Work Text:
“Sherlock?” Mycroft smoothly slipped his umbrella into a carved wooden stand by the door.
He was a clever man. Young, but undeniably clever, and although many people might not have noticed that their own younger brother had broken into their house, and -- Mycroft examined the door, the carpet, even a lingering smell in the air -- hadn’t quite gotten around to leaving yet.
None of the lights in the London townhouse were on. It was entirely possible that Sherlock was attempting to surprise him.
But Sherlock knew better than that.
Not well enough, of course -- Mycroft followed the staggering footprints across an ornate Persian rug, toward his own bedroom. ‘Naturally,’ he thought to himself.
And as he pushed open the bedroom door -- a door which Mycroft kept closed, but hadn’t been left that way -- he saw him. A thin, bony thing, curled up in a strangely small lump in the middle of his wide, posh bed. His plush bed, he amended, noting the way Sherlock sank into the middle. The down of the duvet seem to swallow him up, because for whatever reason, the foolish teen hadn’t bothered to crawl underneath it.
Mycroft sighed.
He closed the door behind him, noting with a slightly sick satisfaction how familiar is felt -- the sound of the latch catching, the way the light vanished, even the soft hum of something drawing him closer to that frail body in his bed. It all made sense.
Leaning against the edge of the bed, he carefully kicked his shoes off. He’d thought he could hear Sherlock’s slightly ragged breathing -- too much legwork, not enough eating, the usual painful problems that he chose not to dwell on -- but it had stopped. If he was lucky...
“I brought you something.”
Mycroft smiled. It was the kind of raw, real expression that he reserved only for Sherlock -- the kind of happiness that he only ever expressed when all the lights were out.
He crawled into the bed behind his little brother, flopping down onto the duvet just as Sherlock had. All the air went hissing out the seams, and Sherlock, buoyed up by the sudden change in the blanket’s topography, and the new tilt of the mattress, fall back against Mycroft’s chest.
Mycroft slipped his arm around Sherlock’s bony waist. “Besides yourself, you mean?”
Sherlock all but melted where he laid -- and for no better reason than Mycroft’s presence was a unique and pleasant comfort.
He was almost literally skin and bones. He didn’t eat when he was supposed to. He hardly slept. The bags on his eyes should’ve belonged to a man three times his age -- not a silly boy. Mycroft was the lush one, the powerful one -- the one who so perfectly filled the image of a hard-working government man.
They were as dissimilar as oil and water.
But they blended like the cold and the rain. Everything about them way grey -- frosty -- distant. But it was something they had to be in, wrapped up in each other -- meaningful -- connected.
Mycroft pulled Sherlock closer -- the warmth of his body sinking through Sherlock’s back. Sherlock felt like shivering. Instead, he just rolled over. Nose to nose, with eyes closed, they faced each other, and breathed quietly.
And while anyone else might’ve made a comment about missing one another, or being glad to see the other person there -- neither of them did. Neither of them needed to. Such banal pleasantries were well and truly beneath them, and -- quite frankly -- it would have been an embarrassment for either of them to try.
Instead, they’d developed a rather different method of communicating -- one that suited them both far better than useless, trivial expressions.
“You know I’m on a diet,” Mycroft murmured, feeling Sherlock press something cold against his chest.
“Of course,” Sherlock answered, without a hint of smugness. That bed was the one place he felt absolutely no need to be excessively proud, or superior.
He didn’t need to. Mycroft knew exactly how good he was.
“Dark chocolate?”
“I’m told it’s the healthiest,” Sherlock replied -- obviously teasing him.
“Raspberries.”
“And?”
Mycroft couldn’t see a thing. He pulled his arm back, sliding his hand over Sherlock’s gently. Lacing their fingers, he moved both hands, and the surprise chocolate bar up to his mouth.
The scent was suddenly transparent. “Coconut?”
Sherlock didn’t speak -- he pressed a soft kiss to Mycroft’s forehead instead.
He was sweet. Sherlock was so, so unbelievably sweet when he wanted to be, and few things on earth made Mycroft happier than the knowledge that Sherlock only ever felt the need to be sweet with him. Like Mycroft’s sincerity, it wasn’t something for lesser men to see. Only them -- only in the darkness -- only in warm, quiet moments like this.
Mycroft smiled again. Sherlock sensed it. Sherlock lifted their hands together and traced his cool fingertips along the curve of Mycroft’s mouth. Mycroft wasn’t in the least bit surprised that the teen had those particularly lines memorised.
After all, he knew the angles of Sherlock’s wiry frame better than he knew himself. He lovingly kissed each fingertip until Sherlock’s hand shifted and gently stroked his cheek.
“Where did you find it?” Mycroft asked.
“Belgium.”
“You’re lying.”
Sherlock chuckled and snuggled in closer to his big brother. He tucked his head under Mycroft’s chin and against his chest. He fit in his arms like a ragdoll, but a sentient, devoted one. His toes were freezing, and he knew it, but he pressed them against Mycroft’s calves all the same -- but the older man only laughed at the childishness of it all. Mycroft reached over Sherlock and grabbed the edge of the duvet, pulling it over both of them, wrapping them up.
It was blissfully comfortable.
Mycroft rested his head against Sherlock’s and closed his eyes.
“And did you use my credit card?”
“Of course,” Sherlock replied again.