A gale blew Sherlock's coat into twisted silhouettes. He stood swamped by memories without calculation. The emotion disgusted him. The hardened glint of his eyes turned to flint as he sensed his brother approach. His entire body tensed, a lithe alert program primed for anticipated conflict. A light clack of an umbrella meandered and echoed as the weather settled into an encroaching mist pillowing the vast city like Olympia.
"You've been standing there for nigh on half an hour, brother. I've never known you to be indecisive before. If you're going to drown yourself, best give me your phone first so I can call your loved ones." Sherlock's eyebrows twitched at the provocation in the comedic pause. "Oh wait, you have nobody. Only I am loyal enough as blood to put up with you."
"At least I could starve out here, if I waited long enough. You can't boast that one, brother." Sherlock recited a line in monotone he knew by heart, "But in the end, one needs more courage to live than to kill himself."
"Camus?" Mycroft ventured.
"Yes, Camus." Sherlock stripped the gloves from his hands and stuffed them into his pocket. He breathed in deeply that chill air and a hint of the mystery of the mist. The pads of his fingers gently rested on the iron railings. The smell rose once he'd paid it heed and the cold was refreshing when taken after the sweat and heat of anger. "Do you know what he meant by it?"
"Why venture my opinion when yours is forthcoming? No doubt your romantic childishness will resurface in the interpretation." Mycroft was remembering the months on end Sherlock would do nothing but read poetry, gaze at paintings and watch at the theatre, enraptured as though he had seen something divine. Then he lashed out and repeated a deadpan sarcastic line to Sherlock he'd been saying to him since childhood, "What's it like? It must be so difficult for you, to know everything."
"Yes." Sherlock's fingers pressed slowly harder onto the railing until the blood left them. "The Sight nature afforded me is a beautiful pain to bear." Mycroft grunted and hooked his umbrella handle over the railing to the right of Sherlock, and held the umbrella so as to bear his entire body weight. He swayed slightly, teetering on his toes, like a human pendulum. It was a trick he'd been doing out of boredom since childhood and Sherlock continued. "Camus recognized that beauty is a distraction. It is the light before we are blinded. It is, if you want to get technical about it, unreal. A figment of the mind." Mycroft looked up at the last, darkly curious. "To live in this world is to experience its pain, only people like us See it without its veil, a Havi-sham bride enrobed in a delusion which may, once, been truly beautiful."
"Feeling." Mycroft spat the word with a malice his political friends were never privy to hear. "A delusion of the body made to control the mind, my boy. Give me calculation. Give me reason. Give me power."
"Power? You seem confident you know what power is, considering your formal rank."
"The powerful are not confident. They might act it to lure the meek, but inside they are cold. The honestly confident are not powerful, they're warm and weakened, like swords in a furnace."
Sherlock closed his hands around the rails. "It's not like you to visit me without the promise of warm tea."
"My owls reported you left your flat with your new acquisition in high spirits but only he returned, sober and in low ones. Care to explain?"
"No. This time is no exception. Stay out of my affairs."
"Make me." He fully enunciated the words, rolling the 'm's.
"We are men now, we should have stopped this nonsense years ago."
"Why? We're normal in no other capacity, why this? Is your new business deserving of an exception?" Mycroft mouth twisted up into a mild grimace.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Our family is capable of great achievement or great depravity. The summit of a mountain or the mud of a valley. Our reputation joins us to one another. I will not be dragged down by you. Your intensity allows only so much freedom of movement."
"Intensity? Bullshit."
"Oh? So you don't find yourself swinging between manic obsession and craven boredom?"
"An ice monster has no right to pass judgement on what feelings you only see from afar. Get back to your mountain, with the other yeti."
"Sweet but clingy. Cute but broken. I read his therapist's notes. Stay away from your soldier. He's no good to anyone."
"You're only pissed because he won't follow your orders."
"Others will. Others who might remove him from our company by force."
Acting in a blink, Sherlock yanked the umbrella sharply from Mycroft, who fell back and flipped back up to a standing position, dusting down his suit. Sherlock weld the umbrella in swift defensive arcs before holding it at his side in defensive repose, as a weapon. Mycroft kept a slight distance at the threat.
"Protective of your new pet, I see."
"Harm him, and mark my words, Mycroft, I will harm you and I don't care what it does to Mother."
Mycroft reached out expectantly for his umbrella back.
Sherlock swung it around until the point was at Mycroft's throat, where it had abruptly stopped mid-swing. Sherlock leaned forward on the balls of his feet. "The soldier stays with me." A second lapsed and Sherlock pulled back the umbrella, flipped it over with one hand and held out the handle to Mycroft, who took it unimpressed and without flair.
"Very well. For now, the pet is your responsibility. You protect him. You play with him however you like." Mycroft began to walk away and stopped a few yards off. "Well? Chop chop, pumpkin. I'm driving you home to your Prince Charming."
In the car Mycroft directed the driver to 221B Baker Street. Sherlock interrupted, he needed to get some basics first.
"Alright, a brief detour first. What's it like to have ordinary, quaint problems?"
Sherlock grinned "Really nice, actually." Sherlock was in and out of the small corner shop in a couple of minutes. He knew the layout of the aisles and shelves from memory and had two bagfuls by the time he'd left. Mycroft crinkled his nose at the menial homeliness as he placed them on the floor of his car but commented no further.
Mycroft alighted the car with Sherlock and unlocked the front door for him. Sherlock carried both bags with light feet and knew Mycroft always had keys of his living quarters made. It was useless to protest the fact. Mycroft made a friendly appearance in the living room only to make a statement. After brief exchanges of pleasantry he left with words ominous to Sherlock but harmless to John "Stay out of trouble, boys."
John smiled at that as he left.
Mycroft sat in the car with a face of stone. There were none to act for anymore as he was driven from 221B.
Sherlock found his companion had stood up and began to help him unpack the shopping. It was a mild conciliatory gesture which appeased Sherlock. He'd been accepted. It seems they were to say no more about it for now, but the silence between them had yet to be broken, as only Mycroft and John had spoken when he'd returned.
When John had closed the fridge door on the unpacked shopping, Sherlock pulled off his scarf, having forgotten it was there until that moment.
"Ah! I hate you." John gestured wildly with his hands. "I hate you. Your hair always looks so perfect. Like it's been blown dry by the breath of angels." He walked over to the counter running his fingers through his own. "If only mine could do that."
Sherlock smiled and chuckled a little.
Balance within chaos was restored in 221B.