Chapter Text
Mycroft Holmes stared at the dark ceiling. His brother's very faint violin hadn't woken him up, but it was what had been keeping him from falling asleep again for the past hour. He didn't have it in him, though, going to Sherlock and telling him to stop, not after that past year. If anything, he was thankful his stupid brother was bothering him at 4 a.m., at their uni flat instead of that awful rehab facility mommy and daddy had picked almost twenty months ago. A shiver went down his spine at the memory, making him sit up and draw his knees to his chest in search for comfort. Like clockwork, the phone started ringing at the motion. Mycroft was glad that he decided to keep it in his room, a decision made precisely with those late night calls in mind.
"Holmes," he said, the second ring interrupted halfway through.
"He's there. You'll receive the files in your mail tomorrow."
"Are you sure?"
"Completely. All yours, Holmes. You have the opportunity for a great debut in your hands, if you ask me."
"This is hardly about debuting for me."
The voice on the other side stayed silent, then a click when he hang up. Mycroft knew everyone raised an eyebrow at how touchy he was about the subject, as well as how it was put in his hands despite it being his first job. It was a matter of the most fragile nature, really. Not the kind that would be given to any junior, but then again, Mycroft wasn't just any junior, was he? He rolled back in bed, fingers pressing his nose bridge. Surely he wasn't going to get any sleep now.
In between half-brewed dreams and soft violin melodies, the morning came soon enough. A knock on his bedroom door, which was opened before he could answer. Irene Adler, his brother's closest friend (and their flatmate), popped her head inside.
"Mycroft, there's a guy outside asking for your signature. He says he has mail for you and can't have anyone else getting it."
Sun rays barely entered through the curtains, he noted. "What time is it?," he asked, clumsily getting out of bed to put a sweater over his pyjama shirt, his striped pants still visible.
"Way too early, if you ask me," Irene was already going down the hallway to the bathroom, she was quite the early bird and had probably already been awake when she heard the doorbell, despite her complaining. "Six in the morning. Tell your little government friends to send their stuff at a more normal time, will you?"
For an answer, he rolled his eyes. Of course, everything about his job was supposed to be strictly confidential, but with Irene and Sherlock that word completely lost its meaning. As long as they didn't know exactly what that particular investigation concerned, Mycroft was okay with them knowing a few things here and there, like the people for whom he worked — which was, supposedly, one of the best-kept secrets of the UK — and other details which Sherlock deemed irrelevant and that Irene smirked at their mention.
He got to the entrance, half aware of a sleeping Sherlock in the sofa behind him (was going to his bedroom that big of an effort?), and absentmindedly answered the security questions from the man holding a heavy envelope that he received after singing at the end of what looked to him like an absurd amount of pages. Finally he went back into his room to look at the never ending amount of files that he had just received, a butter yellow cardboard folder filled to the point it wouldn't properly hold all the papers inside it. Inside the red box on the front, handwritten with a black marker: JAMES "JIM" MORIARTY.
Inside it, an infinite amount of data, ranging from university documents (enrolled at Mathematics at the strategically located town, the reason why Mycroft had been urged to move there — thankfully Sherlock hadn't opposed to the idea —) to camera footage to old call registers between James and different personalities, each name causing the young man going through them a bigger headache than the last. The attached note written by Mycroft's boss (we need to get him as soon as possible) wasn't necessary to make his objective clear. He ignored the shaking of his hands, after all, hadn't he just got all the information one could need? It couldn't be that dangerous, he told himself. It'd be over before he knew it.
The phone rang, startling him, and he got up from his desk to get it. He looked at the clock in his bedside table: 10.00. He had spent quite a lot of time reading through everything, and was still undressed. "Yes?," he said when he picked up. A young man's voice on the other side of the line.
"Yeah, um, I was calling about the room? I saw an advert at the local paper? Could I go see it someday?"
"Sure, I can tell you a bit about it if you'd like." The apartment they had rented had four rooms, and (to Mycroft's disdain), Sherlock and Irene had been extremely keen on the idea of finding someone to use it. Despite them being the ones who had the idea, the responsibility to make the arrangements had (like everything around them, really) fallen onto Mycroft once again.
"Yeah, that'd be nice."
