Chapter Text
Sherlock paused in his note-taking when the downstairs door opened, waiting for Mrs. Hudson to enter her flat before picking up his purloined hair dryer. Instead of Mrs. Hudson’s softer tread shuffling into her rooms, equally familiar but less welcome footsteps started up the stairs to the second floor landing. Sherlock scowled and thumbed on the hair dryer, unwilling to listen to his brother’s lumbering steps in the misguided but ever optimistic hope that ignoring Mycroft would make him more likely to bugger off.
Whatever busybody business for which Mycroft had come calling clearly made him uncomfortable. He waited nearly a full thirty seconds standing in the doorway to the sitting room after saying Sherlock’s name at a normal volume before raising his voice to be heard over the hum of the hair dryer. For him to lose his temper even to that degree over imparting news that distressed him was incredibly telling. Not government business then. Sherlock was even more inclined to ignore him, but considering the likeliest source of Mycroft’s information it would be prudent to get it over with as soon as possible.
“Mycroft,” he finally acknowledged, still applying even heat to the forearm in front of him as he turned to glower at his unwelcome relation.
His brother opened his mouth to reply and closed it, frustration creasing his eyebrows. Sherlock kept his face fixed in a scowl. Whatever it was, he was going to hate it.
“For god’s sake,” Mycroft finally snapped, turning back into the sitting room. “I will not have this conversation while fighting with a hair dryer. You have some idea why I’m here. Please give me the honor of your attention so we can both have done with this.”
Every action a study in grudging acquiescence, Sherlock put aside his experiment and threw himself across the sitting room and onto the sofa.
“Thank you,” Mycroft said, enough in control of his emotions that the words carried only a hint of sarcasm.
“What does Mummy want then?”
“Mummy is… concerned.”
He spoke right over Sherlock’s muttered “When is Mummy not concerned?”
“Since University you have shown a distinct trend towards eschewing all forms of meaningful human contact. At the time of your lapse it was understandable, but now that your personal and professional lives have stabilized Mummy thinks it is high time for you to make an attempt.”
“Much as I’d like to avoid unnecessary social interaction, having chosen to become a Consulting Detective makes that task impossible.”
“Unfortunately,” Mycroft looked and sounded pained, “according to Mummy work relationships do not count. At least not work relationships as you conduct them.”
The way Mycroft pronounced the word “you” immediately caught Sherlock’s attention. Deductions flashed quickly through his mind: Mycroft’s discomfort in sharing this news when he was usually so fond of meddling in Sherlock’s life. The frequency and sincerity in which his lesser emotions, normally suppressed with a dictatorial hand, had risen to the surface over the course of his visit.
Sherlock sat up in shock.
“My god, she’s after you, too.”
“Yes,” Mycroft actually appeared nauseated, “Father pointed out it would be… unfair of me to escape with the same excuse you could not use.”
There was a brief pause. Mycroft clearly needed the time to compose himself. Sherlock was too torn between glee and astonished dread to speak.
“Mummy insists that it need only be a real and honest attempt at sociability. She has neither a desire to separate you from your Work, nor to force you into any truly undesirable interaction. You might try elevating your professional relationships at New Scotland Yard into actual friendships, joining a society where you can debate with actual physical human beings rather than lambasting anonymous persons of limited intelligence on the Internet, or,” a small, nearly invisible shudder, “dating.”
“The last a suggestion from Father, I take it,” Sherlock drawled. “Boring.”
“You did enjoy your Fencing Club for a time early in your University career.”
Sherlock didn’t bother dignifying that with a response, letting his body go limp to slump back against the sofa cushions.
“Fine,” Mycroft sighed. “If you will not acknowledge Mummy’s wishes, I’ve been instructed to cut off access to your account.”
Sherlock sat up again, this time in fury.
“What? You can’t.”
“I assure you, I can. During your lapse in University I was made primary guardian of your funds. Though I have since made them available to you, my status remains intact. Mummy might finally consider transferring account ownership to you, as it should have been upon achievement of your majority, if you take her concerns in mind.”
Sherlock barely resisted the urge to fling himself upright and into violent pacing of the sitting room floor, clenching his hands in the upholstery of the sofa instead.
“And what punishment will your disobedience merit?”
“Will knowing make you any more willing to concede?”
He might have snarled at Mycroft’s calm response if his brother hadn’t paled as he’d spoken, eyes darting to the left for just a second as if imaging the dire fate with which Mummy, likely with creative input from Father, had threatened him.
