His mind palace is burning, thoughts flickering like consuming flames. His body is equally restless, and he paces the room in a vain attempt to release the tension – subconsciously waiting for a reprimand that never comes.
There's something intrinsically wrong in the sight of Mycroft Holmes sitting on a plastic chair in a nondescript waiting room, his hands folded on the handle of his umbrella and his gaze carefully focused on something of no consequence – a crack in the floor, most likely.
His brother has constructed all his life around the conscious decision to absent himself from his own emotions, and that gets on Sherlock's nerves on occasion. They're waiting for Lestrade to come out of surgery, and he'd have his brother screaming rather than see him sinking into the depths of his own mind palace – probably revising the theory of fractals or something equally convoluted in order to escape the onslaught of such things as sentiment and transport.
Fire and ice, that's what they are; each of them fighting their solitary battle against the rest of the world, because involvement means danger and that's something they just can't afford.
And yet Sherlock dreams of rain sometimes – a downpour of water to extinguish the fire and thaw the ice, freeing the two of them from the prison of their own making.
xxx
"You ought to tell him," he snorts at last, because he's bored and edgy, and desperate for a reaction.
"Don't be ridiculous, Sherlock," his brother replies calmly, his composure never slipping. Mycroft doesn't need to ask what he's talking about, doesn't bother denying the truth in his statement either.
"Your refusal to admit you care doesn't make it less true."
"All lives end," Mycroft says finally, echoing one of their previous conversations. "All hearts are broken."
"That they do regardless, brother mine," he shoots back, and they talk no more.
xxx
Lestrade is out of surgery later that night, and Sherlock eventually dozes off on a particularly uncomfortable chair. He's woken by the grey morning light filtering through the blinds, his brow furrowing as soon as he notices that his brother is nowhere to be seen.
He pauses on the threshold of Lestrade's hospital room, assessing the long-term consequences of his taking a picture of the scene he's presented with. However, Mycroft looks so relaxed in spite of his awkward position that in the end he simply drops the phone back into his pocket and quietly slips out of the room.
It's only when he steps out into the fog of an early London morning that he observes it's been raining last night.