You'd be well advised to read "I Owe You" before this. It'll make so much more sense that way!
This part follows "The Empty Hearse", I'll tell you when it's "The Sign of Three" and "His Last Vow". I will try to be less 'announcy' with POVs than the last one, it's usually obvious anyway but sometimes I will still put it in like [name]. Sorry!
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[Mycroft's]
Mycroft sat in a posh restaurant in London, although it was rather downmarket for his habitual taste it was becoming a regular haunt for the pair. He sat without food or a beverage except for an untouched glass of water staring into the mirror on the wall in front of him at the street behind him. He wasn't really looking at it at all and failed to register when a familiar figure ran past the window.
Greg bundled, a little noisily, in the door of the restaurant, out of Mycroft's sight, and shook himself off. He looked up with pink cheeks as the head waiter approached him, he looked around and, spotting Mycroft, gestured to the table. The waiter nodded and offered to take his coat after which he picked up another menu with the intention of following Greg to the table but the Inspector took it and thanked the man before walking there alone. He looked to where Mycroft was staring; it was dark outside and the streets were lined with festive lights but it was obvious that he saw none of that.
"Mycroft?" The man managed to pull his attention back into the room and looked up to realise that it was Greg who was standing there after which he stood up from his chair. "You alright?" Greg looked at him with worry.
"Yes, quite fine. I was just," he leaned in to kiss Greg's cheek, "preoccupied."
"Right." Greg wasn't convinced but he stepped into his place on the other side of the table anyway and they both sat. "Well, I'm sorry I'm late."
"Are you?" Mycroft looked at his watch as Greg furrowed his brow in confusion.
"Yes, by half an hour… Mycroft, are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, I was just… thinking." He shifted slightly in his seat as if it was uncomfortable but it wasn't the seat and Greg knew the behaviour by now.
A waiter made his way over and Greg enthusiastically ordered the dish that he had been looking forward to all day. Mycroft muttered something that, Greg could see, was the first thing that he could think of.
They made small talk for a few minutes as Greg needlessly explained why he was late and Mycroft tried to keep himself in the room. "Did you see Phillip, how is he?"
Greg decided that letting it go would probably be for the best. "Yeah he's…" He sighed.
"Gregory, you can tell me anything, even if it involves my brother."
The greying man hesitated for a moment as the waiter brought over the bottle of wine that Mycroft had suggested. To the man's distaste Greg had waved him away insisting that he would pour. "Well, he's not good."
"Surely, considering his obsession caused him to lose his job that should not come as much of a surprise to you?"
"Well no, but I guess I thought that after this long he would have made his peace with it but he's just as bad. He's even got a map!"
"A map?"
"He's found these cases all over Britain that he's determined were only solved with Sherlock's interference."
"Really?" If only.
"And he's only bloody gave them titles. Oh, sorry." Greg looked around him still trying to get used to the posh restaurants although it seemed that no one had noticed.
"Gregory, I've told you before; I don't care how you talk in here or anywhere. If they don't like it then there is a perfectly good steakhouse next door so…" He gestured around. "Stop worrying about people that do not matter."
Greg smiled. "I wasn't worried about them."
"Well, I happen to enjoy the way that you speak – it is a happy change from what I've been surrounded with since I was born. It is genuine without all the coating and pretence."
The waiter walked over from the kitchen with the men's main courses. They saw this and both started to unfold their napkins, the waiter put Mycroft's down first before he turned to set Greg's dish down in front of him and noticed that the Inspector had tucked his napkin into the top of his shirt. He paused and stared. Mycroft was in the middle of unfolding his own napkin to place on his knee when the two men noticed the waiter staring, Greg looked down confused and the young man resumed placing the plate on the table.
I am so sick of idiots like this one trying to make Gregory feel out of place. Especially since this one likes to dress in women's clothes so you'd think he would know what it feels like to be made to feel like you are the odd one out when neither of them are.
Mycroft tucked his own napkin into the top of his shirt and looked up at the young man with his usual condescension that he reserved for arseholes. And you have just earned that status. "That's fine, thank you." The young man hesitated and then turned away.
Greg was still trying to figure out what the kid had been staring at when Mycroft distracted him. "You were saying?"
"Yeah, he seems to think that Sherlock's still here just making his way back to London."
Mycroft paused. What? "What do you mean?"
"According to Anderson there are several cases that have been solved over the past two years that could only have been solved by him, all leading, slowly but surely, from Scotland down to London."
Inverness. Oban. Jedburgh. Ambleside. Driffield. Ellesmore Port. Bretton Way. Trowbridge. I knew it.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laying this all on you I just feel so bad because the guilt really has ate away at him." Tell me about it. "I'm going to try and see if I can get his case reviewed."
