So this was supposed to be a scene. And then it became an interlude because watching the scene in Mycroft's office over and over again with this universe in mind made me see all kinds of things I never noticed before. Not beta-ed or Brit-picked, so if you see something that makes your eyes bleed, please let me know!
Mycroft didn't have to be so accommodating and John Watson was keenly aware of that fact sitting in the other man's office, waiting for the elder Holmes brother to arrive. If John didn't know better, he might have said Mycroft even sort of liked him, in the way a superior officer liked a particularly useful and dedicated subordinate. Or the way an Alpha liked a pack member in good standing.
Despite the truly terrifying knowledge of what Mycroft was, both in the world of humans and in the world of the Clans, John couldn't help but see the concerned elder brother and civil servant in his behavior. Certainly it was partly a front, but not entirely. After all, what possible need was there for Mycroft to fully censor himself in front of John? He was certainly no threat to the Holmes Clan Alpha.
"John!" Mycroft called in a pleasant tone as he entered the office, glancing down at the report his chief Downing Street liaison had compiled for the evening briefings Mycroft had just concluded. Thomas' notes were always worth a second going-over, details often being omitted for the benefit of keeping the official recorded meeting minutes clean of any of reference to Thomas' extra-sensory abilities in the detection of lies and intrigue.
Considering Mycroft had deferred to Anthea in the running of a majority of the evening briefing's discussions, he needed to be in top form for the morning briefing in another nine hours' time. The necessity of the situation – being in pain and recovering from the morning's dental surgery – did little to soothe the terrible burn of the brief lapse of total control of his office and staff. Mycroft trusted his Beta, but Clan Alphas were not ever fond of ceding power, even temporarily.
Mycroft already had to deal with the stretch Sherlock placed on his authority, not to mention the games he had to play in government in order to hold his position in the human power structure, which more often than not called on him to defer or acquiesce when the wolf in Mycroft would have preferred to bare fangs and bend his challengers into submission. A lesser Alpha would not be able to manage it, but Siger Holmes had not raised lesser Alphas.
It was a well-guarded secret that both Holmes sons had been born Alphas, that the elder had ascended by virtue of age and interest while the younger had stepped aside without challenge. That didn't mean the brothers didn't find every opportunity to push and pull at their ties. Mycroft couldn't help wanting to assert his authority over Sherlock, and Sherlock couldn't help resisting. It was Blooded nature for them to compete, to challenge and attempt to outmaneuver one another, no matter how strongly Mycroft wished for a more peaceable relationship with his younger sibling.
Truthfully, it wasn't natural, two Alphas coexisting in one pack the way they did, but then Sherlock hadn't really run with the pack since leaving university. The boy thought he was suppressing the wolf, but it was apparent to anyone who met him that while Sherlock may no longer choose to Change, the wolf was snarling and snapping just beneath the pale skin of the young man's human shape. And his Song, that wild, discordant thing that had so troubled Mummy in their youth, was never so loud or insistent as it had been the last few years.
It had startled Mycroft to hear it the evening before. Sherlock's melody – if it could truly be called such a thing – had always been sharp and trilling, slightly grating on the ears. For the first time since childhood though, Mycroft had heard the chords underneath the passing notes of Sherlock's Song, the subtle changes that gave the melody breadth and beauty. It was soft yet, but the signs of change were clearly there. Sherlock's Song was harmonizing. And it was harmonizing to John Watson, former Army doctor and purported human.
Not for the first time, Mycroft wished he could make the time to visit the family and Clan homestead to dig through Siger Holmes' extensive library of Bloodlines and research. He would send his Beta to do the work for him, save that Mycroft couldn't spare her for the weeks it would take to parse all the information, nor could he easily define what it was he was looking for in all that data and history. All he knew was that John Watson didn't strike him as human – his peculiar scent, for one thing, was like no human he had ever encountered – and that Blooded wolves, and in particular Blood Alphas, did not harmonize to anything as mundane as a human, no matter how interesting or unexpected that human seemed to be.
There were cases of course – many, many cases – of wolves being drawn to humans who could survive the Change, who once they were made Blood themselves could then produce a Song that matched with a Blooded mate's. Such pairings accounted for nearly fifteen percent of all matings and were not uncommon at all in the Holmes Clan, though some of the other Clans had suppressed such matings as "thinning the Bloodlines" for a few centuries, which had resulted in depleted numbers and weak wolves. The Wars of the early twentieth century had forced change into those Clans, many of whose very survival was called into question before their policies on Changing potentials had loosened.
