Mycroft Holmes has prayed once in his live.
He was not born into a religious family, nor did he take to the church at any age. If pestered, he would grudgingly say he was agnostic, or if he felt particularly aloof, he might say solopist, if only for the opportunity to return an inevitably confused look with his favorite smug one. He passed worshippers, enthusiasts and believers daily on the streets between home, work and the Diogenes club, but never once gave them even a sympathetic eye. Mycroft didn't understand the appeal of it all. After all, power was far, far too valuable to entrust so someone you couldn't be sure existed.
Sometimes, though, it's nice to imagine that if you can't have it, someone else does.
He had been sitting there for seven hours, but Mycroft Holmes still hadn't settled into the plastic chair at his brother's side. Mycroft wasn't one to settle, though, and he was even less inclined to do so when his only living relative was lying next to him, withered and ash grey and on the brink of death.
The fluorescent lights flickered and hummed above them, like they were singing along with the persistent rustle of the hospital. The heart monitor slowed, and as his brother slipped out of consciousness for what seemed like the last time, Mycroft whispered, God, someone, anyone...
Sometime during the night, under big brother's watchful eyes, the beeps of machinery leveled out again, and it looked as if the younger Holmes, chemical and criminal temptations notwithstanding, would live to see another day. And under his breath, the elder brother muttered, Nevermind, God. I've got this.