Chapter Text
John stares at his laptop screen. Blank whiteness stares accusingly back. It's not like he doesn't do this on a regular basis, it's just - it's just not usually on such a tight schedule, as the small flickering video stream in the top corner of his screen reminds him, and more importantly he usually doesn't have to make anything up. John's fairly secure in the conviction that he's no writer. He doesn't write anything, he just puts down what happened in, well, words. It's completely different.
He'd said as much to Mycroft, who'd looked at him with a kind of pained bemusement before kindly pointing out that his multitude of online readers begged to differ. Sherlock, inevitably, had interrupted with "We're not looking for a Booker Prize, John, just put down what we discussed, and the rest of it as you normally do." He had wrinkled his nose, then. "Well, what's necessary, anyway."
Then he had turned to Mycroft and said something about hardware, prompting the elder Holmes to produce five little blinking gadgets straight from a Mission Impossible film from where they were already hidden on the back of the living room bookshelf, the windowpane, the top of the stairs, the cluedo box and the fridge door. Sherlock had called him a psychotic fascist voyeur in an almost admiring tone, and then spent fifteen minutes whining that the one Mycroft was trying to put on him ruined the line of his coat.
John had thought perhaps that little vignette told you everything about the Holmes brothers you'd ever need to know, and said nothing.
John shakes his head a little and tries to focus on the screen. Yes, right. A blog entry. A blog entry with a purpose. "A Booker would be nice, you know," he informs the silent room. The furniture doesn't reply, underscoring the lack of Holmes' in the vicinity. "Or possibly a Pulitzer."
A Scandal he types, carefully In Belgravia. Then he puts it all down; he records the threats and the blackmail, the palace and the puzzles, the web that The Woman set and how it came untangled, because they all happened. He includes conversations copied from a piece of paper covered in Mycroft's handwriting, because they didn't. And he puts in few lines on the art of the riding crop and unique text message alerts, because really, 'necessary' is such a subjective word.
In the corner of his screen, Sherlock's buttonhole camera stream tells him that he's reached his destination; John's running out of time. He scans Mycroft's list, making sure he's got the times and names.
"Mr Holmes," a smooth voice, faintly familiar even through the speaker. John remembers fond glances at Mycroft across tea, that same face across a couch in Buckingham Palace asking them to take the case, and bites back on his anger. The man reaches out to shake Sherlock's hand. "You've been making quite the noise. I'm glad you came to me." He gestures outward with a fixed smile. "I hope you don't mind that it is in this office. And if there is anything, anything I can do... after the help you gave us, I assure you I am at your service."
"Harry, wasn't it?" comes Sherlock's reply, deeper somehow over the speakers. John keeps listening, eyes on what he's typing. "It's a... it's a personal matter. I wanted to speak to my brother."
"I'm afraid that's beyond my authority, Mr Holmes." He sounds genuinely sympathetic. "I cannot presume to know what he is engaged in at this time, but I can tell you that it is of a highly confidential nature. He is not available at this time."
Sherlock is silent, for a while, then speaks again, a shake in his voice so overt John snorts with laughter. "You could give him a message for me?" And that's his signal; he clicks once on the large blue post button, and sits back to watch the rest of the show."I can try, certainly." A little too eager, John thinks. Do you want this over with, or are you curious? "What do you-" Harry leaves the question open.
"I wanted-" Sherlock stumbles over the words, then takes a deep breath. The ham. "I wanted to tell him that we should talk. Just that." A long pause. Harry smiles, conciliatory and insincere. Then Sherlock continues. "And, of course, I wanted to tell about the blog entry that you are going to get a rather strongly worded alert about in a moment, dependent of course on how quick your people are. It's something I do, with my cases. And Bond Air, my, that was a case to remember."
John takes a moment to enjoy the acrobatics of Harry's facial expression as, the second Sherlock stops speaking, his phone does go off. Loudly.
"I can save you the time," Sherlock says, low and satisfied. "It will tell you that details have emerged. Specific details. Names. Places. Things you don't want out there. I wonder what the public will think about your little jet plane. I wonder if they'll appreciate the complexity of that particular compromise. I know two little girls who just wanted to see their grandfather."
Harry's face has gone very hard. "It will never stay up-"
"How long does it need to?" Sherlock asks. "How long does it need to be up before your friendly neighbourhood terrorist groups notice, and put two and two together to make a pretty clear picture of the way you planned that little operation? Not to mention your own government, seeing all the things you told us, completely against protocol." His voice goes high-pitched. "Oh no, but you didn't, did you? Except that it says you did, right there on the screen. It says you did and there are so many niggling little personal details mentioned, so it must be right. It must be. If the scapegoat suits, hmm? Isn't that how you work?"
