sevenswells | [ONE-SHOT] Brother Complex (ENG)

Title: Brother Complex

Author:

sevenswells

Beta: the amazing

lah_de_dah (thank you so much dear!)

Rating: PG-13 (?)

Fandom/Pairing: BBC One's Sherlock; No pairing in particular, I believe the term is "Gen"; just a not-so-subtle hint at Sherlock/John by the end of the fic.

Warnings: None that I can think of.

Summary: Mycroft Holmes worries about his younger brother Sherlock. Constantly.

Comments: Written from Mycroft's point of view; it's a fic about the Holmes' relationship with a bit of Sherlock/John in passing. Also contains young!Sherlock and young!Mycroft; I tried to respect the 7-years difference they have in canon. The title doesn't refer to some sort of sexual Freudian complex between the brothers, actually. It's more related to the general psychology term (like an inhibition) and it also refers to "complex" as an adjective. Something like that.
...Okay, just know that it's most definitely not a Mycroft/Sherlock fic and that's that.

Word count: 3047 w.

As far as Mycroft Holmes could remember, he had been concerned about his younger brother Sherlock. It was, after all, part of his duty as the eldest and future head of the family, and anyone could tell Sherlock was an odd case that needed constant surveillance.

When Sherlock was about six or seven, Mycroft found him in his room dissecting the house cat, following instructions from a manual.

" Sherlock. Did you kill her?" he asked, carefully concealing the gravity of the question behind a light tone.

"What do you take me for, Mycroft?" Sherlock snapped. "Serial killers in the making may start by killing small animals when they have too much time on their hands, but that's just not a career choice I'm planning to make," He didn't bother lifting his head to meet his brother's stare, his unruly curls falling on his eyes as he neatly cut a t-shape in the shaven abdomen of the cat's corpse.

Mycroft paused at that. It was, in fact, exactly what he had been thinking; that his little brother was starting to present signs that would lead him to be a social misfit or worse, a dangerous psychopath later on in life, and Mycroft had already been taking measures in his head, listing clean and expeditious ways to make the bodies disappear, should the latter happen. As they said, "if you cannot beat them, join them", and Mycroft wasn't sure he could ever beat his brother completely -- only to a certain extent, he had already assessed that much at that time of their life.

"She died of natural death," Sherlock clarified, his reedy child's voice clashing with his adult words. "Cancer. And a fast one too, I think it killed her in a few weeks, judging from the apparition of the first symptoms -- it's faster for animals, isn't it? I wanted to observe the tumours, they're as big as eggs."

It was the first time that Mycroft had heard actual childish excitement in Sherlock's voice. Sherlock had barely ever been something as a child, as people would usually conceive the notion. Even as an infant his stare could have drilled holes into the back of one's skull. But then again, Mycroft couldn't hold that up against his brother, since he, too, was born with a mind about a hundred years old.

"So you noticed the symptoms a few weeks ago and simply waited for her to die," Mycroft summed up quietly.

"Yes," Sherlock deadpanned, removing the intestines and arranging them with a businesslike air beside the animal's body.

"It would have been more..." Mycroft searched for the right word, grimacing by reflex, "...sensible to tell us about it, Sherlock," he finished.

"Why?" This time Sherlock turned to look at him, eyes wide with dismay as though Mycroft was talking utter nonsense. "Would you have taken her to the veterinary surgeon? Preposterous."

"Preposterous" was a word Sherlock had recently learned and it was becoming some sort of obnoxious verbal tic of his, among many others.

"Do you really think it would have cured her?" Sherlock continued with a sneer.

"No," Mycroft replied, "but we could have ended her sufferings. Humanely," he added as an afterthought.

"That's rubbish," Sherlock scoffed.

"Don't you think that was a bit cruel, leaving dear old Margie to die like that?" Mycroft pressed on. He couldn't care less about the animal; he simply wanted to gauge his brother's sense of morality. Sherlock didn't disappoint.

