Mycroft vs Harry

[solrosan]

Note: Written for this prompt at the kink meme. Apparently I can't get enough of dysfunctional sibling relations.

Summary: Sherlock meets Harry for the first time and realises both how lucky he is to have brother who cares for him (even if in his own way) and what it must be like to have himself as a brother.

Quick-beta-thanks goes to ascendant_angel, I really appreciate it :)

***
“Just go down and talk to him,” John sighed when he came back from the kitchen after throwing away a perfectly good mould cultivation, stating that he could write them prescriptions for antibiotics if they needed it.  
 
“Hm….No,” Sherlock answered from his horizontal position on the sofa. He most certainly wasn’t going to go downstairs and speak to Mycroft. If something was so very important, his brother could move his fat arse up the stairs himself.
 
“You know he’s more stubborn than you,” John reminded him.
 
“One can afford to be so if one employs a legion of errand boys – and girls – to do the tedious waiting,” Sherlock said with disinterest.
 
“So why not give up now?” John asked despondent.
 
“It costs him more money this way,” Sherlock explained.
 
“He just wants to know you’re all right,” John tired, placing himself next to the sofa, crossing his arms over his chest.
 
“He knows I’m fine,” Sherlock snorted, “He had lackeys lingering at the hospital the whole time. If he doesn’t know he’s an imbecile.”
 
“Go. Down. Now.” John said in a stern voice, “He’s worried.”
 
“Are you sure you’re not on his payroll?” Sherlock frowned; he really didn’t need this from John. John had no idea how Mycroft was or what it was like to grew up with a brother that constantly interfered and intervened; watching over him like a hawk.
 
“Positive.” John said, “Go.”
 
“You should ask for a raise,” Sherlock muttered and got off the sofa, glaring at John every step of the way out the door. John didn’t know how lucky he was; Sherlock and Mycroft didn’t get along any better than he could imagine John and Harry did, but Harry stayed out of John’s life. Sherlock wished Mycroft was more like Harry.
 
***
John slammed the door to 221 B Baker Street and marched up the stairs, trying to break every step as he did. The door to the sitting-room was open, as always, but that didn’t stop John from slamming it shut. Twice.
 
“Sorry Mrs Hudson,” John yelled out the door when he opened it again after taking a deep breath. The answer, however, came from inside the sitting-room and it wasn't Mrs Hudson who provided it.
 
“She's out with Mr Graham,” Sherlock informed from behind his computer.
 
“Twice in one week?” John sounded surprised and a slightly confused smile brushed over his face, “Good for her.”
 
“They're not sleeping together,” Sherlock informed him and looked up at John who shrugged, apparently taking Sherlock’s word for him. Wise. What was it with people always assuming sex in every possible situation?
 
“Tea?” John asked, taking off his jacket and heading for the kitchen.
 
“We're out,” Sherlock informed him and turned back to the computer, “Why the door-slamming?”
 
John said some well-chosen words about the tea and fell down in the armchair instead.
 
“Isn't it 'obvious'?” he asked, sounding so clearly annoyed it made Sherlock look up with a frown.
 
“Sorry....” John sighed, “Just...bad, bad night. Really don't want to talk about it...so just...deduce it yourself and I promise to correct you if you're awfully off.”
 
“I'm never awfully off,” Sherlock said, a bit insulted, but he still accepted the challenge and put his fingertips together in front of his lips, scrutinising John. John closed his eyes so he didn't have to see it.
 
Sherlock did already know the most basic parts of John’s evening; John had left the flat around five to pick up his sister since they had dinner reservations at seven. Since it now was just after eight (and taking the door-slamming into account) one didn’t need to be a Holmes to figure out that the dinner hadn’t been a huge success.
 
