Chapter Text
The picture showcased Sherlock, John, and a sphinx.
Greg had never been to Egypt, before. He'd never been farther from his home than a school trip to Germany, actually, but he could still recognise a sphinx when he saw one, and that was what it was. A life-sized lion's body that was curled up like in the sands of the desert like a gigantic cat, tail wrapped lazily forwards, and a human face and head that blinked dolefully at the camera, with long, braided hair and a gold necklace to boot. An actual, living, breathing, alive sphinx.
And next to her was an actual, living, breathing, alive Sherlock Holmes.
He was a bit hard to recognise, without the trademark coat and scarf. Greg supposed even Sherlock hadn't been able to bear it, while in the desert. But there he was. Sitting there wearing a cooling head scarf around his wild hair and another protecting his pale shoulders, and beaming brighter than the bloody desert sun. One arm looped around the lazy sphinx's neck, and the other around an equally equally alive, equally pleased with himself John.
"Um," he said.
The picture was also moving. It wasn't just a picture, whatever it was, but it clearly wasn't a video, either. It was like a live video chat, but they just weren't aware they were being filmed. Sherlock and John were both busy bickering to each other, Sherlock trying to look back and talk to the sphinx while John kept tugging him back to make him look at the camera. The sphinx, while Greg watched, lazily lifted a paw, licked it, and settled back down.
"Yes," Mycroft said. "Quite ingenious, isn't it?"
Greg had no earthly idea what he was referring to. It could've been one of any dozen different details. He really didn't care which, at this point.
Swallowing, his head feeling vacant and light and just a bit downright dizzy, he scrolled the email down, and read the caption underneath it.
I have a new best friend. Her name is Salihah, she loves riddles, and says she'd agree to come back to London with me if I let her try a mincemeat pie.
Possible problem: she might try to kill me when she discovers there is no meat in mincemeat. Another problem: John also says he'll kill me if I bring Salihah to visit London. Hmm.
Important question, have you ever met a sphinx? They eat you if you can't answer their riddles. I think you should meet one.
With all the lost love that there is between us, which is to say none,
SH
PS took care of Egyptian cell, John hexed the ringleader into growing a bat for a face. Willingly turned himself in after that. I love John, did you know that?
PPS I love magic.
PPPS I do not have a new best friend; that was simply a turn of phrase. John is still my best friend.
Greg blinked.
"Um," he said again.
Mycroft smiled slightly, in the way that only he could, which was looking as if he'd just taken a bite out of a rotten oyster. "Yes," he said, swiveling his monitor back around so Greg could no longer see Sherlock waving at him as he cuddled with a sphinx. "I wanted to delay explaining this to the relevant parties, until we had a more serviceable cover story. However, John threatened that if I didn't tell you the truth at the soonest possible opportunity, then he would infest my home with Cornish pixies. And I think he was telling the truth, so..." He gestured over his desk at large, the smattering of files detailing the so-called Lazarus Plan, the cups of tea. "You're welcome."
Greg sat still in the overstuffed, overly fancy chair. He blinked dumbly once.
So. This really hadn't been what he'd expected, when called into Mycroft's basement secret office at the Diogenes Club. And what was this, anyway? What the hell was this?
"No," he decided, finally.
"...No?"
"Nope. Sorry." He sat back in his seat, his arms folded very, very tightly, pointedly ignoring the smug plate of biscuits between them. Only Mycroft Holmes would try and conduct whatever this was over tea and biscuits. "Don't believe it, sorry. I don't know what you're up to, but I don't believe any of this--magic, or-- Christ." He rubbed his face in sheer exhaustion, completely flabbergasted, and no small part of him really just wanted to hold his aching head in his hands and never look up again. "I thought John was dead. He dropped off the map right after Sherlock, and I thought he'd..."
Well, never mind what horrible things he'd thought. Never mind that he'd been terrified that John had offed himself in the wake of Sherlock's suicide, because he wasn't dead, and instead-- "Now you're telling me he's not only alive, he looks like he's on a bloody vacation? With Sherlock? Yeah, sorry, Mycroft. I don't believe it."
