When We Danced

by Kitty Gets Loose

At the Home Office charity ball, an earl with an agenda pressures Mycroft and Sherlock into a dance – anything for charity, right? Moving together as they haven't done in two decades, however, reveals more than just a few things to Sherlock about Mycroft. And how well their lifelong dance with each other will end depends on the next steps they take.

1. Act One

Act One

Sherlock glared at Lestrade across the fancy table weighed down with chunky silverware, expensive porcelain, crystal wine glasses and pretentious food from banquet chefs trying too hard to impress.

"Gavin, what ever made you think I would enjoy this event?" Sherlock asked irritably, the consequence of which was John giving him a kick under the table.

"Sherlock!" John hissed over the strains of the unidentifiable tune being played by the live band before smiling broadly at Lestrade and saying sincerely: "We're delighted to be here, Greg – thank you for inviting us as guests of the Yard."

"Hey, Freak," Sally Donovan said in a warning tone to Sherlock from beside Lestrade. "I didn't want you here, but the detective inspector was kind enough to think you and Dr Watson would like a different sort of evening out. As the Home Office pretty much pressured the Yard to buy several whole tables for ten, Greg made sure two of the seats at our table went to you as you've been such a help to us all year."

"Yes, he didn't have to invite you, could've just asked the doc, and people like me, who appreciate such dinners," Anderson pointed out as the constables alongside him looked on in between bites. "But as you're joined at the hip, he thought'd be nice for you both to be here."

"I'm sorry if this isn't your kind of thing," Lestrade chuckled, letting Sherlock's rudeness roll off his back like the proverbial duck. "Just liked the idea of you dressing up nicely and joining us mere mortals at a posh do. Come on, it's a nice crowd. More members of the peerage than you can shake a stick at – and even your brother's at that table way over there, up front with the important folks!"

Sherlock and John had in fact run into Mycroft at the entrance to the ballroom earlier, and the brothers had acknowledged each other's presence so coolly that no one who was not of their acquaintance would believe they'd both been evicted from the same womb a number of decades ago.

"That, Graham, is precisely the reason I asked you why you thought I would enjoy this," Sherlock growled. "I can assure you that any charity ball my pompous arse of a brother would deign to attend with his insufferable colleagues would not be one that I would delight in spending time at, stifled in this straitjacket of a dinner suit."

"But you look terrific in black tie!" Lestrade declared with disarming frankness. "You were born to dress up, Sherlock. Pity you don't do it more often – I feel like a tricked-out monkey in my rented tux, but you're right at home in those bespoke rags."

"You do clean up very nicely," Anderson noted in a way that Sherlock might have found creepy had he not made it a point never to take the man seriously.

"And the auction is utterly juvenile in its concept," Sherlock went on bitingly, as if Anderson hadn't spoken. "It's bad enough that most London charity dinners hawk boring tripe like poorly executed works of art and limited-edition ugliness, but this one decides to do that and add what they gauchely term a 'freestyle' segment? Leaving auction ideas to the pathetic imagination of guests such as yourselves will not produce any edifying outcome for the charities they aim to benefit."

"Oh, I don't know," Lestrade said cheerfully. "We hear the Home Secretary's going to put up a thousand quid to propose that our Deputy Commissioner of Police go on a dinner date with the highest bidder, and there's plenty of interest."

"Your Deputy Commissioner of Police is a right twat," Sherlock scoffed.

"Sherlock! Language!" John reminded him.

"Maybe so," Lestrade chuckled. "But according to Sal here and all the other ladies I've heard talking about it, he's a bloody dishy twat!"

"I did not call our deputy commissioner a twat," Donovan protested firmly.

"But you did say he was a dishy bastard," Lestrade said. "And single to boot."

"You're single, Geoff," Sherlock snapped. "You should get yourself auctioned off to the highest bidder."

"Too old, too washed-up, too poor, and apparently not dishy enough," Lestrade sighed with a touch of faux drama before taking a large sip of his red wine and helping himself to another mouthful of pork medallion.

"Oh, God, even Loony Leonard's here," Sherlock groaned as a tall, white-haired figure wove between the tables in their direction, apparently on his way back from the loo.

"Loony… who?" John asked before spotting the person in question coming towards them. "Oh for God's sake, Sherlock – are you talking about Lord Somers? Don't call him loony in public! You know he's already annoyed enough with you about the case!"

"What case?" Lestrade asked.

"Sherlock solved a missing-heirloom mystery for the earl," John explained. "He didn't want to take the case because it apparently rated only a 'three'. However, Mycroft made him do it because Lord Somers is an old friend of the family. His Grumpiness insulted everyone within earshot but still sorted everything out in an hour, then he insulted everyone again and flounced off. As he does. Leaving me to collect payment and apologise. Lord Somers was thrilled with the outcome of the case, but highly displeased with Sherlock's behaviour. He wasn't happy with Mycroft either for not reining Sherlock in…"

"Loony bat," Sherlock muttered under his breath, prompting another sharp kick from John under the table.

"…so the earl made a complaint to Mummy," John finished.

"Oops," Anderson vocalised dryly before lifting his glass of wine. "And here he is."

"Sherlock, my dear boy, what a surprise! Never thought I'd run into you here," Lord Somers said as he reached their table. "Good evening, Dr Watson. It's such a pleasure to meet you again."

