Mycroft's office smelled pungently of years upon years of tobacco usage; the smoke pervaded every surface, echoing it into eternity. The smell somehow suited the slightly overweight, balding, eagle-nosed man standing before John, looking bored and rather agitated as he offered his visitor tea and then promptly forgot to fulfill the request. Both of them – Mycroft and the smell of tobacco – made John want to retch violently, and both of them never seemed to fully go away.
"Doctor Watson, so nice to see you again. I imagine this has to do with my brother's little pastime?"
John winced, suppressing the strong urge to roll his eyes. "Yes, Mr. Holmes. There's recently been a murder of a female-to-male transsexual, and Sherlock suspects that this is only the latest in a string of transphobic hate crimes."
Living with Sherlock had sharpened John's powers of observation, enough that he caught the look of fear that flashed across Mycroft's face. Of course. Mycroft worried about his brother constantly; how could he not be terrified half out of his mind when there was a serial killer preying on the trans men of London? John sighed.
"It looks as if he's only targeting men who have had metoidioplasties, which Sherlock has not. I assume this is because this is a surgery that only trans men receive, unlike mastectomies, hysterectomies, or hormone therapies. It's the easiest way for him to determine his targets without accidentally capturing or killing a non-transgendered person."
"I see my brother has been a positive force in your deductive reasoning."
John struggled to hide his prideful smile. "I would assume so, yes."
Mycroft nodded. "And I would assume that this is not a courtesy call, and my brother has requested that you obtain information from me to further help him in his tinkering."
The doctor bit his tongue again, staying his hand from reaching for his nose in his typical display of frustration. "Is it possible to get a list of the transgendered people killed or missing in the last ten years in the metropolitan area of London and the surrounding vicinities?"
"Of course," the government official smiled graciously, right as his phone buzzed insistently on his desk. John's eyes moved immediately to it. Anthea or Sherlock? Must be Sherlock. Anthea was outside in the reception area when I came in. She would have just knocked.
Mycroft's eyes also strayed to the phone, and as he moved to his sleek black laptop, he also picked up his Blackberry in one fluid motion. As the laptop woke up, the elder Holmes brother's eyes flicked over the tiny screen of his phone. John saw the lid of his left eye twitch as the phone buzzed thrice more, signaling the arrival of three new text messages.
Only Sherlock texts that much, John considered dully.
Mycroft set the phone down, offering his visitor a tight smile. "Give me just a moment, if you will, Doctor Watson. Some minor clerical work to attend to, and then I will offer you that data. It is fortunate, in your case, that the London Metropolitan Police has an LGBT police liaison for each borough, and they do a quite admirable job of documenting each transphobic crime that occurs. It will not be difficult in the least to create your report."
Mycroft's phone buzzed a fifth time, and even a man like Anderson would be able to see the look of pure pain that crossed the man's face as he read the text. He bit his lip, turning his eyes back to his screen and typing more furiously than before.
"Is everything alright, Mr. Holmes?"
The government worker turned his eyes back to John, sitting small and uncomfortable in the huge old leather chair provided for him.
"God only hopes so."
Deciding to change the subject, John looked hesitantly at the man now standing beside his desk. "Mr. Holmes? Do you think I could ask you a few . . . personal questions?"
Mycroft smiled indulgently. "You mean personal questions about my brother."
"Well, yes."
"Of course. It is your right to know, after all, about his life as Sherlyn."
"How did you-?"
Sherlock's brother laughed: instead of helping him to relax, the noise simply sent chills down Watson's spine. "Sherlock is not the only blessed recipient of the Holmes intellect, Doctor Watson. I would not be half the obedient civil servant I am without a modicum of deductive ability. You have come to me, asking me to provide you with information about transgendered hate crimes; you surely know about my brother's transgender status, being both a doctor and his lover."
"Now that's just creepy, that you know about that."
"I have declined to put cameras in either of your bedrooms, but you and my brother tend not to be very . . . discreet . . . about your sexual dalliances."
John coughed to cover his surprise, and made a mental note not to seduce Sherlock onto the kitchen table ever again.
"Regardless. What would you like to know? A chronological, historical account of his medical transition, or familial impressions of him as Sherlyn?"
"If you could spare the time, I'd like to hear all of it?"
The Holmes brother's terrifying grin returned, making John squirm in his seat. "Of course. You make my brother the happiest man in the world. I cannot iterate to you how contented that makes me."