"How was that cruel?" Sherlock asked, brows knitted together in incomprehension. "I just let nature do her deed, nothing more. She would have died anyway, wouldn't she? And they wouldn't have let me keep the body for my experiments if you'd had her put down at the veterinary clinic. You see, it was such an opportunity; I've only had rats to work on up until now. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to observe those cancerous tissues under my microscope."

And that marked the end of the conversation.

*****

The second time Mycroft had seriously worried about his brother, it had been in a retroactive way; since the damage had already been done, and there was nothing he could have done to prevent it.

Actually, that wasn't quite right, and he still couldn't forgive himself for his negligence.

Ten-year-old Sherlock came up to their mother when Mycroft was home for the holidays, and announced in a detached tone, "Mother, could you please tell the man you're seeing at the moment while father is away not to come into my room while I am sleeping? I've noticed that his loud breathing disturbs the mygale spiders, and I can't have that when I'm precisely observing how soundwaves affect them. If he keeps on with that cumbersome behaviour, I'm afraid I'll have no other choice but to give a phone call to his wife and tell her that the abortion she had wasn't due to medical complications but because he paid the doctor to lie and get rid of the foetus." A pause, then, flippantly, "On a side note, I suppose one can easily understand the reason why a man like that doesn't want to have children. Something about not going to the toilets where you eat, I suppose."

Mycroft thought that their mother's reaction was admirable, as always; she didn't snort the tea she was sipping through her nose like most people would. It would have been far too vulgar and she didn't have a vulgar bone in her body -- she was usually so discreet about her lovers that if Mycroft hadn't paid such a continuous attention to her every movement and all the small details that concerned her, he would have never known about any of them. He had known about this one, of course, and had already gathered all necessary information about him: Spencer Stone, 46, dentist, wife a primary school part-time arts teacher, had recently travelled to South Korea for a conference on wisdom teeth, allergic to peanuts. Psych profile revealed the usual urban middle-class petty ailments, anxiety and stress and slight OCD tendencies, nothing interesting there but the psychiatrist was as incompetent as they come; his colleagues described Spencer Stone as open and sociable, his younger female subordinates found him charming despite their age difference and Mycroft had concluded that Spencer Stone was a misogynist with a superiority complex who liked to be in control of both people and his environment – Mycroft could see how their mother could easily manipulate a man like that and he had not deemed him a threat to the family. He had known it was just one more of their mother’s whims that would eventually go away, like the rest.

What Mycroft hadn't known, though, was that the man had paid nightly visits to Sherlock's bedroom. He cursed himself inwardly. It was unacceptable that a vital piece of information like this one had eluded him. He felt outraged that a member of his family had undergone such a detestable experience. What if something much graver had happened? There was one horrible moment where Mycroft wondered whether something worse actually had happened, but one look at his brother told him that nothing of the sort had occurred. Sherlock didn't look traumatized in the least, just annoyed and slightly sulky. Thank goodness.
Anyhow, it was never happening again. He made a mental note to keep Sherlock under a closer observation in the future.
Their mother took her time to set her cup down and her hand was perfectly steady. She looked at her youngest son and said, "Very well, Sherlock, I shall let him know."

Mycroft was the only witness to the quasi-imperceptible trembling of her bottom lip as she watched Sherlock turn and go back to his room with a curt, "Thank you, Mother." Thankfully, this moment of weakness passed quickly and their mother regained her usual exemplary composure. She extended her hand and Mycroft moved his face forward to nestle his cheek into her palm.

"Mycroft, darling, can you keep an eye on your brother while I'm going out for a while? I won't be long."

Mycroft nodded and reverently kissed the inside of his mother's hand. Then she stood up and walked away, leaving a half-full cup of tea that Mycroft finished for her.

To Mycroft's satisfaction, their mother severed all ties with the man named Stone and later, but not much later, when he obtained the power to, Mycroft arranged for Stone's life to be thoroughly destroyed before ensuring his long-term imprisonment. Mycroft appreciated his job for moments of strict efficiency like these where he could kill two birds with one stone: working for the greater good and keeping his family's name out of the mud at the same time.

