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nickelsandcoatsTitle: I’ll Give You Everything You Need (You’ve Given Me Everything I Want) 2/? || at Ao3
Author: Sarah/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nickelsandcoats
Rating: PG13 for this part
Spoilers: Spoilers (eventually) for all of season 2!
Word Count: ~2,000 for this part
Pairings: Sherlock/John, eventual Mycroft/Lestrade
Warnings: AU.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Mycroft's never given his feathers to anyone before, but one person wins him over without even trying.
Notes: Forflying_dreamz's prompt here at my shuffle meme post. She asked for #103, which was, for this part, "Arwen's Fate" from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Complete Recordings by Howard Shore.
This is a sequel to Here Is What My Heart Will Give You (and Here Are the Things I Will Give Up for You). You really should read that one first before you read this story or this story will not make any sense. One last note: this story is set pre-Here Is What My Heart Will Give You (and Here Are the Things I Will Give Up for You) and will eventually end up post-Reichenbach. Expect lots of angst.
part i
Mycroft saw Sherlock a few weeks later when his younger brother flew in through the open window of his study. Sherlock’s feathers were bedraggled and he looked far too thin, even in his true form. Mycroft nodded over to the fire, which he had set not too long before, and Sherlock flew over to it, allowing himself to preen in the warmth for a moment before he stepped back and changed. Mycroft’s eyes wandered over his brother’s thin frame, taking in the uncombed curls and nearly threadbare clothes.
“I do wish you’d allow us to help you, Sherlock.”
“I don’t need help,” Sherlock snarled, flinging himself down on the sofa, surreptitiously stretching his feet towards the fire.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Your heat’s been shut off again, and you’ve not eaten a proper meal in four days, no, five. The landlord is threatening to evict you, and you’ve not the means to pay your rent. Does that cover it?”
Sherlock turned to look at him then, eyes empty and haunted. “You missed the drugs,” he said with a shadow of his usual sneer.
The air seemed to be sucked from the room as Mycroft struggled to find a response to that. You quit! his mind howled, sounding suspiciously like his five-year-old self. You promised Mummy and me that you had quit and you’d never touch them again and you lied! He took a deep breath and forced all of those thoughts back down, refusing to give them voice. “How long?”
“A few weeks.”
“The usual?”
“Mmm.”
And now that Mycroft was looking, he could see the telltale tremors in Sherlock’s hands, the shadows under his cheekbones, the twitching of his limbs as the loss of insulating body fat made him leak heat rather than keep it inside himself. Mycroft rose to his feet, alarmed, hissing a bit as he forgot himself. “Sherlock⎯”
“Don’t.” Sherlock’s look was forbidding, and Mycroft actually took a step back at the intensity of it.
“Does Mummy know?”
“I don’t care if she does or doesn’t.”
Mycroft inhaled sharply. Sherlock’s eyes had gone nearly black, even though the room was adequately lit. “Surely you know she does care.”
“There are dreams, Mycroft. They went away for a while, but now they’re back.”
Sinking into the chair opposite the sofa, Mycroft dropped his clasped hands between his knees and waited. When Sherlock seemed lost in his own head, he tried to pull him out again with a gentle, “What do you dream of?”
“There’s sand and blood, so much blood, and pain and the darkest night with so many stars. And at the center of it all, there’s a feeling that I’ve lost something, something precious and dear and that I’ll never get it back and without it, I’m nothing and never will be anything again. And when I manage to wake up, I feel so empty. I can’t bear the thought of sleeping because I know I’ll dream again. I can’t stand knowing that one of my feathers is lost and I’ll never find it again. I keep feeling like I’ll lose another, too, and the mere thought of having this feeling doubled drives me insane. The drugs keep me awake, and when I crash, I sleep without dreams.”
Mycroft looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the tears that threatened to spill. Sherlock glared at him and dashed the drops of water away before he stood, looming over his brother. “Don’t give me your pity, Mycroft, or your money I have no need of your help, and I certainly don’t need Mother’s. I don’t know how much longer I would be here anyway to benefit from either.”
Sherlock changed and was gone before Mycroft, stunned, could even finish processing what his brother had just told him. He dropped his head into his hands and sighed deeply; rubbing at his temples in a vain effort to stave off the inevitable headache he could feel brewing. He called for Mummy, and while he waited for her to answer, texted Lestrade.
Inspector, do keep an eye on Sherlock for me. I do worry about him, especially now.
