Author's Note: Hello guys! I promised you guys a James and Mycroft pre-Anthea one shot. Here it is! For some reason it was extremely difficult to come up with a plotline for this and I owe a lot to ovejalucifer for helping out in that department. I really hope you enjoy it. Please read, review, and enjoy!

This is in the AFTFE universe. If you haven't read it you probably won't really care much about this.

Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Absence of Kindness – by Blood-Sucker-1428

The newly minted agent thought that the end of training would be just that. The end of training. As it turns out when you have potential and when the most powerful man you've ever met sees something in you training never ends. Shooting lessons with Special Agent Richter, interrogations with James' new partner Carol, how to trail successfully with Walter. All the extra martial arts and boxing techniques he was supposed to learn. James was lucky he was born with an almost endless tank of gas otherwise he might not be cut out for all of this.

This subterfuge thing really wasn't his strength though. This watching people and picking up as much as you can while remaining with the lowest profile possible was the absolute worse. James had trouble sitting still and when you're a tall, well-built man with naturally blonde hair and a Cheshire grin you tend to stand out. It didn't help that the man with him was an almost equally tall slender man in a three-piece suit and carrying an umbrella around. How did Mycroft Holmes expect them to keep a low profile? Even if it was just out and about in London.

Training with Mr. Holmes was the worst anyway. He expected perfecting by the end of the lesson. The man's patience seemed endless at the beginning of the lesson, all kind tones and words of encouragement, but by the end of the hour all patience was gone. He'd snap at anyone who so much as interrupted them and ask you why you were choosing to be so incompetent after being told exactly what needed to be done. Mycroft had taken James to the shooting range once. If Carol hadn't been then Mycroft might have shot James. It sucked because all James wanted to do was impress this man. This weird, mysterious, awesome man. He walked into the training centre once and all the officers and agents went silent. It was incredible. He just had this aura of coolness. He was the epitome of a James Bond character. He was what every agent dreamed to be and everyone was either terrified of him or hated him, depending on whether they were around before him or not.

The weird posh man had handpicked James for something, saw something special in him. To James' mistake he thought that meant he could strike up a friendship, or a working friendship at the least. James asked him out for a drink once and got chewed up and spit out so hard Carol couldn't stop laughing for an hour.

"Don't mind him," Mycroft's bodyguard and driver, an ex-agent by the name of Walter, patted James on the back that day. "He's just setting up the usual boundaries." As if that explained everything. It just left James more confused and intrigued.

"Come on James, this isn't exactly hard." Mycroft had gone from kind to snarky about ten minutes ago. James, slouched on the park bench, arms crossed against his chest, shrugged. He just wasn't good at this.

"I don't know! Okay, I don't know. I'm not a genius like you." The click of Mycroft's tongue and the roll of steel eyes told him that was the wrong answer.

"This has nothing to do with genius. This is about observing further." He twirled his umbrella into the grass. "You've heard the saying about seeing the forest through the trees, no?" James sighed and shrugged. "Then try again." James, doubting his ability, looked around the park. He noticed someone and nodded towards him.

"Um… that cop knows you." He tried. It was obvious, the normal cop nodded this way. It was better than getting it completely wrong again. Mycroft looked in the direction.

"Oh." He waved two fingers politely. "Never mind him, he helps with my brother." James had heard about the brother. He'd been present at a drug bust where a junior Mr. Holmes had been found. Rude guy somewhere around James' age but obviously very troubled. Upon hearing his name James immediately asked Carol if she had Mycroft's number. She didn't. He had to call Walter to tell Mycroft. The older brother was there in a flash. "Try again." James was brought back to reality. He looked around. He saw a woman sitting by herself on a bench on the other side of the park.

"She looks sad." This time he was rewarded with a scoff, sapping away any confidence.

"Obviously." Sarcasm oozing.

"I'm trying, sir."

"No, you're not. Look more." James gritted his teeth. He leaned forward and practically glared at the woman. A black gloved hand landed on his shoulder and pushed him back. "So very inconspicuous. No one will ever notice you gawking at them." More sarcasm. But this wasn't the mean sarcasm that came when Mycroft gave up. This was just encouraging. He had heard the man talk, this was as close to friendly as he often got. So James did try for the sake of the genius. He looked carefully at the woman. He looked for something, anything. Then he saw the bags under her eyes.

"She's been sad for a while now."

A pause.

"Good." Mycroft hummed. James immediately perked up a little, electricity in his veins. "Why?"

"She has dark circles under her eyes. She's not been sleeping and her eyes are red too."

Another pause. Good or bad?

"No, that's why you noticed. Why is she sad?" A little of that electricity left. James scratched the back of his head.

"Holmes, sir, how am I supposed to know that?"

"By actually, trying, James." The icy blue eyes glared at him as he finally snapped a little. "By channelling all that energy into one action. By paying attention for once in your life."

"I'm trying?" James shrugged heavily.

