Seems So Easy for Everybody Else 2/2, PG-13, Sherlock
Title: Seems So Easy for Everybody Else (2/2)
Rating: PG-13
Length: 15,000 words
Warnings: trigger warnings for trans issues, brief mention of suicidal ideation
Summary: He signs his correspondences to the police as Sherlock H, as he always has, and he signs his letters to his parents as SH -- they can take what they will from the S. He signs his school assignments S. Holmes, and manages to get away with it because he is the only Holmes in his classes. FtM!Sherlock.
Notes: Namefail fixed with help from shezan and cold_tea. If you're just getting here and have no idea what I'm talking about, uh, that's probably for the best. :D
He signs his correspondences to the police as Sherlock H, as he always has, and he signs his letters to his family as SH. They can take what they will from the S. He signs his school assignments S. Holmes, and manages to get away with it because he is the only Holmes in his classes.
It is a small, trivial sign of defiance, to not write the name "Sophie Holmes", especially when he still answers to it. But he does it anyway.
--
Sebastian thinks he's a girl but Sherlock still likes him because aside from that, he puts up with the rest of it pretty well. He is annoyed when Sherlock deduces at him (he can't help it, really; part of him always jumps at the opportunity to show off) but tries to hide it.
He invites Sherlock to have lunch with him.
Sherlock accepts, on a whim.
And he's not naive, per se, but just because he knows about the phenomenon of reciprocal liking doesn't mean he's immune to it.
Seb is not too stupid. Sherlock's pretty sure if he tried, he'd be able to be moderately entertaining, which does put him ahead of the rest.
He doesn't try to pay for Sherlock's lunch, even though it seems to be a date. Seb is dressed slightly more formally than usual, though Sherlock's just in his standard jeans and a men's shirt and a coat that's two sizes too large.
He buys more men's clothes now, keeps them in with the rest of his belongings; he's been taking jobs as Sherlock, mostly solving petty thefts or writing term papers for a modest fee to help fund his experiments. His clients, the ones that aren't his fellow students, are always surprised at how young he looks. His face is too round, and his voice too high. He looks like a child. It likely doesn't help that he's actually only eighteen.
Seb is shorter than him, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by that. He offers Sherlock his arm with a teasing grin; Sherlock shoves it away, but finds himself smiling as well.
--
One date becomes two, becomes three. Soon Sherlock finds himself loitering outside Seb's classes, waiting for him to come out, or sitting with him in the library, doing problem sets together. He can't actually tell if Seb is using him for his body (he's taking things slower than the norm for college relationships, probably slower than Seb is used to) or his academic prowess (Sherlock can't help but correct his papers, because they are written with the skill of a five-year-old making doodles in crayon).
But Seb's warm and pleasing to be around, and while he's displeased at the way Sherlock disappears for days sometimes (he goes out of town as Sherlock to investigate things, having already turned in any upcoming assignments, because he gets bored and the alternative would be to cause trouble rather than search for it), he doesn't pry for more information.
--
Dear Charlotte,
Mummy says you're seeing someone: a fellow named Sebastian. Congratulations! This is your first boyfriend, isn't it? Does he treat you well? I'm glad to see you're making friends. Congratulations on your marks as well, though I'd expected no less from you. Mummy's ecstatic.
Yours,
Mycroft Holmes
Dear Mycroft,
He's alright. A bit dull, but I'm used to that. I'm also friends with my roommate, thank you very much. I'm perfectly capable of making friends if I put in the effort. I just don't waste as much time on it as you do. Mummy is more ecstatic at the idea that I have found a man to take care of me than she'd ever be regarding my marks.
How are you? Taken over the world yet?
Yours,
SH
--
Seb introduces Sherlock to his friends as "Charlotte my girlfriend". Sherlock forces a polite grin and plays nicely with them for a while, but swiftly becomes bored. They're supposed to be "hanging out" before exams. It is a pub he's been to before, but not one he's gone as Charlotte to.
"You're cheating on your girlfriend," he says to Mark, who is one of Seb's best friends. Mark's girlfriend, who is sitting next to him, makes an angry sound. Mark turns red.
"I am not!" He protests. Sherlock wonders if he'd ever turned that red when angry. Mycroft never has (though Mycroft rarely gets angry, so his sample size is small), but Seb does, sometimes, when Sherlock is in a bad mood and being particularly hard to get along with. He hopes he never looks like that. It's terribly unattractive.
"You are," he says calmly, and points to Mark's hand, which has a spot of paint near the fingernails. "You're studying biology. Your girlfriend studies philosophy, but you were recently having sex with someone in an art room. Your girlfriend's been busy with her schoolwork, obviously, since she's still carrying about the source material for the paper she's writing, so it can't have been her."
He turns to the girlfriend. "Do you know any art students? Female, dark hair, shorter than him but taller than you, long nails?"
Turns out, she does, but it ends up being a different one giving her boyfriend blow jobs in the art room, because he confesses the whole thing once he's called out, much to the uncomfortableness of the circular table.
"You're kind of a huge bitch," the girlfriend says viciously to him afterwards, when Seb and the other men leave to collect more drinks.
Sherlock says, "Wouldn't you rather know before you proposed? You keep looking at his hands," he explains before she opens her mouth to ask why he knows that. "His ring finger in particular. Also, the ring's in your purse and you touch it when nervous."
"That's creepy," the girlfriend says flatly.
"Is it? I hadn't noticed."
--
"Charlotte, did you really have to do that?" Seb asks, when he walks Sherlock back to his room.
"Mmm, no. But I was bored," Sherlock replies, with a careless shrug. "I did try, though."
"You get bored so easily," Seb says, but his voice is amused now, indulgent. He opens the door for Sherlock. "Is your roommate in?"
"No, she's out for the rest of the weekend," Sherlock replies and Seb slides in after him, hands already tugging at his coat, sliding underneath his shirt. "Must you always maul me so?" He huffs a laugh and helps Seb take off their clothes.
Seb's not terrible at sex, as far as he can tell. It's more fun than masturbation at least, and Sherlock enjoys the physical closeness even if it feels strange, just a little. But he's had this body for years, and he knows how to use it, even if it doesn't feel like him.
--
That summer, he doesn't tell his parents, because he's afraid.
He hates being afraid.
Mycroft knows he's hiding something but not what it is. When he asks, Sherlock refuses to tell him. But he acts no different than he normally does and there are no easy hints for Mycroft to deduce what's wrong with him.
"Haven't broken up with Sebastian yet, I see," Mycroft says, and nibbles on a biscuit.
"Not yet," Sherlock agrees. He doesn't like being at home. It feels strange. His mother keepts trying to ask him how serious he is about Seb (the answer being "not very", but that's not what she wants to hear and he doesn't want to deal with it). "I like him."
"Not very much, you don't," Mycroft observes. "You've been pretending you're a man."
I'm not pretending, Sherlock thinks, but that's not what he says. What he says is, "Have you ever seen an 18-year-old girl talking to drug dealers in dark alleys? What do you think happens to them after?"
Mycroft makes a face. "You needn't go tramping about in so many places, Sherry. That's what other people are for. You can get the same information from reading reports someone else brings you."
"Yes, but where's the fun in that? Besides, there's no one I'd trust more than myself to make the necessary observations."
"Must you?"
"Yes, I think so," Sherlock says, and Mycroft looks dubious. Sherlock distracts him by noticing out loud that Mycroft has gained ten pounds recently, thanks to his desk job.
Mycroft retaliates by making a point of calling him Charlotte at every opportunity.
--
The next year is better, because he gets a flat on his own and introduces himself to the neighbors as Sherlock Holmes. He binds his chest whenever he goes out and no one questions him despite how high his voice still is.
The only problem is telling Seb.