⎯MH
It took ten minutes for a response to come:
Will do. Any reason in particular?
⎯GL
Before he could respond, Mummy called for him (and one does not ignore the Morrighan’s call), and he left to answer her, leaving his mobile on his desk.
“I know about Sherlock,” were her first words when Mycroft alighted on her palm, nuzzling once into her finger. He fluttered up and changed, eyes concerned, as she finished, “and there is nothing we can do to interfere.”
“Mummy, he said⎯”
“I know what he said, darling. And I know of what he dreams.” She reached out and cupped one hand to Mycroft’s cheek. “And everything will be fine.”
Mycroft frowned.
The Morrighan smiled at him sadly. “It will be a hard road for him, child. But you can’t keep him from experiencing it, no matter how much you or your Inspector watch over him.”
“He’s not my Inspector, Mummy,” Mycroft said, cursing the blush he knew was rising on his cheeks.
She outright grinned at that, and exclaimed, “You asked me to give him protection, and I gave him one of your feathers. I think that makes him count as yours, even if your heart isn’t quite ready to call him so just yet.”
Now his cheeks were on fire. “I hoped you had given him one of mine, but I wasn’t sure…”
“Sure about what?”
“If you had given him the other one of Sherlock’s. The one I know you still have.”
“Ah, child, that feather is meant for someone else. I gave your Inspector yours, as it should be. You are the one who asked for his protection, after all. Now tell me, why haven’t you spoken to him in person for such a long while?”
“Mummy…” Mycroft fidgeted, squirming under his mother’s slightly disapproving gaze. He was shy, and relationships that weren’t between employer and employee were difficult for him to navigate even before Gregory came to his attention. Mycroft had, just a few short weeks ago, been agonising over how to invite the man out to dinner without it sounding like an order, and in a fit of despair, had given up on the idea after every scenario he’d planned out seemed too overbearing. In his youth, Mycroft had destroyed every relationship he’d ever managed to start with the sheer force of his personality and his need to know everything about a person, down to their soul, a trait he shared to a lesser extent with Sherlock and a greater extent with their mother, who could see through a person’s soul in an instant. He knew Gregory was worth waiting for, but how long would he wait before he said or did something that broke down their relationship in an irreparable way? Better to leave it be, he had thought, and do or say nothing more, no matter the cost to himself. And so he had.
“Oh, child,” his mother sighed, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “I do so hope that one day you will see you deserve to be happy.”
Mycroft closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he was alone. He flew home with a heavy heart and hid his mobile lest he send Gregory a text that would scare him off for good.
Five weeks passed by without a single text from Mycroft. Lestrade still saw the CCTV cameras following him, but the cars were no longer there. He shrugged it off as Mycroft simply being busy at first, and resolved to text him in a few days just to check up on the man. But then all thoughts of texting anyone who wasn’t directly on his team went out the window as CID got bogged down in crime after crime after murder after murder. The work was neverending, and there was some instinct that led Lestrade to believe that this rash of crimes was all connected, but he couldn’t put his finger on how or by whom.
He needed Sherlock, who, Lestrade realised guiltily, he had not checked on in a few weeks.
Donovan had just got another call⎯another murder, same MO, same everything as the last few, and he pulled her aside as they headed down to get in their car.
“I’m bringing him in, Sally.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed an indignant, “Whatever you feel best, sir,” in her most sarcastic tone.
“We need to stop this bastard, and he’s our best chance.”
“He is an addict and dangerous at best! You don’t know what he’s capable of!”
“I know he’s capable of finding who’s doing this, and that’s what I care about right now. We’re going to get him first, and then take him to the scene. Got it?”
She buckled her seat belt viciously. “Yes, sir.”
Sally stayed in the car while Lestrade jumped out and pounded on the door until someone let him in, eyes widening at the badge he flashed as the door opened.
“Cheers,” Lestrade said as he bounded up the dingy steps and pounded on Sherlock’s door. “Sherlock! It’s Lestrade⎯got a weird one for you. Want you to come take a look.”
He waited a moment and knocked again. “Open up, would you? We’ve not got all day.”
Lestrade put his hand on the knob, and to his surprise, it turned. Warily, he opened the door, flicking on his torch when the light switch failed to produce any light. “Sherlock?” he called into the darkness, cautiously making his way through the cluttered flat.
No response.
“Sherlock?”
