Sherlock: Side Story – Abominable Bride

Timeline: pre-Ghosts

"I'm waiting Mycroft..."

"I'm not saying it," the answer was just as childish and full of disdain as the greeting, but Q hid a smile behind the monitor he was working on.

"Say it..." he chided his older brother as he typed in the last few command prompts and hit the [ENTER] key with a completely unnecessary flourish. "Done," he all but chirped as he looked up at his brother who looked like he had swallowed a lemon.

"...Fine," Mycroft rolled his eyes and tapped his ever-present umbrella. "Thank you, Q," he groused almost under his breath and Q grinned.

He knew he could easily wheedle and press the issue to make Mycroft repeat himself, but did not; it was mostly due to the most generous contribution he had received from Sherlock with the sloppily hand-written note to go easy on Mycroft. Q had instantly smelled the whiff of drugs on the piece of paper and had resigned himself to the fact that Sherlock had decided to go for a full cocktail mix again. That must have given Mycroft conniptions and many headaches after demanding the list from him. The fact that it was in Sherlock's hand writing to go easy on Mycroft placated Q's urge to needle his brother. He would not do it for Mycroft's sake, but out of respect for Sherlock. God only knew Mycroft needed someone to keep him in line or give him more reason to go on a yo-yo diet.

"Your new security set-up should at least prevent Mrs. Watson from easily hacking in again with her phone nonetheless," he said before Mycroft nodded once and spun on his heel. He walked quickly out and Q watched Anthea receive him before the two made their way out of the Quartermaster's Branch of MI6 up to the more populated floors of Vauxhall.

Said phone was not in his possession, but Sherlock had managed to copy the hardware and SIM card of Mrs. Watson's phone onto a similar modeled one. Q had already taken a peek into it and discovered a treasure trove of hacker's paradise inside the phone and was itching to gleefully dive back in and figure out how in the world did a former CIA agent managed to get her hands on such advance technology. Incidentally, it would also help bolster MI6's networks after Silva's attack and also extend the protection to MI5. At least that was the hope. If anything, he would be able to use the technology inside to bury or completely erase any files regarding himself from the system in case something happened.

There was no need for the world to find out that there was a third Holmes brother when one in the public life and the other in a semi-public capacity would do.

~END~