#when bilbo said he felt like butter scraped over too much bread

[aerodaltonimperial]

Ah, the sweet despair of missing yet another show appearance because your toddler has turned into a walking nightmare and you are stuck sitting on the top step of the staircase next to her room as bed time has become an anxiety-filled shitshow of over an hour and you haven't slept more than 5 hours since you got back and you just wish things were not quite so FUCKING SHITTY RIGHT NOW but there's nothing else you can do except power through it and crawl into bed and try to eke out another 5 hours before she wakes up screaming again and repeat the whole day over while trudging your way through your day job because someone has to put a roof over all your damn heads.

[bloodcrownedking]

When bilbo baggins said he felt like butter that had been scraped over too much bread,,,,, yeah

[thegreenleavesofspring]

Elrond was… weary. Very, very weary. Bilbo had spoken to him once of what it had been like to carry the Ring in the Shire – “As I told Gandalf, I felt thin like butter, scraped over too much bread – not a problem I have encountered in your House, Master Elrond, I assure you! You always have plenty of butter!” The memory made him smile faintly, but it was an apt comparison, he thought: he too felt stretched and scraped thin.

Sometimes, he turned his gaze back eastwards: across the ever-growing distance separating him from his children, his daughter and his youngest son who he would never see again, his natural-born sons who he could only pray would eventually join him. Sometimes Frodo would stand with him, looking back at the Shire, and Samwise, and Meriadoc and Peregrine. Very occasionally, Galadriel would be there too, looking back towards the husband she had left and the people and the forest that she had given so much of herself to protect.

Sometimes he looked West, across the ever-shrinking distance to the wife who awaited him, his parents, friends long-departed and family he had never had the chance to meet. He wondered if Gil-galad would be there when they arrived. Frodo would occasionally look West as well, to the hope of rest and healing. Often Galadriel’s face was turned toward the setting Sun – for she looked forward to seeing father and mother and brothers and daughter thought forever sundered. Her eagerness and joy made her seem young in a way that Elrond had never seen on her before.

(Bilbo did not look either way with him. Bilbo spent most his time below decks, sleeping. “For I am, after all, a very old Hobbit, you know, Master Elrond,” he had said in response to his friend’s gentle probing, a roguish twinkle in his eye. “I am not Fading! But I am tired. Let me sleep.”)

Elrond found himself engulfed in melancholy when the ship finally found the Straight Way. There was no turning back now, the distance between himself, and his children and the remnant of his brother’s people unbridgeable. Only Frodo seemed to share his mood, staying quietly in his cabin to think – around the ship, the sailors laughed and whistled and sang and called jokes back and forth to each other, while Galadriel pressed herself against the prow and watched forward as though her very gaze could bring land into sight sooner.

Elrond went to bed early that night.

But when he arose the next morning, he found himself refreshed and rejuvenated in ways he had not in a long time, and he watched the water around with keen interest. The very blue itself seemed sharper, clearer, brighter than it ever had in Middle Earth. The air filled him like miruvor, and with the same sort of effect, he thought. He turned at a sound behind him – Frodo was emerging onto the deck, wearing a faint half-smile, and behind him, Bilbo hobbled out, his gait slow and lame but his eyes bright and curious as ever.

Elrond inclined his head to them both and smiled a warm greeting before turning to look back out over the ocean again. The distance behind them might now be a permanent breach, severing them from Middle-earth until the breaking of Arda. But the distance before them was closing rapidly, and his thoughts were consumed with silver hair and laughing eyes in a gentle face. Already he felt stronger and more vigorous, the air itself bringing life, and joyful hope stirred in his breast.

He was coming home.

[lovely-v]

For the lotr ask!

I want to ask all the questions lol, but I chose some:

6, 8, 9, 11, 16!!!

ooooh thanks !!

6. Favorite LOTR or TH quote?

Okay I have so many I’m actually gonna talk about a few because sometimes I get really into certain quotes.

