Chapter Text
It got worse and worse, Sherlock’s forays into crack houses and brief encounters with men who traded on young desperate strangers became increasingly permanent. Mummy worried, she always had but not even that could convince Sherlock to come back anymore. Mycroft sat at his brother’s bedside, as carefully folded and creased as an origami crane. He felt like something inside, something he wasn’t paying enough attention to protect, had acquired a spattering of hairline fractures. Not his heart, but something equally vital in the long run. His liver, or his lungs, or something in his spinal column. He kept a desperate vigil over Sherlock, hope rising as his brother recovered until Mycroft’s assistant, a sturdy ex-agent by the name of George convinced Mycroft to take a break, go home and shower. When Mycroft had returned Sherlock was gone and George has earned himself the honor of a position at the British embassy in Russia.
He searched footage obsessively, went over the mental layouts of London he had sketched into his mind, but he couldn’t find Sherlock, couldn’t find a trace of the sliver of a man that would always be the most important thing in his life. The thing that Mycroft would do anything to protect.
At that point Mycroft only had one option.
He called a young woman by the name of Lucia. She was a Catholic who was good naturedly teased at the office, but was nearly militantly faithful in her devotion. Lucia didn’t make an overt show of her religion, but it was an intense part of her life. Such rigor in worship, such a steadfast belief hints at the capacity to accept those things that cannot be proven. That should be, but somehow aren’t impossible. Her organizational skills were also exemplary. He called to inform her she was his new assistant and to be ready to be competent in a fight by one. That gave him six hours.
“Yes sir,” she said and he gives her the number of Robert his personal driver to order the car.
“Do you have a cross, one to wear?” he asked her and there was a long silence.
“Yes sir,” her voice was calm and in control. Utterly competent, but he could sense her tension underneath, she didn’t know what he was getting at, didn’t know what her response should be.
“Wear it,” he told her, “but not so it’s visible. That is very important.”
Robert picked up Mycroft at his town house; Lucia was already in the car. Her hands folded elegantly over a blackberry in her lap, her dark hair loose. He looked at her left hand in the faint light of the back as Robert drove them to a small flat Mycroft had selected just five hours previous. Her wedding band had diamonds in it as well as her engagement ring. “Take those both off. Don’t let them be visible.” He narrowed his eyes and looked her over. “Take your belt off as well.”
She dropped the bands down into her bra and pulled the belt off, not even pausing to ask, “Earrings too?”
“No, the studs are fine.”
His fingers moved, one after the other, on the umbrella, ticking off time.
Robert pulled to a stop and Mycroft had to take a moment to breathe deeply. Center himself. It would never hurt him. It wouldn’t. Wouldn’t he though? But he had no other choice.
“Sir?” Robert asked and Mycroft realized he had been sitting with his eyes clamped closed in the back seat of the car for some time. He reached for the thick rope on the seat next to him, gripping it until his knuckles were white.
This was going to work.
This was going to work.
There was nothing in the flat, but a queen sized bed, queen sized mattress neatly done up and twenty lamps arranged around the outside of the room plugged in octopus style to power cords. Everything else about the flat was immaterial, dimensions, number of rooms, all that mattered was the bed and the dark shadow cast underneath it. “Robert,” Mycroft said tying the rope around him like a harness. “I would leave this in the capable hands of my assistant, but I may need your upper body strength. I need you to weather this out. And tie a knot in the back, will you please?” he was arranged again. Smooth and unaffected. He knew what he was doing seemed very odd, but not as odd as it would seem soon. “The lights please?” he nodded to Lucia.
She gave him an odd look, a battle tension spreading in her muscles and slowly went from lamp to lamp. When the last one clicked Mycroft took a deep breath and lay on his belly, scooting slowly forward so he was under the bed up to his shoulders, the fine shift of his waistcoat smooth across the floor.
He probably looked like a mad man.
