Building guns and hacking into North Korea
Or, how John Watson meets another secret Holmes sibling, after Eurus Holmes.
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And right there, nestled up against Sherlock’s pillows and blankets, is a man.
John Watson has known Sherlock Holmes for quite a while now, and can proudly say that he’s seen his fair share of weird things when with Sherlock — but finding a man in Sherlock’s bed takes the cake. Said man is even wearing one of Sherlock’s shirts — the purple one — and this implies that Sherlock cares enough about this stranger’s comfort.
He is definitely younger than John and Sherlock — he’s a skinny, lithe thing, all angles and long limbs; pale with dark hair, but his face is hidden as he’s got a pillow over his head as he sleeps. Various items of clothing lay discarded near the foot of the bed: a mustard sweater, a pair of socks, a tie, an anorak. A nondescript briefcase rests on the floor near the night stand.
John considers the sleeping man for a while more before marching out into the hallway with the requested notebook in tow.
“You have a guest?” he says as he hands over the notebook to Sherlock, who takes it, puts it on his lap, and resumes his Thinking Pose with his fingers steepled together under his chin.
“Hmm,” is all he says. His eyes remain closed.
John peers down the hallway leading to the bedroom. “Will he be staying here longer?”
Sherlock manages something between an exasperated sigh and a groan: “It depends.”
“On?”
Sherlock’s eyes snap open; he flips through the notebook in his lap, fails to find what he wants, tosses the notebook away, pulls his bare feet up so he’s crouching in his chair, and begins to rock back and forth — typical signs of a roadblock somewhere in his genius brain.
“Is he a client?” John presses.
“No he’s not a client,” Sherlock snaps, closing his eyes again.
“Sorry – but did you actually bring your date home last night?”
“Be quiet, John.”
“Right.” John peers again down the hallway, but all is quiet.
Twenty minutes passed on in this fashion, and John has almost entirely forgotten about the stranger (going through the comments of his blog can often do that) when he hears some movement in the bedroom. First, a stifled yawn, then some rustling from the bed sheets, muffled footsteps, and the bathroom door opening and closing. Inside, the taps started to run.
John glances at Sherlock, but the man remains crouched in his chair, eyes closed.
When the stranger emerges from the bathroom, he makes a beeline towards the window and peers out of it. He completely misses John in the chair.
“He’s still there,” Sherlock says, addressing the other man.
“That’s vexing,” says the stranger; he sounds like he really thinks it. He sighs, lets the curtain fall, turns around, and sees John for the first time. “Oh! Dr Watson, I didn’t see you there.”
John stares. He takes in the unruly dark hair, those grey-green eyes behind the glasses, the slim fingers on the hand that is being offered to him. The smile seems genuine, but it’s the stranger’s uncanny resemblance to Sherlock that takes John by surprise – he blinks a couple times more before shaking the proffered hand.
“Right. Sorry – yeah, hi.”
“It’s good to finally meet you,” says the younger man, now positively beaming. “I feel like I’ve known you for so long, like I’ve even met you before, but, ah. Alas, I haven’t actually got the chance to do that before now — work often gets in the way of making a social call...”
“Right,” says John. He glances at Sherlock — nope, still in his Mind Palace apparently — “And you are...?”
“You can call me Q, everyone else does.”
Sherlock scoffs from his seat.
Q shakes his head at this, but there is an amused smile on his face. “Yes, well. Technically I don’t exist, so names can be a bit tricky. It’s Q. Even Mummy’s starting to warm up to it.”
“So let me get this straight,” says John to Sherlock, “you actually have another sibling? Another brother?”
“Brilliant deduction John, as always,” says Sherlock.
“And you’ve failed to mention this to me before now? What, did Mycroft have him locked up somewhere all this while, too?”
While Sherlock makes no response, Q groans and starts to make his way to the kitchen.
“I know, right? Another secret sibling, ugh,” he says, reaching for various tea-making things with enough ease and familiarity that tells John that he’s been here at the flat before. Unconsciously, John’s turned to follow Q into the kitchen. “But heavens, no. I’d go crazy if Mycroft’s decided to lock me up on some island in the middle of nowhere, I think. No, no – I gave my full consent to being a secret sibling. I fact, I very much enjoy being the only secret sibling, you know, until the whole Eurus business blew up in all our faces. A sister! I mean I have wondered what that would be like, to have a sister. Trust Mycroft to keep her hidden away like that — and from me, too!”
“Well if you weren’t too busy building guns and hacking into North Korea, you would’ve noticed a thing or two,” Sherlock mutters from his seat.
Q shrugs a shoulder as if agreeing, but then he says, “How am I supposed to notice things Mycroft has decided to hide away from the world? I’m not the genius consulting detective here.”
John snickers at this, which annoys Sherlock enough that he jumps out of his chair and stalks towards the window.
“So — guns and North Korea? I take it you don’t have a normal nine-to-five job, then?” John asks. “Or...I dunno…do you own a cafe or something by chance?”
