Fic: Between the Cliffs of a Canyon

[misanthropyray]

Fandom: Sherlock, Doctor Who
Wordcount: 2900ish
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Mycroft/River Song
Genre: Crossover
Summary: When working as the shadow head of the entire British Government, you need someone above the law to keep you grounded.

Notes: After writing lots of dark, I promised that I would write something nice. This is the result of that promise. Beta-ed by gelishan (for line editing, shouting at me, and making me input emotion all over the place) and thisprettywren (for use of her endless Troy font of knowledge, Greek and Latin translations, cheer leading and sickeningly relentless awesomeness).
Any remaining errors are my own silly fault (unless they're anything to do with Troy, Greek or Latin, in which case they're still Wren's fault).
And yes, Madagascan IS what things from Madagascar are called.




Mycroft surveyed his surroundings without opening his eyes. There was the delicate smell of his bed linens mixed with the faintest hint of starch; the intermittent hum of his phone receiving email; the soft click of a woman in stilettos walking on the pavement outside and the heavier tap of her male counterpart beside her. Sirens wailed through the streets in the distance.

But something was out of place: that was which had woken him. There. The scent of bergamot and almonds and sea salt.


“How did you get in here?” His voice is low and, although roused from sleep, only a fraction deeper than usual.


“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.” Her voice, soft and close, barely a whisper but enough to send a shiver down his spine. Fingertips walked across his hip, urging him into her.

River.

He turned himself in the bed, rustling the sheets and trying to keep his actions steady, resisting the lurch of school-boy excitement in the pit of his stomach. He pressed tightly into the warm body beside him. His face brushed the soft curls scattered on his pillow, moving closer until his lips pressed against skin.

She sought out the contours of his face with both hands and guiding his mouth to hers. It had been months since they had last been here, together. Familiarity came flooding back from the first delicate press of their lips, hands roaming over the lost planes and curves of each other’s bodies.

Mycroft leaned into the embrace, threading his legs through hers and feeling the smooth fabric of her evening dress catch and shift between them. He felt her mouth twist into a smile against his lips before she bucked up into him, pushing him onto his back and snugly straddling his thighs.

He felt sluggish with sleep as his heavy movements fell into stark comparison with hers. Before he had a chance to react to the shift, his arms were twisted and pressed against the ornate wood of his headboard, his wrists fixed into place by one strong hand pressing flesh into flesh into flesh. She leaned into him, crowding him and pressing the line of her torso against his chest, silken breasts grazing against his collarbones and dragging along the thin cotton of his nightshirt.

He should react, should fight for freedom and control and dominance. Now is not the time. His whole life was a balance of control, slowly shifting power and manipulated dynamics, pulling on threads of opportunity and never letting events slip out of his control. She could unravel him. She was an oasis; a perfect sanctuary where he didn’t have to fight anymore.

Mycroft flexed his wrists against her grip, not trying to escape but testing his binding and finding it secure. He continues the movement downwards, rippling his body against hers and feeling each point move upwards and make contact or press against her more firmly, sharing the delicate warmth of her skin.

She kissed him again and stole the air from his lungs, her hair falling like a soft cascade around his face.

“Hello, Sweetie,” she purred, resting her forehead against him and rolling her hips almost imperceptibly.

They lay for a moment, sharing the stillness. Open mouths close but not touching, drawing the same oxygen and breathing into one another; a silent trade, life for life.

“Up you get.” She whispered against him, so near that the air curled and moved against his tongue. He shifted upwards towards her, moving to taste the words on her lips when she was gone. His hands stayed frozen above his head for a moment as he adjusted to the loss, eyes following her movements as she seemed to glide around the room; walking into his wardrobe to rifle through waistcoats, fingers dancing over the small case of cufflinks.

Mycroft rose, placing his feet onto the floor and easing the fading traces of sleep from his limbs.

River departed to the kitchen, leaving him with neat little piles of clothing for the day. Not an order, merely a suggestion, formed of muted hues and delicate tailoring. Whenever she left his light of sight, he felt a desperate sense of loss. It was thoroughly irrational, she was closer now than she had been in so long. Too long to let her out of his sight, even for a moment.

He dressed, adding only an understated signet ring, and joined her in the kitchen where she stood leaning against the counter and holding a cup of coffee in both hands, the white china glowing under her tanned fingers. Her eyes dragged over him, taking in every detail as the corner of her mouth twitched upward behind the rim of the cup; studied, pinned, adored.

She picked up the cafetiere beside her and poured another mug of coffee, breaking her stare for only the briefest of moments. Walking towards her felt more like being drawn into her gravitational pull; effortless and entirely beyond his control. Their fingers interlocked around the burning heat of the coffee. A warmth tingled and spread through his hand and he honestly didn’t know if it was the coffee or the contact to blame.

She had been away too long; his manageable desire had spilled out into every corner of him. He felt untethered, adrift in this longing to touch her, to press their skin together until all the clothing and air and space between them had disappeared and nothing separated them and nothing could separate them. No more barriers; endless barriers of time (hers and his) and barriers of space (both the universe at large and the almost greater distance of that between two people in the same room).

