Sherlock, he was there. The prints are Mycroft's – JW

As he forced his phone back into his pocket, hands shaking at the anticipation of his own fate as well as Mycroft's, John spun around in a nervous jump as the lab door opened and Molly entered, coffee cup in one hand a forced smile on her thin, mousy lips.

"John," She said carefully, letting the door close behind her. One eyebrow arched upward expectantly, "Everything OK?"

"The-the-the," John waved his hand at the computer and shook his head, trying to compose himself. He cleared his throat and began again, "The computer came up with the, um, the results."

"Oh," Molly half-smiled and approached the computer, hitting a few buttons with her free hand as she placed her coffee down and then assaulted the keyboard with both hands, graceful fingers flying over the keys. "Yes – um, well they're matching to the original results." She looked up at John, "They're definitely Sherlock's brother's." she nodded, a little sadly.

"Yeah," John nodded, sighing.

"I can tell Sherlock, if you like?" She offered and lifted her brows again quizzically.

A thankful smile played John's lips but he declined, "Thanks Molly but, I should," he bit his lower lip anxiously between his teeth a moment. "And thanks, for doing this. And sorry," he mumbled, "About putting you on the spot before."

Molly waved her hand and shrugged her shoulders, a moment of reflection flittering in her eyes, "It doesn't matter John. It never matters," she drew down the corners of her mouth. "I can ring Greg Lestrade if you like, I can let him know the results if you want to find Sherlock and go and do…whatever it is you need to do?"

John drank her in with his eyes and wondered what he or Sherlock had ever done to warrant her inexplicable kindness in the face of her own feeling. Stepping forwards, he placed his hand on her arm and crouched slightly to kiss her cheek. As he stepped back, he saw slightly unsure tears glistening in her eyes, "Thank you, Molly."

John left the lab, feeling emotions he couldn't quite discern, and all but walked into Sherlock who was heading his way. "You're certain?" Sherlock asked, halting. "The prints; you're certain?"

Nodding, John inhaled deeply and let it out slowly before finding himself able to speak. "Looks like Anderson and the team got it right after all," he pushed his hands into his jeans pockets. "Where were you?"

Sherlock shook his head, "Doesn't matter." His eyes rolled. "We need to talk to Mycroft, get to him and get the truth before Lestrade wades in. Mycroft is clever, John and painfully careful – there's a reason why those prints were traceable. Either it's deliberate, or it's false."

"His fingerprints, Sherlock," John shook his head, "It's not false – they're his. But you're right; you should talk to him before Greg." He drew one hand from his pocket to nervously scratch the back of his head. "Can you manage?"

"No, not me, you too," Sherlock pointed an accusing finger in John's direction.

John huffed in a breath, "I'm not sure I'm high on your brother's list of favoured visitors right now, Sherlock. We may be working through the Sarah-thing but he won't be." John watched Sherlock's back tightening, pulling him up straighter in his supported stance, at the mere mention of Sarah Sawyer's name. "I'm just not sure he's going to be forthcoming with me about information like this when there's the other day hanging over our heads."

Sherlock licked his lower lip, "That's for you to deal with; we sing in the chains we make, John and you bonded the links of this one all by yourself." There was a snap in his voice, a tone that showed emotion whilst his face was firm and unmoving. "He'll be at the Diogenes Club, we need to talk to him and it has to be now whilst the questions are swimming, John." He glanced around a moment and then reached up, touching his hand to john's elbow. "I need you with me – if I hear something I don't want to, I need to know you're with me."

John looked down at Sherlock then crouched, bending his knees, wanting to look directly into his eyes rather than down at him. "I'm always with you, Sherlock, through all of this," he inhaled through his nose noisily, "And if you need me here now, I'm here."

Sherlock nodded, "I do."

