Mycroft Holmes

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This article is about Mycroft Holmes, utilising BBC Sherlock canon in combination with the orignal ACD novels and headcanons.

This article was established in February, 2012 and as such may contain deviations from expected canon. Please reference the rules for more information.

Mycroft Siger Holmes (born July 18th, 1970) is the eldest, and more intelligent of the two Holmes brothers. However, unlike Sherlock, he far prefers to keep to the shadows. Outside of his circles of work, very few know his name. There are very few mentions of him in the media, if any at all, and information about him has been known to mysteriously disappear if it becomes too frequent.

His occupation is not public knowledge, but officially it is Head of Interdepartmental Communications at MI6. Unofficially, he practically runs the entire British government - playing puppet master from his obscured position to keep everything running smoothly. On occasion, he also dabbles in the affairs of other countries, his professional abilities highly sought after by those that know of his existence.

Mycroft certainly has the potential to be one of the most dangerous men somebody could ever meet. His is cold and calculating, his reputation of "the Iceman" fully deserved. While he is unlikely to personally harm anybody (he is far too busy doing things of actual importance to bother getting his hands dirty), he has no qualms about getting someone else to do it for him. He also has little issue with manipulating people and events in order to get his own way. Despite this, his actions are rarely selfish. Apart from matters of family, everything is done in the name of the greater good of his country.

Main article: Clothes Headcanons

Mycroft Holmes is a tall (6'1") man with dark brown hair and light blue/grey eyes. Naturally, he has red hair, but he has been dyeing it since his teens and continues to maintain it as brown. His red hair is inherited from his father, who also dyes his brown. His hair is thinning a little - partly due to middle age, but also likely due to constant stress.

He is rarely seen in anything other than an expensive three-piece suit. While Mycroft favours dark colours, he has a habit of coordinating his outfits with his surroundings (either the most important location that he will visit during the day, or the location in which he plans on spending the most time). This means that he has a large variety of shades in his wardrobe, although he tends to stick with blacks, greys, and blues as the main colour of his city suits. For his country suits, he wears tweeds. For accessories, asides from the obvious tie (of which he owns articles of practically every colour that can be deemed professional) and cufflinks, Mycroft wears braces (not a belt), a tie pin, sleeve garters, sock garters, and carries a pocket watch. He also wears a signet ring on his right hand.

Another constant accessory of Mycroft's is his umbrella. He actually owns multiple umbrellas, each physically identical but with different functions. One is a concealed weapon, containing both a blade and a small gun. Another has been modified to function as a cane, for days when an old injury it playing up but he does not want to be seen with any kind of obvious assistance. Finally, one is simply an umbrella with nothing more to it.

Due to his old injury, Mycroft does occasionally limp, though it is very subtle. He has the scar from the gunshot wound to his leg still. This is the largest scar he has, though there are a few other small ones littering his body, mainly from his days as an active field agent for MI6.

Main article: Family Headcanons

The Holmes family are an old family that can trace their lineage back centuries, though they did not rise to prominence until the Elizabethan era. This is when one of Mycroft's ancestors fell into favour with the Queen and was granted the land upon which Musgrave Hall, the ancestral home of the Holmes family, was built. The family are known for their ties to politics and law.

Though the Holmes family tree shows numerous relatives, the most important are as follows:

Sir Siger Enoch Holmes

Mycroft's father. Despite the fact that Mycroft has always idolised him, he is a cold man, even bordering on cruel. Retired (though known to be called back into the fray to consult on various matters), he was a politician. For a time, he was the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (more commonly known as the Foreign Secretary). He also spent time as his party's Chief Whip. Siger spends the majority of his time at Musgrave Hall, one of his London residences, or abroad. He does not spend much time with any of his children, of which Mycroft is the only one that he can somewhat tolerate

Violet Sylvie Holmes (née Beaumont)

Mycroft's mother. Though she is kinder than her husband, Mummy Holmes has been known to have high expectations of her son and give him harsh criticism when he does not live up to them. In her youth, she was a codebreaker for MI6. However, when she fell pregnant, she gave up her job in order to raise her son in Derbyshire, at the Holmes family manor. In order to give herself something to do, she began writing mathematics books and lectures. This did not become her full time career until Sherlock was born, seven years later, and she realised that she would not be able to go back to codebreaking any time soon if she wanted to spend time with her children. Violet fell out of love with Siger when Mycroft was still young, but it was not until after Sherlock left university and moved out of the manor that she finally divorced him. She later remarried and is very happy with her new husband.