But John wasn't a potential. Potentials had a scent, a virility about them that was distinctive, but no Song. John had something, something that there in Mycroft's office sounded very much like a Song, if a little odd in the manner that Sherlock's had always been dissimilar from the typical cadences and tones of the Blooded Clans in which he had been brought up.
For a brief moment, Mycroft had wondered whether John was Bereft, a holdover perhaps from a diminished and forgotten Bloodline that had been born with an empty capacity for a wolf. Sherlock had vehemently denied such a thing and Mycroft had to agree with his younger brother, for John did not smell as the few Bereft Mycroft had met smelled, nor did Mycroft's wolf twitch and squirm around John as it was wont to do in the presence of a Bereft.
However, ruling out all the things that John could not be got Mycroft no closer to understanding what exactly John Watson was.
It had not escaped Mycroft's notice that John didn't exactly respond to commands in the way that one might expect a human and former career soldier to respond. John very quietly and very deliberately chose to follow orders. And by choosing, John was playing a very familiar game to Mycroft, that of allowing temporary domination while retaining permanent self-control. John blurred the edges of his actions with correct manners and deferential turns of phrase, but to assume John was submitting could be a dangerous mistake.
Mycroft had looked up John's service records when the doctor had first crossed paths with Sherlock, but he had taken a closer look after his first conversation with the man. John had an unblemished record, save for one small instance in the first few weeks of basic training. It seemed that there had been a drill instructor of dubious methods who had triggered that rebellious, protective instinct in the younger version of John Watson. In response to a refusal to participate in a fellow private's punishment in the form of humiliation and physical torment, Watson had been forced in stony silence to complete an ever more brutal and unreasonable series of tasks in an effort to force his compliance. In the third straight day of Watson's personal crucible, a friend had slipped away to report the activities to a CO.
The transcript of the interview the MPs had conducted into the affair was as intriguing as it was frustrating. Watson had stated the facts of the matter without giving any indication of temper or indignant fervor. He was merely resolute in his distaste for torturing his fellow soldiers in the name of discipline. The drill instructor had been replaced, the situation hushed up, and no further incidents of insubordination ever appeared in Watson's records.
It could have meant anything, in terms of answering Mycroft's questions about John's heritage. John might simply be as he appeared; a brave, honest man with an unflinching sense of honor and duty. He might have been merely increasingly stubborn in the face of the instructor's escalating rage and sadism. Or John might be something else, something that fell outside the bounds of the human pecking order. Something that took all those excellent qualities that made up John Watson, and lent them an extra measure of strength and conviction.
It was hard to judge, when so much of Mycroft's interaction with John was colored by Mycroft's relationship with Sherlock. Sherlock who didn't have to follow Mycroft, but didn't want to lead the Holmes Clan. Sherlock who walked a very thin line between being a member of Mycroft's pack and being an Alpha of a pack of his own.
Sherlock's "pack" was entirely human and that had been the only reason he and Mycroft could continue to operate as pack-brothers in any capacity. They both knew that if Sherlock claimed a wolf and that wolf did not also submit to Mycroft as their Clan Alpha, that this would necessitate a parting of ways between the brothers. Sherlock would become a Clan Alpha and, by extension, would have founded a new Clan. A Clan that could be challenged, that could challenge and would in fact be forced to formally challenge existing Clan structures in order to establish territory and dominance. Sherlock would no longer be granted unrestricted access to their family and Clan homes, but would instead be forced to petition for their use like a guest. Sherlock as a Clan Alpha would change the very fabric of the world they lived in and while Mycroft knew Holmes Clan would always stand with Sherlock, the Clans of Europe would smell blood in the water if such a thing came to pass. There was only so much that Mycroft could do if Sherlock was no longer his to protect and control.
The question of John Watson, then, was a pressing one. Mycroft needed time to explore the possibilities and ramifications, but he feared that circumstances would not provide for much notice of the change coming.
Gregory had called earlier to update him on the situation at Baker Street, about the bombings and hostages and shoes. Mycroft feared he knew where this was headed. It was why he persisted on the Bruce-Partington missile plans case. It was why John Watson was sitting in his office, smiling at him in what the man hoped was a convincing manner. It was why Mycroft was studying him, reading his every line, crease, and tuck for some clue as to what John Watson would end up meaning to Sherlock Holmes. What John Watson might already mean to Sherlock Holmes.
And in the background, Mycroft heard a soft, delicate melody drifting ever closer on the winds of an inevitable change.