Or, well, the real problem is that he doesn't tell Seb, just starts avoiding him. Seb doesn't find him until two weeks into the term, when they pass each other while going to their respective classes.
Seb grabs his arm. "Charlotte? Where've you been? You haven't answered my calls."
"I'm going by Sherlock now," Sherlock says, and pulls his arm free.
"Sherlock?" Seb says, sounding puzzled. "What kind of a name is Sherlock?"
"Look, I -- Let's not discuss this here," he says, then offers reluctantly, "Did you want to get some coffee?"
"I want to know why my girlfriend's been avoiding me. If you wanted to break up with me, you could have just said so," Seb says, voice rising, and several students cast glances at them (at him).
"There's no need to cause a scene," Sherlock says, and takes Seb's arm. "Let's go."
--
"So you want to be a man?"
I am a man, Sherlock thinks. But what he says is, "Essentially, yes. I go by Sherlock, and want to be treated as a man."
"But you're not," Seb points out, and looks so very, very confused as he nurses his cup of tea. "You're a girl -- I know you're a girl. We've had sex."
Sherlock sighs. "Yes, Sebastian. But I'm a man now, and I'll thank you to treat me like one."
"Is this because you're gay?" he asks suspiciously. "You don't want to be a lesbian, so you're going to get a sex change?"
Right. That's enough talking to idiots for today, Sherlock thinks, and clenches his teeth. He stands up.
"Stop worrying about sexuality," he says. "You're bisexual with a preference for men. That's why you were attracted to me in the first place, but you're too afraid to admit it because you know your father will disapprove of you. I am still exclusively attracted to men, which makes me homosexual. My gender has nothing to do with you and it is not up for negotiation."
"I won't be your boyfriend if you're going to tell everyone you're a man," Seb says, watching Sherlock put on his coat.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Yes, I know. I've already made my decision. I thought that was already clear."
--
Later, Seb will apologize to him for being a git, and they will be friends again, but it will be strange. And even later, he will join Seb and some of his mates for drinks, as a man, and no one will question it or assume they are dating.
But afterwards, they'll go back to Sherlock's flat, and Seb will run his hands over Sherlock's arms, and his waist, and his neck, and he will whisper "Sherlock" thoughtfully. And Sherlock will push him against the wall, and drop to his knees, and take him in his mouth.
And afterwards, Sebastian will say self-consciously, "It wasn't really gay; you're not a real man."
And Sherlock will punch him in the jaw and say, "If you ever say I'm not a real man again, I'm telling everyone about the gay pornographic magazines you hide under your bed."
--
He tells his family because he can't bear the thought of pretending to be Charlotte again.
--
Mycroft doesn't understand, but Sherlock wasn't expecting him to.
"Sherry," he says, and then, "Sherlock," when Sherlock scowls at him. "What's this about, really?"
His voice is too gentle. He's soft around the edges from the years of government work, and somewhere between when Sherlock realized he could never go to Eton, and when Mycroft realized he could take over the world but only if he looked as if he followed everyone's expectations, Sherlock realizes that they had stopped being best friends.
"I just want to do what I want," he says, rather than explain himself. "Do we have to talk about it today?"
"We'll have to talk about it eventually," Mycroft comments. "But I suppose not today. Mummy's fairly angry at you, though. I don't know how long it'll take before she forgives you."
"I don't care if she ever forgives me.”
--
He drops out of school at the end of the term because he can't afford to go, now that his family won't pay for it.
This doesn't bother him.
What bothers him is that his mother makes Mycroft pass on her letters, which always start with Dear Charlotte, and involve some sort of insinuation that he's doing this just to spite her and that he needs to come back and get treatment for his illness.
He doesn't know why he reads them at all, but it feels very sastifying to burn them.
--
All his legal documents name him as Sophie and the marker for his sex is F. Technically, this is accurate, because sex and gender are not the same, and his sex is female.
So when he rents a flat in Cardiff, he presents himself as a woman and hates every minute of it. He gets a job and quits within the week because his boss touches his knee and tells him he'd look so much lovelier if he wore a skirt. The next two jobs go much the same way.
By the time six months have passed, he is out of money and not sure what he's doing with himself, so he goes back to his family with his metaphorical tail between his legs.
He spends three months talking to a psychiatrist who is clearly incompetent. He sees she have no idea what she's talking about within a week, and spends the rest of the time alternately antagonizing and deceiving her, just to make the hours pass by more quickly.
He ends up getting nothing out of it except for a painfully inaccurate sociopathy diagnosis that his parents seem to eat up. His mother especially would like to think that he's doing "that silly pretending to be a man thing" just to spite her.
He's not actually on speaking terms with his father right now, so Sherlock doesn't know what he thinks.
Mycroft, on the other hand, thinks he's being kind by trying to talk to Sherlock, but the condescension is really quite off-putting. Sherlock knows Mycroft is just humoring him, can tell that Mycroft sees him as "my confused baby sister who I need to protect and take care of", and while he does still love Mycroft, it's enough to make him want to commit fratricide.
So he leaves, because he'd rather be living in the street than putting up with this.
--
He finds a smaller, cheaper flat and puts his deductive skills to use as a detective, making contacts through word of mouth and usually scraping by with just enough money to pay the rent. When he doesn't have enough, he picks pockets until he has does.
He solves a case of stolen jewelery (so boringly common) and uses the reward to pay for hormones, which is wonderful and terrifying all at once.
The fact that he's getting them illegally is really immaterial, in comparison (and he's perfectly competent, capable of testing to ensure it is, in fact, what he's been told). But before injecting himself, he checks it -- repeatedly, carefully, with more care than he's given the cocaine he puts irregularly into his veins when he needs to be away from himself.
Soon, he needs to shave. He can see the bristles on his face, can feel them rough against the pad of his thumb. The first time he does it, he laughs -- well into his twenties, and shaving for the first time. He'd never shaved before, when he'd been presenting as a woman -- not his legs, and not under his arms, because he'd never seen the point. There'd never been any need. He'd always worn as many clothes as he could, to obscure his figure.
He uses a safety razor and still manages to look like he lost a fight with an angry sheet of paper (or a dozen).
But when he looks into the mirror, his face won't stop grinning.
--
Several months later, Sherlock comes home to find Mycroft looking through his flat.
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asks. He feels a deep satisfaction when Mycroft visibly jumps at the sound of Sherlock's voice, deeper than it was before and still dropping.
"You've been taking testosterone," Mycroft says with a displeased frown, and taps the floor with the umbrella held in his left hand. "How did you even get it? Is it at least human?"
Sherlock shrugs. "Mostly. How did you find out where I live?"
"You signed the lease as Sophie Holmes," Mycroft says mildly, and Sherlock knows his brother has noticed the slight wince he'd made when he'd heard the name. "There aren't very many Sophie Holmeses in London."
"My name's Sherlock," he corrects.
"I remember. I remember when you picked it, even."
"What do you want?" Why did he even bother asking? Mycroft was clenching the umbrella, his lips were pursed. He was staring at Sherlock's chest (bound, flat) and his jaw (unshaven, a day's worth of stubble). He hasn't made contact with Sherlock since he'd left home for the second time, and now is meeting him in person, having already broken into his flat.
So Mycroft wants something from him, and it has to be important, too important to send an email or make a call. Sherlock has a website with his name on it, and he sincerely doubts Mycroft is too stupid to look him up, especially if he can find Sherlock's address from a supposedly private lease.
"Neither of our parents are in ill health," Sherlock says and strips off his gloves. He shrugs out of his coat, and takes off his shoes. "What could they possibly need me for?"
Mycroft makes a face as if remembering something deeply unpleasant. "Christmas dinner," he says. "Mother misses you. As do I."
"You've had years to contact me, Mycroft. And I'm not going to Christmas dinner. I've had enough masquerading as a female for the first two decades of my life. I've no interest in doing it again."