"No. You're not." Mycroft hissed. "You gave up twenty minutes ago." He smirked sarcastically. "Thirty minutes ago you tried to do what you thought I wanted you to do, and forty minutes ago you were looking everywhere and practically bouncing as you walked." Mycroft ran a slender hand through his hair. "For God's sake, James, we're trying to be invisible and you walked over to help a woman pick up her hat." The wave of embarrassment hit James hard. He was trying his hardest to be good at this job.

"I was trying to be nice." James explained quietly.

"You're trying to be an idiot." Ouch. That hurt a little. Just when James though he was getting used to Mycroft Holmes.

"With all respect, sir, it's not stupid to be kind."

"Sometimes it is, James." It wasn't harsh this time. It was stated like a fact. James bit the inside of his lip and looked at the man. "Sometimes it can mean your life. If this was an actual mission that woman might have been out for your head." There was a heaviness in James' eyes now. He quickly blinked it away. Feeling defeated, the agent shrugged again.

"I don't know, then." James sighed. "I don't know what you see in me then, sir." He was honest. "If you wanted someone cold and cool then why didn't you pick another agent? Why didn't you pick Carol even? She's been here for year." Mycroft shook his head, looking out into the park.

"Because I have enough cold people surrounding me, including myself." He explained. "What I need from an agent I wish to trust with almost anything is not coldness. I need someone with the capacity of greatness. Someone who shows skill in all areas and can clearly be trained. I also need someone who does have that streak of kindness." He twisted the umbrella into the ground again. "Someone who can look at a scenario and see a way to get out with the least amount of casualties. Someone who will argue in favour of sparing an innocent's life." James took a deep breath. He looked at the ground. He looked across the park. He then snorted a laugh. The look Mycroft gave him was priceless.

"What are you talking about?" He smiled his Cheshire grin. "You're kind." Mycroft rolled his eyes again.

"No, I'm not." He sounded like he was repeating himself for the hundredth time.

"Yeah, you are."

"No." Mycroft looked James squarely in the eyes. "James, you have no idea what I'm capable."

"That doesn't mean you can't do nice things." James pursed his lips and shook his head. "I saw how quickly you came to your brother." A flash of something passed through Mycroft's eyes.

"I've sacrificed innocent lives to get myself out of a hostage situation alive." He hissed. "I've watched an agent be choked to death while I kept my cover. Have you seen a child die, James? Because I have?" James pouted his lips. He got what Mycroft was saying. He was trying to warn James about all the horrible things he had done, but James had received that warning. On day one they were warned that they'd do inexplicable acts but that as long as they were for the greater good James could deal with it. When he looked at Mycroft and those deeply thoughtful blue eyes he didn't see a bad guy. He saw a little bit of a mean person, but he saw a good guy. He couldn't explain it, not properly. He just saw something in him.

"Okay." James tilted his head. "Point taken, sir." It wasn't, but oh well. "Why is she sad then?" Mycroft took a deep breath, turning his eagle eye over to the woman on the other side of the park.

"She's recently lost a child." He answered flatly. James hissed, wincing. "You can tell by the way she looks at the children playing with deep forlorn." That poor mother, and that poor little child. If James could somehow help he would. He could only imagine if it were his mum or his sisters. And yet, this assisted his point.

"I don't think you could see that if you were all evil, sir." James mumbled.

"Evil can be used for good, James." They made eye contact briefly before looking out at the woman again. "Stop trying to be my friend, James." Mycroft spoke softly and gently. James kept his eyes out. He watched the woman then brought his attention to the two boys running around the park with a football. "First of all, I've already explained that I don't do friendships but secondly I need you to hold onto that kindness. Otherwise you're useless to me." James laughed.

"You think you're going to turn me evil?" James asked, jokingly. Mycroft rolled his eyes.

"No, don't be stupid." Mycroft scoffed. "I don't want to entirely disillusion you. Not entirely, anyway." James laughed again. Mycroft turned to him with a quirked eyebrow.

"I have three older sisters, Holmes, sir." He beamed. "If they didn't ruin me you're not going to." There might have been a sniff of a laugh in return.

"All the same…" The genius dismissed the agent.

"Why don't you do friends?" James asked, having lost interest in the park. He was now watching the older man. "Just that people are gross?" That time he did get a smirk in return.

"Amongst other reasons." Mycroft answered, holding the smirk. "Just like I need you to hold onto your spark, James, sentiment merely gets in the way for me." James pulled a face. He looked down at the grass at his feet and kicked it.

"Once again, with all due respect sir, you're so weird." He shook his head as he snickered. "It's kind of cool." Mycroft clicked his tongue and rolled those steely eyes.

"Dear God, will nothing dissuade you?"

Author's Note: So? What did you think? I really hope you enjoyed it! I'm almost certain it'll help fuel any bromance or shipping feelings in those of you who already feel that. For the rest of you I hope it was nice to see something not from Anthea's point of you. Also young James was fun. Please review and tell me what you thought!