More Than Kin and Less Than Kind

A/n: I started writing this right after I asked for adlock prompts, and I woke up with like ten. You are all wonderful fangirls and boys. And I will be working on those next, but I got an idea for this multi-chapter fic. It is a continuation of And They Had Cake, but you don't have to read it to understand this one. This takes place right after the series 4 finale. There will probably be smut in this fic at some point, I might even incorporate some of those prompts you guys gave me, but I'll try to put a warning before the chapter if there's smut in it. This will be a slightly dramatic, serious fic. Hint, Eurus can cause a lot of trouble from inside a prison. Feel free to keep shooting your ideas my way! I appreciate it.

Chapter 1

"You never told me about your sister."

It was a very typical thing for a woman to ask a man about, but to his mind, the question implied in her statement did not coalesce with his expectations of her. Whether or not it was awkward to discuss his sister while the Woman was draped across his chest, he did not know. You see, they had had cake. And then dinner in bed. And he had had quite a few drinks before she came over in order to disable his inhumanly strong memory. So he's not entirely certain if he ever even mentioned Eurus to her.

But she knew. Irene always knew and it no longer surprised him, merely stoked his curiosity.

"How did you know I had a sister?" he stared up at the patterns on his bedroom ceiling with his hand resting on her back and his mouth numb from both drink and her kiss.

She laughed, a wicked dulcet sound that seemed to caress his ears. Bizarre, "How did I know about the cake? Or Mary?"

Saying her name like that, Irene might as well have slapped Sherlock straight in the face. Even with the Scotch fueled pain relief in his veins, his heart still flinched when he thought about the late Mrs. Watson. And his broken vow.

He showed his partner a melancholy half smile, "I'm quite aware by now that you have eyes everywhere, Irene. I sometimes wonder if you're slightly clairvoyant. I just hoped you might disclose your methods to me."

He was putting on a good show, giving an effort to seem like his insides weren't twisting. He was honestly a very adept liar. But she had always been the only person able to read him as well as he read everyone else. He was hurting so much. The beautiful, brainy detective was heartbroken and heartbroken, as it turns out, was not the new sexy.

A very rare feeling flooded her chest as she examined the lines of grief on his face. The last time she felt sympathy for someone like this was for her mother when her father ran away. Sherlock brought so much out of her; he matched her.

She laid a hand on his shoulder hesitantly and looked up at his blue eyes, frozen over, "I'm sorry."

He blinked, slightly confused, "You're sorry that you won't tell me how your spies operate?"

"Oh, hush, darling," she rolled her eyes at his deflection, "I said her name and your face fell. You're still thinking about it."

Great, he groused to himself, I can't even manage to lie properly anymore.

Something burned in him at the word 'still'. He pushed her hand off of him a little roughly and sat up in the bed, "Of course I'm still thinking about it! It wasn't really that long ago…"

It had been almost half a year, but she wasn't going to mention that. Indelicate. And she was not hurt by his rejection of her physical comfort. She understands how he operates. His brain cannot comprehend sadness well enough to fix it within himself, so he combats it with anger. He fights the grief. And hates himself for indulging such weak emotions in the first place.

"It won't matter how long it's been. You loved her. You feel guilty. But Sherlock, it's okay."

He looked over at her and furrowed his brows in a deep frown, "It's not ok, Irene. But it is what it is."

"I meant it's okay to feel all of that, Sherlock. There's no set time to get over it. Truth be told, with scars like this, you may feel a fraction of the grief forever. But do you know what you should do with it?"

Out of sheer hopeless curiosity, he muttered 'what?' as he laid back down on the bed, staring at nothing.

"You use it, Sherlock. You let it fuel you. Let that little piece of everlasting pain stay in your heart as a tribute to Mary. You will never quite get over it because you respected her, truly admired her. That little piece will hurt you, but every time you feel that sting in your soul, remember that she gave you her life so that you could continue doing great things in yours. You may not want to hear this, Sherlock, but being the wise woman she was, she knew your life was more important to the world than hers was…So make her proud. Or I'll punish you." A speech ended with a smirk and a sexual innuendo, how very her style.

A hollow laugh echoed out of his chest, "I've already told you that I don't know how to spend that currency."

"Bullshit, Sherl, you do it every day. With every case."

He turned his head to her in shock with a strange, almost concerned frown, "Did you just call me, Sherl?"

Her entire body tensed up, frozen with nerves. Why the hell would she give anyone a nickname, outside of work that is.

"I did," she responded, still ever so elegant, even flustered.