"Sherry, don't be like that," Mycroft says, and Sherlock throws a paperweight at his face. Mycroft catches it, of course.
"Don't call me Sherry. My name is Sherlock."
"Sherlock, then. We miss you. Even if you don't want to be a girl anymore, the family misses you and you're still blood. You've kept the surname, I see."
"It was too much effort to change," Sherlock lies. "You also wanted to see how I'm doing," he observes, but that's easy to figure out. It's obvious, from the way Mycroft looks around the flat, examines Sherlock, as if he can deduce everything about the last few years. "I'm fine. I'm happier now than I've ever been."
"You never seemed unhappy when we were children."
"I was always unhappy, but I never knew why," he admits, and Mycroft looks sorrowful. "Now get out."
"Come to Christmas dinner."
But Sherlock has the ace up his sleeve in this conversation, and he knows it, because, "Only if I don't have to pretend to be a girl."
"It's not pretending. You are a girl. You never exhibited any of the classical signs of Gender Identity Disorder --"
"I bloody well did! I hated everything about having a female body and being treated like a girl and if you hadn't been blinded by uni and then your job, you'd have seen it! But you've kept your position this long, so I suppose it must be important."
The more important than me is unspoken.
"Now get out," Sherlock says. "You've heard my terms."
Mycroft sighs. "I worry about you, Sherlock. I'm your older brother. That has to count for something."
"If you can get mother to let me go as a man, then I'll go."
She doesn't agree.
Sherlock ignores the rest of Mycroft's calls, until they eventually trickle to a stop.
--
The drugs start because he's bored, because his funds are finite and his space is finite, which means the number of experiments he can keep are disappointingly limited. The first time is because he's curious. When he's high, when there's enough of it in his veins, he can't feel his body.
He can't feel the ever-present wrongness that distracts him, doesn't see himself in the mirror and think, bones too delicate, jaw too rounded. He forgets, momentarily, that he'd been born wrong, and for him, forgetting is something that comes rarely.
It's not the same as being focused, at having a challenge to solve, at picking up dozens of disparate facts and deducing them down to reveal the truth of a mystery.
But it's good, and it helps him when he remembers that he'll never be biologically male, that his chromosomes will always read XX, no matter what he does to his body or his records.
As far as bad, self-destructive habits go, it's not too egregious. He still has the work, can calculate dosages easily to leave himself with his wits when he needs them. He runs rings around anyone he associates with -- clients and contacts and even the slightly darker contacts he uses when the normal ones don't suffice.
--
He overdoses exactly once, while chasing a high that doesn't get him high enough, that doesn't divorce him from his (permanentlywrong) body until he adds a handful of other substances, each one worse than the previous, and manages to accidentally mix two things that oughtn't be mixed.
He wakes in hospital, feeling like shit. There's an IV in his arm. His breasts aren't bound, and he's been changed out of his clothes (the knowledge that someone's undressed him makes an ice-cold coil of fear wrap around his chest, because he hates that, hates people looking at him and seeing her).
Mycroft is in a chair -- a plush, comfortable-looking leather one that clearly doesn't belong to the hospital -- at his bedside, reading a file. Sherlock's medical file, most likely. He looks up when Sherlock stirs. From his rumpled state, and the way the flesh settles on his cheekbones, he's lost three to five pounds, recently.
"Charlotte," he says seriously, "You need to stop doing this to yourself."
Sherlock's surprised at the depth of his reaction, at the sheer strength of the rage he feels at Mycroft's words. "I'd sooner die," he snaps without thinking.
Mycroft flinches with his entire body.
"You very well might!" He snaps. "What you're doing isn't safe and the changes you're making to your body are irreversible! I thought you'd tire of this game, but you clearly haven't, and it's has gone on long enough."
Sherlock rips the IV out and forces himself into a sitting position. The sudden movement makes the room spin dizzyingly around him, but he stays upright out of sheer force of will. "I don't care what you say," he says. "I got this far without anyone's help, and I'm not going to stop now."
"And now you're a drug addict and a transsexual. Do you have any consideration for how upset you've made Mummy?"
"She's the one who said I wasn't welcome in the house anymore," Sherlock says. "I'm doing this with or without any of you, even if it kills me. I'd rather it killed me, than go back to how it was before."
Mycroft's face crumples and once, the sight would have broken Sherlock's heart. But now, all he feels is satisfaction at making Mycroft hurt as much as he has. "Charlotte --"
"Don't call me that!"
"I'm not indulging your whims any longer. Do you know how I heard what happened to you? I got a call. A phone call, at work, from the hospital telling me you were in critical condition and they'd found traces of nearly a dozen drugs in your system. They weren't sure you were going to live."
"I wish I hadn't," Sherlock mutters rebelliously, but this time he doesn't mean it, and they both know it.
"You're ruining your life."
"I don't care. You can't stop me."
Mycroft sighs. "The drugs, at least. You need to get clean."
He can't, not yet. The drugs are the only thing that make him feel... not right, but at least not wrong. He needs them. And they help with other things, with focusing his mind on the work, on the cases and the knowledge and on being right, in at least this one little way.
"I'm not here to fight with you," Mycroft says. "I just wanted to see that you were all right, and to try talking you into seeing reason, if possible."
Sherlock wonders where the doctors are. Mycroft's influence has grown so strong that he can prevent them coming in, but through what means? Distraction, or has he the power to threaten jobs now?
"I'm being perfectly reasonable," he says. "What happened with the drugs was a miscalculation, as you well know, and I'm not changing any of the rest."
"There's nothing I can do to change your mind," Mycroft says. It's not a question.
Sherlock doesn't hesitate. "Not in this."
Mycroft stands, leaning his weight on his thin black umbrella. "I'll arrange for your allowance to be reinstated." he says. "It'll be the same account as it's always been. Use it for anything you need, except drugs. Move into a better flat. Get clean."
"This doesn't change anything," Sherlock tells him. "I'll never forgive you," for not taking me seriously, for not helping me, for siding with our parents instead of me, for not being there when I needed you, "no matter what you do."
--
Sherlock undertakes the necessary surgeries but uses the rest of the money sparingly, letting the deposits build up over time. He draws from it only when he must, when he would otherwise have to choose between paying for food and paying the rent.
Every pound he uses from the account feels like a concession, like another thing Mycroft can hold over his head as proof he can't handle things on his own. Each withdrawal feels like a noose tightening around his neck, a reminder him that he owes his family, that he's a source of disappointment and shame.
I don't care, he tells himself when he depresses the plunger of the syringe, injecting another dosage of testosterone into his muscles. It's not their choice. I don't owe them anything. This is who I am.
The guilt gnaws at him anyway, reminding him each time he sees his reflection that he'd had to choose between his family and himself, that he's giving up his past to give himself a future.
--
Eventually, the guilt goes away.
He wakes up in the morning and doesn't dread getting dressed and going outside. He can see himself in the mirror without hating how he looks. He goes weeks without thinking about dying, about nothingness, about injecting a painless poison in his veins and closing his eyes to find out what happens next.
He has connections -- for drugs, for information, for work and supplies to conduct his experiments. They call him Sherlock, or sometimes Holmes. The women flirt with him, giggling when he speaks or leaning too close when he draws near. The men laugh with him, offering him beer and drugs and girls (he accepts the first two, but declines the last). Or they punch him, but he's all right with that. He turns out to be a better fighter than most.
He dares to grow his hair long. It's not too long, just barely enough to curl, and even when he shaves his jaw smooth, no one looks at him askance, squinting as if they can determine his sex by staring long enough.
He has work. He has cocaine when there's no work to be had. Sometimes he goes hours (and once, nearly an entire day) without remembering, without looking down at himself and thinking, this is as far as you've gone, and it's still not enough, without talking to someone and knowing, they'd hate you if they knew your secret.
