"So, what do you think, Father?"

"I think it is very noble of you to undertake a sacrifice for your brother," Emery Holmes replied simply, sealing one final envelope and turning to meet the questioning gaze of his pensive son. He had noted for quite some times that Mycroft always (perhaps unconsciously) made it a point to ask him for advice only while he was sitting down. In his son's mind, he reasoned, it made him seem more on his level—maybe not so far beyond him, after all, and more apt to be understanding.

"Noble. More like stupid," Mycroft grumbled, moving his gaze to the floor.

"Alright, my son," his father began, removing his reading-spectacles (dreadful, heavy things, he always maintained) and resting one elbow on his desk. "What would you have me do?"

"Nothing! I merely meant to ask you to, er... Well, will you keep an ear open for any... uh, potential... opportunities to... Well, for me to perhaps... scrape up a few coins?"

By the time he was done stammering, Mycroft's normally pale face had morphed into a great, red beet. Father's mildly amused looked did not make things any easier for him to bear, either. But the only way to tell a diamond from paste, he always said, was to scratch it. And so Father affixed to his face an expression of gravity the likes of which which only a Holmes could conjure up on a whim.

"I'll not carry your load for you, son."

"I know!" Mycroft blurted dejectedly. He couldn't stand it when his father looked at him that way—like he'd murdered someone. That cool, calm, careful veneer that constantly draped over his emotions had now been dashed into pieces as a tower of wooden blocks, for Father was never, ever deceived by it. His sons had learned it from him, after all.

"I know," Mycroft repeated, more sedately this time. "I didn't want you to. All I ask is that in the unlikely event anything should come up, just... let me know?"

The mask of severity gilded on Father's thin, angular visage remained as stout and stolid as ever, and in fact he even narrowed his eyes a little bit, appearing to glimpse into the depths of his son's very soul (or so Mycroft thought.)

"And that is all?"

"That is all," Mycroft replied confidently, meeting his father's unrelenting glare at last.

Glare?

Mycroft blinked; no longer did he feel (literally feel, he could have sworn) the faint burning sensation on his skin of an acute, scrutinizing, and inevitably all-knowing examination.

"Well, in that case, my son," Father chirped good-naturedly, his hand subtly slipping into the pocket of his coat draped over the back of the chair, "I think I can oblige you."

"Thank you," Mycroft responded immediately, pivoting on his heel to leave with considerably more haste than was polite—and than was natural for him to move with...ever.

"Don't walk away from me while I'm speaking to you."

Mycroft felt the pricking sensation of heat on his face again at the cooly neutral and yet imperious command. Like all normal human beings, he hated to be reprimanded. Hated it—but especially when it was because of something so trifling and inconsequential such as now. He was a boy of impeccable manners (on the rare occasion he engaged someone other than his father and his brother, that is) and thus was frozen in his tracks to be called out on something so...

"I'm sorry, Father."

Stupid.

"Then turn around and face me this instant."

Mycroft complied only to find his father cupping three sovereigns in the palm of his hand when he turned—just exactly as he had feared. The small, gold-minted coins caught the light and glimmered with a yellow sparkle as he fidgeted with them.

"All the way, boy! What ever is wrong with you tonight? I was only going to give you something to get started with, not cane you!" Father chided him, though his voice betrayed more confusion than harshness.

"I know. I have enough to come up with already; I do not want to be in debt, as well," Mycroft pointed out sensibly, his calmness covering an underlying contingency of wounded pride. The eldest Holmes bristled.

"Consider it a gift this time."

"I am grateful for the offer, but I do not accept charity," declared Mycroft with complete respect and dignity. With an air of finality, Father clamped his fingers into a fist over the coins, gracing his son with a fleeting but obviously pleased smile.

"As you wish...my proud and self-reliant son."

Boy, was that a wonderful thing to hear after all this torture! Mycroft well knew (even if only subconsciously at times) that Father did foster a deep, fundamental love for both his brother and himself, despite that he wasn't the most affectionate of parents. But it sure was nice to be held up on a little pedestal at least once in a while.

And so Mycroft wandered off to his bedroom feeling proud but hollow. After all, the conversation had effectively accomplished nothing, and his pocket was none the richer!

Four shillings. Three sixpence pieces. An odd half crown. Two pound notes.

Mycroft sighed disparagingly. Most of it had been his own birthday money.

"Being robbed blind by my own brother," he muttered to himself, scraping the coins and notes into a (dismally small) pile and then back into his tin lock-box. He was interrupted, however, by a low and hesitant knock at his door.

Before he could say "What do you want, Sherlock?" his little brother had already scooted into his room and silently shut the door behind him.

"What on earth are you doing? It's late."

"I know," Sherlock replied calmly. Mycroft eyed him with distaste; he looked positively wretched. Sherlock was skinny enough as it was, but the baggy, oversized nightshirt made him look even thinner. His black hair was a greasy, untamed mess that stood on end in several places and fell over his eyes, concealing one of them completely, and dark, purple-ish circle hung under the one that was visible.

