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Mycroft had dropped by one Monday evening with a manila file in his hand. It had been an eight. Sherlock had had to say yes.
It had been three days since Mycroft had recruited them and the Yard, or more accurately, since Mycroft had recruited them and John had phoned Greg, who had brought his team against Sherlock’s protestations; they now all restricted themselves to rolling their eyes whenever the younger man gave indignant sniffs at their “uselessness.”
The case had seemed simple enough at first glance. A missing diamond ring, a break-in, the homeowners out on holiday; it had all taken an interesting turn when said homeowners started coming back to London… in pieces.
So far, it was looking more and more likely for the jealous ex-fianceé of one of the victims to have done the deed. The man had a criminal record already, and had had more than one restraining order filed against him -one from the victims included. The interesting part -or so Sherlock said- was in the ring itself. Apparently, it was an antique and had been previously seen in a Japanese Museum. No one knew how the couple had gotten it, seeing as neither one of them had been anywhere near Japan in their lives.
Caring more about finding the culprit and getting him off the streets, Greg had directed all efforts on finding the ex-fianceé. To Sherlock’s pain, John had agreed. The Consulting Detective had only been slightly mollified after both Greg and himself had promised to investigate whatever role the ring played in the crime once the murderer had been arrested.
Which led them here, having lost the tail on the suspect and traversing through filthy back alleys. And his trousers had been brand new.
“Utterly incompetent, the lot of them”, growled the tall figure a few steps in front of him, “losing the suspect in under an hour. Useless.”
“Weren’t you the one with eyes on him?” Not that John would ever admit it, but it could be occasionally entertaining to watch Sherlock fumble. “You owe me a new set of trousers, by the way.”
“Just wash them.”
“Sherlock, I don’t know if you realize where we have been tonight, but let me tell you, some of this stuff is never coming off.”
With a dismissive wave, the younger man kept walking. John sighed; it was hard not to strangle the man sometimes. Though, he supposed, this was better than surprise heads in the freezer. Much better.
“Any idea on where the others are?”
“If by others you mean the sad excuse for law enforcement, that would be two blocks away.”
“Could be worse then”, John teased, “they could be all the way back in secret Japan.”
Sherlock’s shoulders shook in a quiet laugh the younger man pretended not to give; John, of course, caught onto it right away, answering with a chuckle of his own. They walked in quiet companionship, making rather colourful comments when one of them stepped on something that would forever be best unidentified.
They got past the second corner and spotted Lestrade down the street, talking to another figure by the sidewalk. John quickened his pace, wanting to see if there were any news on the suspect. Sherlock had been a few steps behind him when he muttered what may have been an insult to God. The figure the Detective Inspector had been talking to turned around, letting them see their face.
“What the hell are you doing here?” The younger Holmes strode to his brother, balled up fists by his side. Mycroft, of course, turned to them both with a polite smile.
“Merely asking about any progress you may have made in the last… three days? ” the government official looked directly at him then, adding a polite nod to boot, “Dr. Watson.”
“Mycroft.”
“Right, well”, Greg cleared his throat, getting the other man’s attention back, “we had eyes on him earlier, but we lost him a few minutes ago. Should still be around, so we’ve got people looking.”
“If you would think it necessary, perhaps…”
Mycroft, however, never finished that sentence. From the corner of his eye, John saw a brown jacket move around in one of the alleys around them; he turned to see who, exactly, it was, not that he did manage to get a clear picture of a face. No, John saw the familiar metallic glint of a gun.
“Get down!” A shot rang through the air just a second after his warning. John dropped to the floor, pulling on the Belstaff beside him. It was like falling down the stairs, one minute there is an expectant quiet, then absolute chaos; and there is no other description for what John came to see as he raised his throbbing head from the ground. “Oh, God.”
Sherlock was kneeling over Mycroft, who in turn, had a red-spotted tear in his shirt. Lestrade took one look around and started howling out orders, pointing at the shooter who had not left the scene but was preparing to aim again. John ignored everything other than the Holmes brothers; he crawled up to them, arriving at their side just as Sherlock had taken out his belt and was making a tourniquet with it.
