A Friend Given by Nature
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes or any of the characters it contains.
Our siblings. They resemble us just enough to make all their differences confusing, and no matter what we choose to make of this, we are cast in relation to them our whole lives long.— Susan Scarf Merrell
Delicately gripping the hinge of his round, rimless spectacles, the elder Holmes' posture slumped ever so slightly as he let out a contemplative, weary sigh.
"You know there is simply no way that I could possibly do that for you."
"But you'll try, won't you, Mycroft? Oh, please say you'll try!"
"You're whining, Sherlock," Mycroft reprimanded the bouncing, puppy-dog eyed seven-year-old transfixed at the end of his bed with a firm, barely-patient growl. Well, almost seven.
"I'm sorry!" The younger sibling fairly cried in a desperate attempt to appease his older brother, though Mycroft only winced at the sound of Sherlock's high-pitched, penetrating screech. Indeed, Sherlock's face reddened at the sound of his own voice. Dropping his head and sending silent thanks to Heaven that their father hadn't been home to hear that, the younger Holmes clenched his small, pale, bony fists in his lap and tried again.
"I'm sorry, Mycroft, truly I am. But will you please at least try to get for me?"
This time, Mycroft's hands found their way underneath the lenses of his glasses where they rigorously massaged his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Any normal person would have found such an obvious display of stress highly unusual and perhaps even slightly alarming coming from a fourteen-year-old, but Sherlock, who had drawn both legs up onto the bed and gripped his feet as he sat Indian-style, now watched his brother keenly.
He was always watching something keenly, Mycroft thought as he sensed his brother's searching glare land on him. At times, he wasn't even so sure his little brother was human. But then he ruefully remembered that such misgivings about the odd little thing seated next to him were, albeit indirectly, quite valid reflections on himself! There had never been any doubt in Mycroft's mind as to he and his brother's common parentage; aside from the obvious physical resemblance, there were several other very good reasons that their mother had always happily referred to her sons as "two green peas in a pod." The Holmes boys were intellectuals. Each one had been from the very start, which was quite a curious phenomenon considering the seven-year gap between the two children. Father had always joked that Mycroft could count to ten before he knew how to walk. Indeed, by the time he could barely reach the table, Mycroft had learned to find sheer merriment in counting the strawberries in a bowl, or how many peas were on his plate.
Consequently, in the first few months following the birth of Sherlock, Mycroft was, to say the least, unimpressed by the tiny, clumsy, bloated, drooling, crying, and often smelly little creature that he was expected to unquestioningly and unconditionally love. Not that he resented his baby brother, but Sherlock was just that—a baby. An incompetent, unengaging baby that would be all but incapable of learning anything of any value from him for some time to come. In Mycroft's mind, that was all he had to offer his little brother, really; while he only expected that his parents would be predisposed to endlessly fawning and cooing and doting over the little thing, it never occurred to Mycroft that Sherlock needed love, let alone from him! An infant, he reasoned, was, after all, only partially aware of the whole of its surroundings. And surely the gurgling, moon-faced creature cradled in his mother's arms could not understand their language! Thus, Sherlock was, at first, nothing more to Mycroft than a minor household nuisance that occasionally shrieked in the middle of the night and routinely made a disgusting mess of himself at the table when Mother spoon-fed him a bit of pureed carrots or spinach.
And then came a day about nine or ten months after his brother's birth, when Sherlock had not quite begun to walk but had managed to master the art of crawling just as effectively as he'd mastered the art of deduction much, much later in his life. It was a bleak, sunless afternoon, as Mycroft recalled. Mother had taken ill with a head-cold and napped in her room while Father was busy scribbling away with paperwork at his desk in the living-room, where Sherlock's crib often ended up during the day. While Mother would have had a fit at the thought of leaving her child to crawl around as he pleased on the floor, Father saw no harm in letting Sherlock on his own to explore for a little bit. He could already see that the child was naturally curious; it seemed that Sherlock just wanted to reach out and grab everything he saw, be it a rattle, his toes, Father's magnifying glass, or ants.
