(Of course, Mycroft still noticed it had shifted several centimetres to the right of where he'd left it but, shockingly, said nothing critical on the matter and let it rest.)
And life went on as it always had done. They fought and they duelled with each other in battles of intellect endlessly, day and night. Until the day came for Mycroft to leave for university and Sherlock realised just how much he relied on his brother for companionship. Without him, the house felt much bigger, much emptier. His voice echoed in Mycroft's old room where he more often than not found himself sitting. By the time Mycroft had been gone for two months, Sherlock had practically relocated his entire room to his brother's old one.
When asked to justify this by his mother, he'd lied and made a snide comment about Mycroft having abandoned them and, by extension, having no claim to this room whatsoever. He didn't tell her that he just really missed him but he suspected she knew nonetheless.
Mycroft knew this too but he could never quite bring himself to believe that he mattered so much.
Not for the first time in his life, Mycroft found that the only way to combat his exhaustion with breathing was to remind himself that he was completely in control of his own life. He didn't have to breathe if he didn't want to. Somehow, knowing that brought him a short-lived sense of relief.
It was what got him through university. It was what kept him going when he caught himself pondering the point of life itself. It was the reason he had simply allowed his legs to dangle over the edge of the roof of the building without permitting the rest of his body to follow.
His interest in Chemistry only grew despite his current study in Political Science. He'd often sneak into the labs of the Chemistry department late at night to experiment and research. The textbooks and notes on the professor's desk taught him everything he needed to know about which chemicals would explode if mixed and which ones wouldn't. That was all the information he required.
How very typical of Mycroft to willingly accept death at the hands of his own creation.
Recipes for poison were far too accessible on the internet, he thought. Far too tempting to be ignored, similar to the niggling voice on the outskirts of his mind which tried daily to convince him that he wouldn't actually be missed. People would grieve, of course they would, but then life would go on for everyone as it always did and he'd become compost.
It didn't even worry him how much that thought comforted him. After all, he'd never known anything else.
Eventually, Sherlock became his motivation. Mycroft stood by him through the relapses and the rehabilitation programmes and the endless police cautions for being under the influence. He became Sherlock's rock, his shoulder to cry on despite Sherlock's initial reluctance. He would not and did not abandon him though he began to wonder if that was for the wrong reasons. Caring for Sherlock gave him a sense of purpose. It made him feel momentarily important; a feeling he had lacked since the age of four when Mummy had told him he would always be her baby boy and it had been the last time he'd believed her.
Even as he worked his way up the ranks in the government, he couldn't shake the feeling that the world would go on far too easily without him. It would be unaffected by his presence, or lack thereof.
So why did he bother at all?
For a while, thinking of Sherlock's body lying in a ditch with track marks up his arms was enough to remind him that he had a reason to be. He was Sherlock's protector. If Mycroft wasn't there to take care of him then nobody else would. Sherlock would never go to their parents until it was too late. It was all down to him and that thought should have perhaps terrified him but it served only to spur him on.
All the same, he kept the small bottle of poison he created in the lab at Oxford in the left hand pocket of his suit jacket for times when he needed a reminder that he was still the one pulling the strings. That's what Mycroft did. That's what Mycroft had always done. He made the marionettes dance though sometimes he wondered if the puppet becoming the puppet-master was such a wise choice after all. Self-sufficiency was almost as appealing as self-destruction.
"I don't need you!" Sherlock yelled, thrusting his finger into Mycroft's face. The elder didn't bother to flinch. "You think you can come swanning into my life again after you abandoned me for your precious career but you can't. I won't let you. So get the hell out of my life and stay out!"
Mycroft slipped his hand into his pocket. Sherlock kept shouting.
"I hate you," he said and his tone was laced with contempt. "I'd have been better off without a brother."
Mycroft clenched his hand around the bottle and hoped desperately that it wasn't true. Sherlock did need him. He was just being childish. Again. But there was that voice again, telling him to consider every possibility. Sherlock might just be right. He let none of this show on his face.
When he slumped into the swivel chair in his office later that afternoon, he very nearly opened the cap. But letting his eyes slip between the monitor which showed the interior of Sherlock's flat and the bottle which contained the key to peace brought him enough satisfaction to hide his little secret away yet again.
