send 🔫 to shoot my muse and wound them
“Richard, put the gun down.” Mycroft instructed, his voice low and full of authority. As his spoke, his mind rapidly ran through all the possibilities here. If he tried to run, Richard would either shoot him or he would look weak - hence why it would be better to stand his ground and hope that it was possible to call the other man’s bluff.
Assuming it was a bluff, that was. Was Richard strong enough to actually shoot somebody? Perhaps not to kill, but Mycroft was unsure about whether he had the guts to maim somebody. After all, the Moriarty twin had surprised him before - and with a brother like James, he couldn’t really rule anything out, could he?
Presumably James was where the gun had come from. That bugger. Mycroft could just about tolerate him owning illegal weapons - he knew what to do with them, and it would be more effort than it was worth to remove them - but him handing one over to, quite frankly, the weaker twin? It was unacceptable. The elder Holmes would be having words with him next time they saw each other.
But back to the point - the only real option here seemed to be to stand his ground and hope that Richard was a terrible shot.
“You don’t want to hurt me, Richard.” Mycroft stated. “You don’t have the-”
At least his hopes had come true about the other man not being able to aim well. That, or he had no intention to kill Mycroft. He’d have to work out which later - right now he was a bit busy bleeding out of a hole in his shoulder.
Doing his best not to panic (and managing rather well, if he did say so himself), Mycroft slumped to the floor. One hand held onto his injury as he winced and painfully fumbled through his pocket - searching for his phone so he could call an ambulance and hopefully not bleed to death.
“Get over here and put pressure on this, you idiot.” Mycroft growled, glaring at Richard for a split second. “And cancel any plans you had for the day. You need to take me to hospital now.”