"Did you drop those things off with John?"
"Yes, after I saw Anderson I went round."
"And how is he?" Other than just alive…
"He's fine. Well, he says that he is but…"
Mycroft took a silent deep breath that seemed to take all of his energy. The weight of his guilt baring down on him like the weight of the western world. Gregory, John, Mrs Hudson and now Phillip, who he didn't even know. "You don't think so?" Greg topped up their glasses, much higher than was appropriate and Mycroft smiled internally at the memory of their discussion about the ridiculousness of wine glasses.
"I think that he's getting on with life but I definitely think that the war stopped being what's keeping him up at night a long time ago. I wasn't sure about leaving him that video but I did anyway." Greg put his glass down. "Excuse me, mate?" He looked over to the young waiter who failed to hide his disgust as he walked over but Greg failed to notice. "Yeah hi, can we have another bottle, please?"
"Certainly… sir." He gave Greg a Mycroft-special kind of smile and Mycroft had had enough. Oh no you don't, not my partner. The man turned back to Mycroft. "And for you, sir?"
"As he said, we would just like another bottle please, and make it bloody quick… mate." Mycroft showed the young man how it was done properly and the kid stuttered an embarrassed reply before excusing himself. Mycroft looked up to see Greg looking at him with his mouth open. "What?"
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Mycroft sat in his armchair in the sitting room of his house by the roaring fire. He stared at the flames not actually aware of them because his mind had long since travelled to his brother, Sherlock Holmes… The late Sherlock Holmes. Suddenly the heat of the fire was too much and the house suffocated him so Mycroft stood and rushed outside to the open, fresh air. He lit a cigarette and walked along to the corner of the house to look at the lake. The water was so still that it didn't even ripple, the grass didn't move because there was no wind and the whole area was lacking any signs of life. There was one solitary tree to the left of the lake, from Mycroft's perspective, and it stood bare, grey and frail. It looks so innocent. Far from it.
He could remember that night like it was yesterday; pulling up outside, unlocking the front door, going inside the house and calling out for Sherlock, finding every room devoid of life except the fire which had almost died away, going up the stairs into Sherlock's room and wondering where the hell he could be before looking out the window at the lake. A bare foot was all that he could see from underneath the swell of leaves.
Mycroft remembered running down the stairs in a way he never had before or since, he got out of the front door and slipped on the gravel as he tried to take a sharp right, he had fallen onto his right knee but managed to catch himself and push back up before coming to the grass and slipping his way down that too. His attire was not one for running around, his suit and shiny shoes were no match for the varnished gravel and soggy but maintained grass. None of that mattered as he got to the bottom of the hill and saw that that bare foot was attached to a leg covered by dark cotton pyjama bottoms. The rest was obscured by the tree trunk but he only had to take a few more steps to his right to see his baby brother lying there, lifeless but graceful.
If Mycroft hadn't known better, he would have sworn that his brother was just asleep but, somewhere deep down in his stomach, he did know better.
He immediately sunk to his knees where he was and, completely ignoring the paraphernalia on the ground to Sherlock's left, his eyes never left Sherlock's face as tears began to tickle his own. The moonlight only made Sherlock's complexion a more transparent shade of white as Mycroft scrambled forward and tried to rouse his brother. "Sherlock?" Can't be dead. "Sherlock!" Can't be dead…
Mycroft was brought back to himself when a figure moved up beside him. "You okay?"
"Yes." He let himself memorise the innocent, frail, grey and bare tree for a moment before turning to his partner. "I just needed a cigarette."
Greg looked down at Mycroft's hand. "Well, that's a lie."
Mycroft looked down too to see himself holding just a bare butt and what used to be a cigarette, which was now just a small pile of ash, on the grass directly underneath. He'd completely forgotten to smoke it. Greg handed him another and lit them both.
"Sometimes being in that house is too much for me."
"I know that you miss him, Mycroft. You don't have to lie to me."
But I do and I am. I have been for so long.
"You have nothing to feel guilty for, Mycroft." I do. "I don't understand how you can think you have any blame in all of this. John and me, I can understand but you? I don't, not at all."
"John and you?" Mycroft turned his whole body to Greg a little confused.
"Well yeah, Sherlock tells John he's doing it to stop the man from doing it to himself, you can't blame the guy for feeling a little responsible." He blew out smoke.
"And you?"
Greg's eyes instantly changed, they became soft and contrite. "I'm the one that brought Sherlock in to help us with John, Molly even said to me, 'why would you bring him in on a suicide?' and I…" He sighed and rubbed his head. No, don't you dare blame yourself. "I swear to you, I never thought that it would affect him so much, I just thought that maybe he could talk to him, tell him there is actually a light at the end of the tunnel. I even thought that it might be good for the both of them but I never for one minute thought that it would all end with his body, your brother!" Greg was shouting now and almost crying.
