The Great Game [Reader Insert]

Team Mycroft, anyone? *raises hand* No one? Okay. *slowly lowers hand*

     -John's POV-

     John woke up the next morning in the living room of Sarah Sawyer's flat. Yep. He literally went and slept at someone else's house because he got into a fight with Sherlock. This whole series is full of a bunch of dramatic cinnamon rolls, and I love them.

     "Morning!" Sarah chirped, walking into the room in a blue dressing gown. (Percy would be proud.)

     "Oh, mor-" John turned to look at her but grimaces in pain. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Morning." (Remember that one time Eliza made Alex sleep in his office?)

     "See? Told you you should have gone with the lilo."

     "No no no, it's fine. I slept fine. It's very kind of you."

     Sarah smiled. "Well, maybe next time I'll let you kip at the end of my bed. You know." She raised her eyebrows playfully and switched on the TV.

     John looked at the screen. "What about the time after that?"

     Sarah chuckled and set down the remote. "So, d'you want some breakfast?"

    "Love some," John responded.

     Sarah smirked. "Well, you better make it yourself, because I'm gonna have a shower!"

     John looked up at Sarah and she gave him a wink before leaving the room. He laughed and rested his head on his fist, watching the TV.

     The newsreader was saying, "It fetched over twenty million pounds. This one is anticipated to do even better. Back now to our main story, there's been a massive explosion in central London."

     John stared at the screen with concern as the newsreader went on, "As yet, there are no reports of any casualties..." But the next words went in one ear and out the other. John's expression changed to shock as the headline changed to: "House destroyed on Baker Street."

     Watson jumped to his feet and grabbed his jacket. "Sarah!" He opened the door. "Sarah! Sorry, I've got to run!"

     John burst into the flat and raced up the stairs. "Sherlock. Sherlock! (Y/N)!"

     But as he hurried into the room, he was met with a rather anticlimatic scene. Sherlock was sitting in his chair in a gorgeous purple shirt, Mycroft in John's- John's chair!- and you stood beside Mycroft with your hands in your pockets. Sherlock plucked his violin moodily. "John."

     "I saw it on the telly. Are you two okay?" John asked.

     -Your POV-

     "Hmm? What?" Sherlock looked 'round, then nodded slowly. "Oh. Yeah. Fine. Gas leak, apparently."

     He turned his attention back to Mycroft and you, sulkily plucking at his violin strings. "I can't."

     "Can't?" you scoffed.

     "The stuff I've got on is just too big," Sherlock stared simply. "I can't spare the time."

     "You've got nothing on!" You countered angrily. "Why not just accept the case?"

     "Why should I?"

    "Oh." You nodded slowly, though pissed. "I see. Still stuck on the sibling rivalry." Sherlock gave you a dark look.

     Mycroft sighed. "Sherlock, this is of national importance."

     Sherlock rolled his eyes and plucked a pizzicato note on the violin. "How's the diet?"

     "Fine," Mycroft replied saltily.

       "Perhaps you can get through to him, John," you said, looking to your friend for help.

     John looked over from where he stood by the boarded-up windows. "What?"

     "I'm afraid my brother can be very intransigent," Mycroft muttered sourly.

     Sherlock pretended to adjust the strings on his instrument. "Well, if you're so keen, why don't you investigate?"

     "No no no no, I can't possibly be away from the office for any length of time, not with the Korean elections so..." He trailed off and everyone on the room looked at him with interest. "Well, you don't need to know about that, do you? Besides, a case like this, it requires..." he made a sour face. "Legwork."

     Sherlock pointedly plucked an off-key string and tried to get his mind off of his irritating brother. He turned to John. "How's Sarah? How was the lilo?"

     "Sofa, Sherlock," you corrected. Mycroft gave you an approving look. "It was the sofa."

     Sherlock glanced at you and then back to John. "Oh, yes, of course."

     John squinted at the two of you. "H-How..? Oh, never mind." He sighed and sat down on the coffee table.

     "Sherlock's business seems to be booming," Mycroft commented, "since you, (Y/N) and he became... pals. What's he like to live with? Hellish, I imagine." You scoffed as if to say, Oh, you've no idea. But i mean technically you don't rlly live with them, you live in the downstairs room bcos u take care of ur aunt.

     John cocked his head. "I'm never bored."

     Mycroft smiled at him condescendingly. "Good! That's good, isn't it?" He picked up a folder from the table beside him and stood up, offering to Sherlock, who simply looked back at his older brother stubbornly. Mycroft sighed and proffered the folder to you instead. "Andrew West, known as Westie to his friends." You took the folder dutifully. "A civil servant," Mycroft continued, "found dead on the tracks at Battersea Station this morning with his head smashed in."

      John got up from the table and you showed him the folder. He looked at it. "Jumped in front of a train?"

     "Seems the logical assumption," Mycroft replied.

     John looked up at him. "But?"

     "'But?'"

     "Well, you wouldn't be here if it was just an accident," John said. Sherlock smirked, perhaps a little proud of his pet.

      "The M.O.D is working on a new missile defence systen- the Bruce-Partington Programme. The plans for it were on a memory stick."

     John chuckled and gave him a weird look. "Well, that wasn't very clever." Sherl sniggered.

     "It's not the only copy."

    "Oh."

     "But it is secret," you put in, remembering what you could from the file when you had briefly glanced at it. 

     "Top secret?" John asked.

     "Very," Mycroft replied. "We think West must have taken the memory stick. We can't possibly risk it falling into the wrong hands." He glanced over at Sherlock, who now had his violin at his chin. "You've got to find those plans, Sherlock. Don't make me order you."

     Sherlock gave Mycroft a dead look. "I'd like to see you try."

     "Just think it over, Sherlock," you told him. He glared at you.

     Mycroft sighed and fiddled with his umbrella. "Well, I'll be off, then." He smiled humourlessly at John. "I expect I'll see you very soon." John tried not to look to look too disconcerted.

     Mycroft turned to head for the door. He paused and gave you a knowing look. You nodded in response and he started to leave again. Sherlock played a rapid irritating off-key collection of notes until Mycroft was out, and then angrily struck his bow against the violin for one final screech.

     (I'd be screeching too if I was in the same room as Mark Gatiss, especially after that whole let's-have-Sherlock-commit-fake-suicide gag. Did you know that when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock, someone attacked him with an umbrella? Wait, an umbrella... Hmm. Coincidence? I think NOT!)