Sherlock William Holmes

Mycroft's brother. Sherlock is seven years younger than him. He is a "consulting detective" (private detective that is frequently asked to consult for the police) that works with his friend, Doctor John Watson. Sherlock has a history of drug abuse and addiction. Nowadays, he has generally recovered from it, but he still has the occasional 'danger night'. This, and Sherlock's frequent reckless behaviour, meant that Mycroft has spent the majority of his life watching out for his brother and attempting to keep him safe. Though Sherlock often irritates him, Mycroft loves his younger brother and will forgive him for almost anything. Sherlock is known for his detective work, as documented on John Watson's blog, and for miraculously coming back from the dead a few years after jumping off the roof of St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Prior to his 'death', the news had been claiming that all his work had been faked, however this was later proven to be untrue.

Eurus Nicolette Holmes

Mycroft's sister. Eurus is eight years younger than him. Officially, she is deceased. Unofficially, she is alive but being kept in a top-secret prison for criminal geniuses. For a long time, only Mycroft and his uncle were aware of this, but the truth did eventually come out after an incident in which she escaped and killed multiple people. Since a young age, she showed psychopathic behaviour - harming both herself and those around her, including murdering a young boy and hiding the boy when she was only five years old (an act which was covered up by the Holmes family). Not long after, Eurus attempted to burn the house down. Thankfully, everybody survived, but Siger and his brother, Rudolph, took the opportunity to fake the death of Eurus and remove her from the family, for the sake of everyone else's safety. Luckily, this worked out rather well, as Sherlock, traumatised by everything his sister had put him through, buried the memories of her and forgot that she existed, giving Mycroft's parents an excuse to never mention her again.

Rudolph Eldridge Holmes ("Uncle Rudy")

Mycroft's uncle. Uncle Rudy runs a law firm which has been in the Holmes family for generations. While Siger dusted his hands of Eurus at the first available opportunity, Uncle Rudy was the one to keep an eye on her. When Mycroft turned 18, he handed this duty over to him (which was a shock to Mycroft, as he had been led to believe that his sister was dead). Uncle Rudy is less cold than his brother, though does possess the typical Holmes lack of empathy, and he has a secret crossdressing habit.

Other Family

Other notable family members include Fredrick Smith (Violet's new husband), William Holmes (Siger's cousin, another politician who once beat him in a party leadership race), and Algernon Holmes (Mycroft's cousin, who is happily married to his wife, Emma, and has three young children).

Main article: Past Headcanons

Mycroft's childhood was an incredibly isolated one. He did not spend time with any children outside of his family until he went to boarding school at the age of 13. Until this point, all his knew were his family, the small number of staff on the estate, and any work colleagues that his parents invited over to the manor. This gave Mycroft an artificial sense of his own intelligence, believing himself to be normal and his brother to be an idiot. He was upset when he discovered that actually, he was not like the other children at all.

Still, it was not an unhappy childhood, mainly because he simply did not know better and therefore had no idea on what he was missing out on when it came to friendships and parents that loved him unconditionally (for Siger and Violet Holmes had always been rather demanding as well as rather distant). He spent his time reading in the library, studying, or exploring the grounds of Musgrave Hall. Outside of lessons with the various private tutors that his parents hired for him, it was not uncommon to find Mycroft sitting with his cat (Orion), either reading a book or watching birds in the gardens.

Sherlock was born when Mycroft was seven, and Eurus when he was eight. While he was happy to help look after his siblings, it was a long time before he found them interesting. Babies, Mycroft quickly decided, were loud and annoying. Once Sherlock grew up a little, he spent more time playing with his brother - though most of their time together was spent with Sherlock going on 'adventures', and Mycroft following behind and telling him to be sensible. On the other hand, he never really got along with Eurus. She was cold in a way which even he, with the lack of warmth in his life, knew was wrong. When she 'died' in the housefire that she started, Mycroft was glad, though he knew better than to ever admit to this.

At 13, he began attendance at Eton. Smarter than all his peers, Mycroft was quickly moved up in academic years and ended up attending university (Oxford) a few years later, at 15. He studied Law, leaving with a First at the age of 18.

Main article: Work Headcanons

While attending Oxford, Mycroft was headhunted by MI6. His father had always wanted him to go into politics, but the opportunity to make important contacts was too good to miss and so Mycroft accepted the job offer. For nine years, he worked as an MI6 field agent - initially undercover within the secret service itself, weeding out traitors and eliminating leaks, and later doing fieldwork abroad.