“Hello,” Mycroft said closing his eyes tight, folding his arms under his chin. Stacking them like a child when he was too smart to do things like this. “It’s been a while. It’s me though. Mycroft. I’m sure you have other things to do wherever you are than-”
Warmth suddenly filled the dark, a soft sniffing sound along his jaw. Finger, narrower, nimbler than what he remembered. He was afraid he had called the wrong monster until a cheek pressed against his elbow and a warm hand cupped his cheek. It was so hot, how could it give off so much heat?
“I don’t suppose you-” there were a series of neat perfunctory tugs on the rope tied at his back, testing its strength before Mycroft started again. “Sherlock’s in trouble,” he whispered. “He got into bad things and I can’t help him, he won’t let me help him. We’re not like we were. I love him so much, but he won’t let me help.” He could feel the awkwardness behind him. But he wasn’t embarrassed, he was absolutely sure he wouldn’t have to wait long at all.
Soft fingers moved from resting gently against his face to brushing against Mycroft’s closed eyes, it traced Mycroft’s eyebrows, his nose, his fingertips. It could be so hard to be right all the time. It would never hurt him. One hand crept finger by finger across his shoulder, down his spine to the knot where the rope was tied. He could feel a fist forming around it and a yank as it tried to pull him under the bed.
“Stop!”
Yank.
“Stop G!” he flailed a little in panic and could hear Robert’s heels scrape against the floor what sounded like a good foot and a half.
Yank.
“Sir!” Lucia yelled, sharp, and he’s pulled out from under the bed by his ankles. A hand snatched out, dark and dusky, and gripped his coat to try and hold him; its only good tailoring that keeps his sleeve attached. Limbs go everywhere in the struggle, he squinted in the sudden light flailing to get into something of an upright position.
A hand, mottled silver grey and black, the color of shadows and cuffs darted again across the floor from under the bed and gripped at air, trying to grab Mycroft. Robert and Lucia pull him closer to the wall, farther from the bed. The hand drew back rapidly as if burnt and another joined it to creep along the edge of the under bed shadow, as if looking for a crack in mortar. The border of light and dark was tested fastidiously before the hands were withdrawn and there was a frustrated growl from under the bed.
“Sherlock’s in trouble,” Mycroft wheezed from rope compressing his chest and threw a ring at the hand. Simple, gold, valuable, something shiny, something with meaning, he hoped a good gift, a decent bribe. The ring was snatched up and there’s the sound of a lapping tongue. Robert gagged and Lucia’s eyes were huge, but she held firm to Mycroft’s shoulders as if he might suddenly be ripped away again. The hand returned briefly to the light and placed three watch cogs in a row. Far too close. Far too close to the darkness under the bed.
“Sherlock’s in trouble,” Mycroft repeated. There’s the sound of metal clicking together and the cogs are delicately plucked back up again.
“Sir,” Lucia said. “Sir.”
“It’s alright, he’s gone.”
The three of them leaned against the wall for a time panting.
They turned off the lamps like shock victims and walked on wobbly legs where the three of them, well not Robert of course – he only had a little, drank a great deal of scotch. It only seemed appropriate given the circumstances.
One of his men at NSY called not fifteen minutes later to inform him that Sherlock was found out in a drugs bust and he thought Mycroft would like to know.
By the time they arrived the pavement was crowded with prostitutes and addicts and a mixture of both. His brother, thankfully only in the latter category, was throwing a tantrum while being dragged from the house by an officer. Impressive, he thought absently – still in shock, it usually takes three. The man drove Sherlock down the front steps relentlessly. A little rougher than was strictly necessary to march a man just out of the hospital.
“You can’t arrest me!” Sherlock protested so loud Mycroft can hear him over the chaos. He was high again; he must have come straight here. Mycroft advanced across the crime scene, letting Lucia drive away anyone who would dare to stop him.
“That right?” the plain clothes officer was smiling jauntily. The baring of teeth just a little off as if it was something he’d only seen other people do, pushing Sherlock along in front of him. “You are in trouble Sherlock. Time to accept someone cares about your safety and your dubious lifestyle.”