My first fave lotr quote was when Bilbo said he felt like “butter scraped over too much bread” because I felt that in my soul in a hilariously relatable way esp during pandemic times

In terms of like, emotional quotes, we all know I stan “I can’t carry it for you but I can carry you” but recently I’ve been super into the moment where Faramir says to éowyn “in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure” because it’s so heartfelt and the two of them are faves of mine.

8. Favorite scene?

I don’t really know what my favorite scene would be book-wise (in terms of chapters though Cirith Ungol is my favorite) but in the movies I love the scene at the beginning of TTT with Sam’s box of salt that he brought in case they had to cook any chicken. It’s such a funny light-hearted moment.

9. If you could live anywhere on Middle-Earth, where would you choose?

11. The Shire or Rivendell?

16. If you could be any race in Middle-Earth, which would you be?

I feel like these three questions have one answer for me because I yearn for the cottegecore king lifestyle so ofc I would want to be a hobbit in the shire

[the-tiktok-rogue]

Army Of Darkness 2: Middle Earth

prolouge:

My name is Ash...and I'm a survivor, I don't know where I am or how I got

here,but I do remember how this all started, me and four other friends

went down to a cabin in the woods,in the basement of that cabin we found

the necronomicon ex mortis, book of the dead, bound in human flesh and

inked in human blood, it was never meant for the world of the living, the

pages were recited, the evil awoken, each of my friends, one by one became

possessed, cheryl, shelly,scott, Linda...it took Linda, and then it came

for me, it got into my hand and it went bad, so I lopped it off at the

wrist,but then it came back...big time, after I had defeated henrietta,

and Annie summoned a portal to the past I was sent out to retrieve the

book, I messed up the words, summoned an army of the dead, beat them and

got back to my own time...and now it seems I'm here, last thing I remember

is falling through another portal,but how that happened I don't know.

Chapter one: The Shire I looked up and as far as I could tell I was in some kind of wooden

building, I got up off of my knees and quickly hit my head off of the

cieling, this place was tiny!, I quickly turned around to see outside the

windows it was daylight,a small imp looking fellow was walking towards

this house, he was approaching very quickly, I panicked and picked up my

boomstick slowly heading for the door, the door abruptly opened.

"Who are you and why are you in my house!" the imp shouted "I'm the one asking the questions here bucko!, where am I, and who the

fuck are you" I said back, interrogating him, as I walked forward gripping

my trigger "I am Bilbo Baggins, and this is my Hobbit hole, didn't you read the sign,

no admittance!" Bilbo huffed angrily.

Before I could respond Bilbo, kicked me in the groin and was dragging me

into a room with lots of plates, and food, he quickly ran to the door and

scowled at me before exclaiming once more "now you stay in here till I've figured out what to do with you!" great. Just great, I was once again stuck in the middle of nowhere with no

one to help me but myself, but now I was locked in a room with no way of

getting out, still I tried, I struggled opening the door with my metal

hand, but that didn't do much good, then I reached for my chainsaw but it

was missing, the little shit must have stolen it when I was dragged to

this room, so I looked for my boomstick, but that was missing as well, I

thought back to what had happened, I had my boomstick in my hand but I

must have dropped it in shock when he kicked me "Fuck!" I yelled cathartically, I felt so powerless for a supposed hero

from the sky...all I could do was wait.

I jumped as I quickly heard shouting from the...what did he call this

place a Hobbit hole?, so he was a Hobbit?, anyways! he was shouting to

someone at the front door!

"no thank you!, we don't want anymore visiters, well wishers, distant

relations, or men with pointy sticks!" Bilbo yelled indignantly.

