Disclaimer: I don't own BBC Sherlock, Marvel or any of the affiliated characters, nor do I make any profit from writing this. Just so inspired that I had to borrow them for a while.

Warnings (to be updated per chapter): Illusions and Deceit, Obsessive Behaviour, Triggers, Marking

A/N: What the hell am I doing? Why am I posting this?

Well... You know when a story just won't leave you alone? Like, when you fall asleep and wake up with it in your head?

Creepy!

Yes, but so is this story! *spooky voice* Consider yourselves warned.

Enjoy! xx

"Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Prologue: The Storm

There wasn't really anything special about Sherlock Holmes. Not when he was a one day old new-born and his mother, Marie Antoinette Holmes, fussed over her second son the way any mother would, ensuring he was fed, changed and kept warm during the cold autumn weather. It was true that she learned the different ways he cried when he wanted a particular thing, running through the list until just the tone of her son's voice, or the time of day, was enough to let her know what needed to be done. Until it was as instinctual as her own breathing. But doesn't every doting mother learn this to some degree?

Sherlock's older brother, Mycroft, being six years old at the time, had looked over the edge of Sherlock's cot in those coming weeks with the wonder that only a child has, carefully watching the way his mother tended to Sherlock's needs. His father, Siger Holmes, would stand beside Mycroft with a hand on his shoulder and tell him that, as the older brother, he should look after his younger sibling with all the devotion he had for his studies. Wide eyed, Mycroft had nodded to his father's words, and reached a hand into Sherlock's cot, smiling when little fingers wrapped around his thumb and tugged at it.

Marie and Siger were extremely proud of their boys and had good reason to be. Mycroft was an exemplary student at such a young age and quick to learn, so his parents were hoping their second son would follow suit, having already reserved places for Sherlock at Eton College and Oxford University for when he came of age, the same having already been done for Mycroft. Until that time, a private tutor would continue to teach Mycroft until Sherlock was ready for pre-school and then he would mentor the both of them until they were required to start their higher education.

At least, that was the plan.

Yet, as with most things, it all started with a storm.

On a bright morning, three weeks after Sherlock's birth, the news reported a severe thunderstorm was on the way, with winds of up to one hundred miles per hour and huge clouds which would cover the expanse of London, Hampshire and Surrey in regular intervals. People were warned to stay indoors and the Holmes family kept a close watch on the predicted paths of the storms, preparing to face a long period when they would effectively be cut off from the outside world.

On a late October night, flashes of lightening filled the rooms of the mansion and were then almost immediately followed by loud claps of thunder, the noise reverberating inside the walls despite the howls of the wind and the thrashing of the rain on the window panes. Worried for her sons, Marie left her husband's side and wrapped herself in her dressing gown to check on them, catching Mycroft staring out the window in rapt fascination as the lightning bolts cracked across the night sky. She gently urged him back to bed where he would stay warm and safe and, though Mycroft had protested to begin with, his mother opened up the curtains for him so he would still be able to watch the storm. With her encouragement, Mycroft eventually found slumber with the sound of the rain in his ears and his mother gently stroking her fingers through his hair.

Onwards now to Sherlock's room and when she reached his cot, she saw her little boy was fast asleep, his hands curled in the blankets and his shut eyes moving with his dreams. She laid a hand on his chest to feel his breathing, measuring the time between each one, and leant over the cot to kiss Sherlock on his forehead, smoothing a hand over his hair before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.

With the click of the door, the body of the little boy in the cot began to fade, a green light wrapped around the edges of the image until it disappeared. Over by the window nearest the door, a man sat in the rocking chair with a small bundle in his arms, smiling down at Sherlock and wrapping him more securely in his blankets.

"There, there," he soothed when Sherlock began to whimper, disturbed by the thunder and the flashes that were too bright in the small space. Small blue eyes looked up into emerald green ones and Sherlock calmed when the arms began to rock him again, his eyes drifting shut. "My brother is so loud, isn't he?" the man murmured, looking up out the window when another clap of thunder sounded above them. He turned his attention back to Sherlock, leaning back in the chair and crossing his legs so his right ankle rested on his left knee. "But you don't need to worry about him," he continued, smoothing a thumb over Sherlock's hair. "I'm here to protect you."

With all the tenderness that Marie had just given the illusion, he raised Sherlock in his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to the baby's forehead, smiling when Sherlock snuffled into the blankets with a lock of the man's black hair twined in his small fingers.

To be continued