Guardian Chapter 7

John opened his eyes. He was in a strange bed with white sheets and sunlight was pouring through the curtains. It took him a few moments to realise where he was. When he finally knew, he began to feel like crap again. He did not want to be in Mycroft's house and he didn't really want that man anywhere near him, let alone looking after him. John stayed under the sheets for what felt like an age. Eventually he got bored, and more importantly; he needed to pee.

He pulled his legs over the side of the mattress and they thudded on the floor. He sat like that for a couple of minutes. Not to John's surprise, Mycroft had en suites in his guest bedrooms. The short, sandy-haired man went to the bathroom and returned smelling clean and fresh. When he was back in his room he realised that he didn't have any spare clothes. He had slept in the clothes he had been brought in with the previous night. He eventually found a white fluffy dressing gown in an otherwise empty wardrobe, so he put it on before venturing out into the rest of Mycroft's massive house.

John opened the bedroom door to see a wide corridor with many entrances to other rooms. He could see the other short corridor which led him to the room he was in last night, and another corridor which led to goodness knows where. John decided to go down the unknown corridor in the hope of finding Mycroft, or even better; a way out.

John walked into a surprisingly modern kitchen. It was all shiny and bright from light pouring through large windows. John was about to walk straight through the kitchen into the next room when he saw the note. On the kitchen counter there was a neatly sealed envelope with the words 'Good morning John' printed on the front in black ink and a clear font. The sandy haired man picked it up. The paper was thick, and looked and felt like it would be expensive. John carefully prised open the envelope and pulled out an equally expensive feeling piece of writing paper. It read "Dear John, I hope you slept well. I regret to inform you that I can't be with you this morning as something came up at work. Please feel free to read any of my books, or if that's not what you enjoy, feel free to watch a film or TV program. I understand that this isn't exactly enjoyable, but I cannot be away from my office for any length of time right now. Please help yourself to any food or drink you might be interested in consuming. My profuse apologies, Mycroft."

John felt slightly annoyed. Typical Mycroft, he thought to himself. "A day after I try to jump off a building, he leaves me locked alone in a house with nothing but my own thoughts." He wasn't even that angry that Mycroft was away, he didn't really want to see him anyway, he just really didn't want to be in Mycroft's house. To be fair he didn't want to be in his own flat either. He knew where he wanted to be, but after the events of yesterday he knew Mycroft wasn't going to let him get there very easily.

He made himself a cup of tea. There was nothing else to do, and he was British after all. It took him quite a while to find everything he needed, and when he did he made a mental note that if he ever won the lottery he would not get himself a massive kitchen. He carried the milky tea back to his hopefully temporary room very carefully so that his shaking hand wouldn't spill any onto a wall. When he got there he found a set his clothes on the bed. It took him less than a minute to get over the fact that someone in the house had obviously been watching him. Knowing Mycroft, he had probably been watched while he slept too.

He put on the crisp clean clothes and drank his tea. It had become cold quite quickly and it was pretty disgusting.

John sat in his room. Wandering around in someone else's house felt wrong, especially when that person was Mycroft Holmes. There wasn't much in the room. There was a single bed with white sheets and duvet, and a disgusting olive green scratchy woollen blanket. John hadn't imagined that this was what Mycroft's house was like. Though, thinking about it, John couldn't remember a time where he had imagined Mycroft with a house. He knew he had one, but the tall, powerful man always seemed so occupied with his work that it didn't seem like he could have enough time to spend any at home. Also in the small room was a chair, a tiny wardrobe and a bookcase without any books. There was also a door leading into a squashed en-suite bathroom that had white tiles.

About an hour after going back to his room, John left it again. There was nothing to do in there and he was extremely bored. This time he wandered down the corridor which led back to the room he was in the night before.

The room was much larger than he remembered, but to be fair, John didn't remember that much of what happened that night. He remembered everything being a bit fuzzy and shaky like he couldn't focus on anything, and he also remembered Mycroft telling him something about Sherlock. He couldn't remember exactly what. 'Something about pirates' he thought to himself. Now that his body wasn't full of drugs he could see the room clearly. There were shelves filled with hundreds of books covering nearly the entire wall furthest from the door John was now standing in. The only place where there wasn't books was where there was a large dark oak door with a well used brass handle. The door was slightly ajar.

John walked into the room. He sauntered as casually as he could over to the book shelves. He picked up a book at random and persuaded himself to read part of the first chapter. It wasn't very gripping. It only took a couple of minutes before curiosity got the better of him.

The Ex-Army Doctor crept towards the door. He checked around the room to see if there were security cameras. He couldn't see any, but that wasn't to say there wasn't any. He stood in front of the door for a couple of seconds before he reached out to touch the handle. It was cold but the metal felt so smooth it was almost soft. He pulled the door open carefully, expecting it to creak. He was relived to find that it made no noise at all.

Looking in, John could see hundreds more books. There were books on shelves, books piled up on the floor and books stacked on a desk in the middle of the room. John wasn't going to walk inside, he already felt like a misbehaving school child, but everything changed when he saw two photo frames on the desk next to the small pile of books. He suddenly felt like a ton of bricks had fallen down on him. Without even realising, he had walked across the room to the desk. He picked up the larger photo frame of the two. It was definitely who he thought it was. Looking out from behind the thin glass of the photo frame was a late teen-aged Sherlock Holmes. In the picture, he had his arm around Mycroft's shoulder to give him support. The young dark haired man looked slightly drunk and very happy. A mid-twenties Mycroft was laughing and had a ginger curl flopped down onto his forehead.

John noticed his hands were shaking. He only realised that he had tears streaming down his face when his vision went blurry and he couldn't see the picture any more. Being in Mycroft's house had distracted him slightly. Walking through the rooms, feeling like a naughty school boy, even the scratchy woollen blanket had made him forget how bad he felt. As soon as he remembered, he felt awful that he had forgotten. He put the photo frame back down on the desk. The other photo frame was smaller. It pictured two young boys, aged about five and twelve, sitting in the sun reading.

John felt angry. 'If only you knew what he does' he wanted to tell the young boy in the picture. He wanted to blame Mycroft for making him distracted, but John felt he couldn't blame everything on the man. He didn't want to admit it to himself just yet, but when his mind had been taken off Sherlock, he had felt more normal than he had in years.

AN: I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! I just finished this one tonight because I've been quite busy. There will be a lot more Mycroft next week and we should see how he's been coping with Sherlock's 'death'. As always, thanks for all your reviews! :)