The doctor supplied a nervous smile in return, settling down in his seat as Mycroft perched on the edge of his desk like a vulture.
"Sherlyn was a reckless child; this will probably not surprise you, being as you know the positively thoughtless man that girl became. She – and I only say she because that is how I knew him in those days – stolidly refused to accept the rules of our family, and being as we were quite a traditional homestead, this was particularly troubling to our father and mother. They had longed for a winsome, delicate girl to follow after me, their firstborn son, and Sherlyn denied this dream at every turn.
"She would cut up her dresses to make dressings and sutures for wounded animals she came across in the woods on the estate – Sherlock has always had a soft spot for animals, particularly cats, but never the ability to provide them with sustained care and affection – and would hide during banquets, sneaking out of the house to go play in the stables with the horses. She learned to ride when she was only five, and her feet barely touched the ground for weeks during the summer. This did not behoove a young lady, galloping off at breakneck speeds and working the polo ponies into a lather, and my parents did their best to put a stop to it, but their remonstrations were never successful, it seemed.
"She was a particularly reckless child, always out exploring, analyzing and making sense of the natural world. Reading came to her quickly, and in the times where she couldn't go outside, she was glued to a book for a reading level far beyond her age. She was always interested in crime novels, but became frustrated with them after about the age of seven, as he said that the detectives always seemed to miss crucial details and the authors never provided enough information for her to inference the solution. After she broke her leg in a nasty fall, I started to bring him the crime ledgers for the local municipalities, which she loved. He would spend hours cooped in bed researching these crimes, demanding books from the local library. One of his favorites was the Carl Powers case: he even wrote to the police about it, but they ignored her, as she was still technically a girl. I believe it was that summer, laid up in bed with a broken leg, that led her to become the man he is today.
"Sherlyn was also what is known as an early articulator. After the age of four she vehemently denied being a girl, demanding everyone call her 'he'. I helped him find the name Sherlock in an old register of English names, and it stuck immediately. After the age of five I was compelled to call her 'he' and Sherlock in private, though our parents disapproved immensely and would correct her whenever she brought it up. I do believe that I was the only friend he had at the time, others thinking her to be too strange and solitary for their company. And it was I that he came to, wanting to learn about the ways to modify her body to become the boy he wanted to be. We researched surgeries exhaustively, in the time between her social duties to our family and his newfound obsession with crime and deduction. He began to write regularly to the police under the name Sherlock, gaining somewhat of an interested following amongst the officers.
"Puberty came, and as much as I lobbied relentlessly for our parents to authorize hormone blockers so he would not undergo the typical feminization, they ignored my constant requests. Sherlock bound his breasts aggressively, in the hopes that it would prevent them from growing any further, and his menstruations were crippling, leaving him sobbing in the bathtub for hours with waves of dysphoria. He became deeply depressed, lashing out at those who loved him. It was then that our relationship rotted from the fraternal camaraderie of childhood to the resentful codependency it remains today. He turned to drugs in a helpless attempt to remove himself from his physical form, to allow him to take up residence purely in his mind; obviously, this failed. I helped him sober up after ten long years of cocaine usage, leading him gently down the path to where he is today, with a mild nicotine addiction and little more. It was a difficult time.
"I also helped him to secure his mastectomy, as well as his testosterone treatment. He began hormone treatment at eighteen, having his mastectomy at age 24 and his hysterectomy at age 25. I asked him to consider further treatments, but he refused, stating that the time he had sacrificed to obtain the two surgeries had damaged his career enough. Being as the hysterectomy was medically necessary, but a metoidioplasty was not as long as he is comfortable with his . . . person . . . I decided not to press further. So that is where it stands, Doctor Watson. Oh! Anthea. The hate crime list. Thank you." Mycroft nodded at his assistant as she discreetly handed him a thin packet of papers.
John, engrossed in thought of Sherlock's childhood, startled when his own phone buzzed just as Mycroft handed him the list of the transphobic hate crimes from the last ten years in London and the surrounding areas. All the blood drained from his face as he stared at the screen, and he could barely feel the fresh paper cut stinging in his hand as he crushed the fresh paper from his panicked grip.
Help. St. Barts. Hank. Run. SH
"I. . . I have to go, Mycroft," he stammered, nearly knocking over his chair as he stood up hastily.
The man's eyes were narrowed – in pain? in suspicion? – as he watched the doctor leave. He called out after Sherlock's partner, his voice cracking slightly.
"Godspeed, John. Tell him I'll be there to clean it up. I always am."