Sherlock did need him, no matter what bullshit he spouted about his independence. Mycroft's continued sanity depended on the thread he hooked onto that fading belief so he wrapped it three times around his hand until it dug right in and willed it not to snap.
He needed to lose weight.
When Sherlock met Doctor John Watson, Mycroft felt his control slip through his fingers. At first, he'd been panicked. Of course he had. John was just the next man in a long line of failed relationships - platonic or otherwise - on Sherlock's part and he did so hate having to clean up the mess they left behind when they predictably dumped him for someone more their speed. Sherlock was too special and too fragile for this to happen again. The last time Mycroft had seen him, he'd been close to slipping under again. He didn't need anyone to hold his head under the water.
But John proved himself to be worthy of Mycroft's faith. He shot a man to save Sherlock’s life within twenty four hours of meeting the arrogant sod. Clearly, he'd been right about his loyalty when he'd declined Mycroft's attempts to recruit him. Even finding out about Sherlock's past drug addiction hadn't put him off.
Maybe he was what Sherlock needed after all. And maybe Sherlock really didn't need his big brother to supervise him anymore.
Until then, Mycroft's life had depended on the sole belief that Sherlock would return to self-destruction if he ever left him to fend for himself. Not over Mycroft, of course. Never over something so insignificant. Perhaps after another relationship breakdown or a bad choice or a case gone wrong.
That was before John Watson had saved his brother's life and doomed Mycroft's in the same smooth action of setting foot across the threshold of 221B Baker Street.
Mycroft wasn’t proud of the way he rushed to Baker Street upon hearing of the explosion and was pleased to have endless files on hand to keep up his façade. Sherlock didn’t like to be mollycoddled. He did, however, like cases though Mycroft was finding it increasingly difficult to convince him to take anything he brought with him. Spite, that was all it was. Petty. That was Sherlock all over.
“Hello, brother dear,” he smirked pleasantly upon hearing Mycroft’s footsteps reach the top of the staircase. Mycroft rolled his eyes as he stepped into the room, glancing distastefully at the shattered windows. Sherlock’s apparent nonchalance was astounding but not unexpected. “Come to check up on me, I presume?”
Mycroft smiled. “Not this time,” he said calmly, sitting himself down in John’s empty armchair.
“I see your domestic hasn’t been resolved as of yet,” he added. Sherlock gave him a stony look. Clearly, John Watson was a pressure point of Sherlock’s. He couldn’t imagine Sherlock looking at anyone like that for Mycroft’s sake.
He had to admit that he was pleased to see John had at the very least removed his gun from Sherlock’s vicinity. It had…worried him to see him messing around with it the previous night. Slumped in his chair like that, he’d almost looked-
Well. That was more Mycroft’s department.
Sherlock didn’t seem to be interested in gracing Mycroft’s snarky comment with a reply and instead reached over the back of his chair for his violin. He plucked the strings absently, creating a simple but melancholy tune with apparent ease. It had always bothered Mycroft that Sherlock was a better musician than him – he was supposed to be the smart one, after all. If he wasn’t the smart one, well, he wasn’t really anything.
Discreetly, he tucks his hand into his pocket while he folds one leg over the other.
“Not interested,” Sherlock sighed immediately, pulling out his bow and dragging it across the strings effortlessly. The piece he played caught Mycroft off guard and he stumbled over his next sentence.
“Importance, I know,” Sherlock said, managing to sound even more bored with his brother’s presence than usual. Always bored. Mycroft was boring, it was to be expected. But it still got to him more than he should perhaps have allowed. “But I’m still not taking it.”
Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Andrew West-“ he began but Sherlock proceeded to play louder and more discordantly in an attempt to force Mycroft to shout. Instead, he squeezed the bottle and fixed Sherlock a hard stare. “Must I partake in your silly games, Sherlock?”
The violin ceased and was returned to Sherlock’s lap. An air of familiarity settled over them for barely a moment before Sherlock’s arrogant smirk made its comeback.
“Not that you ever would.”
Mycroft didn’t know what to say to that so let it slide. The silence that followed was broken only by John’s yells from the bottom of the stairs. The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched up into a smile. Mycroft could never make him so happy by simply existing. Mycroft also couldn’t stop comparing himself to John Watson.
