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Sherlock has never known life without his brother. Mycroft has been there forever, and he’ll always be there. He’s permanent, steady, unmovable. He’s utterly annoying.
Sherlock adores him.
*****
His first memory is of the sensation of being spun in a dizzying arc, held securely by the wrists as wet grass blurs underneath him. The heady scent of rain and overblown roses hangs heavy in the warm air, and the sounds ringing up to the cloudy sky are those of his own laughter mingled with his brother’s. He is much too young to be aware of the possibility of slipping, falling, danger. He knows only that his brother’s hands hold him firmly and that Mycroft is the center of the spinning world.
*****
Mycroft is all-knowing, which is convenient for Sherlock. Mummy can lay out endless lists of facts, and Daddy can tell wonderfully romantic historical tales, but only Mycroft understands things and can teach him about them.
From Mycroft, Sherlock learns, among other things, how to tie his shoes, how to ride a bicycle, how to tell time, how to fold a newspaper into a pirate’s hat, how to use a compass, how to bake a Victoria sponge, how to make a fire, how to play knock-out whist, how to put out a fire, how to play the piano, how to create a cipher, how to dissect a frog, how to avoid being stung by bees, how to read a person like a book.
Sherlock remembers, with perfect clarity, everything that Mycroft ever undertook to teach him.
*****
Sherlock is ten years old, and Mycroft is leaving him behind. Sherlock has always been aware that Mycroft, who has been unintentionally but inexorably drifting away from him, will slip beyond the boundary of his horizon and be lost to sight. But he is unprepared for the sense of panic that the imminent separation provokes, and has been alternately raging and sullen for weeks.
“I hate you. I hate you, and I won’t speak to you again until you’re dead,” he screams. Then, his rage exhausted, he begins to sob. “It’s not fair. You’ll always be older than me, always be ahead of me. And I’ll never catch up to you.”
“No, you won’t,” replies his brother. Sherlock, even in the midst of tears, appreciates Mycroft’s matter-of-fact bluntness. “You’re right, little brother, but listen: in a few years, it won’t matter. Not so much, anyway. When we’re both grown up, you won’t care.”
“It’s too long to wait,” Sherlock sulks.
“We must,” says Mycroft.
Just before he leaves for Cambridge, Mycroft gives Sherlock his old wristwatch. Sherlock holds it to his ear at night, listening to the soft ticking, the audible manifestation of the passage of time. He takes it apart at least three times, but after the last time it no longer works. He keeps it, hidden and precious, in the lining of his violin case, for years.
*****
“Why are you doing this?” Sherlock asks his brother. Mycroft is on a visit home during the long vacation, and they are walking aimlessly in the little wood that borders the fields. To me, Sherlock wants to add, but he knows that if he does Mycroft will turn acidly sarcastic, or worse, laugh at him outright.
“Doing what?” Mycroft returns.
“You’re changing yourself,” says Sherlock sulkily.
“People do change over time, Sherlock,” his brother responds.
“Are you trying to fit in?” asks Sherlock, his voice dripping with disdain. “I didn’t think you cared about that.” But maybe you do and I don’t know you at all anymore, he thinks.
His brother’s reply is reassuring. “I don’t. But sometimes it’s convenient to be…inconspicuous.” He stops and leans against a tree, crossing his arms. “And yes, I admit it. It’s a shield. Armor. A coping mechanism.” He pauses reflectively. “It’s surprisingly effective, really.”
Sherlock studies him. “So. Now you’re going to advise me to do the same. Become inconspicuous.” He enunciates the last word with exaggerated care, separating the syllables like petals pulled from a flower.
He is surprised by his brother’s laugh. “Good God, no. Not you.”
“Why not?”
“Sherlock, you’ll never be inconspicuous. Quite the contrary. Might as well run with that,” Mycroft says.
Sherlock, indignant, opens his mouth to protest, but Mycroft laughs again. “It’s a compliment, little brother,” he says, reaching out to give Sherlock a friendly push on the arm.
“Okay, so what about coping mechanisms?” asks Sherlock.
“You’ll find something, no doubt,” Mycroft replies. “We all do.”
*****
He watches his brother’s tears fall with a faraway detachment. Mycroft is sitting on the floor against the wall, his knees drawn up, one hand pressed to his mouth. Sherlock does not know exactly what has triggered this extraordinary outburst, for Mycroft has been very quiet since Sherlock was discharged from hospital three days since.
