19 years ago
"Why, Mycroft?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow at his brother who just tipped his head sideway and sighed back at him.
"Sherlock." he warned, laying his hand on the younger's arm, "Jerry means a lot to me, you know that."
Sherlock violently pulled his arm from his brother's touch and began pacing across the bedroom. He stopped alongside the dressing table and slid open Mycroft's top drawer. As he began pulling out his brother's belongings, throwing them onto the bed behind him, his shoulders shook with the tears he was trying very hard to hold back.
"You'll be needing all these." he choked out, tossing underwear and other items in Mycroft's direction, setting to emptying the elder's allocation of drawers. As he pulled out the last of nightwear, he froze, his hand stilling above something he had never seen before.
The sudden stop diverted Mycroft's attention from collecting his items and folding them to pack. He quickly noted which drawer his brother was rifling through and instantly knew what he had found. Before he had a chance to say anything however, Sherlock had whirled himself round and into his brother's face.
"Is this him?" he spat, thrusting the photograph at Mycroft. His brother swallowed and calmly took it, brushing his fingers over the image to soften the creases that had gathered there. He smiled unthinking before flattening his face again and looking up at his brother.
"That's Jerry." he acknowledged quietly as he turned to put the photo into the top pocket of his case. "He's good to me, Sherlock." he continued, forcing Sherlock to step back as Mycroft gathered up the remainder of his scattered belongings and folded them into his case.
Sherlock didn't move. He just stood frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed on the floor. Mycroft mustered up all the courage he could to ignore his younger sibling, as he moved to the wardrobe and began folding trousers and other items.
After minutes that felt like hours, Sherlock raised his head and sat on the bed next to Mycroft's suitcase.
"Don't you love me any more?" he asked, his voice low and hurting. The 16-year-old was losing his brother; his lover; his protector, and he was broken.
Mycroft let the trousers he was holding drop into the case unfolded and moved to sit alongside his brother. He took the younger boy's hand and squeezed it in his own.
"I will always love you, Sherlock, but I cannot stay here in this house. I am only moving ten miles away, and I will be here any time you need me, but I have to move on with my life. Make something of it. If Father found out about my..." he paused, his stomach turning at the thought, "...if he found out about my relationship with Jerry while I am still here, I dread to think what could happen. I have to move out. You understand that, right?"
Sherlock just sat and thought about that for a moment. He knew that what Mycroft was saying made sense, but he could not help the churning sickness that the thought gave him in his stomach. He couldn't imagine Mycroft not being there, and he was scared. Scared of their father, scared of what he himself might do.
"I will come any time you need me, Sherlock."
"I hope you're going to like my brother." Mycroft straightened up the sofa cushions for the umpteenth time that afternoon. "He has been through a lot, but he is a good boy."
Jerry placed a hand on Mycroft's arm, stilling it before pulling his lover close to him. "I'm sure I'll like him just fine, Mycroft." the Irishman replied, placing a kiss on his forehead. "If he is anything like you, I'm certain we'll get along."
Mycroft answered with a nervous smile and nodded.
The moment was disturbed by a light knock at the door.
"Sherlock!" Mycroft greeted his brother with a wide smile and wider arms, pulling his little brother close and closing his eyes to the emotions that threatened to overcome him. It had been over a month since he had seen his brother, and he had missed him terribly.
As Mycroft took Sherlock's coat and ushered him into their small living room, Jerry stood and approached. "You must be Sherlock." he said, extending his hand to the dark-haired man, "I'm Jerry. Mycroft has spoken much about you."
Sherlock nodded and laughed, raising an eyebrow at his brother. "I bet he has." the younger chuckled.
The visit continued with much laughter and drinking, and during evening, Sherlock looked at the pair with a genuine fondness. Jerry and Mycroft were clearly very much in love, and this knowledge made Sherlock very happy. He chastised himself for the past years of jealousy and hatred that he had harboured and resolved to support his brother in any way he could.
As Sherlock made to leave at the end of the night, Jerry said his goodbyes and left the boys to their privacy at the door. Mycroft held his brother's hand and looked into Sherlock's piercing eyes.
"It has been wonderful to see you, Sherlock." he said, resting their foreheads together: a long-practised position of comfort for the pair.
"Jerry is a very lucky guy." Sherlock whispered as he leaned in to his brother's lips and smiled. "Be happy, brother."
2 years later
"You seen that faggot brother of yours lately, Sherlock?" Father's voice bellowed across the dining table as he drank down another glass of red wine. Sherlock hesitated a moment, trying to deduce which reply would give him the least trouble.
"I haven't, Father." he lied, hoping that Siger's increasingly inebriated deduction skills were dulled. Mummy's eyes darted from her husband to her son, watching and waiting to see whether the former believed that. Siger lowered his drained glass to the table and wordlessly pushed out his chair.
"Dessert, Siger?" Mummy asked him, using considerable effort to remain unaffected by the emerging scene. Sherlock kept his eyes down and continued to eat, deciding that showing fear might be a giveaway to his deception. He could feel his father's eyes boring into him, and he felt his own heartbeat begin to race in both fear and anticipation. There was a long silence after Siger stood and Mummy spoke, during which the only sound Sherlock could hear was his own blood rushing through his veins. It was a deafening silence. The sound of indecision. Which way would this go?
"Liar!" Siger yelled, picking up his empty wine glass and sending it smashing against the flock paper of the dining room wall, and in a split second, he rounded the table and pulled at Sherlock's chair.
The chair howled loudly against the wooden floor and its occupant fell gracelessly from it. Siger bent down and curled long, rough fingers acround the boy's thin, pale arm, yanking him upwards and leading him stumbling across the room towards the hall.
As the pair ascended the stairs and the familiar sounds of Siger beating his younger son moved into Sherlock's bedroom, Mummy began to clear away the dinner dishes.