I do not own the characters from BBC Sherlock.
The summer of 1981 was the year that Mother took them to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mycroft was never fond of the cinema, far too many people to truly enjoy a film. And Billy played hell if he had to sit too long. One of the last films he had been to that he actually enjoyed was The Empire Strikes Back the year before. Billy hadn't gone to see that one, so it was all the more reason that he enjoyed that film infinitely more than A New Hope.
Father had taken him to see it. He had said they were within the cusp of history because they had witnessed the greatest films ever created in cinema.
On their way home, Mycroft caught himself humming the theme.
He may not enjoy certain films for their ludicrous plots or cheap characters, but he could appreciate the scores.
John Williams composed the most memorable of soundtracks in all of cinema history. A movie can be just a movie, but it takes a memorable score to make an impression upon people. Mycroft has witnessed scores imprint themselves into pop culture and become history. He remembers the one summer they went to the beach and Billy would not stop humming the theme from Jaws. Or how many times he'd been in the shower, and Mycroft had ripped the curtain back to the score of Psycho. Perhaps he had something to do a bit with brother's paranoia in later years.
Raiders certainly left an impression with his brother. The day they got back from the cinema, Billy fashioned his own whip with a branch taped to the body of the rubber snake Mum used to scare away birds. It was the most ingeniously improveised weapon of torutre he had ever seen denied by a four year old. Certainly, if Bily ever found himself incarcerated, the other prisoners would be dead within a week due to his endless creativity when it came to designing weapons.
Mycroft received several welts from the confounded toy and Mother lost her china vase. William got seven whacks with it before Mother snapped it in two and used her sewing scissors to cut the snake into pieces before throwing it all in the bin. It wouldn't be the last time she disposed of his homemade weapons.
The Tuesday after they saw the film, Mycroft would be starting school in Brighton, which meant his belongings were packed neatly two days before. He would be in Year Ten.
His last night at home was long. He hadn't gone downstairs much, and every half hour, Billy would nick something else from him and hide it. Father was at work, and his mother was busy in the kitchen. He looked at his watch.
3:30
Bloody hell.
He flopped down on his bed with his arms spread out and he stared at the ceiling, trying to discern a pattern from the lines in the wood beams The state of his room was much better than it had been the last week, with his clothes folding in piles across his comforter. It made his stomach twist to think about his belongings strewn about. His shirts, trousers, under shirts, shorts, ties, and socks were all packed neatly in their suitcase. All accounted for.
The sound of the radio downstairs with Mother's mindless stacking of dishes and the spoon hitting the pan made his head pound so he sat up and his eyes fell on the space where he had set the Walkman.
Space. Which meant it was gone.
Now, Mycroft did not lose things which meant that someone had taken it.
The only conclusion was Billy.
He didn't bother checking to see if it had fallen behind the desk. he knew it hadn't. He also knew this was going to happen when he had not gotten his own Walkman like he had so reasonably requested.
He stormed out the door.
Billy's room was down at the very end of the hall. As always, the door was open, so Mycroft could tell he wasn't in there.
The state of the room was enough to give Mycroft a stomachache. It looked as though the room had belched and strewn every object out of the closet and chest. Clothes were everywhere, drawings littering the floor, and books lying open. Toys scattered across the floor.
It would have been easy to just give it a glance, see that neither Billy nor the Walkman were in there, and leave. But being Mycroft was never easy. The thought of the mess in this room would haunt him all night and that was poor use of his time.
So he picked up the picture books scattered beneath the bed and placed them back on the shelf, using the sailboat book end to keep them from toppling to the side. He stacked the crayon drawings and put all the markers and crayons back in their boxes. And dumped all the clothes in the hamper.
For good measure, he made the bed and straightened the rug. And put all the toys back in their box. Except the bumble bee. That went at the head of the bed. It's colors had faded over the years, and the wings were yellow from Billy sucking on them while he slept. He'd had the bee since he was a baby, and when he was learning to talk, couldn't say the /m/, so he called it his "bubble bee".
There was nothing left on the floor but a small briefcase. A quick look and he found that it was fully packed. Clothes had been stuffed inside it, along with a toothbrush and a bag of dog biscuits. He shut the case.