John couldn't come to terms with the silent eyes that pried as they moved through the grand, rich-mans-ego-stroke of a Secret Club. It wasn't as though this were his first of even fifth visit, because Sherlock made a point of storming in here to bug Mycroft when Mycroft had bugged him, but those who inhabited the rooms with their thick carpets and gentlemen's chairs never seemed to adjust to the curly-haired Holmes and his blond friend putting in an appearance, much less now the darker-haired man was somewhat shorter and more metallic than before. Stiffening his back to the eyes on him, he reached to open the doors for Sherlock in perfect silence and allowed the detective to precede him into Mycroft's grand office.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" Mycroft asked without looking up from the papers on his desk. He knew, he always knew. "I suppose you feel somewhat more your old self, Sherlock," he finally glanced up, playfully devilish eyes set on his brother, "Back at Bart's, the thrill of the chase," his brows lifted. "What is it the dear DI has you searching for answers to this time?"

Sherlock stopped dead in front of Mycroft's desk and leaned in, eyebrows arcing upward and a sarcastic smile on his lips. He was going to assault this in the harshest way and hope for the best. "Hi brother," he said slyly and Mycroft's jaw twitched. "I was thinking about when we were little and you snuck into my room, broke up the experiment that had taken me two weeks to get right. Remember? The one on the window sill beside my dressing table, with the spider and the bleach," John frowned, assuming this followed a natural pattern in the boy's minds but felt utterly lost himself. "I knew it was you the moment I went into my room and found everything, even though when I asked, you blamed the cleaner."

"Is this preamble leading us somewhere more pertinent?" Mycroft asked, steepling his hands under his chin.

"I knew it was you because you left your mark; you wore your shoes into my bedroom after the new carpet was fitted and Mother had said we couldn't. Your shoes left their mark, their print," Sherlock's head tilted and John thought, for a moment, he'd caught up. "After that, whenever you snuck into my room you wore your socks to high your toes and never your shoes so there wasn't any prints. You pulled your sleeves over your fingers so I couldn't even tell on the shine of the doorknob if it'd be touched."

Mycroft straightened his back and dropped his hands in one movement. He was uncomfortable, even John could see it. "Whilst this is all very dear, Sherlock…"

"You've been to Northumberland Street, brother dear and you didn't pull down your sleeves." Sherlock's brow knitted together, the bridge of his nose wrinkling up. "Why?" he snapped, teeth gritted.

Mycroft gave a short, sarcastic laugh, "Ridiculous. Good attempt, I must say, your menacing eyes were particularly appealing and I like that you tripped the light fantastic down memory lane but, Sherlock my dear, sweet little brother, I think you have me confused with somebody else."

"The prints were ran twice, Mycroft." John submitted, arms folded, stood by the door for a quick getaway should he need it. "No mistake, no confusion; you were in that building."

"Scotland Yard never has been too reliable," Mycroft threw up one brow and rolled his eyes with half-hearted effort.

"And St. Bartholomew's too?" Sherlock asked, the expression in eyes matching his brother's though polar opposites in their meaning. "You were there, Mycroft, your prints are widespread, not just in one spot. Why?" Sherlock's tone lost its battling edge. "Tell me!" he demanded, sudden and sharp, loud and echoic, slamming his flattened palm down so hard onto Mycroft's desk it made the older man jump.

"Temper, temper," Mycroft hushed. "Take my word, Sherlock as I have told you many times over the passing weeks, I know nothing more. I was not in the flat on Northumberland Street, I have no reason to be." He rose to his feet and leaned over the desk, all but in Sherlock's face. "I was not there."

"You've got a tell," Sherlock said softly, childishly petulant, a finger rising up to poke Mycroft's brow. "Flicks up a little right in the very corner every time you lie – different to the one you had when you were younger, but still it's completely readable and very amusing," He licked his lips and arched his back forwards, hissing into Mycroft's ear. "Why. Were. You. There?"

