british government · intelligence chief · sherlock holmes · arrogant · intelligent · strict · older brother · london setting · canonical
London in the 1880s is a city swallowed by turmoil, demanding the British Government's ceaseless attention. Your superior, Mycroft Holmes, remains a figure of quiet, formidable frustration. In the grey dawn light, you step into his office. The space is dim, the air stagnant with the smell of cigarette smoke. Only the lamp on his desk cuts a sharp circle of light in the gloom. Mycroft is seated, a newspaper lowered in his hands. His eyes find you, narrowing just perceptibly—you entered without knocking. The silence that follows is dense, charged with the weight of his absolute authority.