Stupid.
"Mum!" he called, thumping down the stairs.
"Kitchen!"
His mother was at the stove. The rest of the room was empty. Table empty, no toys on the floor.
He realized he was grinding his teeth. He had been trying to stop that lately. (Bad for the enamel, the dentist said.)
"Where's Billy?"
"Did you hear me?"
He turned to look at her. She was the type of woman that seemed taller than she actually was. And her fury, which could come out at the sight of mud on her floors or Billy leaving his shoes lying in the middle of the hallway, made her even taller. It was a frightening sight to behold, yet one he could not look away from, much like a bonfire. And just as fierce as her anger was her passion for rules in the household.
Her arms were crossed, the flannel hanging over the crook of her elbow.
He raised an eyebrow. He didn't realize she had been talking. "What?"
"I said I'm making a special dinner tonight."
"Oh." He stepped closer to the oven.
She slapped him away with a flick of the flannel across his belly. "Ah, ah! It's a surprise."
He headed to the door that let out to the back garden. "Stew," he blurted over his shoulder.
She threw down the rag. "Please act surprised!"
He closed the kitchen door behind him. Back to business.
"Billy!" he yelled.
The swing was empty. The dog kennel too.
He stomped down the steps. "Where's the Stowaway!"
The brat! They had agreed. Mycroft would be the one to take it with him to school. Billy didn't even need it.
When the culprit did not reveal himself, he walked to the middle of the lawn and crossed his arms. "I'll tell Mum what you're planning!"
That did it. First, one leg dangled from the tree branch, then the other and the boy dropped to the grass below dressed, as always, in his pirate costume.
It had started last Halloween. Dad had found some of his old children's books in the attic and read some adventure story involving Redbeard the Bloody Baron, a fictional pirate. Billy loved the story so much that he had Father read it to him every night for two weeks. He changed Harold's name to Redbeard, in fact he had tried to change Mycroft's name to Blackfoot Jack, but Mum straightened that out of him quickly. And for Halloween and months after, he dressed as the pirate, Redbeard the Bloody Baron.
He had even drawn a mustache with marker beneath his nose. He lifted the eyepatch from his left eye. Mum had thrown away the old one because he wore it so much that he got an infection.
He sucked on his lower lip. "It's treasure."
Mycroft tapped his foot impatiently. "No it's not. It's expensive and we agreed that I get to take it. Return it."
Billy chewed on the inside of his cheek and stuffed his hand down the front of his shorts. He pulled out a piece of white paper and hopped over to Mycroft, hand outstretched for him to take it.
Mycroft snatched it from him and roughly unfolded it. It was the utility bill.
"No, no!" Billy grabbed it out of Mycroft's hand, like he had somehow been doing it wrong, and turned it over. Oh dear. Mummy would not be pleased. He had scrawled a crude treasure map on the blank side.
He shook his head and held it out for Billy. "I don't have time. And she will kill you."
"Theeen, you can't go." He smiled and rocked back and forth on his feet. He had lost his two front teeth a month before. At first he'd been excited- "Now I'm a real pirate!" - until he realized that without his teeth he could not pronounce certain words correctly and people couldn't understand him.
Mycroft snorted. "You think this would work?"
He stuck his lower lip out and shrugged. "Redbeard thought it was a good idea."
Mycroft crouched on one knee, down to his brother's level. How were they supposed to be siblings? Their hair was a bit similar, but his was more red and Billy's was blonde like Mum and Dad's, and it curled the instant he toweled it off after a bath. He was certain that if any stranger took a look at them, they would be mistaken for unrelated children. Especially with Mycroft's size.
But honestly, what four year old spent all his time playing pirate with a dog? Sneaking into his room to steal his belongings for a bit of sport?
"That's what happens when you listen to a dog's ideas. If you want your plans to work, you have to come up with them on your own." he folded up the map and leaned one elbow on his knee. He lowered his voice. he was sure Mum couldn't hear them, but better safe than sorry. "You know you can't run away."
Billy puckered his lips and spat on the grass, a habit he'd picked up when he had seen older boys in leather jackets doing it at the park. "'m not. I'm going with you."
Mycroft shook his head.
