Fic: Sherlock: Tea by the Fire
Aug. 24th, 2011 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gayalondiel_bakFandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Title: Tea by the Fire
Character/Pairing: Mycroft, not!Anthea, Sherlock
Length: c.700 words
Rating: PG
Spoilers: n/a
Warnings: Um, apocalypse?
Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.
Summary: Mycroft’s world is collapsing. Literally.
AN: Bit of an odd one.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
irisbleufic, I guess this might be a prologue to the one we were talking about at the weekend? *shrugs*
Master Fanfic List
Mycroft remains at his desk until the last second, calling, emailing, texting, coordinating, arranging, as the networks and feeds blink out one by one. Anthea is by his side, her fingers flying over her phone as fast as he has ever seen anyone type.
"Moscow, sir," she says into the heavy, damp atmosphere, and he closes his eyes briefly. Not long now.
"You should go," he tells her. "Your name was on the list."
"Right next to yours," she replies, and that's that.
He spares a brief second to glance out of the window. It's still early, but the sky is dark red, pulsing with ash and soot and lit by flames. Through the toughened glass he can hear the sound of weapons both legal and illicit firing into the air, the buildings, into human flesh as the population panics. Someone is screaming nerby. Sirens wail in a dreadful polyphony of noise as the remaining loyal police and firemen try to maintain what little semblence of order they can, because it's all they can do and they must do something.
He imagines Greg Lestrade, heading up a hastily gathered team partially clad in riot gear, defending all the frightened innocents he can. A good man to his final breath.
The main internet connection flickers off and stays down this time. Anthea flicks her headset to the radio system and snaps an order about the emergency telegram network down the phone. He has never heard her snap before. His own mobile phone, which will pick up any network operating in the country, tells him that just two are left, but one is the right one, so he holds on a few minutes longer.
The landline buzzes, and he picks it up, confirms that the Royals are as safe as they can be in various bunkers throughout the capital, and the cabinet ministers have been secured.
The sirens are drowned out as a great crunching and scraping engine noise fills the air. A Challenger 2 tank, making its way down Whitehall, driving the rioting silhouettes back, away from the few diligent civil servants who have remained in their offices, working, not running for their families. The old, the world-weary, the determined, the lonely.
And Mycroft, and Anthea.
"Paris, sir," she says.
One network left. It's time. He picks up the phone and dials the code that will punch him as a priority call through the mass of people desperately trying to reach their loved ones and say a last farewell.
"Mycroft," says the voice on the end of the line, as calm as you please.
"Sherlock. Are you safe?"
"Don't be ridiculous," says his brother, and Mycroft nods to himself, one last hypothesis confirmed. He had of course made provisions for Sherlock under the emergency protocols many years ago. When this last threat began to make itself known in the mutterings of people and the tiniest ripples of the economy, he saw it and exerted considerable political weight, threat and favour to get John added to the list. All wasted effort now, because John was the sort of doctor that would not leave the hospital he had volunteered to work at even before the draft of qualified medics went out, not while the wounded were still being brought in. John would not leave the hospital.
Sherlock would not leave John.
"Good luck," he says, a whole speech in two small words.
"Likewise," replies Sherlock, saying much more with one.
He can hear John in the background, shouting for anaesthesia, as if pain mattered any more, and for a nurse. Sherlock is gone seconds later and he can picture him, sleeves rolled up, holding a patient down with sheer strength while John carves into their wounds.
He would have prayed, if he was a praying man.
Maybe, for a second, he does.
"Manchester," says Anthea, and the power blinks out. Suddenly, Mycroft is glad that he thought to boil the kettle a few minutes ago.
"Tea?" he suggests, calm as he has ever been.
Anthea unclips her headset from her ear and places her phone on the desk with a dull thud.
"That would be lovely, sir," she replies, smiling at him in the light of the red sky and blazing fires outside.
Title: Tea by the Fire
Character/Pairing: Mycroft, not!Anthea, Sherlock
Length: c.700 words
Rating: PG
Spoilers: n/a
Warnings: Um, apocalypse?
Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.
Summary: Mycroft’s world is collapsing. Literally.
