Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A. N. I have a tradition of offering my dear readers ficlets for my own birthdays. This year it is particularly dedicated to notjustmom. I always loved her work, but now I discovered that we share the same birthday, so with her assent I claimed her as η αδελφή της καρδιάς μου (sister of my heart). The Greek bit comes from a habit we got in during hers and scrub56's wonderful joint fic John and Sherlock's Excellent Adventure, sorry about that.
This one is shorter than my usual birthday fics, because God knows that my brain is fried this July, but here it is. This story doubles as entry for the freshly born Sherlock Challenge, which took up the mantle of the too-soon dead Let's Write (and its cousin Let's Draw) Sherlock. The prompt this month was Domestic crimes. Enjoy! And if you feel inspired, participate too! (I don't have to say that reviews are the best birthdays gifts ever, do I? ;D)
Summer friends
(aka that time Mycroft was very, very wrong…)
Sherlock was a stupid, stupid kid, Mycroft thought grouchily. His little brother didn't just, at the ripe age of seven years old, still make silly mistakes during their deduction games, which made him regularly lose. He entirely missed the point of things, really.
Like just now – it was summer, and they were on holiday, which meant they should lie in. They woke up way too early for school for months. If one didn't store up on much needed rest now, when was he supposed to? True, Sherlock had always been a hyperactive child – if you asked his brother, he'd happily suggest to see if the doctors could do anything for him in this department - but at least, for everyone's sanity, he'd learned not to bother Mycroft until the elder one got up on his own.
Not this morning, though. His little brother was shaking him, and whimpering something in a grating high-pitched voice decidedly too close to Mycroft's ear. Finally, the teenager's sluggish brain decided to convert the annoying noise into actual words he could understand.
"Redbeard has been dognapped!" Sherlock was wailing.
"Kidnapped, Lockie, dognapped is not a word. You don't just stick the word for whomever has been abducted as prefix," were the elder brother's first words that morning, finally agreeing to open his eyes. If he was stern, well, his baby brother deserved that.
The child blushed at the reprimand and pouted. "Never mind that, you have to help me save him, My!" he urged, tugging on his brother's arm.
"This is not you playing pretend that he's the Red Corsair, you're the Black, and we need to save him from Maracaibo's governor, is it?" Mycroft growled, refusing to move. An Italian born colleague-turned-friend of his mother had given Sherlock his first book by Emilio Salgari. The boy had liked pirates even before, but he'd definitely fallen in love with the man's plots, and playacted them only too often. At least to the teenager's taste.
"Of course not! You'd be the evil governor if I wanted to. This is serious, Mycroft!" Sherlock whined again, tugging more insistently.
Finally, the teenager frowned and sat up in his bed. His little brother was seriously upset. Something had to be done, despite it being dawn as far as he was concerned. He sighed deeply, making very clear how put upon he felt. "Fine, show me the ransom note," he conceded.
The kid shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable. "There's no ransom note," he admitted, not looking his brother in the eyes.
"No note…" the elder Holmes boy echoed, not exactly yelling but decidedly more loudly than his usual composed tone. "What evidence do you have that Redbeard has been kidnapped, then?" he inquired, his voice going back to soft at the flash of alarm in his little brother's eyes. No matter how angry he was, he never wanted Sherlock to be scared of him.
"I looked everywhere for him, My. Everywhere! And he has vanished," his baby brother explained, bottom lip trembling dangerously. Oh God, he wasn't going to cry now, was it? Mycroft couldn't handle a crying Sherlock before his morning coffee. Where were his parents?
He sighed mentally. Silly question, really. Mummy was probably in her shed setting something or other aflame 'for science'…That had looked very cool to the teen too, years ago, until he'd got burned the first time trying to imitate her. His little brother, though, was stupid – or lacked any instinct of self-preservation, which really amounted to the same thing – and despite at least three accidents at his tender age, he had still not given up the odd attempt to 'experiment'.
As for Dad, if he had not been roped as lab assistant as he often was, he was most likely trying to whip up poetry, or picking flowers, or doing anything else to romance his wife once again. Mycroft barely repressed a moue of distaste. To his understanding, most people stopped being that ridiculous once they married. Dad would have fed and taken care of Sherlock once he woke, but his younger did not consider him reliable enough to solve a mysterious crime, and the teenager couldn't blame him. So of course handling this fell to him.
