Chapter Text
It wasn’t unusual for Mycroft to spend far too long in a comfortable bakery. Any small, warm establishment with expensive, well-brewed coffee and perfectly made confectionary was his guilty pleasure, and so he would often go sit in one for hours with a small novel and go through one too many buns and never enough perfect coffee.
The unusual occurrence was for him to visit one twice.
He visited the university coffee shop like it was a drug den to an addict as he could use the excuse of needing to study, but the local bakeries were a one-time affair. These bakeries had slowly moved further from reach, with Mycroft making the constant excuse of wanting to taste the different rustic coffees and teas of Oxford city (Sherlock teasing him by saying he was closer to Abingdon at this point).
Truthfully, Mycroft never returned to a coffee shop twice due to feeling socially awkward; he would stay until closing time and then feel horrible for wasting their resources despite having likely paid their rent through his coffee and confectionary consumption.
Then there was the Daily Grind. Mycroft had originally been lured into the shop by the smell of strong coffee and sweet sugary treats and had been pulled back by a kind barista. “Will I be seeing you soon? You look like one of those Instagram teens who drink coffee twenty-four-seven and takes aesthetic photos without so much of a blink.”
John was the barista’s name, a hip 16-year-old with a large smile, small stature and a military cut. He’d taken Mycroft back slightly as he hadn’t seemed the type to work in a small coffee shop, but the lad likely lived locally and needed a small job to earn some pocket money.
They’d had a pleasant conversation at one point, with John asking a few questions about the Victorian novel that he was reading, and Mycroft responding with a few details while avoiding spoiling the plot.
Within thirty minutes of leaving the small coffee-room, Mycroft had decided to return; he’d been more than a little disappointed when he’d realised that John was not on duty and instead it was a different, slightly older teenager.
While ordering his coffee, Mycroft was able to deduce that this barista was only here to cover some of his university living costs, and was likely a first year that was studying something to do with crime (there was a small crime text-book poking out the top of his open bag), and that this teen was more closed than John. Mycroft tried not to let his annoyance register on his features.
Having come back on the same day, at the same time, Mycroft had been very hopeful to see John again – he’d practically planned it so that he could see the teen! This, he determined, was the exact reason he refused to visit a coffeehouse more than once.
This stand-offish teen eyed him as he took his seat and began to read, and pushed him to close it again after barely an hour. Perhaps he would look through the windows in the coming days to see if he could spot when John was next on shift, but it was probably more likely that he never set foot in the establishment again. His novel was tucked back into his brown leather satchel, whose handle was carefully placed over his soft cotton jumper so that it didn’t twist in an angry snarl. With an awkward fidget – him rubbing the back of his neck – he got up from his seat.
The cool air outside struggled to fight against his blush, before finally managing to subdue it into a light flush; never again, he confirmed.
After a brief thought of visiting a tearoom, Mycroft sighed softly and began his quiet walk back to the family home. Despite being in his third year of university, Mycroft had chosen to remain living at home due to its close proximity to Oxford, although he had attended a boarding school for sixth-form and so returning home for such a long period of time had taken some adjustments.
Perhaps if he was lucky he’d be able to avoid his slightly irritating (very irritating) younger brother, who might be in the middle of an experiment or even in the garden observing the small bee-hive that had made a home in one of the oak trees.
No such luck.
A clumsy lump of a fourteen-year-old boy ran directly into his chest once he’d pushed the door shut behind him, and had already begun to speak at a speed which could only be understood if you recorded it and then put it on half-speed. Despite an outward demeanour of disliking his older brother, Sherlock’s false animosity would crumble away until there was nothing left of it when they were alone, or if Sherlock was undeniably bored with the rest of the world. There would always be a hint of brotherly disagreement in their discussions, but Sherlock loved to spend his free time with his brother if no-one else knew they were in the same room – Mycroft spent his time teaching him things that school refused to, and would watch over him while he did more dangerous experiments. Hell, Mycroft had even brought him 6 weeks of bee-keeping lessons for his thirteenth birthday.