*****

By the time their parents sent Sherlock to Eton, Mycroft was twenty and already a very busy man. Nevertheless, he still had plenty of footmen left behind he could use – some of them even belonging to the school board. He instructed a few people whose fear of him he trusted to keep an eye on Sherlock and report any irregularity to him, in minute details.

Of course Mycroft was promptly informed that an incident had occurred on Sherlock's very first day of school.

It was a well-known fact that the practice of "fagging" had been officially abolished at Eton but was still maintained unofficially by some of the students.

Mycroft had managed to pass on those ridiculous hazing rituals, partly because his physical aspect was what would be called inoffensive and very easily forgettable; he had no remarkable feature whatsoever, except for his slight plumpness, but still nothing out of the ordinary there. If anything, it contributed making him look less threatening than ever. Sherlock's physique, on the other hand, was a little too outstanding, with his hard-angled face and slanted piercing eyes that didn't belong to a thirteen-year-old. Sherlock couldn't be ignored, much less forgotten; despite his young age, most people found Sherlock's charisma and presence impressive, almost too much to bear. More often than not, it would turn out to mean trouble for Sherlock. Perhaps such gifts with any other teenager would have been fine -- he or she would have merely ended up being popular and respected anywhere they went with a bare minimum of implication and social skills, but with Sherlock's personality, the mix was highly volatile.

Mycroft's spy reported that almost as soon as Sherlock set foot on the school grounds, a group of seniors had accosted him -- their names and personal information being listed on a document attached to the typed-up message that related the event. What appeared to be the leader of the group, a gentleman called Mark Woodmore, 16, father a banker, parents divorced, had opened his wallet to hand Sherlock a five-pound note and asked him to go and buy a pack of cigarettes. Sherlock had pointed out that he was not allowed to leave the school premises, and Mr. Woodmore had informed Sherlock in return that he didn't care. So Sherlock had accepted the note from Mr. Woodmore and said, the following being his exact words, "If you insist on paying to have sex with a woman, I'd suggest wearing protection and not doing it on the school grounds."

Then the conversation went as transcribed in the rest of the message:

MARK WOODMORE: Come again?

SHERLOCK HOLMES: You made a very discreet gesture to scratch your genitals a few seconds ago, and I reckon a brute like you wouldn't bother with social conventions such as not touching your crotch in public, especially in front of a younger student whom you're trying to scare into obedience. On the contrary, it would have added to the ludicrous display of masculinity, meaning it's not a mere itch, but a shameful one, that you don't want to be acknowledged -- sexually transmitted disease is what easily comes to mind. It has to be fresh, like the handcuff marks on your wrist that you insist on trying to hide with that hideous watch, which is clearly a copy but which you chose to wear simply because of its convenient size.

MARK WOODMORE: What the fuck do you --

SHERLOCK HOLMES: Your biggest mistake, actually, was opening your wallet in front of me. Interesting business card in there, black, china clay coating base 300 grams per square meter paper, silver leaf letters that read "Saffron" and a single phone number, nice touch of the minted orchid, very classy -- I'm guessing a call-girl, and an expensive one at that. I'm sure you're very aware a hotel bill leaves a traceable trail since that is how your mother proved your father cheated on her and received considerable alimony from the divorce. So you smuggled Saffron the redheaded call-girl in your room; and how nice of you to share her with your friend Mr. Prokopowicz here --"

There, the report said, Sherlock had reached for Mr. Prokopowicz's neck, causing Mr. Prokopowicz, 5'7" for 182 pounds, to flinch in front of a scrawny 13-year-old adolescent who simply touched his collar. The transcript resumed:

SHERLOCK HOLMES: In case you're wondering, it's this single strand of long red hair on Mr Prokopowicz's collar that indicated “Miss Saffron's” hair colour. And since Mr Prokopowicz has discreetly tried to scratch himself by reflex after I mentioned your trichomoniasis earlier, Mr. Woodmore, I can tell he wasn't wearing a condom either. A child's play, really.