Before Sherlock got the chance to retell the rest of John’s evening a phone rang (David Bowie and not the London Symphony Orchestra, so John's). John made a terrible face when he saw the name on the screen but didn’t do anything about it. He just placed the phone on the side table and let it ring out. The phone rang again not even a minute later and John glared at it during the duration of the ringing before picking it up and turning it off. Then he seemed to feel guilty and turned it on again, muting the sound and hiding it in his pocket instead. Sherlock watched everything with great interest.
 
“Why do you leave it on if you’re not planning on picking it up?” Sherlock asked, lowering his hands and ending the deduction. Not because he was done, but because it apparently wasn’t the time.
 
“I….” John shook his head, “I’ve heard enough drunken apologises to last lifetime…but I’m the only family she has; I can’t turn my phone off. Divorces are hard.”
 
Sherlock didn’t really comprehend, but he was fairly sure John didn’t suggest that he was physically incapable of turning the phone off. So he nodded slightly and they both went silent after that, the room only disturbed by the buzzing in John’s pocket, but even that died out before Sherlock was done answering his mail.
 
Then, just as John had decided to turn on the telly, it buzzed again.
 
“Damn,” John muttered, “It’s Clara….”
 
He disappeared to the kitchen and returned minutes later, putting on his jacket with a sigh.
 
“Going out again?” Sherlock wondered rhetorically. Obviously John was going out; the flat wasn’t draughty or cold.
 
“She’s at Clara’s,” John muttered, “It’s…I….”
 
“Will it help her?” Sherlock wondered.
 
“No, but Clara,” John forced a smile and finished zipping the jacket.
 
“Do you want company?”
 
John looked utterly confused, Sherlock guessed it was understandable since he rarely did things without gaining something, but John really looked like he didn’t want to be alone.
 
“Er…yea sure…but ehm….It’s not like it’s something to figure out,” John said, “And I’d like to leave right now.”
 
“I’m ready,” Sherlock said, closing the computer and snatching his coat and scarf before walking down the stairs before John had even reacted.
 
“Put those on,” John muttered, eying the coat and scarf that Sherlock still just had over his arm as he flagged down a taxi, “You’re going to catch a cold.”
 
“Yes doctor,” Sherlock smirked and obeyed as a car stopped next to them. As the gentleman Sherlock was raised to be he opened the door for John; though John wasn’t even close to the person Sherlock was supposed to open the doors for. “Happy now?”
 
“No,” John got into the car, “but that has nothing to do with you.”
 
Sherlock said nothing during the cab ride over to Clara’s. Instead he continued his deduction about John’s evening with Harry. There wasn’t anything amazing to find out that he didn’t already know though. But John had ordered salmon. And Harry’s drink of choice seemed to be red wine. Unpractical, since most people got tired from drinking wine, on the other hand many women claimed to also get horny. Maybe that’s why she was at Clara’s now?
 
He wasn’t going to share that with John.
 
After almost half an hour of intense silence they reached a street with small, old townhouses on either side. Most of the gardens looked well-kept, but the houses seemed rather forgotten. Sherlock watched them pass slowly in the light of the street lamps. Getting along or not, Sherlock could not see John living here with his sister and her wife.
 
When the cab stopped, John hesitated for a second before opening the door.
 
“She wasn’t always like this,” he said, not looking at Sherlock, and then he stepped out of the vehicle. Sherlock lingered for a moment, paying the driver and pondering over what John had meant by his statement.
 
John had already rung the doorbell when Sherlock caught up with him. John looked tense and it surprised Sherlock to see that he was standing at ease. Or at least a civilian parody of the pose. He looked so determined.
 
The red curtain covering the small door-window was pulled aside the slightest and Sherlock could see a glimpse of a blond woman before the locks were turned and the door opened. The blond woman (it had to be Clara, there were no family resemblance to John) had obviously been crying judging by her red eyes and smeared makeup. John took a harsh breath as light came flooding out of the house.
 
“I’m sorry John,” Clara said still sobbing, “I just didn’t know what to do.”
 
“It’s fine,” John said, Sherlock almost believed him, “Was my fault this time….Is she still here?”
 