Delayed stress response, Sherlock thinks, and turns his gaze to the floor.
“You can’t go on like this. You will kill yourself,” Mycroft finally chokes out.
“Yes, I know,” Sherlock replies, looking calmly at his brother, studying him with the dispassionate scrutiny of a portrait painter. He measures the angle of the line of his brother’s jaw, notes the shadows under his eyes, traces the curve of his clenched hand.
“Do you wish I were dead, Mycroft?” he asks gently.
Mycroft does not look at him. He opens his eyes wide, and Sherlock reads everything he needs to know as a tremor passes over his brother’s face. He does not stay to hear the reply.
*****
It’s a small setback, not nearly enough to warrant all this fuss. He is still essentially clean. Mycroft is being entirely unreasonable. Sherlock hates that look on Mycroft’s face, how it brings out the absolute worst in him, how it makes him want to strike out and infuriate his brother. Anything to get that terror out of Mycroft’s eyes.
“Oh, this is just killing you, isn’t it? It’s killing you because you can’t have any hint of a little druggie brother staining your career—”
“This is killing me because I love you!” Mycroft shouts.
They recoil from one another as though he has said something unspeakably horrible.
Sherlock, eyes flashing, promptly fires back the first words that come to mind: “Fuck you.”
Mycroft blinks—that particular blink that Sherlock recognizes as a suppressed flinch—then again, two, three, four times, before his lips part and he says very quietly, “Right.” He swallows, then continues, inexplicably, “I’m sorry.” He turns, pressing his fingers against his forehead, and sweeps out of the room without another word.
It’s Sherlock’s turn to blink. Obviously, that was the wrong thing to say. What the hell was he supposed to say? He feels like a five-year-old again. It’s not fair. Mycroft isn’t telling him the rules. I’m playing the wrong game. He feels the unexpected sting of tears and an unfamiliar spike of regret. Waiting only a moment, he ventures after his brother.
Mycroft has sunk into a chair in his library before Sherlock confronts him.
“Mycroft,” he begins, and stops abruptly.
His brother looks up at him, composed and weary. “You always have to have the last word, don’t you?” he says quietly. He sounds defeated.
“Yes, of course,” says Sherlock. It is a pitch-perfect and entirely unconscious imitation of Mycroft. For a long beat they stare at one another, before Mycroft breaks into a short gasping laugh.
“I’m sorry,” Mycroft murmurs. “I feel incredibly stupid.”
“Don’t,” snaps Sherlock, “don’t apologize—”
“Sherlock—” Mycroft begins, but Sherlock holds up a hand to forestall him. “Mycroft, do you think that I don’t—” His brother is looking at him uneasily now, and they both break eye contact to glance toward the door, mapping the escape route.
Sherlock steels himself and adopts a more imperious tone. “Mycroft, don’t ever think that I don’t—” he sticks at the next word, tries again. “Because I do—you know—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t say it,” interrupts Mycroft. He pauses, then adds, “You’ll regret it later.”
Suddenly they are both smiling.
“You don’t know what I was going to say,” Sherlock objects.
“Yes, I do.”
“You can’t—” Sherlock begins. Mycroft cuts him off with “No, brother, listen: I know.”
As the words sink in, Mycroft rises to make his escape. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”
Following him to the door, Sherlock waits until Mycroft is far down the hall before calling out “Mycroft, you know why I always have the last word.”
His brother pauses, and Sherlock can feel him counting the beats before continuing on his way without replying.
Because you let me, Sherlock murmurs to no one.
*****
He watches John and his brother giving each other wary little glances. To any other observer, Mycroft would seem to be wholly indifferent and at ease, but Sherlock catches the tiny quirk of the lips that gives him away. He doesn’t quite know what to make of John, Sherlock thinks with no little glee.
“Where’s Detective Inspector Lestrade?” Mycroft asks.
“He isn’t on this case,” John answers.
Mycroft looks annoyed. “Inconvenient,” he mutters. He turns toward Sherlock, saying “Next time, Sherlock, try to wrap up your little games at a more reasonable hour.” He gives a nod to John and leaves them.
“Does your brother show up at every crime scene you’re involved with?” asks John.
“No, not always.”
“You said he was the most dangerous man I’ve ever met. How so?”