Q sighs at this. “No, unfortunately... although the idea of opening a cat cafe has crossed my mind once or twice before. Would be nice. Tea?”
“Oh, ta,” says John, accepting the cup and taking a sip. While this Q character looks like a Holmes and has the subtle mannerisms of a Holmes, his manners so far are nothing like those of Sherlock’s or Mycroft’s. In fact, John is pretty sure that Q’s managed to tick all the boxes when it comes to what society deems ‘proper’ during first introductions: handshake? – check; polite conversation? – check; refraining from invading someone else’s personal space or abducting and bringing them to an abandoned warehouse ? – check.
John thinks he might actually get along with this one just fine.
He’s also not the least bit surprised to find that Q knows exactly how he takes his tea.
(Okay, so maybe Q does exhibit the typical ‘I-know-a -lot-more-than-you-do’ trait of a Holmes; but so far, it doesn’t seem like he plans to wield that as a weapon against John, or to use it to show off like his older brothers tend to do.)
“This is very good,” John says, taking another sip of the tea.
“Thank you.” Q flashes him a pleased smile as he pours another cup and brings it to where his brother is standing. “Is he still there?”
“He’s very persistent, I’ll give you that,” says Sherlock, accepting the cup of tea from Q.
“Are you being stalked?” John asks, joining the other two at the window.
“That’s one way to put it.”
Sherlock groans. “You know, you could always just let him shag you—” (here, it seems like Sherlock is about to blurt out his brother’s name, catches himself just in time, rolls his eyes, and corrects himself) “—Q, and we can all go back to our lives.”
John almost chokes on his tea at the sudden and nonchalant mention of sex, but Q takes it all in a stride: he makes a mildly offended face and says, “No Sherlock, I’m not going to do that – he’s used to getting whatever he wants whenever he wants it, and I do not plan to be just another notch in his bedpost, thank you very much.”
“Well, why not? Get it out of both of your systems. It’s been, what? Three years?”
Q hums. “Three and a half years, give or take.”
“Ohforgodssake,” Sherlock groans, marching away from the window and plopping down into his chair again. “It’s just sex that he wants, so give it to him.”
“It’s not just sex,” Q insists, still peering out the window. “It’s a matter of my pride too, you know. Don’t you at least care about that?”
Sherlock makes a non-committed noise, but John catches Q grinning at his older brother.
“He does. Care, I mean,” Q says quietly, almost fondly, when he meets John’s eyes.
And for a brief moment, John can actually imagine it: Sherlock as an older brother, protecting this bespectacled little brother of his from possible bullies all throughout their lives. He’s seen enough today to know that Sherlock and Q do indeed share a different brotherly bond than the one Sherlock shares with Mycroft (Sherlock’s purple shirt for Q, the cup of tea for Sherlock, that jab about Sherlock being a genius that would incense the detective had it been someone else uttering the insult), that Older Brother Sherlock does care about this mysterious youngest Holmes brother.
And John’s got no doubts that Sherlock would deck any arsehole who’d dare hurt his little brother’s pride.
“Right. And who is this fellow, exactly?” John asks, stepping closer to the window and peering out of it. He sees no one and nothing out of the ordinary in the streets below, but Q is still gazing out the window and John tries to follow his line of sight.
“Oh, just an underling of mine,” says Q.
“What, Bob from Finance?” John tries. Q chuckles at this.
“Q works for MI6,” Sherlock chimes in helpfully – a clear sign that he’s eavesdropping.
“MI6?” John lets out a low whistle. “Well, whoever this guy is – poor bloke. Can’t imagine him facing either of your brothers if anything goes wrong.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s a stubborn field agent. I feel like he might be able to handle Sherlock and Mycroft.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Sherlock mutters from his corner of the flat.
Q beams at John.
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lol just a self-indulgent blurb of how I think John meets Q, the youngest of the four Holmes siblings!
No real plot, really. I just sort of imagined Bond tailing Q home out of curiosity (and the desire to shag lol) and Q noticing that he’s being tailed and panicking and therefore dropping by 221B Baker Street just because that’s one of the safest places he knows, only to find out via Sherlock’s deductions that he’s been tailed by an errant Double-Oh who perhaps has a crush on Q lol.
I haven’t yet come across fics where Mycroft, Sherlock, AND Eurus Holmes are related to Q. Would be nice to see how Q would react to having a sister.
It’s kind of my headcanon that Mycroft’s managed to keep Eurus a complete secret, even from Q.
I also sometimes find it funny how Q is referred to as the moniker Q so easily by both Sherlock and Mycroft. I’d imagine they’d want to naturally address him by his name, as surely they do not call him by what is basically his title/work rank on a daily basis. (Like imagine if your brother is a doctor, and he comes over for a visit, and you call him...”doctor”?? Isn’t that weird?? xD idk, it feels weird to me~) Hence that sentence up there where Sherlock almost let slip Q’s real name.
(And yes, I was referring to Sherlock’s infamous purple shirt lol)