The sinking feeling in his chest wasn’t a new one but nor was it welcome. The way Sherlock seemed so happy without him around destroyed him a little. He wanted what was best for his baby brother but he also wanted to bewhat was best for his baby brother. Accepting that he couldn’t have things both ways was proving to be tiresome and somewhat devastating. It was becoming more apparent that John was in fact exactly what Sherlock needed. Life would go on without him as it always had done.
He forced a false smile when John told him he was never bored and muttered, “Good. That’s good, isn’t it?”
Even he could hear the false sincerity in his tone as he stood and so he quickly pushed the file into Sherlock’s face where it was promptly rejected. With tongue in cheek, he turned to John instead and quickly rambled through his explanation of the case before he marched downstairs to the sound of the dissonant violin.
Mycroft resigned himself to a life of resistance long ago. He continued to push the temptation to the back of his mind, to lock it in a darkened room with no windows and seal off the door.
No matter how hard he tried, however, it always managed to seep through some unsealed crack. Not even his mind palace could contain the feeling, the emotion. It had not been built to harbour emotions. Mycroft only realised now his catastrophic architectural mistake.
The dam had well and truly collapsed.
It's your choice. Remember that. It's always your choice.
He wrapped his fingers around the bottle again and wished for someone to hold his hand instead.
Mycroft was under no illusion that Sherlock’s death would have been the end for him had he not known the truth. Still, the bottle found a permanent place on his desk when he was in the office. Watching John move out of 221B had been painful. He could only imagine how Sherlock would take it upon his imminent return.
Anthea asked him about it once and he’d waved her concern away.
Maybe he shouldn’t have done.
It was, ironically, John Watson who was the first to well and truly observe.
On Christmas Day in their family household nonetheless, John stumbled into Mycroft’s old bedroom in his search for the bathroom. Mycroft’s head snapped round too quickly, his attempts to hide the bottle inconspicuously unsuccessful. It clattered to the floor, almost drowning out the sound of John’s apologies.
“Mycroft?” He asked, voice soft. “Are you alright?”
Mycroft said nothing in the hopes John would be his usual, ignorant self and leave him in peace but apparently John was far cleverer than Mycroft gave him credit for. He scooped up the bottle before Mycroft could stop him and turned it over in his hands. There was no way he should have been able to tell from the label-less bottle alone but one glance at Mycroft’s distraught expression was all he needed to solve the puzzle.
“Is this what I think it is?”
Mycroft made an attempt at humour, something which never went down well. “Well, that rather depends on what you think it is.”
John’s weight on the bed beside him felt somewhat comforting but he couldn’t look him in the eye because he knew that John knew what nobody should ever have known. It had been all too easy to forget about John Watson’s intelligence, to pretend Sherlock was all he had to worry about. A fatal error, it would seem. Or perhaps fatal was the wrong word.
John sighed but there was something there which kept it from sounding exasperated and verged on care. “Sherlock would be devastated.”
“Perhaps,” Mycroft put all of his energy into keeping his tone neutral. “But not for long.”
“He would, y’know,” John went on. “He misses you when you’re not around. He’ll never admit it. But I know he does.”
Mycroft shook his head minutely. John noticed.
A silence followed and then-
“Mycroft,” John seemed to be struggling to find the right words. “You’re always welcome to talk to me. If you, uh, if you ever feel like you’re gonna…well,” he cleared his throat. “If you need me.”
Mycroft tilted his head to the side as he tried to read the secrets behind John Watson’s eyes and was surprised to find sincerity by the bucket load. He genuinely cared; and not just about Sherlock.
John swallowed. “I just can’t lose another friend to suicide – even if they do have a habit of turning up on my doorstep afterwards.”
Mycroft counted John’s blinking six times before he said softly, “Friend?”
“Oh,” John looked away. “Sorry, I-“
“No,” Mycroft interrupted quickly. He didn’t want John to strip him of the illusion. “I mean- thank you, John.”
John nodded and looked down at the bottle again, gently tucking it into Mycroft’s hand. He folded Mycroft’s fingers around it and kept his hands there for perhaps longer than he should have done before offering a small smile.
“Look after yourself,” he whispered and then he was gone.
Mycroft smiled. Sherlock had been right on the money; it took John Watson to save the life.
