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"Give my love to Mary. Tell her she's safe, now."
Women. How had his life become so complicated with women?
He remembered the day he'd first approached Mycroft about the lack of women in his life. Sherlock had been ten, and Mycroft seventeen, and Sherlock had started hearing the rumors. The trouble was, the rumors seemed to always be there, about every boy who failed to fit in…even the ones who were dating, or had girlfriends.
Sherlock didn't know what to think. He didn't even really understand the rumors themselves—just that if there were rumors, it meant you weren't a proper boy, somehow. Sherlock, like most ten-year-old boys, knew that the most vital, critical thing to be was a proper boy…and he knew already he was failing at it.
He'd always copied the best boy he knew—Mycroft. No matter what anyone said, Mycroft, to Sherlock, was The One. The Oldest. The Strongest. He was, in some mystical way, both The Meanest and The Kindest. The Safe One, and The Betrayer. Most of all, though, he was all about being a man.
Father was Father…and everyone loved Father. But Father was quiet, and funny, and forever dimmed by Mummy in her blazing brilliance and intensity. Mummy made judgments. Father offered extenuating circumstances. Mummy raged at a world that never quite ran to order. Father smiled and said, "There'll be another train along later." Mummy ran the home. Father admired her for it.
Mycroft, though—Mycroft looked at them both, and would tell either, in that soft, steady voice, "No. You're wrong." Once Mycroft said it, it stayed said. Mycroft would look at the Headmaster, who was all set to call Mummy and Father because Sherlock had lost his temper again, and say, "No. I'll talk to him." And the Headmaster would listen—because Mycroft was Head Boy and Most Important of All—and then Mycroft would explain to Sherlock, again, when and where he could lose his temper, and why. It never made as much sense as Mycroft seemed to think it did, but that didn't matter, because Sherlock would remember Mycroft standing in the Headmaster's office, neat and tidy in his uniform, straight as a telephone pole and seeming almost as tall, and he'd understand what "not losing your temper" looked like, and he'd imitate that when he was angry.
He'd known Mycroft was angry, that day in the Headmaster's office—he could spot it when no one else could. Whenever he thought it was too hard to keep his own temper, or when he couldn't recall how, he could call back his memory of Mycroft, and know what "holding your temper in" looked like. Mycroft held everything in.
That was what men did. Proper men. Proper boys.
Father did it, too, though not so well as Mycroft. Mummy was loud, and she felt things—so many things. Father felt things, but felt them quietly. Mycroft felt things most quietly of all, as quiet as the East Wind when it was hunting your soul. Mycroft felt things so quietly that sometimes even Sherlock couldn't work it out, and was left wondering if Mycroft felt something—or just hid it well.
But there were rumors…rumors that Mycroft wasn't quite right. That he liked boys, instead of girls—which confused Sherlock entirely, because all the boys in his class liked boys best, and hated girls. Girls were horrible. Girls were girly. No proper boy cared what girls thought, or what girls did. What was important was having mates, being right with your mates, getting on with your mates. You didn't even have to have many mates, but you had to have one or two, or you weren't right.
Sherlock didn't have any mates. He did it wrong. Mycroft tried to help and explain, but Sherlock seemed to always say the wrong thing, or want to do the wrong thing. He was last-picked on teams, and first-teased no matter what, and he hovered at the outer edge of the boy-pack listening and trying to understand. And now it was beyond confusing, because for some reason Mycroft was "wrong" for doing exactly what Sherlock thought they were all supposed to do.
Mycroft was outside the boy-pack, too, but not like Sherlock. He led the boy-pack. No one liked him best, but no one hated him, and he was…admired? Something like that. The boys listened to him. They let him lead them. They asked him for advice and help. He wasn't in the boy-pack or of it—he ruled it.
Sherlock remembered Mycroft reading the Jungle Books out loud to him, when Sherlock had been very small. He'd almost sung when he howled, "Look, look well, oh, wolves," as Akela, the pack leader, had called the pack to judge Mowgli. He howled so beautifully again, when Akela, deposed by his own, came again with Mowgli to the council rock, and lay on the skin of Shere Khan, and cried once more, "Look, look well, oh wolves!"
Sherlock could never decide if Mycroft was more wonderful as Akela, or as Bagheera. He was funniest as Baloo, and most terrifying as Shere Khan—his Shere Khan haunted Sherlock's nightmares for years. But to choose between Mycroft howling "look, look well," or Mycroft as Bagheera, buying Mowgli's life with a fresh-killed bull and swearing "by the broken lock that freed me," in a voice that lived up to Kipling's own words—like honey dripping down from the hive.