"Good evening, Lord Somers," John said politely, rising to greet the earl. "Sherlock and I are here as guests of Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard and his team."

"Oh, yes, of course, of course – Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade – I've heard so much about you and your team," the aristocrat smiled at the officer of the law.

"Too much to hope that you've heard only good things, I suppose," Lestrade said self-deprecatingly, shaking his hand as John made the introduction.

"No, no – only excellent reports, I assure you," Lord Somers said. "Mycroft Holmes has complimented your work more than once, and I'm sure you know that even the faintest praise from Holmes is the equivalent of high commendation from any other quarter."

Sherlock snorted.

"This Holmes, of course, is quite different, isn't he? Quite different," Lord Somers laughed. "He was the sweetest-natured child – unbelievably so – but turned into quite a handful in his teens. And his elder brother is still cleaning up after him everywhere he goes!"

Sherlock started to look apoplectic and said cuttingly: "Mycroft in all his pompous obesity couldn't possibly attempt to clean up after a flipperless turtle…"

Which was the cue for Lord Somers to say loudly over the detective's head: "Well, I must be getting back to my table, or they'll think I've wandered off and lost my way in my dotage. Have a lovely evening, Dr Watson, Detective Inspector Lestrade, gentlemen, and ladies. Sherlock, do give my love to your parents."

As Lord Somers wove his way back to his table near the front of the ballroom, Sherlock muttered: "As if he didn't just speak to Mummy three days ago."

"Stop grumbling," John chided Sherlock even as Lestrade chuckled at his sulkiness. "If you're going to insult your parents' friend, you have to accept the consequences. Oh, the auction's starting…"

It was as tacky as Sherlock had feared. After the lousy pieces of art by whomever and porcelain vases donated by whatever body, and memorabilia signed by celebrities who didn't merit the name, the ridiculously-termed freestyle segment came up. In this, each auction item had two parts to it: first, a proposer would name a sum that he or she would donate to a participating charity if something of his or her choosing were carried out; next, other guests who supported the motion could use an app downloaded onto their phones to put up donation sums of their own as encouragement for the proposal to happen. If what the proposer wanted was done, all the sums put forward would go to the charity; if it was not carried out, the proposer's potential donation as well as the potential donations of the guests who supported it had the right to be withdrawn by the donors. The rules were that no proposal that was illegal, dangerous, unethical or tasteless (as judged by a panel appointed by the Home Office) would be accepted.

It was the kind of concept that would fly well at events where most of the attendees knew, or knew of, one another. This being a Home Office charity ball, a lot of the guests did in fact work with one another, or were prominent members of politics and society who supported the grassroots and community outreach schemes of various Home Office divisions. And plenty of souls here were just dying to watch the prim individuals they knew in the professional sphere do all sorts of stuff they ordinarily wouldn't be caught dead doing.

So it began.

As Lestrade had mentioned, the Home Secretary did step up with his opening nomination sum of £1,000 if the Deputy Commissioner of Police would go on a date with the donor offering the highest sum for an evening in his company. The supporting sums began to come in through the apps on phones all over the room, and the growing figures were reflected in real time on the screens around the ballroom. The man in question gamely stepped up onto the stage, and the bids kept pouring in until the pre-set time limit was up.

"So, Sir Mark," said the auctioneer-cum-emcee for the night, distractingly glittery in her silvery ballgown. "If you don't agree to go through with this, all these promised donations could be withdrawn. If you do agree, it will all be locked in to go to the charities we're here for tonight. Will you do it? Will you go on a date with whoever has offered the biggest sum in the pool of supporting donations?"

"Yes, all right – I'll do it," Sir Mark agreed with some embarrassment, and applause flooded the room as the total sum in excess of £15,000 was locked in.

It was awkward – everything was awkward and tacky – the emceeing, the tone, the phrasing, the man's stupid, red-faced embarrassment, the whole damn idea – just awful. Sir Mark might be dishy, but suave and eloquent he was not. And the auctioneer might be pretty and perky, but she was also dreadfully trite.

"And the generous donor who's won a date with you is… oh, it's Lady Mellors!"

"With my husband's permission!" the lady in question called out loudly from her table, clearly having had more than just a few glasses of wine. "It's all for a good cause, isn't it?"

Ugh. Worse and worse. Or perhaps worser and worser, if Sherlock might be permitted to mangle Lewis Carroll.

"It is indeed!" the auctioneer laughed. "Thank you very much for such a bright start to this segment of our auction! Sir Mark, Lady Mellors, thank you both, and thank you, all, for your generosity. We'll help you both make the arrangements for the date at the end of the auction. Now, next, Mr Sean Marlowe is giving us an opening sum of £800 if Dame Augusta Rice can be persuaded to sing a song of her choice, accompanied either by the live band or the deejay."

A murmur of interest rippled through the room, as Dame Augusta Rice was known to have a beautiful singing voice but to be dreadfully shy about showing it off. The supporting donations that began to pour in, however, were pushing the £10,000 mark by the end of the time limit, and Dame Augusta was evidently feeling some pressure to proceed with the song so as not to let down the charitable cause. With plenty of blushing, and after some hushed discussion with the live band, she took the stage and delivered a marvellous rendition of Saint-Saëns' Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a Ta Voix, which prompted additional donations of appreciation.