The beam of the torch caught on something shiny, and Lestrade’s breath caught as he realised it was a needle, dropped next to Sherlock’s outstretched hand. Sherlock, who was slumped unconscious against the wall, head tipped down his chest, which was barely moving.
“Shit!” Lestrade nearly tripped over a stack of books as he raced over and dropped painfully to his knees, pressing two fingers to Sherlock’s throat. A wave of relief washed over him as the faint pulse registered under his touch. He fumbled out his mobile as he shrugged off his jacket. Sherlock was shivering faintly, skin cold, lips almost blue; Lestrade slung his jacket over him as he dialled 999 and summoned an ambulance to the squalid little flat.
The next call he made, as the paramedics loaded Sherlock onto a gurney, was to Mycroft.
“What’s happened?” Mycroft snapped out before Lestrade could even form a greeting.
“It’s Sherlock, he overdosed. Paramedics have him all set⎯he’s heading to Bart’s.”
There was a muffled curse and a crash as Mycroft stood. “Is he…”
“He’s alive,” Lestrade said quickly, “but barely. It’s a good thing I came by when I did⎯he wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”
“Thank you, Inspector. I’ll be there presently.”
There was a click and then the tone of a disconnected call. Lestrade thumbed the power button on his mobile and clattered back down the stairs. Sally was leaning against the car, waiting on him.
“Change of plans,” he barked as he threw open his door. “Drop me off at Barts⎯you’ll go on to the scene after.”
She looked him over carefully as she pulled out into traffic. “Sir?”
“I need to stay with him,” Lestrade heard himself say, but he didn’t know which “him” he meant.
The rest of their ride passed in silence. Sally dropped him off outside Bart’s A&E and he ran in, looking around for a man in a three-piece suit.
What he saw stopped him in his tracks. Mycroft Holmes, who Lestrade thought of as being unflappable, was slumped in a chair, face buried in his hands. Lestrade crossed over to him and hesitated for a moment before dropping into the hard plastic chair next to him. If he let his leg press against Mycroft’s and if Mycroft’s pressed against his, neither of them acknowledged it as they settled in to wait to hear if Sherlock had gone over the edge for good this time.
part iii
Author: Sarah/
nickelsandcoatsRating: PG13 for this part
Spoilers: Spoilers (eventually) for all of season 2!
Word Count: ~2,000 for this part
Pairings: Sherlock/John, eventual Mycroft/Lestrade
Warnings: AU.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Mycroft's never given his feathers to anyone before, but one person wins him over without even trying.
Notes: For
flying_dreamz's prompt here at my shuffle meme post. She asked for #103, which was, for this part, "Arwen's Fate" from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Complete Recordings by Howard Shore.This is a sequel to Here Is What My Heart Will Give You (and Here Are the Things I Will Give Up for You). You really should read that one first before you read this story or this story will not make any sense. One last note: this story is set pre-Here Is What My Heart Will Give You (and Here Are the Things I Will Give Up for You) and will eventually end up post-Reichenbach. Expect lots of angst.
part i
Mycroft saw Sherlock a few weeks later when his younger brother flew in through the open window of his study. Sherlock’s feathers were bedraggled and he looked far too thin, even in his true form. Mycroft nodded over to the fire, which he had set not too long before, and Sherlock flew over to it, allowing himself to preen in the warmth for a moment before he stepped back and changed. Mycroft’s eyes wandered over his brother’s thin frame, taking in the uncombed curls and nearly threadbare clothes.
“I do wish you’d allow us to help you, Sherlock.”
“I don’t need help,” Sherlock snarled, flinging himself down on the sofa, surreptitiously stretching his feet towards the fire.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Your heat’s been shut off again, and you’ve not eaten a proper meal in four days, no, five. The landlord is threatening to evict you, and you’ve not the means to pay your rent. Does that cover it?”
Sherlock turned to look at him then, eyes empty and haunted. “You missed the drugs,” he said with a shadow of his usual sneer.
The air seemed to be sucked from the room as Mycroft struggled to find a response to that. You quit! his mind howled, sounding suspiciously like his five-year-old self. You promised Mummy and me that you had quit and you’d never touch them again and you lied! He took a deep breath and forced all of those thoughts back down, refusing to give them voice. “How long?”
“A few weeks.”
“The usual?”
“Mmm.”