As such, Mycroft was not very surprised, though slightly annoyed, when his bedroom door, which had been just slightly ajar, swung open as though pushed by a ghost. Dismissing this as an impossibility, however, he immediately came to the conclusion that the intruder was no more than the house's smallest occupant, and this conclusion was soon solidified by the soft pitter-patter of small hands and knees creeping along his floor. As all of this went through his mind, Mycroft did not so much as even look up from his maths textbook, which he was currently reading through on the bed.
However, Mycroft found himself unable to focus on his book as he listened to the sound of the baby crawling around the perimeter of his room and squeaking with inquisitive delight. It made its way under his small table and, after finding that even a well-placed tug on one of its legs would not cause the thing to exhibit some fantastic magical effect, Sherlock decided to set his tiny attention span on firmly yanking at the hem of the quilt on his brother's bed. Only then did Mycroft finally spare a single, condescending glance at the infant on the ground.
And was quite shaken by what he saw.
The child, after a moment or two more of fidgeting with the blanket, chose to turn his clumsy, round head with its big snowdrop-eyes up to meet his brother's. It was the first time Sherlock had ever really looked at his brother...and the first time Mycroft had ever really seen his. Mycroft now perceived that his brother had brown hair; it had, before now (well, the last time he saw him, anyway), been a rather light tint of strawberry-blonde. His brother's nose was rather narrow and a bit protruding for a person of such a young age, and yet it still had that "squashed-flat" look to it that marked all babies' delicate features. His brother's eyes were of the purest, softest, most frost-laden grey, like a frozen pond brushed by snow on a cold day such as this one. They locked with his own and as Mycroft stared into them, he became aware for the first time that there was, indeed, a soul inside the disproportionate, odd-looking thing at his bedside.
The child, apparently having found the sight of Mycroft to be much more interesting than the inanimate quilt, relinquished its grip on the blanket and stretched his arms upwards toward his brother, clenching his tiny fingers into fists. It was obvious now what Sherlock wanted: not a toy, not a blanket or something to chew on, but him. And so, with only very slight unease (he refused to be intimidated by a baby), he slipped his hands under his brother's arms and gripped him gently but firmly by the torso, lifting him up and carefully placing him near—but not too close to—the end of his bed. He kept his hands on the child a few moments longer and then, judging that Sherlock could sit up on his own, released him. Mycroft had never held his brother before—never even touched him. His skin was soft.
Irrationally, or so he told himself, Mycroft found himself a bit flattered at presently being the subject of his brother's complete, scrutinizing, and undivided attention. He knew that the child could tell that this new "thing" in his world was unlike his toys or his blanket; somehow, it was "bigger"—in more ways than one! His baby brother flashed Mycroft a gleeful, toothless smile.
And promptly turned his attention to pulling at his brother's shoestrings before Mycroft had time to smile back.
Fortunately, Mycroft caught himself before he could be miffed or disappointed, but then abruptly ceased all other thought as he observed his little brother. Sherlock was untying his shoelaces.
It took him the better half of a minute to figure out where and how to pull on the bow, but once he did, Sherlock easily disentangled the knot and wasted no time on loosening the other shoe, which was accomplished in seconds.
Mycroft was astounded. He sat motionless for a few seconds, staring at his brother with his mouth half open while the baby grinned at him once again, almost as though to ask "is there more?" So Mycroft obliged this unspoken (and perhaps imagined) request, reaching over his knees to tie the lace into a bow once more. This time (despite the minor difficulty of small fingers trying to pry his hands away from the shoe), he fastened the string into a double-knot. And by and by, the child's fingers dove into the mess of string without a moment to lose. Although this one did baffle the child for a time, once he'd figured out that he needed to pull at the knot from the center and not the ends of the string, he loosened it easily.
Impressed, but not willing to let his brother's limits go untested, Mycroft grabbed the laces from both of his shoes and worked them into another double-knot. Sherlock, however, made easier work of this one than the last, as the large knot was less difficult for him to grasp.
For the first time in his life, Mycroft smiled at his younger brother. No longer in his eyes was the being in front of him just an incontinent thing that ate and cried and slept. That day, Sherlock became a person—a tiny person, but with massive potential.
