Sherlock's earliest memory is of being held, a smooth cool hand stroking his hair as he suckles. The rocking chair creaks as they sway back and forth, the white voile curtains of the nursery flutter in the early summer breeze, and the scent of beeswax from the polished floorboards surrounds him; but nothing comforts him as much as this, this warm safe embrace, having arms encircling him as he is firmly latched onto the breast. His suckling is insistent but languid - he knows he can take his time. He snuffles and sighs. This is surely what it means to be loved, he thinks. "Time to switch sides now, Lockie," his sister croons softly. He releases her nipple with a small slurp and relaxes in her embrace as she bares her other breast for him.


He doesn't remember the first time he tasted Mycroft's milk. He only knows that he always wanted as much of it as he was allowed. When he was four, and her milk had come in properly, he once climbed into her lap at a garden party and whispered in her ear to ask for it; Mycroft had melted and made some excuse to her parents, who were only glad she was taking Sherlock off their hands, and had marched off with him to the nursery.

Sherlock clung to her as she eased into their usual chair and cooed happily as she bared both her breasts at once. "Which one do you want first, Lockie my love?" Mycroft had asked, and he had answered her by curling up against her and wrapping his little mouth around her right nipple. He suckled her gently, his eyes sliding closed as he grew drowsy, lulled by her soft body and the motion of the chair and the warmth. The milk is thick and creamy and he adores it, adores Mycroft for letting him have it, loves the knowledge that it is there for him when he wants it and that his sister will cuddle him and pet him just like she's doing now. "Good boy, Lockie... that's my sweet little Sherlock, drinking up his milk. Tastes good, hmm?" Sherlock blinked up at her and nodded, latching on to every word of praise just as firmly as he was latched to her body. Mycroft smiled and kissed his forehead, listening to the wet, tiny noises of his suckling, each small swallow as he fed on her milk. "Love you, Lockie."

"Love you too," he mumbled sweetly as he finally released the first breast. "Can I have the other one, Mummy?"

Mycroft inhaled a quiet gasp. "Lockie, you know I'm not your mother," she reminded him gently. "I'm your sister."

"I know," he muttered, frowning, "but our real Mummy doesn't cuddle me or give me milk or read me stories. You do that. I want you to be my Mummy."

Sherlock didn't understand the expression on Mycroft's face, but he understood the soft kiss to his cheek and the gentle hands that guided him to her left breast. "Alright, Sherlock, I'll be your Mummy," she promised in a whisper, "but it has to be our secret. You can only call me Mummy when we're alone, okay?"

He nodded, his little fingers flexing on the hem of her blouse as he began to drink from her again.


By the time he was six, Sherlock had come to associate Mycroft with warmth, love, and the delicious milk she allowed him to suckle from her. His real mother he associated with genteel neglect, indifference, and the faint smell of gin. Neither of them minded that it was always Mycroft he went to first when he got home from school; he'd bundle into her bedroom, fizzing with energy and wanting to tell her all about his day and the fascinating experiments he'd done with a dead frog he'd found by the pond, and Mycroft would smile and hold him in her lap, listening and making the appropriate noises, until he'd talked himself out of breath. He'd sigh, lay his head on the pillow of her breasts and snuggle into her, holding her tight. "I missed you, Mummy," he'd whisper, gazing up at her and hoping to hear those magic words back; "Mummy missed you too, my darling Lockie."


When Sherlock is eight, he begins to notice changes in Mycroft during their nursing sessions. Her milk is just as sweet and plentiful as ever, and his hunger for it remains undiminished, but she seems to react differently to his mouth on her. He catalogues her reactions to different stimuli carefully; he suckles more noisily than usual and her breathing comes just a little faster, he whines that her milk tastes so good and watches her pupils dilate. When he cuddles up in her lap after he has finished nursing, and whispers sweetly "I love your milk, Mummy," Mycroft lets out a soft moan and kisses his forehead. Sherlock doesn't know what this means, but he loves his Mummy, and as long as she will let him suckle her breasts he is happy.


"I don't remember a time before we had this," Sherlock murmurs one day as he is taking a short break from nursing. Ten years old, he has emptied one of his sister's breasts and is waiting for the tightness in his belly to lessen before he drinks from the other. He always wants all of her milk, and today is no exception.

"Really?" Mycroft replies, stroking his curls. "I suppose you were very young when we started. You were just a year old and I let you suckle me because Mother said she was going to stop, even though you weren't ready to give up the breast. I didn't want you to be without something you still needed."

