When Mycroft arrived at Mummy's Sherlock and John were waiting for him, they were not sitting on the sterile couch but standing at their full height, hands clasped together between them as if claiming one another, their bodies angled towards one another, always in sight.
They reminded him suddenly of when they were three years old and they had stood together like that, hand in hand, with him.
Mycroft had debated reprimanding them for experimenting without his consent, approaching them as he would a misbehaving foreign leader, silent and giving away nothing but a sense of absolute power until he had taken in every detail and every deduction.
When he arrived, when he walked into the living room and found his boys holding hands and looking up at him with twin expressions of stalwart acceptance for their actions, and they were not as his mind had supplied, crying or hurt or upset or worst of all, betrayed; a relief so profound filled him that Mycroft found himself across the room and dropping to his knees to pull them desperately into his arms.
Two shocked bodies held themselves rigid in his embrace.
John waited what he obviously thought was a polite span of time and wrapped his free arm around Mycroft, little blond head resting itself on his shoulder.
"Shh, it's okay." John promised him softly.
Mycroft could feel John tugging on Sherlocks hand, the pull of motion in his own chest.
Sherlock quickly put an arm around him too, his hand only reaching as far as his side, no less heartfelt for having been given the instruction. Sherlock's fingers dug into his clothing.
"Are you upset because of us?" His voice was small and it was the strange meekness in the words which betrayed the first signs of distress he had witnessed in them.
Mycroft willed himself to pull away and stayed on his knees, looking at both of his boys in turn. Gold and raven and deep brown and ice blue and absolutely perfect.
Not hurt. Not frightened.
Not yet hating him.
Loving him.
"Are both of you alright?" Both of them nodded, looking contrite and a little confused, Sherlock clearly the more upset of the two for all his placidity. Mycroft took a fortifying breath and clambered to his feet.
"Then I will be fine too."
Mummy was watching from the doorway, had probably been standing there since she texted him the second time, watching them but not wanting to overstep, too afraid to go forward. He desperately did not want an audience for this, whatever this was, but he could hardly send her away.
Mycroft nodded to the couch and she joined him, so obviously thankful not to be sent away that it made him repress a wince. Had being caregiver to these boys made him so awful as a son? He thought of all of the times Sherlock and John had taken priority over her, of all the times he had told her after the fact that something had happened with them, and knew that of course it was true.
His priorities had changed.
He made a mental note to get the boys to draw her something they could post in the mail together. She would like that.
And it was the most he could, the most he would, offer her. A grandmother, but not…a mother.
As they sat in silence letting the boys contemplate what they had discovered and the consequences of their actions, Sherlock did something which he was far too disciplined for.
He fidgeted.
He was not even aware that he was doing it.
Sherlock was nervous.
John, so perfectly in tune with Sherlock that they might actually be one person split between two bodies, squeezed his hand in silent reassurance. Sherlock glanced over at his partner but it was not enough to sooth him. The edge of desperation in his eyes was almost manic.
Sherlock held on tighter, not simply holding Johns hand but lacing their fingers together and holding on until his knuckles turned white. With his other hand he pulled the chain at his neck and he twirled the ring in his fingers in a way he had not done publicly since they had first announced 'their marriage'.
When the silence stretched out and began to reverberate against their eardrums in a silent crescendo Mycroft schooled his voice carefully, betraying nothing of his own thoughts.
He ignored the way his heart was pounding so hard that the sound thundered in his ears as if it were filling the room, he crushed the tight feeling in his chest and pushed it down, willed his somatic processes to slow, to obey.
He had no idea what his boys were thinking. He was terrified.
"Tell me what is going on."
Again out of character it was John who spoke for them, Sherlock watching the proceedings with wide blue eyes which were unexpectedly…vulnerable.
"We did an experiment. We know that it broke a lab rule and that if you knew you would not let us do it, but it was important. We had to." John stepped forward as he spoke, reaching out as if he could make him understand by sheer force of will, little fingers hanging in the air, reaching for nothing. There was a solemnity in his eyes as he implored his caretakers to not only understand, but believe. There was desperation there. "I would never do anything that would hurt him."
"And what was the rule that you broke?" There was no hint of understanding , not even the slant of inflection in his voice. He was impartial, unjudging until the end. He was cold.
