To Friendship
Author's Note: Some fluff that I wrote to make myself feel better after a long Monday. Enjoy!
"Why do you do it, Doctor?" I asked one night over a flute of champagne their too-forgiving landlady had left in celebration of an long and intricate case finally concluded, the man before me placing a blanket over my sleeping brother before moving to get some himself.
Taking a sip in thought, he finally asked back as he walked over to sit beside me at the table, "What exactly do you mean, Mycroft?" A mischievous twinkle in his eye that I knew he could only have picked up from living with Sherlock.
"You know precisely what I mean. You were by all accounts a fellow lodger and nothing more when you first met, yet you got yourself involved with my impudent little brother. So I ask again, why do you do it?"
This time the good Doctor sighed before taking another sip of his champagne and sitting it upon the table in contemplation.
"Because he is my friend," he said finally, and I must admit that even I felt myself moved by the emotion behind his words.
"Then," I finally replied, "I propose a toast: to friendship."
"To friendship," Watson smiled back, moving his own glass to clink against mine in acknowledgment before settling back again.
"Dear heaven above, Mycroft! If I knew you became that sentimental whenever I was supposed to be unconscious I never would have tried to sleep here!" Sherlock groaned from his chair, seeming to shrivel into an even smaller version of himself in disgust.
"Hmph!" I snorted, too tired from the day's events to bother scolding him properly. I needn't have bothered either way, however, as the good Doctor beat me to the punch.
"I say, Holmes, need I describe how 'sentimental' you were when that one experiment of yours blew up in your face?"
"Watson…"
"Really, Mycroft, you'd have thought something truly catastrophic had occurred by the way he went on."
"Watson-"
"He actually fit false eyebrows to his face from one of his disguises until his real ones grew back because of that little misadventure."
"Watson!"
I barely stifled a laugh as my younger brother proceeded to grab a nearby pillow and throw it squarely at the poor Doctor's head, his face aflame and muttering curses all the while.
Watson, however, took it favorably enough, laughing as he was at the expression upon Sherlock's face.
Friendship, indeed.