Discoveries
So, this fic fits this prompt over at the sherlockbbc_fic comm. Mycroft/Lestrade: IT NEEDS MORE LOVE. Also, with bonus!shipper-meta afterwards AND pre-slash Sherlock/John. Watch me reel you in with good things and then make you read my ship! ;D
Discoveries
The minute he reached the crime scene, Sherlock knew that something wasn’t quite right. Actually, he could identify several things that weren’t quite right - for instance, Anderson’s inhuman levels of stupidity, the fact that the murder had, in fact, been part of a failed burglary, not an attempt to silence the informant who’d been killed, the cabbie across the street who was watching the crime scene with a little too much interest - but there was only one thing that was inexplicably wrong. Lestrade wasn’t there.
Lestrade had told Sherlock to go to the crime scene, which was in a downtown area of the city that had been rather out of Sherlock’s way, and then hadn’t shown up himself. Sherlock could tell at a glance; he didn’t even have to look around for the shorter man, or listen for his distinctive voice - just by the way all the other coppers were standing around, more relaxed and less efficient than they usually were, he knew Lestrade was absent.
Donovan was there, though, and she stepped out to greet Sherlock and John when they exited their taxi and stepped out onto the pavement. She approached them and made some scathing remark (Sherlock didn’t bother to listen); John replied in kind. Then the two of them were at it, again, John making some sort of misguided attempt to defend him - possibly seeking to justify his role in their crime-solving relationship by “bringing something to the table”, as it were, or maybe arguing with Donovan was an emotional outlet to help him deal with the stress of living with Sherlock? Sherlock had thought of several explanations for John’s odd behavior over the last few days, but, at the moment, rather than gather valuable data that would help him test his conclusions, he was instead attempting to figure out where Lestrade was - to gather data that would help him solve that riddle.
About a minute later (before Sherlock had managed to solve the Case of the Missing Detective Inspector, though), Donovan took them into the house where the crime itself had occurred, an old, three-storey, brick home that looked like it was liable to fall down at any moment. She led them up a flight of creaky stairs to the landing and indicated which room the crime had taken place in, seemingly reluctant to go back in there herself, and then left the two of them there, with one last “Freak probably gets off on it.”
Sherlock pushed through the white door she had gestured towards, John following behind him; both of them stopped short at the sight of the corpse.
“Well. That’s a lot of ... blood,” John said at last, his voice slightly too tight, looking down at the body on the floor in front of them. Clearly, whoever had killed the man lying on the ground hadn’t been worried about making a clean job of it. Blood was splattered on the walls and ceiling and floor, staining the light green carpet an ugly brown color and marring the flower-pattern of the pale green wallpaper. The window was smashed, but from the shards that remained, it looked like the window glass, too, had been covered in blood.
After a moment, Sherlock realized that it might make John feel slightly more at ease if he were to make some remark in kind; another few seconds of thought led him to reply with a noncommittal, “Yes, exactly.” John’s posture relaxed slightly, and Sherlock congratulated himself on (yet another) job done well, then turned back to the body.
A few more minutes confirmed his original hypothesis: the killing had been unpremeditated; the man (whom, he also discovered, hailed from somewhere within Greater Manchester (the small blue-and-gold Manchester City Football Club pin on his shirt revealed that), had been in a long-term relationship for the past five years (judging by his haircut), had recently been taking an art class (the distinctive ink stains under his fingernails were a giveaway), and had just come back from a vacation in Hawaii (his tan and the settings on his watch made that clear enough)) had been killed by a robber who’d planned to burglarize his home while he was out, and then had been frightened enough to kill him when the would-be thief discovered he was still home.
Sherlock stood up and dusted off his knees, about to launch into an explanation of everything he’d learned about the dead man (hopefully eliciting a few complimentary remarks from an amazed John, though John had been being stingy with praise recently, leaving Sherlock frustrated and confused about why exactly he was frustrated), when a car pulled up at the curb below. He glanced out the window and - it was one of his brother’s government cars.
He took the steps two at a time, not bothering to explain what he was doing to the gawking John whom he’d left behind (John would just eventually follow him downstairs - he always followed him, and Sherlock was just beginning to wonder why, because occasionally some things John did didn’t make sense to him, and he wanted to understand).