Sometimes he forgets that his father's disowned him, that his mother thinks he's sick, that his brother used to be his best friend and is now a stranger he barely recognizes.
In those times, he thinks he's happy.
--
On April 5th, 2005, a man knocks on the door to Sherlock Holmes' flat, hands him a package, and tells him his brother would like very much for him to stop doing cocaine, please. Inside the package are a set of documents (driving license, passport, and more) for one Sherlock Holmes, born 1976, male.
There's also a Gender Recognition Certificate, which Sherlock doesn't even believe is real until he opens up his laptop and looks it up. And a prescription for testosterone, on top of several bottles the thing itself, neatly sealed.
Careful examination of the documents, cross-compared with the ones he already has (fake, of course, but done by the best forger he could both find and afford), shows that they might actually be legal. He replaces the forgeries in his wallet with the genuine ones. His hands are trembling.
There's no note, but Sherlock doesn't need one.
He and Mycroft haven't spoken in more than five years.
Sherlock's not quite sure what to think, or if he'll even accept the apology, but apparently Mycroft's plans of taking over the government are going pretty well. He's not sure how much of it, of the new laws, is Mycroft's doing.
Changing the legal system doesn't sound outside the realm of his influence. He is, after all, even more astute than Sherlock, without any mental disorders to interfere with his plans.
Sherlock rubs the puncture mark on the inside of his elbow. Perhaps his cocaine usage is a bit excessive.
--
When Sherlock checks, all his school records have been destroyed in fires (except for the transcripts from his two years at university, where he is registered under Sherlock Holmes, male). His medical record is modified but mostly intact: Sherlock Holmes, sex: female, with approximate dates for the masectomy and hysterectomy neatly penciled in. How Mycroft knows this, he's not sure he wants to know.
--
He celebrates his new legal status by doing a lot of cocaine, and comes down to himself in a jail cell, watched by a man with hints of gray at his temples. Not a guard but higher than a regular officer. He looks at Sherlock as if Sherlock's said something, something unwise.
"Could I get some water?" Sherlock asks, and sits up slowly. His mouth is dry. He wants to curl up in a bed and sleep for days.
"You said you knew where the bodies of the other missing girls are," the man says, face hard. "And that if we weren't so stupid, we'd have found them by now, because you were sloppy."
He frowns. "Because I was sloppy? I didn't kill any girls."
"The corpse we found begs to differ. You've already confessed."
"I didn't confess to anything," Sherlock says with a scowl, patching together the memories of the night before. "I knew where the bodies were because it was obvious. "
"Well, you'll just have to excuse us if we hold you for questioning, Mr. Holmes," he says, and Sherlock can't suppress his automatic, pleased smile.
Mr. Holmes.
"You're in charge of the case. Well, I assure you, I'm not involved."
"We've got you in for drugs too. We found cocaine on you -- or are you going to say that wasn't yours either?"
"No, definitely mine," Sherlock admits, and settles in to wait. There'll be another murder within 72 hours and if he's in a holding cell when the girl goes missing, he'll be cleared of suspicion.
--
He is cleared of suspicion. His cocaine is confiscated before his release, but that's fine; he doesn't need it anymore, he thinks, not with the potential of police work at his fingertips -- real work, challenging work.
He goes on to solve the case for them. Serial killers are much more interesting than petty thieves and arsonists, even though they all make the same rudimentary mistakes.
It takes three days, only because he'd needed to wait a day for his test results to develop. At the end of the third day, when the murderer is being led into a police car, the DI runs his hand through his hair. He offers his hand to Sherlock. "Thanks for the help," he says.
"It was a pleasure," Sherlock replies, because it was. "You have my number. Call me if you have any other interesting cases."
"You know," the DI says thoughtfully, "I just might."
The man -- the Inspector, Detective Inspector, even -- is named Gregory Lestrade and he thinks Sherlock is mad and possibly a psychopath. But he also thinks Sherlock's brilliant, which he is, and male, which he is, and that's... kind of nice.
Nice to have it be legitimate, to be who he is and not just another false identity matching the dozen others he's got in the safety deposit box at the bank, for if he ever needs to disappear or be someone else.
"Sherlock Holmes" isn't someone else, anymore.
--
Sherlock doesn't get paid by Scotland Yard but his website's starting to get popular now, and there is no shortage of paying cases in his inbox. Even better, he has a legitimate passport now; his hands itch with the urge to take it out, to smooth his fingers over the letters. He can get into and out of other countries at will.
Even the boring cases are worth investigating, if they'll bring him somewhere different.
--
"A man kidnapped me today, Sherlock," Lestrade says when he lets himself into Sherlock's flat. He's got a key because Sherlock can't be bothered to answer the door and he doesn't want it getting kicked in if Lestrade comes to the conclusion that he's withholding evidence again.
"I'm on the balcony," Sherlock calls. When Lestrade joins him, he plucks Sherlock's cigarette from between his lips.
"That's mine," Sherlock points out darkly, but fishes another one out of the battered carton in his coat pocket. "What sort of man? How did you get free? You aren't injured."
"Tall, dark hair, holds an umbrella. Very well-dressed. Said his name was Mycroft."
Sherlock tenses. Mycroft. "Did he, now," he replies. "What did he want with you?"
"Funny, that." Lestrade takes a deep drag of the cigarette. He exhales a plume of smoke that curls lazily upwards. "He wanted to know what you were arrested for and why you kept coming by Scotland Yard."
"He already knows those things. He's put me under surveillance." There have been surveillance teams outside his flat for the past couple months now -- Sherlock had confronted one of them when he'd first noticed, but he'd said Mycroft was the one to send him.
As Mycroft is responsible for the regular post boxes of testosterone delivered to his doorstep, saving Sherlock the trouble of getting it himself (he has a prescription, he could get it legally, but that's boring), Sherlock had decided to leave it be, for now.
It'd be more effort than it's worth, he suspects, to get rid of the surveillance. Even without direct contact, Sherlock can tell that Mycroft's sphere of influence has grown by leaps and bounds and shows no signs of shrinking.
"He says he's your brother."
"He is," Sherlock acknowledges.
"You know, most brothers, if they want to check up on you, just call. He has your number, doesn't he?"
Sherlock nods warily. "He does. We haven't spoken in years. We had a falling-out."
There is a long pause, where Lestrade sucks the cigarette to ash and stubs it out on the railing. Smoke winds lazily around his face. "Is he dangerous? Do you need, ah, protection?"
Sherlock barks a laugh. "Nothing like that, rest assured, Inspector. He's dangerous but only on, I suspect, a global scale. You're not nearly important enough to be in danger from his manipulations." But that doesn't explain what Mycroft was doing. "What did he tell you?"
“That you were his younger brother, he worries about you, and he wants to know what you're doing at Scotland Yard.”
Something in Sherlock's chest tightens abruptly. “He called me that? His younger brother? What did he say, exactly? Exactly.”
Lestrade closes his eyes. “ 'Good evening, Inspector Lestrade. I noticed you've been bringing in a Sherlock Holmes to Scotland Yard, repeatedly. He's not being arrested,' something something, something, and then 'He's my younger brother, and I worry. Take care of him,'” he recites, in a passable imitation of Mycroft's crisp vowels. "He was very posh. But you are too, when you aren't trying not to be."
Oh. “Really, he said that?” Sherlock tries to suppress his grin, but finds that he can't.
“Focus on the kidnapping part,” Lestrade prompts but he grins back, even if he doesn't seem to know why.
“Oh, that. It's nothing. Probably just a bad habit he's picked up somewhere. If he, uh, does it again, you can tell him he hasn't got to worry, that I'm fine. I'm getting clean, and I'm fine.”
I'm fine.
He's said the phrase dozens of times but, Sherlock thinks, this might be the first time in his adult life that he's actually meant it.
