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Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (8/?) tawabids May 29 2011, 22:19:31 UTC
“What do you want?” John says. He sounds like an old dog that has been beaten too many times to bite any longer. He makes his way toward the main street and Mycroft keeps the umbrella perfectly centred over a point halfway between their heads.

“I want to offer you a job, as my new assistant.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Of course not.”

“Then my answer’s ‘sod off’,” John has reached the curb and sticks his head out of the circumference of the umbrella’s protection, searching for a taxi. Mycroft does not expect there to be any in the area at this time of night, but now is probably not the time to say that.

“Dr Watson,” Mycroft says. John looks at him at last. Mycroft chews on the inside of his cheek and finally says the thing he has tried not admit all these months. “You are literally the only person in the world who I can trust. You have proven yourself through torture and the threat of death. I need you by my side.”

John squints at him. “Hell of a job interview you put on. Answer’s still ‘sod off’. And I’m going to have to call a cab and wait a while, so you may as well go back to your cronies.”

“Very well,” Mycroft holds out his umbrella for John to hold.

John eyes it as if it were a live grenade. Mycroft shrugs, “I’m not leaving you to stand in the rain.”

After a long, dramatic sigh, John braces one elbow on a crutch to take the umbrella. “I’d be a terrible assistant anyway,” he says, “I type with two fingers and I don’t know how to book a flight online.”

“Oh, I think I could find some a bit more stimulating for you to do, given your skills,” Mycroft promises, raising his eyebrows. He heads off into the rain, shuddering as the drips run into the creases of his collar and down the skin inside. He supposes he probably has not felt rain on his skin for decades.

It doesn’t matter if John is reluctant right now. Mycroft is a patient man, and he will keep asking until he gets what he wants.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (8/?) tawabids May 29 2011, 22:49:29 UTC
This whole story is really, really wonderful, though it makes me D: a lot.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (8/?) darthhellokitty May 30 2011, 16:24:58 UTC
WOW. This is INCREDIBLE. Horrifying, disturbing, and riveting.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (8/?) tawabids May 31 2011, 04:57:50 UTC
Oh John you don't stand a chance! But I do love to see him resist :)

This is just fantastic, can't wait for you to get back

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (8/?) jesse_kips June 1 2011, 02:02:54 UTC
God, this is amazing. Mycroft, so creepy and harsh, and even now worried about himself and not his actions against John... and John, suffering and alone - I can't wait for Sherlock to come back and some fallout to happen!

Cannot wait for more.

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Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (9/?) tawabids June 2 2011, 04:23:46 UTC
Haha, so, full disclosure time: I actually meant Part 8 to be the last in this fic, but I left in such a hurry that I forgot to mention that, and since everybody has asked for more I have put together a new ending as best I can. It may be a bit disjointed from the rest, however, but thank you for reading this far anyway! I appreciate all the comments.

---

That winter, John gets off the crutches and returns to work at the local hospital. Mycroft keeps track of his movements with as much subtlety as he can manage, though frankly, it isn’t like John is stupid enough to think he won’t be watching. Mycroft is there when John’s sleeping patterns finally return to a healthy rhythm. Mycroft is there when John starts dating that nice Sarah woman again. Mycroft is there when John calls an ambulance because Mrs Hudson has had a fall (she fractures the bad hip, but is out of hospital in a few days). Mycroft is there when John makes friends with the two middle-aged women who live next door and who absolutely dote on him from then on.

In essence, Mycroft is there when John’s life becomes normal. And Mycroft hates it. What a terrible waste! What dreadful ideas have driven John into such a pointless existence? Does he not see his own potential? Does he not feel any sense of duty towards the world? Surely a man who knows from his own experience the kind of horrors that rage beneath the surface of even sweet-natured London, surely such a man can not just turn a blind eye to the distress of his fellow man? Why doesn’t John just give in to Mycroft? It’s so frustrating.

When Sherlock slips back into town, he is so sneaky that Mycroft almost misses him. In fact, he might have gone completely undetected by Mycroft’s people if he had not travelled at once to Baker St to see John. Mycroft can only imagine what it is they talk about (on the two occasions he’s attempted to bug the flat, John has found and destroyed all his microphones) but he has surveillance notify him the moment there is any movement outside the door of 221b.

John and Sherlock leave Baker St at just before six pm, and use the rush hour traffic to switch taxis without the surveillance team spotting them. Contact isn’t recovered until just before eight, when a routine scan of outgoing international flights identifies them as persons of interest. They are both using fake passports, the quality of which impresses Mycroft.

“Should we bar them from flying, sir?” asks Corduroy, Mycroft’s current domestic affairs assistant (a young man with far too many ideas about what he would do if he were in charge, which he never will be, but he is at least efficient).

“No, let them go,” Mycroft says, sipping from the 2006 Château Lafite-Rothschild that Corduroy has just poured for him. These days he always waits a few minutes after the first sip of anything, to make sure no symptoms of poisoning will arise. He never used to do that when Anthea was around. If only things could be as they were then, except without the secret perfidy.

