My second fan fiction to date. I really can't believe I did this. Written because of a meme-fill LJ thing that I was reading through and laughing and found "Mycroft used to steal Sherlock's food as a child." And this is what I've come up with.

Please point out any inconsistencies or problems as I'm the only one who checks these and sometimes it's hard to ferret out one's own grammatical or spelling mistakes.

It started when he was four and had just mastered the use of all the utensils. Mummy had set him next to Mycroft to give him a sense of independence in his newly mastered task. Sherlock's first meal free of nanny had been a chicken breast, steamed mixed vegetables, and a piece of freshly made rosemary bread flecked with olive oil. It had been a victorious spread. Mycroft had been pudgy but quick in his early teens and Sherlock didn't even notice at first when half his bread disappeared. He had been concentrating on the way different vegetables stuck to his fork and at what times they would begin to fall off. He did notice, however, when he went to eat his chicken and it was plumb gone! He had only just finished on his vegetables so there was no way he had even started on his chicken.

This phenomenon was indeed strange, four-year-old Sherlock decided. He turned to his elder brother to see if his food was also disappearing and discovered the end of his missing chicken breast being industriously cut and consumed by Mycroft! Sherlock reached out his clever little hand to rescue what was left of his chicken-

Only to get nicked on the knuckle by Mycroft's quick knife. Sherlock sent a teary glare up at his brother's round cheeks moving happily while his teeth chewed up the last bite of Sherlock's chicken. But when he went to exact his revenge; Sherlock received an hour long time out facing the wall while Mycroft got a piece of German chocolate cake- Sherlock's favorite. It was in that hour-long limbo that little Sherlock decided; with eyebrows drawn and chubby cheeks puffed in anger, that the world was not fair and that Mycroft was the enemy.

At six Mycroft ate half of Sherlock's birthday cake- another German Chocolate- before Sherlock even had the opportunity to blow out the candles. By this time Mycroft had surpassed pudgy and entered the realm of rotund. Mummy blamed the dog, even though they had never owned a mongrel aside from Mycroft and his voracious stomach. Retaliation had ended with Sherlock banned from his play room- lab- for two weeks and Mycroft at the A & E with a candle or two in his nose. Those two hellish weeks gave young Sherlock the understanding that retaliation of the kind that leaves evidence only ends in punishment for himself.

This was the start of their epic of sniping.

At ten Mycroft would finish two thirds of Sherlock's dinner no matter how fast he ate. Mycroft went on his first diet after one particularly cruel campaign instigated by Sherlock. At this Sherlock felt his first flush of victory at his perceived justice. The diet failed after two weeks.

At sixteen Sherlock would find his sandwiches naught but crust at tea no matter his machinations.

At eighteen his lunches would be stolen from him at Uni alternately by idiots who hated his intelligence or Mycroft during one of his frequent (and always at meal-time) checks on his health.

By twenty five Sherlock had cultivated a persona that did not eat while working as it would "slow him down." It was at this time he solved the mystery of where all his hidden digestives had been disappearing to when he came home earlier than expected from an experiment to find Mycroft stuffing the chocolates in his mouth quicker than Sherlock could watch.

By twenty seven Sherlock simply stopped keeping food in his domicile for fear that Mycroft would sniff it out and devour it while Sherlock wasn't looking.

At thirty he knew all the best eateries in a fifteen-minute walk from his haunts that allowed Sherlock to hide in the back away from all the other patrons and were kind enough to put Sherlock's food on priority.

Then by thirty four every eatery he went to with another person knew better than to ask what Sherlock would be having as they all knew that he was peculiar when it came to food and didn't like to eat in front of others. They thought he was incurably shy and worried about his weight. Angelo would try to ply him with extra servings any time he came alone under the pretense of being excessively thankful for what Sherlock had done for him.

It wasn't until a month after John had moved in with him that he caught Sherlock eating in the middle of the night. Sherlock had been crouched in his chair with a cold plate of bangers and mash that had been left over from John's breakfast, quickly eating and shifting his eyes to the windows to watch out for Mycroft's black car.

John had laughed at first but after he had calmed he had made a plate of nibbles and coaxed Sherlock into sharing it with him. A week later Sherlock concluded that his food was safe so long as it was shared with John.

Sherlock continued his eating habits for the most part but now he wouldn't simply stare forlornly at John's plate while he ate. John began ordering slightly more than he normally would and Sherlock would eat the extras to keep away the dizzy spells he got sometimes between distraction with cases and his peculiarity with food.

Though, it wasn't until John offered Sherlock the first slice of German Chocolate cake that Sherlock decided to keep John.