AN I wrote something clean. There isn't even any swearing. Although the usual warning for implications applies.
All that was missing from the current cliche in Sherlock's opinion, if anyone had asked for it, were handcuffs.
Americans generally seemed quite fond of marching Brits down corridors in handcuffs. At least in films. Demonstrating their dominance over their former oppressors. Or whatever. Sherlock only concerned himself with interesting history, which rarely involved politics of any kind except as a motive.
Perhaps Mycroft had told them not to bother, as Sherlock would inevitably escape and leave everyone looking silly. The whole situation reeked of Mycroft in his 'freelancing for the CIA' capacity. Otherwise, Sherlock could think of no good explanation for his current circumstances. Well ... If he was honest, maybe he could, but he was fairly sure no one but Mycroft knew about any of his less than legal activities on previous visits to the States. If anyone else did know about them, he would probably have been busy picking the lock on a pair of handcuffs at this very moment. So, Mycroft it was.
Boring.
His escort, only four men, but they were very large men, slab-shaped and quite solid-looking with wires going to their ears and wearing sunglasses inside, which only reinforced the CIA theory, stopped outside of a door. One of them opened it and indicated Sherlock should proceed alone.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, didn't they realize there were far too many windows in this complex for the 'mysterious meeting' thing to really work? Even if the blind on the door was down.
He stepped into a very dull office and found himself looking at a very unexpected man. A man in a jumper.
"As surprised as I am to say it, it is a pleasure to see you still breathing lad." The man said, scottishly, and adjusted his glasses.
It was a tick Sherlock recognized that indicated he was preparing for a confrontation.
"How did my brother convince you to take me on?" Sherlock asked in confusion. "Have you absolutely no self-respect? He left you both hanging ..."
"Enough of that, thank you." The Scot said firmly. "What is between your brother and I is just that, and not the topic of discussion today."
"But I take it you are to be my handler?" Sherlock dropped himself into the chair on his side of the desk. The whole place looked so ... Seventies, bland, beige, mass-produced. Not a setting either man present was naturally at home in, and the man on the other side of the desk drew Sherlock's eye much more strongly anyway. "I was expecting to be palmed off on someone internal he really despises."
"Still don't understand him at all then, do you?" The man asked, laying his tablet on the desk and leaning back in his chair.
"And you still believe you do?" Sherlock was often surprised just how determined normal people were to believe that anyone in his family functioned according to the rules that bound everyone else. But if anyone actually did understand Mycroft, this man had a better chance than most, and he was not exactly entirely normal himself. Even if his experience really should have removed any illusions he had.
"Rather better than he thinks and considerably better than you allow yourself to." Was the confident response.
"But he is the reason we are both here? You haven't decided to pull me in for weird and nefarious purposes of your own?" Sherlock was well aware that this man did not exactly work within normal parameters either.
"Oh it's him alright, hence the locale. I'm babysitting two of his favorite goldfish."
"Two?" Asked Sherlock.
"Your doctor has joined my organization for the duration of your ... Quest."
"You've got ... Livingston?" Despite himself Sherlock was impressed with his brother's planning, and the Scot's seemingly continuing goodwill towards his family.
"He is going by Arthur at the moment." The man said and slid a photograph across the desk.
It was undeniably John Watson sat at an enormous file-covered desk with adorable frown-lines on his forehead as he clutched a pen tightly in his left hand. He was wearing a green jumper not dissimilar to the grey one the man across the desk was wearing. It looked very much like someone had given him budgets to organize. John was very good at budgets. It also looked like he had just discovered how much bullet-proof tailoring costs. And was about to suffer severe indigestion.
"And who are you these days?" Sherlock asked, slipping the photo into his coat pocket without asking.
"Merlin. And you, my lad, are Bonifacius."
"You have got to be joking."
"Not in the slightest. You have been made my problem, I can call you what I want. I'm going to call you Bonnie." The man grinned.
"You have not improved with age." Sherlock stated flatly.
"Depends entirely on the criteria." Merlin replied calmly. "Your brother sent this. It is your next file. I will not be meeting you every time, you'll be getting some tech, but I had business over here too, so it seemed appropriate."