The performance, Sherlock thought, was tolerable and at least lifted the tone of the auction a little. But to his annoyance, the next items reverted to silliness, including a cartwheel challenge posed to the director-general of Visas and Immigration; a fruit-juggling request made to a baroness; and a raucous call for a Mr Somebody-or-Other to kiss some grandmotherly specimen who appeared to have a large crush on him.

It was after that that things got exponentially worse. For Sherlock, at least. Because weaving his way up to the microphone on stage, apparently after obtaining the organisers' permission, was Lord Loony himself. Whose very clear and simple statement of his intention to donate the staggering sum of £40,000 dropped the entire ballroom into a state of stunned silence.

Considering that one of the biggest London charity balls last year had broken a national record by raising a little over £100,000 in total by the end of the evening, £40,000 tonight coming from just one individual donor at this ball would almost certainly result in the final sum raised for charity outstripping that record last year. Sherlock couldn't even call the earl's bluff here, because thanks to Mycroft twisting his arm into taking the case of the missing heirloom, he happened to know better than most that Lord Somers easily had £40,000 in crisp paper pocket change to dish out, as a result of some very intelligent property investments he'd made over the course of his long life.

Still, not everyone who had such money would donate it to charity just like that. It almost impressed Sherlock. Almost. Because the next words out of Lord Somers' mouth were for Sherlock the equivalent of smashing every mirror between here and Wonderland, dragging him through the shards of glass in every frame, and dropping him right into a pile of fantastically bad hallucinations complete with boogieing walruses and smoking caterpillars. "I'll donate that sum if Mr Mycroft Holmes and his brother, Mr Sherlock Holmes, will do a slow dance together right here and now to a song of my choosing."

From his seat, Sherlock could just make out the figure of Mycroft, far up front at his table, reacting with a small jolt of shock and surprise before his features settled into a chilly expression that turned about as fixed and cold as stone in a graveyard on a winter night.

"I'm a family friend, so I'm taking a few liberties here," Lord Somers went on a little drunkenly. "Sherlock's prickly as hell, as I know plenty of you in this room have had personal experience of – I see lots of faces of folks who've gone to him for cases and been impolitely told off…"

Sherlock's eyes darted about the ballroom in as unnoticeable a manner as he could manage, but he didn't really have to see for himself – the grimace on John's face and the way Lestrade's hand was sliding up over his chin to cover his mouth told him that, yes, the bloody ballroom had more than just a couple of people he'd offended before.

"… but if it's any consolation, ladies and gentlemen, his own family suffers the sharp edge of his tongue far more than any of you have. Anyway, his parents, his late Uncle Rudy who was my dearest friend, and I, used to love watching his big brother teach him how to dance when Sherlock was much, much younger, and I'd pay good money to see Mycroft persuade him now. A sweet, slow number, just to help your Uncle Leonard remember good old times…"

Sherlock's expression – and Mycroft's – seemed to say nothing less than that "Uncle Leonard" could go hang himself on a nostalgic rope woven from his ancient memories. But to their horror, the supporting bids began to simply pour in. Like a fucking avalanche. Curse it all, but it looked like Sherlock really had pissed off plenty of rich people here who now wanted to see him embarrassed. And Mycroft, no doubt, knew a lot of very wealthy individuals who would literally pay a fortune to watch The Iceman do something utterly incongruous with his penchant for cutting lesser mortals to shreds with his cold genius.

"I won't be rigid about the exact dance style – I know I said a slow dance, but please feel free to go with a two-step, a slow foxtrot, a rumba, whatever, as long as you're in each other's arms," Lord Somers went on gleefully.

The supporting donations kept coming in, as if it weren't only an avalanche but the mountain itself was tumbling into the ocean. To Sherlock's unease, the figure was reaching £80,000 and still climbing. He knew that even with Mycroft's level of wealth, his brother would have to think twice, thrice, about casually offering to pay that sum out of his own pocket just so the charities wouldn't suffer, but he wouldn't have to carry out the challenge.

The clincher, alas, came from Lord Somers, who added: "Come on, Mycroft – what's a little dance between two brothers for old times' sake? And I've requested that a larger proportion of the donations should go to the Narwhal Fund for the Gifted, which I happen to know is a cause close to your heart."

Curse and damn it all, but Sherlock knew that Mycroft did indeed support that fund, which identified highly intelligent and talented children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and gave them all the nurturing their families couldn't provide to fully develop the best of their abilities. Sherlock could even see Lady Smallwood, who was seated beside Mycroft, looking down into her lap with a telltale guilty posture that told him she was making a generous supporting donation of her own through the app on her phone, just to add to the pressure on him and Mycroft.

And curse Lestrade, Donovan, Anderson and… and even John – the little traitor – because they were patently adding to the pressure with (smaller) supporting donations of their own on their phones. Lestrade was grinning, Anderson looked eager to an unseemly degree, Donovan openly flashed her phone screen at Sherlock with a smug look, the constables were smirking, and John appeared sheepish, but they were all not helping him! Miserable blackguards!

With his peripheral vision, he saw Mycroft rise from his seat. Sherlock shut his eyes fatalistically, counting the seconds his brother would require to transport his lazy self across the ballroom on two legs. He counted impeccably, for when he opened his eyes again, Mycroft was just stepping up to his table and saying to him gruffly: "Let's get it over with."

