Chapter Text
Moriarty:
Moriarty smiled as he followed the boys home, the oldest, Mycroft was the one he was interested in. The younger, Sherlock, was happily talking about something, Moriarty didn’t care. He followed the brothers until Sherlock raced ahead of Mycroft and that was when he struck.
“What the-” Mycroft was cut off by a hand around his neck so tight he couldn’t breathe.
“Don’t make a noise or I’ll kill your little brother,” Moriarty promised. Mycroft’s eyes widened in fear, but he nodded weakly. Moriarty waited until the teenager passed out in his arms, then he carried him to the location he had picked.
Hey, sorry, I must go somewhere, I’ll be back soon! - MH
Moriarty texted Mycroft’s parents using his phone.
“I am going to love breaking Sherlock,” Moriarty informed the now comatose Holmes.
Moriarty changed his appearance the slight bit he needed to pass as Mycroft and set off to his new home and family, and most importantly, his new little brother.
Sherlock:
Sherlock was sat next to the door, waiting for his big brother to come back from 'somewhere' so they could play the game he and Victor had convinced Mycroft to join in on.
"Mycie!" He squealed excitedly as the door opened and his brother stepped in.
"Hey Will," Mycroft greeted.
"Vic's waiting, come on!" Sherlock insisted, dragging his brother back out the door and to his friends house.
Eurus:
Mycroft was wrong. The moment he had walked in the door, Eurus knew something was wrong; despite only being five she was incredibly observant. Mycroft wasn't Mycroft, she realised, though she had no idea what this revelation meant, it was interesting so she stashed it away in her mind palace as real-Mycroft had shown her and Sherlock to do. Eurus wanted to find out who not-Mycroft really was and what he had done with real-Mycroft, but she couldn't do that without 'being a weirdo' as Sherlock put it.
Not-Mycroft had looked back at Eurus as he left the house again and she glared at him, holding up a picture she had been drawing of a house on fire, she liked fire, it was pretty, and made Sherlock laugh (or scream according to mummy).
Victor:
Victor was the second person to notice something was different with Mycroft, this revelation had come when he needed Sherlock to explain the game they were playing, even though they had played it just last week. This struck Victor as odd because as far as he could remember, none of the Holmes children had ever forgotten anything.
"But don't you have it in your mind thingy?" Victor asked.
"Mind palace," Mycroft corrected, "and I must've needed the space for something, so could you please explain it to me again?"
That struck Victor as odd too because Mycroft didn't say please, or explain himself. When he could, he pulled Sherlock away from his brother and commented on his worries.
"Will, he's acting weird," Victor commented, glancing back at Mycroft.
"What do you mean acting weird? He's not weird silly!" Sherlock brushed him off, still bouncing with excitement at the fact his brother was playing with them.
"Yes he is!" Victor insisted, "he never forgets and he forgot our game! He likes our game."
"He needed the space, now come on, we don't have all day!"
Sherlock trusted Mycroft to much to see what the others saw, and the others were gone before they could prove it. Eurus went to Sherrinford and Victor drowned in the well. Sherlock erased his memories of them both. It was just him and his ‘brother’ now, and Sherlock knew his brother would never hurt him.
Sherlock looked at John, he was disappointed.
“You bloody machine!” John exclaimed.
Sherlock frowned.
“Do you even care about anyone?! I know you didn’t get along but Jesus Christ, he’s dead!”
“Why should I care about him, as you said. He’s dead and we never got along.”
John kept yelling at Sherlock about how emotionless the man seemed, and how much of a terrible person he was, and Sherlock just stood there and took it, internalising his feelings as Moriarty had taught him.
Moriarty smiled; this was exactly what he had wanted. He had been slowly breaking Sherlock’s mind since the day he swapped with his real brother, slowly making sure that he could never truly be normal again, making sure that no-one would ever care about Sherlock because Sherlock wasn’t worth it, not when he was so horrible at everything human. It was almost intoxicating to see the rewards of his hard work, but he managed to keep his emotions under wraps as he had done the rest of his time with the Holmes family.
That happened a lot, Moriarty's manipulation worked better than he ever could've expected it to. John had hit Sherlock a couple times and every time Sherlock just took it, he always took it. He was very well trained according to Moriarty.