Sherlock beamed at her. "I've got you," he sighed, "I'll always have what I need. You won't make me stop, will you Mycie?" He has all but grown out of his habit of calling her Mummy, now, although sometimes if he's feeling vulnerable he likes to use it.

"No, Lockie, I won't make you stop, not ever" Mycroft promises, her heart breaking a little that he still needs the reassurance. "My milk is yours as long as you want it. Open up now, there's a good boy." Sherlock obediently latches on and begins to suck, humming in appreciation at the taste of her.


The first time Mycroft goes clubbing, Sherlock can't settle. Jealousy seethes in his stomach, sharp and oily and ugly; it claws at him, forces him to imagine his sister with stange hands and lips all over her, soiling her, touching what is his. When she comes home he can smell the club on her and he refuses to look at her, preferring to sulk in the library, but she wipes off her makeup and kicks off her heels and pads silently over the plush carpet to slide into the armchair opposite his. Sherlock very pointedly does not watch as she unbuttons her blouse and tugs it aside, revealing the nursing bra she has worn all day. His attention is attracted when she unhooks the cup and exposes her nipple, and he sees a pearly drop of milk forming on her. He looks up at her uncertainly.

"Did you really think I'd let anyone else have my milk?" she chides him softly. "You know it belongs to you."

He is on her in seconds, whimpering in her lap as he suckles desperately.


Soon enough he realises that he, too, is reacting differently when he suckles. A fizz of anticipation starts low in his belly as Mycroft leads him to their safe places, his spine tingles as she unbuttons her blouse (always a blouse, always such a primly dressed young lady) and he starts to want to touch and kiss her nipples and breasts in a way he didn't before. It takes him a while to work out what he is feeling; when he does, he instantly resolves to ignore it. Surely Mycroft would be disgusted that he feels this way. He grows bolder, lapping gently at her breasts with his tongue before latching on, gingerly reaching out for the other before he has finished with the first and squeezing rhythmically, feeling the shape and pliancy and weight of her. He is too turned on to notice the almost imperceptible shift as she parts her legs just a fraction.

Alone in his bed at night he fists his cock desperately, groaning and biting the pillow as he imagines sinking into his sister's warm, welcoming heat. It's all he can ever think of when he is aroused; Mycroft, her lovely face, her trim figure, her ripe milky breasts, the curve of her hips.

Her hand on his erection, even through his boxers, is nearly enough to make him come on the spot.


The first time he takes her, he is overwhelmed. The welcome, the promise of love, her warmth... he is still slightly drunk on her milk and he thrusts with abandon, lacking all finesse, needing in that moment to fill her, to fall apart in her arms and trust her to catch him. She does not disappoint him.


Sherlock never thinks about the time she left for London. He can't. He won't. It is too painful. He never knows that Mycroft had wanted him to go with her, had been preparing to take him away; his world had crumbled, and he sought swift and sweet oblivion. He refuses to think about the way she found him in rehab. They both know they can never be apart again, and it shocks both of them to think that they had only been separated eight weeks by the time Sherlock was forced into rehab.


When Mycroft pushes his son into the world, Sherlock thinks his heart might burst with love for them both. In the weeks following, he attends to her every need, doing everything for her, getting up in the night to change and feed the baby. Mycroft rewards him the only way she knows how, with milk. They are both stupidly happy with his arrangement.

When Leopold is six months old, Sherlock whisks them off back to Switzerland; nobody knows them here, even in Geneva they can walk the streets with their son, holding hands and kissing as they please. They rent a small chateau by a lake and are immensely pleased with the housekeeper; Frau Hudson had married an Englishman long ago, but after being widowed had returned to her homeland, retaining only the knowledge of the ruthlessly efficient running of a proper British household and a small bone china teapot. Leopold takes to her instantly and is happy to be bounced on her knee and fussed over.

On the fourth night of their holiday, when Mycroft has finished feeding their son and he is dozing against her chest, Sherlock crawls onto the bed and takes them both in his arms. "I love you, Mycroft," he whispers huskily, his voice laced with promise. "I love what we have."

"As do I, my darling," she returns tenderly, rewarding him with an open, genuine smile.

"We could do this. Stay here, I mean. You could work from Geneva, I can work anywhere. Leo could grow up speaking French, German and Italian as well as English. Nobody knows us here, we could..." He pauses nervously as he fishes in his pocket. "We could get married," he finishes, producing an antique Victorian gold and diamond ring, his voice betraying his anxiety.

Mycroft gasps softly. "Oh, Lockie," she croons, twisting to kiss him full on the mouth. "Yes."