Well, if any of you wanted Mycroft in this story, you got it. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten Harry.
Mycroft Holmes had a few purposes in life: remaining the most intelligent being in the room, taking care of his little brother, Sherlock, and making sure the world didn't fall into war. In that order.
He rarely regretted putting his priorities in that order, since staying the most intelligent and taking care of Sherlock were very close competitors, but sometimes, he was completely and utterly wrong. Not that he would ever admit that.
The day John Watson walked into Sherlock's life was the day Mycroft was surprised for the first time in years. John refused Mycroft's offer of money in exchange for Sherlock's activities because John had gotten attached to his brother in just a few hours. John had agreed to share a flat with him. John had gone to crime scenes with him. He'd never met someone who so readily accepted his brother, and it was quite strange. Mycroft wasn't sure he trusted it.
In just a few more hours, John had killed someone to save Sherlock's life. The moment he deduced what had happened, he told his assistant to form a new file, entitled 'Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson'. The two of them had a quality he'd never seen in his brother, nor in someone acquainted with his brother. John had something all the other goldfish didn't. Mycroft knew that Sherlock wouldn't be able to change back into the man he was before John, but he didn't think it would be so destructive in the end.
"You're disappointed," Sherlock said.
"Really? How can you tell?" John replied sarcastically.
His brother seemed to be struggling with how to word this so the good doctor would understand, but more importantly, stop the disappointment. Whenever John was unhappy, Sherlock tried to fix it. He didn't like seeing John unhappy, and Mycroft didn't logically understand that. Why would feelings have to matter in this situation?
"These people aren't going to come alive again if I'm crying at their bedside, John. You're an army doctor, you should understand that."
John didn't say anything back. "Oh," Sherlock added. "You expected more from me."
"I'm your partner and your flatmate. I expect more from you without trying to." Sherlock looked up, storing what John had said in his mind palace, and saw the camera Mycroft was operating. From his pocket, he pulled a small device that interrupted the signal, and the picture and sound were cut off.
"Bet you didn't expect this," John said. Mycroft didn't have any picture, as Sherlock's phone was in his pocket, but the sound was enough.
"John?" Sherlock asked. There was a rustling of clothing, not Sherlock's, so probably John's.
"What...would you like me...to make him say...next?" The rustle happened again, and Sherlock drew in a deep breath.
"Stop this, stop this now." Sherlock was pleading with a criminal power. Mycroft put his head in his hands. You didn't plead with the ones as powerful as Moriarty. You either fought them, or made a deal with them. Had his brother learned nothing?
"Gave you my number," an Irish-accented, sing-song voice said. "Thought you would call." Mycroft immediately slid his phone open and speed-dialed four.
"Hello," a bleary, drowsy man drawled.
"Gregory. My brother and Dr. Watson are in the pool room of a high school at this address." He gave the address. "A criminal mastermind currently occupies the same space, so I suggest you get your best officers and go now."
"Right, Mycroft." He could hear the sound of clothes being put on, and a gun being strapped to a belt. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
"I cannot lose my brother, Gregory." Mycroft paused. "Dr. Watson cannot lose him either. Make sure he gets out alive."
"But what about-" Mycroft hung up. Every second was important.
"People have died," Sherlock was saying.
"That's what people DO."
Mycroft made another call. "Hello? Yes, it's Mr. Holmes. I am currently quite ill and will not be able to come to the office tomorrow. Please cancel all my meetings."
"Yes, Mr. Holmes," Anthea replied. "I can cancel them this entire week if need be."
"What would I do without you, dear?"
Mycroft could hear the smile over the phone. "You wouldn't be doing anything. You'd be dead."
Anthea ended the call, and Mycroft tuned back in. "John, are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine." John paused. "You took off my clothes in a secluded area, won't people talk?" Mycroft glared at the listening device. They were already relaxing, obviously the battle wasn't over.
"People will always talk, John." He could visualize the smiling doctor, because John had few other expressions. Ugh, did they not feel the danger still surrounding them? A different device still heard the breathing of Moriarty and several other people, possibly snipers. Mycroft wanted to shake them, but he was too far away.
"Alright, let's get out of here." Sherlock and John started to walk towards the exit, and Mycroft noticed the breathing from the other device getting faster and faster.
"Sorry, boys! I'm soooooo changeable!" Mycroft immediately reached for his phone again, out of habit only, but there was no one left to call. Without putting himself in danger, there was nothing he could do.
The sharp intake of breath from the good doctor meant the snipers had found their targets: at least three on each man's chest. His brother, much to Mycroft's pride, did not react.
"Oh, honey. You can't shoot me. Otherwise, I'll shoot your lovely friend." And the enemy knew about Sherlock's strange attachment to the doctor as well. This day was getting worse and worse by the minute. Gregory better have the NSY behind him and the building surrounded. Some legwork would be required, but he could hurt everyone involved in the NSY very deeply.
"Or..." Mycroft hated that he didn't have any sight to understand what Sherlock did.
"Ooh, now it's getting fun. So, Sherlock. Shall we play?"
John's breathing elevated, so Sherlock was putting everyone in jeopardy. But the snipers weren't moving. The bomb. His brother was going to shoot the bomb.
Everyone stood in absolute silence. No one's heart moved any faster, steady as the wind outside. The scene, if Mycroft could see it, would be as a tableau, never changing.
Within this silence and stillness suddenly rang a song. "Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive."
"I need to take this, boys." Moriarty slid his phone from his pocket. "Hello?" He paused, listening to the person on the other end. "SAY THAT AGAIN! Say that again, and know that if you're lying to me, I will find you, and I will skin you."
Mycroft couldn't follow what Moriarty mouthed to his brother, but Sherlock mouthed back, "It's fine."