“No,” Clara shook her head, “She left some five minutes ago, I tried to call but you didn’t answer.”
 
“It’s fine….” John repeated and this time Sherlock really didn’t believe him, but the suppressed anger and frustration didn’t seem to be directed at Clara. “Guess I still have the sound off.”
 
“I’m so sorry,” Clara said again, wrapping her arms around her.
 
“Hey…don’t worry about it,” John finally lost most of the tension in his body and moved forward to place a comforting hand on Clara’s shoulder, “Did she do anything?”
 
“No…she was just….”
 
“Harry.” John finished the sentence for his former sister-in-law with a sigh, “Did you see which way she went?”
 
“No, but up the main road to get a cab I guess.”
 
“So we passed her then,” it sounded like John had to swallow some profanities before he found himself again, “I’m sorry….Clara, this is Sherlock Holmes.”
 
“The man you’re not sleeping with,” Clara said with a half-embarrassed smile and held out her hand. Sherlock took it.
 
“Yea, that one,” John said in a tone of voice that Sherlock couldn’t transcribe, “Sherlock, this is Clara Watson – is it still?”
 
“Yea, soon Shaw again though,” Clara forced a smile and John squeezed her should lightly with the same forced smile. Sherlock realised that he had been spot on when he had deduced that John had liked Harry’s wife and really not liked the drinking.
 
“Pleasure,” Sherlock nodded and let go of Clara’s hand.
 
“I call you to tell you….” John said to Clara and even though the sentence wasn’t complete she seemed to know what it was about. They had done this before.
 
“Thank you,” Clara said and forced yet another smile, “I’m sorry….”
 
John shook his head and the door closed. The tension grabbed hold of John’s body again and without a word he turned and started walking out to the street again. Sherlock had to put some extra length in his strides to keep up even though his natural stride was wider than John’s.
 
“You don’t have to come along,” John muttered, hands in his pockets, eyes on the pavement.
 
“You’re never going to find her staring at the ground like that,” Sherlock pointed out and John gave him a short look.
 
“Maybe that’s the point?”
 
“Is it?”
 
“She wasn’t always like this.” John repeated his statement from the cab and looked up, obviously accepting Sherlock’s observation that it would be easier to find Harry if he didn’t watch for cracks in the asphalt.
 
“You said you’d never gotten along,” Sherlock pointed out.
 
“She’s my older sister, course we never have,” John muttered, “She was busy coming out and getting into trouble, I was busy getting through school….But she wasn’t always like this.”
 
They reached the main road and it didn’t take John long before he spotted Harry. Sherlock did the same some moments later; in his defence, he was at a disadvantage since he had never seen John’s sister before. It was obvious that they were siblings though; they had similar colours and, of course Harry’s were much more feminine, they had a lot of similar features around the eyes and nose. Not around the mouth.
 
The mouth did other things to prove relations though.
 
“What are you doing here?” Harry wondered loudly and lowered the hand she’d tried to wave down a cab with.
 
“Shut up,” John told her and took over the attempts to get at taxi, “I’m taking you home.”
 
“This is none of your business!” Harry claimed and tried to make him lower his hand. It didn’t work.
 
“When Clara calls me crying it becomes my bloody business,” John informed her, “Sherlock can you get a cab?”
 
“She called you?” Harry sounded honestly upset by this, “That whore!”
 
“Harriet Watson!”
 
“You’re taking her side?” Harry yelled as Sherlock did his best to get a taxi for all three of them.
 
“In this?” John did a big gesture with both arms as if he was indicating the whole world, “You know bloody well I do!”
 
“Perfect! She can get you in the settlement then!”
 
Sherlock watched the siblings bicker – or argue or fight or whatever word fitted – and he felt a bit uncomfortable. John looked, and sounded, so angry and at the same time there was the same aura of desperate frustration surrounding him as when he had slammed the door at 221 b earlier tonight. Harry just seemed angry and drunk.
 