With that Sherlock had turned to the rest of the seniors around him and asked, "Would you like me to continue with you?"

Needless to say they all scrammed as fast as they could, leaving Sherlock in peace. But then a strange thing had happened, Mycroft's spy reported; Sherlock had turned and walked straight to the onlooker and talked to him in these terms, "You can tell my brother to get his minions off my back. I'm expecting you to write down to him the exact exchange of words here and how the scene went as accurately as possible, so he can see for himself that I don't need his bloody protection."

Then he had held the five-pound note with two fingers in front of the spy's nose and said, "Now go and buy me a pack of cigarettes."

After that, it seemed the other students would generally leave Sherlock alone, or downright avoid him. Sherlock's time at Eton went more or less unperturbed again, except for one or two idiots who didn't know better and eventually learned that it was healthier for them not to get in Sherlock's way, and the fact that Sherlock wasn't a good student -- most of his subjects appeared to bore him deeply, except for Physics and Chemistry, at which he excelled. Mycroft had felt concerned again when it was clear that the teacher, Mr. Clothier, 58, unmarried, domiciled in Surrey, had taken a pronounced liking to Sherlock and that the latter took full advantage of it, charming the old bachelor into leaving him free use of the laboratory after teaching hours. Although Mr. Clothier didn't have the psych profile to take the teacher-student relationship to an inappropriate level, Mycroft had had him fired anyway, just in case. As a matter of fact, it was not the teacher he didn't trust.
That earned him a written note from Sherlock, who never ever attempted any form of communication with his brother unless they shared the same restricted physical space. The note had been delivered directly to his desk and read, in Sherlock's sharp, old-fashioned handwriting:

Stop your meddling, fatso.

Mycroft grimaced, neatly folded the message and put it in his desk drawer, then he called his assistant to arrange an appointment with a dietician. It was high time he started on a diet.

*****

Except for the occasional scare here and there from Sherlock's spats with dangerous criminals, it had been such a long time since Mycroft had started seriously worrying about his brother again that he had almost forgotten the feeling, and he hadn't been reminded of it before he heard about John Watson. Sherlock didn't have friends; never had, never would. Watson's security file told Mycroft nothing of interest, and the psych profile was even duller; this blip that had suddenly appeared on Mycroft's radar had to hide something, some darker motive, otherwise Sherlock would have never bothered keeping contact with him, knowing how Sherlock revelled in putting himself in danger and keeping his enemies even closer than the famous proverb recommended -- Mycroft was the exception to this rule, apparently, which hurt his feelings more than he wanted to admit.

However, when Mycroft met Doctor Watson in person, he stopped worrying altogether -- a very strange experience. He also quickly picked up on why Sherlock had chosen this man in particular.

As Mycroft watched Sherlock and Dr. Watson walk away from him on the night his brother had almost faced death by a maniacal cabby's hand, Mycroft briefly wondered whether Sherlock would ever realize the true nature of his interest towards John Watson. It was mind-boggling how much his brother's brilliant mind could tear and analyze everything apart and yet he would be so oblivious to his own feelings, which were otherwise transparent to everybody else around. But then again, hiding one's feelings was a common social convention, and Sherlock had never been quite capable of comprehending anything of the sort. He just did as he pleased, said every single thing that crossed his mind and never failed to show his discontentment no matter how much that would ruffle other people's feathers. So how could he ever cover up what he felt now, especially since, Mycroft suspected, it was something he'd never felt before, not even knowing how to call it?
His assistant's voice snapped him out of his reflection.

"Sir," she called. "Shall we go?"

"Interesting," Mycroft said to no one in particular, thinking out loud, "that soldier fellow. It could be the making of my brother, or make him worse than ever." Then, to his assistant, "Either way, we'd better upgrade their surveillance status. Grade three: active."

"Sorry, sir... whose status?"

Mycroft had stopped worrying about Sherlock: it didn't mean he wouldn't keep an eye on his younger brother anymore.

"Sherlock Holmes," he answered, "and Doctor Watson."

Just in case.

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