ShErLoCk oNeSiEs

Just Like Before

"Sherlock, this argument is nonexistent. I said no. Nothing you say or do will change that."

"Brother mine, you underestimate my abilities," clipped Sherlock. "Nothing new, but I'd been hoping against all that is rational that you'd...I don't know, see the light."

"Had you now?"

"Had I what?"

"Been hoping?"

Sherlock pretended to think hard for a moment. "Erm...no. I thought it must have been obvious."

"Transparent, little brother."

"Nonetheless, Mycroft, you won't be rid of me until you humour my evidently childish whims," Sherlock ran his fingers along the polished ivory, almost hesitant to allow a stray note to escape the delicate bearings of the instrument.

For the first time that evening, Mycroft let his eyes fully drink in the sight of the beautiful grand piano. A strange calmness washed over him as he replayed memories of dead days and nights spent drowning in an endless lullaby, coaxed from the white and black like a hushed whisper of comfort in a household of anything but.

Sherlock's tone caught on a slice of the irresistibility tugging at Mycroft's willpower. "Oh, go on," he said with a knowing smirk. "It's been an age."

Mycroft seemed to have lost himself momentarily, snapping an infinitely distant gaze to Sherlock's, less than three metres away. His brain and heart wrestled furiously - reason versus romance, logic versus love, stubbornness versus satisfaction.

Sherlock brought his cupped palms together in a laced fist, sporting a victorious look as his brother gave out a resigned sigh, moving to take a seat behind the instrument, its pearlescent keys begging to be contorted into bearers of sweet melody. He cleared his throat and shot Sherlock with a look.

"One," he drawled, not entirely threateningly. "That's all."

"I knew your resolve was as soft as the marshmallows hidden in your cupboard, idiot," Sherlock said as he casually rifled through a stack of papers, wordlessly handing one to Mycroft as he kept one on the stand in front of him. Sherlock stood there, poised with his violin under his chin and bow at the ready. "Ready when you are, brother."

Skimming his fingers gently over the surface of the ivory keys, Mycroft subconsciously brought his hands into position without even glancing at the piece put in front of him. Without lifting his gaze from his ever-so-slightly quaking fingertips, the uncertainty leapt out of his mouth. "What if I've forgotten it?"

For the first time, Mycroft was the one asking the 'what if's.

It was then that Sherlock realised that maybe the Ice Man was a little cracked.

Against every instinct in his head, Sherlock lowered his violin and tilted his head into Mycroft's vision.

Ice met ice, steel met steel.

One by one, their inhibitions fell away like the years they had spent in indifference.

With each blink, their barriers fell.

Sherlock would never admit it - god knows no one would ever let him forget it - but a scared Mycroft was bound to scare anyone. And of all people, Sherlock was very accustomed to seeing his arrogant, bulbous-headed, bold big brother as...well, confident. Mostly overly so. This was new territory for both brothers.

A gentle, utterly alien smile tugged at Sherlock's lips. He nodded at Mycroft, trying to convert his indecipherable gaze into a comprehensible one, trying to tell his older brother he believed. He believed that Mycroft Holmes had a heart somewhere beneath the olive three-piece, and not a dark endless cavity where there should have been one.

"Just like before," whispered Sherlock, resuming his position. "Hmm?"

Mycroft visibly inhaled. "Just like before."

And his fingers took over.

Never mind the fact that he hadn't touched a piano since Sherlock's last nightmare as a child. Never mind that he should have been totally out of practice. Never mind all that.

What mattered was how the atmosphere was suddenly stimulated to flow like oil, the very particles in the air buzzing with the electric connection of piano and violin. The weight of the keys felt so endearingly familiar, the way a gun might slip perfectly into the hand of a weathered soldier. The duet was rueful and beautiful and haunting and comforting all at once. It sounded like home.

Sherlock slid riffs from his strings, his fingers and feet dancing in a fantasical trance. The notes jumped from the four-stringed fingerboard to the tips on the ivory, bending the honeyed notes to perfection and complementing each other perfectly. The music drifted to a saturated crescendo, and in the midst of all the music from their years together as young innocents, the Holmes brothers shared an entirely unapologetic smile. A silent acknowledgement, a raw acceptance.

A promise.

~

Mycroft Holmes smiled to himself as he was driven back home in a sleek black limousine. He added a grand piano to his admittedly short mental list of priorities, the melody of the evening never leaving his eardrums.

He shook his head in disbelief and astonishment and endearment.

Little brother.

~

When John returned from a long day at St. Bart's, he found Sherlock relaxed in his armchair. The detective was sound asleep, the ghost of a smile curling on his lips, and his violin tucked safely into the crook of his arm.

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:')