“How could you have possibly been so stupid?” the younger man growled, tightening the belt around his older brother, “aren’t you the one always going on about being the smart one?”
“And let you get shot?”, the older Holmes sighed from his place on the ground. The blood on his shirt spread rapidly until it started reaching his chest and falling down his side.
“I would have docked.” The tourniquet was tightened even more, stopping the rapid spreading of red over that probably very expensive white shirt.
“Not on time”, Mycroft let out one pain-filled gasp, giving up on his quest to raise his head and look directly at his younger brother. He let his head fall down on the concrete instead. “3.5 milliseconds too late.”
“Call an ambulance!”, John bellowed to the small mass of policemen gathered around the shooter. Now that he was held down by the shoulders, hands cuffed behind his back, John recognized him as the ex-fianceé. Well, the man was certainly never getting out of prison now.
“On it’s way!”, he turned to find Donovan, mobile in hand. She nodded once, looking at Sherlock and Mycroft, and set her shoulders. John nodded back, for the first time holding some grudging respect for the Sargeant.
“Here, let me see”, he reached for Mycroft’s chest, moving Sherlock aside gently. His hands fell into practice-perfected motions, probing and testing on the other man’s flesh. John shook his head, refusing to fall back on the old scent of sand and sweat that was nigling at the back of his mind.
“What were you thinking?”, the Consulting Detective kept up with his growling from his place by his brother’s head, his face scrunched up into a scowl. John suspected he wasn’t the only one to notice the slight tremor in his friend’s voice.
“Wasn’t.”
“Clearly.”
“Alright, let’s save the power play for later, yes?”, both Holmes’ turned to look at him -or as much as was possible, in Mycroft’s case-, they stared and he held their gaze, doing his best to kick back any memories ignited by the overwhelming smell of blood. Eventually, the brothers nodded. “Good, Sherlock, keep him steady.”
Sherlock did, moving right behind the government official and holding his shoulders down.
“How bad.” Lestrade leaned in over his shoulder, running a critical eye over Mycroft.
“Not too bad, I think.” He muttered, still keeping pressure on the wound. “The sooner that ambulance gets here, the better though.”
Greg nodded, staring at both brothers with eyes swimming in concern. John startled for a moment; he always forgot that the three men around him had a history long before he came along.
Mycroft and Sherlock found Greg’s eyes at once, the three of them having some silent conversation not too hard for John to interpret. He particularly noticed the slight eyebrow quirk from Mycroft; a reassurance of his health and future survival. John pressed on the gaping wound harder, determined to ensure that future. Greg, seeming to understand he wouldn't get more than that for some time, turned and walked to the shooter, his fists balled up.
“Now, you stay with us, Mycroft”, John tried to get the brother’s attention, “no falling asleep just yet.”
“Are you… attempting to… to order me around, Doctor Watson?” The quietly spatted retort felt too much like a smothered gasp of pain. John did his best to hold back a wince.
“No, I am ordering you around.”
The next few minutes were spent much the same way; both Sherlock and himself attempting to keep Mycroft alert through pointless squabbles, and the older of the three taking longer to quip back every time. By minute three, the man’s eyes were starting to drift back. John, about to call back about that ambulance, flinched at the vicious baritone above Mycroft’s head.
“Don’t you dare, brother mine”, Sherlock squeezed Mycroft’s shoulders, almost shaking him conscious, “stay awake, doctor’s orders.”
“Trying”, if John had had to hold back a wince before, now, he had to hold back a sob. The bureaucrat's voice felt all kinds of wrong being as weak as it was. Sherlock seemed to agree with him, if the tightening of his hands and pinched skin around his eyes meant anything.
Mycroft seemed to grow even drowsier, no longer able to keep his eyes open for more than a few milliseconds. John’s throat tightened, not good, not good at all.
“For God’s sake”, Sherlock loomed over his brother, one of his hands lightly slapping his cheeks, “don’t you realize what could happen if you lose consciousness now?”