“Ha!” Sherlock said. “No one cares.”
The officer squeezed hard on Sherlock’s shoulder, his face twisting into something part anger and part disappointment, so Sherlock buckled weakly into the car. Emotions too close to the surface, Mycroft thought somewhere in the sharp part of his brain, surely a show of force wasn’t necessary, “Don’t ever say that again, you have people who love you dearly.” Then the officer slammed the door magnificently closed and stormed away from the flashing lights to lurk, blue catching and flashing in the silver shot carelessly through his hair. He officer leaned there, looking put out and irritated at the world, shoulders up and eyes squinting against the wall of the drug den, his arms crossed protectively over his chest.
Mycroft’s hand was clenched tightly on the handle of his umbrella. The officer was unprofessional in the extreme, losing his temper like that, pushing Sherlock into the car. He scanned the man flinching back into the dark. Recently lost someone to overdose or suicide from a reaction like that, and certainly hung over judging by the way he was pulling away from the light. He’d been overdoing it for a while judging by his clothing, sufficient for the position of a detective (what else could he be?) but its slightly mismatched, not quite fitting properly, as if he snagged clothing from a few different closets, Mycroft thought unkindly, or if he got dressed in the dark.
There was an odd beauty in his features, along with a worn edge, the premature silver fitting remarkably well. He looked like something old and comfortable as well as he looked like something a little dangerous.
Mycroft’s approach was practiced and precise and he invited the detective to speak with him privately with extreme politeness. The detective squinted narrowly at Mycroft before his face broke out into an enormous grin and followed him, still grinning crookedly. The man was also slightly cracked then, no one was that glad to see Mycroft, certainly not a stranger that throws weak men into cars.
They moved away from the chaos of the crime scene, the lights and the complaining masses in various states of sobriety. The detective grinned at him still, eyes dark and smiling at him, when Mycroft finally stopped, near an out of the way alley the man folded neatly back into the shadows. He really was a mess, crumpled and rumpled and was that dark brown stain on his sleeve actually-
The detective leaned his face close and sniffed at Mycroft’s jaw and the man went soft and relaxed almost leaning against him. Lucia had drawn her gun, still on edge from before, and Mycroft prepared to do the man, who must be high himself, serious harm.
“I am very old and I was so very lonely and you were so cool and so sweet and so smooth like water over rocks and you comforted me. You smell like autumn, and the cool and cool of the leaves when they stop being green, that’s all I ever meant.”
There was a moment of confusion and then it (click, click) clicks into place. Mycroft nearly clotheslined Lucia to keep her away. G scowled at her, “Who’s she?”
“Anne,” Mycroft lied. “She’s my assistant. How did you…? It’s very good.”
Lucia was tense, but hesitantly let him push her behind him. He had nothing to fear from G, but there was a whole range of emotion that can be inflicted on her. G felt fervently. It scrubbed at its face with the side of its hand. “It hurts; it’s all too bright and exposed. I don’t like it, but it’s okay. Are you okay?” He leaned closer, like there was something in the air, something that’s floating out of Mycroft’s skin and he could sense it, and he wanted it to permeate him.
“I’m okay,” Mycroft said, he might have gone into shock. There was a ring on the man’s left hand. Surely- Surely he didn’t understand what that meant. Surely it didn’t think- “What are you called?”
It grinned at him, its smile oddly boyish, a bright attractive face. A man’s face. It pressed its fingertips to its breastbone, “G, the name you gave me.” As if the name was a physical thing inside it, something Mycroft could have pressed into its chest. “And this too,” it took a warrant card from its pocket and pressed it gently into Mycroft’s hands, curling Mycroft’s fingers around it tenderly.
DI G. Lestrade, well, it… certainly didn’t scrimp. “DI Lestrade,” Mycroft went to hand it back, but it curled his finger around it again. “Thank you.”
“No, it’s a gift, you can have it. I missed you so much,” it touched its lips, making a face. “Words are odd.” It wasn’t an it anymore, was it? It was a he.
“You’re actually going to need this.”