By the time he reached the bottom floor, the black car was pulling away, leaving a rumpled-looking Lestrade right outside the crime scene yellow tape. The detective inspector began walking towards them, and even at this distance, Sherlock could catalogue the things that were different. Lestrade had actually run a comb through his hair this morning, something he didn’t usually bother to do, and he had shaved within the last two days. He even looked less sleep-deprived than he usually did. Something was going on, and Sherlock was absolutely sure there was some connection between Lestrade’s “new look” and Mycroft, because when Sherlock’s brother got involved in things he tended to meddle rather distressingly.
“What’s wrong?” John asked, slightly out of breath from racing down the stairs after Sherlock.
“Why would you assume something is wrong?” Sherlock asked, turning to look at the other man.
“You’ve got that face on - the one that says something’s bothering you and you’re trying to deduct what it - trying to deduce it.”
“Lestrade is nine minutes late,” Sherlock said after a moment, opting not to reveal that his brother was somehow involved, because John tended to bristle and mumble about “some people having a bit of a strange family” whenever Sherlock brought up his brother. Apparently, John hadn’t enjoyed Mycroft’s surprise kidnapping, and, for some reason, he blamed Sherlock for it.
“Hmm,” John said, and Sherlock wondered what possible reason John could have for saying something so intentionally vague, conveniently forgetting that he had done the same thing himself only a few minutes ago. Having a selective memory was useful.
Lestrade’s being late, though, was a rare occurrence, because Lestrade was usually at the scene of a crime ten minutes before everyone else and he usually left ten minutes after everyone else, because someone had once told him that he could do anything if he applied himself and he had managed to convince himself that this piece of advice meant that he could solve crimes despite his intellectual handicaps (i.e. not being half as clever as Sherlock himself) if he were only to be the most determined copper there was. Which, in point of fact, seemed to work out for him generally, at least according to the records from the police station Sherlock had read (possibly after filching) - except for during those cases which required a genius, when Sherlock could solve everything in ten minutes and Lestrade was left glaring at the body and trying to make two and two add up to five. So it was rather unusual that he was late. Sherlock was about to explain this all to John, possibly along with some choice epithets for whoever had taught Lestrade how to be a detective, when Lestrade himself cleared his throat behind Sherlock.
“So, what have you got for me?” Lestrade asked, and then sighed, seeing the light in Sherlock’s eyes. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you.”
“That would be a correct assumption, yes,” Sherlock said, and then proceeded to explain why the murder definitely hadn’t been a killing intended to silence the victim, who’d been a police informant, but a burglary-gone-wrong. He was particularly pleased to see Anderson glowering out of the corner of his eye during the explanation - he’d be willing to bet significant amounts of money that Anderson had been the person to suggest it was a revenge- or silence-killing, because Anderson was always the one who had the stupid ideas.
When he had finished, Lestrade sighed. “All right. Got anything to go on about the killer, then?”
“I’d imagine it would be that cabby over there,” Sherlock said, indicating the man standing by the black taxi on the other side of the street with a nod of his head. “He’s been watching the police’s actions over here with particular interest since before you showed up.” And that would be the perfect segue to demand that Lestrade tell him what he’d been doing with his brother (because it was his brother, dammit, and it was driving him insane not to know what was going on), but Lestrade was already discreetly calling his men over to inform them in low voices that they were to proceed over to that taxi driver on the other side of the street in a casual fashion and arrest him, and John was tugging on Sherlock’s sleeve in a very recognizable let’s-get-out-of-here-now,-I’ve-been-involved-in-too-many-dangerous-situations-already-this-month gesture, and Sherlock had to resign himself to not knowing exactly what was going on until later. He followed John away from the crime scene; before they’d walked a minute, they could hear shouting behind them, but they both ignored it and continued on home.
“So, could you tell who the lucky person was?” John asked, after a few more minutes of silence. “That was the one bit I couldn’t quite figure out ...”
Sherlock frowned. “What are you talking about?”
John turned his head to look at him as they paused at a crosswalk, waiting for a light to change. “You mean you didn’t notice?” he asked incredulously.