When he was 26, Mycroft found himself involved in a nasty hostage situation. His replacement when it came to finding traitors was clearly not competent enough, as foreign interference had grown within MI6 over the past few years, leading to one agent selling Mycroft out to the enemy. He spent a few months being held against his will before he was rescued, though his captors never managed to get any information out of him during that time. While he sustained numerous injuries over this time, the most notable of which was a gunshot wound to one of his legs. As he didn't receive suitable medical aid immediately (and because he didn't look after himself properly once he did see a doctor after his rescue), this injury never completely healed and, on occasion, it still plays up and causes Mycroft to limp slightly.

The hostage situation gave Mycroft a good excuse to retire from fieldwork - one which he eagerly took advantage of, as legwork had never been his preference in the first place. He had established the contacts he needed and so it was time for him to move on to something far more preferable.

Mycroft took those contacts and used them to establish a new department within MI6 - Interdepartmental Communications. On paper, this department focuses on gathering all the information within the organisation and ensuring that everybody is up to date on everything that they need to know. In reality, Mycroft functions as a central exchange of information. Everything comes through to him (from MI6 and MI5, the government, and so on) and he works out how everything will affect everything else. From here, he gives advice and tackles problems to ensure that everything runs smoothly. It is a service that he had been unofficially providing for years. His colleagues had begun to depend on him as an essential shortcut, which was his ultimate bargaining chip when it came to the creation of his department and his unique role within it.

Because he pulls on so many different strings and advises so many important figures, it would not be incorrect to say that, at times, Mycroft is the British government.

Publically, Mycroft is known for his professional ability and cold demeanour. He has a reputation for cold-hearted efficiency, favouring the greater good over anything else, even his own family. Those that know him are also aware of his intellectual capabilities. Even if they haven't seen them first-hand, whispers of what he can do are rife within the corridors of Whitehall and other circles that he treads him. Like his brother, Mycroft has the ability to look at a man and know his secrecy - deducting them from the tiny clues that little his being. He is, in fact, superior to his brother at this, but he typically has little desire to use the ability for anything outside of his work.

In addition to his vast intelligence, Mycroft has an eidetic memory. This gives him the impressive ability to remember a whole host of facts and figures, aiding him greatly in his career. One of the main ways in which he uses this ability is for learning languages - something that he finds both interesting and incredibly useful for his work.

While he is known outside of his profession - mainly within the social circles of the British upper class - what he does is not common knowledge. Those that work within his vicinity know better than to speak of him to the press, and only high-ranking individuals have an idea of the full extent of what he does.

For anybody that does not know of Mycroft, the impression that would have of him upon seeing him is that he is definitely rich. His whole demeanour practically screams upper class, with his three-piece suits, body language, and the way he expects people to follow any instructions he may give.

Main article: General Headcanons

Mycroft is without a doubt a prime example of a misanthrope. He does not like noise, he does not like crowds - he does not like people. Even if he did enjoy the hustle and bustle of human activity, people would still irritate him. The number of people that can intellectually keep up with Mycroft is incredibly low - even more so when members of his family are excluded - and so he finds conversation with others to be infuriatingly slow.

Considering this, it is perhaps unsurprisingly that Mycroft is alone in the world. He has no friends and no romantic partner. Other than family, the best he has are acquaintances - almost none of which he entirely trusts. Mycroft sees little reason to make connections. In the end, everybody always leaves - either by their own decision or not - so why should he bother setting himself up for inevitable heartbreak? Caring for others, he concludes, holds no advantage. Of course, his family (especially Sherlock) are an exception to this. He sees it as his duty to care for them.

Despite his insistence on not forming relationships, he has experienced romance in the past. This has occurred twice, the relationships remaining secret both times. Mycroft is homosexual - something that he keeps secret from everybody, even his own family (though he suspects that Sherlock may have worked it out for himself, his brother unable to stop himself from poking his nose into his private business). He is not proud of his orientation, both because he fears the disappointment of his father, and because he does not want it to affect his reputation. While Mycroft is aware that it is in no way as taboo as it used to be, even among the social circles he finds himself in, he is not willing to risk the reactions of his peers.

Even if Mycroft did want romance in his life, there is a good chance that he would struggle to find it. While he is undoubtedly a genius in many ways, social skills are one area in which he lacks. Flirting is not something that he easily recognises, nor is friendship in general.

