Don't mind me, I just forgot we had an ongoing project...

-...-

Author: eclecticregard/shizukaame

Title: Surprise

Summary: In which Mycroft gains more ammo with which to tease his brother.

From the first day, Sherlock hated school. There were so many ridiculous rules to follow; not just school rules, social ones, which seemed that much worse to a boy who had never had any inkling of what was and wasn't socially acceptable. Mummy and Mycroft had tried to teach Sherlock to at least pretend for appearance's sake, but they had known from the beginning that it was an utterly pointless effort. The younger Holmes boy had never cared for things that didn't interest him, least of all how people thought he should behave. After a certain age he'd begun to understand more of why people reacted in specific ways to different situations, which he'd then carefully cataloged away for future reference. It was fun for him to make an experiment out of studying behaviors and even, later, testing them out to see if he could pull them off. He supposed it was one of those useful just-in-case things, like the smoke alarms hanging in random spots in the house. "You never know when they might come in handy," Mycroft had told a much younger Sherlock when he'd first taken notice of the devices. For a stupid, annoying git, Mycroft at least knew some valuable information.

School itself was tedious, full of boring people and equally boring facts about things Sherlock never cared to know for more than a few days at a time. The other children were loud and obnoxious, teasing him when they just couldn't grasp whatever it was he'd recently had his mind set on figuring out. On rare occasions he would find himself enjoying a classroom activity or noticing that the boy or girl sitting next to him wasn't quite as impossibly annoying as he'd originally assumed, which only served to irritate him further. These were things that he'd been set on hating until he graduated; he still had quite a bit to go before thatwould happen, but he'd had faith in himself that he could hate anything he set his mind to for as long as he very well pleased.

The phone calls and notes sent home were the worst, no matter if they were full of good news or somehow contained the words "He is a delight to have, but Sherlock needs to work on...", because Mycroft was the one who handled them whenever Mummy was away - which had been happening more at a slowly increasing rate as the years passed by. Mycroft seemed to take an even amount of pleasure in ruffling his brother's hair and giving him a few words of encouragement as he did in scolding him in that calm tone he knew drove the boy insane. 'He would,' Sherlock had thought on several occasions while off sulking somewhere. Things were so much easier for Mycroft. He didn't have trouble pretending to care about others, he seemed to actually enjoy learning the useless facts teachers liked to drone on and on about, and, since he'd managed to grow so impossibly tall - like Daddy, and for that Sherlock hated him even more -, people had even less of a tendency to try teasing him than they had before. Sherlock hadn't been quite as lucky. He disliked having to feign interest (it was a lie, which he didn't mind telling, but there was no point to this kind of lie, so why bother?) and never spoke to anyone with the intention of being mean - it just happened to be construed as such.

Sherlock was eleven the first time it happened. From the start of the school year, there had been one girl in particular who he'd found to be just the right amount of entertaining and uncaring when it came to his unusual behavior. She would insist they sat together for lunch, which turned out to be less painful than he'd thought, and even listened to him whenever he got in a mood and rambled on about that which really only made sense to him. He let her help him when there were things in class he'd forgotten about - rather, tossed carelessly out of his mind - and found that the fact that she smiled a lot at him wasn't too terrible either. Then, of course, she'd had to go and ruineverything.

It was the last day before Christmas break and Mycroft had just come home from Uni a few days prior. Much to his brother's chagrin, he'd insisted on picking Sherlock up after school every day since he'd been home. It was bad enough to have to listen to the elder boy's cheerful mocking words about his 'new girlfriend' from the first day he'd seen Sherlock walking out of the school with a redheaded girl talking at him - he'd even made the horrid mistake of forgetting himself and gave her a small, half-smile before remembering Mycroft was watching. The last day, however, turned out to be much, much worse. Just before he could break away from the girl with a mutter of "Merry Christmas", she had stepped up to him and kissed him right on the mouth. A brief second later, she said her good-byes and ran off for her own ride, leaving Sherlock standing dumbfounded in the middle of the walkway. A minute later he composed himself and strode over to the waiting car, already glaring at Mycroft before he could even see the amused look on his face. He slid into the passenger seat, shut the door, and immediately turned his back to his brother.

"Shall Mummy and I expect a happy announcement over the holiday, then?" Mycroft inquired lightly as they drove off.

"Stuff it, Mycroft."

-...-

Author: reflecting/surrenderdammit
Title: Pesky Puberty, Bothering Brothers
Summary: How could the woes of puberty make Mycroft even moreinsufferable?

A loud sneeze echoed through the large, ancient attic, startling anyone who might be nearby. As it was, Sherlock Holmes was very much alone, buried deep in old boxes and dust as he grimaced in annoyance at the tickling sensation in his nose. Three sneezes later and he figured he finally had his bothersome body under control. Which of course, nowadays, meant very little, as the following four sneezes reminded him of.

Puberty was, all in all, a complete mess and an utter disgrace of evolution. That you weren't just allowed to wake up one day and de-tangle from your sheets like breaking free of a cocoon, fully developed and at optimal function, was deplorable. The process you were forced by nature to endure was instead something completely humiliating, mostly because it was utterly out of your mind's control which proved that there was, indeed, some things that were just simply out of your hands. This was what Mycroft had told him (somewhat edited), after having sent him to shower one day with a new deodorant pressed into his hands (increased hormones and pheromones: body odor). It only got worse from there: sullied sheets, growth pains, broken voice, flailing limbs, pimples and inappropriate, awkward reactions to dull human faces and bodies.