“Didn’t notice what?” Sherlock demanded as they walked across the street.
“You mean you ...” John began to smile, the crow’s-feet by his eyes crinkling up in a manner Sherlock found rather pleasant. “It was obvious as anything. Sherlock, sometimes -”
Sherlock scowled. There had been a distinct lack of compliments and adoration earlier when he’d revealed everything he had deduced about the victim to Lestrade, and now John compounded it with direct insults. “Yes, what did I miss?”
“Lestrade’s got himself a girlfriend - or, well, a boyfriend, if he’s so inclined,” John said, and Sherlock felt everything fall into place all of a sudden.
Mycroft had been unusually amiable in his recent texts, almost genial. Lestrade had been practicing some form of actual grooming lately. Lestrade had shown up in one of Mycroft’s cars, which meant ... Which meant Sherlock was putting two and two together and getting a four that looked so unlike any other four he had ever seen in the entire universe that he wondered if it wasn’t really a letter, or perhaps a shape, or maybe even some sort of animal - an octopus, squid-y thing - not a number.
John, Sherlock realized after a moment, was calling his name. “... Sherlock? Sherlock? Sherlock, is there something -?”
“No, it’s - it’s not a problem,” Sherlock said tightly. “I just - nothing.”
They continued their walk back to the flat in companionable silence, their feet making the leaves on the streets of the autumnal city crackle like so much colorful, dry paper when they stepped on the pavement. They reached home before Sherlock realized that John had made him forget about catching a taxi (John had been trying to wean Sherlock from his habit of riding taxis everywhere lately, because he said the exercise was good for him, and also possibly because long taxi rides were expensive) and that they didn’t have anything for dinner. He pointed this last fact out rather expectantly, and, after a moment, John sighed and said that he would go get Chinese takeaway and he’d be back in a few minutes.
The instant he reached the second floor flat, Sherlock pulled out his mobile and began typing out a text to his brother. After a moment, he shook his head, deleted it, and then tried again. Seventeen minutes later, when he heard John open the door, he decided to just send off the form of the message he had now to his brother, and poked the send button, then fell down on the sofa dramatically, so that he was reclining there when John entered the room bearing food.
“Have received information indicating you are involved with DI Lestrade. Confirm/deny? SH” his text had read.
A few moments later, he received a return text; he managed to check his phone covertly while John was in the kitchen. For some reason (possibly because it was his brother and DI Lestrade involved in some sort of illicit relationship), he was hesitant about telling John about all this.
“You should have been able to solve the case today just by seeing the outside of the house - you didn’t really need to see the victim, did you? Mycroft Holmes.” his brother’s text read.
“You would know, then, seeing as you saw it from car. SH” Sherlock sent back.
“Are you doing something, Sherlock?” John called from the kitchen.
“No,” Sherlock began, and then realized that John was going to try to rope him into helping warm up the food/clean plates, glasses, and utensils of whatever was growing on them so that they could be used for dinner/locate condiments in the fridge or on the counters and amended that to, “I mean yes, I’m very busy.”
He could practically feel John’s glare, but he ignored it in favor of his phone - and sure enough, less than a minute later, another message from his brother popped up: “Of course. Mycroft Holmes.”
He thought for a moment, and then, the beeping of the microwave indicating that John was about to be done reheating food and was going to come back into the room, typed a quick text and sent it to his brother before pocketing his phone.
“For everything you say about John, at least I didn’t have to abduct him with a government car to facilitate any sort of relationship. SH”
As he ate Chinese takeaway with John and ignored the multiple annoyed text messages Mycroft was sending his way, Sherlock found himself grinning unconsciously. It was always nice when he figured out things he could hold over his brother’s head. He remembered being eight and figuring out that his then-fifteen year-old brother fancied the girl who lived next door and how fun that had be, and then considered how amusing this was going to be, seeing as Mycroft was now also the British government and had even more of an ego now than he’d had back then. This was going to be excellent.
And now, the promised shipper-meta:
So, why would I possibly slash Mycroft/Lestrade, two people who haven’t (yet) met in canon and don’t, at first glance, seem particularly compatible?
