unkindly.
“Why do you act differently?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “With your friends? You’re not like you are with me.”
His brother smiles with indulgent condescension. “We all act differently with different people, Sherlock. Don’t you behave differently in front of Mummy and Daddy?”
“Yes, but it’s more,” Sherlock protests emphatically. “You’re not...like you at all. With them.”
Mycroft sighs, and says almost kindly, “People don’t like it when you’re always clever. You’ve got to hide it, let them think they’re clever sometimes. Then they like you, and when they like you, they’ll do things for you. Do you understand?”
“But why?” Sherlock demands. “Why is it bad to be clever?”
“Because most people aren’t,” Mycroft insists, “and they don’t like to be reminded of it.”
“How do you stop being clever, though?” he asks, perplexed.
Mycroft rolls his eyes. “You keep it inside. You don’t say everything you know. Think on it.” And he shuts the door.
Sherlock is a bit stunned, but he does think about it. Tries it, even; he restrains himself from showing off in school, when he can, and says nice things to other kids, when he can. It doesn’t win him friends, but there’s a lessening of animosity. He continues to yearn, however, for someone he could talk to, someone he could be himself around, who might just like to hear him being clever, perhaps even tell him he’s clever once in awhile. He aches for a friend most in the middle of the night, when he can’t sleep and he feels so utterly alone. Just one.
Sherlock is nine, and when his mother calls for him to come for his bath he leaps up and skips to the washroom, he's so excited. He shrugs off all of his clothes and steps gingerly into the hot water; it's scalding and his sensitive skin reddens instantly, but he doesn't care. He settles into the water, dunks his head in when he thinks he can stand it, and amuses himself by analyzing the wrinkles on his fingertips until his mother comes in with an apron on to wash him.
She starts with his hair, long enough to be unruly, and comments that it's due for a trim while she gently massages his scalp. Once she picks up a washcloth and starts soaping his neck he is tingling with the excitement of being touched, something that happens only on bathing days and only when Mummy puts her left hand directly on his skin to steady him. He's standing up, half out of the water and shivering a little, when Mycroft comes to the door, hoping they're done so he can take his own bath. He sighs heavily at the sight of his naked little brother. "Aren't you a bit old for this?" he says cuttingly before turning on his heels and stalking back to his room.
Stung, Sherlock sits down heavily, splashing water all over his long-suffering mother. "Sherlock!" she cries, dismayed.
"Close the door, Mummy?" he pleads, thoroughly ashamed, though he can't see why. "Please?"
She sighs and obliges. She comes back to the tub, where her younger son is trying very hard to roll himself into a ball. She moves a lock of hair away from his forehead. "Don't mind everything your brother says, Sherlock," she tells him quietly. "It's all right."
He looks at her searchingly, then reaches a resigned hand for the washcloth. "I can do it myself."
She smiles a little sadly. "Of course you can, but you shan’t. Stand up," she commands, and her comforting hands are around him again. "I'd come in and find you half-washed and staring into space because you've thought of something."
"I think about a lot of things," he admits.
"I know," she assures him. "But you can't always lose yourself in your thoughts."
Sherlock is eleven and hasn't been touched by anyone in his family in over a year. It's Christmas and and there isn't likely to be any physical affection even then, especially after presents have been opened. He's already read one of the three books given to him; his mother's gift, of course. He sits at the supper table, eating sparsely and waiting for his father's first shaft to fly. Physical punishment isn't needed when you've got geniuses for sons; a searing insult will do far more damage. Sherlock is determined to go as long as he possibly can without upsetting his mother. But it's Mycroft, home from university and impossibly smug, who starts the blows.
"Three hours and twenty-eight minutes to read a five hundred and fifty-seven page book in simple English, Sherlock. Not much better than last year."
Sherlock lashes out before he can stop himself. "At least I didn't spend the day reading cheap American political takeover novels by Tom Clancy."
But puberty in the form of his wavering voice betrays him, and Mycroft's steady tenor is sure and strong. "And the mystery novels you've got in the fifth drawer of your dresser?"
"Ellis Peters," their father murmurs ominously. "As ever you poison your mind with useless paperbacks, Sherlock."
Sherlock retains just enough control to keep from crying, and from admitting that the books were borrowed from his mother's secret stash in the kitchen cupboard.
At fourteen Sherlock's insomnia is no better, and his mother’s paperbacks no longer suffice to lull him to sleep. However, he's developed a technique for dealing with it: memory overload. He memorizes everything: lists, brands, colors, plants, serial numbers, anything to keep from sinking into the semblance of emotion. He's inputed the periodic table of elements long ago, but now he's taking biology and there's tons of stuff he can shove in his brain until it refuses to accept anymore and he finally falls asleep. Occasionally he gets side-tracked by noises; Mycroft's breathing as he turns in bed, on the rare occasions he comes home. Mum getting up and sitting in the living room, sleepless as he; he's only once tried joining her, to sit in silence beside her until she couldn't take the sound of him thinking anymore and sent him back to bed. The occasional call of a crow. He likes that.
Just now he hears murmurs from his parents' bedroom, and he doesn't wait to find out if they are sounds of reproductive processes that clearly his parents never should have tried, or sounds of strife that will never reach Mycroft's ears but are no less alarming for being so quiet. Hurriedly he calls to mind the lowest members of the animal kingdom. He'll start with the sponge and go as high as he can, reviewing the phylum down to the species and adding in relevant points, in order and listing everything he knows or should know as he goes, until he passes out or glazes over just enough so that he can ignore his mother's eyes in the morning.