Part 1
Rating: PG-13
Length: 15,000 words
Warnings: trigger warnings for trans issues, brief mention of suicidal ideation
Summary: He signs his correspondences to the police as Sherlock H, as he always has, and he signs his letters to his parents as SH -- they can take what they will from the S. He signs his school assignments S. Holmes, and manages to get away with it because he is the only Holmes in his classes. FtM!Sherlock.
Notes: Namefail fixed with help from shezan and cold_tea. If you're just getting here and have no idea what I'm talking about, uh, that's probably for the best. :D
He signs his correspondences to the police as Sherlock H, as he always has, and he signs his letters to his family as SH. They can take what they will from the S. He signs his school assignments S. Holmes, and manages to get away with it because he is the only Holmes in his classes.
It is a small, trivial sign of defiance, to not write the name "Sophie Holmes", especially when he still answers to it. But he does it anyway.
--
Sebastian thinks he's a girl but Sherlock still likes him because aside from that, he puts up with the rest of it pretty well. He is annoyed when Sherlock deduces at him (he can't help it, really; part of him always jumps at the opportunity to show off) but tries to hide it.
He invites Sherlock to have lunch with him.
Sherlock accepts, on a whim.
And he's not naive, per se, but just because he knows about the phenomenon of reciprocal liking doesn't mean he's immune to it.
Seb is not too stupid. Sherlock's pretty sure if he tried, he'd be able to be moderately entertaining, which does put him ahead of the rest.
He doesn't try to pay for Sherlock's lunch, even though it seems to be a date. Seb is dressed slightly more formally than usual, though Sherlock's just in his standard jeans and a men's shirt and a coat that's two sizes too large.
He buys more men's clothes now, keeps them in with the rest of his belongings; he's been taking jobs as Sherlock, mostly solving petty thefts or writing term papers for a modest fee to help fund his experiments. His clients, the ones that aren't his fellow students, are always surprised at how young he looks. His face is too round, and his voice too high. He looks like a child. It likely doesn't help that he's actually only eighteen.
Seb is shorter than him, but he doesn't seem to be bothered by that. He offers Sherlock his arm with a teasing grin; Sherlock shoves it away, but finds himself smiling as well.
--
One date becomes two, becomes three. Soon Sherlock finds himself loitering outside Seb's classes, waiting for him to come out, or sitting with him in the library, doing problem sets together. He can't actually tell if Seb is using him for his body (he's taking things slower than the norm for college relationships, probably slower than Seb is used to) or his academic prowess (Sherlock can't help but correct his papers, because they are written with the skill of a five-year-old making doodles in crayon).
But Seb's warm and pleasing to be around, and while he's displeased at the way Sherlock disappears for days sometimes (he goes out of town as Sherlock to investigate things, having already turned in any upcoming assignments, because he gets bored and the alternative would be to cause trouble rather than search for it), he doesn't pry for more information.
--
Dear Charlotte,
Mummy says you're seeing someone: a fellow named Sebastian. Congratulations! This is your first boyfriend, isn't it? Does he treat you well? I'm glad to see you're making friends. Congratulations on your marks as well, though I'd expected no less from you. Mummy's ecstatic.
Yours,
Mycroft Holmes
Dear Mycroft,
He's alright. A bit dull, but I'm used to that. I'm also friends with my roommate, thank you very much. I'm perfectly capable of making friends if I put in the effort. I just don't waste as much time on it as you do. Mummy is more ecstatic at the idea that I have found a man to take care of me than she'd ever be regarding my marks.
How are you? Taken over the world yet?
Yours,
SH
--
Seb introduces Sherlock to his friends as "Charlotte my girlfriend". Sherlock forces a polite grin and plays nicely with them for a while, but swiftly becomes bored. They're supposed to be "hanging out" before exams. It is a pub he's been to before, but not one he's gone as Charlotte to.
"You're cheating on your girlfriend," he says to Mark, who is one of Seb's best friends. Mark's girlfriend, who is sitting next to him, makes an angry sound. Mark turns red.
"I am not!" He protests. Sherlock wonders if he'd ever turned that red when angry. Mycroft never has (though Mycroft rarely gets angry, so his sample size is small), but Seb does, sometimes, when Sherlock is in a bad mood and being particularly hard to get along with. He hopes he never looks like that. It's terribly unattractive.
"You are," he says calmly, and points to Mark's hand, which has a spot of paint near the fingernails. "You're studying biology. Your girlfriend studies philosophy, but you were recently having sex with someone in an art room. Your girlfriend's been busy with her schoolwork, obviously, since she's still carrying about the source material for the paper she's writing, so it can't have been her."
He turns to the girlfriend. "Do you know any art students? Female, dark hair, shorter than him but taller than you, long nails?"
Turns out, she does, but it ends up being a different one giving her boyfriend blow jobs in the art room, because he confesses the whole thing once he's called out, much to the uncomfortableness of the circular table.
"You're kind of a huge bitch," the girlfriend says viciously to him afterwards, when Seb and the other men leave to collect more drinks.
Sherlock says, "Wouldn't you rather know before you proposed? You keep looking at his hands," he explains before she opens her mouth to ask why he knows that. "His ring finger in particular. Also, the ring's in your purse and you touch it when nervous."
"That's creepy," the girlfriend says flatly.
"Is it? I hadn't noticed."
--
"Charlotte, did you really have to do that?" Seb asks, when he walks Sherlock back to his room.
"Mmm, no. But I was bored," Sherlock replies, with a careless shrug. "I did try, though."
"You get bored so easily," Seb says, but his voice is amused now, indulgent. He opens the door for Sherlock. "Is your roommate in?"
"No, she's out for the rest of the weekend," Sherlock replies and Seb slides in after him, hands already tugging at his coat, sliding underneath his shirt. "Must you always maul me so?" He huffs a laugh and helps Seb take off their clothes.
Seb's not terrible at sex, as far as he can tell. It's more fun than masturbation at least, and Sherlock enjoys the physical closeness even if it feels strange, just a little. But he's had this body for years, and he knows how to use it, even if it doesn't feel like him.
--
That summer, he doesn't tell his parents, because he's afraid.
He hates being afraid.
Mycroft knows he's hiding something but not what it is. When he asks, Sherlock refuses to tell him. But he acts no different than he normally does and there are no easy hints for Mycroft to deduce what's wrong with him.
"Haven't broken up with Sebastian yet, I see," Mycroft says, and nibbles on a biscuit.
"Not yet," Sherlock agrees. He doesn't like being at home. It feels strange. His mother keepts trying to ask him how serious he is about Seb (the answer being "not very", but that's not what she wants to hear and he doesn't want to deal with it). "I like him."
"Not very much, you don't," Mycroft observes. "You've been pretending you're a man."
I'm not pretending, Sherlock thinks, but that's not what he says. What he says is, "Have you ever seen an 18-year-old girl talking to drug dealers in dark alleys? What do you think happens to them after?"
Mycroft makes a face. "You needn't go tramping about in so many places, Sherry. That's what other people are for. You can get the same information from reading reports someone else brings you."
"Yes, but where's the fun in that? Besides, there's no one I'd trust more than myself to make the necessary observations."
"Must you?"
"Yes, I think so," Sherlock says, and Mycroft looks dubious. Sherlock distracts him by noticing out loud that Mycroft has gained ten pounds recently, thanks to his desk job.
Mycroft retaliates by making a point of calling him Charlotte at every opportunity.
--
The next year is better, because he gets a flat on his own and introduces himself to the neighbors as Sherlock Holmes. He binds his chest whenever he goes out and no one questions him despite how high his voice still is.
The only problem is telling Seb.
Or, well, the real problem is that he doesn't tell Seb, just starts avoiding him. Seb doesn't find him until two weeks into the term, when they pass each other while going to their respective classes.