In the times between, she was gone and he couldn’t ask where or why, try and he would receive no answer. Couldn’t find out the facts for himself either, which was almost more frustrating. Why strive for a lifetime to become all-powerful, only to have the one thing you desire be out of your reach? But that was her; the exception, always the exception. It could never be any other way.

Her hair coiled around his fingers like they were designed to be there. Her mouth tasted like coffee and saliva and blood and life.

“How long has it been since you last saw me?” He said, looking into her eyes, trying to detect the flicker of warning that sparked whenever he asked a question she couldn’t answer, information never to be disclosed, vicious secrets.

But there was no warning, only the soft glow of sadness. “Five weeks and three days. I don’t know if I should ask you the same question.”

“Seven months, two weeks and five days.” He tried not to make it sound like an accusation and failed. “Wars have been won and lost since then.” If asked whether the two facts are related, he wouldn’t answer, even to himself.

She studied a button on his shirt, brow furrowed. She didn’t apologise. Why apologise for things out of her control, things she couldn’t change? (Or maybe she could change things, alter events that by all rights should have been set in stone?) The only thing more bitter than the silence would be a false apology hanging in the air between them.

“Too long,” she said, tracing her fingers over his collar and dragging them down until her palm rested above his heart, “but now isn’t the time to talk about time.”

“Maybe another time?” he said with the hint of a smile.

“My thoughts exactly,” said River, meeting his gaze, one eyebrow quirking seductively. She pulled him down to her, lips meeting in silent appeasement.

The hand on his collar shifted and moved as she toyed with the thick leather strap secured onto one of her wrists. A soft beep of confirmation sounded before he became enveloped in what felt like the tickling sparks of electricity. It danced and played across his skin, beginning where their skin met and running under his clothes to surround him. After a moment, the movement stopped and it felt as through whatever had been running over his skin had begun to burrow inside. He could feel the sparks twisting into his muscles and wrapping around his bones. There was no pain involved, but almost a strange kind of pleasure at the feeling of being stroked from the inside.

He groaned softly into River’s mouth, eyes fluttering closed.

The first thing he noticed was the growing warmth of sunlight across his back. The air around them grew warmer and light filtered through his closed eyelids turning them scarlet before he peered into the brilliant sunshine surrounding them. River’s face still filled most of his vision but the landscape round them had changed entirely.

“Ah, perfect,” she said, smoothing his shirt and stepping back. She pressed some buttons on the vortex manipulator on her wrist, prompting it to beep twice before she dropped her arm to her side again.

They stood on a flat, sandstone rooftop, throbbing with heat under the burning sun. The roof appeared to belong to a palace on the highest point of the city that surrounded them. Sprawling out from beneath them were winding streets, houses, and markets emitting a hum of noise, the sounds of life. The cracks between the houses were black with bodies; dense, creeping veins of jubilant people, drinking, eating, touching, celebrating.

Mycroft stared out, eyes wide and taking in every detail across the scorched landscape, “you brought me to Troy.” In his years of studying classics, he’d always tried to picture it, build up an image of the lost city in his mind from inaccurate depictions and dubious sources, and here it was. He smiled at the accuracies and flaws as he compared the two images before him, proving himself both right and wrong. The cheers from the crowd below drifted high over the rooftops, their raw jubilation lifting his heart with it.

Beyond the thick walls of the city, sand spread into the distance, a thick barrier between the walls and the sea beyond. On the sand lay the scars of warfare; blackened bloodshed and twisted armour that glittered in the light. The pale sea beyond was littered with ships, slowly moving away from the shore, oars protruding from either side, giving them the appearance of insects crawling across the water.

“I don’t know why I haven’t thought to bring you here before. Those dusty, old books have nothing on the real thing, do they?”

“Cum te mea Troia tenebit, et tua sim, quaeso, crimina solus ego. Nunc ea peccemus quae corriget hora iugalis, si modo promisit non mihi vana Venus.*”

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” said River, taking a seat on a chaise long placed against the battlements on one side of the rooftop, “happy anniversary, my love.” She took a date from the low table beside her and beckoned him to her. He sat beside her, moving so her body could curl around his. He opened his mouth to accept the fruit, her fingertips lingering on his lips as they closed around it.

“κρατερῇσι δ᾽ ὑπὸ φρεσὶν ἐμμεμαυῖα θαρσαλέον φάτο μῦθον ὁμήλικας ὀτρύνουσα δῆριν ἐπὶ στονόεσσαν: ἔγειρε δέ οἱ θράσος ἀλκήν.**”

“Yes, I thought you might like it here. You know, I tried to get olives, but it turns out Homer isn’t as well researched as one might imagine.”

As they laughed, their bodies found one another, legs entwined. They settled into a soft silence, backed by the shouts and cries of celebration around them.

“We have until the ships return,” she said against his throat.

