It was late. He'd finally got home after what had shown promise to be an all nighter with the US President and the Foreign Secretary. And as usual he was greeted by the cold silence of his empty house in Kensington. Silence really could be deafening sometimes. Mycroft put the kettle on and set about making tea. It was whilst he was distracted by his phone ringing that he lost concentration and walked straight into the open cupboard door. Caught himself quite badly on the edge, right in his temple. The pain was excruciating. He swore. Several words that usually never passed his lips, then realised that the Queen's Equerry was on the other end of the phone. He assumed Simon would have heard the words before. It was inevitable if you spent any length of time near the Duke of Edinburgh. He apologised and hoped that it would be something he could sort out over the phone. He had a splitting head ache and was seeing double.
Mycroft woke up to the very welcome, but wholly unfamiliar sensation of a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist and someone's persistent erection prodding him in the thigh. As Mycroft tried to extricate himself the arms gripped a little tighter, almost possessively and the erection changed course towards his buttocks. For a split second, a rather horrible split second at that, Mycroft thought he had somehow managed to end up in bed with John Watson. But as his eyes focussed properly he realised the person he was in bed with was most certainly not his brother's friend.
Mycroft was currently in bed with a man roughly the same age as him, and from what he could tell the man was broad shouldered and not very tall. His hair was thinning, and had been cropped close to his scalp, yet still managed to be untidy due to a very obvious double crown. In the early morning sunlight streaming in through the chink in the curtain, the hair shone like red gold. Obviously from the manicured nails and the well developed muscles he went to the gym and looked after himself, and didn't do manual work. He was also fond of his food if the soft belly pushing against Mycroft was anything to go by. And then he opened his eyes and smiled. And Mycroft knew. And Mycroft realised that this was nothing but a rather lovely, rather cruel dream. In which he could almost feel, almost smell, almost taste what could have been.
"Good Morning Mikey." The arms squeezed him tighter.
"Nick?"
"Who were you expecting? Pierce Brosnan? Sorry."
"Nick?"
"Yes love?" Mycroft pushed a hand against Nick's chest. He felt warm, and solid. And real.
"You're alive."
"I hope so. If I'm not then we're both dead. What's the matter? Did you have a nightmare?" The door of the bedroom was pushed open and a large, black, furry Labrador slinked in.
"Baskeville! How many times? Get the hell out." Nick hurled a slipper at the dog, which made a hasty exit.
"Baskeville? A dog? Where am I?"
"At home." Nick was looking concerned.
"I live with you?"
"Yes. We've lived together since we left University. Mikey are you winding me up?"
"You didn't die? And I live with you. And we have a dog?"
"Die? Mycroft you're scaring me now. I knew we should have gone to the hospital last night when you hit your head on that bloody cupboard. John was right."
"John?"
"John Watson. From St. Bart's? He was here for dinner last night." Nick began checking Mycroft's head.
"Sherlock's friend John?" And the last traces of colour drained from Nicholas Garrideb's face.
"Mycroft." He said it softly. "Sherlock died nearly thirty years ago. He drowned. In the swimming pool. Don't you remember?"