Once the conversation finished, Moriarty said slowly, "Sorry. Wrong day to die."
"Did you get a better offer?"
Moriarty didn't answer the question, but walked away, saying, "Goodbye, boys. See you around."
"Catch. You. Later." Sherlock didn't put down the gun until Moriarty was really gone, and the snipers had moved their red dots away from the two of them.
John sighed, long and deep. "At least we didn't actually have to blow up the pool."
"Yes, so you'd make it out alive."
"Well..." John paused. "Yes, sure. But I wanted you to get out."
Mycroft could feel the surprise on his brother's face. "Oh." They stayed silent until the police sirens could be heard.
Sherlock learned nothing from John being strapped to a bomb. John risked his life for Sherlock's, Mycroft deduced later, and Sherlock was willing to kill himself to save John. Caring is not an advantage, Mycroft wanted to tell his brother, but when he finally could, they were too far gone.
"You were right. He thinks it's Mycroft." The moment Mycroft picked that up on the bug, he immediately zoomed in and found John walking farther into an abandoned building. He, in fact, was in his office, enjoying a cup of Anthea-brewed tea.
"He's playing sad music," John called into the empty space. "Won't eat, won't sleep. If this were anyone else, he'd be in mourning, but since he's Sherlock, I don't know what to think. He's your brother, tell me-" And here entered The Woman.
"You're...you're not dead."
"Really?" Mycroft walked away from his headset briefly to get more tea, and when he came back, she was saying, "I told him all the usual stuff. 'I'm bored. Let's have dinner. 'I'm not hungry, let's have dinner.' 'Good morning.' 'What are you wearing?'"
John stifled a laugh. "You tried to flirt with Sherlock Holmes? That's not really his area."
"And yet he has you."
"We're not a couple."
"Oh, yes you are," The Woman replied like there was no room for argument.
A giant sigh from the doctor and an eye roll. "No matter what the population of London thinks to the contrary, I am not gay!"
"And I am. Look at us both." Both Mycroft and John had the saddest looks in their eyes, but both would deny it. Mycroft knew his brother was self-destructive, and would hurt him and John if he left. But John's mind was a little harder to read.
John knew he was in deep, and that he couldn't crawl back out of the hole. As Mycroft looked farther, he saw that John didn't want to.
Mycroft was always in the background, mostly when Sherlock and John didn't know it, but sometimes when they did, and didn't care. He witnessed and heard many things, most of which ignited his brotherly desire to keep Sherlock safe from the pain he felt when the people he trusted left him. The rest was something hidden very, very deep in his mind palace that he didn't dare name.
*contentment*
But it wouldn't last.
"Sherlock? Where are you? I can't see you."
"Look up."
John drew in a heaving breath. "Sherlock, what are you doing up there? Never mind, I'm coming up."
"No! Stop, don't move!"
The doctor held up a hand. "Alright. Alright."
"John?"
"Yes, Sherlock?" There was desperation in both of their voices, and God, did it throw small sticks of dynamite into the wall Mycroft had built around the Sherlock-and-John section of his mind palace. He tried to keep it back, tried to control the destruction.
"This phone call, it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."
Moriarty had threatened John's life, and Mycroft knew that every part of Sherlock's sense, what little he had, was torn away.
"No. No!"
"Goodbye, John." There were tears running down his brother's face, and Mycroft began making the preparations to save Sherlock's life without his brother's permission. The world needed him, he couldn't just throw himself off of St. Bart's.
"Sherlock? SHERLOCK!" John ran forward; Mycroft pressed the 'Send' button. It was done.
Now whenever Mycroft checked on the two of them, living separate lives, John having forgotten Sherlock, and Sherlock remembering everything, he wondered if he shouldn't have just let Sherlock jump. Yes, he loved his brother, in a sort of way that could be analyzed extensively and controlled, and he believed the world needed Sherlock, but his brother was dead now. His mind worked beautifully, but the person behind his mind was gone. Mycroft didn't know if he could ever get it back. Because John had been ripped from Sherlock in such a way, Sherlock's heart people said, there was a hole in him that couldn't be sewed back together by a surgeon.
John was just empty. A shell of himself, and since someone, most likely Moriarty, had deleted his memories of Sherlock, there was nothing to fix. And Mycroft hated it.
One night, the night Mycroft saw Sherlock for the first time after he eradicated Moriarty's web, the dam broke.
Mycroft was sitting in his desk at the Holmes family mansion, when his beaten down, bedraggled, tortured, broken brother stumbled in. "Myc," he whispered, a childhood nickname that kicked down the doors of several rooms in the Palace. Something was so very wrong. Sherlock collapsed on the carpeted floor and began to sob.
Mycroft stood from his chair and rushed over, sitting back down and cradling Sherlock's head in his lap. The last time he'd seen his brother like this was when one of the children on the playground had told Sherlock he was a Freak and should kill himself to save everyone the annoyance of seeing his face every day. He'd told Sherlock that caring wasn't an advantage, and further incidents stopped. But this was different, because Sherlock couldn't stop his emotions anymore, as Mycroft had learned to do very early on. He couldn't help his brother, and his heart, wherever it was, was dissolving away with every tear Sherlock cried.
"I'm sorry," Mycroft whispered. Sherlock didn't answer except for John's name, over and over, all through that night.
When Mycroft turned the monitors back on for 221B Baker Street, he saw Sherlock standing in front of John's door at 5 am. Sherlock was going to try to fix his heart. And Mycroft wasn't going to interfere again. He turned the monitor back off and left the room.
I seriously didn't mean to make it that feelsy. Apologies for that. Tell me what you thought of it, please. Read + review!