Author: Regency
Title: The Reigate Boys
Pairing: None
Spoilers: None
Rating: G/Everyone
Summary: When he isn't wrangling his younger brother, Mycroft Holmes occupies a very minor position in the British Government. When not engaged in either of those pursuits, he wrangles madness of an entirely different sort: a brood of four ingenious sons.
Author's Notes: This is one of those 'I don't know where this came from' kind of stories. I just like the idea of Mycroft as a devoted father who has a really difficult job and is rearing children as brilliant and irrepressible as he and Sherlock must have been. I blame some of the Mycroft fans on Tumblr who write some very credible meta about Mycroft being the primary parental influence in Sherlock's life.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Sherlock. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
There are those who won't believe it, but Mycroft Holmes is a good father. He is a father of four or five, depending on the day, and his house is never quiet, for the phone is always ringing. If not the landline, then his mobile vibrates with texts from the littlest on his new invention or the eldest on a curious case at hospital. Mycroft cannot always give his presence to his children, but he can give his eye and ear.
"Papa, I understand how caterpillars become butterflies. I think I can make a beetle do something like that." Mycroft isn't sure it can be done, but if it can, Cavendish, all of nine years old, will do it.
"Dad, I had an odd one in Emergency. Seemed like poison but not administered by mouth or direct contact. Good suit, public school, not posh, though. Bit strange, I thought. You may want to make enquiries." Sherwin, twenty, is a capable physician in training, almost wasted on it. Mycroft knows better than to underestimate his inductive instinct.
"Consider it done."
His middlemost sons are equally gifted. The elder, Bayard, shadows a colleague of Mycroft's at Whitehall. By sixteen, he has accrued a velvet bag of secrets he carries everywhere with him. Lysander, the younger at twelve, still attends school and excels ahead of his peers. He tops his year with ease and, though he faces opposition from those of lesser talent, he keeps his head above the fray. He is so like Sherlock in aspect, it discomfits his father. They clash the most, but the boy is no less beloved than his brothers.
Mycroft is a father to four boys, sometimes five, and he loves each to the farthest borders of his capacity for devotion. There is something wrong with Mycroft, perhaps even with Sherlock, but there is nothing wrong with Mycroft's sons. No one to question it ever asks twice.