Mystrade - Christmas in the Cotswolds - from The Personal Journal of Mycroft..

Chapter 8

        I heard the bedroom door creak slightly as it opened, then closed again. It was finally Christmas morning, the end of the whole infernal season, and Greg had sneaked out of bed thirty minutes or so prior. He returned, accompanied by the warm, comforting scent of chocolate, dancing in the air with the vetiver and patchouli of his cologne.

        I heard a wooden tray land on top of his bedside table as he climbed back into the bed next to me. I was still tired. The sun had barely risen. Perhaps if I remained still enough, Greg would actually believe I was still asleep.

        The room was so silent, I could hear the light fabric of his tee shirt as he flung it onto the bedpost. Cold air snuck under the bedclothes as Greg crawled across the mattress, not stopping until his bare chest met the satin shirt covering my back. His right arm wrapped around my ribcage, and he pulled me even closer against him, resting his chin on my shoulder.

        "George Bailey," he whispered. 

         Not this again. He had returned, evidently, to his insistence upon discussing my affinity for It's A Wonderful Life.

        "I know you're awake." I felt his breath on my neck. "George Bailey," he paused again, apparently assuming I'd acknowledge that he was talking to me "sacrifices everything for his little brother. Saves his life even. But the brother gets all the accolades - all the attention - even though George is really the hero."

        I remained still and silent, panicking internally as a tear began to build in my eye.

        "He did it. He broke you."

        Playing dead was failing me. I rolled onto my back and Greg nestled himself onto my chest.

        "When did it happen?" he asked, running his hand up between my shirt and torso.

        I exhaled, still not wanting to expound on the topic.

        "Talk to me, Mycroft."

        Even if he'd back down on this now, he'd just try again later. I was fighting a battle I'd already lost. "I was seventeen," I said.

        "Which means Sherlock was - ?"

        "Ten."

        "Good God. Ten? He screwed up that bad when he was ten?"

        "It was Christmas Eve."

        "Of course it was." Greg began unfastening my buttons as I spoke.

        "I was alone in my room watching my favourite film on the telly. They only ran it once each year."

        "Hmmm," Greg hummed to point out that the added details of my story were merely a stalling tactic.

        "Suddenly, he was missing. No one knew where he was. No one could find him."

        "Except you?"

        "Except me." I paused, as the vivid memory of my baby brother convulsing in the snow ripped through my mind. "Except me. I found him lying in an alleyway behind a pub in Croydon, covered in snow, nearly hypothermic." I felt a pit begin to form in my stomach as I remembered how cold his little body had felt to my touch.

        "Jees." I could see the gears turning in Greg's mind. "But, he was ten. How could he have gotten enough drugs to do that?"

        "He's Sherlock Holmes," I reminded. "He had, I later found out, started his homeless network at the age of eight as a means of manipulating favors and transportation around the city that could be hidden from our parents and me. He talked his way up a drug chain. Once I woke him, he informed me that he was conducting an experiment."