A/N: Hi, friends! This one-shot is to work out a question I've always loved thinking about—if Mycroft knew about Sherlolly, WHAT WOULD HE THINK OF IT? I've tried to give a little insight into that, hopefully in an enjoyable and in-character way.
Note: Thanks to hipkarma, who alerted me to the fact that "Indecipherable" was the better spelling. Both are technically correct, but I've changed the title so that people won't be turned off by a word that looks wrong.
"You do count. You've always counted."
—Sherlock to Molly
Mycroft Holmes was not a man easily bemused.
True, he did not devote his (considerable) mental capacities to the over-active and over-exuberant pursuits that his brother did; but then, Sherlock's impatient intellect had no time for the slightly-more-stagnant, (but just as intricate) workings of the political system.
So far, even.
It had always been that way. A game of push and pull, each one always "vaulting over their own ambitions" in an attempt to best the other.
Brotherly love?
A smile—half of smug cynicism and half of carefully concealed regret—might have crept over the features of the elder Holmes' brother at this moment. The tenuous relationship that existed between the two brothers could hardly be characterized as "loving."
Throughout the years, Mycroft could be (and was) pompous, condescending, withdrawn, and manipulative. Sherlock could be (and was) irresponsible, strung-out, moody, obsessive, and cold.
Yet all such things aside, indecipherable was not a word that Mycroft (unlike the rest of the world) had ever had to apply to the World's Only Consulting Detective.
Until now.
The source of this bemusement, this confusion on Mycroft's part was not anything grand or prepossessing in the larger scheme of things.
It was quite the opposite—not a matter of king or country, but merely a diminutive figure in a frumpy jumper and a white lab-coat, with soft brown hair and a shy smile.
In short, Molly Hooper.
To be fair, Miss Hooper—Mycroft always mentally referred to other people with some sort of title…it was a coping mechanism that helped him relegate much of the population to the category of faceless, cardboard cutouts instead of human beings that had to be dealt with on a more personal level—was not so much the source as was Sherlock's manifest and inexplicable interest in her.
Why her?
The ordeal of Irene Adler, he had understood. She was fascinating, enigmatic, worldly and dangerous. She was almost (but not quite) Sherlock's match.
She had nearly bested him, and for that, Sherlock had favored her with respect as well as triumph.
But Molly Hooper?
Even her name, so sweet and innocent and school girlish, was something that Sherlock would normally have sneered at.
As far as Mycroft knew, he had sneered at her—often and relentlessly, for quite some time…until recently, when there was a change.
The nature of the change is subtle, because Sherlock and sentiment even coexisting in the same sentence is enough of a development in itself to essentially negate any need for fireworks. But there is a change.
Mycroft, who has managed to be in the same room with Sherlock and Molly in the past month, has observed it.
Molly always cared about Sherlock, of course. One only had to take a look into her deep, emotive brown eyes to see that.
But lately, when Sherlock's eyes meet hers, there is the very tiniest softening of that knife-hard edge that usually makes his gaze so penetrating. When he speaks to her, there is the hint of hesitation beforehand, as though he is measuring how the words will affect her—nothing for someone else, but for Sherlock, who has never considered the feelings of others before he spoke, it is…remarkable.
And to Mycroft, who has known Sherlock all his life (and who sometimes wonders if it was worth the trouble) it is noticeable.
Noticeable, but incomprehensible.
Because—again, the question presents itself. Why Molly? What is about the timid pathologist that brings out even the smallest flicker of sympathy in the frigidly rational heart of his brother?
If Mycroft could launch an official, clandestine, government-run investigation, he would do so.
But this is a matter of the heart, and that is something—for all his knowledge and his security clearances and the opulence of his three piece suits and decanted sherry—he has never been able to understand.
Until now, Sherlock had never been able to understand it either.
But somehow, that has changed. Mycroft Holmes does not know why.
He only knows that it has.