John offered to make tea, but Sherlock wanted him close. The appearance of his brother had clearly unsettled him, even though he obviously was the one to contact him. He stared at Mycroft coolly, as if he was categorizing him and clamped a hand around John's wrist. Being Sherlock, he would never come out and mention being nervous, but why else would he be holding so tightly to John while staring Mycroft down like an angry cat.

Mycroft wasn't much better, his shoulder was okay considering, but he looked ridiculous with two ice packs and frozen peas attached to his 500 pound shirt. There was something that stirred at the back of John's mind at that, uncomfortably, but whenever things start to connect there was a pull on his wrist and Sherlock said coolly, "To me John, to me." John looked at the subtle smile of worry, relief and pride (John didn't understand that last one) and the connection fizzled away from him while he asked earnestly if Sherlock was alright. He doesn't like this cool wrong-footedness of Sherlock's with his brother.

As much as he wanted to stay, he didn't want Sherlock and Mycroft to end up like he and Harry. "Why don't I let the two of you talk?"

Mycroft's eyes were hard and hurt and fuzzy from hitting the wall, he was silent.

"John-" Sherlock started.

John patted the hand clamped around his wrist. "This is the first you've seen your brother since-" he is incapable of saying the word. "Went away."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "Death doesn't effect-"

"Sherlock," John didn't want to hear whatever it was his flatmate was about to say. Not if it had the word death in it. "I'll just be upstairs, call and I'll be down in a minute. Less."

He managed a 30 minute nap on top of his duvet with a sort of dream drive by before he woke with a yawn and Cheats as he rolls onto his belly so that he slipped between the shadows to the top of the stair where he could hear Sherlock talking.

"From the information I have gathered," said Sherlock's deep voice, and John could picture him laid out on the sofa… no, Sherlock wouldn't want to be at the disadvantage, he's crouched in his chair, eyes narrowed. "John is a structural hybrid with his abnormalities all attached to recessive genes which become dominant upon severe psychological and emotional trauma. Once they have become activated catering to them makes them become more and more dominant and results in physiological and psychological changes and the creation of a symbiotic relationship."

"I'm concerned with the degree of psychological change."

"He's fine," Sherlock barked back.

"He is not fine, I am concerned."

"You are a fat idiot. John is my friend."

John felt a surge of happy warmth.

"He has changed."

"No," Sherlock growled, but it was cold, not how he'd picture a growl at all. It was flat and cold as glass. "He's the same. Exactly the same. Better. I know that look; really, could you be more obvious. Don't ever, don't try it. We're connected now, if he dies, I die. If you touch him you'll murderme Mycroft. Are you ready for fratricide?"

There was a long heavy silence. John's fingers kneaded the carpet on the top step.

"Nothing mattered to John more than his humanity. He is deeply moral, intensely, annoyingly moral," Sherlock's voice was deep, intense and moved jaggedly with the rhythm of his voice, cut, cut, cutting like a saw. "And look at what he's become. He did that for me."

"That's not fair Sherlock," Mycroft's voice was broken, falling and shattering down on the floor of 221B. "That's so unfair. I don't matter… I don't love you because I didn't go and turn into a monster for you. I'm not worth a fig after years of worrying and protecting and suffering because I didn't make myself an abomination for you? I'm so very sorry little brother." The umbrella tip went tap, tap, tap.

"He's trying to protect me," John said softly in the doorway, he Cheated his way down, slipping from one shadow to the other. "He doesn't mean it; he's just trying to protect me."

The Holmes brothers both turned to look at him in surprise.

"You're up," Sherlock said faintly. His surprise probably comes in part from the lack of warning.

Rubbing absently at his chest John shrugged, "You were fading earlier. And you're being an idiot." He plods into the kitchen and puts the kettle on. "Tea Mycroft?" because of course Sherlock didn't offer.

There was an awkward silence.

"Shut up Sherlock," John said. He can hear Sherlock about to speak all the way from the kitchen and he had a good idea whatever he's about to say was a bad idea. "Tea Mycroft?"

"Yes," his voice was oddly unkind, edged.

With ceremonious precision John arranged the cups; milk measured by the tilt of his wrist for Mycroft, two sugars for Sherlock, steam rising nearly invisible like the whisper of a fog. An old ritual from childhood. He placed one cup to the left of Mycroft, who always sat in John's chair. Maybe there was something in that, John never thought about it before.

Sherlock's eyes were huge on John, his fingertips touched and stuck to John's hand as he held out the cup. "You don't need to protect me," he said fondly

"Yes I do, you don't see that-" he mouth closed flat over the end of that sentence, face gone blank.

"Think Mycroft, would you have found out that Sherlock was still alive if he didn't contact you. If he really didn't want to have any more contact with you all he had to do was never contact you again. He wants your help, he just panicked."

"I don't panic."

John ignored that and turned back toward Mycroft. "Sherlock needs more than just me."

"I don't want him to need me," he was being mean, sharp and not caring about control like he usually did. They've entered some sort of bubble, or for a better metaphor, they've tied themselves together in a funny knot.

"How long does he keep things he wants," John replied.

"I'm concerned about having something like you around my brother."

John's heart twisted in a mixture of pain and rage at the thought of losing Sherlock, Sherlock who had approached before John could say anything and has placed his long fingered hands on John's tense shoulders. "There is nothing and no one with whom I could be safer. He has been entering the mind of Moriarty to feed me. Moriarty himself. There is nothing he won't do to keep me safe."

Half turning, as far back as he could look with Sherlock holding him still John frowned at him, "That's how it's always been Sherlock, nothing's changed."

"That's right," he said, but John felt like Sherlock wasn't really speaking to him. "Nothing has changed at all."

Once he was certain the Holmes brothers wouldn't try to do each other harm John headed back to the kitchen to wash the cups, when he was down the two were sitting at opposite sides of the sofa looking cautiously at each other. He left them there slipping himself carefully out of the knot that was tying all three of them together and goes to sleep under Sherlock's bed.

He really did need sleep.

He had a hunt to finish.