So John refuses all his offers, but goes swanning off with Sherlock at the first opportunity to hit back at Moriarty? Very well. Mycroft can’t follow his reasoning, but he will accept it. He keeps an eye on the situation (his brother and the good doctor are in Greece) and waits for Sherlock to do something reckless.

Inevitably, he does.

Mycroft has the details paraphrased by one of his protégés, now a Greek bureaucrat controlling much of the opposition party. Moriarty had opened up shop in Turkey and is running various illegal operations throughout the neighbouring country. Sherlock stupidly decided to bite on a well-baited triple homicide case and face off against Moriarty one-on-one. There was a motorcycle chase and a shootout on the end of a pier in Cyprus. John ended up in the water and (according to witnesses) told Sherlock to run while he had a chance. Sherlock did so.

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Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (10/11) tawabids June 2 2011, 04:26:11 UTC
Mycroft heads to Cyprus quietly (private jets are for celebrities) and finds John in a blue-sheeted hospital bed in a humid room with coral-coloured, plaster walls. He was fished out of the ocean by a local tour guide, who drove his boat close to the pier to give his customers the best show in their whole vacation.

John is sitting cross-legged on top of the beclothes, trying to repair his water-damaged mobile. He looks up as Mycroft enters and tips his head back as if in prayer. “You have got to be joking,” he mutters.

“The biggest joke is that you managed not to be shot,” Mycroft says, dragging a wicker chair closer with the hook of his new umbrella. John never gave the last one back. Perhaps he burned it.

“Not really. Only takes a couple of metres of water for bullets of that calibre to lose momentum,” John replies, clicking the battery pack of his phone back into the headset. He thumbs the power button to no avail, and throws the phone down with a grunt, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. He closes his eyes and grinds the heels of his hands into his temples.

“Did you enjoy your little jaunt with my brother?” Mycroft asks, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves against the heat. An air conditioner is pumping a cool breeze through the room but it is still at least ten degrees hotter than the plane Mycroft just disembarked from.

John cranks one eye open. “You sound like my dad catching my sister coming home late,” he grizzles.

“I intended to. I think it was rather silly of you to go gallivanting after Sherlock in your condition.”

“In my condition-!” John splutters, sitting bolt upright again.

“You’re out of shape, Dr Watson, and still recuperating from your injuries. You shouldn’t be wandering around the Mediterranean in this weather. Why, you might have been killed today.”

“You gave me these injuries, you son-of-a-“

“Beside the point,” Mycroft cuts him off, because Mummy’s memory is very precious to him and he doesn’t want to get angry at John. “We are mutually concerned with my brother’s welfare, now. And you have proven to yourself that you are not fit to follow him yet.”

“Don’t you tell me what I’m fit for,” John says, low and dangerous.

“I’m not telling you. You already know,” Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “As I was saying, we are both concerned about Sherlock. I am not here to give you a get well soon card. I am here to give you the chance to be more help to him than you have been on this little adventure so far. If you intend to turn me away because of some petty grudge you’re holding against me, Sherlock is the one who will suffer.”

Oh yes, he’s got John’s attention now. He can see the man’s blood was boiling, but you don’t spend ten years in the secret service because you make your decisions on emotional impulse. John is sensible. John is smart. That is why Mycroft likes him so much. Perhaps ‘like’ isn’t the right word; his preoccupation with getting the good doctor into his ranks borders on obsession. He would be the first to admit it. Some part of him has fallen in love. He supposes this happens to people from time to time.

Mustn’t make things personal, he reminds himself.

“You know, some people would call that blackmail,” John says.

“Some people are idiots,” Mycroft barks. “I’m just trying to make you see sense.”

He knows John would rather rejoin Sherlock, but Mycroft points out that Sherlock will have gone to ground for both their protection and searching for him now would only risk leading Moriarty right to his doorstep.

“You know I have considerable resources at my disposal, but I don’t have the time to spare looking out for my dear brother. If we are to aid Sherlock in his mad hunt, I will need someone who knows both Sherlock and Moriarty well, someone who is experienced in handling military-grade intelligence operations, and who is dedicated enough to lead this project as a full-time occupation.”

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Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) tawabids June 2 2011, 04:29:10 UTC
John brings his knees up and rests his forearms on them. He is looking into Mycroft, and for the first time Mycroft isn’t sure what he’s thinking. He knows that John must have spent much of his life wearing identities as interchangeable as paper masks, but some part of him had assumed that the mask he wore for Sherlock was a match for his true face, since it was Sherlock who gained his true loyalty. Now he is not so sure.

“Well?” Mycroft asks. “What do you say?”

“Can you really trust me?” John asks, bumping his chin against his folded arms. “I mean, really? Or do you just really want to trust me?”