“Well, you’ve seen him. Stay out of range of the umbrella.” Sherlock says the last words as they pass his brother standing next to the sleek car that brought him. As they make eye contact, Sherlock is rewarded with a fleeting smile before Mycroft can help himself. Sherlock laughs. It’s been a long time since he’s wrangled that smile out of his brother. He is relieved to know that it’s still there.
*****
“Listen, Mycroft, think of John. Please.” It’s a plea that he knows is futile. Mycroft is immovable on this point.
“Don’t be an idiot, Sherlock,” replies his brother. “I am thinking of John. Do you believe for one minute that if you were in contact with him, you could resist dragging him in, drawing him to you wherever you go? If you ask, he’ll be at your side in an instant, whatever the danger.”
“I wouldn’t ask,” Sherlock says, unable to keep a slight quiver out of his voice. He bites his lip as his brother levels a hard look at him. “You don’t trust me,” he continues.
“I know you, Sherlock. You do nothing by halves. It’s all or nothing with you—it always has been.” Mycroft sounds pained. “There can be no contact—none at all—between the two of you as long as you are presumed dead.” He pauses and touches Sherlock’s arm gently. “For John’s sake. You know it.”
He knows it.
*****
Sherlock sits, lifts the violin from its case and lays it upon his lap.
“You’ve looked after it well,” he says. Sherlock wonders whether it is possible that his brother has been playing it. This is highly improbable. Mycroft stopped playing the violin years ago.
“Well, it was mine before it was yours,” responds Mycroft.
“Everything I had became yours,” he adds in a musing murmur so devoid of his usual crispness that it sounds like a non-sequitur.
Sherlock plucks a string and lets the note linger and fade in the air before he says, “Thank you.” He looks up in time to catch a brief expression of surprise on Mycroft’s face.
Later, when he retrieves the watch from its hiding place, he finds it cleaned, repaired, and gently ticking. It keeps perfect time. He warms it between his hands, and a vision of himself, ten years old, clutching the same watch and struck silent by fear, rises in his mind. He remembers the look on his brother’s face as he had turned back: I’m sorry, and wonders why it has always been Mycroft who apologizes.
*****
Mycroft’s library is the only room in his house which bears any mark of his personality. It contains a modest upright piano, a selection of antique maps on the wall between the windows, a large and rather untidy collection of books on the bookshelves which line the other walls, a clean-lined sofa, and a broad table strewn with a variety of books and papers. It is the only room in his brother’s house in which Sherlock feels truly comfortable, and he suspects that Mycroft feels the same way.
On the night of John’s wedding day, Sherlock finds his brother there on the sofa, reading and looking reassuringly domestic. Mycroft gives him a slight moue of disapproval aimed, Sherlock sees, at the state of his tie. It’s not very effective given that Mycroft, wearing a plain t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, looks slightly tousled himself. Sherlock divests himself of his tailcoat, waistcoat, and offending tie, and drapes the articles over the back of the sofa.
“You’re not surprised to see me,” Sherlock remarks.
“You know I always expect the worst,” Mycroft replies, but his tone is affectionate, and he meets Sherlock’s look with a smile. “So.” The last word is not so much a question as an invitation.
“Yes,” says Sherlock, knowing that his brother will take this as a concession: you were right. He doesn’t have to ask Mycroft not to gloat. They are, when alone together and both in a companionable mood, exceptionally attuned to one another.
Sherlock spends some time wandering around the room, pulling down books, and rummaging through a stack of sheet music. He plucks an orange from a fruit bowl on a side table and stands fidgeting with it until his brother holds out his hand with an impatient flick of his fingers and the command “Here.” He surrenders the fruit automatically and watches absently as Mycroft peels it with his usual efficiency. They make eye contact as Mycroft hands it back.
“How did the waltz go?” Mycroft asks.
“Oh, well enough. It was fine.”
Sherlock senses that Mycroft is about to offer an apology, and he gives his brother a little glare and shake of the head. Mycroft sighs and returns, “I wish I could have heard you play. It’s been a long time since I heard you play anything properly.” There is a hint of reproach in his last words, but Sherlock thinks that they are about even at this point, so he lets it go.
Sherlock seats himself at the piano bench and raises the fallboard. He runs his fingers over the keys lightly, then straightens up and plays Bach’s Little Prelude in E major in a rather stiff but still charming schoolboyish manner. He turns to find Mycroft watching him reminiscently, and he knows what he is thinking instantly.