And now that Mycroft was looking, he could see the telltale tremors in Sherlock’s hands, the shadows under his cheekbones, the twitching of his limbs as the loss of insulating body fat made him leak heat rather than keep it inside himself. Mycroft rose to his feet, alarmed, hissing a bit as he forgot himself. “Sherlock⎯”
“Don’t.” Sherlock’s look was forbidding, and Mycroft actually took a step back at the intensity of it.
“Does Mummy know?”
“I don’t care if she does or doesn’t.”
Mycroft inhaled sharply. Sherlock’s eyes had gone nearly black, even though the room was adequately lit. “Surely you know she does care.”
“There are dreams, Mycroft. They went away for a while, but now they’re back.”
Sinking into the chair opposite the sofa, Mycroft dropped his clasped hands between his knees and waited. When Sherlock seemed lost in his own head, he tried to pull him out again with a gentle, “What do you dream of?”
“There’s sand and blood, so much blood, and pain and the darkest night with so many stars. And at the center of it all, there’s a feeling that I’ve lost something, something precious and dear and that I’ll never get it back and without it, I’m nothing and never will be anything again. And when I manage to wake up, I feel so empty. I can’t bear the thought of sleeping because I know I’ll dream again. I can’t stand knowing that one of my feathers is lost and I’ll never find it again. I keep feeling like I’ll lose another, too, and the mere thought of having this feeling doubled drives me insane. The drugs keep me awake, and when I crash, I sleep without dreams.”
Mycroft looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the tears that threatened to spill. Sherlock glared at him and dashed the drops of water away before he stood, looming over his brother. “Don’t give me your pity, Mycroft, or your money I have no need of your help, and I certainly don’t need Mother’s. I don’t know how much longer I would be here anyway to benefit from either.”
Sherlock changed and was gone before Mycroft, stunned, could even finish processing what his brother had just told him. He dropped his head into his hands and sighed deeply; rubbing at his temples in a vain effort to stave off the inevitable headache he could feel brewing. He called for Mummy, and while he waited for her to answer, texted Lestrade.
Inspector, do keep an eye on Sherlock for me. I do worry about him, especially now.
⎯MH
It took ten minutes for a response to come:
Will do. Any reason in particular?
⎯GL
Before he could respond, Mummy called for him (and one does not ignore the Morrighan’s call), and he left to answer her, leaving his mobile on his desk.
“I know about Sherlock,” were her first words when Mycroft alighted on her palm, nuzzling once into her finger. He fluttered up and changed, eyes concerned, as she finished, “and there is nothing we can do to interfere.”
“Mummy, he said⎯”
“I know what he said, darling. And I know of what he dreams.” She reached out and cupped one hand to Mycroft’s cheek. “And everything will be fine.”
Mycroft frowned.
The Morrighan smiled at him sadly. “It will be a hard road for him, child. But you can’t keep him from experiencing it, no matter how much you or your Inspector watch over him.”
“He’s not my Inspector, Mummy,” Mycroft said, cursing the blush he knew was rising on his cheeks.
She outright grinned at that, and exclaimed, “You asked me to give him protection, and I gave him one of your feathers. I think that makes him count as yours, even if your heart isn’t quite ready to call him so just yet.”
Now his cheeks were on fire. “I hoped you had given him one of mine, but I wasn’t sure…”
“Sure about what?”
“If you had given him the other one of Sherlock’s. The one I know you still have.”
“Ah, child, that feather is meant for someone else. I gave your Inspector yours, as it should be. You are the one who asked for his protection, after all. Now tell me, why haven’t you spoken to him in person for such a long while?”
“Mummy…” Mycroft fidgeted, squirming under his mother’s slightly disapproving gaze. He was shy, and relationships that weren’t between employer and employee were difficult for him to navigate even before Gregory came to his attention. Mycroft had, just a few short weeks ago, been agonising over how to invite the man out to dinner without it sounding like an order, and in a fit of despair, had given up on the idea after every scenario he’d planned out seemed too overbearing. In his youth, Mycroft had destroyed every relationship he’d ever managed to start with the sheer force of his personality and his need to know everything about a person, down to their soul, a trait he shared to a lesser extent with Sherlock and a greater extent with their mother, who could see through a person’s soul in an instant. He knew Gregory was worth waiting for, but how long would he wait before he said or did something that broke down their relationship in an irreparable way? Better to leave it be, he had thought, and do or say nothing more, no matter the cost to himself. And so he had.
“Oh, child,” his mother sighed, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “I do so hope that one day you will see you deserve to be happy.”