Mycroft isn’t sure of that either. But he remembers the sensation of slapping John’s face in the basement of the Baking House. He was so angry then, and it had been so necessary. Now when he thinks of it, he feels the slap against his own face. Maybe it is possible to hold a grudge even when you know your enemy was only acting rationally. Maybe, conversely, it is possible for love to cloud your judgement, even when you are Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft thinks about it and decides he wants to take that chance.

Two weeks later, he shows John to his new desk. It is in a shining white office just down the hall from Mycroft’s, with a one-handed keyboard, at least until the best physical therapy money can buy gives John back the use of his left hand. At first there is some resistance from members of Mycroft’s staff, unused to being reigned by a stranger with a persistent limp. John wins them over within a few weeks with a calculated show of humility and expertise, a process that Mycroft observes with hidden delight. Sherlock and Moriarty are found and tracked as they dance around each other, now no more than two glowing points on a globe.

One night, Mycroft is staying late (as he does all too often - Corduroy is not as efficient as Anthea) when John sticks his head around the door to say goodnight. Mycroft almost chokes on his wine (a Fonseca Vintage Port today) and quickly croaks a goodnight in return. John disappears without commenting on Mycroft’s sudden coughing fit. It takes Mycroft almost twenty minutes to get back to his reports, unable to keep from replaying the hallowed moments over and over in his mind.

The next time John bids him goodnight, Mycroft summons him in. “Let me pour you a glass,” he says, getting up and reaching for the bottle set on top of the display cabinet in the corner.

John hesitates, the paper mask slipping, but before Mycroft can glimpse beneath it he shuts the door behind him and pulls up a chair across the desk from Mycroft.

“Thank you,” he takes the wine and swills it in the glass for a moment, watching a whirlpool form and dissipate.

“Cheers,” Mycroft clinks their glasses together and drinks. John watches him over the rim of his own glass and finally allows himself a sip.

“Well?” Mycroft asks, leaning back into his leather chair. “How does it feel to be back in the war?”

“I’m not exactly on the front line,” John grumbles.

“We all must accept our limitations,” Mycroft waves his glass around the room as if the evidence to back up this claim were arrayed on the walls around them.

John settles back into his chair. “So what are yours?”

Mycroft raises his eyebrows at him. John has a half-smile on his lips, not a pleasant one, but a self-assured expression. And Mycroft knows with the kind of absolution normally reserved for religious experiences that he is in love with this man. It is something he cannot categorise or describe even if he needed to write an official press release to explain it to the voting public. It is all mixed up with Mycroft’s embarrassing overprotection of his brother and the pain of Anthea’s betrayal and the sound his hand made when he hit John down in the Baking House. But it is also its own creature, just like John must have his own face somewhere under all those masks. Even if neither will ever be seen, can never be seen, they are empirically real.

He takes a breath and answers, “I’m getting old, Dr Watson,” Mycroft says, putting his glass down on his desk with a soft chink, “And I’m beginning to take things personally.”

---

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) tawabids June 2 2011, 11:47:50 UTC
Really wonderful fic :D

(Though I'm so conflicted about whether I want to slash this Mycroft and John in my head or not. On one hand, they had amazing chemistry in this last chapter, on the other hand Mycroft took things way too far previously. I'm so confused)

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) tawabids June 2 2011, 12:06:43 UTC
Then my job here is done :D but seriously, I actually really like this pairing after doing this fill. There was just no way it was ever going to be roses and kittens after how they started out.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) darthhellokitty June 2 2011, 16:39:49 UTC
Wow. Just wow. This is an amazing story, dark and yet somehow weirdly hopeful.

You know what really gets to me (aside from the main story line)? How Mycroft misses Anthea. No one else can really do what she does.

Of course, Mycroft is in love with John. How could he not be? A strange case of Stockholm syndrome in reverse.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) tawabids June 3 2011, 23:35:55 UTC
Thank you very much! Yes, if I'd had all the time in the world I would have done a lot more with Anthea, I'm glad that made such an impression :)

When I started this thing I was like "How the hell am I EVER going to turn this into love?", it was such a fun challenge to puzzle out. Good to know you think it worked!

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OP tawabids June 3 2011, 05:46:18 UTC
I love it! Thank so much for filling, and with such skill and speed :D

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Re: OP tawabids June 3 2011, 23:36:58 UTC
Thank you for prompting! This was probably the most challenging thing I've written on the meme so far, I'm so glad I took a crack at it.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) tawabids June 10 2011, 06:59:13 UTC
Wow. That's one of the most interesting things I've read lately. Strange and fascinating. I think your Mycroft is brilliant, and just the kind of half-scary, half-awkward character that's in my head.

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Re: Break His Fingers, He Won't Play the Piano No More (11/11) tawabids June 20 2011, 06:26:35 UTC
Wow! I can't imagine how conflicted and strange things must be for John. What an insane situation. Great job showing Mycroft's thought processes.

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