Dimly, distantly, Mycroft is aware that his knees have gone out from under him, and that Euros is screaming. It hardly seems to matter now, does it? With Sherlock dead on the floor, everything seems so far away.
He’s always done his best to protect Sherlock. From the world, from the drugs. From himself. He’s failed more often than he has succeeded, but at least, he’d always told himself, at least Sherlock was still alive. Alive to snipe and snark at him, alive at times to hate him.
Mycroft had never been so happy as when John Watson entered Sherlock’s life. It had been as though the Sherlock of their shared (forgotten, at least by Sherlock) childhood had begun to shine through the facade. Not often, but sometimes, Mycroft could see the great-hearted boy Sherlock could have been, and he thought that, if all he had managed to do in his life was keep Sherlock alive long enough to meet John Watson, he could have died content.
John is still pulling the trigger on the useless gun, his eyes closed and tears making the blood on his face run.
Compassion isn’t really Mycroft’s area. Mercy, he’s often believed, is useless. But John Watson saved Sherlock’s life on the first day they met, and obligation is something that Mycroft Holmes understands. The bonds of debt and obligation and what is owed are the sea he swims in, and right now, he knows what is owed.
His legs don’t quite want to support him, but he crawls over to John and wraps his arms around him from behind. He puts one hand around the gun and the other against John’s heart, and rests his forehead between John’s shoulderblades. Human contact is not Mycroft’s area either, but for a second he allows himself to draw strength from it, enough to do what must be done.
Just for a moment, just for long enough to be sure.
Mycroft’s hands do not shake as he rises to his knees. They do not shake as he takes John’s chin in one hand and the back of his head in the other.
He can feel the shuddering breath John releases against his thumb.
“Please,” John breathes, and there is such pleading in that voice, such desperation. Myrcoft has heard torture victims on the verge of breaking beg for death with less passion than John Watson puts into a whisper, on his knees next to the corpse of Mycroft’s baby brother.
“Tell Sherlock I love him, will you?” Mycroft asks, and then he moves, swift and sure and powerful.
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