Best of all, though, was Mycroft meeting Mowgli's eyes—Sherlock's eyes—and swearing "We be of one blood, thou and I."
Worst was Mycroft at an end of patience with Sherlock. Mycroft was frightening, then, and infuriating.
Mummy could be wheedled. Mummy could be worn into surrender. Mummy, wild, fierce Mummy, would shout back until Sherlock won. Mummy could always be lured into a fight, and once in a fight, Sherlock could play the logic and play it and play it, until even Mummy admitted that Sherlock could be right, might be right, even ought to be right.
Father simply didn't fight. He looked for compromises, and Sherlock could take an offered compromise and turn it into Father's surrender faster than most people could just give up.
Mycroft, though—
He was deadly in his anger, harsh in his solitude, and impossible to navigate around. He was Bagheera new-freed from the lock and the chain and the collar, hunting men in the jungle because he knew men too well. He was lame Shere Khan, terror of the Waingunga, slayer of babies naked and helpless as a tender frog. Mycroft was deadly with a word or a glance, and he never, never seemed to care that Sherlock wanted, Sherlock needed, Sherlock hungered, Sherlock ached.
Ached to own Mycroft's attention. Ached to command his time. Ached to have a share in everything Mycoft did, or thought, or owned. Most of all Sherlock ached to rip away every wall that stood between him and his older brother: walls of age, of intelligence, of separation. It offended him that Mycroft was allowed to do what Sherlock wasn't. It offended him that Mycroft was left in charge, when Mycroft was his brother, not his parent. It offended him that Mycroft was smarter, taller, that he owned man-things, not little boy things. Each of these things stood between Sherlock and Mycroft, and Sherlock raged at them and fought them with all his heart.
The harder he fought them, the more Mycroft seemed to defend them—tart in his words, terrifying in his stories, taunting in his criticisms, and forever pushing away, trying to retain his distance. Akela as Lone Wolf; Bagheera as killer of men.
Sherlock hated him then, and swore to Mummy and Father that Mycroft hated him, too. Worse, Mycroft even admitted it, saying, calmly, "Of course I hate you. You knocked down my entire bookshelf on purpose, you unholy little brat. If it weren't beneath me I'd kill you, now. But I won't. I'll leave immature acting out to the little boy in the family." And he'd stalked away, all six-foot-one of him, nose in the air, turning hate into a kind of elegant cloak he could flourish around him.
Mycroft taught him the deduction game, that even Mummy couldn't play. But Mycroft always won, except when he was just letting Sherlock win. Mycroft taught him manners—but Sherlock could never keep track of how that game was played. Mycroft told him ghost stories, made up out of his own head—and Mycroft laughed when Sherlock went running away to hide under the covers with Redbeard. Mycroft took his A-Levels when he was only fifteen, and even though Mummy wouldn't let him quit regular school, he attended classes at uni as well. Mycroft was…
Mycroft.
Mycroft was the one who taught him to read. Mycroft was the one who read out loud to him long after Sherlock could read the books himself. Mycroft was the one who played "Wolf Pack of Seeonee" with him, and pretended the River Cam was the Waingunga. Mycroft was the one who hid so well in the tall reeds that Sherlock couldn't find him, and then leapt out roaring, scaring Sherlock so badly he wet himself. Mycroft was the one who dragged him home and kept it secret and washed Sherlock's pants in the washing machine and hung them out to dry, and never told Mummy and Father. But Mycroft was the one who never let him forget it, either—how he'd peed himself in fright over a game by the river.
How could there be something wrong with Mycroft?
Mycroft was…
Sherlock had no words for it. Given another place, another time, another upbringing, Sherlock might have willingly risked burning for heresy, and declared Mycroft God—or at least one of God's saints or archangels. Or, depending on the day, he'd have declared Mycroft first-kin to Lucifer, or a monster on a par with Grendel.
But there was something wrong. Sherlock heard the whispers.
Mycroft knew girls. He even seemed to get on with girls. Some of them certainly seemed crazy for Mycroft. He was quiet, and polite, and tall, and if you liked red hair, freckles, and brains, Mycroft apparently had a lot to offer. When Wendy Kitteridge came and rode her bicycle around and around and around the block, just hoping to see Mycroft, though, Mycroft blushed, and went out and told her to please go away. When Ann Fenster, at the riding club, cornered him in a box stall and took off her jumper and told him she loved him, the rumor was he ran away.