Then I heard another voice chuckle,it sounded older, more gruff

"And what about very old friends?" the voice responded in a fond tone, I heard the door creak open "Gandalf?" Bilbo asked, so Gandalf was his name, I barely remember most peoples names I didn't

think I'd remember anyone else, I yelled more, this old guy might have

been my only chance at escape "LET ME OUT, HE'S GOT ME TRAPPED HERE" I screamed "what was that noise?" Gandalf questioned "oh n-nothing, probably just Frodo setting up for the party tonight uh

keep it down Frodo! eheh" Bilbo blundered, to my surprise the old guy bought it!, either that or he was just

intentionally ignoring me "Bilbo Baggins" Gandalf spoke sentimentally "oh dear Gandalf!" Bilbo cried with Joy "good to see you" Gandalf responded "one hundred and eleven years old who would believe it?...you haven't aged

a day" Gandalf noticed, that little gremlin was 110 years old? but he looked tiny, I thought he

was just some ugly toddler,how did that work?, I heard them chuckle and their voices got closer, I kept shouting but

neither of them seemed to notice or care,that old fella really was

ignoring me huh, I heard the old man hit his head and laughed, served him

right,asshole.

"So you mean to go through with your plan then?" Gandalf inquired "yes yes, its all in hand, all the arrangements are made" Bilbo spoke

excitedly "Frodo,suspects something" Gandalf said plainly "'course he does...he's a baggins, not some blockheaded grey scurdle from

hard bottle" Bilbo joked "you will tell him, won't you?" Gandalf asked again "yes yes" Bilbo spoke "he's very fond of you" Gandalf spoke fondly a small pause "I know...he'd probably come with me if I asked him I think in his heart

Frodo is still in love with the shire, the woods, the fields, the

rivers...I'm old Gandalf, I know I don't look it, but I'm beginning to

feel it in my heart, I feel thin,sort of stretched, like butter scraped

over too much bread, I need a holiday, a very long holiday, and I don't

expect I should return...in fact I mean not too.." Bilbo monologued.

As I continued to listen I felt weary, the fall from the portal as well as

being kicked and using all my energy to open this wooden pantry door had

left me exhausted...I couldn't help myself, I slumped and sat down only

meaning to rest my eyes...as I did so I slowly drifted off...

[lavendersage]

when bilbo baggins said he felt like “butter scraped over too much bread?” that line hits home these days. i’m very grateful for the roof over my head and the food in my stomach, but times are tight, and i have to pinch every penny. the pandemic took away a huge opportunity from me and hunting for work has brought nothing but pain and hopelessness. i have no ability to move forward, and it’s hard not to feel like i’ve lost a year of my life.

i’m sure many of you are in a similar boat; this year has been a trial. just know that you’re not alone. i pray every day that things will change for the better. and it’s slow. but i have to believe they will.

i have to. ✨

[agu5td-moved]

when bilbo said he felt like butter scraped over too much bread i felt that

[poeticsandaliens]

Mulder’s Ring - OctoberFicFest Day 10

Because I have a hard time trusting Chris Carter, I’ve head-canoned how season 11 ought to end. It ends with Mulder, Scully, William, and fluff with a tinge of melancholy. 

Yesterday’s ficlet was so grim; I needed to create a happier alternative.

Tagging @fictober​ and @today-in-fic​ .

Today I apologize to Tolkien (arguably less foreboding than T.S. Eliot) for stealing some of Bilbo’s famous lines. It felt fitting, and I’ll always sneak in a tribute to the great J.R.R. if I can.

I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.

–Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring

They’re old. They feel it when dust collects on their files; they feel it getting out of bed on cold mornings; they feel it after a stressful workday, when they fuck like teenagers on Mulder’s dying box springs and their backs ache from being pressed against the headboard.

Scully is relieved to see the crow’s feet around her eyes—she’d never forgotten the final promise of Clyde Bruckman, the countless moments she nearly died but looked away at the last moment. What a tragedy it would have been to stand over the graves of her husband, her children and grandchildren, to live for so long you saw the aging of rock and shift of the continents beneath your feet and to know nothing that is true will remain so. 

Mulder takes it a little less gracefully, but that he’s old means he didn’t die young. He can appreciate that, if nothing else. He still protests the wrinkles in his forehead and the thinning of his hair. 