AN: Bit of an odd one.
irisbleufic, I guess this might be a prologue to the one we were talking about at the weekend? *shrugs*Master Fanfic List
Mycroft remains at his desk until the last second, calling, emailing, texting, coordinating, arranging, as the networks and feeds blink out one by one. Anthea is by his side, her fingers flying over her phone as fast as he has ever seen anyone type.
"Moscow, sir," she says into the heavy, damp atmosphere, and he closes his eyes briefly. Not long now.
"You should go," he tells her. "Your name was on the list."
"Right next to yours," she replies, and that's that.
He spares a brief second to glance out of the window. It's still early, but the sky is dark red, pulsing with ash and soot and lit by flames. Through the toughened glass he can hear the sound of weapons both legal and illicit firing into the air, the buildings, into human flesh as the population panics. Someone is screaming nerby. Sirens wail in a dreadful polyphony of noise as the remaining loyal police and firemen try to maintain what little semblence of order they can, because it's all they can do and they must do something.
He imagines Greg Lestrade, heading up a hastily gathered team partially clad in riot gear, defending all the frightened innocents he can. A good man to his final breath.
The main internet connection flickers off and stays down this time. Anthea flicks her headset to the radio system and snaps an order about the emergency telegram network down the phone. He has never heard her snap before. His own mobile phone, which will pick up any network operating in the country, tells him that just two are left, but one is the right one, so he holds on a few minutes longer.
The landline buzzes, and he picks it up, confirms that the Royals are as safe as they can be in various bunkers throughout the capital, and the cabinet ministers have been secured.
The sirens are drowned out as a great crunching and scraping engine noise fills the air. A Challenger 2 tank, making its way down Whitehall, driving the rioting silhouettes back, away from the few diligent civil servants who have remained in their offices, working, not running for their families. The old, the world-weary, the determined, the lonely.
And Mycroft, and Anthea.
"Paris, sir," she says.
One network left. It's time. He picks up the phone and dials the code that will punch him as a priority call through the mass of people desperately trying to reach their loved ones and say a last farewell.
"Mycroft," says the voice on the end of the line, as calm as you please.
"Sherlock. Are you safe?"
"Don't be ridiculous," says his brother, and Mycroft nods to himself, one last hypothesis confirmed. He had of course made provisions for Sherlock under the emergency protocols many years ago. When this last threat began to make itself known in the mutterings of people and the tiniest ripples of the economy, he saw it and exerted considerable political weight, threat and favour to get John added to the list. All wasted effort now, because John was the sort of doctor that would not leave the hospital he had volunteered to work at even before the draft of qualified medics went out, not while the wounded were still being brought in. John would not leave the hospital.
Sherlock would not leave John.
"Good luck," he says, a whole speech in two small words.
"Likewise," replies Sherlock, saying much more with one.
He can hear John in the background, shouting for anaesthesia, as if pain mattered any more, and for a nurse. Sherlock is gone seconds later and he can picture him, sleeves rolled up, holding a patient down with sheer strength while John carves into their wounds.
He would have prayed, if he was a praying man.
Maybe, for a second, he does.
"Manchester," says Anthea, and the power blinks out. Suddenly, Mycroft is glad that he thought to boil the kettle a few minutes ago.
"Tea?" he suggests, calm as he has ever been.
Anthea unclips her headset from her ear and places her phone on the desk with a dull thud.
"That would be lovely, sir," she replies, smiling at him in the light of the red sky and blazing fires outside.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 04:28 pm (UTC)Glad it was Sherlock and John together at the almost end - that will always makes everything alright in this world.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 05:12 pm (UTC)ETA: Then again, though, seriously, it works so well just as a brief one-shot!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:51 pm (UTC)(Also it means you won't be able to avoid me all through your exile :p )
no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 07:34 pm (UTC)(I love the title as well, very clever.)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:54 pm (UTC)(It's probably not the end)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 09:39 pm (UTC)Ducking and covering...
Date: 2011-08-25 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-25 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 01:40 am (UTC)I'm glad this will be part of a longer work. I have so many questions. This was really great.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-29 11:42 pm (UTC)