"Okay. We'll sort this out, Lockie," Mycroft promised, yawning widely. He didn't have his morning coffee yet, after all. "We just have to be logic. If there's no ransom note, what makes you think that Redbeard has been kidnapped? You'll have to admit, even if someone wanted anything from our family, there were better options as far as victims of abduction went." If someone had snatched the runt – admitting that he didn't let him go immediately after, impelled by the boy's sheer obxiousness – he would certainly have the entire Holmes family under their thumb. Not that he needed to spell it out for his little brother
. …Or maybe yes, considering the way Sherlock's face scrunched in puzzlement for a moment, before he shook away the riddle and went back to the heart of the matter. "Haven't you heard me out? He's not here, Mycroft!" he squawked.
The elder brother raised a single eyebrow, clearly communicating, "So what?" without words. He needed his brother to stop being overemotional and start thinking. It would stop him wailing. That would do wonders for the headache the teen could already feel starting.
The teenager clearly misjudged situations before being properly awake, because what should have soothed Sherlock seemed to distress him further. Sherlock's bottom lip once again stuck out, and his eyelashes fluttered, as if he was one flicker away from fully crying. Oh, no. No, no, no. "Redbeard wouldn't leave me!" the child argued heatedly.
"Of course not, Lockie," the teenager agreed hurriedly, with a placating gesture. His little brother didn't bond easily, too bright and without any filter to make friends. Being mostly shunned, the idea that even his beloved, faithful dog would rather run away than stay at his side would obviously destroy him. If he'd had his coffee Mycroft would have realized it at once. "But if there's no note…what about thieves?"
This time it was Sherlock's turn to look contemptuous. Well, it was a progress from sorrowful. "Thieves that take only a dog, however purebred, and do not make the least attempt to break in the house?" the kid sneered, imitating pretty well his elder brother's long perfected look of disdain.
"You may have a point, Lockie. Well, let me get changed and have a coffee and we'll start the investigation. I promise we'll save Redbeard. But as you've seen, my brain won't function properly before his first dose of caffeine," Mycroft conceded, sighing. There was no way he could persuade Sherlock to let him be and get back to sleep. Amending his statement, he added, "And you go get dressed too!" Dad might not mind if his youngest played in the garden in his pyjamas, but if they were to leave the premises to look for the lost dog Mycroft was adamant they wouldn't look in a way that made people call children's services.
"Fine," his baby brother agreed, not without a slight pout. "But just coffee, My, you can't eat anything!" he added, before running away to comply.
The teenager rolled his eyes. As if he would obey that ridiculous child. He would already need to rush through his breakfast, which he hated with a passion, because Sherlock would undoubtedly spend all the time at his side, whining and urging him to hurry. Anything could be happening to Redbeard at this exact moment. Honestly, if the stupid dog of his stupid brother was not in trouble, Mycroft would make sure that he would be – very soon.
After a ruined breakfast (as far as Mycroft was concerned), the elder Holmes brother had no choice but go outside and start the investigation. And exactly as he expected, no matter how sharply he examined the premises, or if the both of them shared an antique-looking magnifying glass that Sherlock had produced from God knows where, there were no signs of strangers to be found. It was undeniable, though, that the Irish Setter was not there, and not merely in hiding. (Not that Redbeard had ever refused to answer Sherlock's call, but one had to account for all possibilities.)
There was, though, a suspicious, dog-sized tunnel next to the fence of their back yard. Once again, Mycroft raised an eyebrow.
"They must have come from here!" Sherlock fact that he still believed evil humans to be involved was heartbreaking, really.
"And they did not crush a single blade of grass anywhere else in the garden? Besides, look at the earth. It's been dug from this side. By an overexcited dog, I'd say," the teenager pointed out.
"Redbeard ran away…from me…?" the kid asked, voice trembling. "No, Lockie. Yes, Redbeard left willingly. It does not mean that he did not run towards, rather than from something – much less someone. His breed is a hunting dog. The pet of an acquaintance of mine – another hunting breed – fled home to follow actual hunters who passed next to his home. Or Redbeard might have smelled something too tempting to ignore. He is an animal; he won't stop and ponder if you'll be upset later on," the elder brother explained kindly. 'Or if he'd create a huge inconvenience for me', he mentally concluded.
"He could have woken me. I would have followed him wherever he wanted to go. I'm all for exploring. Doesn't Redbeard know?" Sherlock replied, simply pouting now. Emergency averted.