“You’ll need to slow down, Sherlock, if you want me to understand even a word of what you are saying,” Mycroft said as he placed his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders to ground him. Mycroft often had to repeat Sherlock’s name, or physically sooth him to bring Sherlock back to the world of the mortal; his thoughts were often far away in an experiment, or his internal monologue would have a running commentary on his surroundings which became distracting when Sherlock wasn’t thinking of anything else.
“Would we be able to do an experiment this evening, My?” Sherlock asked in a voice that Mycroft was incredibly weak to; it was a higher-pitched than it would be normally, and there was a soft pout on his lips as he spoke the words. He looked like a kicked puppy, and Mycroft could barely ever decline his requests.
“I suppose,” Mycroft agreed reluctantly (he had really wanted to read that book). He quickly added, “But you shall have to come to the coffee shop with me tomorrow as payment for my services.”
Sherlock’s head had tilted slightly to the left, and his eyebrows had furrowed in confusion for a few moments. “Why do you want me to come with you – oh!”
“What?”
“Did you think me thick, My? I deduce that you wish to go back to that coffee shop you visited today and you want an excuse. Did you have a disagreement with one of the staff, or did you eat so much cake that you don’t want to be seen as a glutton? Hmm, disagreement from the slight flinch at the comment. I’ll come if you buy me honey on the way back.”
“The condition of doing the experiment with you was you coming to the coffee shop. It’s illogical for you to request anything more and you are treating me like a commoner who hadn’t studied PPE if you expected me not to notice,” Mycroft pointed out, and almost laughed at Sherlock’s pained look.
“But coffee shops are insufferable, especially the kind you associate with!” Sherlock whined. “How about I act like I dragged you in for the honey?”
“I shall buy you honey on the way back. As long as you do as you stated, as well as act on your best behaviour for the majority of the trip,” Mycroft decided and then recoiled when Sherlock spat on his hand. Sherlock had taken to doing this whenever he made an agreement as he’d seen it once on a TV show and had decided that it was, therefore, one of the unsanitary traditions of the general populace. Mycroft had tried to convince him otherwise, but Sherlock had repeated time and again that Mycroft was not a member of the wider community and so would not know their customs.
Mycroft shook his pinkie.
Wiping his hands on his school trousers, Sherlock lead the way to the home lab. The small room (originally guest room two) had been converted into a laboratory when Mycroft had first started secondary school. Once it had been filled with his GCSE notes and his few scribbled experiments, but they’d been removed when he’d chosen to take English, history, philosophy and maths at A-Level and the room had promptly been redecorated to suit Sherlock’s need.
The room had since become Sherlock’s domain, and Mycroft had never been jealous of his younger brother. More scientifically gifted, Sherlock had used this room much more and Mycroft had even been the one who’d suggested that Sherlock get it as a gift for his ninth birthday.
They’d installed a small wooden cabinet since it’d been his which had been filled to the brim with scientific journals and notebooks – they’d likely need another soon as the pile of used notebooks was steadily growing on the furthest edge of the experimentation bench. There were also a few more shelving units which held endless stacks of test-tube stands and had a soldier-line of flasks. Mycroft noticed the creased 400-page notebook on different types of tobacco ash (that particular experiment had caused endless arguments during his first year of study) open to page 347, indicating that he would either need a new notebook, or that he was slowly running out of tobacco types and was trying to fill the remaining pages with his analysis. Sherlock would never admit it, but he hated having unfinished journals. Sherlock remained determined that he’d be able to publish these journals when he was older and so had written them in his best script for them to be typed up at some point. Mycroft has yet to find the courage to shatter his brother’s heart and reveal that no one would ever be as interested in tobacco ash as he was.