He must have been really drunk since all he did was resume his previous position of laying on his back and scoff, "You are not allowed near Mycroft ever again."

"Considering I am technically a criminal and he is the entire British government, I would say that's a smart assertion. But I wouldn't deign what I am and am not allowed to do if I were you."

"Oh, sod it all, woman," he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back over his chest, "I cannot believe I am saying this, but weren't you asking about Eurus?"

"Your sister, yes," she settled back against his side, rubbing his neck with her thumb, just under his ear, in a manner that she knew greatly relaxed him, "I've heard she's locked up in an asylum."

"She's got an entire island all to herself, actually. Quite ritzy."

"Sherlock."

He huffed in resignation, tired, "Fine, I will explain. But you've only won this round because I'm tired and quite pissed."

She laughed softly in his ear, "I'm aware."

"I believe the worst of Eurus' terrors started when she drowned my childhood best friend. Then there was the setting our house on fire. Don't worry, no one was in it."

"No," she shook her head, irritated, "I know the background information. What is she like? What does she want?"

He paused, taking a moment to consider his answer, "She is….remarkable. And quite horrible. She is a genius, pains me to say, but a genius surpassing my own. But she is…lacking in ways that sane human beings are never. As intellectually advanced as she is, she is just as emotionally retarded. She does not understand feelings. Not in the way I used to pretend not to. When she was younger, I was told she couldn't distinguish the difference between pain or excitement. She wants to understand human emotion. She…studied us-John, Mycroft, and I. She put us through a wretched series of games to see how we would react when lives were on the line. But I think more than anything, she just wanted a friend. She never had a single friend as a child. She scared the other children. And when she asked me to shoot Mycroft, I understood why he had trained me to forget her. He made her into a fairytale in an old rhyme, 'the East Wind'. But, I suppose, that is why I never bothered much with sentiment. I had seen my sister try to figure it out and her ventures into feelings never ended well."

"Hmm…" an almost unreadable look came across the woman's eyes as she contemplated this phenomenon of a person, "And she scared you?"

"Well…" he faltered, a little unsure and a little too proud to admit it, "Yes. She is quite literally capable of brainwashing lesser men."

"I don't think that's why you were afraid…" she tilted her head to examine his expression, "She understands you. And I know for certain that you are not fond of being wholly understood."

He scowled and looked away from her, suddenly very uncomfortable for a reason he could not discern, wanting to climb out of his own skin, "I don't care if she knows my secrets."

"No," she agreed, "But you are not the same, you know? You are nothing like her."

"…I never said I was."

"You didn't say it. But I think that's why you're scared of her… Don't be."

He tried to restrain his glare at her tendency to be a know-it-all, "Irene, I hardly think you could know considering you never even met her."

Irene simply lifted one eyebrow in warning to not disrespect her before she continued on, "There's one striking difference between the two of you that could never allow you to be like her."

He paused and blinked, loathe to admit to himself that he wanted to know her thoughts on this subject. Truth be told, the fear that he could turn into someone as awful as his sister did weigh on his mind, "And that would be?" He tried to make his tone sound annoyed. He almost succeeded.

She grinned devilishly at him, "The heart of a pirate," she laughed, "You heal. She does not."

He closed his eyes, impatient with her theatrics, before he mumbled, "What is that supposed to mean, Irene?"

Contrasting his exasperation, she looked at him with complete seriousness, "You get hurt, you learn. You grow from it because there's a bravery to your heart. She gets hurt, she internalizes it until she combusts. Her heart is a bomb, ticking away."

He laid there silently for a few minutes, mediating on her dialogue. Her speeches and advice lean towards the dramatic side, but there's always blatant truth in her words. At least when she speaks to him like this. Outside of the bedroom, with other people, he knows her words are much more of a game than an honesty. She is contradictory and he has always been fascinated by enigmas.

"Hold on a second," he looked at her as he realized something, "There's no way you could speak about her like this if you didn't know her well….or of her….you already knew everything I just told you, didn't you?"

She let loose a very womanly chuckle, as if she knew more than he could ever understand, "Of course I did, but I figured it would be beneficial for you to say all of those things out loud to someone."

He quickly cut his eyes to her in a sharp glare as she rubbed her hand on his chest, over his heart. His gaze was cold and calculating. He was annoyed, but in the way a child becomes irritated for being told to eat his vegetables, not in an altogether serious manner.

She rolled her eyes good naturedly as she snuck her hand up into his hair, tugging his locks playfully between her fingers, "There is no scenario in which you'd get away with killing me at this moment. The good doctor is due home soon."

"Bollocks."