for Mycroft

[sharpshooting]

Two days in, and John was still having a difficult time processing that he wasn't going round the twist. He really was in space, and Sherlock was really alive-- not the way John had spent half a year wishing, mad dreams of discovering his friend had faked his death and had been in hiding the whole time, but whisked away out of his life long before Moriarty's performance with the crown jewels.

Nothing made sense anymore. John would learn to live with it, but it was going to be hard for a while. And it certainly wouldn't be made easier by this: looking up to find Mycroft Holmes walking calmly through the transport hub where John sat playing a level of this Minotaur game on his phone.

He hoped Mycroft wouldn't stop, but of course he did, sending an unpleasant jolt through him at the sight of the familiar smug smile. He let his hand holding the phone drop to his lap and just stared, expressionless, willing Mycroft to back down.

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[sharpshooting]

That sort of bland condescension was Mycroft's bread and butter, and normally it wouldn't have gotten any more rise out of John than any of Sherlock's ornery petulant behaviour-- visible annoyance, certainly, but physical violence? John would have said, until this moment, that he would never give Mycroft the satisfaction.

But the casual disregard for John's experience, combined with the raw patch on his heart from everything that had happened yesterday, combined to make him forget what a rational response to that smug disaffection ought to look like. He was swinging before he consciously told his fist to move, the punch landing solidly on Mycroft's jaw, sending him back a step.

His voice, when he spoke, was dark and rough with anger. "Don't tell me I didn't see what I saw. Don't you dare stand there and say I'm wrong, because I'm. Not. Wrong." He couldn't even take any satisfaction from the utterly shocked expression on Sherlock's brother's face, too furious at being told again that what he'd witnessed was a lie. "Just-- just stay away from me. I know I can't keep you away from Sherlock, but you had just better keep away from me, Mycroft."

He didn't care, now, about who left first. He started for the exit, then turned back and said, "There is a such thing as going too far, and you've gone there, and you can't go back."