'Where there's a will, there's a way' – that was his motto ever since he was a teenager.
He wanted to show the world that he was perfectly capable of mingling with ordinary people, no matter how different he was. So he decided he would teach himself the appropriate techniques, as one would do when learning mathematics or a foreign language.
Eye contact was the first skill he mastered, and he was quite proud of it. Very few people could tell how much the apparently simple action cost him – the only notable exception being his mother, and his brother Sherlock who actually shared the same issue.
The lack of empathy was more difficult to overcome, but in the end he successfully broke the code of human feelings and learnt how to fake the emotional response that was deemed appropriate for the specific situation. Individuals that relied solely on logic where mostly perceived as inhuman by society, hence the need to mimic other people's behaviour when it came to such things as emotion and sentiment.
Sherlock, on the other hand, never had the patience to listen to his brother's advice. He prided himself on being different, and for the majority of time he just couldn't be bothered to hide his inappropriate reactions. No wonder that most people regarded him as a sociopath, while nobody seemed to realize that the same label applied to Mycroft as well.
It wasn't that he was completely incapable of emotions. He cared for his brother, for instance – always had, and always would. Similarly, he presumed that the sentiment he harboured for a certain Detective Inspector would fall into the category ordinarily labelled as 'love'.
However, it still wasn't second nature to him; he'd never risked entering a relationship before, and for good reasons. In a way it was like thinking in Cantonese while attempting to solve a complex mathematical equation – he was bound to slip at some point.
He'd just hoped he wouldn't end up losing Greg over a momentary lapse of concentration. There had been a couple of separate occasions when he'd actually considered the option of simply telling him the truth, but the mere thought filled him with disgust. That would mean exposing his weakness, something that was inherently abhorrent to him – even in spite of the level of trust he shared with his partner.
Trust Sherlock to go his own sweet way and do the most unlikely thing, as was his wont. It took Mycroft approximately thirty-five seconds to deduce what his little brother had been up to; it was written in all the lines on Greg's face, and he couldn't help but release a reluctant sigh of defeat.
"I take it that my esteemed sibling has seen fit to inform you about my – our – condition," he stated flatly, as he struggled to assess which nonverbal behaviour was expected under such circumstances.
The familiar brush of fingers over his shoulder mercifully disrupted the flailing of his mental processes. "Mycroft," his partner murmured softly, and he willed himself to meet his gaze.
"Is this the part where I'm supposed to apologise for purposely omitting the truth?"
"No. It's the part where I tell you that I care for you, no matter what."
He suddenly relaxed into the touch. Greg understood, and he wouldn't need to fear the effects of the disparity in emotional language anymore.
"I can master Serbian in a couple of hours, but I will never be able to fully understand the whole spectrum of human emotions. Isn't it ironic?"
"At least you don't shoot at the walls when you're bored."
"I leave that to Sherlock," he conceded, and they both smiled.