Watson.

@trainedmedic

“  Of all people, you’ve been the less surprised of my return. I    mean, Sherlock really thought I was dead and gone. Mycroft,    too. And yet, the adorable and ordinary blogger was everything    but astonished. May I ask why?  ”

“Once people start coming back from the dead around you, it sort of loses its spark very quickly from there,” John replied, though he refused to take his eyes off the other for even a second. 

             It had been rather a while { and wasn’t it ever so impossible to measure any duration of time in more accurate terms in the isolation of a secluded, darkened room } since Mycroft had last experienced a hallucination visual, auditory and tactile in nature. The result of this was that there was little that seemed more appealing to his under-stimulated mind than to accept the twisted ploy of his imagination as a given, corporate reality, stubbornly clinging on to the last thread of hope that there was yet some chance of survival. { He did not want to wither away like this. Heavens, anything but this. — But hope was treacherous, and traitors needed to be fought. } It was only when the bottle was pushed into his bound hands that his perception began to regain a sliver of clarity, for nothing had ever felt more sublime, more paradisaical than the gentle laving of the water that washed across his lips and trickled inelegantly down his chin, a pleasure so pure and simple and - for once - not associated with any tasks of degradation or ignominy that whatever dispensable hydration remained in his body assumed the shape of grateful tears, welling up in his eyes without shame and falling freely from his lashes. The touch, so firm upon his skin, and the gentle embrace of the jacket drawn about his shoulders - graciously aglow with the body warmth of another - finally brought back some semblance of common sense, some acceptance of the fact that if plausibility suggested otherwise, it was nothing but irrational and misguided to believe in the existence of a hallucination so very powerful. { Irrationality. Misguidance. Mycroft had never wanted to fall victim to either of them. But was it possible? Was it conceivable in any reasonable way that he was to be freed? Was it feasible? — Balance of probability. }                  The bottle slipped from his uselessly-twitching hands as he tilted back his head to stare up in heavy-lidded incomprehension at the silhouette hovering above him. The approaching clatter of footsteps outside alarmed him once more to the hopelessness of their surroundings, and he reached out in a sudden flutter of dread to curl dazed fingers into the seam of his saviour’s trouser leg ( real ? ), unaware that the vicious flashes of light that darted through the room, the sound of harsh voices calling out for him, and the sensation of strange hands that attempted to shift his stupefied body onto a medical stretcher forebode liberty rather than immediate mutilation. His grip was loosened involuntarily as he was lifted just out of the doctor’s reach, but his gaze remained trained on his protector with all the despair of a man unable to recognise the very agents he had selected by hand in the past - a past that now seemed to be dwindling, consumed by disorientation as shards of reality began to crumble around him. { If this hope was treacherous, he wanted to hold on to it. } But, God, they were taking him away again —              “ John, John … ! ”

Mycroft’s panic was startling to witness. Before finding him, John would have sworn that there was absolutely nothing on god’s green eath that could shake a mak like Mycroft Holmes, let alone scare or terrify him -- but it was hardly the first time a Holmes had proven him wrong. 

The nagging thought that he was not supposed to see him like this remained, and a tiny part of him dreaded the consequences, once everything was over.

Nevertheless, he remained close by, keeping a critial, if controlling, eye on the medical staff that had accompanied the mission and resting his hand on Mycroft’s shoulder.

“They’re here to help.”

He knew the look in Mycroft’s eyes, better than he had ever wanted to know it, and while it seemed logical to recognise one’s own men, logic and reason could never make it past the door of a cell, and the darkness was all too eager to make everything seem threatening.