"Never experiment on yourself." John blanched slightly. "It is a new rule, we got it after-"
"Yes. I understand." Mycroft stopped the words from coming, Sherlock looked at him gratefully. "Please continue."
"But it had to be on us, we needed just a little bit of DNA, we had to prove to everyone that our genetics-"
Mycroft's entire perception of reality twitched like a faulty computer. The world spun nastily. Beside him Mummy covered her mouth and her eyebrows rose into her hairline.
He held up a hand to stop him.
Mycroft needed… a moment.
He was not ready.
Four years and he was not ready. He would never be ready.
Right now. In this moment. Somewhere between dropping to his knees in a pool of blood, and cookies flying through the air, and a million tiny battles of vegetables and bedtimes, he had become more than the failure of a brother.
He had become almost…a father.
And lost in a thousand hugs, and kisses, and countless lingering moments spent curled up together in half wakefulness and mumbled words they had come to love him as if he were a father to them.
They loved him. They trusted him to keep them safe and happy.
They trusted him not to lie to them.
But he was not their father. They were never really his at all.
And now they knew. They knew.
Or they would.
And from there it was only a step, the smallest nudge from Mycroft having no claim to them, and the fact that they would never belong to him…
To understanding that they were not siblings, they were brothers in bond perhaps but not in blood. And he had let them live their entire lives believing that they had that innate claim on one another and now that seemingly solid foundation was being swept out from under them.
Mycroft had made himself contemplate this moment, how it would happen, how they would react. He forced himself to consider telling them every moment that they demonstrated that they were too brilliant to be kept in the dark.
He reweighed the consequences of hiding the truth every time he witnessed another instances of intense, heart rendering dependence on one another.
And each time he had stopped himself with the certainty of knowing someone for more than three decades that Sherlock would break down. That to take John from him, even in claim, would cause him and his entire glass world to fracture. That the wild depression that had plagued his last life in fits and lingered so close to the surface even now, would steal him away from them.
Sherlock shared that trait with him, out of all the brotherly peculiarities to bind them together.
The need to have love as a written thing. A promise of forever.
It would be funny if it were not so intensely painful.
The need they both have for what they love to be bound to them in a way that so irrevocably that no one in the world could take it away. A claim so intense, so jealous, that words and promises were not enough.
Like bugging your little brothers flat every few days and kidnapping his flat mates.
Like scaring away anyone that gets too close to your only friend, a parade of women who seem to blend together in the end.
John was looking at him like he had lost his mind, half wondering and half riled, ready to defend what they had done and utterly unafraid.
And Sherlock…Sherlock was holding onto John so tight that he might never let go.
Sherlock was not pouting, not collapsed in a heap on the floor. His eyes were not that of a person sinking into their own mind.
But Sherlock was nervous, twirling his ring desperately around his finger in complete silence.
Oh, god.
He was an idiot.
Mycroft Holmes, was an idiot.
Sherlock was trading one certainty for another.
John sucked his bottom lip and bit into it. The seconds had ticked by and the moment Mycroft's hand fell away John was released in an unstoppable torrent of words tumbling over one another in their rush to exist.
"Everyone always assumes that we are brothers but we aren't! And if everyone thinks we are related then we can never get married because you can't marry your brother, because that's gross. We had to prove that we are not closer genetically than first cousins and we aren't, not at all!" John finished desperately, looking between them for support.
They knew. Of course they knew.
They were getting married.
When he got twin looks of what Mycroft would generously in the future refer to as 'stupefaction' from the adults he trusted to be competent, he continued with a slightly more desperate air.
"We know now that we can't legally get married at nine like we planned but if a guardian signs off then we could get married at 16 and that is ages from now so we know that by then you can make sure that you fix the government so that boys can get married to each other."
Mycroft closed his eyes and wondered what it would feel like to have 'normal' children.
And then the thought cracked through his mind and left him mentally gasping.
Not his children.
"So the tests showed that you are completely unrelated?"
"Yes." John answered resolutely, happy that someone else was speaking again.
"And you have known this without the DNA evidence for how long?"
John made a face. "Um…forever?" He looked at Sherlock who shrugged and nodded. "Forever." He said again, assured.
Mycroft could not stop himself, or rather, wouldn't. It needed to be asked.