G shrugged, “I’ll get another,” his brow creased. “Do you not want it?”
“This is something you’ll need, like a tool to help you. You need to keep this in your pocket,” its face turned away, creasing together before turning back again. Mycroft slipped it back into its pocket and squeezed it firmly on the shoulder. The last thing he wanted to do was show his gratitude by hurting it. “I am grateful. You have helped me again. More than I can repay,” it- he was hot through its- his borrowed shirt, too warm to be human. Stepping away, Mycroft let his hand drop, “I’ll let you get back to Sherlock then. I will see you later tonight.”
G almost looked disappointed, almost like it would reach toward Mycroft, but set his jaw in a fierce determination and headed toward the flashing lights.
“Sir? Was that?” Lucia’s soft voice said softly as he watched G’s back. How much pain he must be in, all for Mycroft, after all these years, putting on a human skin for him.
“Yes,” he said shortly.
“Are you alright sir?” she asked, not quite sounding fine herself.
“No,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again, G knocked on a window of a police car and was let in before it drove off. “I didn’t know it could do that.”
She cleared her throat tightly, “What are your orders sir?”
“New Scotland Yard, I’ll need to pick up my brother.”
When he arrived G and Sherlock were forehead to forehead, Sherlock was grinning madly, hands on G’s face. They were laughing with each other, G’s voice soft and worn, comforting. Sherlock clung to him with his long fingers.
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said mildly, smiling a little. His brother jolted his head up, narrowing his eyes, as if he needed to protect G from him.
“I see you’ve had your happy reunion,” Mycroft sighed. He was really very tired. He could feel G leaning toward him even as Sherlock held tight.
“No thanks to you,” Sherlock bit out.
“All thanks to me actually. I called him back.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re an idiot,” G said fondly, smoothing down Sherlock’s hair. “You’re going to break your brother’s heart.”
Sherlock flinched, “You’re siding with him, after what he did? Did he even apologize?”
And here was the thing, the ruin thing. The loss and the break and the unforgiveable breach that he cannot fix. That he’ll never be wise enough to repair.
G shook his head fiercely, saving Mycroft again, “It already happened, it’s finished. I don’t want one. It’s alright now. It’s fixed. It’s done.”
“You can’t-”
“I can do whatever I want Sherlock,” G snapped, his eyes losing a little of their human shape. “I’m here because I love you, I want you to be safe, but you don’t get to tell me what to do.” He pressed a hard kiss to Sherlock’s forehead hard and pulled away from his pale hands.
“But you can’t.”
“That’s enough Sherlock,” Mycroft said gently. “We’ll talk about this later.”
With the help of his umbrella and Lucia, who he introduces to Sherlock as Patricia, Sherlock was wrangled into Mycroft’s black car. After Lucia slid in, pinning Sherlock elegantly against the inside wall of the car, G curled into the seat, sitting what must be no more than an inch from Mycroft, but looking out the far window.
“Where are you abandoning me Mycroft?” Sherlock said.
“My townhouse,” he was so tired, he wanted to press his face against the heat of G’s shoulder and sleep for a thousand years. He wanted someone to be kind. “I’ll be there in the morning. If you need me I’ll be at my flat, you have the number.”
“Why will you-”
“Because unlike some people, I need to sleep for more than two hours a week. We’ll talk about how you would like to go about you detox, and,” his eyes caught on something and the tip of his umbrella was used with great effect to peep open Sherlock’s pocket. “What is that?”
They both knew very well what it was, Sherlock snatched G’s warrant card out of his pocket as if Mycroft’s umbrella had some sort of magical snatching things out of pockets power. Considering how high it was possible for Sherlock to be at that time such might seem the case. Also, how tired was Mycroft to be thinking about umbrellas snatching things from pockets? It was an interesting idea though; he made a personal note to run it by technical on Thursday.
