Nothing in the Holmes household was ever direct. A sentence was never a statement, but the first part of a structure. Each discussion was a dialectic, with remarks building upon each other until the induction was complete, the idea solid, founded in facts subtly accumulated through observation and conversation. The inception was not for the pursuer of conversation alone; as one Holmes spoke, the other had already reached the conclusion and the metaphor was as firmly planted in one's mind as the other. A synthesis of sorts, but one that bred poisonous fruit in stony soil. It was an insidious process, sowing bitterness and discord— by the age of five, Sherlock and Mycroft understood that their relationship with their father was one of divergence. Cassius Holmes admittedly had a magnetic personality, but his sons were equipped with steely minds; their polarities were unaligned and he drove them from his side.
Their father was dynamic creature, as powerful and as single-minded as a locomotive, charging down the tracks of what was logical and illogical with a passion that bordered on the compulsive. He imposed upon others. He flattened them, dark eyes and compact limbs churning through the air, all his machinery spinning and spitting sparks. Every tense, low, driven interaction was a matter of surviving the blows of his words and observations, stated so cuttingly and without tact (though certainly with guile) that one could feel oneself snapping and being sliced apart under their weight. The family Holmes would converge in the grand hall of a dining room every night, four people lost in the space between each other and the magnitude of their surroundings, pushed apart by a natural repulsion. Tight shoes, stiff, constricting collars, and three of the four further burdened by exhortations to eat, to listen, to talk, to show that they were someone worth being heard. To prove that they belonged at the table, that there was reason for their being there. Mummy had subsided into quiet consolation and restraint many years before Sherlock was born and Mycroft had slowly become self-contained. In his father's presence, he was stiff and formal, machinations and mathematical equations creating a fortress about his mind. He refused to be wretched and seek refuge in Hamletian maundering and other impractical nonsense. He suggested Sherlock do so as well, but his brother had long seen life as something he was not born to enjoy. The younger boy could not focus, he could not take refuge in anything, and the weight of his father's presence, Mycroft feared, would crush his brother.
This was not to say that they were close; Mycroft had too much of Cassius's detachment, Sherlock, too much of his fervor. They were home-schooled together, forced to tutor each other— their mother's attempt to foster affection in cold heart of her family. They butted heads, as both recognized in each other an exasperating level of genius attached to an insufferable personality. Mycroft blocked Sherlock, he said, held him back; his insistence on growth, change— on people— was wrong, unhelpful. Instead, he threw himself into scientific experiment with the zeal of the romantic in love, each day becoming a pursuit, a chase. It was a curse, Mycroft decided. Sherlock could accomplish so much more if he understood the usefulness of others. But of course he could not; he needed logic, abstracts, theories, facts. His brother knew he was brilliant— a complete imbecile could see, lurking beneath the false placidity, the energy and alertness in his eyes— but there was a feeling of compression there, as if that all-consuming hunger was being forced to turn upon itself.
Mycroft's rebellion of course started earlier, was subtler. By imitating his father's manipulations but pursuing none of his ambitions, he made a satire of the old man. Every gain was another proof of his triumph, a mocking, twisted caricature of his father's successes. Sherlock, however, at sixteen still grasped and scrabbled at the world, trying to relieve the pressure that built upon him and within him, the drive to continue to be and be worthy. He was enough of a solipsist to want nothing to do with "ordinary" people his father scorned, but he did not wish to be a Holmes. As he saw Mycroft grow and ascend, it was as if he was being left tied to the train tracks, unable to join the people on the platform or accept his death beneath the wheels. Always mutinous, always despairing, always furious.
On the day of Mycroft's departure to university, his father described, through his usual convolutions, the nature of power. It began as a conversation on the warmth of their hearth, on the downpour outside. You won't always have a roof over your head— as of now, he had declared. You are dependent upon yourself. Mycroft had acknowledged this and had smilingly said that he would lay his own foundations. He received barely a nod of acknowledgment before Cassius barreled onward. A house can be demolished, no, no, you don't want that. You'll have people pulling it down around your head! With this, he shot his youngest son a nasty look; Sherlock's own rebelliousness had only just begun. To be secure, you must have control. Self-control, most importantly. You must be able to protect yourself at all times, in any situation. Be self-sustaining whatever the weather.
Sherlock had snorted. You must be the master of your own umbrella, he sneered quietly, turning away from the fire to stare down at his own gangly shadow.
His father had pursed his lips. You can, of course, then control what people are willing to give you. The brothers knew he did not mean money; Cassius had often said that money was the poor man's substitute for trust. You can, he continued, throwing a mocking smile to Sherlock, hold the handle of ton parapluie and determine how much cover to give others, the radius of your influence. Mycroft nodded and they fell silent. They had already pieced together his metaphor: in this way one decided how much pain and error was deflected from others, how much protection they were given, and what sort of people would receive the benefits of one's company.
Later, as they went to bed, Sherlock passed his brother on the stairs, stormy expression and slowing gait warnings of an oncoming confrontation. It seems less as if you hold that umbrella against bad weather, he had said, than against the sunshine. Mycroft said politely that he didn't know what his brother meant and the other boy had laughed. There's nothing out there! he said with another twist to his smile. That is what you hold your stupid umbrella up against, the deluge of nothingness that threatens to drown you. That's what you need protection against, brother. Collecting himself, he had moved up the stairs, calling back, Don't worry. Even if it washed you away, I'm sure your bloated ego would keep you afloat.
He had not replied then. Nor had he remarked on the present he had received in the post at Christmas: a beautifully wrought, sickeningly expensive umbrella, every detail a mockery. He refused to let Sherlock know the impression it had made. The way it had felt like the tip of the blasted thing had been shoved through his gut when he unwrapped it. The fact that there was no card.
He never let it out of his sight.