Mycroft pulled him slowly into an embrace. "It's okay." He hushed him and they stood like that for a few minutes.
"I'm sorry, Mycroft. This was all my fault, it's all my fault." The Inspector mumbled into Mycroft's shirt but made no attempt to pull away, if anything he held on tighter possibly afraid that he would lose him if he let go.
Just over two years Gregory and I have been together and for two years I've been lying to him. That was bad enough but this is the final straw.
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Mycroft walked into his bedroom feeling the weight of the past two years pulling on his every muscle. He yanked his tie off without the careful approach he would usually take. It was just a tie, what did it matter anyway. And now it's stuck, great. He pulled at it, getting more and more angry as Greg's words replayed in his mind. Greg, sitting on the end of their bed, looked up to see Mycroft struggle with it.
"Whoa, whoa." He stood and quickly put his hands on Mycroft's, in response the man immediately stopped and sighed. "It's okay." He loosened the knot and pulled it from around the man's neck with one hand as the other rested on his shoulder. "What's all this? It's just a tie." He held it up a little, a bundle in his right hand before he looked at it. "Actually, I've never seen this one before?"
Mycroft looked at it before looking back to Greg. "Sherlock gave it to me." He slipped past the man and into the bathroom leaving his partner standing holding the tie wondering what he could possibly do to help. Mycroft didn't even think of how it only fed Greg's guilt as he shut the bathroom door and leaned against it.
Enough. I've had enough of the lying and the barrier between Gregory and I.
Mycroft took out his phone to look at it before pressing it to his top lip. Enough.
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The next day John Watson stood staring at the familiar stone in the cold daylight and his reflection staring back, the two words still two words too many. He looked down at the flowers laid in front of the stone, there were a few bunches but none of them fresh. As he calmed himself a hand clasped his own and he took it quite willingly. Greedily. He let out a heavy sigh thankful to not be doing this alone anymore.
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Mycroft found himself with a ridiculous task. Of course it would have been worse if he hadn't already had other people do the legwork. He got out of his car somewhere on the south side of the river and walked over to a woman begging on a bench swinging his umbrella as he did so. He stopped in front of her and she looked up at him.
"Spare change, mister?"
He reached into his pocket for the note. In fact, it was a note wrapped around another kind of note. The woman opened the fifty to read the two words. She looked up at him and then back to the note.
"It's important." When she didn't say anything in reply he sighed and turned to walk away.
"What's your name?"
He stopped in his tracks, hesitated and then turned slowly on his heels. "Mycroft."
She stood and handed him back the money. "Come on, Mr Holmes." She slowly began to walk along the tunnel away from the road and Mycroft signalled to his driver to circle until he called.
He followed her for ten minutes after which he had begun to wonder if this was wise. From the looks he was getting he was sure he was being considered new meat but if he didn't know better he would swear that they recognised him. She stopped in the middle of an area covered by bridges and railings leading onto the river. The woman pointed to the corner and nodded before turning away. Mycroft took her hand and handed her back the money before she smiled in thanks and joined a group in the opposite corner.
Mycroft cautiously walked to the corner she had indicated where there was a figure lying facing the wall, he was wearing trainers, jogging trousers and a rain jacket with a hood that he had pulled up – one might consider that he was sleeping. He stopped behind him and wondered how to do this before he took out his phone and called a number he hadn't contacted in two years. The maybe-sleeping man's phone rang which seemed to surprise him, he took it out and looked at the caller ID before pausing and rejecting the call.
"You have spent your whole life ignoring me and now you're spending your death doing it too?" The man slowly turned his head around to look at Mycroft. As far as Mycroft could tell the man didn't have a face anymore, it was just a mesh of hair that stuck out of the hole in his hood. "Get up."
"Mycroft?" Now, that was a much too posh voice for a street rat.
"Come on." Mycroft put his umbrella over his right arm and text his driver.
He turned around slowly. "Is John okay?"
"Yes, he's fine. Nothing has happened."
"So why have you found me now?" The man's voice was hoarse and deeper than Mycroft remembered.
Mycroft just cocked an eyebrow at the fur ball. Surely not here. "I've done this for two years and I've had enough of the constant lies to everyone."
"You mean to Lestrade?" That wasn't a question. Certainly not one that needed to be asked. Is he asking if we're still together?
"I do." Mycroft did not expect what happened next.
The man stood and pulled his hood down. "What do you propose?" His mess of hair fell down to rest on his shoulders.
"A shave." He put his phone back as his car pulled up behind him. "Then back to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes." Mycroft could swear he saw a smile appear on the yeti's face.