Seb grabs his arm. "Charlotte? Where've you been? You haven't answered my calls."
"I'm going by Sherlock now," Sherlock says, and pulls his arm free.
"Sherlock?" Seb says, sounding puzzled. "What kind of a name is Sherlock?"
"Look, I -- Let's not discuss this here," he says, then offers reluctantly, "Did you want to get some coffee?"
"I want to know why my girlfriend's been avoiding me. If you wanted to break up with me, you could have just said so," Seb says, voice rising, and several students cast glances at them (at him).
"There's no need to cause a scene," Sherlock says, and takes Seb's arm. "Let's go."
--
"So you want to be a man?"
I am a man, Sherlock thinks. But what he says is, "Essentially, yes. I go by Sherlock, and want to be treated as a man."
"But you're not," Seb points out, and looks so very, very confused as he nurses his cup of tea. "You're a girl -- I know you're a girl. We've had sex."
Sherlock sighs. "Yes, Sebastian. But I'm a man now, and I'll thank you to treat me like one."
"Is this because you're gay?" he asks suspiciously. "You don't want to be a lesbian, so you're going to get a sex change?"
Right. That's enough talking to idiots for today, Sherlock thinks, and clenches his teeth. He stands up.
"Stop worrying about sexuality," he says. "You're bisexual with a preference for men. That's why you were attracted to me in the first place, but you're too afraid to admit it because you know your father will disapprove of you. I am still exclusively attracted to men, which makes me homosexual. My gender has nothing to do with you and it is not up for negotiation."
"I won't be your boyfriend if you're going to tell everyone you're a man," Seb says, watching Sherlock put on his coat.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Yes, I know. I've already made my decision. I thought that was already clear."
--
Later, Seb will apologize to him for being a git, and they will be friends again, but it will be strange. And even later, he will join Seb and some of his mates for drinks, as a man, and no one will question it or assume they are dating.
But afterwards, they'll go back to Sherlock's flat, and Seb will run his hands over Sherlock's arms, and his waist, and his neck, and he will whisper "Sherlock" thoughtfully. And Sherlock will push him against the wall, and drop to his knees, and take him in his mouth.
And afterwards, Sebastian will say self-consciously, "It wasn't really gay; you're not a real man."
And Sherlock will punch him in the jaw and say, "If you ever say I'm not a real man again, I'm telling everyone about the gay pornographic magazines you hide under your bed."
--
He tells his family because he can't bear the thought of pretending to be Charlotte again.
--
Mycroft doesn't understand, but Sherlock wasn't expecting him to.
"Sherry," he says, and then, "Sherlock," when Sherlock scowls at him. "What's this about, really?"
His voice is too gentle. He's soft around the edges from the years of government work, and somewhere between when Sherlock realized he could never go to Eton, and when Mycroft realized he could take over the world but only if he looked as if he followed everyone's expectations, Sherlock realizes that they had stopped being best friends.
"I just want to do what I want," he says, rather than explain himself. "Do we have to talk about it today?"
"We'll have to talk about it eventually," Mycroft comments. "But I suppose not today. Mummy's fairly angry at you, though. I don't know how long it'll take before she forgives you."
"I don't care if she ever forgives me.”
--
He drops out of school at the end of the term because he can't afford to go, now that his family won't pay for it.
This doesn't bother him.
What bothers him is that his mother makes Mycroft pass on her letters, which always start with Dear Charlotte, and involve some sort of insinuation that he's doing this just to spite her and that he needs to come back and get treatment for his illness.
He doesn't know why he reads them at all, but it feels very sastifying to burn them.
--
All his legal documents name him as Sophie and the marker for his sex is F. Technically, this is accurate, because sex and gender are not the same, and his sex is female.
So when he rents a flat in Cardiff, he presents himself as a woman and hates every minute of it. He gets a job and quits within the week because his boss touches his knee and tells him he'd look so much lovelier if he wore a skirt. The next two jobs go much the same way.
By the time six months have passed, he is out of money and not sure what he's doing with himself, so he goes back to his family with his metaphorical tail between his legs.
He spends three months talking to a psychiatrist who is clearly incompetent. He sees she have no idea what she's talking about within a week, and spends the rest of the time alternately antagonizing and deceiving her, just to make the hours pass by more quickly.
He ends up getting nothing out of it except for a painfully inaccurate sociopathy diagnosis that his parents seem to eat up. His mother especially would like to think that he's doing "that silly pretending to be a man thing" just to spite her.
He's not actually on speaking terms with his father right now, so Sherlock doesn't know what he thinks.
Mycroft, on the other hand, thinks he's being kind by trying to talk to Sherlock, but the condescension is really quite off-putting. Sherlock knows Mycroft is just humoring him, can tell that Mycroft sees him as "my confused baby sister who I need to protect and take care of", and while he does still love Mycroft, it's enough to make him want to commit fratricide.
So he leaves, because he'd rather be living in the street than putting up with this.
--
He finds a smaller, cheaper flat and puts his deductive skills to use as a detective, making contacts through word of mouth and usually scraping by with just enough money to pay the rent. When he doesn't have enough, he picks pockets until he has does.
He solves a case of stolen jewelery (so boringly common) and uses the reward to pay for hormones, which is wonderful and terrifying all at once.
The fact that he's getting them illegally is really immaterial, in comparison (and he's perfectly competent, capable of testing to ensure it is, in fact, what he's been told). But before injecting himself, he checks it -- repeatedly, carefully, with more care than he's given the cocaine he puts irregularly into his veins when he needs to be away from himself.
Soon, he needs to shave. He can see the bristles on his face, can feel them rough against the pad of his thumb. The first time he does it, he laughs -- well into his twenties, and shaving for the first time. He'd never shaved before, when he'd been presenting as a woman -- not his legs, and not under his arms, because he'd never seen the point. There'd never been any need. He'd always worn as many clothes as he could, to obscure his figure.
He uses a safety razor and still manages to look like he lost a fight with an angry sheet of paper (or a dozen).
But when he looks into the mirror, his face won't stop grinning.
--
Several months later, Sherlock comes home to find Mycroft looking through his flat.
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asks. He feels a deep satisfaction when Mycroft visibly jumps at the sound of Sherlock's voice, deeper than it was before and still dropping.
"You've been taking testosterone," Mycroft says with a displeased frown, and taps the floor with the umbrella held in his left hand. "How did you even get it? Is it at least human?"
Sherlock shrugs. "Mostly. How did you find out where I live?"
"You signed the lease as Sophie Holmes," Mycroft says mildly, and Sherlock knows his brother has noticed the slight wince he'd made when he'd heard the name. "There aren't very many Sophie Holmeses in London."
"My name's Sherlock," he corrects.
"I remember. I remember when you picked it, even."
"What do you want?" Why did he even bother asking? Mycroft was clenching the umbrella, his lips were pursed. He was staring at Sherlock's chest (bound, flat) and his jaw (unshaven, a day's worth of stubble). He hasn't made contact with Sherlock since he'd left home for the second time, and now is meeting him in person, having already broken into his flat.
So Mycroft wants something from him, and it has to be important, too important to send an email or make a call. Sherlock has a website with his name on it, and he sincerely doubts Mycroft is too stupid to look him up, especially if he can find Sherlock's address from a supposedly private lease.
"Neither of our parents are in ill health," Sherlock says and strips off his gloves. He shrugs out of his coat, and takes off his shoes. "What could they possibly need me for?"
Mycroft makes a face as if remembering something deeply unpleasant. "Christmas dinner," he says. "Mother misses you. As do I."
"You've had years to contact me, Mycroft. And I'm not going to Christmas dinner. I've had enough masquerading as a female for the first two decades of my life. I've no interest in doing it again."