Mycroft closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them, he was alone. He flew home with a heavy heart and hid his mobile lest he send Gregory a text that would scare him off for good.
Five weeks passed by without a single text from Mycroft. Lestrade still saw the CCTV cameras following him, but the cars were no longer there. He shrugged it off as Mycroft simply being busy at first, and resolved to text him in a few days just to check up on the man. But then all thoughts of texting anyone who wasn’t directly on his team went out the window as CID got bogged down in crime after crime after murder after murder. The work was neverending, and there was some instinct that led Lestrade to believe that this rash of crimes was all connected, but he couldn’t put his finger on how or by whom.
He needed Sherlock, who, Lestrade realised guiltily, he had not checked on in a few weeks.
Donovan had just got another call⎯another murder, same MO, same everything as the last few, and he pulled her aside as they headed down to get in their car.
“I’m bringing him in, Sally.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed an indignant, “Whatever you feel best, sir,” in her most sarcastic tone.
“We need to stop this bastard, and he’s our best chance.”
“He is an addict and dangerous at best! You don’t know what he’s capable of!”
“I know he’s capable of finding who’s doing this, and that’s what I care about right now. We’re going to get him first, and then take him to the scene. Got it?”
She buckled her seat belt viciously. “Yes, sir.”
Sally stayed in the car while Lestrade jumped out and pounded on the door until someone let him in, eyes widening at the badge he flashed as the door opened.
“Cheers,” Lestrade said as he bounded up the dingy steps and pounded on Sherlock’s door. “Sherlock! It’s Lestrade⎯got a weird one for you. Want you to come take a look.”
He waited a moment and knocked again. “Open up, would you? We’ve not got all day.”
Lestrade put his hand on the knob, and to his surprise, it turned. Warily, he opened the door, flicking on his torch when the light switch failed to produce any light. “Sherlock?” he called into the darkness, cautiously making his way through the cluttered flat.
No response.
“Sherlock?”
The beam of the torch caught on something shiny, and Lestrade’s breath caught as he realised it was a needle, dropped next to Sherlock’s outstretched hand. Sherlock, who was slumped unconscious against the wall, head tipped down his chest, which was barely moving.
“Shit!” Lestrade nearly tripped over a stack of books as he raced over and dropped painfully to his knees, pressing two fingers to Sherlock’s throat. A wave of relief washed over him as the faint pulse registered under his touch. He fumbled out his mobile as he shrugged off his jacket. Sherlock was shivering faintly, skin cold, lips almost blue; Lestrade slung his jacket over him as he dialled 999 and summoned an ambulance to the squalid little flat.
The next call he made, as the paramedics loaded Sherlock onto a gurney, was to Mycroft.
“What’s happened?” Mycroft snapped out before Lestrade could even form a greeting.
“It’s Sherlock, he overdosed. Paramedics have him all set⎯he’s heading to Bart’s.”
There was a muffled curse and a crash as Mycroft stood. “Is he…”
“He’s alive,” Lestrade said quickly, “but barely. It’s a good thing I came by when I did⎯he wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”
“Thank you, Inspector. I’ll be there presently.”
There was a click and then the tone of a disconnected call. Lestrade thumbed the power button on his mobile and clattered back down the stairs. Sally was leaning against the car, waiting on him.
“Change of plans,” he barked as he threw open his door. “Drop me off at Barts⎯you’ll go on to the scene after.”
She looked him over carefully as she pulled out into traffic. “Sir?”
“I need to stay with him,” Lestrade heard himself say, but he didn’t know which “him” he meant.
The rest of their ride passed in silence. Sally dropped him off outside Bart’s A&E and he ran in, looking around for a man in a three-piece suit.
What he saw stopped him in his tracks. Mycroft Holmes, who Lestrade thought of as being unflappable, was slumped in a chair, face buried in his hands. Lestrade crossed over to him and hesitated for a moment before dropping into the hard plastic chair next to him. If he let his leg press against Mycroft’s and if Mycroft’s pressed against his, neither of them acknowledged it as they settled in to wait to hear if Sherlock had gone over the edge for good this time.
part iii
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 02:44 am (UTC)♥
no subject
Date: 2012-02-16 09:45 pm (UTC)Sherlock.
Mycroft.
Lestrade.
I lovelovelove the scene at the beginning with Sherlock and Mycroft. ♥
I know Sherlock will be fine, but it's still heartbreaking. :((
Aaah, can't wait for next chapter! ♥
no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 04:03 am (UTC)