A/N: A multi-crossover of Cabin Pressure/Third Star/Sherlock. For those of you who are unaware, the Holmes "triplets" are all roles played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and I thought it's be interesting to cross over the three (very different) fandoms. Let it be said that I do not own Cabin Pressure, Sherlock, or Third Star, and there is no need to be suing me, as I have no money whatsoever.
The first of his baby brothers falls from the sky.
Sherlock jumps and Mycroft hears the news from a tabloid. He has to excuse himself from the Diogeneres Club and go home and just sit. He doesn't cry, but he mourns his brother in his own special way.
Memories of Sherlock flash before him, Sherlock running through a meadow, chasing bees, Sherlock asking Mycroft why it was so important that the Earth went around the sun. Later in life, Sherlock dying from an overdose in an alleyway, and Mycroft finding him and checking him into rehab. Sherlock beginning his work as a consulting detective shortly after going clean and introducing Mycroft to Lestrade.
Sherlock meeting John. Sherlock being happy again. Sherlock showing emotion. Sherlock loving.
Nobody even thought to tell him. Or if they had, they hadn't bothered. John probably thought of him, but he was still furious that he had told Moriarty so much. As he should. It was all Mycroft's fault. His baby brother was dead, and if he hadn't been so stupid, so blind, then none of it would have happened.
Lestrade doesn't call either. Mycroft assumes that John has told him everything. Their relationship dwindles and slowly fades away, and Mycroft feels that this is less of a punishment than he deserves.
Mycroft is left to tell the others. His mother and father don't cry, but he can see it in their eyes that they, like him, have their own ways of mourning.
He has to call Martin, as the boy is all the way in St. Petersburg, recovering from a nasty could-have-been plane crash. He can't stand to think that he could have lost two brothers on the same day. But more than that, he can't stand to listen to Martin try to be strong, but failing miserably. He says goodbye quietly and hangs up, and Mycroft hopes that his friends will console him.
He tells James in person, and he gets the pleasureof watching the heartbreak for this one. James is shaking violently, and Miles and Davy and Bill walk in and drive Mycroft away, only knowing that this weirdo is hurting their friend somehow. James doesn't tell them to stop and though Mycroft could, he doesn't either.
That night, he stares into the fireplace and remembers.
The second one succumbs to illness and water.
Mother calls him one day, and when he picks up the phone he knows it isn't good news. The words float through and around his head and he's left numb. Cancer. Terminal. Less than a year. Dying.
Dying.
James, the triplet that had always been the most full of life out of all of them, having it all slowly sucked out of him. He takes it braver than most of his family and friends, even comforting Martin when the young captain sobs into his shoulder.
He leaves on a camping trip soon after, and of course Mycroft deduces his plan. He isn't stupid after all, and James knows it, James can sense it. He implores Mycroft–with his eyes of course, how could he say something like this out loud–not to tell anyone. And of course he won't. Better to die with water in your lungs at your favorite place in the world, than sick and weak and wasting away in a hospital bed.
So he's not at all surprised when he gets the call. Martin is though, and he breaks down even more than the first time. All Mycroft can do is hold him, and though it hurts him to have lost two of his siblings, he knows it's nothing compared to Martin's pain. He didn't lose his puzzle pieces.
And that night Mycroft sees James' face in his dreams, staring at him through a curtain of water.
The third one falls even farther than the first.
Martin is dug from the rubble and wreckage, head bashed in and a horror-struck look on his face. Douglas is stuck in a wheelchair for months afterwards, healing from fractures to both legs, but he's alright. Neither Carolyn nor Arthur are on the flight at the time of the crash, both having caught the flu.
Carolyn told Martin and Douglas that she was putting her utmost trust in them, letting them fly GERTI all on their own. So when the engine gives out under mysterious circumstances she is shocked and disbelieving. She keeps saying, over and over, that there's no way that Martin and Douglas would have let this happen.
Arthur keeps saying that Skip, brilliant, brilliant Skip, simply cannot be dead. Mycroft privately agrees with him.
Douglas blames himself, even though there's no way he could have prevented this from happening.
The plane was returning from a one-way private trip. It had carried only one passenger, a man named Sebastian Moran. When the team investigating the crash discover a small bomb in the remains of the engine, Mycroft hunts him down. He brags and laughs that yes, he did murder the last of Mycroft's brothers and that yes, he has a copy of the last recording that Martin had sent, a frantic, desperate cry for help that he plays in front of Mycroft to taunt him.
Mycroft kills him without a second thought and that night, he watches the CD melt in the fireplace before dousing it with water. It was fire that snuffed out Martin's life. He doesn't want to ever see in again.
And then the first one returns
And everyone is happy to see him and his name is cleared.
And it's once again Mycroft who has to be the bearer of bad news.
It's him that tells Sherlock that James and Martin are dead.
It's him that watches Sherlock's happiness at being back bend and crack and finally shatter into a million pieces.
It's him that holds Sherlock as he breaks down, remembering the alleyway where he had done the exact same thing.
And it's this, the finale in three years of nonstop grief, that bring Mycroft's carefully constructed walls crashing down.
That night he cries.