After putting on his lab coat, a pair of goggles and a pair of gloves, Sherlock began to explain the experiment that was lined up on the lab table. There were eight test-tubes of water and Sherlock explained how he was researching how different blood types dispersed in water, and whether this would have any effect on helping solve crimes where blood and water were involved. Mycroft decided it was unlikely that there would be anything of interest to come from the investigation, but didn’t mention it.
Sherlock liked to talk while he did experiments, and would often ask Mycroft questions throughout which meant that he wouldn’t be able to pull out his book. A topic that took up some of the time was their parents, mostly Sherlock’s discontent on their leash on his experiments and how anything that involved blood was off-limits despite being able to use a Bunsen burner without supervision. Mycroft’s favourite analogy (Sherlock had more than a few) was that doing an experiment with blood was as dangerous as him playing his violin and he’d been allowed to keep the wooden eye-poking bow in his room.
The experiment took about an hour, and when it was concluded Sherlock let out a heavy sigh. With a deep-set frown, he wrote in his notebook at a torturous pace. With a flourish on the final word, Sherlock capped his biro and dropped it on the counter with a theatrical flair.
“I’m bored,” Sherlock announced as soon as the pen’s clattering noises had ceased. Mycroft pressed his fore-finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose; it was one of those evenings.
“You cannot be bored when you’ve just finished an experiment, Sherlock. Surely there is something more to think about, or perhaps you can clean up the mess?” Mycroft tried, knowing that it was likely a pointless venture. When Sherlock didn’t receive a rush from an experiment, he often became agitated and unoccupied, and subsequently overly-irritating and rude.
“Shut up, Mycroft,” Sherlock snapped, and Mycroft bit his lip when Sherlock swept the rack from the table-top and let it fall to the floor with a shatter. Another mess to clean, it seemed.
A brat wasn’t an adequate descriptor for Sherlock the next morning – he was far worse. Mycroft had been the victim of name-calling more times than he could count, had been mocked about his weight at least eighteen times and Sherlock had caused a small fire with the toaster despite it barely being eight o’clock. Mycroft’s patience was walking on a tightrope as he cleaned up Sherlock’s messes, and he threated Sherlock’s honey after the fire.
The slope towards having a good Sunday was slowly becoming a cliff, and Mycroft could only hope that John would be the barista at the coffeehouse today rather than the stand-offish server from the previous day.
At eleven, after checking the opening times religiously for the past hour (if Mycroft hated one thing it was waiting outside an establishment before it’s opening time and feeling like an idiot) Mycroft ensured that Sherlock was wearing his coat – a lot of protests – and had a few scientific books in his rucksack. Ensuring for a second time that Sherlock wasn’t wearing his jumper backwards or inside out, Mycroft ushered him out of the door.
The heavy door closed behind him with a click, and Mycroft struggled to believe how relieved he was to finally have Sherlock out of the house. After a sour discussion on the behaviour he expected from Sherlock, they even managed a somewhat stilted discussion.
The walk was fifteen minutes longer that Mycroft had anticipated and found himself conflicted as he walked into the coffeehouse. Both of the baristas he had met previously were on duty; John was there, but so was the awkward-encounter teen from the day before.
The two were bantering from behind the counter, joking with each other about John’s height and the other’s lack-lustre Sunday stubble. Mycroft approached cautiously and smiled slightly at John who grinned widely in return. “I’d like – “
“Mycroft!” Sherlock said with a tug on Mycroft’s coat. He’d somehow managed to slither under Mycroft’s arm despite having been at a table a few moments ago. “I would like a hot chocolate, and if there isn’t hot chocolate then your taste in cafés suck and I think we should leave!”
“One hot chocolate then?” John asked with a small chuckle, speaking to Mycroft despite his glaze being directed curiously at Sherlock. “And your brother’s taste in café is rather exquisite as he chose ours, and ours is clearly the best.”
“Mycroft’s opinions don’t count, as he is clearly stupid. And a glazed doughnut.”
“Reading obscure Victorian literature makes you pretty clever, in my opinion,” the other server adds, which surprises Mycroft. Few people recognised such an obscure title, and Mycroft hadn’t realised that the other had been paying that much attention to him.
