War Games

Summary: When he was fourteen, Mycroft made a mistake. Small bit of Mycroft and Sherlock character study/backstory, because their relationship is fascinating.

WARNINGS: Reference to childhood bullying resulting in injury, passing mention of drug addiction, general angst. Playing around with style, because Mycroft seems the type to think in parentheticals.

Mycroft had turned Sherlock's classmates on him once, when Sherlock was eight. Angry because Sherlock had (deliberately, methodically) destroyed yet another of the collections he'd carefully built, months of care and calculation and deliberation ruined for no other reason than Sherlock was sick with boredom and craved a response.

Mycroft was furious. But unlike Sherlock who wore his anger in fits of temper and screaming and loud sulking silence, Mycroft held his anger down low, white and bright and quiet. He waged war quietly, too, because that was the best way (he knew even then). Sherlock, bordering fluent in multiple languages already, was barely literate in the language of social interaction. (Choice, or deficiency, Sherlock always made sure it was never possible to tell.) A weakness. An open flank.

Group analysis. A few words. A seemingly idle suggestion. Mycroft had always been skilled with manipulation, feeding suggestions into slow, cow-like brains that never even noticed they'd been fed. (Picture him ruling the world one day, their mother said, mouth smiling.)

He miscalculated. He failed to account for the effect of a valve released under pressure. For Sherlock was the special kind of stupid only the extremely intelligent could be, too stupid to conceal just how clever he was. (Mycroft was far too clever for that kind of stupid.) Sherlock was grudgingly tolerated through a fragile balance of fear and distance by his (far from) peers.

Had been tolerated.

Sherlock breathed unevenly through a swollen mouth, in the hospital bed shadowed in the late afternoon light. Mycroft sat next to him. The pattern on his hard-soft chair bore tiny raised purple arrows on a dark blue surface. Their parents had been and gone (Mummy's eyes glassy, pills again). A nurse had come in before, smiling and calling Sherlock "love" until he kicked the blankets from his bed and threw his laden food tray across the room in fit of fury.

Sherlock's eyes had been watering when she left, overflow trickling as he went limp like a ragdoll (made imperfectly) and stared at the ceiling, expressionless. Mycroft didn't look at him (don't look). Instead he knitted his hands together over his knee and stared at them.

Sherlock's mouth was too swollen for intelligible speech (or the food on the tray). One of his fingers was splinted (tried to stop a kick, Mycroft's mind supplied) and his knuckles were bloody.

An error, clearly. Insufficient data. Flawed analysis of the group dynamic. (Observer bias? Observation bias. Not enough observation. People looked away from Sherlock, wary of his stare.)

Revaluate and adjust. Never again (that wasn't rational).

On the edge of Mycroft's peripheral vision, Sherlock's fingers twitched. Mycroft looked up to find Sherlock glaring at him. He held the glare steadily for a minute. Another. He put his hand on Sherlock's. (Calculate. Restrain, not hurt.) After a while, Sherlock's head fell back to the pillows (weaker than he was allowing himself to show).

Sherlock's hand twitched again, and then his fingers moved, twining to catch Mycroft's finger and bend it back. It bent until the pain was on the edge of bearable, and was held there. Mycroft kept his gaze steady and let his expression fall implacable.

Sherlock didn't release him. Mycroft continued to watch him stare at the ceiling.

Somewhere past the shades on the windows, the sun set.

[end]