For Mycroft to be as nervous as he was spelled ill for Sherlock. When Mummy put her foot down the results were terrifying, but it was Father’s support of the scheme that most worried Sherlock. With the two of them as a united front, there was little choice but to obey. No attempt at wheedling or whinging would compel them to change their minds. They would cut off access to his account, and Sherlock didn’t need to run the figures through his head to know that the current frequency of his consulting was insufficient to fully support his lifestyle.
Conceding with bad grace, he reached for his violin.
“Sentiment, Mycroft?” Having accepted the situation did not mean Sherlock intended to forgive his brother for delivering the bad news personally. “What happened to caring not being an advantage?”
Mycroft flinched. Had Sherlock not been watching out of the corner of his eye, he might have missed the miniscule twitch of facial muscles. Shocked, he plucked a different string than he’d originally intended and startled himself with the discordant note.
“I have been informed,” Mycroft said, forming the syllables in his mouth with infinite care, “of the logical fallacy of this belief. Mummy was displeased at my having shared it with you.”
Rendered speechless twice in the same conversation was a new and unpleasant experience for Sherlock. He would have liked to goad Mycroft into revealing the contents of Mummy’s chastisement if he’d thought it possible, but Sherlock was a genius not a magician. Mycroft looked like he was at the end of his rope for the very first time since they were children.
Blackmail might have earned him points in their usual brotherly battle of one-upmanship, but with the rules of this game having been set by their parents Sherlock had limited options available to him. He could either find some loophole in Mummy’s edict that Mycroft had yet to discover—unlikely. Or—and Sherlock couldn’t believe how desperate he had to be to even consider this—he would have to succeed above and beyond anything Mycroft was capable of.
“I shall take my leave now,” Mycroft said, rudely interrupting Sherlock’s plotting. “Mummy has granted you a ten-day grace period. If your behavior has not changed by the end of that time, I will lock your account.”
He stood and collected his umbrella from the stand by the door, pausing on the landing to look at Sherlock over his shoulder.
“Oh, and you might want to do something about that before your friends at the Met become concerned.”
Sherlock’s eyes flicked towards the pink case before darting back with a roll that implied his doubt in the members of NSY being smart enough to find their collective arses, much less remember the missing suitcase and come to the realization that he had already located it.
Mycroft raised an eyebrow—too conceited to ignore the chance at another parting shot—and left. The instant his back was turned Sherlock leapt to his feet with his violin and played through the opening notes of Saint-Saëns’ Caprice-Valse, Op. 76 just before the downstairs door closed.
Harry was twenty minutes late to their coffee date, which gave John just enough time to complete three Sudoku puzzles on his phone: two medium, one hard. It said something about their relationship that he was more annoyed at having his puzzle-solving streak interrupted when Harry finally arrived five minutes later, than he was at her being late in the first place.
“Sorry, Johnny, I overslept.”
She dumped her purse on a chair and went to order them each a coffee as was her usual habit after arriving late to their weekly meetings.
“Here,” she pushed a coffee into his hands before slumping into her chair with a clatter of china.
John accepted the cup and took a sip, hiding his grimace of distaste with practiced ease. The coffee was still too sweet, though nowhere near as cloying as it had been when they’d first started their sibling get-togethers. Proof positive that Harry was capable of noticing when she’d done something wrong and changing her behavior to suit, though it was a lengthy process.
Harry greeted her coffee with a relieved sigh, and John took the opportunity to study her. She hadn’t been lying about oversleeping; this was probably her first source of caffeine after rushing out of her flat. She’d only bothered with makeup to cover the worst of her exhaustion, but couldn’t do anything to hide her red-rimmed eyes or the general paleness of her skin. Harry was sober again and struggling with it. He stared for a moment too long and Harry’s eyes opened, lingering satisfaction over her coffee shifting instantly into annoyance.
“Let’s not, really, Johnny,” she snapped, fingers tightening on the cup. “It was two weeks yesterday.”
“All right,” John agreed, keeping his voice as bland as possible and hiding his expression behind another sip of his too-sweet coffee.
Harry’s eyes narrowed at him, but she glanced away without speaking. Too exhausted from sleeping poorly to blow up at him, John thought. Best to follow her example and not dwell on it, then. Harry had made it as far as three months clean once before giving in, but the quickest way to make her lose her temper and ruin their tentative peace was to comment on her drinking.
“Otherwise, how have you been?”
“Good,” she said, staring into her coffee cup rather than look at him. “I may have- Well, actually. I’m—I met someone.”
“Really?” John cursed himself for not knowing the proper way to react. “That’s, er, great. Isn’t it?”