There was no answer, not even a flinch. He cursed under his breath, inwardly counting how much longer it would take the ambulance to arrive. Not much, it should get there any second; hopefully, it wouldn’t be too late by then.
He looked back, noticing Greg and Donovan standing by the ex-fianceé; there was a growing bruise on the man’s cheekbones, John allowed himself a brief sense of twisted satisfaction before turning back to his patient. Mycroft was growing paler, his eyes no longer opening at the sound of Sherlock’s voice.
“Answer me you pompous, meddling…”, the Detective couldn’t finish the now-familiar insult, instead holding his head down. Sherlock’s shoulders shook as he forced an unsteady breath past his lips; when his eyes raised again, there was something akin to sadness coloring them, “how do you expect me to be the family disappointment if there isn’t a perfect one to compare me to?”
Had his windpipe been hit by an iron poker, it would have hurt less. John’s heart constricted inside his chest. He wanted nothing more than to reassure his friend, be it about the other man’s survival, or about his not being any form of a disappointment whatsoever, he didn’t know. But it didn’t matter what he wanted, he couldn’t move from where he was, not if he wanted to stop Mycroft from bleeding to death.
“Sherlock…”
He didn’t know what he wanted to say, what would be welcomed for him to say, but it seemed he shouldn’t have bothered to try at all. His friend kept his eyes on his brother, face ashen and pinched. Mycroft’s eyes stayed closed, seeming to lead Sherlock closer to the edge of his limits. Those blue-grey eyes flared up, willing Mycroft to awaken; when nothing changed, Sherlock seemed to officially snap.
“Wake up”, he snarled, his face falling into the ugliest scowl he had ever seen on the other man’s face, “the British Government doesn’t get killed. ”
John couldn’t handle it anymore, he reached for one of Mycroft’s wrists and looked for a pulse, his other hand still holding the torn skin together. He held his breath and waited, his fingers drifting over the skin. Finally, finally , a light flutter appeared under his fingertips.
“There’s a pulse, it’s weak, but it’s there.”
Sherlock didn’t seem to hear him. Pale hands kept their tight grip on the older man. What was once a furious scowl had now turned into something John knew he never wanted to see again. If he had ever imagined what his Consulting Detective would look like if panicked, this would have been it. The bright eyes ran frantically across Mycroft’s face, searching for any sign of consciousness; at finding none, Sherlock’s mouth opened and closed, not making a sound; the younger man’s breath hitched, stopping in his throat for one second and then started coming out in restless pants. Sherlock was coming close to hyperventilating. John was thinking of something to say, anything that would help calm his friend down, but before he could do anything, the younger Holmes held his face right above his older brother’s and shouted.
“Mycroft!”
John was doing his best not to look at the blood on his hands. Sherlock was sitting beside him, hunched over himself in an uncomfortable, black, hospital chair. Mycroft had been taken into surgery directly; they had been forced to arrive sometime after Mycroft had been carted away to hospital. Sherlock had needed some time to settle himself before he could hail a cab and get them here; thankfully, the members of the yard -primarily Donovan- had pretended not to notice how close the Consulting Detective had come to having a full-blown panic attack, nor how long it had taken him to get his breathing back to normal afterward.
Next to him, his friend held his phone in hand, typing furiously to who he assumed was still Anthea -or not Anthea-, as he had been doing for the past ten minutes. John checked his own phone again, waiting for any news from Greg, who had gone back with the other officers from the Met to ensure the ex-fianceé wasn’t going anywhere other than a lonesome cell for quite some time. He fired a quick text to Mary, updating her on what had happened; he’d sent a single line just before the ambulance took Mycroft away. He knew she would want to be kept up to any developments, or lack thereof.
Sherlock put the phone down, sighing in his seat. John pushed away the urge to put his hand on the bobbing leg next to him; his friend was having a hard time hiding his nervous tells, not that it was much of a surprise, really. If anything, John was surprised he was as collected as he seemed to be.
“He’ll be alright”, he settled for. It was not enough to reassure anyone, he knew. But it was something.