Mycroft’s home for another Christmas, and Sherlock has spent the better part of the day ignoring his older brother. The dinner itself was almost pleasant; their parents are delighted with Mycroft’s government post, eager to hear all about it, and their second son is in some favor with their father as well, now he’s going to Cambridge next year. Sherlock endures Mycroft’s little tease about Cambridge, having gone to Oxford himself, but his reply is quite mild. Their mother looks so delighted with the pair of them that he can’t bear to break the calm, so he parries Mycroft’s self-satisfied pronouncements in his head only. He’s simply pleased that his few comments show how his voice has settled into a rich baritone much lower and edgier than his older brother’s voice.
After dinner the rare good mood of the family extends to an invitation to play some carols on his violin, which he does with simple pride. Once his father goes back to discussing politics with Mycroft again, Sherlock helps his mother with the dishes--not much, he admits--and then filches his father’s newspaper to look for crime scenes back in his room. He stays there, sprawled on his bed with the sooty paper spread out before him, only leaving when summoned for a Christmas drink. He is almost put off by the cordiality of this family party, but he kisses his mother on the cheek before returning to his room, and he turns off the light so he won’t be bothered again. He reads just as well with his small, bright torch.
Sherlock hears his mother coming to check if he’s asleep, and he quickly feigns the breathing of a sleeper until she steps away from the door, satisfied. Except Mycroft starts talking to her, and ever the active listener, Sherlock can’t help eavesdropping.
“Bit early for a seventeen-year-old to fall asleep, isn’t it?” Mycroft wonders.
“He’s probably tired from trying not to argue all day,” their mother says placidly. “He’ll wake up in the middle of the night.”
“You’ll miss him when he leaves home,” his older brother notes, and Sherlock is surprised that his voice bears no grudge.
“Dearly,” she agrees simply, and Sherlock is surprised again; touched, even.
“You’ll want me to keep an eye on him while he’s a student, of course,” Mycroft muses, as if it’s a government directive rather than his mother’s wishes he contemplates.
“Always, Mycroft.” Her voice is quite serious. “You’ve got to keep an eye on him always. I can’t once he leaves home, but you can.”
“Do you mean forever, Mummy?” his brother asks, and his teasing tone and casual address indicates that now he’s surprised.
“He’s not like you, Mycroft. He can’t pretend to be anything he’s not for more than a few minutes, he’s still got no friends, and he’s getting worse now that he’s so interested in crime scenes. Wants to be a detective, rather than a chemist. I’m worried. I even had the school psychiatrist talk to him. Sherlock’s a borderline sociopath, he said, and though I don’t agree at all, it’s clear he isn’t quite well. He’s brilliant, possibly even smarter than you, but he could very easily hurt himself and others.” She sighs. “I’m sorry, but...”
“I’ll take care of him,” Mycroft says with more sincerity than Sherlock has ever heard from his mouth, and she is relieved.
Sherlock, however, is furious. Shocked. Scared. Hurt, mostly. He just mastered himself for a day, for them, and they speak of him in his own hearing, even if they don’t know he’s listening, like a damaged thing in need of surveillance. His father and Mycroft together could not inflict the same pain that his mother just unleashed softly, kindly, unconsciously.
Was it unconscious, though? Does she not know that Sherlock sleeps as poorly as she does herself, and has learned to control his breathing to hide it? He ponders this for much of the sleepless night, before coming to a decision. He will rip his mother firmly from his heart once he leaves, and he will perfect his pretenses. He will learn to sham excellently, but only for his own purposes. He will become a detective, a private one he thinks, and he’ll give up on the hope of friendships, or anything more. After all, he’s a sociopath, apparently, and that’ll be a nice way to avoid intimacy and all of the countless hurts it seems to cause. Unless that one perfect person comes along, he will be content to be himself. Sherlock Holmes. He starts to like the name.
In bed in his own flat, 221B Baker Street, years later. Another sleepless night, but startlingly different. He's not alone; he's got John Watson next to him, all warmth and sleep and uncomplicated affection. He looks over at John again; he’s sleeping peacefully.
Sherlock heard the first time John woke up from an Afghan-steeped nightmare in their flat, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it until a particularly harrowing vision brought John down to their kitchen for a cup of warm milk, and Sherlock went out to inquire if John was OK. That's all he would have done if John hadn't been so obviously injured, aching for warmth, and he knew that feeling all too well himself. By the time Sherlock very hesitantly reached for his hand John had already put his arms around Sherlock and held on for dear life, and Sherlock couldn't help but do the same.
Now John sleeps in his bed every night, and suddenly insomnia isn't so very bad at all, when he can look to the side and see that dear man with his mouth open and his limbs very slightly askew, or hear that soft, even breathing. Best is when John slides next to Sherlock and puts an arm over his chest, his face very close to Sherlock's bright hair.
John sighs contentedly. "Are you awake, Sherlock?"
"Yes."
"Well you shouldn't be," says the doctor with authority. "Can't sleep?"
Sherlock shrugs. "Happens often enough. I can't turn my mind off so easily."
John snuggles closer. "You know what often helps me? A nice warm soak. Why don't you try it?"
Sherlock smiles. "Tempting, but no."
"Don't want to move, do you?"
"No." A moment of doubt. "Why, do you want me to?"
"Of course not, you sod," John says dismissively, kissing the skin behind his ear.
Sherlock smiles at the most delightful insult he's ever heard, from someone who does think him clever and isn’t afraid to say it. Someone who listens, tells him when he’s too much but doesn’t reject him for who he is. John drifts back to sleep and Sherlock almost starts to descend into this delicious warmth when he hears a soft caw in the distance. Just one. And then two, three. A murder of crows is convening on Baker Street, and he couldn't be happier. He closes his eyes.
Eight for wishes,
Nine for treasure,
Ten for years of endless pleasure,
Eleven for a love so true,
Twelve to spend an eternity with you.