Title: Loser's Blues
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Rating: PG
Length: 221
Content notes: No warnings apply.
Author notes: A 221b ficlet (221 words, last word must begin with B), third in the series that begins with Bet and continues with A Date Worse. Thank you to theicescholar for encouragement; this one is for her and 2ndskin.
Summary: “I gather your date with Sergeant Anderson was a roaring success,” Mycroft says, beaming.



“I gather your date with Sergeant Anderson was a roaring success,” Mycroft says, beaming.

Sherlock glares. He should have won their bet: he’d been sure that Mycroft was far too vain to go back to work with his post-chickenpox beard, and Sherlock’s idea for his forfeit had been pure genius. But Mycroft had proved him wrong, and John, the traitor, had told him Anderson’s name.

“I deleted it,” he says. Not quite true: his mind flashes up another image of himself and Anderson in the Natural History Museum. He hopes they send Mycroft the bill for repairs to that stupid animatronic T-Rex. Serve him right.

“Pity,” Mycroft says. “Oh well, there’s always the CCTV footage.”

Sherlock thinks of six different ways to kill him, and regretfully discards all of them.

“You really should know by now not to bet against me, Sherlock,” Mycroft says. “You always end up with – ah – egg on your face.”

His distaste for the colloquialisms he nevertheless uses is one of his more irritating habits.

“I’d rather have egg on my face than that ghastly thing,” Sherlock retorts.

“Gregory likes it,” Mycroft says, with something approaching a simper.

Who the fuck is Gregory? Not that Sherlock wants to know. The last thing he needs seared into his brain is the image of Big Brother with a boyfriend.