Sherlock took a deep breath, then a second deep breath, glared across the table at Lestrade again (the DI only shrugged and looked as if he was trying not to break into another huge grin), contemplated telling Mycroft to go to hell and take "Uncle" Leonard with him, immediately decided against that idea as this wasn't actually Mycroft's fault for once and hell was too good a place for Lord Loony, and then abruptly chose on the spur of the moment to bite the bullet and, as Mycroft suggested, "get it over with". If Mycroft could do it, then so could he.

Once he pushed his chair back, his body language must have told his brother that he was going along with it, because he strode towards the dance floor at once without needing to turn to check if Sherlock was following.

As incredulous applause broke out across the ballroom, Lord Somers spoke into the microphone: "I'm an old-fashioned fellow and bloody old by now too. I suppose I could've gone with a tune all the way back from my youth, but that truly would be returning to a bygone age. So I moved it forward a few decades to a couple of the eras when I last actually enjoyed listening to the music that was played on the radio. I quite liked the '80s and '90s, didn't you all? I was tempted to go with Every Breath You Take by The Police, as it's just so very 'Big Brother is watching you', and we know it's quite literal in this case, isn't it? Then I thought maybe Jealousy by the Pet Shop Boys, as there's so very much fretting in it about some irresponsible individual who never calls when he says he will and can't be found at three in the morning – quite relatable, hmm, Mycroft? Or Erasure's Boy – because I'm sure you think that all these years of love and giving haven't meant a thing to someone, am I right, Myc?"

If the killer glare on Mycroft's face was any indication of what Sherlock was certain was a matching killer glare plastered all over his own features, Lord Somers should run for his life. But the earl was a fearless old trooper, and he simply continued: "But, well, as it turns out, I'm a sentimental decrepit bugger, and I always loved Air Supply…"

Of all the cheesy, tacky bands to pick… Sherlock groaned inwardly even as he saw that it was Mycroft's turn to close his eyes, and that his brother didn't quite succeed in suppressing the shudder that shot through his frame.

"… and they had this nice little ballad that never seemed terribly popular on our charts, I don't know why, because I loved it. So, Mycroft, Sherlock, Goodbye."

As Lord Somers stepped away from the microphone on the stage, Sherlock's brain scrambled to work out what that meant. Why had he said goodbye like that? What did it signify? What did it…? Oh. Oh. It was the damnable song title. What hellish manner of mawkish pop tune was this?

In the moments of silence before a single note was played by the deejay, Mycroft and Sherlock turned their glares onto each other as they swiftly engaged in a grim battle of wills, wordlessly wrestling with each other to determine who should lead. Sherlock already knew he would lose this fight, because he didn't know the song at all, whereas he had a suspicion that it wasn't entirely unfamiliar to Mycroft (though God knows why Mycroft would listen to any music that didn't hail from before the 1800s). But still, he needed to put up a fight just… just for the principle of it.

However, Mycroft could surely read in his eyes the damning fact of his not knowing the song, so the tide of the battle turned at once. Indeed, to his annoyance, his elder brother extended his left hand to him. Sherlock bristled, but there was no help for it. So he put his right hand into Mycroft's left like any properly brought-up lady would on the dance floor, and he felt Mycroft's right hand go around to his back at the same time as he placed his own left hand on Mycroft's shoulder. Immediately, everything slid easily into place like a key into a lock that had sealed up the past, and it was suddenly as if the intervening decades between their teens and this day had never come and gone.

In Sherlock's teenage years, Mycroft had patiently practised every ballroom and social dance under the sun with him, at their mother's insistence.

"If Sherlock grows up without the foggiest idea of how to lead a lady on the dance floor, I'll have failed as a parent," Mummy had sighed.

"I'm not certain that hasn't already happened," Mycroft had said acerbically.

"Myc!"

"Why don't you teach him, if it's so important to you?" Mycroft had asked.

"He never listens to me!"

"Do you imagine that he listens to me?"

"He does! He pretends not to, but he does, Myc!"

That was how they'd begun.

It never turned out to be as bad as either he or Mycroft had feared the lessons would be. They both had a very good ear for music and tempo, and even when Sherlock was only 12 and Mycroft was almost 19, they'd shared an excellent sense of how to move and position their bodies, especially in relation to each other. Despite Sherlock's constant insults on the themes of Mycroft's physical laziness, loathing of legwork, and the chubby phase his elder brother had suffered through in puberty, Mycroft was a good dancer and brilliant teacher. He had known how to convey corrections and pointers to Sherlock in ways that would be immediately grasped by him.

Mostly, he had let Sherlock lead, as he needed to learn how to do so if and when he had to dance in public with a girl. But Mycroft insisted on leading sometimes, so that Sherlock would understand the importance of being a good partner.

"What is the earthly use of me learning to follow?" Sherlock had asked snippily one day, with all the acidity of his 12 years of life.

Without dropping a step as he'd spun Sherlock in lively circles round the emptier half of the drawing room to Shostakovich's Second Waltz, Mycroft had said calmly: "You will know at first hand what it is like to be led well – what a big difference it can make to your partner to be led confidently by someone who accommodates her needs – and how it feels to be allowed to move freely in time with the music instead of having to anticipate it."

"Anticipate it?"