The small smirk on Harry’s lips faded as quickly as it had appeared.
“No, actually, it’s not. I can barely get myself out of bed most days, what would I do with a relationship? I may be a mess right now, but I’m not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice.”
John swallowed and fixed his gaze over Harry’s left shoulder. He wasn’t saying a word until Harry gave him more of a hint on what to say. They hadn’t talked about it in ages, but neither had forgotten John’s disapproval when Harry had chosen the bottle over Clara. The sibling truce they’d struck to agree to—and keep from yelling at each other at—their weekly meetups carried all sorts of unspoken rules and tacit agreements. One of them being that John wasn’t allowed to bring up Clara or the divorce, directly or obliquely.
“Anyway it was just a feeling, you know? I didn’t pursue it and I’ll probably never even see her again.”
There was real regret in her voice and John frowned down at his barely-touched coffee. It was too bad, really, because the divorce had tied Harry’s alcoholism inextricably with her relationship status in a way that only complicated her recovery and her sense of self worth. Even a casual friendship might have provided the kind of support John didn’t or couldn’t provide, but Harry was too scared of hurting another person like she’d hurt Clara to reach out.
Back in Afghanistan when John had lived every day with a sense of purpose, relishing the challenges every morning might bring, he hadn’t understood how Harry could feel so powerless. But since his return he’d come to understand only too well how the grey monotony of life could wear you down until the simple task of breathing felt like more of a chore than a necessity. It had taken him far too long just to work up the effort to apply to locum GP positions, too busy coping with the sucking misery to leave his flat most days.
Talking about Harry’s ill-fated love life made him think about the interview he’d had a few days ago. Dr. Sarah Sawyer was smart, beautiful, and enthusiastic about her job. Under other circumstances she might have been just his type and he would’ve been inappropriately pleased to be offered a job at the same surgery as her. But when he’d realized she was very subtly flirting during the interview it hadn’t been sweet and bright, like popping into a romcom where the perfect words came straight to his lips the way things were before he’d been shot.
Instead everything had been slightly, incomprehensibly off, like putting on an old pair of shoes he’d forgotten about and then outgrown. The John Watson who’d smiled and very subtly flirted back had been him, but not the current him, just some echo of what he’d used to be that he’d worn like a mask. And how could he even think of dating when their first interaction had been him shamming as if he wasn’t a ghost walking around in the skin of a man?
“So,” Harry sighed, interrupting his melancholy thoughts, “now that we’ve established my love life is DOA, let’s talk about yours, baby brother.”
John lifted his coffee to his lips to give himself a few moments to think, but winced when he realized it was now only lukewarm and even less appealing than before.
Harry raised an eyebrow and sat back in her chair.
“I take it that means no new prospects, then?”
“Look,” John put his cup down and pushed the saucer away with a grimace, “I’m just not ready to date yet, Harry. I’m still settling in.”
“It’s been months, Johnny. You’d have had at least a dozen one-night stands by now if you’d been on leave.”
“Thanks, Harry. Really appreciate having my sister call me a slag. Ta very much for that.”
Harry snorted and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You’re making excuses, John. What’s really wrong?”
John opened his mouth and closed it without having said anything. Talking to Harry was marginally better than talking to his therapist, but several months’ worth of strained conversations with his sister hadn’t made either of them better at expressing themselves.
In this case not saying anything turned out to be the correct response. Harry smiled ruefully and started playing with her empty cup.
“I get it. Everything’s different now. You can’t just do things the way you used to anymore.”
She paused to turn the cup in her hands thoughtfully before setting it aside and looking up at him. For a second she wasn’t tired, bitter, struggling alcoholic Harry, but the older sister he’d known when they were children who’d always had advice for him when he’d needed it most. John stared in surprise and then—
“You know what you need? A change. If women aren’t doing it anymore, you could always try men.”
“No, Harry, what- Christ, not this again. How many times do I have to say that I’m not—”
“Gay? You’re at least a little bisexual, Johnny, and that’s not the same thing.”
John groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. Trust Harry to go and ruin what had honestly felt like a bit of a moment between them.
“No, hear me out,” Harry insisted. “You don’t prefer men, it’s true, but every so often… There was the one boy in secondary, Toby, who you were utterly mad for until his family moved away at the end of the term. And I’m sure you had something for Arthur, that bloke you were friends with second year Uni. No one has a falling-out of that magnitude without there being more than friendship involved. Oh, and your commanding officer, Shorto or something? Maybe you two weren’t actually anything, but, Johnny, you should have read the things you wrote about him in your emails. Even I noticed, and my life was self destructing around me at the time.”