“Of course he will be, don’t be dull.” John held back a sigh, wishing he could look into the future and come back with some form of proof to uncurl Sherlock’s fists.
“Right, fine.”
Silence fell between them once again. Sherlock’s whole body was vibrating with unreleased energy, but what held John’s attention was the look on his face. His detective kept his eyes on the white wall in front of them, but was clearly seeing something else in his mind’s eye; the faraway quality to his face made him look almost relaxed if it wasn’t for a very unusual shine to his eyes. It was sad, but there was something else in there too. Not joy, exactly, but John didn’t think it was something bad either.
“What are you thinking?”
At first, the younger man said nothing. They both stayed in their seats, looking forwards and hating the role they got to play in the waiting game. Such a long time passed, that John’s mind drifted to something else, to Greg, and the shooter, and the look in Sally Donovan’s eyes when faced with Sherlock’s humanity. A part of him wanted to laugh in the woman’s face, point out to her just how wrong about him she was; the other part knew that Sherlock’s reputation in the yard was not completely unfounded.
“My mother hated posters, she thought them improper”, a whiplash effect hit John, his head innately turning to look at the detective, “believe it or not, I did try to get a few once or twice. She would occasionally allow it, but very rarely.”
John processed what he’d heard, remembering the question he had asked minutes earlier. He didn’t know what he thought most unusual, the image of teenage Sherlock buying posters, or the fact that that was what he was thinking about while his brother was in surgery. Still, he suspected there was more to the poster story than he had said.
“I’m guessing you didn’t go after rock band posters.” That was a thought, rock fan Sherlock.
“Of course not, what do you take me for?”
The absolute horror in Sherlock’s face was like a breeze of fresh air for John. A petulant Sherlock was much better than a quiet, broody one. Always.
John chuckled out of relief.
“There was one of Albert Einstein I really liked as a child”, his friend’s voice took an almost nostalgic tint to it, “so much so that I never bought it. I didn’t want to risk Mummy having a day and throwing it in the bin the moment I brought it into the house.” John said nothing, he had no idea of what to say. For years now, he’d wondered what kind of childhood the Holmes brothers may have had. After seeing glimpses of that family during his time as Sherlock’s friend, he had discarded the abuse theory. Still, there were signs, minimal as they were, that pointed to a less than functional family all the same. “When I was thirteen, Mycroft got his first car.”
John did know what to say to that.
“Mycroft Holmes driving, that’s a thought.”
Warmth spread over his chest when the edge of Sherlock’s lips curled slightly; the beginnings of a true, Sherlockian smile. The Consulting Detective hummed, holding perfectly still if not for his fingers tapping away on his thigh. A few more seconds passed before he opened his mouth and kept telling his story.
“He let me buy the Einstein poster and put it up in the backseat area just so I could say I had it.” John raised his head, sharply looking at his friend. Sherlock didn’t seem to notice, still talking to the white wall. “If I laid down over the seats, I could see it. For years after, whenever he came back to the house after moving out, he always found a reason to take an hour or two out of the day and drive us around. Even when we were fighting, or resolutely ignoring the other’s existence, we drove around. Mummy never did find out about the poster.”
Sherlock ended on a breathless whisper, and looked down -away from John- right after. Understanding what was unsaid, John made a point of looking away, giving Sherlock the privacy he needed. And then he thought. He thought about his first meeting with Mycroft, about every time he’d seen the brothers together, about all the insensitive quips and barbs, especially Sherlock’s frustration whenever his older brother showed up in Baker Street. But then, if he really looked, if he paid attention, he supposed there was something to be said about his friend keeping contact with his brother when he hardly ever even called his parents, let alone any other relatives. A memory he thought had long been forgotten rose unbidden in his mind.
“I’ll be Mummy.”
“And that’s a whole childhood in a nutshell.”
Perhaps, John thought, there was more truth behind that exchange than he had originally realized.
In that occasionally terrifying way of his, Sherlock seemingly read his mind and answered the question John would have never dared to ask.