"There are four rooms, the one for rent has its own bathroom. I am twenty-six, currently studying Law as a second degree. The other two people are my younger brother and a close female friend of his, they're both freshmen in university. Nineteen and eighteen respectively." He decided to keep the violin details to himself until the visit. "Despite their age, they aren't that noisy," he quickly added (a blatant lie).
"Um, that sounds all right. I'm not a student, I just got a job at the uni clinic as a doctor, but I'm your age. Is that a problem?"
"Not at all. Could I get your name, and you can come tomorrow at noon to see the flat. You have the address, don't you?"
"Yeah, thanks mate. That's great. The name is John Watson."
"Mycroft Holmes. See you, then."
He put the phone down and went to lay in his bed. That was a problem solved. Significantly easier than what he had in hands at the moment, but it somehow made him feel good that he was able to manage things, as if that small success meant he could do anything he put his mind to. He shook his head, you're much better than this stupid reasoning, Mycroft. Focus. And he was better, he really was, he had never needed to reassure himself, but then again the first rule in his job was that caring was a disadvantage, and Mycroft Holmes was, among every single person in the world, the one that wanted to fuck James Moriarty's life up the most.
Anthea had called the day before and forced him to a hangout in her dorm, Mycroft there is no way I'm letting you spend this Saturday alone, even your brother is going out, classes have just started, live a little. He dragged himself across campus, dark brown coat covering the same variation of clothing he wore most days: wool jumper (this time, green with beige stripes on the chest area) and loose trousers, dark blue jeans that day. He regretted not bringing a scarf with him, the pang of early Autumn cold reddening his nose and cheeks. Anthea was waiting for him at the ground floor, wearing a think pyjama with a sheep print all over it. Knowing her, she probably had slept in those clothes, but still she smelled nicely of the soft perfume she always used.
"Got a call today, I'm assuming you did as well."
Mycroft hummed in affirmation as they made their way through the three flights of stairs that led to Anthea's room, one of the biggest in the building, obviously provided by their superiors. They stayed silent until the door closed behind them and she was dropping on her bed, papers (containing extremely compromising information) tossed around the desk and floor.
"I guess we can get to work now," the man sighed.
"Sure. You know I am in most of his classes, don't you? I spotted him this week, before I got this."
"So I've read. I wouldn't have thought they would send you a copy too."
Anthea arched her eyebrow, looking at Mycroft over a few photographs (camera footage from, Mycroft remember, some street in Stuttgart were a terrorist attack had been miraculously stopped by their team a while ago) that she was holding.
"Don't play dumb, Mycroft. They know what this is really about for you. Of course they're sending me copies."
He rubbed his eyes with his wrists, she was right. There were a lot of things about that case that made him unable to put his entire faculties to it, too many distractions, too much of the past dancing around James Moriarty. "I guess you're the person I dread the least to work with."
"That's a nice compliment, thanks!", she cackled. "So. I know you're dying to get to work, and honestly this seems like fun. What is it exactly that you plan to do?"
Mycroft sat in the chair (after moving some clothes and Anthea's bag away) and looked at her, his fingertips touching his lips — a gesture he shared with Sherlock. "Right. We know who this man is, you said it: you saw him before we even got the files. I've seen him much more than I would like, for obvious reasons." Anthea nodded knowingly. She knew better than to bring up the subject, which made her the only person Mycroft tolerated talking about it with. Still, it was unnecessary to elaborate.
"Now, this would be easy as pie with any other person: follow him home, send a few guys, and that would be it. But, I assume you saw the map." He was rummaging through the papers on the table, looking for said document: a world map with a worrying amount of red circles scattered all around Europe, North Africa and Central Asia. "All these places will be compromised if Moriarty stops operating."
"With compromised you mean fucked up?"
"That would be an understatement. We cannot, cannot, risk that happening, Anthea."
She leaned forward, not moving from her bed, to squint at the map. "I see. Cairo, Madrid, Paris, Milan, Zurich, Munich, Bergen… Someone did his homework. I'm assuming they sent us to keep an eye on him, then."
"We have to operate under the assumption that it is impossible to manage a network this big without, at least, slightly noticeable changes to his routine. So yes, surveillance and what not. Try to not get ourselves killed or kidnapped in the meantime, notify anything that might indicate one of these cells is going to strike."