"Sherry, don't be like that," Mycroft says, and Sherlock throws a paperweight at his face. Mycroft catches it, of course.
"Don't call me Sherry. My name is Sherlock."
"Sherlock, then. We miss you. Even if you don't want to be a girl anymore, the family misses you and you're still blood. You've kept the surname, I see."
"It was too much effort to change," Sherlock lies. "You also wanted to see how I'm doing," he observes, but that's easy to figure out. It's obvious, from the way Mycroft looks around the flat, examines Sherlock, as if he can deduce everything about the last few years. "I'm fine. I'm happier now than I've ever been."
"You never seemed unhappy when we were children."
"I was always unhappy, but I never knew why," he admits, and Mycroft looks sorrowful. "Now get out."
"Come to Christmas dinner."
But Sherlock has the ace up his sleeve in this conversation, and he knows it, because, "Only if I don't have to pretend to be a girl."
"It's not pretending. You are a girl. You never exhibited any of the classical signs of Gender Identity Disorder --"
"I bloody well did! I hated everything about having a female body and being treated like a girl and if you hadn't been blinded by uni and then your job, you'd have seen it! But you've kept your position this long, so I suppose it must be important."
The more important than me is unspoken.
"Now get out," Sherlock says. "You've heard my terms."
Mycroft sighs. "I worry about you, Sherlock. I'm your older brother. That has to count for something."
"If you can get mother to let me go as a man, then I'll go."
She doesn't agree.
Sherlock ignores the rest of Mycroft's calls, until they eventually trickle to a stop.
--
The drugs start because he's bored, because his funds are finite and his space is finite, which means the number of experiments he can keep are disappointingly limited. The first time is because he's curious. When he's high, when there's enough of it in his veins, he can't feel his body.
He can't feel the ever-present wrongness that distracts him, doesn't see himself in the mirror and think, bones too delicate, jaw too rounded. He forgets, momentarily, that he'd been born wrong, and for him, forgetting is something that comes rarely.
It's not the same as being focused, at having a challenge to solve, at picking up dozens of disparate facts and deducing them down to reveal the truth of a mystery.
But it's good, and it helps him when he remembers that he'll never be biologically male, that his chromosomes will always read XX, no matter what he does to his body or his records.
As far as bad, self-destructive habits go, it's not too egregious. He still has the work, can calculate dosages easily to leave himself with his wits when he needs them. He runs rings around anyone he associates with -- clients and contacts and even the slightly darker contacts he uses when the normal ones don't suffice.
--
He overdoses exactly once, while chasing a high that doesn't get him high enough, that doesn't divorce him from his (permanentlywrong) body until he adds a handful of other substances, each one worse than the previous, and manages to accidentally mix two things that oughtn't be mixed.
He wakes in hospital, feeling like shit. There's an IV in his arm. His breasts aren't bound, and he's been changed out of his clothes (the knowledge that someone's undressed him makes an ice-cold coil of fear wrap around his chest, because he hates that, hates people looking at him and seeing her).
Mycroft is in a chair -- a plush, comfortable-looking leather one that clearly doesn't belong to the hospital -- at his bedside, reading a file. Sherlock's medical file, most likely. He looks up when Sherlock stirs. From his rumpled state, and the way the flesh settles on his cheekbones, he's lost three to five pounds, recently.
"Charlotte," he says seriously, "You need to stop doing this to yourself."
Sherlock's surprised at the depth of his reaction, at the sheer strength of the rage he feels at Mycroft's words. "I'd sooner die," he snaps without thinking.
Mycroft flinches with his entire body.
"You very well might!" He snaps. "What you're doing isn't safe and the changes you're making to your body are irreversible! I thought you'd tire of this game, but you clearly haven't, and it's has gone on long enough."
Sherlock rips the IV out and forces himself into a sitting position. The sudden movement makes the room spin dizzyingly around him, but he stays upright out of sheer force of will. "I don't care what you say," he says. "I got this far without anyone's help, and I'm not going to stop now."
"And now you're a drug addict and a transsexual. Do you have any consideration for how upset you've made Mummy?"
"She's the one who said I wasn't welcome in the house anymore," Sherlock says. "I'm doing this with or without any of you, even if it kills me. I'd rather it killed me, than go back to how it was before."
Mycroft's face crumples and once, the sight would have broken Sherlock's heart. But now, all he feels is satisfaction at making Mycroft hurt as much as he has. "Charlotte --"
"Don't call me that!"
"I'm not indulging your whims any longer. Do you know how I heard what happened to you? I got a call. A phone call, at work, from the hospital telling me you were in critical condition and they'd found traces of nearly a dozen drugs in your system. They weren't sure you were going to live."
"I wish I hadn't," Sherlock mutters rebelliously, but this time he doesn't mean it, and they both know it.
"You're ruining your life."
"I don't care. You can't stop me."
Mycroft sighs. "The drugs, at least. You need to get clean."
He can't, not yet. The drugs are the only thing that make him feel... not right, but at least not wrong. He needs them. And they help with other things, with focusing his mind on the work, on the cases and the knowledge and on being right, in at least this one little way.
"I'm not here to fight with you," Mycroft says. "I just wanted to see that you were all right, and to try talking you into seeing reason, if possible."
Sherlock wonders where the doctors are. Mycroft's influence has grown so strong that he can prevent them coming in, but through what means? Distraction, or has he the power to threaten jobs now?
"I'm being perfectly reasonable," he says. "What happened with the drugs was a miscalculation, as you well know, and I'm not changing any of the rest."
"There's nothing I can do to change your mind," Mycroft says. It's not a question.
Sherlock doesn't hesitate. "Not in this."
Mycroft stands, leaning his weight on his thin black umbrella. "I'll arrange for your allowance to be reinstated." he says. "It'll be the same account as it's always been. Use it for anything you need, except drugs. Move into a better flat. Get clean."
"This doesn't change anything," Sherlock tells him. "I'll never forgive you," for not taking me seriously, for not helping me, for siding with our parents instead of me, for not being there when I needed you, "no matter what you do."
--
Sherlock undertakes the necessary surgeries but uses the rest of the money sparingly, letting the deposits build up over time. He draws from it only when he must, when he would otherwise have to choose between paying for food and paying the rent.
Every pound he uses from the account feels like a concession, like another thing Mycroft can hold over his head as proof he can't handle things on his own. Each withdrawal feels like a noose tightening around his neck, a reminder him that he owes his family, that he's a source of disappointment and shame.
I don't care, he tells himself when he depresses the plunger of the syringe, injecting another dosage of testosterone into his muscles. It's not their choice. I don't owe them anything. This is who I am.
The guilt gnaws at him anyway, reminding him each time he sees his reflection that he'd had to choose between his family and himself, that he's giving up his past to give himself a future.
--
Eventually, the guilt goes away.
He wakes up in the morning and doesn't dread getting dressed and going outside. He can see himself in the mirror without hating how he looks. He goes weeks without thinking about dying, about nothingness, about injecting a painless poison in his veins and closing his eyes to find out what happens next.
He has connections -- for drugs, for information, for work and supplies to conduct his experiments. They call him Sherlock, or sometimes Holmes. The women flirt with him, giggling when he speaks or leaning too close when he draws near. The men laugh with him, offering him beer and drugs and girls (he accepts the first two, but declines the last). Or they punch him, but he's all right with that. He turns out to be a better fighter than most.
He dares to grow his hair long. It's not too long, just barely enough to curl, and even when he shaves his jaw smooth, no one looks at him askance, squinting as if they can determine his sex by staring long enough.
He has work. He has cocaine when there's no work to be had. Sometimes he goes hours (and once, nearly an entire day) without remembering, without looking down at himself and thinking, this is as far as you've gone, and it's still not enough, without talking to someone and knowing, they'd hate you if they knew your secret.