"That dog has more common sense than you," Mycroft pointed out. "He knew that you need all the rest that you can get. You already wake way too early. True, your pet didn't show much impulse control, but it would be too much to ask from him when you have the very same flaw."
"Less lecturing, more moving, My! Redbeard might still be in trouble. Who knows what he's been involved into!" the kid urged, tugging again on his brother's arm and then falling to his knees, apparently meaning to crawl into the tunnel himself. And possibly expecting him to do the same, which implied that his sense of proportions was entirely skewed.
The teenager hauled his little brother up, briskly brushed off his trousers, and ordered, "Don't be rash, Lockie. You're not an animal, there's no need to act like one. We'll go out from the gate like proper people and double back here. It'll take us three minutes tops."
"Quick, then!" Sherlock yelled, already running away. Really, their dog was a smart creature, like everyone else in the house. He would not be in serious trouble…not any trouble Mycroft did not unleash on him for this misdemeanour, at least.
The teenager followed, at a more sedated pace, trying to pretend he was just…strolling. Alone. Nothing to lose his temper about. They quickly found Redbeard's footprints, and followed them. Mycroft repressed a sigh when – after a walk longer than he'd liked – the tracks led them right inside the local farm stay. Though to be fair, to him anything farther than their own garden was too far, and Sherlock seemed not to have even noticed the distance, having run all the way there. The last thing they needed was the dog causing a ruckus and pestering the vacationists.
And just in case their pet hadn't, his brother made sure to do so, running in the courtyard after ducking under the barrier on the access road and screaming for his lost pet. The teen steeled himself to issue apologies on everyone else's behalf. A way too common occurrence in his life.
At least it seemed as if Redbeard had heeded his master's call, and when he had properly been admitted – after explaining his situation – he found the dog by Sherlock's side, wagging his tail madly and looking up at him with a smug look that Mycroft longed to erase.
Next to his little brother's was a slightly older, blond kid, and the elder Holmes tensed up. Social interaction for Sherlock tended to devolve into altercations very quickly. Mycroft picked up speed.
For the first time in his life, it was needless worrying. Sherlock had a possessive hand on Redbeard's neck, petting his shoulder, but the other child was smiling and petting the dog's head. "Your dog is wonderful," the blond said. His little brother smiled dopily at the praise.
"And your name would be?" Mycroft asked, with his best icy impression. It didn't seem to scare the younger boy, if body language was anything to go by.
It was Sherlock who replied, "He's John. Redbeard ran away because he really really wanted to be friends with his sister's doggie." He was still smiling.
"Really?" the teen sneered. 'Friends'? Ghastly. "And your sister's pooch wouldn't happen to be a bitch, by chance?"
Both children blushed at the rude, if technically exact, word. "Mikey!" his little brother scolded him sternly. The world just capsized. Sherlock was lecturing him on politeness.
"Apologies," the teenager muttered. "But the question stands – is your sister's pet a she-dog?"
"Yeah, so?" John admitted, glaring up at him
. "Then I think Redbeard wanted to be something more than friends," Mycroft declared, looking at the unaware dog with despise
. "And even if he did? What does it matter? He's two years old, Mycroft. In dog years, that's your age. If he has a crush, he's less weird than you," his little brother growled. John snickered. Something had to be done. The situation was out of control.
"I was wondering if it was wise for him to have pups, little brother," the teen hissed. " Children are certainly not something I would look forward to, now – despite all the training I got. What breed is Redbeard's sweetheart, anyway?"
"Mixed. Very mixed. I don't think there's a breed Ginger doesn't have a smudge of – well, maybe chihuaha…" John declared, shrugging. Instead of looking embarrassed for essentially owning a mongrel, he seemed almost proud of it. It wasn't even his pet – it was his sister's, so he had no reason to defend it. Did the boy have no knowledge of the class system?
Mycroft would have tried making him cower with a glare (he had a feeling it would be hard to do, though), if Sherlock hadn't piped in, "You're lucky! They tried to force me to give Redbeard a long, awful, embarrassing name just because he has a pedigree!"
"Nonsense! Redbeard is an awesome name – and very fitting," the blond kid replied, grinning.
His little brother beamed back, blushing a bit. He was difficult enough to handle on his own. With both of them, and not an ounce of sound judgement between the two, the elder Holmes could already feel a headache forming. "Well, you got your dog, Lockie, let's get back home," he prompted, tone unnecessarily sharp.
"But…" echoed in unison from two childish mouths.