“Long enough,” said Mycroft, twisting to sit up a little straighter and smooth down his jacket, “I have something for you.” He paused for a moment to look at her beneath him, her golden hair spread out across the brilliant cobalt of the fabric beneath her, her lips curved to smile up at him and her discretely powerful hands running slowly over any of his exposed skin and darting between the spaces of his buttons.

Reaching into his pocket, Mycroft presented a small ebony box, intricate carvings spread over its surface and its corners tipped in silver. She took the box gently, running a palm over the detailing on the top. When, a few moments later, she was still examining and touching the box, Mycroft placed his hand over hers, lifting the lid with a quiet creak. They’d cost the Earth and more than a few favours and it was worth every bit of it.

“Are those...” She trailed off, eyes dancing over the glittering blue stones in the box.

“Madagascan blue garnets, yes.”

“Ooh, who did you steal-- I mean, from whom did you steal these??” She said, locking eyes with him and smirking as she eased one of the earrings from its velvet surrounds.

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

“How do they look?”

“If I were being trite, I’d say they matched your eyes perfectly.”

Her hands found the lines of his jaw and brought him to her. They kissed through her smile, “Thank you, my love. I’m afraid you’re getting the same as last year.”

“It’s the perfect gift every year.”

He stood up, walking over to the battlements and running his palms over the warm stone. Looking out over the doomed City of Troy, the ships were further away now, dark dots scattered across the horizon as the sun came to meet them.

Each year the gift was the same, but it would always be what he would have requested, given the choice. The gift of information. One question. One chance to know what needs to remain hidden; about the future, about the past, about her, about them. He looked out across the ancient city, eyes seeing but not processing as he sifting through time and space for the single question that would see him through to the following year. He wrote off the past; the past would yield its answers with enough persuasion. The future couldn’t be so easily examined; not by him, at any rate.

Every possibility, every eventuality; too much information and not enough access. He could possess a single grain of sand from a beach that stretched out to the end of the universe. But no, it would be more than sand, a priceless gem from an infinite number, all unique and beautiful and entirely beyond his grasp. An impossible choice with no chance to examine the hearts and arrows of each beforehand.

He stood for a moment more, staring out across the landscape while his mind began to slow its breakneck investigation and retreat through a thousand
different mental passageways. When he turned around, he knew.

River lay stretched out on the chaise, one arm slung over her head and her eyes closed as she basked in the last rays of the setting sun. Beautiful. Mycroft eased in beside her, framing her body with his and resting a palm on the soft surface of her stomach. She smiled before opening her eyes, “Welcome back. Have you decided?”

“Yes, I suppose I have. I want to ask, in the end, what happens to us?” When the word left his mouth, they hung in the air between them. It’s sentimentalist nonsense; this information will not change the outside world for better or worse, but he needs it. He tries not to let the shade of vulnerability creep into his features, his face stiffening slightly to mask his tempestuous mind.

She had lifted her head to look at him while he spoken, fierce eyes pinning him and reading him as he does to others. Now her head dropped back as she spoke.

As she spoke, she painted a picture. As the future was being constructed around him, he could see it with the same level of detail as though was standing there; a white room and a hospital bed, the fragility of age and the paradoxical contrast of her youthful beauty. He saw the lines in his own papery skin. But it’s not the details that matter now, because they’re both there. In the end, at his own end, they’re together. No matter what happens in the in-between days, he will always know that the end is further down the line and they are there together.

His entire body, heavy with relief and surging contentment, sinks into her; twisting and joining.

It would always be like this because it couldn’t be any other way. No matter how tortured the times between were, he always knew she would return when she could. No matter how helpless he felt, he had the enduring faith that his love would return to him because that’s how it would be until the end.

If they had never met, if he had found a person who could be with him all the time, to simply exist with him in a relentlessly linear fashion, it would never have worked. He knew this now just like he’d always known it. He had too much control, too much power to be with a lesser or, worse, an equal. He could manipulate, manoeuvre and intrinsically alter a person without lifting a finger if it was convenient to him. This option to change that which didn’t suit had been available to him for so long that it was no longer a conscious decision; problem presented, problem resolved.

He’d been alone until he met her because it couldn’t have been any other way. After he met her, it couldn’t be any other way ever again.

---

*Cum te mea Troia tenebit, et tua sim, quaeso, crimina solus ego. Nunc ea peccemus quae corriget hora iugalis, si modo promisit non mihi vana Venus. - Ovid Epistulae 16.295ff

When I shall reach Troy with you, I beg that I might be your only crime. Now let us commit those faults which a time of joining might amend, if Venus has not put forth vain promises to me.


**κρατερῇσι δ᾽ ὑπὸ φρεσὶν ἐμμεμαυῖα θαρσαλέον φάτο μῦθον ὁμήλικας ὀτρύνουσα
δῆριν ἐπὶ στονόεσσαν: ἔγειρε δέ οἱ θράσος ἀλκήν. - Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy I.407ff

Eager and strong of heart she exhorted her comrades in speech, urging them on toward wretched battle; she stirred herself to valour in her heart.