In his (very limited) spare time, two activities that Mycroft enjoys are reading (non-fiction, mainly historical accounts and political memoirs) and watching birds in his garden - both being hobbies that have carried over from his childhood. He also enjoys drinking alcohol, undoubtedly a little too much. It is not public knowledge, but Mycroft is an alcoholic. He covers it up well and never drinks too much in public, meaning that he has been able to keep it under the radar for years. It is a habit that initially began to develop in his late 20s after the injury that ended his fieldwork career. Over the years, drinking culture at work and the pleasant feeling of numbing the noise of the world (audible noise and the constant information that he sees via his deductive abilities) has caused Mycroft to keep the habit up until it eventually developed into a dependency.

The Diogenes Club is a private club founded by Mycroft and his father, Siger Holmes. Mycroft is the one that purchased the club and set everything up, while his father used his contacts to gain the initial membership. The concept of the club was created while Mycroft was recovering from the injury that caused him to retire from fieldwork. As he was on enforced medical leave and not allowed to return to work, he needed something to do with his time. He saw a gap in the market for something that he would personally find useful, and so he distracted himself for a while by drawing up the plans.

While the Diogenes Club is similar to other private clubs in many ways (it provides a comfortable space to spend one's time, as well as food and drink), what makes it stand out is its rule of silence. Members are not permitted to take notice of each other, nor are they allowed to make any unnecessary noise. If a member breaks these rules three times, they risk being banned from the club. The only spaces in which members may speak with each other are private ones - notably the Stranger's Room, private guest rooms (for overnight accommodation), and private dining areas. In the rest of the club, if members wish to communicate with staff, they must use sign language or other forms of silent communication.

Despite how the club's rules may be seen as unusual, it is popular amongst a certain section of society. In fact, its membership boasts three quarters of the diplomatic service and half the government front bench - as well as numerous individuals from many other important careers.

Mycroft owns two houses. His primary residence is in London - outside of the city centre so he has access to a little more quiet during his evenings, but not so far out that he cannot get into work in a hurry when an emergency occurs.

His second house is a country home that he very rarely uses. Mycroft likes it there but he simply does not have time to escape from London for even a weekend. Despite this, he keeps hold of the house - using it as a potential bargaining chip and lending it to colleagues for short periods of time in return for small professional favours.

When he is not at home, Mycroft can be found in one of his offices (he has four - MI6, MI5, Whitehall, and under the Diogenes - in addition to a private study at home) or at the Diogenes Club. When he needs to sleep but does not have time to return home (an unfortunately common occurrence), he spends the night at the Diogenes Club, where there are a handful of rooms available for members to use as overnight accommodation.

Eventually, Mycroft will inherit Musgrave Hall - the ancestral home of the Holmes family. This will occur when his father dies.

Main article: AU Specific Headcanons

This article describes common pre-established verses. Other verses are available but must be discussed prior to any threads. Individual interactions occur in their own separate universes unless otherwise discussed. Please send an IM if interested in plotting any interactions.

Mycroft follows the majority of information described on this page.

Aged 5-18 years old, Mycroft is an odd child that is too smart for his own good and has little practical experience with anything outside of his family's estate.

Aged 18-26 years old, Mycroft is a spy for MI6, either undercover withing the secret service or an active field agent.

After the death of his family in the housefire caused by Eurus, Mycroft is adopted by Bertie and raised in the Royal household. He is a prince but he is not in line for the throne due to being adopted.

Mycroft is a member of the Capitol's elite. His father (now retired) was the Capitol's spy master and, following in his footsteps, Mycroft spent the early stage of his career uncovering rebels and keeping attempts at revolution at bay. Now, he maintains order within Panem - pulling the government's strings from the shadows to enact the President's wishes and keep the established order running smoothly. He owns a hawk named Volucris.

Mycroft, the son of the titan Atlas, was born all the way back in Ancient Greece. Just as his father has to carry the heavens, Mycroft carries humanity's governments - keeping everything running smoothly so that, most of the time, the gods do not have to worry about what may be occurring among the mortals. He has been doing this for millennia now, growing colder and more detached from humanity with every year that passes.

Cold, cunning, and calculating - it is hard to find a more perfect Slytherin than Mycroft Holmes. He works for the Ministry of Magic, keeping to the shadows as he pulls the strings to keep the wizarding world run smoothly.

Period/historical, Jurassic Park, Mycroft is adopted by another character, Mycroft adopts another character - send an IM to discuss other possibilities!

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