By the end of her list John’s face was a dull red, and though he told himself it was from anger, he couldn’t deny that Harry wasn’t at least a little bit right.
“No, Harry. I’m not gay, and I don’t want to talk about this anymore—”
“I’ll make you a bet,” Harry interrupted again, eyes sparkling.
It was like talking about his love life had released pre-meltdown Harry from wherever she’d been hiding. Suddenly she was smirking a familiar mischievous smirk, one that had convinced several of his almost and barely-even girlfriends when he was younger to decide that maybe they preferred a female Watson to a male one.
“If you try dating a man, I’ll go to rehab.”
John gaped for a moment before anger overcame his bewilderment.
“You know what, Harry? No, just no. I won’t be- Jesus, you can’t just expect me to pretend for some person as a requirement for you to finally get clean!”
Before he could stand up Harry leaned across the table and put her hand over his, the touch shocking him out of his anger.
“It’s not just you, John. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. But I’m- I’m scared. If I really commit to this and then fail I… I’m not sure I’ll ever get clean. So this is like an ultimatum for me, you see? To face my fears. For both of us to face our fears.
“Whenever you’ve been interested in another man you’ve fallen hard and you’ve fallen fast, and it’s never worked out for you. You’re scared of that, of feeling that pain. Women have always been safer. But you’re my brother and whatever else you are you’re not a coward.”
John swallowed and turned his hand over to thread his fingers through hers. He could see the confident Harry of the past overlaid with the older, pained Harry of the present. It struck him suddenly that what his sister really needed was for those two versions to merge, wiser after everything she’d been through.
“Neither of us are. Watsons are too stubborn and bullheaded to be cowards.”
Harry answered him with a small smile and squeezed his hand, both of them pretending for a few seconds that they had something stuck in their eyes.
“Okay,” Harry declared after they’d composed themselves. “You have to actually try, no pretending or going in halfway. I’ll give you ten days, long enough for at least two dinner dates and maybe a lunch date. Your shortest relationship ever was Violet Smith and that was eight days, so you can’t say I’m being unreasonable. Especially because you usually wait until the third date before having sex.”
“Christ,” John signed. Now that the emotional bit was over and Harry was actually outlining conditions he was starting to regret his decision. Being given a loophole so he wouldn’t have to think about gay sex just yet wasn’t enough to overcome his other reservations.
“This isn’t actually a bet, Harry. You’re going to rehab whether or not this works out for me.”
“Yes, but if you don’t find Mr. Right, or at least what you’d like to find in Mr. Right, you’ll be able to tell me I was wrong and that you’re one-hundred-percent straight. And I’ll let it go. I’ll never bother you about your sexuality again.”
John raised his eyebrows, actually tempted. Nosy sister that she was, Harry had been pestering him about his potential bisexuality for years. For Harry, who never liked to be wrong if she could help it, to actually offer to let something go for once without a fight was unprecedented. But reality reasserted itself again and he shook his head.
“Oh, Johnny, don’t back down now. Come on, what have you got to lose?”
“This is just- This is ridiculous, Harry. I don’t know the first thing about picking up a man. What am I supposed to do?”
Harry rolled her eyes. “The same thing you do with a woman, only with a man? For Christ’s sake, you went to war. I know you can pull a man if you actually try. Here-” She started scanning the other patrons of the cafe around them, obviously looking for a likely mark.
“Okay, try him.”
John looked in the direction she was pointing and felt his mouth drop. Of course Harry had to pick the poshest bloke in the place, looking like a runway model as he stood at the counter waiting for his order. John grimaced and turned back to tell Harry that a woman who dressed like that was out of his league, much less a man, but she was staring at him with a skeptical expression straight out of his childhood. As if there hadn’t been enough deja vu in the conversation already, it was the exact face she’d always used when she thought John was being particularly stupid and, bloody hell, he could already feel his jaw tensing as he rose to the challenge.
“I thought you said Watsons weren’t cowards?”
Not sure if he was more annoyed with her for talking him into this mad situation, or himself for falling for it, John clenched his hand over the handle of his cane but didn’t get up.
“Better hurry,” Harry taunted, “he’s going to leave.”
The man she’d selected looked up from his mobile seconds before the barista appeared and swiped for his drink before she could call his name.
John looked back at Harry. She was smirking. The man stalked towards the front of the cafe, apparently able to walk and text at the same time. John cursed and levered himself from his chair just as the other man reached the door.