Sherlock looked up to the night sky, sprinkled with starlight and adorned with a full moon, as he stood outside in one of the gardens surrounding his parents' considerable estate.

It was his birthday tomorrow. His sixteenth.

Sherlock wasn't a very... normal teen. He was just different from the others.

Freak.

It wasn't just that he was smart. Although the way his intellect blew away those of his peers might have been enough to make him an outcast, it was more than that.

He just didn't feel the same way other people did. It's not like he didn't feel happiness, or sadness, or anger like anyone else. But his feelings just manifested themselves differently. And he tended to be pretty detached from feelings, anyway. So then he just didn't understand the way other people's emotions worked.

It's not like he was trying to be cruel.

He just genuinely did not understand what made their clocks tick. And he certainly didn't understand why what fascinated and interested him, his talent at deduction, appalled everybody else.

They hated him.

Most days, Sherlock was okay with that.

He approached a tree mottled with big knots all over its trunk. He climbed these like a ladder, eventually swinging himself up to a branch about 20 feet above the ground. From here he could see most of his parent's property, located in the English countryside. He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Beautiful, many had called it, his home. Sherlock didn't usually appreciate that kind of stuff. But these fields, the manor behind him, the gardens full of his mother's favorite flowers, it wasn't beautiful to him.

It was gorgeous.

He lifted his face and looked at the horizon, where the city's lights made him think that someone had dropped a handful of stars and left them there in a pile, dancing and gleaming like diamonds of every color. He never told anyone about those sorts of thoughts he had.

Not anymore, anyway. It always ended in everything blowing up in his face.

There was a gentle wind which lifted his dark curls out of his face. Honestly, he liked being outside. The fresh air, and all that life teeming around him.

Sherlock fought a feeling of crippling loneliness.

He was so alone.

Most people have someone they can talk to about their boyfriend or girlfriend, or their grades, or their new shoes, or their insecurities.

Sherlock didn't have anyone like that. It wasn't that he didn't trust Mycroft enough to tell him - Sherlock trusted his brother more than anyone. But he just didn't like talking about his feelings.

It made him feel weak. It felt pathetic and whiny and stupid to sit there and talk about hormone-incited sensations. It appalled him. And whenever he did, even a little, even something as simple as a heart-felt thank-you, his voice would start shaking for some reason, and his hands would tremble, and his whole body felt like gelatin.

How much he hated that feeling.

But tonight, he was so desperately lonely. Not only that, but he needed to talk to someone. Anyone. Because he just needed someone to talk to; he needed advice, he needed wisdom beyond his years that comes only with experience. Despite his shame at the prospect, he was pretty sure that at this point that he would have taken almost anyone as a confidant.

But, of course, there was no one. Mycroft had gone to live in the city, and Sherlock honestly wasn't even sure if he would ever see his brother again.

There had been so many times that he needed someone, so desperately, to just be there. Not even to say anything. Just to be there. All the times he had buried himself under his covers and silently shed tears he would never let anyone see, when he was too proud to ask for affection, when a simple hug would have changed everything.

Every time, he braved those nights alone.

Tonight, he knew, would be one of those nights.

Sherlock finally asked himself point-blank the haunting question that had been plaguing him for a long time now, that he couldn't afford to ask himself while other people were watching for fear of an emotional display of some kind.

Who will I be?

It was a question as old as time, the question in the minds of every human on eve of entering adulthood. It was so ordinary. But he couldn't escape it. Nor he could he escape a thought that made him turn sick with dread - that he would become nothing.

That would live and die, never having lived.

Never having made a change. Never having done anything worth doing.

He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He envied those people that seemed to know from the time they could walk exactly what they wanted to be. And then they went out and did it. They just knew.

He didn't have a clue.

So many people, by the time they reached his age, had accomplished so much. People his age had acting and singing careers, been to the Olympics, become artists...

Heck, Joan of Arc was sixteen when she became the leader of the French Army, for Heavens' sake.

What had he done?

Nothing.

It drove him mad. He didn't even have a job. Mycroft had a job. A job that Sherlock wasn't allowed to mention that it even existed. And Mycroft was 22.

He was beginning to think he wouldn't ever become anything important. In fact, he was very effectively convincing himself he wasn't.

Feeling overwhelmed with it all, the loneliness, the emptiness, the uncertainty, the cold fear, he put his head on his knees and let his eyes moisten the fabric of his trousers.

He was a failure. Not because he hadn't reached his goal.

Because he didn't even have one.

It was too much. His shoulders began to tremble. He just wanted someone. He just wanted assurance. He just needed affection. That a boy his age would be having an episode like this sickened him, but wasn't like anyone would see him. Like anyone cared.

He was the freak, the jerk, the loser, the genius.

And he would always be alone.

The silent sobs racked his body.

It was then that he heard a scuffle below. Sherlock froze.

No one could see him like this, not ever. Never. He hoped, somehow, that if he held still whoever was down there would just go away. He kept his head on his knees, too ashamed to let anyone see his red eyes and nose and cheeks covered in salt trails.

He could hear the sounds of someone climbing the tree, and his stomach filled with dread. Even though he had been desperate for companionship before, this intrusion was entirely unwelcome. He didn't want anyone's pity.

He felt an arm slip around his shoulders.

Sherlock waited for a fake-sweet soothing voice to begin grating on his ears, but none did. They just sat there like that, Sherlock and his unknown benefactor. After a while, Sherlock discreetly braved a glance up.

It was Mycroft.

Staring off at the city lights on the horizon with a quiet and thoughtful expression on his face.

Something in Sherlock melted.

It was the combination of the elation of seeing his brother, the relief that it wasn't some annoying idiot that had stumbled on him in his weakest moment, and just a sensation of comfort and warmth that came with affectionate physical contact that can't be described in words.

Sherlock leaned his head on Mycroft's shoulder. The arm around Sherlock's shoulders tightened a bit. There was a faint smile on both brother's faces.

"I wanted to surprise you." said Mycroft softly.

Sherlock just sat there silently for some minutes, composing himself. When he spoke, it was in a voice deep and sonorous that had become the norm over the past couple of years.

"You won't be staying long." Nevermind all the obvious signs on Mycroft's person that testified to that fact, it was a truth that Sherlock knew accompanied being, well, the British Government. You can't go spending the week with your family in the country.

"I'm leaving at noon." Sherlock's heart sank a little at that. But he was still grateful to see his brother. So very grateful.

"Thank you - for coming." said Sherlock. There it was, in that last word, the telltale tremor. His hands began shaking.

Mycroft pretended not to notice as he took out his pocketwatch - one of Mycroft's quirks - and read the time using the bright moonlight.

"It's past midnight brother. It's your birthday. You're sixteen now." said Mycroft in a bit of a joking tone.

Sherlock didn't respond. He just leaned back against Mycroft, who had his back against the trunk, and closed his eyes. Before long, Sherlock's breathing became deep and steady, and his eyelids fluttered faintly.

Mycroft looked down at the mess of curls on his shoulder and smiled a bit, and leaned down close to his sleeping brother's ear. Mycroft, though he of course would never say it aloud, believed his little brother was headed for a greater destiny than he himself was. Sherlock Holmes was going to turn the world around.

He whispered softly.

"Happy Birthday, Sherlock."