“I don’t know why you’re smiling. I must have driven you nearly mad in those days,” Sherlock says.
“Thank God I couldn’t have tutored you in violin technique,” returns Mycroft.
“Why did you give up the violin?” Sherlock asks.
Mycroft laughs. “Because I was terrible at it, Sherlock; you know that.” He looks directly at Sherlock and adds, “I never loved it, not like you.” He pauses. “And I couldn’t bear that you were better than me.”
“But you weren’t that bad, as I recall,” says Sherlock. Mycroft merely shakes his head. “You preferred the piano,” continues Sherlock. The words sound oddly accusatory.
Mycroft gives him a puzzled look before answering, “Yes.” He regards Sherlock’s face carefully before adding, “You were always the better musician, Sherlock.”
Was I really? Sherlock wonders, but he is silent as he turns back to gently fold the fallboard down over the keys.
Mycroft says nothing more before returning to his book. He has allowed his long limbs to sprawl, and looks so ingenuously relaxed that Sherlock thinks it a pity that no one else ever sees him like this. It’s an unusual thought for him. He’s always been possessive of this version of Mycroft, the brother of his childhood, natural, unaffected, and beloved. This is his Mycroft, the still point of the turning world. He wants to ask, Why can’t you always be like this? Why can’t we always be like this?
He plants himself next to his brother on the sofa, leaning against Mycroft’s arm to read over his shoulder. When Sherlock’s hand darts forward to turn the page, Mycroft blocks it abstractedly, and Sherlock does not protest.
*****
Sherlock paces across the kitchen. He checks the time on the old wall clock. Not long now.
“Sit down, Sherlock, for God’s sake. Are you incapable of sitting still for two minutes?” Mycroft is surly, which is not surprising. It’s Christmas. He pauses to touch a fingertip to a tiny tree atop the white-frosted cake in front of him.
“Keep your hands off the cake, Mikey,” Sherlock retorts. “Isn’t your waistline expanding fast enough as it is?”
His eyes, wandering over the kitchen, snap back to Mycroft. His brother is staring at him—undeniably open-mouthed with astonishment. Sherlock frowns, wondering what in his perfectly commonplace jibe could warrant such a reaction. He waits, but no rejoinder is forthcoming.
“What?” he demands.
“You called me Mikey,” his brother replies, still staring. His eyes are now narrowed, appraising.
“Did I?” Sherlock says glibly, but he is inwardly astonished, too. Did I? he wonders. God, why? Aloud, he slurs, “Sorry.”
“You haven’t called me that since you were seven,” Mycroft says. His stare has become interrogating. “Why?” The word hits Sherlock’s ear sharply.
“Well, if we’re going to play psychiatrist, I suppose it’s because you treat me like a seven-year-old,” he snaps back. Because you make me feel like a seven-year-old would be more accurate, he thinks.
“No, I mean why haven’t you ever called me that since then?” says Mycroft in a much softer tone, and Sherlock feels foolish. He covers this by rolling his eyes and huffing, “Well, for God’s sake, Mycroft, you made such a damned fuss about being called by your proper name. Not that it made any difference with Mum and Dad.”
He pauses in his aimless roaming about the room when he hears his brother quietly say, “I didn’t mind it when it was you.” He sounds almost shy. Sherlock does not turn to look at him. The vague sounds of various conversations filter from the other rooms.
“It was your first word,” Mycroft continues. Sherlock turns to look, but his brother does not meet his eye.
“No, it wasn’t,” Sherlock corrects him crisply. He sits down. “My first word was ‘mine.’”
His brother laughs. “That’s what they thought. But you were saying my name long before that. Only when we were alone. I never told anyone. I didn’t think they would believe me.”
Sherlock thinks, Sitting there with his shirt sleeves rolled up, he looks almost vulnerable. He feels a pang of guilt as he studies Mycroft’s laptop sitting incongruously under a cutting board piled with potatoes.
Their mother bustles in before Sherlock can reply, which is just as well since he can’t think of anything to say.
*****
He feels the thrum of the helicopter blades against the air like a second heartbeat in his blood. In the glare of the light, over his brother’s echoing command, the foremost thoughts in his brain ring out with singular clarity.
You know that I will stop at nothing to spare the one I love.
In the instant before he pulls the trigger, he understands his brother’s heart at last.
John, I’m not sorry.
The light is blinding.
Brother, forgive me.