They feel old when they move Scully’s things back into the Unremarkable House, grunting and clutching their backs with each piece of furniture they haul up the front steps. They feel old when Scully bakes cookies but rations Mulder’s to keep his cholesterol down.

They feel old when they grumble about Daggoo digging up the garden again, and they have to fill in the little paw-scrapes and massage each other’s joints afterward.

They feel old when they find their son, and he stands a foot taller than Scully and grows a stubble on his chin. And it’s hell at first—they’ve all suffered casualties; William’s adopted family is dead at Spender’s hand and it shatters Scully to know she couldn’t protect him. It shatters Mulder to hug William and then ask him to save the world. It’s unfair. 

They feel even older when it’s over. When they fill Spender with bullets and then help William move into his new bedroom like the whole world hadn’t almost gone up in flames. They want him to be a kid for once. He obliges, and they feel old when William asks “what the fuck happened out there?” over pizza dinner. 

They tell him everything. They feel old thinking about the Flukeman, Clyde Bruckman (this one gives Scully a pause) and the time they posed as a married couple because back then, they didn’t think they’d live long enough to marry in real life and they certainly didn’t think they would be eating Domino’s with their lanky, eye-rolling teenage son.

Mulder never feels older than he does locking the basement office for the final time. He knows it’s satisfying for Scully to see that door—the door she deserved her name on but never got—closing at last. It means Spender is dead; it means nothing in that room can hurt them anymore. It means they no longer carry the world on their shoulders. 

They hand their resignations to Skinner one evening in May, only to find him penning his own letter of resignation and retiring to a beach somewhere. They each carry a stack of case files they couldn’t let go—some of them solved, some of them to be explored if only for the hell of it. They can do that now. 

Scully always said the X-files were his ring of power, keeping them both young but imprisoned. Sitting beneath his tattered poster in the basement office, he was forever the embittered thirty-year-old who trusted no one and lived for the search. (He hesitates for a moment, closing that door. He’s fond of that cracked young seeker of truth. But he’s fonder of the middle-aged husband and father and hobbyist cryptid hunter he’s become.) They watch Fellowship of the Ring that night and he decides he would much rather be Bilbo than Frodo. 

Scully feels old when she slices a dead body in front of twenty horrified medical students. Mulder feels old when his students call him ‘Professor,’ but at least it’s better than ‘Fox.’

They crack open a case file on William’s summer vacation—it’s a maybe-bigfoot type of case, deep in the middle of nowhere. They book three plane tickets and break out their flashlights for old times’ sake. William teases them mercilessly and breaks out his phone instead. Huffing and puffing, outpaced by their son chasing shadows through the woods, they feel young again. 

And he lived happily ever after, ‘til the end of his days.

–Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring

[summeroftim]

Reflections

I think that sometimes I try to be too profound, too flowery with my language. I don’t want to edit this, I don’t want it to have form or structure. I just want to think back on this year and what i’ve learned about myself and the world and write about it. No poetry. No flourishes.

 I’ve spend the better part of a week thinking about writing something about the year i’ve had. My thoughts have all started the same way: this has been a tough year. That doesn’t really even begin to give it justice. I have lost a lot this year. Yes, i’ve gained some experience, and i’ve faced up to some self-truths but mostly I feel empty. One of my favourite metaphors of all time is from Tolkien, where Bilbo says that he feels like butter scraped over too much bread. That is how I feel as the year sets around me. There is not enough in me, or of me, to care about all the things I used to. I feel vacuous. I feel tired.

