The Holmes Siblings

 (Sherlock meta by cogentranting)

So the Holmes parents, two brilliant but relatively normal people, have a son who’s a genius. And Mycroft grows up seeing through the workings of the world, knowing how people think, being able to manipulate and predict etc. etc. He’s acutely aware of the fact that he’s different. Other people aren’t like him, and probably don’t like him, so he’s very isolated and very lonely. He sees food as a comfort and gains weight. But while Mycroft isn’t very good with people, he does understand them. So he becomes very concerned with appearance. It leads to dieting as an adult, and above all a very high sense of propriety. Myrcroft follows the rules. Mycroft does what’s right. Mycroft never has a hair out of place. Mycroft wears the best suits. Mycroft doesn’t care what you think of him. Mycroft is in control.

After Mycroft comes Sherlock, seven years later. And things are different for Sherlock. He’s a genius too, also doesn’t get along well with others. But Sherlock isn’t alone. He has Mycroft. He’s not the only genius- there’s someone else like him, someone he can look up to. So he has the same problem the same isolation, the same feeling of being different from everyone else, the same loneliness. But just a little less.

Mycroft is the oldest, held to the highest standards of behavior. But it’s been seven years and the Holmes parents are a little more lax on the rules with Sherlock. And he’s seen his brother do things, break the path. And on top of that Sherlock and Mycroft have an interesting relationship. There’s a lot of love (despite what they say). Mycroft cares for his brother, wants to protect him and so he looks out for him. But sometimes he does so in odd ways that looks a little more like bullying. And sometimes he resents him a little bit for being that little bit less lonely, that little bit better with people. And Sherlock looks up to his brother. Believes he’s the smartest person in the world (because he’s, of course, the second smartest). So while Sherlock takes after Mycroft in certain ways, he’s very determined not to be like him in a variety of other was. So where Mycroft decides to give the appearance that he doesn’t care what others think by being above reproach, the perfect gentleman, Sherlock decides to show he doesn’t care what others think by spinning out and being different in whatever way he wants. Mycroft is above it all. Sherlock has abandoned it all. Mycroft wants control, Sherlock wants excitement. And Mycroft’s control, his protection and just the fact that he went first, gives Sherlock the room and the safety to be the pirate and the adventurer and the dragon slayer.

And then, a year after Sherlock comes Eurus. So Sherlock not only has a role model, for a time he has a peer. Someone like him, someone close to him. Between this difference, the freedom he has to be himself whatever the consequences and just his natural friendliness, Sherlock manages to make a friend. Little Victor Trevor, his co-pirate. And Sherlock gets to be almost normal for a time at least.

And Eurus might have been more like Sherlock. Except that she was a little bit more than genius. Smarter than Mycroft or Sherlock. And her emotional and interpersonal issues didn’t stem from her situation, being isolated or lonely because of her intelligence. No for Eurus there was actually something off, something not right. And it probably hid a bit behind the fact that something similar had developed in her brothers. So maybe her parents thought at first that it was the same thing but more. Eurus for all her genius couldn’t quite understand the world in some ways that counted. And so instead of adjusting herself to deal with the world the way that Mycroft and Sherlock did, she tried to bend the world to her shape.

Sherlock was her peer, close when they were young, and she wanted to relate to him but couldn’t quite figure out how. She ends up hurting him, and it puts a wedge between them. Then Sherlock manages to do what no other Holmes child was able to- he makes a best friend. And it really drives Sherlock and Eurus apart. Because Victor can bridge the gap for Sherlock and connect. Sherlock isn’t good enough with people, with forming connections, to make up the difference for what Eurus is lacking. But Victor can make up the difference for Sherlock. And Eurus gets jealous. In a regular child this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Hurtful, formative, maybe. But Eurus doesn’t understand people so she tries to change them. She doesn’t understand Victor, so she gets rid of him and in her own way asks Sherlock to come back to her. And she can’t quite understand the reason why he doesn’t. Why he’s so upset. Why he won’t let her replace Victor. And so she gets angry and tries to change Sherlock- she sets the house on fire. Which of course leads to her being locked up and taken away (combined with the fact that the family is pretty sure she’s the reason behind the neighbor boy’s disappearance).

Sherlock might have grown up really pretty normal. Nice parents, a protective if somewhat mean older brother, a sister he was close to, a best friend. But then his sister murders his best friend, tries to kill him and is taken away. And Sherlock, naturally, is traumatized. So his mind rewrites his memories to get rid of the trauma- he forgets Eurus and Victor. But he can’t quite write out the pain so his mind creates something new as the source- Redbeard, the dog that he loved that died.

And the pain and the trauma create in him a fear of attachment and affection. His parents are devastated by the loss of their daughter, they feel they’ve failed her. But they also feel incredibly guilty, thinking they allowed her to kill a little boy and allowed her to hurt their son. They don’t know how to help their traumatized son who suddenly can’t remember his own sister. And because now they’re desperate to protect him, they decide maybe it’s best that Sherlock doesn’t remember any of it. So they lie, and let Sherlock believe his mind’s lie. Mycroft does too. Which sets the example for him for some of his later decisions- particularly faking Eurus’s death.

Meanwhile Sherlock gets older and his parents can’t quite bring themselves to keep him in line. Because they feel guilty about what they let happen, because they excuse his behavior as a symptom of his trauma and his intellect. And because he’s their baby and they’ve already lost one.

So Sherlock, wanting to embrace standing out, afraid to form attachments, afraid to love, becomes prouder and ruder and more insensitive and meaner. And wanting excitement and adventure and a challenge he becomes more and more self destructive and more impulsive. He gets into drugs. He becomes fascinated by crime (a subconscious effect of the Victor mystery) and eventually becomes a consulting detective addicted to danger (and heroin).

All this continues until Sherlock stumbles into a group of people (John and Mrs Hudson and Molly and Mary and Lestrade) who love him despite his worst qualities, despite the fact that he’s made himself unlovable and unable to love them. They love him anyway and so he slowly begins to accept that. And he begins to heal and begins to love them. And when he’s healed enough to admit that he is loved and he does love them, then he reaches out to his brother first, then his sister and starts to help them heal too, in what small ways he can help.

So in the end, the Holmes siblings find that, for the first time, none of them are alone in the world.