Well, I’ve two main reasons, if you want to bear with me and listen. ;D
First off (and more shallowly), they’re both just awesome ;D Lestrade is awesome. Mycroft is awesome. ;D Two awesome things together: it just makes sense. ;D It’s like peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (though actually, I don’t really like peanut butter (shh! Don’t tell!), so maybe that isn’t the greatest metaphor ;D).
The second reason is slightly more complicated, I think, and I’m probably going to verbalize it badly, but here goes. I’m going to assume that a lot of you reading this ship Sherlock/John, seeing as that was one of the background ships in the fic and tends to be quite common in fandom, so y’all probably understand the shipping dynamic there, amirite? (And there I go again with the “y’all”. I’m from New England, I promise! It’s just that English lacks a proper second person plural pronoun, darn it. ;D) It’s sort of ordinary-person-who-is-somewhat-impressed-with-extraordinary-person-but-can-also-ground-the-extraordinary-person-and-understands-emotional-social-dynamics-well/extraordinary-person-who-is-extrememly-clever-and-therefore-powerful-but-doesn’t-really-understand-social-emotional-dynamics-well. And I see Mycroft/Lestrade as being sort of another permutation of that, with Mycroft playing Sherlock’s role and Lestrade playing John’s. Only there are some differences - Mycroft being much better at social dynamics (I mean, he’d have to be able to understand people, to attain his role as the British government), Lestrade being slightly more determined/dependable than John (he’s a policeman, without the whole inverse-PTSD thing John has), Mycroft having more power than Sherlock does (at least on a visible, quantifiable level), both of them being quite responsible, both being less obviously twisted/screwed-up then Sherlock and John are - and, for me, those make the ship interesting.
Also, come on. Don’t you want to see Mycroft being all protective about Lestrade, too? Because protective!Mycroft rocks. ;D And Lestrade occasionally needs someone to look out for him - to make sure he doesn’t get all the really ugly serial-murderer-who-kills-puppies-and-small-children cases. ;D
And then you think about it from Sherlock’s POV, and he now has something else to tease his brother about. Younger siblings always need that sort of thing. ;D
So, in conclusion: Mycroft/Lestrade - the PB&J sandwich of the Sherlock fandom!
EDIT: Have fixed the Man U-referenfce to being about Manchester City. Thanks to pudupudu for the Britpick/heads-up! ;D
Discoveries
The minute he reached the crime scene, Sherlock knew that something wasn’t quite right. Actually, he could identify several things that weren’t quite right - for instance, Anderson’s inhuman levels of stupidity, the fact that the murder had, in fact, been part of a failed burglary, not an attempt to silence the informant who’d been killed, the cabbie across the street who was watching the crime scene with a little too much interest - but there was only one thing that was inexplicably wrong. Lestrade wasn’t there.
Lestrade had told Sherlock to go to the crime scene, which was in a downtown area of the city that had been rather out of Sherlock’s way, and then hadn’t shown up himself. Sherlock could tell at a glance; he didn’t even have to look around for the shorter man, or listen for his distinctive voice - just by the way all the other coppers were standing around, more relaxed and less efficient than they usually were, he knew Lestrade was absent.
Donovan was there, though, and she stepped out to greet Sherlock and John when they exited their taxi and stepped out onto the pavement. She approached them and made some scathing remark (Sherlock didn’t bother to listen); John replied in kind. Then the two of them were at it, again, John making some sort of misguided attempt to defend him - possibly seeking to justify his role in their crime-solving relationship by “bringing something to the table”, as it were, or maybe arguing with Donovan was an emotional outlet to help him deal with the stress of living with Sherlock? Sherlock had thought of several explanations for John’s odd behavior over the last few days, but, at the moment, rather than gather valuable data that would help him test his conclusions, he was instead attempting to figure out where Lestrade was - to gather data that would help him solve that riddle.
About a minute later (before Sherlock had managed to solve the Case of the Missing Detective Inspector, though), Donovan took them into the house where the crime itself had occurred, an old, three-storey, brick home that looked like it was liable to fall down at any moment. She led them up a flight of creaky stairs to the landing and indicated which room the crime had taken place in, seemingly reluctant to go back in there herself, and then left the two of them there, with one last “Freak probably gets off on it.”
