A little something written in reaction to the tropes and trends in fanfiction of both the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Stories (credit to him for creating the [now public domain] characters) and of the Sherlock BBC Miniseries(es) (credit to the talented Moffat and Gatiss). This is slightly AU, in that it's narrated by Mycroft Holmes who is apparently a time traveler and/or mostly omniscient. It's your choice which iteration of Mycroft Holmes this is (Gatiss, Fry, Gray, etc.) although I wrote bits and pieces of it with the little-known Christopher Lee version in mind.

I credit several of the insights into canon to Nekosmuse's essays over at With Love, SH. An excellent analysis of the Shwatsonlock subtext and interpretation of their timeline.

*General Spoilers to both BBC and ACD events, up to all aired and published stories*

Thanks gladly owed to BigBluePudding, my dear Watson and beta, and to my own superlative Mycroft who consented to read it aloud in a rather delightful cockney accent.

I have lived two lives, alike in dignity, and entirely dissimilar in epoch.

There is something particularly delightful about the way the antiquated phrases of my first life curl and script themselves. They are more eloquent and polite, with boundless grace characteristic of an older and nobler time. More formal names, more formal tone. I fall quickly into the use of 'Holmes' and 'Watson,' though seeming almost brusque in comparison with their modern, casual counterparts. (And, of course, I am never obligated to use Holmes in any particular reality.) It is then surprising when I find a rare use of the intimate titles, like something rare and gleaming, shining in a way that in no sense destroys the careful history and patterned warmth. But new and silver, this 'Sherlock' and this 'John,' so liberated and free, their new names edged and rimmed in light like mirrors reflecting mirrors.

It makes one consider with a bit more care, the reverent baritone repetition of John, John, John in our modern days. How my brother seems to case a multitude of his phrases in direct address to his friend, his companion, his partner.

An interesting topic to note in the wake of my immediately precedent observation is the phenomenon of Mary Morstan. In the dim and sepia-toned sphere of days long past, I rather appreciate her role in The Good Doctor's life (and, by extension, that of my brother) better than the equivalent in this fast and modern age. Then, she had been an escape for Watson, a way of leaving something he believed would never be his, and so thus, too heartbreaking to remain in the proximity of. And I must confess my utterly inappropriate approval of the timing of Miss Morstan's death, in that it allowed Sherly to return to life in her place, by all meanings of that phrase.

Now. There is no Mary for us all now, and thus she is everywhere. The threat of her affections looms over my careful plans, and I cannot abide it.

Furthermore, it has not escaped my notice that the writing habits of John Watson have rather changed over the long interval of years. Once, in an older time, Watson immersed himself in recording the cases he and my brother shared only long after most of these cases were long-finished. His writing was a comfort, a stalwart barrier between himself and the loneliness left over from his Sherlock's absence. When Sherly left, be it the falsified death of the Reichenbach or the calmer and more deserved peace present with His Final Bow of retirement, Watson buried himself in chronicling their lives together.

Now, John has no such simple method of coping. Less a natural writer than his archaic alter ego, this man finds himself at a loss for words following my brother's 'death,' likely because he has used them all up, save for the three most important.