“Yes John”, the younger man combed his fingers through his hair, moving his curls out of his face, “what I said back in Buckingham Palace... I did mean it.”
John could think of nothing else to do other than sit in silence and wait.
It took less than a day to stick all chargers on the ex-fianceé. He’d been seen by no less than all of Lestrade’s team when he shot Mycroft, and after being arrested, he only asked for a glass of water and confessed to the murders as well. The final statements were being taken that day, and after, the trial would take place -more as a formality than anything else, there was hardly much to do now.
Sherlock had spent every waking moment overlooking even the most minimal procedures. It was the same obsessive approach he would usually take to solving a case; only now, as he suspected everyone knew, he was avenging his brother.
They were standing in Lestrade’s office, signing paperwork as they had been for hours when Sherlock’s phone buzzed. The detective looked at his screen for less than a second before jumping to his feet and all but running out the door. John shared a confused look with Greg before jumping to his feet too and following after the younger man. He reached him just as he hailed a cab, right outside the door of the station.
They rode in silence, John not daring to ask where they were going or why. He believed he already knew.
Just as he had expected, they arrived at the hospital in less than five minutes. Sherlock ran out of the cab, leaving John to pay the driver and stumble out after him. He followed the path he’d memorized that first afternoon spent in the waiting room, hoping for Mycroft to pull through. It took him some time, but eventually, he came up to Sherlock, who was standing outside the door to his brother’s private room. The detective seemed to hesitate for a breath or two, but when he looked to his side and found John there with him, the younger man nodded and entered. John entered right after him, seeing Anthea standing by the window and, on the bed, was Mycroft. He was awake.
“I see you’re alive”, Sherlock pretended to be displeased. It would have been convincing, if not for the tension that seeped out of his back and shoulders the second Mycroft looked at him.
“Indeed”, the acerbic, cold tone John knew so well had returned. He had never been so happy to hear it in his life. “It would seem my time has not come just yet.”
“Hm, pity.”
Mycroft smirked, saying nothing more. Sherlock turned to Anthea then, who said nothing but nodded kindly, with the trace of a smile painted on her lips; Sherlock relaxed further, going as far as returning the same trace of a smile. John watched from his place by the door, realizing he’d never seen Anthea and Sherlock in the same room before. Apparently, they got along.
“I trust everything has been resolved in my temporary absence”, Mycroft spoke up, turning all attention back to him.
“Yes, well”, the young Holmes looked down again, avoiding everyone’s eyes, “not all of us are quite as useless as the general population.” Clearing his throat, Sherlock sobered and looked directly at Mycroft. “The shooter has been arrested; from what I’ve gathered, he will be in prison for a very long time.”
“A prison in Alaska, of course.” Anthea snorted lightly from her place, still by the window. Both Holmes brothers looked her way, an amused glint in their eyes.
“Of course.” Sherlock agreed, sharing a private smirk with the other two. John decided to ask later about whatever relationship existed between the brothers and the PA.
Speaking of the brothers, they looked at each other with almost blank expressions. Mycroft quirked brows and curled his lips, Sherlock butted his chin and tilted his head. John knew what was being asked on both sides; never as simple or as straightforward as that, of course, but the microexpressions meant a single silent question: are you alright?
Seemingly satisfied with whatever he had picked up from his older brother, Sherlock took a step back, nodded at Anthea, and fell back on the heel of his feet. He held his head high and smirked, sarcasm dripping from every word that made it past his lips.
“Cheer up, brother”, Sherlock started turning, making his way to the door, “it seems you’ll manage to lose those extra pounds you have been carrying around. And with no legwork, you must be thrilled.”
John smiled, knowing the Holmes’ he had grown to call his were alright. He made sure to find Mycroft’s eyes, nodded gently, and waited until the British Government returned it, his mask back in place. Satisfied, John Watson turned back to his friend and moved out of the way, allowing the Consulting Detective to lead the way.
With a dramatic swirl of his coat, Sherlock walked away; and if he went to ensure the permanent disappearance of a very specific shooter, John didn’t say a word.