Greg should have known something was amiss when he saw light shining through the windows of his flat, but he was so knackered after 15 hours on the job that it didn’t even occur to him to be suspicious.
Shouldering open the door, he nearly dropped his keys on the mat from the shock of finding Mycroft Holmes leaning casually against the kitchen counter in his impeccably pressed suit, umbrella tucked neatly under his arm.
“Welcome home, Gregory.”
“Jesus, Myc – nearly gave me a heart attack! How – how did you get in?”
Shaking his head, Greg staggered over the threshold. “Never mind, don’t answer that,” he said, and he just caught the shadow of a smug smile playing at the edges of the other man’s lips.
Rather than reply, Mycroft beckoned Greg into the sitting room-cum-dining area where – would surprises never cease? – a crisp white table cloth had been draped precisely over Greg’s secondhand table. Candles flickered merrily, illuminating a bottle of merlot already breathing next to two ready wine glasses and place settings made up for two. Something, though, wasn’t quite right…
“Are those… did you get chips?”
Sure enough, stacked high on the gleaming china plates were mounds of the greasiest chips Greg had ever seen and – more wonderous still – two healthy portions of deep fried cod, steam still issuing from the crisp, golden batter.
“Well, this is… unexpected,” Greg sputtered, turning around to regard Mycroft with wide-eyed wonder.
“I happened to hear that you’d had a particularly trying day,” Mycroft replied, leaning his umbrella against the wall and crossing the room. “I knew you would be too tired to stop for your usual post-case fare, so I thought I would bring it to you.”
Greg felt an unexpected lump in his throat as he regarded the peculiar, brilliant, terrifying man who had become so dear to him these last five months.
“But you hate pub food,” Greg said, stepping closer to Mycroft and staring deeply into his pale blue eyes.
“Yes,” Mycroft murmured, his eyebrows raising slightly, “but I know what you like.”
“Oh yes,” Greg said, his voice a bit rough as he pulled Mycroft’s face down to his, “yes, you do.”
Many people have noted that the stairs in Sherlock’s mind palace in HLV bear a striking resemblance to the stairs in ASiP, from Sherlock & John’s first case/night together.
However there’s an added symbolism that I haven’t seen anybody comment on before. (Though of course I may have missed it! But this meta was the only thing I could find that covers similar ground.)
One of the biggest obstacles to John and Sherlock’s relationship is John’s disbelief in the strength of Sherlock’s feelings for him. And why wouldn’t he disbelieve? Sherlock has been pushing John away for a long time, has been careless with his time and his belongings and his emotions, has lied and experimented on him and called him an idiot. He’s encouraged John’s mistaken belief that “he doesn’t feel things that way”.
These doubts are so deep seated that even as late as His Last Vow, after Sherlock has risked his life multiple times, spent two years in a dangerous undercover mission, and folded goddamn serviettes for him, John still asks, “But why would he care? He’s Sherlock. Who would he bother protecting?”
But Sherlock doesn’t do this from the very beginning. Until they go view Jennifer Wilson’s body together, Sherlock has been on his best behavior. He smiles, he flirts, he offers to clean, he shows off his skills, he invites John on an adventure, he asks his opinion, and he defends John’s presence to Donovan and Lestrade.
The winds shift with this line: “What is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring!“ And then, a few moments later, Sherlock rushes out to find the pink suitcase… leaving John behind.
The music changes, back to John’s slow, sad theme. We see John slowly walking down the stairs, struggling with his limp, in a shot that takes nearly twenty seconds.
This moment, I’d argue, is the first time Sherlock hurts John. It’s also the first time Sherlock leaves John behind, but it won’t be the last.
It is therefore tremendously symbolic that this staircase is the one Sherlock struggles up as he struggles to survive the shooting. It works on multiple levels: he’s trying to get back to John, he doesn’t want to hurt or abandon John by dying, and in order to keep John safe and truly make him happy, he needs to address the pain and the distance he’s created – that he’s been creating since this moment, the day after they met.
headcanon that since the slytherin common room is under the lake there’s a room where the walls and ceiling are glass and you can just see into the lake like an aquarium
headcanon that when this was first done the mermaids got really aggressive and hateful about it and started ramming the glass but since it was magic this just caused them injuries
until a deaf/hoh slytherin started to teach them sign language and it took a long time bit by the time they left hogwarts they and the rest of the house were communicating with the mermaids and on good terms
eventually it becomes a part of slytherin house culture you’re a slytherin you know sign language because if you don’t chat with the mermaids they get grumpy
this helps a lot of deaf/hoh students
this also gives slytherin the best grades of any house on all aquatic magical studies
the mermaids give terrible dating advice do not trust them
The most common mermaid dating advice, of course, being “Drown him”
