Fig: TGIO 4:1

[gayalondiel_bak]

thegameison_sh Cycle Four, Challenge One

Title: Bring Them Home
Genre: Angst (mild)
Rating: PG

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.

Prompt: Undercover
AN: I was in two minds about whether to post this, but I'm being a completist, I guess. I'm really not enamoured of this one - I know what I was trying to do but I didn't really have time to get it right. Next round is already half written though.

Fic masterpost.

They haven't drifted apart, he has told himself so many times. Brothers in bond, they are still as close as they once were.

He always hears the lie.

They still see each other regularly, and occasionally chase criminals around London together, just as before. But each has his own existence now that they are not living in one another's pockets, and both pretends to be content with that. Marriage, bereavement, loss and years apart have whittled away at the cord that once held them so tightly together. Anyone would forgive him for missing the clues.

Still, he should have known. Neither of them could ever stay away from trouble.

He was busy with work, staving off growing loneliness with frenzied activity. He knew the people around him worried, and he couldn't care less. The only one whose opinion mattered knew enough not to speak, just to be there when he could, doing what he could, around the busy work he filled his own life with these days. Staving off loneliness. Pride, or maybe fear, kept them both from admitting that where they should be – where they needed to be – was back with one another, living and working and just existing together.

Where they belonged.

It might be expected that two lonely men, worn by years of grief, each mirrored in the other, would come back together out of mutual need. That was before you even considered the friendship, the history and the heart that underwrote everything between them, even as the cord stretched thinner. But neither of them had taken that first step, the admission that he needed someone apart from himself, and the cord was so very thin now. The tension was unbearable. It would snap back, bring them together once more in the blink of an eye; or it would break.

He doesn’t know which it will be, he can only hope. He knows he's been neglectful of the friendship; he knows he's not the only one. He hopes that awareness of their common fallibility will be enough to disperse the lingering sense of blame, of who let go first, who let the drift between them get so wide.

Mycroft's call came out of the blue, short and to the point. His best friend had been roped into some scheme that was too shady for official government lines, to be kept quiet from the police, from all their contacts, even from him. Very top secret, Mycroft had said. And now his cover was blown, his face known by some quirk of chance, some acquaintance or associate or maybe even someone who had read the old cases on the damned website, or the blog. Either of them could be blamed for that.

It doesn't matter. The cover is blown, and someone has to go to the rescue. Rescue a man, a friendship, a life together, and bring him back home, not to the cold flats where they both live in isolation, but Baker Street. He knows Mrs Hudson has been holding the flat for them for a year or more, even though she can't really afford to. She sees more than either of them, in her own way.

He rifles through his wardrobe for some appropriate costume, wondering how best to make himself unobtrusive, to slip through the shadows until he finds his mark. How long since he dressed to someone else's requirements? Putting on a disguise feels like stepping into a uniform, and it's been years since he wore either. Today it's necessary, and if he can just get this right, tomorrow they can argue about whether either of them ever puts himself in danger for a case again.

Both of them will, of course.

He checks his appearance one last time. Unobtrusive, unremarkable. He can’t risk being found to be carrying a weapon. He pockets the pay as you go phone that only two men have the number for, and leaves his own on the coffee table with a timed text message for Lestrade alerting him if he's not back in 24 hours. If they’re not back. He can’t return alone. He won't.

Please let it be all right, he asks. Please bring him home safely. Please bring us both home, together, where we belong. He wonders who he’s asking, then dismisses the thought.

He asks again for good measure.

And then he's gone. On a mission to find his friend, save them both, and bring them home.

Together.