Sherlock wasn't sure what to think about it—whether to add it to the reasons Mycroft was the best, or to add it to the Mycroft-is-The-Great-Satan list. It had to be one or the other. As far as Sherlock was concerned, there was no middle ground. Not with Mycroft. For Sherlock every single detail about Mycroft was all or nothing—heaven or hell.
Sherlock being Sherlock, he had to ask. Had to. He'd die if he didn't.
"They say you don't like girls. Are they right?"
Mycroft, sitting at his desk in his room, looked at Sherlock. He was very still—very quiet. But Mycroft was always very still, and very quiet. Mycroft was Akela, the Lone Wolf. He was Bagheera, black danger freed by a broken lock and roaming the jungle on silent feet. Sherlock tried again.
"Phil Hawkins says you're a ponce, because you don't have a girlfriend."
"Phil Hawkins doesn't have a girlfriend either," Mycroft said, turning to study his books, as though to dismiss Sherlock.
"Phil's just eleven," Sherlock said. "And he gave Beth Zinn a copper bracelet that turned her arm green."
"A master of courtship, Our Phil, I see," Mycroft drawled. "Obviously an expert on matters of love."
"Mummad Chauduri says his brother thinks you're a fairy."
"Ari Chauduri thinks everyone's a fairy," Mycroft said. "Sherlock, I'm trying to study."
"The kids say faggots are disgusting, and they grab little boys in locker rooms and stick their…"
"Spare me the wisdom of the First Form, Sherlock. Believe me, what your peers know about sex, straight or otherwise, can be written on a greeting card with room left over, and would win the Guinness World Records for 'most stupid ideas ever presented in one place.'"
"But you don't like girls."
"I'm quite fond of girls. I just…" Mycroft paused, then, and covered his face with his hands, the pencil he'd been writing with still tucked between his index and middle finger. Sherlock watched the tip of the pencil wobble as Mycroft rubbed his face, wearily. "Sherlock, this isn't… you don't…" He put his hands down, then, and looked at Sherlock, eyes serious, as though he was studying every inch of the ten-year-old in front of him. He sighed, at last, and said, simply. "You're right. I don't go out with girls. It's much easier to think and study without girls, after all. I'm sure someday you'll want to go out with girls, too—and while you're still a young boy, you probably would be better off not giving them copper bracelets or snogging them in empty class rooms. It's much easier to keep your mind on your work that way."
Sherlock considered. This was, after all, much more what he was used to. Girls were…girls. Icky. None of the boys liked girls, until they started talking about poncy things. He nodded. "Right. Girls get everything wrong."
"No," Mycroft said with crooked smile and a firm voice. "Girls do not get everything wrong. But many men find them very…distracting. Difficult to think around."
"And that's why you don't go out with girls?"
"I like thinking clearly," Mycroft said, with a strange, tight smile that Sherlock would come to know better over the years to come. "And I'm not particularly social."
Sherlock nodded. This was, then, one of the things to add to the plus column: ways to imitate Mycroft. Because girls made you stupid, apparently.
He accepted it without a blink, and went on his way. He didn't see Mycroft watching him leave, nor would he have noticed the shadowed uncertainty in Mycroft's eyes even if he'd looked back. For Sherlock, after all, Mycroft was binary: good or bad, loved or hated, right or wrong.
Nor could Mycroft know that his attempt at a diplomatic answer suitable for a closeted gay young virgin to give a socially inept ten-year-old brother would become a foundation stone for Sherlock's later "Theories of Genius." Indeed, one of the corner stones, when combined with his perception of Mycroft's control and silence.
1: Emotion degrades genius.
2: Women provoke emotion, and thus degrade genius.
3: Avoidance of women promotes genius.
4. Sherlock is a genius.
QED: Sherlock and women just don't mix.
And so he had gone on, building his life around his own social failings, his own insecurity—and a shy and solitary gay role model whose ultimate outing came years too late to change Sherlock's core assumptions.
So…how, Sherlock wondered, as he thought of Molly and Mary and Mrs. Hudson and Janine and even The Woman—all of whom, he found, he loved in some strange and confusing way…
How had his life become so complicated with women?
How had they grown so very, very dear to him?
He raised his hand— For Lady Smallwood… For Janine. For Mary.
He pulled the trigger.
"Give my love to Mary. Tell her she's safe, now."