Then there's a pause, just long enough to build expectation, just long enough that the bang as the doors slam open and Mycroft walks in are enough to make anyone jump.
Really, it's a miracle one or both of them didn't end up on the stage, John muses. A narrow escape for the world of theatre.
"No-" Harry is saying, backing away and pointing. "No. I saw you. I saw you broken, they told me-"
"You even had your turn with the practical side of things," Mycroft agrees pleasantly. "though I must suggest you not take so unquestioningly the final report of people who break bones for money. I- oh, do excuse me." He places his blackberry delicately to his ear. "Ma'am? Thank you, Ma'am, it is most kind of you to ask. Merely a brief sojourn on private business, but I have indeed returned. Of course, your majesty." He smiles, very slowly. "Is that so? My brother? Allow me to see what I can do." John can see him lower the phone and cover it with his hand, but then Sherlock turns and he can't see him properly at all. He can hear him count, though. One, two...
John counts along with him, up to three, then deletes the blog with a click.
"Ma'am? It is no longer a problem. It would be my pleasure. I will see you shortly." He lowers the phone, and looks straight at Harry. "This, of course, is all being recorded. Insubstantial, true, but I don't doubt it would go viral, if the thought amused me."
"It wasn't personal. It was never personal."
"I know. And neither is this. Consider it... an aesthetic necessity. And please know," he promises, oddly gentle. "That I'm just getting started."
*
John doesn't sit around once the battle's won; he's not interested in seeing the man scurry out. He logs out absently and then reaches for his coat. Sherlock had clearly been enjoying himself. Well, now it was his turn. A taxi waiting outside, and for once he was going to be the one pulling up on the curb to take probably-not-Anthea for a little drive. Mycroft had made sure she'd had time to run and somewhere to run to, even if he hadn't been able to do the same for himself. And now John gets to be the one to break the news; her boss is ok, her boss is safe, and he wants her back.
He might even get a bit of a kiss, if he does it right.
In the empty room, the computer runs on, video still flickering occasionally, though the soft red pulse indicating the recording function is no longer on. On the screen two figures remain sitting in Mycroft's office, still enough not to blur, even with such a poor connection.
"You did not have to do any of this," Mycroft says simply, without implication, but Sherlock draws his shoulders tight and looks away.
"I had my reasons."
"I don't doubt it. Nonetheless, if there is anything I can do to alleviate your recent inconvenience- "
Sherlock grabs his arm. "Give me what I've been asking for since I could talk, Mycroft."
*
Mycroft is forty one and Sherlock is thirty four and won't be getting any older. That's what the papers tell him, in bold, thick print across the top of the page. Sherlock Holmes is a fake, Sherlock Holmes is a fraud, Sherlock Holmes is a dead man.
Mycroft steeples his fingers and stares at the wall, thinking of the last time they spoke.
"Give me what I've been asking for since I could talk, Mycroft." Sherlock had said, and his eyes had narrowed like they always did when he was trying to convince himself he wasn't uncertain. "The chance to do things my way. Let me fix it by myself."
"It's fixed." Mycroft had answered, but he'd known that for Sherlock that wasn't true. That wasn't true because the plane hadn't been Harry, it had been Moriarty, and it wasn't true while Moriarty remained, dead or alive, the one he hadn't defeated. And while every sensible instinct told him of the dangers, he knew Sherlock. He knew that while, in the end, it might be a certain doctor who kept him anchored to the ground, it was pride that kept Sherlock upright.
So he had given Jim Moriarty exactly what he had wanted, and let Sherlock play to win on his own, because that's what he asked for. (John doesn't count, except that he does, but the first rule is always this: Mycroft cheats.)
Mycroft looks at the papers again, and traces the edge of the front-page picture with his thumb. I did what you asked, he thinks. And you won. You won on your own terms, and in more than one way. He reaches for his phone when it beeps and scrolls through the newest surveillance report on 221B. He considers it, for a while, and finally opens up a new blank message.
John is not doing well - MH
Then he puts it away, and with a degree of satisfaction that might bewilder the casual observer of the human condition, immerses himself once more in the benevolent embrace of that brand of genteel silence found only in the Diogenes Club.
A little while later, someone brings him tea.
A little later still, his phone makes a sound, entirely unlike the brisk electronic blip of the previous message. It goes on for a while.
It sounds a bit like Bach, and a bit like someone torturing a violin.
Keep your promise. - SH
Don't make him wait, Mycroft replies, when what he means to say is 'don't make us wait'. Mycroft wants to see his face, irrational as it is. Wants to touch him to... to make sure. But whatever he's playing at doing, whether it be detective or dead man, Sherlock is still so very... Sherlock. And he knows Sherlock will make him wait.
That's fine.
Mycroft is a patient man.