Sherlock pushed through the white door she had gestured towards, John following behind him; both of them stopped short at the sight of the corpse.
“Well. That’s a lot of ... blood,” John said at last, his voice slightly too tight, looking down at the body on the floor in front of them. Clearly, whoever had killed the man lying on the ground hadn’t been worried about making a clean job of it. Blood was splattered on the walls and ceiling and floor, staining the light green carpet an ugly brown color and marring the flower-pattern of the pale green wallpaper. The window was smashed, but from the shards that remained, it looked like the window glass, too, had been covered in blood.
After a moment, Sherlock realized that it might make John feel slightly more at ease if he were to make some remark in kind; another few seconds of thought led him to reply with a noncommittal, “Yes, exactly.” John’s posture relaxed slightly, and Sherlock congratulated himself on (yet another) job done well, then turned back to the body.
A few more minutes confirmed his original hypothesis: the killing had been unpremeditated; the man (whom, he also discovered, hailed from somewhere within Greater Manchester (the small blue-and-gold Manchester City Football Club pin on his shirt revealed that), had been in a long-term relationship for the past five years (judging by his haircut), had recently been taking an art class (the distinctive ink stains under his fingernails were a giveaway), and had just come back from a vacation in Hawaii (his tan and the settings on his watch made that clear enough)) had been killed by a robber who’d planned to burglarize his home while he was out, and then had been frightened enough to kill him when the would-be thief discovered he was still home.
Sherlock stood up and dusted off his knees, about to launch into an explanation of everything he’d learned about the dead man (hopefully eliciting a few complimentary remarks from an amazed John, though John had been being stingy with praise recently, leaving Sherlock frustrated and confused about why exactly he was frustrated), when a car pulled up at the curb below. He glanced out the window and - it was one of his brother’s government cars.
He took the steps two at a time, not bothering to explain what he was doing to the gawking John whom he’d left behind (John would just eventually follow him downstairs - he always followed him, and Sherlock was just beginning to wonder why, because occasionally some things John did didn’t make sense to him, and he wanted to understand).
By the time he reached the bottom floor, the black car was pulling away, leaving a rumpled-looking Lestrade right outside the crime scene yellow tape. The detective inspector began walking towards them, and even at this distance, Sherlock could catalogue the things that were different. Lestrade had actually run a comb through his hair this morning, something he didn’t usually bother to do, and he had shaved within the last two days. He even looked less sleep-deprived than he usually did. Something was going on, and Sherlock was absolutely sure there was some connection between Lestrade’s “new look” and Mycroft, because when Sherlock’s brother got involved in things he tended to meddle rather distressingly.
“What’s wrong?” John asked, slightly out of breath from racing down the stairs after Sherlock.
“Why would you assume something is wrong?” Sherlock asked, turning to look at the other man.
“You’ve got that face on - the one that says something’s bothering you and you’re trying to deduct what it - trying to deduce it.”
“Lestrade is nine minutes late,” Sherlock said after a moment, opting not to reveal that his brother was somehow involved, because John tended to bristle and mumble about “some people having a bit of a strange family” whenever Sherlock brought up his brother. Apparently, John hadn’t enjoyed Mycroft’s surprise kidnapping, and, for some reason, he blamed Sherlock for it.
“Hmm,” John said, and Sherlock wondered what possible reason John could have for saying something so intentionally vague, conveniently forgetting that he had done the same thing himself only a few minutes ago. Having a selective memory was useful.
Lestrade’s being late, though, was a rare occurrence, because Lestrade was usually at the scene of a crime ten minutes before everyone else and he usually left ten minutes after everyone else, because someone had once told him that he could do anything if he applied himself and he had managed to convince himself that this piece of advice meant that he could solve crimes despite his intellectual handicaps (i.e. not being half as clever as Sherlock himself) if he were only to be the most determined copper there was. Which, in point of fact, seemed to work out for him generally, at least according to the records from the police station Sherlock had read (possibly after filching) - except for during those cases which required a genius, when Sherlock could solve everything in ten minutes and Lestrade was left glaring at the body and trying to make two and two add up to five. So it was rather unusual that he was late. Sherlock was about to explain this all to John, possibly along with some choice epithets for whoever had taught Lestrade how to be a detective, when Lestrade himself cleared his throat behind Sherlock.