"And this was the first question you posed as opposed to say…how the two of you came to be with me?"
From his silence Sherlock smiled.
"We have theories."
John turned to Sherlock and was lost momentarily into the profound understanding between them. This was a conversation they had had a thousand times.
John laughed as soon as their eyes met. "Sherlock's favorite involves test tubes and government plots."
Sherlock rolled his eyes and seemed to unconsciously step closer to the other boy, pressing their sides together as he spoke to Mycroft. His rigid posture relaxing slightly into John and the distraction of talking.
"I have two dozen working theories at the moment. Without testing I would say that there are close genetic ties between Aunty Harry and John and you and I." He squinted slightly at Mummy. "-and Grand-mere."
Sherlock sighed exasperatedly and nudged his shoulder into Johns. "Johns favorite theory involves aliens."
John grinned, at both the comment and the playful shove, he bumped gently back.
"Like Timelords." He added helpfully.
They knew and they did not care at all.
They still-
Mycroft looked back and forth between the two boys, holding hands and completely lost in one another.
The same two boys who had kissed him hello this morning. The same two boys who would kiss him goodnight tonight.
They still loved him.
It would be foolish to try salvage his perception of reality today Mycroft decided. Rarely had things ever gone so profoundly Not According To Plan.
Sherlock was smiling at John, both them thinking of the same shared joke. When Sherlock turned back to him the laughter that had so briefly filled him ebbed away and something desperate fell into place behind sharp blue eyes.
"You can't tell us the answer. You would ruin the whole mystery." Sherlock was smiling as he spoke but it was for show. Deliberately placed to look sweet and light but not enough to fool anyone who was actually looking. John, standing against his side and holding his hand was too close to see it.
They fell into silence and it was obvious again that this was not a casual chat; they were prisoners waiting for the final verdict to come in. They had broken a rule.
John managed to look simultaneously bashful and begrudging steadfast about his decision to break the rules. Sherlock looked only at his ring, fingers far too small against the golden band.
Mycroft wanted nothing more than to pull them into his arms and make them swear not to ever grow up. To kiss them and tell them that they were the best thing that had ever happened to him and that he would never regret a single second of their lives together.
But this was the first time they had broken a dangerous rule. House rules were one thing, tiny explosions, controlled fires, 'borrowing' supplies, that was normal, to be expected, punished with a look, with chores.
But there were rules that should never be broken. They knew the difference. They knew what they were doing was wrong but there was no way they could see the consequences.
For other boys breaking big rules could mean they break a leg, a poor mark in school, a ride home with the police.
For Sherlock and John big rules could mean setting off a cascade of memories, a half remembered experiment that ends in an explosion, it could mean kidnapping, exposure. The wrong rule broken could mean their deaths.
Mycroft wished he had his umbrella. He felt sick. "You were wrong to have gone behind our backs and betray our trust in you." The words in his mouth were thick and bitter as ash. Just because they were alive and safe and somehow, remarkably, still happy; did not mean that they would survive the next transgression.
This was something like betrayal. Punishing them for finding out what they should have been told all along.
"The rules we create are not for our own benefit or to punish you, they are to protect you and keep you safe. By undermining them you are implying that we are just as meaningless to you." John looked stricken. Tears were welling in his eyes and he was looking between Mummy and himself as if he were expecting them to leave him. Mycroft felt like –was- a monster.
"If you had come to us we would have found a suitable compromise but you did not. The rule you broke was your grand-meres so the punishment will be hers to give. However you broke my trust as well." Sherlock was ice, frozen in place. John, empathetic passionate John, was barley holding on.
"I am disappointed in you."
John was crying. He did not sob or mutter apologies as another child might. The tears ran silently down his face, pale and blotchy as it may be.
Sherlock was panicked. More troubled by John's pain than his own.
That was it, Mycroft thought. That was enough.
"I love you." The words were fast and easy and real and he had never thought they would be like that. They always sounded so cliché, so meaningless, better to leave them unspoken. He had thought actions were enough, feelings. Words could go unsaid as long as the underlying meaning was there. So he never said them.
But the words were not meaningless, as much as they were overused.
They were perfect.
And the tears running over John's cheeks stopped and two sets of eyes fixed on his face.
