Prompt: the only witness to a crime is a parrot

A/N: A Kidlock fic. I stretched the definition of "crime" for this, and also borrowed heavily from BBC Sherlock where Sherlock wanted to be a pirate as a child.

Bonus points if you catch the tiny Our Flag Means Death reference

Little brothers, Mycroft Holmes thought, were not what they were advertised as.

This was all well and good since he did not need a playmate, nor did he wish to tease and harass his sibling as older brothers were, apparently, wont to do. At 14 (in body, near 30 in spirit) and just having started at Oxford, Mycroft had little time for childish games. He was home only for the Christmas holidays, and expected to find Sherlock a miniature version of himself at that age, serious and interested in academic pursuits.

"Avast! Hand over your treasure or ye shall walk the plank!" was the greeting Mycroft had been given when he arrived at home, by a small, thin boy wearing an eye patch and carrying a child-size rapier.

"So sorry, Mycroft," their mother said, gliding into the room. "Ever since he's begun fencing lessons he's obsessed with pirates."

"I want to be a pirate someday!" Sherlock had declared, with all the certainty of youth. Mycroft was rather appalled, not least because having a pirate brother would undoubtedly make things difficult when he applied to join the Civil Service, his life's ambition as he knew it would provide him with a comfortable life and not insist that he talk to anyone more than strictly necessary.

If it was actually his life's ambition to control the Civil Service, he had not said so. He learned his lessons well and knew where the power behind the power behind the throne lay.

"Pirates must eat their dinners," Mrs. Holmes said, and Sherlock scowled, scampering off with his sword. Mycroft dearly hoped that he would not be subject to such antics for the entire holiday. He had some work he very much needed to finish. His course of study was unique and tailored to his talents and interests, and so was more difficult than any other Oxford offered. It would not do to fall behind.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asked the next day, coming across Mycroft in his room, immersed in a book on the tea exports of China. "Is that book about tea? It looks boring. I don't like tea much."

Mycroft sighed and turned to his brother, still wearing the eyepatch, though now he had added a red bandanna to the ensemble, covering his head in a ridiculous manner. "You are still a pirate, then?" he asked.

"Yes, except I can't really be a pirate yet. A real pirate needs a boat," Sherlock said. "Father said he would help me build one in summer, but it can only go on the pond." He pouted.

"Well, then, you shall be the pirate of the fish pond," Mycroft said distractedly.

"That's not very scary," Sherlock said.

"Most pirates are not very scary," Mycroft said.

"You're not scared of anything," Sherlock said, so seriously that Mycroft looked up in some surprise.

"How do you know that?"

Sherlock shrugged. "You didn't even flinch yesterday when I lunged at you with my sword. And it's a real sword too! I told Father I didn't want a fake wooden one."

Mycroft surveyed his brother with greater interest. Perhaps they were more similar than he had thought. "Do you often notice things like that?" he asked.

"Sometimes," Sherlock said, shrugging. "Master Abernathy said it would be useful in a swordfight because I could guess what my opponent would do. That was before he left."

"Master Abernathy is your tutor?" Mycroft asked.

"Was," Sherlock said. "Father hired him because he could teach fencing along with maths but he left last week because I'm a terror. Which is a good thing for a pirate to be, isn't it, Mycroft?"

Mycroft smirked. He remembered well his own issues with keeping tutors, though in his case it was because he so clearly outstripped them in intelligence. "It is."

"I didn't like him anyway. He wanted to teach me maths and English and those are boring. Shakespeare and poetry aren't useful at all," Sherlock said. "Though I liked when we did science, only Mother wasn't happy because one of the chemical experiments nearly burned her curtains."

"Shakespeare is not so bad," Mycroft said. "You enjoy pretending to be a pirate, perhaps you would enjoy acting out his stories. That is how they are meant to be enjoyed." Heaven help the English schooling system, that somehow thought to teach the world's greatest playwright by reading his works instead of performing them as they were meant to.

"Shakespeare is like playing pretend? Why didn't Master Abernathy do that?" Sherlock asked. "You should teach me, Mycroft, you're cleverer than anybody."

"You do not need me to teach you, Sherlock, you are quite clever enough to teach yourself," Mycroft said, though he smiled at the compliment. It was what he had done, after all.

"I can teach myself to be a pirate. Father got me lots of pirate books, real ones, that tell all about Blackbeard and Captain Morgan and Anne Bonny!" Sherlock said.

"Yes, but Sherlock, pirates don't really exist anymore," Mycroft said. "That was many years ago, and besides, you are a gentleman's son, and will be a gentleman yourself. You cannot be a pirate." Such rough figures were suitable only for stories, in Mycroft's opinion.

"I can be!" Sherlock said stubbornly. "I can be like Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate! And then no one could ever tell me I was weird and I'd have a whole crew to swordfight with."

Ah, Mycroft understood now. While he himself was of a solitary nature, Sherlock was evidently not. Yet he was still a Verner on his mother's side, and so altogether different than ordinary children.

It was lonely. Mycroft remembered that well before he decided that companionship was more trouble than it was worth. Though perhaps Sherlock, once he was older, might prove to be a decent sort to spend time with. He was not so dull it would be a trial to have a conversation with him. Perhaps little brothers were well worth it after all.

Two days later, Mycroft returned to his room after a walk to the local bookstore to find his ink spilled, his books in disarray, and his papers disheveled. To someone who prized order, this was a travesty. And of course, there was only one suspect.

"Sherlock, if you are to go in my room, please confine your visits to when I am there," Mycroft thundered, entering his brother's room. Sherlock looked up, his eyes wide, from the book he had been perusing. Which, Mycroft saw, was one of his own: Chemical Experiments of the Seventeenth Century.

"How did you know it was me?" Sherlock cried. "I did everything right, I left it a mess so you wouldn't notice what was missing and I kept my hair covered so none of it fell out so you could find it!"

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. Evidently Sherlock was learning something from those pirate books, though not anything he ought to know. "For the simple reason that there was no one else it could have been," Mycroft said. "Mother and Father would not do that, nor would any of the servants. There were no signs of a break in; you obviously entered through the door. It did not take much to determine the culprit"

"Oh," Sherlock said. "I thought I was clever. I even waited until they finished cleaning this wing and Mother and Father went out so no one would see me. Except Wolfgang, of course." He looked up, and Mycroft was thrown into utter shock to find a bright red parrot perched in the ceiling rafters.

"Sherlock, where on Earth did you get a parrot?"

"Every pirate has one, Mycroft, and pirates never give up their secrets," Sherlock said, sounding annoyingly superior.

Little brothers, though Mycroft, were entirely unpredictable.