Mycroft smiled again, almost coy about it. "He is on vacation, as I understand it. Thought I believe the most accurate term for it would be a honeymoon?" He tapped his fingers along the desk, tracing a very thin file marked confidential. "John tells me we missed the happy announcement."
Greg, not for the first time today, wondered if he might've had a stroke.
No. This was... no.
This was all Mycroft's idea of-- not a joke, because it wasn't fucking funny. But that was what this was, wasn't it? Mycroft wanted to try and assuage Greg's guilt over his brother's suicide, and the fact that John had probably followed him off the ledge right after it, and he'd invented this cockamamie story about snipers and Lazarus plans and magic to explain away the fact that Sherlock and John were still gone but not dead. That was the only explanation that made sense. That was the truth, and it had been haunting him at his heels ever since he'd seen blood spilling around the pavement outside Barts with a shattered John sitting limply on the kerb beside it.
Not this nonsense about sphinxes, and wizards, and magic.
Well, if this was what it looked like when Mycroft was grieving, then Greg wanted nothing to do with it.
"Hmm. Yes. I thought you might be a bit reluctant. Sherlock was as well, by how John tells it." Mycroft paused to watch him again, taking another sip of tea. The look on his face was enough to make him want to quit on the spot, crawl all the way home into bed, and never come out. "Check your phone, please."
"What?" Greg glared across the desk, yanking his phone out with irritation throbbing in his jaw. If Mycroft's government fingers had been digging into his messages again, if he'd hacked into his phone just like Sherlock, again--
Sure enough, he had one new email. An email dated just two minutes ago, from John Watson himself.
It was the same moving picture of Sherlock, John, and the sphinx. This one, with a caption of its own.
Hi Greg. Hope you're doing well!
Sherlock sends his regards, as do I. (Well, Sherlock sends his regards to Gavin, but you know.) I'm quite sorry that you had to find out like this, but Mycroft and Sherlock have sort of tied my hands here, with their worst plan in the history of plans. I can promise you that everything Mycroft is telling you is the truth. Unless he says that I was in on it. I wasn't. And I'm still a bit pissed off about it, to be honest.
Sherlock's not dead. You were always meant to arrest him, and he was always going to jump. Neither of us did anything wrong.
So: cheer up, mate. Sherlock and I will be back as soon as it's safe. Until then, feel free to give Mycroft a whack on the nose. This is 25% Sherlock's fault, and 75% his.
Just maybe give him a hug afterwards, too. Believe it or not, Sherlock isn't exactly proud of how things have turned out, and I imagine the Ice-Man isn't either. Even our friendly neighborhood 'sociopaths' need a little TLC every now and then :)
Take care,
John
PS: If you want me to prove magic exists, there's an owl waiting at your flat with a delivery of Firewhisky. Don't drink before operating any heavy machinery, or around anything especially flammable that you care about.
PPS: Nobody will believe you if you tell them :P
Greg glared down at the email, and found himself even more befuddled than before.
"You lot... you all a bunch of bastards. You know that?"
Mycroft shrugged primly, his fingers interlaced together over the top of his desk. "As we've been reliably informed." He paused to level another steady, careful gaze at Greg, just as unreadable as ever. It should've been a crime ,that he managed to be so calm about this. "John is telling the truth. He was unaware of our deception when he left London. If you wish to be angry at somebody, then Sherlock and I are the deserving targets."
Yeah. Yeah, Greg thought, covering his mouth with one hand, a disparaging snort caught in his throat. Yeah, he should say so.
The silence dragged on. Sherlock and John continued waving up at him from his phone, and the sphinx continued her long, lazy blinks.
He honestly felt a little dizzy, but if there was anybody he was going to show that to, it wasn't bloody buggering Mycroft Holmes.
"So," he said finally, phone dropped to his lap. "To sum up. Sherlock's alive and somehow faked jumping off a rooftop, and is a bastard. He's on fucking vacation, with John, who is-- apparently a wizard. Because wizards exist, now. And you're a bastard, too. That about covers it, then?"