Finally a cab pulled up to the side of the road.
 
“John….” Sherlock tried to some attention, “John!”
 
“Yes. Thank you.” John yelled, “Harry, get in the cab!”
 
“No way!”
 
“Fuck you!” John took her by her upper arm and tried to get her into the cab, “You tried to get a cab, we got you one, now get in the freaking car!”
 
“I hate you,” Harry snorted, but she still stepped into the cab. Sherlock held the door opened for her.
 
“I hate you too!” John informed her and gave Sherlock a very apologetic frown. Then he asked with a look and a nod if they should get in the same cab or try to get another one. Sherlock answered by getting into the cab himself, not because he was thrilled about the fact of sharing a cab with Harry, but he was pretty sure John wanted to keep an eye on her.
 
“It’d been better if you’d just died in Afghanistan,” Harry stated just as John followed Sherlock into the car. Sherlock could see how much that hurt John but he also saw that he tried his best to not show it. Ergo: Sherlock should pretend not to see it.
 
“I think so too,” John said with a sigh and fell down into the seat, then he leaned forward, giving the driver Harry’s address.
 
“Why do you have to butt in all the time?” Harry wondered, leaning over Sherlock who found himself in the middle of the two arguing Watson’s. That was not well planed at all.
 
“Why do you constantly do things I need to butt in to?” John hissed back, also leaning over Sherlock.
 
“Out of my face,” Harry snarled, “Your breath stinks!”
 
“You didn’t call me Johnny Rotten all through school for nothing, did you?”
 
“Don’t flatter yourself, it was Rotten Johnny, and you know it,” Harry snorted, “Little, stinky, rotten Johnny.”
 
They continued to bicker until the taxi stopped outside Harry’s. Then they went on for a moment about who would pay the fare; for the sake of getting out the car a little faster, Sherlock paid. It wasn’t before they all stepped out and the cab drove off Sherlock realised that he and John would have needed it to get back to Baker street.
 
Staring after the cab, he had missed some parts of the Watson-show so Sherlock had no idea how it could have gone from Harry calling John an ass-kisser with a god complex to John almost carrying his crying older sister through the front door.
 
So this had been….
 
It didn’t feel like Sherlock’s place to follow this time (if it had ever been) and he tried to get a new cab while John took care of his sister. Sherlock’s task took much less time than John’s and when John came out he was already on the phone with Clara. John didn’t come near the cab before he had finished the conversation; obviously didn’t want Sherlock to get any more insight in this part of his life.
 
“Did you pay the last one?” John asked as he more or less collapsed into the back seat.
 
“Yes, don’t worry about it,” Sherlock dismissed the conversation topic but instead watched John intensely.
 
“I can’t possible see what would be left to deduce,” John said tired and closed his eyes.
 
He couldn’t be more wrong. All of a sudden everything was new; the scattered parts of information Sherlock had gotten from the phone their first night together were nothing compared to what he had seen tonight.
 
Sherlock took John’s word for it when he said he and Harry had never gotten along; there had been nothing to contradict that tonight, but Sherlock had become very sure that John and his soon-to-be former sister-in-law had gotten along quite well. John was sad to see her leave the family, maybe even had a hard time letting her go – something that would annoy any sibling. Maybe Clara had been the first, trembling step John and Harry had taken to build a proper relationship on? That would indeed be sad to loose.
 
Did John really think that it would have been better if he’d died in Afghanistan? No, surely he didn’t. Sherlock didn’t even want to linger at that thought.
 
“You don’t have bad breath,” Sherlock said.
 
“And Mycroft isn’t fat,” John said weary, opening his eyes again, “It’s just childish nonsense. You, if anyone, should recognise it.”
 
Sherlock wanted to snort; calling Mycroft fat wasn’t even close to the things Harry had blustered out tonight. Good thing John didn’t take it too seriously though. Wonder if Mycroft ever did? Of course he didn’t.
 