Sometimes he forgets that his father's disowned him, that his mother thinks he's sick, that his brother used to be his best friend and is now a stranger he barely recognizes.
In those times, he thinks he's happy.
--
On April 5th, 2005, a man knocks on the door to Sherlock Holmes' flat, hands him a package, and tells him his brother would like very much for him to stop doing cocaine, please. Inside the package are a set of documents (driving license, passport, and more) for one Sherlock Holmes, born 1976, male.
There's also a Gender Recognition Certificate, which Sherlock doesn't even believe is real until he opens up his laptop and looks it up. And a prescription for testosterone, on top of several bottles the thing itself, neatly sealed.
Careful examination of the documents, cross-compared with the ones he already has (fake, of course, but done by the best forger he could both find and afford), shows that they might actually be legal. He replaces the forgeries in his wallet with the genuine ones. His hands are trembling.
There's no note, but Sherlock doesn't need one.
He and Mycroft haven't spoken in more than five years.
Sherlock's not quite sure what to think, or if he'll even accept the apology, but apparently Mycroft's plans of taking over the government are going pretty well. He's not sure how much of it, of the new laws, is Mycroft's doing.
Changing the legal system doesn't sound outside the realm of his influence. He is, after all, even more astute than Sherlock, without any mental disorders to interfere with his plans.
Sherlock rubs the puncture mark on the inside of his elbow. Perhaps his cocaine usage is a bit excessive.
--
When Sherlock checks, all his school records have been destroyed in fires (except for the transcripts from his two years at university, where he is registered under Sherlock Holmes, male). His medical record is modified but mostly intact: Sherlock Holmes, sex: female, with approximate dates for the masectomy and hysterectomy neatly penciled in. How Mycroft knows this, he's not sure he wants to know.
--
He celebrates his new legal status by doing a lot of cocaine, and comes down to himself in a jail cell, watched by a man with hints of gray at his temples. Not a guard but higher than a regular officer. He looks at Sherlock as if Sherlock's said something, something unwise.
"Could I get some water?" Sherlock asks, and sits up slowly. His mouth is dry. He wants to curl up in a bed and sleep for days.
"You said you knew where the bodies of the other missing girls are," the man says, face hard. "And that if we weren't so stupid, we'd have found them by now, because you were sloppy."
He frowns. "Because I was sloppy? I didn't kill any girls."
"The corpse we found begs to differ. You've already confessed."
"I didn't confess to anything," Sherlock says with a scowl, patching together the memories of the night before. "I knew where the bodies were because it was obvious. "
"Well, you'll just have to excuse us if we hold you for questioning, Mr. Holmes," he says, and Sherlock can't suppress his automatic, pleased smile.
Mr. Holmes.
"You're in charge of the case. Well, I assure you, I'm not involved."
"We've got you in for drugs too. We found cocaine on you -- or are you going to say that wasn't yours either?"
"No, definitely mine," Sherlock admits, and settles in to wait. There'll be another murder within 72 hours and if he's in a holding cell when the girl goes missing, he'll be cleared of suspicion.
--
He is cleared of suspicion. His cocaine is confiscated before his release, but that's fine; he doesn't need it anymore, he thinks, not with the potential of police work at his fingertips -- real work, challenging work.
He goes on to solve the case for them. Serial killers are much more interesting than petty thieves and arsonists, even though they all make the same rudimentary mistakes.
It takes three days, only because he'd needed to wait a day for his test results to develop. At the end of the third day, when the murderer is being led into a police car, the DI runs his hand through his hair. He offers his hand to Sherlock. "Thanks for the help," he says.
"It was a pleasure," Sherlock replies, because it was. "You have my number. Call me if you have any other interesting cases."
"You know," the DI says thoughtfully, "I just might."
The man -- the Inspector, Detective Inspector, even -- is named Gregory Lestrade and he thinks Sherlock is mad and possibly a psychopath. But he also thinks Sherlock's brilliant, which he is, and male, which he is, and that's... kind of nice.
Nice to have it be legitimate, to be who he is and not just another false identity matching the dozen others he's got in the safety deposit box at the bank, for if he ever needs to disappear or be someone else.
"Sherlock Holmes" isn't someone else, anymore.
--
Sherlock doesn't get paid by Scotland Yard but his website's starting to get popular now, and there is no shortage of paying cases in his inbox. Even better, he has a legitimate passport now; his hands itch with the urge to take it out, to smooth his fingers over the letters. He can get into and out of other countries at will.
Even the boring cases are worth investigating, if they'll bring him somewhere different.
--
"A man kidnapped me today, Sherlock," Lestrade says when he lets himself into Sherlock's flat. He's got a key because Sherlock can't be bothered to answer the door and he doesn't want it getting kicked in if Lestrade comes to the conclusion that he's withholding evidence again.
"I'm on the balcony," Sherlock calls. When Lestrade joins him, he plucks Sherlock's cigarette from between his lips.
"That's mine," Sherlock points out darkly, but fishes another one out of the battered carton in his coat pocket. "What sort of man? How did you get free? You aren't injured."
"Tall, dark hair, holds an umbrella. Very well-dressed. Said his name was Mycroft."
Sherlock tenses. Mycroft. "Did he, now," he replies. "What did he want with you?"
"Funny, that." Lestrade takes a deep drag of the cigarette. He exhales a plume of smoke that curls lazily upwards. "He wanted to know what you were arrested for and why you kept coming by Scotland Yard."
"He already knows those things. He's put me under surveillance." There have been surveillance teams outside his flat for the past couple months now -- Sherlock had confronted one of them when he'd first noticed, but he'd said Mycroft was the one to send him.
As Mycroft is responsible for the regular post boxes of testosterone delivered to his doorstep, saving Sherlock the trouble of getting it himself (he has a prescription, he could get it legally, but that's boring), Sherlock had decided to leave it be, for now.
It'd be more effort than it's worth, he suspects, to get rid of the surveillance. Even without direct contact, Sherlock can tell that Mycroft's sphere of influence has grown by leaps and bounds and shows no signs of shrinking.
"He says he's your brother."
"He is," Sherlock acknowledges.
"You know, most brothers, if they want to check up on you, just call. He has your number, doesn't he?"
Sherlock nods warily. "He does. We haven't spoken in years. We had a falling-out."
There is a long pause, where Lestrade sucks the cigarette to ash and stubs it out on the railing. Smoke winds lazily around his face. "Is he dangerous? Do you need, ah, protection?"
Sherlock barks a laugh. "Nothing like that, rest assured, Inspector. He's dangerous but only on, I suspect, a global scale. You're not nearly important enough to be in danger from his manipulations." But that doesn't explain what Mycroft was doing. "What did he tell you?"
“That you were his younger brother, he worries about you, and he wants to know what you're doing at Scotland Yard.”
Something in Sherlock's chest tightens abruptly. “He called me that? His younger brother? What did he say, exactly? Exactly.”
Lestrade closes his eyes. “ 'Good evening, Inspector Lestrade. I noticed you've been bringing in a Sherlock Holmes to Scotland Yard, repeatedly. He's not being arrested,' something something, something, and then 'He's my younger brother, and I worry. Take care of him,'” he recites, in a passable imitation of Mycroft's crisp vowels. "He was very posh. But you are too, when you aren't trying not to be."
Oh. “Really, he said that?” Sherlock tries to suppress his grin, but finds that he can't.
“Focus on the kidnapping part,” Lestrade prompts but he grins back, even if he doesn't seem to know why.
“Oh, that. It's nothing. Probably just a bad habit he's picked up somewhere. If he, uh, does it again, you can tell him he hasn't got to worry, that I'm fine. I'm getting clean, and I'm fine.”
I'm fine.
He's said the phrase dozens of times but, Sherlock thinks, this might be the first time in his adult life that he's actually meant it.
Part 1