Mycroft's smile grew just the slightest bit strained. But, without protest, he nodded. "Yes." He sipped again at his cup of extraordinarily fancy tea, the corners of his mouth tight.
And there was something about him sitting there, wearing his three piece suit with expensive china in hand and planning how to best fake his brother's suicide right in front of Greg, and his best friend, and the whole bloody city that made this all too much to take.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Greg was a DI... or at least, he had been, before Sherlock's apparently fake suicide. And Sherlock Holmes was about the max level of the fantastical that he could take. Sphinxes, a magical John Watson, and Mycroft in any capacity was somewhere way past his limit.
"Nope," he said again, and rose to his feet.
"Yes. I had a similar reaction, when I met my first wizard." Mycroft settled back, appraising Greg with a steady, almost-smug gaze that was just creepy. "Would you like to discuss it over a cup of coffee?"
"Would I... what?"
"Coffee," Mycroft repeated. "A hot, caffeinated beverage that can be found at any reputable establishment in the city, and while not comparable to the Diogenes Club's tea, absolutely acceptable to carry out a conversation over. Your credit card statements suggest that you particularly enjoy the sort purchasable at Prufrock Coffee as a luxury?"
Greg rubbed his empty head, and not at all for the first time that day, wondered what exactly the symptoms of a stroke were.
"Why do you know my name, but Sherlock still can't be arsed to remember it?"
Mycroft rolled his eyes with a put-upon air, amusement bright in his eyes. "He remembers your name. He just entertains himself by observing how high he can raise your blood pressure in a single conversation. I promise," he said, his smirk fading into a barely softer smile, "coffee with me is slightly less stressful."
Greg pinched the inside of his wrist.
Nope. Mycroft was still there. All smug and proper, and... asking him for a coffee.
"Hmm," Mycroft murmured, when the silence simply dragged on. "Interesting. Anthea insisted I ask you for a coffee. Perhaps you would be more inclined for a tea after all?"
Greg pinched the inside of his wrist again, held his breath, and counted to five.
"You're creepy," he said, with what he hoped was a very decisive air of finality. "Sherlock's a bastard. And I'm leaving."
Mycroft smiled slightly again, again tipping back another sip of tea. "You are, of course, sworn to secrecy about everything that you have heard here today."
"Or I'll be exiled to magic land, is that right?" Greg rolled his eyes and turned his back, striding for the corridor as fast as he could. "I'll find my own way out, thanks!"
He headed down the unbearably luxurious Diogenes Club to the outside world once again, still completely dazed, lost, and shellshocked. But, thank god, alone.
Sherlock was alive. That was, unquestionably, good. All right, maybe he wanted to knock him one, just a little, but Greg knew all he'd really do if he saw him right now was hug him. Bloody mad bastard, but he was alive.
John was a 'wizard'. That was... okay. All right, then. Not sure how he felt about that. Greg was pretty sure, if he had to put a word on it, it was somewhere between don't believe it and what the actual buggering hell?
And Mycroft was...
Texting him.
Greg closed his eyes in the lift, and this time, counted to ten instead of five.
Unknown number:
I will see you again very soon. Best wishes -MH
"Creep," Greg muttered again, and thunked his head against the wall.
That night, Greg stopped at Prufrock's on his way home, and very purposefully ordered a tea that he couldn't afford, and put it on his credit card. Then he sat there, in full view of the nearest CCTV, and drank the entire thing while staring at it, and pointedly refusing to check his phone.
When he got home, the very first and only thing that he noticed was the huge, snow-white owl perched on his window sill. It was visible all the way down from the street below, right there in broad daylight. Greg wasn't the only one to skid to a stop and stare at it, his eyes wide and his hands limp with shock.
Even from down on the street, Greg was almost positive he could see the promised bottle of whiskey, affixed to its leg.
"Bloody hell," he said, and for one very brief moment, considering turning his back, walking right back down where he'd come from, and never setting foot on this street again.
Maybe coffee with Mycroft wouldn't be so bad after all.