Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes. That happy pleasure resides with Arthur Conan Doyle, and the 2010 version belongs to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

A/N: I really don't know what I'm doing, attempting to write a Sherlock fanfiction. Especially unbetaed. For one, I'm not clever enough; for two, I'm not British. My only experience with Britain is a few TV shows and Sherlock and Harry Potter fanfiction. I set MS Word to UK English and Googled lists of British terms, so I hope there aren't too many glaring Americanisms.

Fraternal Discordance: Or a Study of Mycroft Holmes

Chapter 1: And there is a Whole Childhood in a Nutshell

...

It started in university. Or rather, the behaviours presented in university, because that's how these things generally work: the problem was birthed from an off handed comment, a sneer that may not have been a sneer about a normally insignificant action. Months and years passed as the obsession unfurled, nestling up in every aspect of his life, until, finally, during the first years of independence, everything spiralled in chaotic frenzy. There was no one to watch, aside from few and far between holidays, and when someone finally noticed, after any length of time really, it was already routine in its normalcy.

That was how it worked for Mycroft Holmes. A small incident, something so minute, Mycroft cannot remember exactly what was said to make food anything but nourishment. Age twelve: a slightly plump child on the cusp of his first teenage growth spurt, ostracized by the relentless name calling all through primary school, only it followed him as he advanced in his formative education. Age fifteen: a snarky comment, perhaps from a jealous substandard classmate, maybe from the lips of his dear brother in a childish argument waged with an eight year old. In the end, he did not remember these altercations as anything special.

In the end, maybe it invaded his thought processes after one of many bickering stand offs with, the seven years younger than he, Sherlock (whom quite possibly surpassed him even with the age difference). Self destructive coping mechanisms manifested out of self loathing, the act of throwing the laws of nature in reverse because Mycroft Holmes, the very core of the British government, could not swallow the fact his baby brother was more intelligent than he: he never pondered these moments in the Holmes brothers' histories.

University, three years of rampant binging and purging: carefully balanced meals in the dining hall caved to quick and polite adieus to his new friends, haut monde that would take him far, and quiet desperation to lock himself away in his private apartment, courtesy of Mummy, and gorged on everything he denied himself in those appropriate protein/one carbohydrate/two serves of vegetable/fruit for dessert. After the greed, coaxed by the back end of a toothbrush, the plumbing distended, and occasionally stopped up, with luxury chocolates, the most gourmet biscuits, and imported pastries—in all honesty, any cheap, overly sweet, carbohydrate laden treat for his primordial urges, preferably cream or jam filled.

Senior year, Mycroft completed hastily spliced together compulsory documents for postgraduate admissions between rounds at the toilet; he graduated demurely, putting on a farce of modesty as he accepted his degree and fully acclimated to the world of graduate studies. Sherlock, a teenager near the age Mycroft first noticed his weight and found dissatisfaction in the surplus, narrowed his eyes at him all through Mycroft's last summer spent at home. He harboured suspicions. Obvious. But, Mycroft limited his episodes, his cycles, with the promise of glorious autonomy at the start of the semester; he calculated a mental list, the recipe for the perfect binge.

Autumn announced itself with colourful foliage and cool, blustery winds that made Mycroft's trip to six different specialty shops, list clutched tightly in his hands, that day in mid September temperate. It was the most active he had been since his primary school days. Mycroft christened his new private apartment the night before his first graduate level course, eating his way through a couple hundred quid of gourmet sweets. He regretted that the first impression he gave included his pale face pockmarked with bright red petechiae around his eyes.

Over thirty years passed, and the one occurrence of a less than healthy appearance faded into obscurity. Over the span of his final years as a student, and the transition to, but, a small position in the government, Mycroft cultivated his obsession, twisting the behaviours to fit his persona. He utilized the most rudimentary aspects of subterfuge—partaking in well portioned three meals a day, never succumbing to his behaviours where others might witness him, gagging against the back end of a toothbrush—and added to them.

His position in the government sanctioned many freedoms and liberties which aided his routine quite adequately. The second toothbrush, the one he shoved down his throat regularly, was whisked out of sight beneath a false bottom in his lavatory cabinet, a false bottom equipped with security codes and emergency detonation buttons. Security cameras, behind a façade with the strong arm of government national secrecy, placed around the toilet and the kitchen cupboards ensured he was always alone. The intricacies allowing the behaviours to continue even as he courted fellow upper class citizens were varied and numerous; Mycroft's eating disorder was as tightly wound within the government as he was.

He established his career, past the worries of a novice in the workforce, but still years off considering retirement, still rolling up the hill of age, if only by the grace of a couple years, and thoroughly convinced his eating habits were routine, and anything untoward was discreetly out of sight and completely unassociated with him. Then Dr John Watson, the good army medic, stumbled out of the woodwork, out of Afghanistan, and very much into the presence of his brother's life.

John maintained the relationship Mycroft Holmes strived for with Sherlock: dependable, some bickering interspersed with fond contentment, and, oh, did it grate at him. It swelled in his stomach, a hollow emptiness he contrived as hunger, eventually crawled its way out in practiced, unhurried, almost melodic heaves and splattered backwash in his eyes. Mycroft will never escape him or his only friend, the doctor; he will always be the arch-enemy. John denied his monetary compensation in exchange for observing Sherlock, instead, he ignited a verbal ire in Sherlock, Mycroft had not witnessed since his detox days.

Immature scoffs, juvenile sibling rivalry shredded open in each other's company, and the presence of John did nothing to bandage it. Sherlock retorted in scathing resentment that Mycroft deduced immediately as an iota of a connection: the unconcerned are not quick to rage, and he responded with his own blunt, chilly dismissal. The inconsistencies in his eating were not what he intended to discuss; even if Sherlock gleaned diminutive inklings as a child, surely he did not connect the dots well into his own adulthood.