"Sounds great. Lots of fun." She got up then, both of her hands dropping on Mycroft shoulders, making him stuck his eyes to the ground. "It's bullshit that they made you do this, you know that, don't you?"
"It was the only way to get him to stay in one place," he murmured.
Anthea propped a fast kiss to his forehead (she was the only person allowed to do that). "We can play Risk, keep your mind out of it a bit," she said while getting the game — Mycroft's favourite — out of her wardrobe.
While organising the little plastic pieces, Mycroft listened to his friend rant. "Yeah, but using your brother like that, after everything he's been through? I know you don't want to talk about it, but are you really okay with it?"
"Sherlock is, so…" He shrugged. His little brother was perfectly aware he was being used as bait to attract Moriarty and keep him somewhere where he could be as constantly monitored as possible. Anthea had made infinite remarks about that technique, but ultimately the boy had made his decision, so that was that. "He even had this university in mind before… all of it," he added, as if that made it less questionable.
Anthea sighed, knowing she wasn't getting anything else out of Mycroft — he wasn't in the mood for talking about that (he never was). She had finished arranging the board, and leaned back, eyes on Mycroft. "You start."
He spent the rest of the day at Anthea's dorm, alternating between playing board games and working on the files, and only very late at night (or very early in the morning) did he go back to his flat — he had to get some sleep, as John Watson was coming to see the free room in just a few hours. When he arrived, he found what he would eventually find out to be the usual after-party scene: Sherlock asleep in the couch, dark makeup smudged around his eyes; and Irene's bedroom door shut, light coming through it, the rattle of her paint brushes being moved around breaking the silence.
John moved in quickly during the next day, and with him Mycroft had found yet another reason to be worried about his brother: whatever had happened between that two the last night, it probably was far from good for Sherlock. John seemed like a good kid, maybe a bit too old if his brother were to be any other nineteen year old, but still Mycroft saw all the potential problems: PTSD, fresh out of the military and fresh into the hospital? Recipe for disaster, drug-wise. At least the man had taken Mycroft seriously when he had threatened him, and had been virtually ignoring Sherlock the few days he had been living there.
His brother, on the other side, danced around John on a manner that, though inconspicuous for the doctor — he probably though Sherlock was completely indifferent to him —, was painfully obvious for both Mycroft and Irene. The girl had been giving raised eyebrows to each of their (very scarce, especially on John's end) interactions, and Mycroft couldn't help but notice how Sherlock glanced at the blond every time he spoke, searching for his reaction.
As a result, Mycroft had been running on few hours of sleep, most of them haunted by nightmares of Moriarty here and Moriarty there and all sorts of disturbing things happening to Sherlock. It was the lack of rest precisely which had been making him drag himself into the campus main cafeteria every morning and afternoon, before and after his classes, like clockwork. The lack of rest, and, in all honesty, maybe the guy behind the counter. Greg (he had introduced himself the first day Mycroft went there) (also, he had a name tag) was everything he wasn't: 70s band t-shirts under his apron, extremely oversized jeans and strong forearms adorned with a worn-in Casio watch and several chains dangling around them every time he put Mycroft's americano in front on him.
"There you go, mate," he winked that Thursday morning (it was the first time he did that). "Becoming a regular, aren't you? You came here everyday since last week."
Croaky voice and a few untimely strands of grey in his brunette mullet, he seemed to be no older than twenty five. Mycroft gave him a — too dry — half smile, "yes", he murmured, already walking away to a free table when Greg opened his mouth again.
He had looked at him enough to know that the feeling was mutual, as well as a few other things about him: guitar player, singer, not a student at uni, sporty. At times like this Mycroft was thankful for Sherlock's stupid deductions game, though he wasn't half as good as his brother. And maybe it was for the better. He couldn't just go around analysing every guy he fell in love with, like his brother usually did.
Sherlock would date around, fling after fling, he had only really had feelings for someone once (and Mycroft really wished he hadn't, after seeing the outcome). The older, on the other hand, was disastrous, he was the reason the term 'love at first sight' had been invented. He barely took an interest in anyone, but when he did, it was hell: sleepless nights fantasising about things that couldn't be, diary pages burnt during his teen years in fear that his parents would find out about his sexuality, the boy that had forced him to confess after years of being in love with him only to beat him up after.
Mycroft Holmes hated being in love, and yet he had always been helpless when it came to avoiding it.