"If you are leading a partner who is unfamiliar with your dance moves, or who needs to rely heavily on your cues for the dance, then if you only shift yourself precisely to the beat of the music, by the time she moves to follow, she will always feel she's a fraction of a beat too late. If you anticipate that and move yourself a fraction of a beat early, you will be able to lead her to move precisely to the beat. It will make a difference to her enjoyment of the dance."

"So all this time when you were following my lead…"

"You were dragging me behind the beat as if I were a broomstick."

"And now you're…"

"Leading you to move to the beat."

Sherlock had chewed on that for a second, then he'd peremptorily ordered: "Switch. Now."

Mycroft had smirked at him, but they'd shifted their hands and arms as swiftly and smoothly as if they'd choreographed it, and Sherlock had led his brother impeccably through the rest of the dance. Although their relationship was already a difficult one by then, he had felt the tiniest bloom of pride when Mycroft had smiled approvingly at the end of the waltz and dropped a mock curtsey to him that wasn't at all mocking, but rather, good-humoured.

Now, as they faced each other in the ballroom of this grand hotel, the tinkling keyboard notes of the ballad intro began to play, and Sherlock let Mycroft lead him – perfectly, as he knew he would – through steps that only he would know how to follow just as flawlessly. Because when they'd danced together as teenagers, Mycroft had not only coached him in all the conventional techniques of the traditional ballroom dances, but had kept him engaged and entertained by merging, mixing and blending – in his uniquely playful, inventive and artistic way – a variety of moves and steps from different dances. It had been fun. Thrilling, even, when he found he could anticipate how Mycroft would improvise, and respond in just the right way.

Those made-up moves, Mummy had said proudly, had looked almost like performance dances. "Beautiful, just beautiful – I wish I you'd let me film you!" she'd cried.

"Don't you dare, Mummy," Mycroft had warned her sternly as he'd glided Sherlock smoothly backwards to the dramatic beat of Prokofiev's Montagues and Capulets. "We'd never live it down. I'm going to rule the world, remember? How would a shadowy king-maker reconcile his sinister image with a video of his teenage self spinning his little brother around? And Sherlock's going to be a pirate. He doesn't need footage of him twirling about to mar his vicious reputation. Film us and you'll ruin us. Please don't insult our genius or your own genes by even thinking that we won't just magically know if you try to do it in secret."

It was one of the very rare occasions on which Sherlock had laughed out loud in non-cynical fashion since he'd been a small child, and he and Mycroft had shared a snort and a chuckle at Mummy's expense.

Sherlock hauled himself back to the present, registering the evocative opening notes and knowing at once upon hearing them (as if the title of Goodbye wasn't enough of a clue) that this was not a happy song. He glanced to his right and locked eyes with Mycroft as the first line that was sung, uncannily, spoke of seeing pain in the other's eyes.

Was there pain in Mycroft's eyes? There was, wasn't there? Why? How long had it been there? Did he see pain in Sherlock's eyes too? He spared a bit of brain space to wonder why the outrageous earl had chosen such a sad song for them to dance to. Pretty melody, emotive arrangement, but so bittersweet, its lyrics mingling empathy and appreciation with an awareness of the other's suffering and the impossibility of continuing the relationship in question.

Mycroft moved them in a slow foxtrot through the first verse, his right hand lower on Sherlock's back than traditional form would normally allow, keeping their bodies close so they could feel the tiniest shifts in each other's frames as he steadily guided him through the unfamiliar music.

For years, they'd been all but estranged, and Mycroft's body in its fourth decade of life ought to have become something remote from Sherlock's knowledge, like a stranger's. But as he trusted himself now to Mycroft on the dance floor, it dawned on him that he still knew his brother's patterns and rhythms so well, it was as if they'd never stopped dancing together. He barely needed to put much effort into reading his moves – he knew Mycroft's breathing, what the infinitesimal turn of his head to his left meant, what the tiny shift and press of fingers against his back signified, what the dip of the right half of his ribcage preceded, where his feet would be, every second.

All of it – every step, every touch – was done to bring Sherlock through this trial by dance, to keep him moving beautifully, to make him look the best he could. Every detail was as known and reassuring to Sherlock as if this were a rhythmic metaphor for everything Mycroft had done for him all these years – everything he still did for him, all the time, without ever being thanked for it.

This was all Sherlock's fault, wasn't it? He was the one who'd been rude to Lord Somers, not Mycroft. He was the one who'd insulted enough people in the ballroom for this to be a curious sight they'd gleefully wanted to see, not Mycroft. Maybe some people were also pleased to watch The Iceman melt a bit into the semblance of something slightly more human, but no one here would have dared target Mycroft to begin with if he hadn't been dragged in as collateral damage in Lord Somers' petty revenge against Sherlock.

But Mycroft didn't want Sherlock humiliated. He didn't want him lost and embarrassed and stomping out of the ballroom like a toddler throwing a tantrum. He wanted to steer Sherlock through this, for both of them to acquit themselves more than creditably, and he was doing it immaculately. Even in the turmoil of Sherlock's uneasy, incipient guilt, he could sense that the mood in the ballroom had changed from gloating amusement to grudging admiration.

Of course it had. Because Mycroft moved beautifully. Only now did Sherlock truly remember just how beautifully his brother could dance. Mycroft might stalk about as if he had a broomstick up his arse when he walked stiffly among the diplomatic set, and his work posture and behaviour might be irritatingly rigid, but Sherlock remembered how fluidly he could move, and how fluidly he could help Sherlock to move.