"You look like a ghoul," Mycroft remarked, though Sherlock opted to ignore the observation. A slight jangling sound filled the room as Sherlock stepped forward, gripping a small, shabby black pouch which he offered to Mycroft.

"Here."

"Oh, not again, Sherlock!" Mycroft moaned, turning his head toward the ceiling. "How many times have I told you that I never promised you anything? Now take your money and get out!"

"But this will help," the younger Holmes shot quickly, placing the little purse on his dresser when he saw that Mycroft obviously wasn't going to take it.

"It'll help," he repeated earnestly.

"It'll help? And what have you, a few pence, at most?"

"No! Aunt Sarah gave me five pounds for my birthday last year. Five whole pounds, Mycroft!" Sherlock went on enticingly, dreamily.

"Cheap old bag could afford to have given you triple that," Mycroft mumbled, pausing to rub his tired eyes. "And you want to go and waste all that now? If you just took proper care of your library books in the first place, you wouldn't even need to ask me for this!"

"I only ruined one, though! That time when I left it out in the rain, remember?"

"And the one you spilled Father's ink all over."

Sherlock gave a brief but violent shiver.

"Don't ever remind me of that."

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Mycroft said coldly, dismissively, placing the lock-box back in his drawer.

"You should really find a better hiding place for that, you know. If someone were to break in, it would practically be the first thing to go," the younger Holmes pointed out with a surprising amount of concern.

"I suppose I'll just have to keep a vigilant eye on it, then," he countered, regarding his brother suspiciously.

"I'm just saying," Sherlock shrugged, and then suddenly decided to climb up onto Mycroft's bed. Again.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

"I can't go back to sleep," replied his brother innocently, muffling a yawn.

"Nightmares again?" Inquired Mycroft knowingly. Although night terrors were what the doctor called them. While even Mycroft suffered the occasional bad dream, at least they were not violent, prolonged, and intense as his brother's apparently were. On more than one occasion, he or even Father had been woken by his thrashing and panicked cries in the middle of the night and had tried to shake him awake, but even then it usually took several minutes just to break his trance. And while they had been assured by their physician that Sherlock would eventually grow out of them, it wasn't as though that provided any comfort in the interim.

"Yes," came his groggy affirmation.

"I can appreciate that they are wholly unpleasant and that yours are far and away worse than mine, but you simply must convince yourself that monsters in your closet are not real.," Mycroft pointed out logically.

"He's not a monster!" Sherlock cried, snapping to attention. "And he's not in my closet...not always, anyway. He can be anywhere, I've seen him all over. He's got to be at least seven feet tall, I swear it, with pointed teeth and black eyes! Mycroft...it's almost as though his body's got no muscle, just skin covering bone, with thin purple veins all in between" he paused quivering. "And his fingernails are sharp, too. And then he grabs you with 'em when he gets you! And you can't run from him because his legs are so long, he's too fast. And then...And then—"

"Stop it, Sherlock, stop it now. I mean it, not another word!" He cut him off firmly when Sherlock's rambling started to wobble and shake.

"Look, Sherlock, I don't know what this anonymous phantom of yours is, but—"

"Whittaker. His name's Whittaker."

"Whittaker? Oh, for the love of heaven!"

"Don't laugh at me! You don't understand!"

"I'm not laughing at you," Mycroft replied, half-exasperated, half-sympathetic as he took a seat next to his brother, who was very nearly bursting with frightened, angry tears by now.

"But do you not see what you've done? Here you've taken this monster, this...imaginary man, and you've given him a face, a voice, an appearance right down to the capillaries beneath his skin, even a name. You wish him to leave you alone, as it were, yet that tireless imagination of yours has gripped onto this fantasy and run away with it. You're making him real, Sherlock."

Sherlock blinked, this new, strange thought grinding through the gears of his brain and temporarily banishing the lingering visions of his ghostly stalker.

"Does that make sense?" asked Mycroft gently, as though he were addressing...well, a child. He received no reply save a weary nod from his brother, anyway, whose eyes were already beginning to flutter and close.

"Good. Now, go back to bed and do not give another moment's thought to this silly Whit—dream. Forgo sleep for the whole night, if you have to, but shut him out completely. Do not even think his name. Alright?"

It was odd advice, at best, he knew, and probably not the most healthy thing for a six-or-seven-year-old boy to be hearing, but were not a few hours (or nights, if need be) of sleep worth his brother's overall peace of mind? Mycroft didn't think so; there would always be time to sleep, but that hardly mattered if the poor thing couldn't keep his eyes closed for five minutes without coming under an imaginary siege of creepy-crawlies.

"Hurry up, then! We both are going to be dragged out of bed in a few hours to get ready for church tomorrow, anyway."

"But it's already Sun—"

"Just go!"

I hope I've done a decent enough job with the brotherly bickering.

And I never pictured the Holmes boys' father as a cold, uncaring pseudo-parent. Just a bit of a quiet nonconformist who wants to shape his sons into responsible and intelligent adults, even if some lessons must be learned the hard way.

Reviews are appreciated. Thanks.