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When his father was proved to be a kidnapper and a cheat, he was infuriated and heartbroken.
When his sister pointed a loaded gun in their mother’s face, he was shocked and terrified.
When his brother played the turncoat, offering Silas absolution for his crimes in exchange for the advancement of his own carrier, Sherlock felt the foundations of his world begin to crumble as the one certainty he had never questioned was ripped out from beneath his feet. It was more than devastation, more than betrayal - it was an impossibility that could not be eliminated because it was happening in front of his eyes.
A day later, when Mycroft pushed Xiao Wei into view behind the gates and gave another impatient wave, he took the first real breath he’d had since that tumultuous dinner as the ground stopped shaking under him.
(When James Moriarty lied to his face with an innocent smile, claiming that he was only holding onto the deadly formula for the sake of the public good, he was nettled but mostly surprised by how little he was surprised. He knew his friend too well by then to have truly expected an honest confession.
But it did make him think.)
~~~~~
“Knock knock.”
Mycroft looked up from the book he had been perusing to find his brother hovering by the open doorway, his hand raised to mime knocking on the empty air. Sherlock was smiling, with a teasing edge to it.
“I thought I should do my best not to creep up on you, for once,” he said.
“Your efforts are appreciated.” Mycroft snapped the book closed, sliding it back onto the shelf beside him. They’d arranged travel plans back to London starting the following morning; for lack of anything more productive to do in the interim he’d been pilfering their father’s bookshelves for any interesting volumes he might want to take home with him. Hate the man as he would, Silas had had excellent taste in reading material. “What can I help you with, brother dear?”
Sherlock took a breath, then hesitated. Staying quiet was unusual enough for him that Mycroft was immediately on alert, the back of his neck prickling with renewed anxiety. He was about ninety percent certain that Sherlock had returned to their father’s study following their discussion in order to take the hidden key, and he dreaded the thought of the sort of danger this new mystery might lead his brother into.
He wasn’t going to bring it up, though. Not unless Sherlock told him first. He was happy enough with that ten percent chance that they might be able to leave this whole sordid affair in the past.
Instead of a confession or apology, Sherlock squared his shoulders and strode briskly across the room to stand in front of Mycroft, rather too close for comfort. Before he could do more than raise a questioning eyebrow at this odd behavior, his little brother had lifted both arms, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him into a - rather stiff - hug.
Mycroft blinked.
He returned the hug, carefully - it had been only a few days since Sherlock was shot, after all, and he’d been exerting himself too much to have truly healed from it - but with genuine feeling. “What’s brought this on?”
“I am trying,” Sherlock said, enunciating each word with careful deliberation, “to think about someone other than myself.”
“Oh.” Mycroft recognized his own words tossed back at him, but Sherlock didn’t sound upset about them. Indeed, there was a hint of apology in his voice, an uncharacteristic acknowledgement that his recent actions had been causing his brother pain.
Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise. It was one thing to not notice that someone was worrying about you when you were accused of murder and on the run from the police; quite another to be oblivious to that same person’s distress when you were bleeding out in their arms while they desperately sought to get you to a hospital. Mycroft had been doing everything in his power to keep his own terror in check during those few fearful hours, to stay strong for Sherlock and their mother both, but he knew his composure had been out the window the moment he saw the crowd fleeing from the basement, and realized that his brother wasn’t among them.
And it seemed that composure still hadn’t been fully recovered, because now without his permission his arms had tightened, drawing Sherlock into a much closer embrace as the stress of the last few days rose in him again and he was once more acutely aware of how lucky he was to still have his brother here with him, alive and breathing.
Sherlock leaned into it, letting himself be coddled for once. His chin dug into Mycroft's shoulder as he spoke. “I'm so sorry, brother dear,” he said. “I can't imagine how hard this has all been on you.”
Mycroft said nothing, but he released a small huff of breath through his nose which he was sure would speak volumes. It had been hard on everyone.