Like the time Sherlock was 14 and Mummy and Daddy had thrown one of their silly parties. Those were the days when they'd entertained often enough to maintain the event hall at home in a state fit for its original purpose. They'd invited extended family, friends and neighbours from the village, and it had featured a ridiculous amount of line dancing (one of their parents' execrable obsessions). But they'd slipped in other dances as well in the course of the gathering, and the brothers – who had steadfastly rejected all involvement with the line dancing – had been obliged to participate.

Mycroft was dragged into a waltz with one of their great-aunts. Two dances later, Sherlock was forced to partner the same woman in the quickstep, and she'd gripped his shoulder with her alarmingly strong talons as hard as she'd clung to Mycroft. Sherlock had thought he could bear up like his brother had under the claws she'd dug into his flesh and cartilage through the shirt. But compared with Mycroft, Sherlock at 14 was much more sensitive, squirmier, and less tolerant – not to mention that as an adolescent, he was in possession of less muscle and bulk than his adult brother. He'd flinched and balked, and his footwork had stuttered so much that Great-aunt Patricia had criticised him loudly him for being a poor dancer. He'd said nothing – he'd only been glad that the dance was at an end – but the next thing he knew, when the music for the next song started up, Mycroft had taken his hand and drawn him smoothly into an unutterably gorgeous foxtrot to the strains of Fly Me to the Moon, holding him as he'd always held him, with just the right firmness, without clutching or gripping or uncomfortable tension, leading him so as to best show off the skill and precision of Sherlock's footwork and the slender lines of his body.

Everyone at the gathering had watched, mesmerised by the beauty of their moves. At the end of the dance, after a beat of complete silence that spoke much more loudly than words, all the guests (except Great-aunt Patricia) had broken into heartfelt applause, Uncle Rudy had feigned a swoon before fanning himself vigorously, Daddy had beamed and bowed to them from where he stood, and Mummy had embarrassingly cried tears of pride. Sherlock, in all his preternatural perceptiveness, had detected nothing but genuine admiration from everyone present (except Great-aunt Patricia, whose admiration was heavily begrudging, but admiration nonetheless).

"Sherlock is a wonderful dancer," Mycroft had later said to a small cluster of family friends, clearly and pointedly enough for Great-aunt Patricia to hear. "He has a natural talent for it, and it is most evident when he has the right partner."

Great-aunt Patricia had been in the grave for a decade now, ghastly woman (Sherlock had never put stock in the idea that one shouldn't speak ill of the dead – if they were horrid, they were horrid, dead or alive). But in her stead, another roomful of spectators had to eat their smugness born of the mistaken belief that the arrogant Holmes brothers would make spectacular fools of themselves on the dance floor. They looked on, rapt, as he and Mycroft moved as one. When the song shifted into what sounded to Sherlock like a build-up to an approaching chorus, Mycroft segued him into an adapted two-step, swinging him out a little, drawing him back in, easing him out again, their linked hands the only points of contact between them.

"I don't want to let you down, I don't want to lead you on, I don't want to hold you back from where you might belong…", the lead-up to the chorus went, every word branding itself on Sherlock's mind as he began to understand in ways he never objectively had that Mycroft had never let him down, led him on or held him back. But why did his brother look so sad now as they danced, as if he was communicating to him even as they moved like a unified entity, that it was time to let him go?

A surge of resistance to this idea rose up in Sherlock. When the chorus itself came on, and Mycroft slipped them seamlessly with another easy shift of arms and positioning into one of the tango-rumba-hybrid variant sequences they'd practiced as teenagers, Sherlock wrapped his arms around him in all honesty – it was no pretence for the sake of the dance. A part of Sherlock's mind that he'd set aside for objectivity noted with curiosity as it processed his actions – from outside of himself, as it were – that his embrace seemed to be saying: "Mycroft, don't go… don't let me go…"

Mycroft had deemed the tango too salacious for an adolescent Sherlock to learn in full, but he'd taken him through the basics of the dance and shown him how adaptable and impromptu its moves could be. They'd developed a variation with rumba that featured very close dancing, but downplayed the roaming hands, sharp leg-hooking and erotic gazes, and twisting hips. Occasionally, they'd used those moves entirely sans gancho and high kicks for use with melodic, non-sultry, non-tango music with a 2/4 or 4/4 time signature. It wasn't really tango or rumba any more by then, more like theatre, Sherlock had snorted.

But it was why they could bring in those unconventional moves now with this pop ballad, letting them hold each other close, with feeling, Mycroft moving around to Sherlock's back at one point, almost nuzzling his neck. Without their employing any of the obvious tango or rumba features that would be familiar to the audience, it looked instead like gliding, classic, uniquely choreographed Western ballroom with an emotional twist to it.

Sherlock felt safe in Mycroft's hands, in Mycroft's arms – something he hadn't actually thought about for an age – and he knew that this security extended well beyond the dance. He always felt safe in Mycroft's hands. As much as he'd purported to despise his brother's interference, he had never experienced greater depth of relief with anyone than he had whenever Mycroft had swooped in to rescue him. Each time his brother had retrieved him from a drug den, extracted him from trouble on a dangerous mission, steered his unconventional career path, vetted his allies, buffered him from their parents' most annoying traits, literally kept him fed and clothed during the leanest years of his adult life, and personally stood between Sherlock and death, he had pretended to be displeased about it, but he hadn't been able to deny the sense of having been delivered from damnation. Every single time. No one else had done that for him with such intensity and devotion.

