I love the complete and utter walking contradiction that is Doctor and Captain John H. Watson.
He's got anger issues, and he's kind and warm. He's got trust issues, and he's loyal and caring. He's sarcastic and stubborn, and he's self-sacrifcing and patient. He's so tired, and he'll run head first into danger because he loves the adventure. He's so soft, and he's so bruised. He's a crackshot of a marksman, and he runs like a puppy and types like a chicken. He's Sherlock's grounding anchor, and he's Sherlock's enabler and partner in crime solving. He's so repressed, and he feels so much.
Summary: You swore you didn't do anything to betray your husband, but then what about all the evidence?
For years, your marriage to Mycroft Holmes had been steady, tender, and extraordinary.
You had worked so hard to build a life far away from the world.
Mycroft had once told you that your honesty was the greatest thing you had ever given him. You believed him.
Then the evidence appeared.
Anonymous intelligence files. Bank transfers. Secret meetings.
A burner phone found in your jewellery box.
Emails between you and a known foreign agent. Every document airtight and convincing. Enough to accuse you of espionage. Enough to destroy everything.
You were taken into a private facility.
No officers, no interrogators, no observers. Just your husband.
The room was silent.
A single lamp lit the table where you sat with your cuffs resting heavily against the cold surface.
Hours had passed without a sound. No guards. No analysts. Only the weight of accusations hanging over you like a storm.
The door opened.
Mycroft stepped in.
He carried a file thick enough to crush you.
His face was controlled, but cracked around the edges. The tension in his jaw was unlike anything you had seen in the years you had been married to him.
He sat across from you, opened the file and spoke without greeting.
“Explain this,” he said, pushing a photograph across the table.
It showed you meeting with a known foreign agent in a dark alley. You felt sick.
“Mycroft, that is not me.”
His eyes lifted to yours, colder than you had ever known them.
“It is your coat. Your posture. Your hair pinned in your usual manner.”
“It is not me,” you repeated, voice cracking.
He slid a bank statement next.
Large sums wired to an offshore account under your maiden name.
“Mycroft, listen to me.”
“No. You will listen,” he snapped.
The sharpness in his voice sliced through you. He never raised his voice. Not with strangers. Not with staff. Certainly not with you.
Your chest tightened with panic.
“Mycroft, I never touched those accounts, I swear it.”
“And how precisely am I meant to believe that?” He leaned forward, hands pressed flat on the table, voice strained. “Tell me why there are encrypted emails from you to a foreign operative. Tell me why there is a burner phone with your fingerprint on it. Tell me why all of this evidence paints you as a traitor.”
“Because someone is framing me,” you whispered.
“Who? Your past is not as dead as you would like to believe. Perhaps one of the delightful men you once swindled has returned for a favour.”
You flinched hard.
“You know I left that life behind.”
His voice came down, quiet and devastating.
“Did you?”
Tears blurred your vision.
“Mycroft, I love you. I would never betray you. I would never betray this country.”
He closed his eyes. For a moment, he looked almost pained. Then he forced himself back into composure.
“Everything here says otherwise.”
You felt your heart fracture. This was not anger. This was hurt wrapped in logic.
“Mycroft, please. Look at me. Do you honestly believe I could do this?”
For the first time, uncertainty flickered in his eyes. But before he could speak, the door burst open.
Sherlock walked in holding a coffee cup.
“You absolute idiots. Honestly, this is embarrassing for both of you.”
Mycroft’s expression iced over.
“Sherlock, this is classified.”
“Yes, classified stupidity. I had to intervene.”
Sherlock grabbed the folders from the table and started sorting through them with a dramatic flourish.
“Right, first of all, that photograph. Not her. Shadow length is wrong for the timestamp. Also, the woman is two centimetres taller.”
He tossed it aside and grabbed the bank statements.
“These transfers? Fabricated. The formatting is from an older banking software. Mycroft, you should have spotted that.”
Mycroft stiffened. “Sherlock-”
“Do not interrupt me while I am saving your marriage.”
Sherlock moved to the emails. “These were written by someone mimicking her style poorly. The comma placement is wrong, and she never uses the Oxford comma. Also, the encryption key was generated using an outdated algorithm. Very amateur.”
He then pulled out the burner phone.
“And this delightful object. Look at the dust. It is from the north side of your flat. Except she never sets things down on that shelf because she hates the colour of the wallpaper behind it.” Sherlock gave a self-satisfied shrug. “Obvious.”
You blinked.
“How did you even know that?”
“Mycroft never shuts up about you,” Sherlock replied without looking up. “It is actually quite nauseating.”
Mycroft shot him a murderous glare.
Sherlock continued.
“So, the culprit is clearly someone from her past. I already found him. I sent Lestrade an address, and now he is making the arrest.” He dusted off his hands as if finishing a simple chore. “You are welcome.”
Silence filled the room.
Sherlock stared between the two of you. Then he sighed loudly.
“Well? One of you apologise and the other one cry or kiss or whatever it is you two do. I am bored.”
He simply stood up and left.
The door clicked closed.
Mycroft did not speak immediately. He stared at the evidence strewn across the table, each piece now exposed as a lie. Slowly, he looked at you.
Your eyes were red. His eyes were filled with something else, regret.
“My love,” he whispered. “I am so sorry.”
The apology hit you harder than the accusations. You broke, sobs shaking your shoulders.
He stood, walked around the table and knelt beside you.
Mycroft Holmes, the Iceman of Whitehall, knelt at your feet and took your shaking hands.
“I should have trusted you. I should have remembered who you are rather than what the evidence suggested.”
“You hurt me,” you whispered.
“And I will spend the rest of my life making amends for it.”
You leaned forward, forehead touching his.
His hands cupped your cheeks gently.
“I love you, nothing will ever change that.”
You let out a trembling breath. “I love you too.”
He helped you stand and pulled you into his arms. You clung to him as though he could anchor the world.
In truth, he always had.
In the hallway outside, Sherlock’s voice echoed.
“Finally. Took you long enough.”
You both ignored him.
Mycroft pressed a kiss to your temple and held you close, a silent vow settling between you. This would not break you.
It would not even dent you.
If anything, it proved something Mycroft had never admitted aloud.
something about how Sherlock asks why he would go to dinner with Irene when he wasn't hungry and how he went to dinner with John the night they met and didn't eat
my painting may be a bit problematic, I used a lot of shading and there may not be any similarity (maybe I don't understand because I look at drawing so much 😭), but this is what it turned out to be :D
This is probably the portrait I spent the longest on! I remember seeing this image of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and just seeing how the light caught his blue eyes and knowing I had to absolutely draw it. I wanted to bring a moody & mysterious vibe with the moon shining down on him as the fog rolls in.
This was the last digital portrait I made while staying in university dorms before everything shut down in 2020.