Mycroft didn’t care about anything; still he always managed to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. Much like Harry thought John did apparently, but what John did couldn’t even be compared to what Mycroft did. John did what he did out of love (like all the things he did) while Mycroft did what he did because he was an arse.
 
“She wasn’t always like this,” John said for the forth time tonight, but this time Sherlock wasn’t sure it was directed to him.
 
“Are you repeating that for my sake or for your?” he wondered.
 
“Bit of both?” John shrugged as the cab pulled up outside their flat. Sherlock paid this time too. When John started up the stairs Sherlock just walked passed it and towards Mrs Hundson’s flat; their landlady was still out, maybe Sherlock had to re-evaluate the relationship she had with Mr Graham.
 
“What- Are you breaking into Mrs Hudson’s?” John said over the banisters.
 
“Not really, I’ve made a copy of her key,” Sherlock said, showing off the key after he’d opened the door, “And she has tea. You look like you need tea.”
 
“I look like I- You idiot….” John gave a tired laugh and an affectionate, thankful gaze before continuing up the stairs.
 
He was the idiot? Sherlock shook his head and went inside the landlady’s flat to look for some tea; the day Mrs Hudson was out of tea was the day Mycroft turned off all his CCTV cameras.  Hmpf.
 
CCTV cameras were preferable over drunken phone calls though; Sherlock had to admit that. And, at least to Sherlock’s knowledge, Mycroft had never wished him dead. It was more the other way around.
 
Sherlock stopped just as he was going to pour water in the cups (Mrs Hudson would not miss them, John would put them back when they were done). He and Harry thought their brothers interfered in their life, he and Harry both wished their brothers to be dead from time to time, both he and Harry seemed to have the habit of casually insulting their brothers. All while Mycroft and John looked after them when they couldn’t do it themselves.
 
It had been a clear misconception to believe Harry stayed out of John’s life (since Sherlock knew perfectly well he didn’t stay out of Mycroft’s) and her way of being involved must be much more tiring than Mycroft’s.
 
No wonder John had wanted him to go down and talk to Mycroft.
 
Sherlock finished in the kitchen, but was too occupied with thoughts about what would have happened if he’d really had Harry as a sister instead of Mycroft as a brother to remember to look the door again.
 
“Are you her Mycroft?” Sherlock wondered as he gave John his tea in the sitting room.
 
“No,” John shook his head, “not even close. He’s a bit of a control freak that dear brother of yours. Sometimes I think you’re his Harry though.”
 
That was a really disturbing thought.
 
“Thanks for the tea,” John said with a smile, apparently not even aware of the insult he had just delivered. Well, comparing him with Mycroft wasn’t all that nice either, but at least Sherlock now understood how fortunate he was to have a brother like Mycroft. Irritating habits and lack of understanding of the word “privacy” aside.
 
***
“Sherlock, please call your brother so he stops calling me,” John asked with a demanding undertone in his voice.
 
“Just ignore him,” Sherlock grunted without looking up from the microscope, “He’ll grow tired of it.”
 
“You know he won’t,” John said and with a sigh, just to show his annoyance, Sherlock held out a hand to get a phone.
 
“Play nice,” John urged him as he placed a phone – his own, not Sherlock’s – in the waiting hand.
 
Sherlock gave him a glare as he went back out to the telly, which John ignored.
 
“You know, you should really put John on your payroll,” Sherlock said as soon as Mycroft answered. It wasn’t even close to what he had promised himself to say to his brother, but it had to do for now – at least he returned his call.
 
Actually, he was even going to listen to what Mycroft wanted this time. And if that wasn’t gratitude…?

Comments

[solrosan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for commenting! :) I'm glad you liked it, especially the parallel-parts since those have been stuck in my head since my first Sherlock-fic, the John – Mycroft more than the Harry – Sherlock, but one can’t really exist without the other ;)