They were seguing again into the slow foxtrot as the second verse played with an emotive shift of key, and to Sherlock's surprise, their bodies barely felt close enough now for his liking. This was comparatively so distant, so formal, and sad, a miniature letting-go to echo the lyrics of loss and parting.

There was a deeper echo, too, of how they'd danced their last dance together when Sherlock was 15, and Mycroft was 22 and about to start his career.

"I think I've taught you everything you need to know to partner someone on the dance floor, and practised sufficiently with you to raise your skill level so it would be enviable even to other good dancers," Mycroft had remarked one afternoon as he'd coached Sherlock on the finer points of the rumba.

His bags were packed, his first real work suits were in garment bags hanging from the coat rack, and he was moving out of their parents' house for the last time.

Sherlock had shrugged and affected indifference – which he realised now had caused Mycroft to look a little sadder than he'd liked him to look. But he was angry with himself for feeling bereft too, because there'd been something about their dance practices that was like nothing else in his life. And deep inside, he was angry that Mycroft had suggested ending it, because Mycroft had to know, didn't he, that Sherlock wouldn't ask him to continue once he said they should stop? At the same time, he didn't want to need Mycroft, so he was buffeted by his inner conflict.

He'd felt even more agitated (though he never let it show) when Mycroft had said softly, with a touch of playfulness: "One last dance for the road?"

Sherlock had huffed scornfully and muttered: "Don't be absurd."

"Not even a slow dance?" Mycroft had asked teasingly – it had to be a joke; that had certainly never been in their repertoire of lessons – but there'd been that hint of sadness again that Sherlock had hated to see, and it had made him feel even more as if bees were attacking his insides.

"Just go and rule the world, Mycroft," he'd said, turning to go instead of slipping into his brother's arms as perhaps he should have – and that had been it. The dance lessons were at an end, and they'd never physically moved together like that again for the pure recreational love of it.

Instead, their dances had shifted entirely into the intellectual and adversarial realm, like a vicious, long-running paso doble in which each appeared to target the other with everything unkind, stopping short only of actually murdering each other. The build-up had been a long time coming. Because even as they'd civilly communicated under their parents' roof and gone through their dance lessons from the time Sherlock was 11 to when he was 15, Sherlock had been increasingly disapproving of Mycroft's growing political sharpness and shadowy diplomacy in everything, while Mycroft too had disapproved of Sherlock's unsubtle, rebellious refusal to make the most of his considerable range of talents in ways that would actually be useful in society.

Dancing had been the last bastion of their cooperation in those final years of childhood, but it had become pretty grim after that, all through Sherlock's drug-dependent and anti-social phase. Until he'd finally grown up, grown savvier about how to use his favoured substances safely, and become more street-smart about how to use people without their realising they were being used. He and Mycroft had then been able to cooperate on the job relatively successfully, but they'd never again had that ease and openness they'd given each other in dance.

Till now.

Mycroft was this moment leading them into the moves for the second pre-chorus. Instead of taking it with the nightclub two-step as they had the first time round, he slid them back into their demi-tango-theatre, burning Sherlock's soul with the heat of his hands on his hips and the intensity of his gaze for the three too-brief lines of lyrics before he switched things up again and, purely through the shift in positioning of his hands and stance, told Sherlock they would slow-foxtrot their way through the second chorus.

Their communication was perfect. They'd spent years, of course, in a sort of cold war of one-upmanship as each had escalated his ability to read the other while refining his skill at hiding his real thoughts. It had been a Holmes nuclear arms race of observation, induction, concealment, deception and outright sniping. As soon as one worked out how to conceal his tells from his sibling, the other would crack the new code, then their positions would switch and the race would resume. But it astounded Sherlock now to comprehend for the first time in his life that everything this archenemy of his had done on his side of the war was, in truth, for the purpose of keeping Sherlock safe and alive. And now, they were face to face, speaking no words but saying everything openly, unafraid to be read and understood – needing to be decoded and understood.

Mycroft's touch, his hold, the firmness and gentleness of his embrace took over Sherlock's entire being as he realised yet another fact he'd never allowed to sink into his head before: No one had ever touched him like Mycroft had. His brother's hands had never harmed him, never struck him, never been cruel to him. He'd hurt him sometimes, of course, out of necessity – there was no way to clean wounds without causing pain, no way to pop a shoulder back into its socket without agony, no way to pinch and slap him to keep him awake so he wouldn't fade out and die without inflicting some hurt – but those hands had always helped him, always reached out to him, always protected him.

No one had ever handled him like Mycroft had. Like Mycroft did. Like Mycroft was doing now. His touch wasn't fatherly or fraternal in the way Lestrade's hugs or pats on the shoulder were; it wasn't the taken-for-granted proprietorial touches from Mummy and Daddy; it wasn't the awkward best-friendliness, frustration-triggered aggression or medical concern of the physical contact John offered; it wasn't Molly's hopeless hopefulness and occasional angry slaps; or Mrs Hudson's more-maternal-than-Mummy's everyday interactions with him.