“So, what have you got for me?” Lestrade asked, and then sighed, seeing the light in Sherlock’s eyes. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you.”
“That would be a correct assumption, yes,” Sherlock said, and then proceeded to explain why the murder definitely hadn’t been a killing intended to silence the victim, who’d been a police informant, but a burglary-gone-wrong. He was particularly pleased to see Anderson glowering out of the corner of his eye during the explanation - he’d be willing to bet significant amounts of money that Anderson had been the person to suggest it was a revenge- or silence-killing, because Anderson was always the one who had the stupid ideas.
When he had finished, Lestrade sighed. “All right. Got anything to go on about the killer, then?”
“I’d imagine it would be that cabby over there,” Sherlock said, indicating the man standing by the black taxi on the other side of the street with a nod of his head. “He’s been watching the police’s actions over here with particular interest since before you showed up.” And that would be the perfect segue to demand that Lestrade tell him what he’d been doing with his brother (because it was his brother, dammit, and it was driving him insane not to know what was going on), but Lestrade was already discreetly calling his men over to inform them in low voices that they were to proceed over to that taxi driver on the other side of the street in a casual fashion and arrest him, and John was tugging on Sherlock’s sleeve in a very recognizable let’s-get-out-of-here-now,-I’ve-been-involved-in-too-many-dangerous-situations-already-this-month gesture, and Sherlock had to resign himself to not knowing exactly what was going on until later. He followed John away from the crime scene; before they’d walked a minute, they could hear shouting behind them, but they both ignored it and continued on home.
“So, could you tell who the lucky person was?” John asked, after a few more minutes of silence. “That was the one bit I couldn’t quite figure out ...”
Sherlock frowned. “What are you talking about?”
John turned his head to look at him as they paused at a crosswalk, waiting for a light to change. “You mean you didn’t notice?” he asked incredulously.
“Didn’t notice what?” Sherlock demanded as they walked across the street.
“You mean you ...” John began to smile, the crow’s-feet by his eyes crinkling up in a manner Sherlock found rather pleasant. “It was obvious as anything. Sherlock, sometimes -”
Sherlock scowled. There had been a distinct lack of compliments and adoration earlier when he’d revealed everything he had deduced about the victim to Lestrade, and now John compounded it with direct insults. “Yes, what did I miss?”
“Lestrade’s got himself a girlfriend - or, well, a boyfriend, if he’s so inclined,” John said, and Sherlock felt everything fall into place all of a sudden.
Mycroft had been unusually amiable in his recent texts, almost genial. Lestrade had been practicing some form of actual grooming lately. Lestrade had shown up in one of Mycroft’s cars, which meant ... Which meant Sherlock was putting two and two together and getting a four that looked so unlike any other four he had ever seen in the entire universe that he wondered if it wasn’t really a letter, or perhaps a shape, or maybe even some sort of animal - an octopus, squid-y thing - not a number.
John, Sherlock realized after a moment, was calling his name. “... Sherlock? Sherlock? Sherlock, is there something -?”
“No, it’s - it’s not a problem,” Sherlock said tightly. “I just - nothing.”
They continued their walk back to the flat in companionable silence, their feet making the leaves on the streets of the autumnal city crackle like so much colorful, dry paper when they stepped on the pavement. They reached home before Sherlock realized that John had made him forget about catching a taxi (John had been trying to wean Sherlock from his habit of riding taxis everywhere lately, because he said the exercise was good for him, and also possibly because long taxi rides were expensive) and that they didn’t have anything for dinner. He pointed this last fact out rather expectantly, and, after a moment, John sighed and said that he would go get Chinese takeaway and he’d be back in a few minutes.
The instant he reached the second floor flat, Sherlock pulled out his mobile and began typing out a text to his brother. After a moment, he shook his head, deleted it, and then tried again. Seventeen minutes later, when he heard John open the door, he decided to just send off the form of the message he had now to his brother, and poked the send button, then fell down on the sofa dramatically, so that he was reclining there when John entered the room bearing food.
“Have received information indicating you are involved with DI Lestrade. Confirm/deny? SH” his text had read.