 I cannot help but feel like this has been a year of lost progress. At first glance that feels too simplistic a way to phrase it. I feel like I had been climbing steadily up a rock face, feeling my way as I went, looking for grips and footholds. But, suddenly, the rock gave way beneath me and I slid back down the mountain. I didn’t fall, I just slid. I cut myself and bruised myself on the rocks that jutted out on my way down and now I find myself halfway from where I was at the start of the year, and halfway from the bottom. I am battered, bloody, and gasping for air. I look up and there is more of the mountain ahead of me than there was before, and I don’t have the energy that I did when I started the climb. There is a rock climbing term, I think it’s called getting ‘rimrocked’, and it’s basically where, partway through your climb you find yourself in a situation where you can’t see a way to climb any higher, but you also can’t see a way back down, and there is a type of psychological fear that you have to overcome to progress. I guess that’s a little how I feel.

 As I said, i’ve lost a lot this year. I’ve found myself at different times out of love, out of employment, and out of direction. I have written before about how I struggle with self love. Something i’ve struggled with since I was a teenager, really. I think I love myself the most when I am loving others. A few years ago I met a girl and I fell in love with her very quickly and very deeply. In the three years I was with her, I realise that I may not have made a whole lot of progress in truly loving the person I am, but I was in love with her, and I found a happiness in making her happy and in the life we built around ourselves. I still don’t know if this was a mistake or not. Maybe I shouldn’t have pursued a life with someone else until I had found a way to accept and love myself. But as I write this I know that the closest I have been to content in myself was when I was making her happy, or at least trying to. I’ve always been sad, and I suspect I always will be in my own way, but when I was living for others, living for her, the need to be there and be supportive superseded my sadness and my tendency to wallow within it. I guess in a way, in living for others I was living for myself.

 But she left. My heart was broken and it remains that way. I understand that break-ups are a part of life and nearly everyone on the planet has or will experience them in their lives. I am not special. But she was. It is still so hard to to take the ending of this relationship as anything other than a personal failing. I simply could not make her happy the way that I once could. It scares me. It rocks me to my fucking core than things can be fine and then all of a sudden, over a matter of weeks, they start to look at you a little differently, hug you a little shorter, kiss you a little less passionately, and then it’s over. It some ways it was worse that it didn’t end with a bang, but with a whisper. I would have preferred a tidal wave to slam into me. But instead, the ocean tide just lapped at the shoreline, quietly and monotonously, and one day it just took her with it.

 One of the hardest parts to deal with was the fact that despite my soul-searching there isn’t a lot I think I could have done differently. In the aftermath of everything happening I said some things out of passion that I regret and most likely always will. I was toxic in a way that I despise in other men and I will have to live with that. I have had so few good male role-models in my life so I feel like i’ve had to be my own role model, and this is an idea i’ll take with me for the rest of my life and try to share with others as much as I can. My father is a misogynist and, frankly, a cunt. He has made me both hate fathers and instilled within me a strong desire to never be one. The greatest thing he ever taught me was what not to do. The years I spent with this girl who I loved, I made sure to treat her, as best I could, with grace, and dignity, and kindness. I think I did that. I respected her, and nurtured her, and loved her as best I could. That is partly why these last 6 months have been so hard. I have not had the luxury of spending them condemning myself for some catastrophic mistake, or error in judgement that I made. The reality is much worse. In truth, I tried my best, and succeeded in trying my best, and yet it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. There is a different pain in that. Doing everything in accordance with your own morals and judgements and still failing is the harshest lesson that life has taught me, and one that I find myself severely unequipped to deal with.

 On the note of male role models, in my post break-up depression I returned to a show that I had watched religiously a few years ago. It was a show made by a man who I looked up to. Someone who I feel I connected with, who saw the world as I saw it. He taught me a lot about myself and influenced how I treated others and interacted with them. As I binged through the show, one episode in particular hit me like a ton of bricks. The titular character is dealing with a breakup and is depressed. He talks to an older man in a park about how he loved a girl and that they aren’t together anymore, and that the sadness that has overcome him makes him feel that being in love in the first place was not worth the pain of the present. The old man responds by saying “Boy, misery is wasted on the miserable.” Here’s a transcript of what follows:

Old Man: “You think spending time with her, kissing her, having fun with her - you think that's what it was all about? That was love? This is love. Missing her because she's gone, wanting to die - you're so lucky. Don't you see? This is the good part. This is what you've been digging for. Now you finally have it in your hand - the sweet nugget of love, sweet sad love. And you wanna throw it away? You've got it all wrong."