It was John who needed him so it was John whom he pulled into his lap and wiped away his tears with his fingertips. "I love you and nothing will ever change that." Sherlock was edging closer, reaching out a hand to touch John's trousers so Mycroft pulled him closer and held him tight against them both.
"And if you want to get married then I will be the first person to make that happen. I will gladly walk you both down the aisle myself. But you have to trust me. I only want what is best for you. I-worry."
"I'm sorry." John blinked the moisture away from his eyes and a final tear escaped from beneath clumped wet lashes. "I- I love you too. I'm sorry. We didn't mean to make you worry."
Sherlock opened his mouth and the words are there so clearly that Mycroft can see them. Silent in the air.
"I-I…am sorry." He mutters and they are not the words he was thinking but it took Mycroft fifty years to say it. It doesn't matter.
He knows.
Not the failure of a brother, not a biological parent…but something just as…vital.
He kisses them both. Because he wants to, and because they need it. John kisses his cheek in return, wet and leaving the trace of salt on his skin, and Sherlock stays very still, his blue eyes as incomprehensible as ice.
"Your experiments are done for today." Mycroft tells them. "John," Mycroft kisses him again, because he can. Little hands twist against his suit. "You will go with your grand-mere and help her clean up in the lab. I think some time apart will suffice as punishment for you both where I am concerned."
John lets himself fall out of Mycroft's lap and straight into Sherlock. They clutch each other and John buries his face Sherlock's clothing and hair. Sherlock is watching him over Johns shoulder, pale blue eyes startling in a seven year old face.
John pulls back reluctantly and Sherlock smiles at him and wipes at the tear streaks on his cheeks.
"I will see you tonight." Sherlock tells him and John turns to Mycroft with hope written all over his face.
"Tonight?"
Mycroft wonders how long John thought they would be separated for. Did he think he would be left here alone?
Of course he did.
"Tonight."
John beams. His smile, if Mycroft was prone to poetic waxing's, could persuade the sun to shine. He nods, dashes a kiss to Sherlock's cheek, and takes Mummy's hand and lets himself be led away without a backward glance.
If he had allowed himself to look back, Mycroft knows, his cheeks would have been red as his ears.
Sherlock is a much different boy than John. They share a life, two lifetimes, countless adventures, meals, and a bed. There are times when one could imagine that the accident that made them what they are linked them psychically, joined their minds so that they lingered in the back of each other's thoughts. It was hard at times to imagine that they were not actually speaking when their eyes locked across a crowded room and all of a sudden they were both laughing.
Sometimes Mycroft caught himself telling one child a story and assuming that they both would know it after.
But there is some part of Sherlock, some part of him that is deep and unchangeable that is the same little boy Mycroft had watched for the first time all those years ago.
Some part of Sherlock was still that little boy who believed he would always be alone.
"So you intend to marry him then?"
Sherlock nodded, once, succinctly. His engagement ring, the ring that had once belonged to Johns mother, rested against his chest. His open palm pressed against it gently and fell to his side, leaving it in plain view.
"He will not leave you, even if you don't marry him."
"Yes. I know."
"You love him."
Sherlock holds himself up to every inch of his seven year old height.
"Yes."
Mycroft felt the smile begin in his chest and spread upwards until it pulled at his cheeks and flitted into his eyes. He allowed the emotion.
He never thought he would see the day.
"It was John's idea to do the testing wasn't it? You wanted to let people think that he was your brother until you could make him your partner."
Sherlock's silence was answer enough. The fact that he had allowed and even participated in the experiment proof of something else entirely.
Mycroft could not believe he was doing this. It was absurd and absolutely inappropriate to encourage it two 7 year old boys.
But the little boy who believed he would always be alone was reaching out.
Sherlock Holmes had admitted to loving someone more than himself.
"You know, being engaged to someone is almost as binding as marriage once it has been celebrated…" Sherlock perked up at this new tidbit of information, his sharp eyes taking in Mycroft's smile, his laugh lined eyes. "We never threw you an engagement party did we?"
The sound of Sherlock's laughter high and jubilant pressed against Mycroft's chest in the impromptu embrace. The sound clear and resonating like the sound of bells as Mycroft swept the little boy off his feet and spun them in together in a circle.
Not entirely unlike brothers at all.