“He gave it to me,” Sherlock held the warrant card to his chest. “It’s mine now.” G had turned his head, and was looking at them now, at Mycroft out of the corner of his eye since he was so close. As if the two of them were the most peculiar creatures he had ever met. Mycroft remembered Sherlock with his wide hair, sitting on their porch and proclaiming he was four hundred and some old. That fierce entitlement in his little infant chin.
Mycroft sighed, sweeping a hand over his face. “I’ve had a very trying day. I have been very worried about you and would like to rest. I don’t want to fight you. Please give him back his warrant card.”
“Its fine,” G said amiably. “It’s a gift.”
“You’ll need it though,” Mycroft really was very tired.
G’s hand wrapped around and rested on Mycroft’s cheek, the fingertips felt very heavy and very hot, “Should you go home? Should you sleep?”
“Yes,” not something he would ever admit to anyone, but G wasn’t anyone, he was… different. “I should. But only when everything is safe again. Luckily Amelia is more than capable.”
“Of course sir,” she said pinning Sherlock with her moving elbows, it was like the two of them were dancing. Sherlock gave Mycroft a narrow look he had caught that Mycroft had given Lucia two names, let them slip naturally off his tongue both times. The pinned look was also annoyed and furious in a way that was strangely avian flapping about as he was, but the look released some catch in Mycroft’s chest. For the first time in over a decade Sherlock looked at him in something other than hatred and betrayal. Maybe there was hope, maybe G brought hope.
“Is she like your Mummy?” G asked face going dark around the corners. “I like women on principle, they generally have more flavor. But not if she’s like your Mummy.”
Lucia almost visible whitened before she caught herself. Mycroft closed his eyes against the idea of G’s teeth, all wrong and all sharp and all inevitable.
“No, she is not like Mummy,” Mycroft gripped G’s wrist, it was like a brand. How cold he must feel in comparison, he must feel like ice against G’s skin. It was a wonder G didn’t rip his hand away. “She’s like my assistant. G’s card my dear.”
“Yes sir,” she ended up pinning Sherlock against the side of the car with one high heeled shoe after he chose the strategy of a five year old and started to slide bonelessly off the seat. Mycroft plucked it out of his younger brother’s flailing hand like a low hanging fruit and pressed it to G’s chest.
“Please, keep this, who knows what mischief he’ll get to with it. He acts enough of a child as it is.”
As he was currently sprawled across the back of the car with his toes against the far door and is back end hanging out into space, he really had no place to argue. Any man pinned to the side of a car by a lady’s shoe while he flailed had not much ground to stand on as it was.
“I can see up your skirt,” Sherlock tried.
“Good for you,” she grunted.
“Are all people like this?” G whispered looking concerned.
“Only sometimes, Sherlock will get better.” With that hopeful note Sherlock was ejected out into the welcoming arms of a member of Mycroft’s staff with Lucia in pursuing him, grateful to get out of the car. G hung back, starting to look uncertain. The door to the car was closed genially and the car started again and G was only getting more agitated, he dropped the hand at Mycroft’s cheek and slid himself to the far side of the seat.
“Yes?” Mycroft tried cautiously.
“You’re going to your flat?”
“Yes,” Mycroft looked at him; G looked as though he had a light sunburn across his face. When they got home he was sure he could tend to that, it was the least he could do considering.
“Is it a flat for just people?” G had a thumb nail in his mouth a startling human gesture, and incredibly vulnerable.
Oh. Mycroft looked out his own window, the two of them the width of a car apart, looking separate ways, maybe if they looked far enough they would see each other. “It’s a flat for safety, and resting.”
“Can I come?”
“Yes,” Mycroft said, looking out into the night. “Always.”
There was a new office in Scotland Yard; Mycroft discovered the next morning, that hadn’t been there before, although he could find no one to admit it. A new detective inspector had joined the force, no one could tell him the DI’s first name either. But people liked Lestrade, a good man, a kind man, sharp around the smile and dark around the eyes, but kind, and very fair. Lestrade did have an impressive knack for being there whenever Sherlock got into trouble. When Sherlock got in trouble for crashing crime scenes the case got transferred to DI Lestrade like some bureaucratic sleight of hand that no one could quite touch or pin down. Mycroft was uncertain whether or not he should find this alarming, that there was something out there, something hungry and burning that can make men’s minds slip so smoothly.