A few moments later, he received a return text; he managed to check his phone covertly while John was in the kitchen. For some reason (possibly because it was his brother and DI Lestrade involved in some sort of illicit relationship), he was hesitant about telling John about all this.
“You should have been able to solve the case today just by seeing the outside of the house - you didn’t really need to see the victim, did you? Mycroft Holmes.” his brother’s text read.
“You would know, then, seeing as you saw it from car. SH” Sherlock sent back.
“Are you doing something, Sherlock?” John called from the kitchen.
“No,” Sherlock began, and then realized that John was going to try to rope him into helping warm up the food/clean plates, glasses, and utensils of whatever was growing on them so that they could be used for dinner/locate condiments in the fridge or on the counters and amended that to, “I mean yes, I’m very busy.”
He could practically feel John’s glare, but he ignored it in favor of his phone - and sure enough, less than a minute later, another message from his brother popped up: “Of course. Mycroft Holmes.”
He thought for a moment, and then, the beeping of the microwave indicating that John was about to be done reheating food and was going to come back into the room, typed a quick text and sent it to his brother before pocketing his phone.
“For everything you say about John, at least I didn’t have to abduct him with a government car to facilitate any sort of relationship. SH”
As he ate Chinese takeaway with John and ignored the multiple annoyed text messages Mycroft was sending his way, Sherlock found himself grinning unconsciously. It was always nice when he figured out things he could hold over his brother’s head. He remembered being eight and figuring out that his then-fifteen year-old brother fancied the girl who lived next door and how fun that had be, and then considered how amusing this was going to be, seeing as Mycroft was now also the British government and had even more of an ego now than he’d had back then. This was going to be excellent.
And now, the promised shipper-meta:
So, why would I possibly slash Mycroft/Lestrade, two people who haven’t (yet) met in canon and don’t, at first glance, seem particularly compatible?
Well, I’ve two main reasons, if you want to bear with me and listen. ;D
First off (and more shallowly), they’re both just awesome ;D Lestrade is awesome. Mycroft is awesome. ;D Two awesome things together: it just makes sense. ;D It’s like peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (though actually, I don’t really like peanut butter (shh! Don’t tell!), so maybe that isn’t the greatest metaphor ;D).
The second reason is slightly more complicated, I think, and I’m probably going to verbalize it badly, but here goes. I’m going to assume that a lot of you reading this ship Sherlock/John, seeing as that was one of the background ships in the fic and tends to be quite common in fandom, so y’all probably understand the shipping dynamic there, amirite? (And there I go again with the “y’all”. I’m from New England, I promise! It’s just that English lacks a proper second person plural pronoun, darn it. ;D) It’s sort of ordinary-person-who-is-somewhat-impressed-with-extraordinary-person-but-can-also-ground-the-extraordinary-person-and-understands-emotional-social-dynamics-well/extraordinary-person-who-is-extrememly-clever-and-therefore-powerful-but-doesn’t-really-understand-social-emotional-dynamics-well. And I see Mycroft/Lestrade as being sort of another permutation of that, with Mycroft playing Sherlock’s role and Lestrade playing John’s. Only there are some differences - Mycroft being much better at social dynamics (I mean, he’d have to be able to understand people, to attain his role as the British government), Lestrade being slightly more determined/dependable than John (he’s a policeman, without the whole inverse-PTSD thing John has), Mycroft having more power than Sherlock does (at least on a visible, quantifiable level), both of them being quite responsible, both being less obviously twisted/screwed-up then Sherlock and John are - and, for me, those make the ship interesting.
Also, come on. Don’t you want to see Mycroft being all protective about Lestrade, too? Because protective!Mycroft rocks. ;D And Lestrade occasionally needs someone to look out for him - to make sure he doesn’t get all the really ugly serial-murderer-who-kills-puppies-and-small-children cases. ;D
And then you think about it from Sherlock’s POV, and he now has something else to tease his brother about. Younger siblings always need that sort of thing. ;D
So, in conclusion: Mycroft/Lestrade - the PB&J sandwich of the Sherlock fandom!
EDIT: Have fixed the Man U-referenfce to being about Manchester City. Thanks to pudupudu for the Britpick/heads-up! ;D