"You had business ... But if you are Merlin ... He survived!" Sherlock sat back in his chair with a whoosh of escaped breathe. "My brother ..."
"Oh aye. If he didn't have a country to pull together, he'd've needed pulled out of a bottle by now. Highly conflicted beneath the ice."
"And you are going to let that continue? You know what will happen if he flakes. He is the British Government!"
"He is rather more than that at the moment lad. Reading the signs, I think he has taken responsibility for the entire Commonwealth. And no, I am not going to be taking any of his crap, but he is coping, Anthea and I have come to an arrangement and I have rather a lot of other things on my plate right now too."
"You've got two goldfish and a disorientated great white." Sherlock said.
"And that is just in my free-time." Merlin replied, stroking a hand over his shiny, bald head. "Do you want to hear about Arthur?"
"Yes. Everything." Sherlock said.
"He has passable jumpers and is very good at paperwork, presumably out of necessity. He misses you, but he is gainfully employed making my life slightly less complicated in some areas and is not killing himself slowly with alcohol or quickly with any illegally held firearms. The stiff upper-lip will hold for a while longer and when it goes, it will be gradual and we will be there to hold him together. I am going to send him out on something relatively safe and local with one of our young ones soon, so he doesn't think he has joined the civil service by accident. He will be fine and I will provide you with regular updates. You are going to have some very serious grovelling to do when you return."
"Thank you." Sherlock managed in a small, dry voice.
"Hmm." Merlin considered, tapping a stylus on the desk. "You are an absolute plonker aren't you? He lived with you for how long? And you knew how he felt? And did absolutely nothing? He is not only mourning his friend, or even his lover, he is mourning everything you two could have had. You idiot. You both wanted it so badly and you never let yourself ..."
"I didn't exactly have a good example to follow did I?" Sherlock broke in, utterly embarrassed.
"That was 15 years ago!"
"And you haven't fixed it and none of you have gotten over it!"
"We would have taken him back at any time lad. But we at least had him. You better hope Arthur is a patient man because if he moves on before you get back, he will never know what he's missing, and you are going to be gone at least two years from what I have seen."
"I hate you Rupert." Sherlock muttered.
"No you don't Lockie, I am still exactly your type."
Sherlock made an indignant spluttering noise.
"I never had a crush on you!" He said, limbs drawn in protectively. Shoulders suddenly hunched up somewhere near his ears.
"Of course you didn't, I guess there must just be something about your family that means you like to latch on to bisexual, Scottish, crack-shot military, jumper-wearing doctors, but your taste in bisexual, Scottish, crack-shot military, jumper-wearing doctors is vastly different from your brother's, I grant you. I mean, I was air force and Arthur was army." Rupert said sagely. "But then, there can't be that many of us to go around and I've been taken as long as you have known me."
"Stop teasing me, I've never liked it."
"I know, but it is good for you to be occasionally discomforted. Takes down your massive ego a bit and makes you bearable. Read your file, I'll make the tea."
Merlin pushed himself up from his chair and flicked the kettle in the corner of the office on. He waited for it to boil and then made the tea with Tesco's own-brand teabags, quietly observing as he did so. He watched as Sherlock drank from the mug on autopilot whilst soaking up the information from his file. He was through the file faster than the tea and seemed to wake up, suddenly focusing on the 'World's No. 1 Consulting Detective' mug John had had made for him.
"This is my mug." He said, confirming the chip from when it had fallen in the sink was in the right place. "And that was Arthur's tea. Not as good as Arthur makes it obviously, but definitely Arthur's tea. How did you get this?"
"Your brother of course. And watching Arthur make two cups of tea automatically and then throw one away. Now, the sooner you get started, the sooner you'll be back and sorting out the mess you have made of your ... 'flatmate'. Do you have any questions?"
"Yes." Sherlock downed the rest of his tea and completely failed to be discrete about pocketing the mug. "How am I getting to Argentina?"
AN2 - I once had a very young teacher (straight out of training) who had dated the older sibling of one of my classmates. They knew far much too much about each other for the professional situation. Especially as they both knew that if I had not been a student, the teacher would have been interested. Very interesting to watch.