But he could feel Sherlock shake his head, and a moment later his brother pulled back from the hug so he could look him in the eyes. He kept his hands on Mycroft's shoulders, holding him in place as he spoke.
“At the very least I uncovered the mystery at my own pace,” he said. “You were tossed into it headlong in Paris with no warning. You found our mother sane, our father a traitor, and our sister alive, and before we could so much as explain how we'd gotten there your own brother had been shot and you had to drag him through a warzone to a hospital. I'm fine,” he interrupted himself, holding up a hand to forestall whatever concerned interjection he read in the set of Mycroft's face. “The worry is directed your way now, brother dear, so please let me finish my piece.”
He waited a moment, then nodded in satisfaction. “We dragged you halfway across a continent only to be held at gunpoint and detained by our own family, and-” And here Sherlock broke off, tearing his gaze away from Mycroft's and staring at the wall over his shoulder. His jaw worked for a moment before he could speak again. “At the very moment of our crisis your hand was forced to distance yourself from us, turning traitor all in the name of getting us free.”
“I am terribly sorry about that,” Mycroft cut in. It had been one of the worst things he'd ever had to do, not because such deception went against his own moral principles but because of the pain he'd known it would cause Sherlock - and their mother. The knowledge that if he failed to escape his escort and ended up recaptured himself, Silas would undoubtedly ensure his family never learned of it and thus forever after saw him as a betrayer was so much salt in the wound.
“You shouldn't be,” Sherlock said firmly, turning back to face him with an obstinate set to his jaw. “You took advantage of an opportunity the rest of us couldn’t, providing us with the only possible escape from our captivity. If you hadn't we would no doubt still be held here under guard while Silas sold that deadly compound to every morally bankrupt government he could find, or else Xiao Wei would be dead and us to blame. It was a superb deception and-” He breathed in and out quickly, an edge of emotion creeping through into his voice as his eyebrows furrowed. “You had to do it alone.”
“There was no time to discuss plans,” Mycroft said, attempting to brush it off. “And it’s probably for the best that your reactions were… extremely genuine.”
“Yes.” Sherlock stared at him for a moment, his gaze heavy as he seemed to weigh his words. “I rely on you most fiercely,” he eventually said. “I think you know that.”
It was Mycroft’s turn to look away, now, breaking the eye contact and looking to the side as he nodded. He knew. It was unusual for Sherlock to admit it, though.
“Recent events have made it more apparent than ever,” Sherlock continued, squeezing Mycroft’s shoulder with the hand that was still resting there. “That, despite Silas’s best pretensions, the two of us have truly only had each other to rely on for quite some time now.” He took a breath, his voice dropping quieter. “And I know that mostly has entailed my relying on you. I know I can appear ungrateful at times, but I want you to know that your support does not go unnoticed, or unappreciated.”
He paused.
“There’s no one in the world I have more faith or trust in than you, Mycroft,” Sherlock finished. “Nothing that’s happened over the past few weeks has shaken that.”
Mycroft looked back at his brother to find him still holding a sure, steady gaze, and nodded again, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.
“There is very little I wouldn’t do for you, Sherlock,” he said, simply.
“I know.”
Mycroft hugged him again, because he was here and alive and growing up very fast, and because - despite Sherlock’s assertion - he did rely on his brother, more than he could properly express.
After a moment they let go, and stepped back, and both did a very good job pretending that neither of them were blinking back tears.
“So,” Sherlock said, clearing his throat, “found any interesting books?”
“Nothing worth the trouble of bringing home,” Mycroft replied, reaching for the book he’d been reading when Sherlock walked in. “Though this is a rather fascinating analysis of the political factors that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire…”
Sherlock read over his shoulder for a moment as he flipped through it, before wandering away to scan the shelves for himself. The remainder of the afternoon was spent in pleasant bickering - mostly for the sake of bickering, rather than a true difference of opinions - over the worth of one text or another, and the value of bringing them home.