G said he was very old.
He didn’t know what it was like to be like G, but he remembered kindnesses. He listened at the dark and bought dim light bulbs for his townhouse. When soft fingers brushed at his ankle, he slipped off his shoe. He kept the thermostat cool, even in the winter. Sometimes, at the beginning, G would stumble in, burnt, looking ill and gray and Mycroft would pull a cold bath and turn out all the lights and press down on G’s chest until his back hit the bottom of the tub and his mouth opened releasing no air and he finally stopped trembling and Mycroft leaned over him, held him down with the weight of his body, looking at his open eyes in the faint light of a single candle shoved to the far side of the room and felt broken at the sight of G laying on his back under water like Mycroft was drowning him.
And G just acted so bloody grateful Mycroft wanted to kill himself.
After a while Lestrade brought cases to Sherlock.
He had a team; they were on edge at first, their bodies thrumming fight or flight. But Sherlock somehow transferred the distrust to himself and all was well.
Mycroft worked in knowledge, worked in information, he worked to know everything. He catalogued DI G Lestrade obsessively.
Lestrade (because he was starting to be Lestrade now too) had difficulty talking to people, didn’t like press conferences that go off script. He became sullen and awkward, almost needed a minder, let loose little things that seem nothing to him and the press gratefully took as sarcasm. G’s face froze for a moment in a jaunty human face, a mimic mask. Mycroft watched it and something clenched in his chest as he waited for the press, those petty poking little people, to move on, to leave well enough alone. Lestrade was cunning in surprising ways. His old sneaks appeared like shocks. Surprise drugs busts and drawing would be assassins into dark corridors where they fall apart under G’s hands like wet paper bags. Sometimes when G was nervous, or cross, he looped the cuffs he keeps in his pocket around a finger and clicked them together.
It is not a surprise that G loved children. He lit up around them, he simply adored them. They were wisely cautious, G didn’t quite smell right and he was far too hot to be a person.
Sometimes someone will say something and people will gasp, and if Mycroft was there, his eyes will flash to Mycroft’s face as if to say, right or wrong? what do I do?
(He also started smoking and then stopped when he realized that Mycroft could smell him now when he lurked about and then tried to stop and then started again in a fit of pique and the finally decided to quit when Mycroft narrowed his eyes and tried to find every dark hidey hole in his office, saying, “Where are you?”)
Sometimes Mycroft had to sit in Lestrade’s small bare room with its blackout curtains, sitting with him, with a hand around his wrist when there was a case with children. The DI became frenetic and pouting and angry, but he would not leave any situation in which Mycroft will willingly initiate physical contact. Sometimes Mycroft didn’t hold him, but sat in his office at home until the cupboard door opened and he let Lestrade wander his townhouse until he looked like a human being again.
He was an old thing with old needs, not understanding sex or murder, but love and blood. He knew teeth and touch. Impatient for affection and altogether oddly threatening in his ease and longsuffering because nothing is for free for things like Lestrade, they are purchase or payment. To Mycroft, he thought, Lestrade paid for something like death, as cool as kind as the embrace of a grave that cannot release its love. Or perhaps for the right to own something no one could afford. Mycroft needed neither sex nor murder, but needed all those other things and so he stretched out his hand in the dark when he heard the sound of loneliness and didn’t weep when he was asked to hold G down under the water.
It was his cost for happiness.
If G knew the change it wrought in him, what it cost him. If Mycroft caught the knowledge in his dark eyes he said nothing. Nothing else had been asked of him and he had also payment to make.
Loss of weakness, loss of failing sentiment was not terrible to give up when it could be replaced with something better. Something deeper and more terrible. Something like G was.
It was, Mycroft decided for mornings he came into his office to find a startlingly red leaf pinned to his desk like a butterfly, altogether, good to be a monster.