“He cannot recite the periodic table backwards without writing it down, which means that he’s inferior to my greater intellect,” Sherlock told the older barista with conviction and somewhat of a glare, and Mycroft nearly face-palmed through second-hand embarrassment. Remembering why he often avoided taking Sherlock to public venues, Mycroft somewhat pitied his younger brother for being unable to conceal his intellect which resulted in him being bullied for it.
“You can do that? Amazing!” John said with a large smile. “So that was one hot chocolate, one glazed doughnut and?”
“A tea and a slice of chocolate cake for Mycroft,” Sherlock said before Mycroft could reply. “He really should be sticking to his diet, but he can never say no to a slice of cake.”
“A hot chocolate, a glazed doughnut, a tea and a slice of cake, then,” John confirmed as the other barista imputed the pricing into the cash register. While Mycroft was handing over the money, John concocted Sherlock’s hot chocolate and added whipped cream (with a nod from Sherlock) along with a sprinkle of chocolate powder and a small flake pressed into the white mountain on top. He handed over the drink and a glazed doughnut on a plate, before beginning to work on the tea. Sherlock had already taken his seat at the table and was opening his first book – anatomy – when Mycroft received his order.
Mycroft took a seat at the table next to Sherlock (Sherlock’s things covered the whole of the first, which made sitting at it impractical) and began his own reading.
Time passed quickly in the coffeehouse. Taking regular small sips of his drink and small bites of his cake, an hour had passed by in the blink of an eye. The next hour was somewhat slower than the previous, as Sherlock started chucking insults in his direction whenever he got bored of a particular section of text.
An old grandfather clock struck one. John was efficiently removing his apron (throwing it in his fellow barista’s face) and then ducked under the counter with a laugh. “Oi! Don’t damage the counter shorty – just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can go under the latch whenever you please!”
For a second, Mycroft panicked. Would John leave him stuck here with his embarrassing brother and the awkward barista?
It didn’t last long. To say he was surprised when John pulled out the seat opposite him and sat down with a firm thud would probably be considered an understatement, and he struggled to believe that John was aiming that slightly breathless smile at him. Sherlock quickly distracted the barista and Mycroft almost groaned.
“You’ve decided that you’re going to study medicine, but you’ve decided that you’ll probably do it with the army to avoid fees, and because you enjoy the idea of fighting in a foreign country with the sun on your back. You live with your mother and your sister, and your sister is a lesbian whom is having a relationship with an ex-girlfriend of yours. You’re bisexual, by the way.” Mycroft almost hissed at him to shut up.
“The was bloody brilliant!” John grinned. Mycroft hadn’t expected that response, and neither had Sherlock from the way his face lit up. “Did you research me before you came in?”
“No, you’re just somewhat obvious,” Sherlock said. He continued when John indicated for him to go on. “You’ve been training heavily and you’ve taken to having your hair cut in a military style (which you’re not yet used to due to your subconsciously running your fingers through your hair). That indicated military. You glanced over with interest when I got out the anatomy book, and there are some leaflets behind the counter about medicine so it was a good guess. You clearly have a motherly influence in your life, and yet lack a fatherly influence so it’s likely a single parent household. You clearly have a sibling, and it was more likely female as there seems to be little evidence of another male within your household. Lesbian because there was a post-it note stuck behind the counter saying ‘stop looking at my girlfriend, dweeb’ signed by ‘Harry’. I could also tell that Harry was female due to their script. You are bisexual from the way you look at passers-by. The girlfriend is an ex of yours because you scribbled ‘she’s an ex for a reason, Harry’ underneath in reply and you plan on giving that to her later. I think that’s all?”
“Wow, I’m going to sound like a robot but you truly are brilliant!” He said with again with a grin, before ruffling Sherlock’s hair (to the boy’s irritation) and turning his attention towards Mycroft. “So tell me, what are your opinions on Agatha Christie?”