A stout, blond, middle-aged woman was arriving with long strides. It was a mixed blessing. True, Mycroft was usually everyone's golden child. Adults usually saw eye-to-eye with him, and when they did not, they ordinarily could be easily manipulated. Still, any grown up automatically outranked him, never mind if they did not see a quarter of what the boy could and hence would be making at best uninformed decisions. And this woman, he didn't know.
"Here you are Johnny!" she said, shaking her head in exasperated fondness. "How many times did I tell you not to just slip away without telling anyone where you are going? And who are your new friends?"
The term friends was rather premature, in Mycroft's opinion, but he didn't correct her. There was no need to antagonise her.
"Hello Mum, sorry, I didn't mean to. This is Sherlock, Ginger's new friend is his, and…" John trailed off.
"Mycroft Holmes. I'm sorry our pet caused such bother. I hope you'll forgive us. We'll make sure he won't be able to escape anymore. We were just going," the teen smoothly concluded.
His perfect behaviour was underhandedly mined by both brats, who turned full power puppy eyes on the matron. The woman was clearly not strict enough with her own son, and Mycroft knew all too well how hard to deny Sherlock could be when he played the "I'm a small, vulnerable child" card.
"It wasn't a bother, it's not like this beauty hurt anyone," she assured, waving away his apologies. He was starting to think that with how much this family liked Redbeard they'd have tried quietly stealing him if Sherlock hadn't charged in. "And do you really have to go? The boys seem to get along. I mean, of course, if your parents are waiting for you…but I was just calling Johnny to come with the rest to the family on the visit to the beehives we'd booked. I'm sure there won't be problems if two more kids tag along."
That was it. He wouldn't get back to his bedroom and his lovely books anytime soon. While other kids developed a passion about sports and/or dinosaurs, his little brother became keen on bugs – they were easier to find and experiment on, after all – and social creatures like bees had always fascinated him more than other species, despite the dangers of such a study. Sherlock would have never forgiven him if he dragged the boy home now. They had technically been invited by an adult, who would be taking responsibility for the whole thing, after all.
Before he could open his mouth to agree graciously, John's mum added, "If we're lucky we might even get to taste a bit of raw honey." And then, she winked at them.
Oh well. There was at least one thing to look forward to in all this awful matter. "We'd be delighted to join you…if you are really sure that we won't inconvenience you," he replied – and this time he really meant it.
"Non sense! Come along boys, Harry's anxious to go," the woman declared, smiling.
"Your dad?" Sherlock whispered to his new friend.
"My sister," the boy explained, laughing. "Harriet."
Mycroft barely refrained from pointing out that, while Sherlock could be forgiven for mistaking the gender, it was blatantly obvious that 'Harry' was a sibling or cousin. Adult relatives are rarely mentioned simply by name. Especially one's father. Stupid little brother. Though, name calling in the presence of strangers would be frowned upon. He'd have to point that out to his brother later.
The visit to the beehives with the Watsons (as the tourists were apparently called) was…pleasant, even the teen had to admit. Sherlock and his new friend chatted all the time, which meant he was free to simply observe, Harry ignored him, tugging her twin along sometimes but not reacting badly to the unexpected guests, and the parents were polite and smiled with equanimity to everyone. (And yes, there was raw honey tasting, and no, that wasn't the only reason Mycroft deemed the outing a success.)
The teenager barely managed to bring his brother (and Redbeard, obviously) home for lunch. Their parents would worry if they missed it, after all. Sherlock invited everyone to their home in the afternoon to play, and Mycroft could only nod. He could hide in his room to read…errr…study if need be, and their dad at the very least would love to know this family, no doubt. They didn't despise his younger heir on sight. It made them special.
When the afternoon arrived, Mycroft was ready to ignore the guests – Sherlock seemed not to need his assistance to play evil overlord, thank God – and recuperate some rest, when he overheard John offer, "We'll have to go back home in a week, but in a month it's my birthday. Will you come to my party?"
His little brother agreed eagerly before even asking where the Watsons lived, or wondering about the logistics. From the father's accent, Mycroft suspected somewhere in Scotland. Oh well. Summer friendships never lasted. John Watson would be gone and forgotten in ten days at most.
P.S. It seems to end on a sour note, but check the subtitle. These are Mycroft's famous last words. JIt is my firm belief that in this particular AU the boys never lose contact and are friends forever and ever…before deciding to be much more than that.