Down In the Goldfish Bowl
DISCLAIMER: Sherlock belongs to the BBC and the characters are the making of Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Most people didn't like Mycroft very much, which was very convenient because Mycroft didn't like people, either.
They were tiring him, yapping on about this and that and their nephew's pregnant girlfriend, bothering him about their silly trivial worries and problems. One couldn't even have a tea in silence. But luckily, Mycroft had found that small talk was like exercise - it was highly unpleasant and tiresome, but it was necessary and, once done, you were quite proud of yourself.
What irked him most, though, was not that people were so dumb, he'd got used to that very quickly. No, what really annoyed him was that, having realised that Mycroft was about eight times as smart as they were, they tried to come off as more intelligent. Which then made them look even more stupid. And in the end, they would just stand there and open and close their mouths without uttering a single word – which was why he called them goldfish.
His brother seemed to think that the grass was greener in the goldfish bowl; that life was easier in there. Mycroft had always wondered what exactly it was that set him apart from his brother so much, but he'd never been able to tell – until Sherlock went and got himself a goldfish of his own. Why, now of course it was obvious. Sherlock had always been the more sentimental one, despite everything, despite being rude and thoughtless and smashing things left and right; he'd always been the one who cared. Mycroft had tried to knock that nonsense out of him, knowing it would just cloud his judgement, worrying his little brother would get hurt. But Sherlock had, stubborn as always, ignored his advice and Mycroft had given it up eventually. And now his brother swam around the bowl alongside them, ignoring the fact he didn't belong in a fish bowl because he wasn't a goldfish.
Obviously, Mycroft couldn't deny they had their uses; nor could he deny that John Watson and Greg Lestrade and Molly Hooper might be goldfish, but at least rather intelligent specimen. But still – his brother didn't belong with them and least of all did he.
The goldfish bowl was louder, more crowded, it stank and it was full of tiring things to do. The only thing – literally the only thing – that was better down there was the food. Sherlock had often laughed about that, too. Said how convenient it was that the only thing that could lure his brother out of his fort was food; but it was true. The food was the only good thing about it.
They were goldfish. They were like pieces on a chess board, his chessboard, only they were talking. "No, don't put me there, I don't like the tower, I don't want to stand next to him…"
He despised going into the bowl, and it wasn't just because it was legwork. He was fine with the goldfish as long as they were his puppets. It was, perhaps, Mycroft's greatest talent; he could predict them, manipulate them, calculate them and play them as much as he liked.
There was another crucial difference between himself and his brother: perhaps sometimes he had called him reckless, but Sherlock had always been the brave one.
Mycroft could scare most people half to death, which was very convenient because, truth be told, people scared Mycroft half to death, too.
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