It was uniquely Mycroft. Confident when it was necessary, a little cautious when it was not, very reserved, firm when needed, barely there when he thought it might not be welcome, always warm even when the words were harsh, withheld entirely when the words bordered on sentiment because it would be much too much, and – Sherlock truly understood now – always, always imparting love.

Sherlock felt his psyche scalded by the shame of remembering how he'd so brutally caused physical – and emotional – hurt to Mycroft the time he'd attacked him when they'd disagreed over how to deal with Charles Augustus Magnussen while Sherlock had been high as a kite. Short of a life-and-death situation in which he might have to manhandle Sherlock undercover, or in order to drag him back from the brink of destruction, Mycroft would never have done something like that to him no matter how Sherlock provoked him.

"I would rather hurt myself / Than to ever make you cry…"

Sherlock leaned into Mycroft as they went through their slow foxtrot, giving him his warmth while drawing support from him, and Mycroft flashed him a look of mild surprise at the slight alteration in his posture. Sherlock gazed back a little worriedly, not sure if he was overstepping the boundaries he himself had chalked on the ground between them. But the song was entering an instrumental interlude now, and Mycroft slid his hands down to Sherlock's waist and hips, then they were doing the slow dance Mycroft had asked him for when they were 15 and 22, which he'd turned down.

A last dance. A slow dance goodbye, coming years after it was requested. It would be poor form in a ballroom – even in a portion featuring something as unsophisticated as a slow dance – for him to bury his face in his brother's neck, but he came close. His lips brushed Mycroft's skin above the collar of his dinner jacket even as he felt the hitch and release of Mycroft's warm breath against his right ear.

Only now did Sherlock understand that the cold war of concealment and codes had actually started long before they'd stopped dancing – that the sadness he sometimes saw in Mycroft's eyes as they'd turned circles with and around each other in their parents' house had simply been a code Mycroft hadn't been sophisticated enough to completely hide then, one that Sherlock had been too inexperienced to crack at all.

I love you, the code had said. I love you, I love you, and I can never tell you.

He understood that Mycroft hadn't wanted to stop dancing with him, but had had to, because it was hard to keep hiding how you felt about someone when you were in each other's arms.

Sherlock melted into the circle of Mycroft's arms around his waist in the slow dance that had been such a long time coming, but the instrumental interlude was ending, as he could tell from the glide of his brother's fingers over his hips, up his sides and down his arms, then they segued into the slow foxtrot again for the final repetition of the chorus. Again, he felt too far apart from Mycroft. Again, it was a small parting he didn't want. The lovers of the song were saying goodbye, and Sherlock had just discovered that the alienated figure who had always seemed to dominate his whole existence might just have regarded Sherlock as the great love of his life.

The song wound down with its tinkling keyboard notes again, and their dance ended. Mycroft looked at Sherlock, then he looked away, and it was surprisingly hard for Sherlock to read him right now. He couldn't be obvious about trying to do so either – not in front of everyone. They stepped apart, didn't bother with a bow to the audience who were erupting in applause along with the auctioneer's gushing cries, but only nodded stiffly to acknowledge the crowd getting to its feet to hail their performance, and cast a quick glance at Lord Somers who was still on the stage, looking at them and clapping slowly but sincerely as he nodded in what looked like satisfaction.

Mycroft strode back to his table, and Sherlock returned to his. He took his seat again, hardly registering the glowing exclamations of praise and astonishment from his friends and associates.

"My God, Sherlock! I knew you could dance, but I never knew you could dance!" (John); "Sherlock, that was bloody beautiful." (Lestrade); "Wow, Freak. Just wow." (Donovan); "You know I'm dead straight, but I just have to ask: Will you marry me?" (Anderson); "Smoking hot!" (DC Smyth). Apparently, the donations of appreciation post-dance were sending the figures through the roof.

It all went right past Sherlock like an inconsequential breeze. He wasn't sparing any of it much attention. Instead, he was replaying everything in his mind that he'd missed Mycroft telling him for years and years, through their dancing and more. He was also saving this dance very carefully in his memory, because he had so much more that he needed to understand about how Mycroft had touched him, held him, moved him – what it all meant, what it all said.

Several other pieces began to fall into place in the frame he was inspecting closely, and it struck him hard that, damn it, Lord Somers knew. The loony earl, close friend and sometime-rumoured bisexual lover of their Uncle Rudy, knew about Mycroft's feelings for Sherlock somehow. Or he'd guessed at them, and had in one fell stroke managed to out Mycroft to Sherlock through this while attempting to get back at Sherlock for being rude to him.

Was there malice behind Lord Somers' actions, or was he doing something Uncle Rudy might possibly have done if he were still with them? Or… oh God, had he outed Mycroft to Sherlock because he knew that Mycroft, once exposed to Sherlock, would retreat in shame and refuse to ever discuss this with him, and that this was in fact the worst way to punish Sherlock?

Sherlock, feeling the unsettling grip of panic sinking its talons into him like the ghost of Great-aunt Patricia, glanced swiftly in the direction of Mycroft's table to seek reassurance, or confirmation, or even merely some mental inspiration from him to answer these questions he couldn't answer about Lord Somers' motives.

Only to see that his brother's seat was empty.

Mycroft had left the ball.

---

Note: As far as I know, the Home Office doesn't have annual charity balls (at least not on this scale), so the event is a made-up one. And also as far as I know, there is no such fund called the Narwhal Fund For The Gifted, but similar funds certainly exist, except by different names.