Titular character says: "I thought this was the bad part."

Old man: "No! The bad part is when you forget her, when you don't care about her, when you don't care about anything. The bad part is coming, so enjoy the heartbreak while you can for godsake!”

Understandably this was an incredibly powerful moment for me. Like all my favourite pieces of art, it made me feel like the scene was written just for me to watch. But then, around a week after i’d finished watching the show, something happened. A story broke about the man who made the show, the man who I looked up to so much. The man was Louis CK. It was like a gut punch. I felt like I didn’t have any idols anymore. I deleted everything I had of his off my computer. I was furious. I was confused. I felt disappointed, both in him, and in men, and in myself for thinking my personal feelings were somehow more important than the actual victims involved. I discarded him like I discarded my father, and I don’t think I was wrong to do so (on both occasions). There is potentially an interesting and difficult discussion to be had regarding how we approach art made by terrible people, but this is not the place to have it. The whole episode did a lot to strengthen my view that we shouldn’t have role models, and why we each need to be our own.

I am still searching for my place in this world. I am still searching for a way to love myself. I am still searching for a direction to take. For better or worse this year has made me hard. My skin has grown into chipped granite. I have withdrawn into myself. I am becoming even more solitary than I have always been. The thing I dream most about now is a small three room apartment where I live. I have routine. I have silence. I don’t mean literal silence, there are small squeaks and creaks. There is music, a cat maybe. But my life is silent. I don’t know if I am equipped to handle other people, to handle love. I don’t think I could ever expose myself to love again in the same way that I have so far in my life. Love is exquisite, but it’s real test is in how you deal with its departure. I know that I have another high in me, but I doubt very much that I have another bottom.

I will tread carefully.

[pendragonfics]

Love At A Distance

Paring: Mycroft Holmes/Reader

Tags: female reader, fluff, angst, marriage

Summary: Mycroft cannot be the perfect husband -- just as much as you cannot be the perfect wife. It's his line of work. He can't change that. How does it work?

Word Count: 1,225

Posting Date:  2016-05-21

Current Date: 2017-05-10

If you were tired after a day of what you often did, staying close to the proximity of the home or followed discretely around London in your everyday life by a bodyguard, you knew that your husband, the powerhouse of the government was most likely double that.

Whenever he returned to the home, you used to not know better than to console a tired, grumpy man with empty, cheery words. He would have eaten when out, so kind small talk over a dinner you'd put blood, sweat and tears into was not an option. The grey blue bags on his eyes grew more prominent with every night of sleep missed when pouring over detail and rule books, leaving you in an empty bed. A cold bed.

You'd had worse; you wouldn't complain.

His brother had warned you that marriage to the elder Holmes brother would result in all assortments of dissatisfaction. He said before you had walked down the isle that his brother was a focused, academic man who wouldn't relent for anything, not even the charms of a wife. You knew this to a degree, somewhere inside of you in the courtship. But you hadn't wanted to believe it.

Time passed. A year, then two.

Sherlock had fallen, but you knew what had truly happened. You had listened at the keyhole of his office that night. You had seen the newspapers, the news footage, the file Mycroft had left open on his desk when you had gone in to take his empty teacup.

He lived.

In this time that had gone by, you had learned how to live with the busiest man in this corner of the Northern Hemisphere.

You learned to leave notes of nice messages around the house in colourful papers he'd see when his eyes weren't clouded over with work when on the phone to Anthea or a member of parliament.

You'd text inspirational quotes and cutesy reminders of your love in moments you would know he'd be free from the stresses of the workplace.

Anthea would call ahead on his return home - whenever that would be, be it what hour or month it would - with advice on what mood he was in.

