"I'm not lonely, Sherlock." "How would you know?"
Those words kept dancing in his head for a long while, and yet he still stood by his convictions.
Friends were just a liability, something that had no use altogether. He wasn't lonely; unlike his brother, he didn't need the company of other human beings to get by.
People were quite uninteresting, and he was too busy being the British government – albeit unofficially – to spare any time for goldfish-watching, so to speak.
Even more so since he had his wayward little brother to look after. They might engage in sibling rivalry half the time, but that was just their way to disguise the mutual affection neither of them could actually deny.
Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Mycroft liked DI Lestrade so much.
xxx
When asked by John Watson why he put up with Sherlock, Lestrade had given him the only sensible answer one could expect from a man in his position.
"Because I'm desperate, that's why. Because Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and I think one day – if we're very very lucky – he might even be a good one."
Mycroft thought that the Detective Inspector might be overestimating his little brother's moral qualities, but all in all that was the closest to his own perspective he'd ever come across.
John was too involved to get an objective view on the situation, and the rest of Sherlock's goldfish were either too dull or too emotional. Greg Lestrade, on the other hand, was under no illusion about the world's only consulting detective.
That didn't stop him from caring about the arrogant idiot, quite like Mycroft himself as a matter of fact. A convenient CCTV camera had allowed him to witness the reunion between his brother and the Scotland Yard man – how Sherlock's friend had hugged him fiercely in spite of the brat's inability to recall his first name correctly.
That was an interesting goldfish indeed.
xxx
Surprisingly enough, all of Sherlock's friends stuck to him even though he kept betraying their trust. First his relapse into drugs, then the cold-blooded murder of a man in front of a dozen witnesses; and while Mycroft might be secretly pleased about Magnussen's demise, there was no way he could publicly approve of his little brother's despicable actions.
He had to send him away – or pretend to do so, at the very least. Moriarty's very convenient return was the only suitable excuse to call him back and therefore save him from certain death.
The stress of the unfortunate business was wearing out on him, and he found himself sitting alone at a table of the small café adjacent to Sherlock's flat. He was stirring some milk into his tea when someone sat down in front of him; he knew who it was even before looking.
"That was you, wasn't it?" the man murmured quietly, and it was more of a statement than a question.
"You're a smart man, Greg," he said softly, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as they stared at each other across the table.
"I wish that Sherlock would stay out of trouble now."
"I'm afraid he won't. Unfortunately, there's very little we can do about it."
Lestrade only shrugged. "At least he's not alone."
"That he isn't," he agreed easily. Nor am I, he thought but didn't say.
He didn't have any friends, but he had a worthy ally on his side. As far as he was concerned, that made all the difference in the world.
Greg nodded as if he understood, and the hint of a smile flickered across Mycroft's eyes.