While he knew, logically, that his older brother must have gone through similar biological changes, it was hard to imagine, though Mycroft altered between being annoyingly helpful and disgustingly mocking. There were times, Sherlock admitted, that the elder Holmes sibling did not seem human at all. This had never bothered him up until now, because try as he might, he could not remember a time when his brother's voice had been anything but soothing or taunting. There were no sharp elbows, unpleasant smells, locked bedroom doors, or violent temper tantrums. This was worrying on several levels; had Sherlock's memory somehow been impaired? Did Mycroft lie about it being uncontrollable? Could one control it, if one were a Holmes? If so, Sherlock had failed long ago, both with keeping a satisfying arsenal of memories where Mycroft embarrassed himself by stooping to human levels, as well as figuring out the way to control himself and the changes so violently forced upon him. He was granted some kind of mercy however, with Mycroft permanently out of the house barring holidays and vacations (when he could afford them. Making himself indispensable while taking over the country would take up a lot of time). That meant fewer opportunities for his brother to collect even more embarrassing information on him, which was a constant, if undeniably losing, fight on Sherlock's part.

This week, however, Mycroft had taken a few days off of manipulating government officials of all standings and whatever else he did when he wasn't feeding on the blood of virgins ("I am not a vampire, Sherlock, and as such I cannot turn you into one as well."). This was badly timed with Sherlock's break from school over the summer, and so the brothers were holed up in their family home with an unusually fussy Mummy - Sherlock suspected the weight-gain, bruised eyes, clenched jaw due to frequent and persistent migraines, the sudden unexpected more-than-the-usual two-day vacation, among many other signs of Mycroft rapidly working himself sick. Mycroft was never really cruel towards him, but he could be vicious when provoked, and did Sherlock not just love being able to annoy his brother till he was gritting his teeth in frustration? Yesterday, however, he admitted he might have gone a bit too far (playing with fire again).

The following retaliation had driven Sherlock up to the dusty attic and its dank smell of old and forgotten things. There had been no need to lay bare all that had annoyed, scared, and confounded him since the textbook biology became a reality. Mycroft clearly knew it all anyway, but sometimes Sherlock liked to pretend he didn't, for whatever reason ("You are intimidated, brother-mine."). Fuming, he'd left Mycroft where he stood with his spine stiff, mouth grim and eyes cold in a pained glare (his brother's migraines weren't like the noise in his own head, the noise that never stopped and sometimes became too much and left him so weak. He didn't know what they were like, only that it made him snap much more easily, were a sign of bad things, and had worn permanent marks on his face over the years). After having stomped up the stairs intending to secure himself in his bedroom, he'd instead continued on up to the attic.

The family album dedicated to Mycroft must be somewhere. Surely Mummy wouldn't allow his brother to truly get rid of it? Sherlock had tried to get rid of his own, the ridiculous leather-bound thing in red with "Sherlock Holmes" in golden Victorian script (and, somewhat morbidly, the date of his birth with room to add his eventual date of death), but with little success. The scolding he received after having tried to "drop" it in acid had put a stop to the more obvious ways of getting rid of it. It now had a "honorary position" (Mycroft's annoyingly cheerful words) in Mummy's glassed-in bookshelf in the living room ("Easy access for the one you might one day drag home. Embarrassing baby pictures is part of the ritual and definitely one of the privileges of being a mother."). To add salt to the injury, after the acid incident, Mycroft had gotten Mummy a Canon EOS RT (two months before its official release), to ensure she would have sufficient material (bastard). The only good thing about this was that Mycroft had been subjected to as many "photoshoots" as himself during that period (it was still ongoing, he'd noted, when the flash had gone off seemingly non-stop the first day his brother had arrived).

Another series of violent sneezes disrupted Sherlock's stream of thoughts from where he sat rummaging through the third box most likely to contain stashed away photos. With an annoyed hiss, he dropped the old, mould-infested books back and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the offending mess around him. It was like this Mycroft found him, having snuck up during his sneeze attack no doubt. His hand on his shoulder made him jump slightly and gasp in surprise, ending with a coughing fit and an unpleasant taste of dust in his mouth.

"Fuck-!" he hissed, getting his arm caught in a firm grip in an attempt to elbow his brother in the ribs. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I could ask you the same," Mycroft replied, settling down beside him, calmly ignoring his glare, "but we both know the answer to that. Really Sherlock, there are more efficient ways of uncovering information."

"Yeah, well you'd know all about that wouldn't you, you manipulative sod," he muttered, shifting a bit further away. Silence followed, frustrated on Sherlock's part, more amused indulgence on his elder brother's. After a while Mycroft spoke, sounding as tired as he looked.

"You must realize that there is a time and place for provoking me. Have you not yet learned to tell the difference?" Which was Mycroft's way of telling him he wouldn't apologize, which Sherlock already knew, of course. His only answer was a huff of frustration, at himself or his brother he wasn't sure at this point. Mycroft continued, resting his hand on Sherlock's back. "I cannot promise to not end up like this again, brother-mine. My work-"

"-oh please! As if I care!" Sherlock snapped, looking away with a sneer. Mycroft simply sighed and let his hand drop, pushing himself up to a stand. They both knew why Sherlock couldn't help himself; Mycroft was the same, if more controlled. It was much easier to be angry than worried, after all.

"The attic was not a bad deduction. I confirm nothing, since it would not be anything in it for me at all, but if you ever find it, I promise to secure your album of childhood awkwardness in an equally safe place," his brother said after a moment, before making his way to the stairs. Sherlock watched him leave with narrowed eyes.

"It's not safe if I find it!" he called after him. Mycroft merely paused and sent him a smirk, eyes sharper than they'd been since he came home.

"Exactly; if."