"Alright, so you're a smart boy," Mycroft sighed resignedly to his little brother, who seemed quite fascinated by the sound of Mycroft's unfamiliar voice.
Mycroft was not smiling when he looked up and realized that Father had been watching them from the doorway the whole time.
"Mycroft? Mycroft!"
It was uncanny, Mycroft thought, that he should snap so suddenly out of his reverie only to find Sherlock in the exact same spot where he had been on that day almost seven years ago. Sherlock was quite taken aback as his brother gave a brief, mirthless chuckle.
"You're a real thorn in my side, you know that?"
"Only as I need to be," the younger casually supplied.
"'Only as you need to be!' You mean only when you want something!"
"I never ask you for anything!"
"Oh, heavens no! Only to play cards, and play tag, and to teach you every last thing I learn in school..."
"Shut up!"
"And to take you into town, and to climb trees with you..."
"Shut up!"
At this, the younger Holmes launched forward and landed an incensed, but not very formidable punch on his brother's arm. The room fell into silence as Mycroft gave no response but to glare daggers at his misbehaving sibling. Mycroft was already quite adept at using silence as a weapon, and Sherlock once again lowered his head in shame at his unnecessary outburst.
"Sherlock. You. Are acting. Like. A child."
Sherlock said nothing, and Mycroft was inwardly amused at how affected his six-year-old brother could be at being told he was acting his age.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"No, you're not. All you want is your damned birthday present," Mycroft observed quietly, even as Sherlock's eyes nearly bulged out of his head at his brother's use of profanity.
"And what kind of seven-year-old wants a book on ancient Chinese mythology, anyway?" Mycroft shouted to no one in particular, resting a hand on his forehead.
"But you haven't seen it, Mycroft! It's huge, almost as tall as I am—"
"I severely doubt that," Mycroft interjected sardonically, but Sherlock went on as though he hadn't heard him.
"And it's got pictures on nearly every page!"
"As well it should, for ten guineas!"
"Exactly! With a price-tag like that, don't you see how nice it has to be?"
"Do not ever repeat that thought in my presence, and especially not in front of Father. Rest assured, you will not get very far in life living by that foolish principle."
"I know, I know," Sherlock mumbled unenthusiastically, awkwardly burying a hand in his dark, very-overdue-for-a-trim hair.
"So you won't do it, then?" The deflated child asked hopelessly, hopping off the bed and facing his brother directly.
"Would that I could," Mycroft answered bitterly, viewing the problem from a purely practical standpoint. As his conscience seeped into the matter, however, he could not help but study Sherlock even as he stood there pitifully, begging before him. It was a book, after all, that he wanted. Mycroft was glad, at least, for this. While he could certainly act like a child when he wanted to, Sherlock was not so stupid and empty-headed as to go asking him for some pointless toy that would surely be outgrown if it was not broken first.
Mycroft thought back to the infant fiddling with his shoestrings seven years ago. If the good Lord had deemed it fit to curse him with a younger sibling, He'd at least had the mercy to give him some brains. And although he'd never share the feeling with his brother, of course, Mycroft was, in his own private, peculiar way, grateful for this.
"Very well. I will see what I can do," Mycroft grumbled. The explosion of shock on Sherlock's face bloomed into disbelieving joy.
"You will? Do you really mean it?"
"I said I'll see what I can do. I promise no miracles, so do not expect any."
"Thank you, Mycroft!"
Sherlock practically lunged forward and caught his arm—the same one he'd punched not ten minutes ago—while the elder Holmes promptly met his brother's overbearing display of affection with a distasteful swat upside the head.
"Get off me, you little pest."
In his giddiness, Sherlock happily obliged without a single complaint. Sherlock was doing, Mycroft feared, just exactly what he'd hoped he wouldn't do. He'd taken Mycroft's agreement to see about getting the book as an automatic confirmation that Mycroft would get the book. I've warned him, the elder Holmes thought as he tepidly looked into the face of his smiling little brother.
"As I said, I promise you nothing. Now, go to bed."
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