Another Christmas season with John approached, and this year, like the last, Sherlock was no longer threatened by Irene Adler's death, Moriarty's complex weave, or his own comment—"Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."—intended as brotherly advice, if in poor taste, no chance of a danger night, unless Sherlock, restless with monotony from the current lull in cases, tempted by the lure of the cocaine, his seven-percent solution… He plunged the thought deep in the recesses of his mind as he allowed himself to be invited up to the flat by Mrs Hudson. That kind of thinking would not benefit anyone.

"He's having a bit of a lie in today, just let yourself up." Mycroft nodded his head and thanked her; the words fell from his lips out of proper British decorum. As he swiftly made his way upstairs, Mrs Hudson's voice floated up behind him with promises of tea, "but only this one time, I'm not his housekeeper."

Slanted, narrowed eyes immediately glanced over him, and Mycroft knew full well nothing was out of place. He had consumed a reasonable breakfast, followed by a cup of tea with just a dash of milk, as was custom. His cheeks bulged slightly, but only a difference he would remember after the years of induced vomiting. His cheeks have remained swollen since his first year of university. "Good morning, Sherlock," Mycroft said as he hung up his outer jacket.

Sherlock lay on the sofa, hands poked out of his favourite dressing robe deftly flipping what Mycroft knew was John's gun. "Mycroft," he muttered, lips barely moving. He gazed up at the ceiling, finding his inspection of Mycroft uninteresting.

Mycroft hid a smile of satisfaction behind his actions. He settled into a chair, John's chair, and folded his arms neatly over his body, neither lounging idiotically, nor hiding and curling in upon himself. "Have you made plans to entertain company again this Christmas?"

"Why are you here, Mycroft?" Sherlock spat, still from his position on the sofa, although his pupils rolled towards Mycroft at the conversational greeting. "You came for a reason." The silent digging of Mycroft's normal lack of active participation in most matters hung between the two.

Mycroft had approached Sherlock for a reason: elementary reasoning; Sherlock was correct. One of his higher up government official acquaintances required Sherlock's unique services. He never visited Sherlock with any case or client that did not spark an interest for Sherlock, whether or not the consulting detective would admit the truism. Mycroft lost himself in the elucidation of the particulars of Sherlock's soon-to-be newest client, momentarily paused by Mrs Hudson's appearance and a tea set: a half box of biscuits and two steaming mugs of tea complete with milk and cubes of sugar.

He continued his explanation once the landlady returned to her flat—ensuring the information remained under tight wraps—, adding a dash of milk to his tea, and grasping one biscuit, a plain digestive he noted. He accepted the understanding he would not leave 221B Baker Street without ingesting three biscuits, as was per the norm. He observed, after a few minutes and only one missed narrowed glance that never failed to remind him of the summer before graduate school, that Sherlock no longer listened with an expression of feigned disinterest, to him, but rather, studied Mycroft.

Mycroft blinked once, never halting in his monologue, and made a quick inventory of himself: three piece suit, pressed neatly, pocket watch, snug securely in his trouser pocket, he was groomed well. On to his actions: he rested in John's chair, legs crossed and a biscuit in hand. He had eaten two, no three, or perhaps four. For god sakes, he was working on his fifth biscuit! He swallowed the bite already in his mouth, and forced it down his throat with a sip of tea, and firmly placed the other half by his cup.

"Digestive biscuits a part of the diet?" Sherlock said as suddenly as he sat up on the sofa to face Mycroft. The gun fell to the floor, ignored. He gulped over half of his own tea in one swallow, eyes gazing into Mycroft's, a smirk played at the edges of his lips, and now, Mycroft remembered the hateful remarks from his adolescence, the scathing insults from Sherlock, the hurtful knowledge of the truth behind his peers' attacks on his weight.

Sherlock continued to drink his tea, still staring and half grinning like he had caught the fat kid smuggling a lolly too many from the sweets drawer. Mycroft forced down the blush threatening to paint his cheeks in an ugly red—similar in colour to the dots that once lined his face, too small to be acne, too big to hide even with foundation, all through university.

He prepared to snap out a reply, his usual one or two liner, short and frank, that forced Sherlock onto a new discussion thread. He meant to say: "In a reasonable amount, yes." Or something akin to that; anything to keep Sherlock's deductions out of his eating habits.

Instead, he set his cup against the saucer with a small clink, and never lifted his eyes from the remaining half of the biscuit, the biscuit and a half too many, the leftovers Sherlock had not yet grabbed for that Mycroft lusted to overfill himself on, then the emergency pack of Jaffa Cakes he ferreted away in his government issued car, then his supply at his quiet spacious mansion, then… "No," he said to the plate of biscuits.

He did not need to raise his head to know Sherlock stared him down like an organism he planned to experiment on. "It's not going well then?" He heard the amusement clearly in Sherlock's question, another rendition of their most basic childish barbs.

"No, it's not."

...

A/N:

I've read many Mycroft has an eating disorder fanfics, and most felt, either, forced or they simply didn't fit with my personal headcanon. Or worse, they were unfinished. So I thought I would give it a shot.

...If anyone reading this also reads Insignificant: I am working on the new chapter, I am. It doesn't want to be written.

EDIT: I was informed valedictorian is not a term used in the UK. Excuse me while I feel dumb now. I changed the sentence so it addressed Mycroft's postgraduate application process. No, it doesn't change the plot in any significant way, but it makes me happy to know the mistake is gone.