Mycroft pulled back from his brother and their eyes locked in a battle of wits. Sherlock would look away first, Mycroft knew, he always did. It took a painful ten seconds, but Sherlock broke the gaze and his eyes fell to Mycroft's desk. It was, to John, as though a telepathic conversation had erupted between them and he stood, dumbfounded, as Sherlock's resolve seemed to crack under something as simple as a stare-down.

John exhaled loudly and stepped closer to Sherlock, a protectiveness bubbling in his stomach. "Mycroft – just explain. Your prints are at the scene. Nobody's accusing you of anything, we just want to be able to go back to Lestrade and tell him to quit the investigation because he's planning one," he warned. "Just explain why you were there, that's all we need. Your brother's on edge," he thrust a hand at Sherlock, "I am too. If I found out Harry had been in a place that could land her a suspect in a crime against me, I'd want to know exactly why she was there before I began blaming her for the worst case scenario."

"You don't honestly…?" Mycroft began, frowning at John. His head tilted, such a sinister movement, and his eyes focused solely on the Army doctor, "You are battling with your wits, Doctor Watson?" he spoke with sickening silkiness to his tongue. "You're considering the possibility that I, myself, fired the bullets that have permanently rendered my brother immobile from the waist down. You've pieced this together, rather usually for a pleb, that as my prints are supposedly at the scene and nobody else's have been traced, that it must have been I who fired the gun and that this entire thing has been staged by me in a fit of fraternal rage, am I right?"

John folded his arms across his chest and pursed his lips at the impossible cold reading.

Mycroft smiled, "Admirable," he nodded, walking around the desk. "Completely wrong, but an admirable effort I must admit. Surprised," he raised his brows, "Very surprised, though, in you Sherlock. You came to the same conclusion and yet you are in possession of a superior mind." He looked at John as the words came out. "Dear, dear Sherlock; this is very disappointing."

Sherlock rubbed his forehead with long fingers and exhaled a heavy sigh, "Mycroft stop it, and just tell me why you were there. I need to know, I have to know."

Mycroft crouched down, hands on Sherlock's knees and looked up into his face. John thought he'd never seen something so sentimental between the two of them in the entire time he'd known Sherlock. "Sherlock," Mycroft's words were silky but there sinister stab to his tongue had gone. This was loving, this was meaningful and gentle, or at least as gentle as could be for a man who didn't believe that sentimentality was a beneficial emotion. "I was not at the scene, I did not fire the gun nor did I fabricate any of this. I am hiding nothing and I am talking to you, brother to brother, I am not responsible for this." He pinched his hands against Sherlock's knees, fingers digging into the kneecaps so tightly his knuckles went white.

The frown on Sherlock's brow was deep, flicking between Mycroft's eyes and his hands on his legs, horrified by the actuality of his brother attempting to cause him pain and him feeling nothing. Sherlock raised his head, looking like a lost two-year-old at John.

"Alright, Mycroft, that's enough!" John waded in, hand on Mycroft's arm as if to tug him away. "What are you doing?"

Mycroft got to his feet and fixed his jacket; his face a little flushed from the exertion, and stared at John blankly. "If you don't mind, I have work to do; you may leave the same way you entered and in the same, silent manner."

John reached down with one hand, placing his fingers protectively on Sherlock's shoulder, "Let's go-," he squeezed slightly. Sherlock seemed dazed, thrown off by his brother's manner, and nodded without words, eyes wide and Bambi-like, and led John from the office in silence. John couldn't even bring himself to offer another word to Mycroft, not even in anger and disgust, and simply glared at him, shaking his head, before following behind Sherlock.

He wasn't sure what had happened, not really, he assumed it was more of that telepathic stuff that, not being a Holmes, he wasn't privy too. But whatever it was it had unnerved Sherlock and considering how much of a task it was to throw the Detective, it worried John that what lay ahead would not be pleasant.

My medical knowledge is limited but I want to thank Rasmus and Hannah for their help in supplying me with candid and well-explained info on all I've needed for this story. Whilst this chapter has been proof-read, there could still be one or two errors and I accept them as my own.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 797