He stomped on the ground. His feet were dirty. He would have to wash them with the garden hose before he came in.
"I am!"
"What would you do? You can't read. Can't write. You can't take the dog with you."
"He's not big."
"He needs a kennel, and there's not room for one."
Billy's shoulders hunched up towards his ears. He was nervous. He did that around people he didn't know. Especially at church. He hid behind Mycroft so he wouldn't have to look at anyone.
His face was pink now, and he's angled his foot inward, very much like a child. "Will you miss him?"
Mycroft looked at the lazy thing, lounging beneath the tree. He shook his head.
He felt Billy's small fingers curled around his wrist. He was too big for them to go all the way around. When he had been a baby, he would squeeze Mycroft's finger. Mycroft didn't pull away. He hated when Billy was clingy, but he was hanging on to him now, just holding on to him.
His lower lip poked out "He don't want you to leave."
"Doesn't." He straightened up to his full height. "And I'm going anyway. So you better tell me where you put the Walkman."
"Why?"
He let out a deep huff. "Because I get to take it. That was the agreement."
"You don't have to go."
" Yes I do."
Billy's grip tightened. "No you don't."
He finally pried the fingers off his arm. "Don't argue, you're too slow."
He looked at his feet. His bare toes were clinging to the grass. "Won't you miss Redbeard?"
"Will."
The boy looked up. His nose was running. He wiped it on the hem of his shirt, smearing the black marker across his face.
Mycroft ducked his head and sighed. He reached out and squeezed his shoulder. He could see now that he needed comfort, so he offered the most comforting words he could manage.
"It's... not forever. I will be coming home winters and summers."
He shook his head. "Too long."
"It's school policy. The building closes during winters and summers so I have to."
"But can't you come home any before then?"
"I don't want to."
Billy actually took a step back. He slid the eyepatch from his face. "Why?"
Could he really not know? Mycroft took a seat on the swing, ignoring the way the ropes creaked, and looked at the small garden and the house.
Mother had only just retired from her position at the university that year, just in time for Mycroft to be heading off to a new school. He didn't mind, he didn't. At least she would be there for Billy. But Mycroft was done. He was ready to get started elsewhere.
He drew a circle in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. "I hate it here."
Billy crept closer to the swing. His face looked red. He was a pale child. He probably spent too long in the sun that afternoon.
"Everyone is exhausting." He looked at his brother. "I don't want to be stuck here, so I'm going to a school where I can focus on what's important."
"Oh. Okay." Billy crouched down and used his finger to poke two eyes and curve a frown inside the circle Mycroft had made. He looked up again and smiled, his tongue poking through the gap in his teeth, but he looked lost. Mycroft decided it would take far too long to explain so he let him be lost.
Sometimes he envied his brother. Billy didn't have his difficulties. He was content by simpler distractions. And Mum wasn't working now, so she was able to spend more time with him.
Sometimes Mycroft was cruel. He teased him about his lisp, and the fact that he was so slow. He once tripped Billy when he was being particularly annoying. That he had fallen and busted his lip open was not Mycroft's fault.
But she had decided to retire after Mycroft had been accepted. And even then, he knew he could not spend another year of continuous exposure to peers who made him want to crawl into his skin and die. It wasn't the teasing. It was the stupidity. He would rather be insulted by one intelligent human than by an idiot mob, and then return to a home where he had to put up with mediocre parents.
Another year and he would have set himself on fire.
No. William had it far easier. What was four months away in a life of a four year old? He wouldn't even remember it come later years.
He crossed his arms again and kept his voice even. The last time he had tried to sound stern with Billy he had deepened it and it cracked on the last vowel. Billy had burst into laughter.
"Where did you put my Walkman?"
Billy grinned. "In Mummy's recipe box."
"In the kitchen?"
"No!" he scoffed, as if Mycroft was the moron. 'I buried it with Redbeard's sticks."
Mycroft stared at him. "She really is going to kill you."
"I needed a treasure chest an' my plastic one was too small."
And that was how Mycroft ended up having to throw away a pair of trousers and washing the dirt off his hands and having to wrestle Billy naked under the hose to wash off his filthy body before they could go in for dinner.
And the next day Mycroft was gone.
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To Be Continued
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