When he'd crash into bed, you'd feel him gravitate toward you and envelop you in his arms. He'd always think you asleep - it was always a ghastly hour he'd join you for slumber - until you would whisper to him he'd done a great job of his day.

Sherlock Holmes had told you that you would be dissatisfied. Maybe you were. But you loved Mycroft. From the tips of your toes, the bottom of your heart to the peak of your head. And maybe that meant loving him from a distance.

Like an elderly Bilbo Baggins, Mycroft Holmes felt stretched thin, like too much butter scraped over bread. It would seem the career he had taken would result in sleeplessness and the need to constantly complete everything to a degree better than perfection in the workplace. His coworkers looked up to him. Colleagues congratulated him. The Prime Ministers he'd worked under would send Christmas cards reading of their undying thanks for his servitude. Even the Queen has sent gratitude once, for the recovery of one of her dogs.

And yet, when the sun set, he couldn't help but feel tired. Worn down. Somewhat morally defeated. He was practically the British government, you know. He'd ignore the advice to take days off, to slow down, to 'take it easy' ("define easy", he'd reply). But he knew, deep inside his mind, close to his heart, that no matter how grumbly he would be, how stark his mood would be, how deep his brow furrowed or jaw set, his wife, the beautiful Mrs _______ Holmes was at home for him to be reminded that there was some peace in this tumultuous world.

That he could find a sort of peace.

Early into their marriage days, she would make him dinner, and he could tell they were amazing. Much better than the ruddy sandwiches he would eat to keep going when he stayed late at the office. But he could never eat, if he did, it would add weight loss to the list of his problematic to-do list. He knew she noticed his sleep patterns; they shared a bed whenever he came home long enough to sleep beside her.

At the Holmes _______ wedding, when Sherlock had returned to stand in the position of Best Man, before the wedding march had started, Sherlock had leant toward him to murmur.

"You're not good enough for ______." His brother had told him. "You and her live in different worlds, you'll only disappoint her. She deserves better."

Mycroft had frowned. Turned to his brother with sort of a pout. "From what evidence?" He demanded quietly, quickly. From the corner of his eye he could see his mother and father noticing the whisperings, and had begun whispering between themselves.

"..." Sherlock took a deep breath, "Its in your nature, brother mine."

The wedding had gone smoothly. And the honeymoon as well. Yet Sherlock's prediction had come true when they returned to day to day life.

When Sherlock had jumped, he had returned home to find you distraught, but he suspected that you had overheard the plans in the aftermath, not because the tears had stopped, but life had just gone on as normal.

He noticed changes in every thing though.

That he would find a small smile tugging on his lips whenever he found a note from you in the home - 'I love you to the moon and back' - which he would often pocket and use as bookmarks.

He'd leave his phone with Anthea whilst in meetings, and return from the problematic debates by older men in suits to find his inbox streaming with affirmations from his wife, and Anthea's lips struggling to refrain from smiling at what you'd written.

He knew Anthea was onto him when she began asking how he felt before he left for the day, and on replying, texted quickly.

And whether it be after a long day debating a political debacle or six months in Norway, whenever he would return to the home, he knew. It was where he belonged. The house had become a home, and he knew, there was one person who made that happen.

You.

Because when he slipped into the bed, he knew you were awake, were waiting for him, were always going to love him. He knew you thought he thought you were sleeping, and sleep-talked conformations of his greatness, but that's what he loved you for.

Your patience. A kiss on the cheek was few and far between being Mrs ________ Holmes.

A word in edge ways that wasn't to do with international policies.

Your smile. Like a Patronus charm from the Harry Potter books you loved so much, it banished away all ill thoughts that lurked in his mind.

Sherlock had told Mycroft that he wasn't good enough for _______ _______, now Holmes. Maybe yes, he wasn't. He was never around to show he did. But he loved you - from the handle of his umbrella to the tip, with all the fibre in his entire being, with more power than he would ever hold.

Mycroft Holmes loved you.

And that meant loving you from a distance.