An Empty House (5/10)
Title - An Empty House (5/10)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - John, Mycroft, Lestrade, Sherlock
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - As it says on the tin: Sherlock Holmes comes home.
Author's Notes - Sorry for the long delay on this. It's been a bit of a crazy time. During which, apparently, the comm has shut down? Or something? Whatever. I'd normally post to a comm, but I no longer know which comm to use, so this fic now exists only here on my LJ, I suppose. Feel free to friend me, if you haven't already and wish to be able to get updates.
Thank you to all the usuals, to arctacuda for the excellent beta and sensiblecat for the lovely Britpick.
I don't think knowledge of the rest of my Sherlockfic is necessarily needed, although this does exist in the same Scotch-verse. If you're wondering about all the little background facts referenced here (who knows the secret? what's the deal with the violin? why the heck are Mycroft and Lestrade a couple?), you should read "Scotch" and "John Watson's 12 Things Happy People Do." (And, to a much, much lesser extent, "Middlegame.")
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four
Chapter Five
It really was an empty house. Similar in size and scale to Mycroft’s house, but run down, dusty, and entirely empty.
“Sorry,” said the man in the suit, still puffing on his cigar, “but I don’t have anywhere to offer for you to sit.”
“That’s quite all right,” John replied, matching the man’s politeness, while trying to catalogue everything he could. The house was devoid of furniture, but it was full of people, a veritable army, all of them well-armed. Even if he could pull his gun without being shot first, he would be dead after the first shot, if he was lucky. That didn’t seem as if it was going to accomplish much. The best he could hope for, he thought, was Mycroft tracking him, either through the CCTV or through his mobile’s GPS.
“It seems to me,” the man remarked, conversationally, “that there are two options. The first is that Mr. Holmes the Elder tries to come to your aid. I’ve no doubt his rescue attempt would be clever and impressive in scale, but it would lack a sense of humor. Which is why I’m hoping for the second option.”
John said nothing in response.
“The second option,” continued the man, “is that Mr. Holmes the Younger tries to come to your aid. I admit that’s the option I’m rooting for. I feel he’d attempt it with flair. That much is evident, I believe, from his choice of coat.” The man puffed on his cigar thoughtfully. “You should be rooting for the second option, too. Aside from the fact that it would be romantic, of course, there is also the fact that should the rescue attempt come from the elder Mr. Holmes, I would have no choice but to kill you, really. You will have become far too much of a liability at that point. If the attempt comes from the younger Mr. Holmes, I may let you go. I haven’t decided yet. I suppose it depends on your Mr. Holmes’s powers of persuasion. I’m rather hoping that he argues passionately on your behalf.”
John crossed his arms, thinking, but he had no thoughts of any utility. He had walked into a trap, and he was either going to get Sherlock or himself killed. Unless something miraculous happened.
There was a knock on the front door. John looked over at it in surprise.
“Interesting,” commented the man. “Politer than I would have supposed.” He walked over to the window, looked through it at whoever was at the door, and frowned. Then he walked over to John, easily divested him of the gun under his shirt, and shoved him to the nearest heavily armed man, who immediately pressed the muzzle of his own gun into the hollow behind John’s ear.
John thought he could have done without that.
“If I so much as flinch,” the man commanded, evenly, “shoot him.”
John watched him walk over to the door, holding his breath. He hoped it wasn’t Sherlock at the door. He hoped desperately it was Sherlock at the door. John thought it was probably inevitable that he should clearly be losing his grasp on sanity at this moment.
John couldn’t see who was at the door. What he could hear was a voice-a teenager’s voice-saying, uncertainly, “Did somebody here order a pizza?”
There was a moment of loaded silence, then the man said, “I don’t suppose it’s already been paid for?”
“Er,” said the delivery boy’s voice. “No?”
The man sighed. From his vantage point, John watched him peel off a note and hand it to the boy and accept a pizza box. Then he closed the door, opened the pizza box, and smiled before pulling a note out of it, stained with grease. “See? Flair,” he said to John, holding it up so John could see it.
It was Sherlock’s handwriting. You have my attention. We should negotiate. SH
***
Professor Moriarty, much as Mycroft hated to admit it, had been clever to choose a building with an interior courtyard, because it took Mycroft out of the equation as much as he could ever be taken out of the equation, which was something Mycroft never liked to be. Mycroft, however, was refusing to be annoyed by this. If he was annoyed, then he would have to acknowledge he was uncomfortable, and from uncomfortable it was just a short leap to nervous, and before one knew it one would be outright panicked. Mycroft had learned long ago it was best not to think such thoughts. Caring was never an advantage, and things like annoyance and discomfort and anxiety were all hallmarks of caring too much. It was a chess board, he reminded himself. It had nothing to do with Sherlock rushing headlong into danger; it was just a chess board, like the game set up downstairs.
“There’s nothing for you to see,” Greg said, from by the door.
“No,” Mycroft agreed, nonetheless keeping his eyes on the image of the alley leading to…he wasn’t sure. Sherlock’s plan was to make contact, indicate that he knew exactly where John was, and then wait and see what happened. Sherlock was supposed to inform Mycroft of the next move, which would doubtless be a negotiation somewhere, but Mycroft didn’t trust him to do so. John made Sherlock even more reckless than usual, made him contemplate seventeen different danger-laden scenarios rather than anything that made sense, and that was because Sherlock cared far too much about John, and that was terrifying and definitely not an advantage. So Mycroft sat watching an unchanging image on a CCTV camera and trying to outplay both Moriarty and a headstrong, desperate Sherlock in his head.
He sensed Greg hesitate in the doorway before saying, “Do you want company?”
Mycroft considered this. He appreciated the fact that it was an honest offer. Not You shouldn’t be alone right now. Not Don’t shut me out. Just Let me know what you need. “No,” he decided, not unkindly. “I don’t think so.” He finally looked up from the monitor. Greg was leaning on the doorjamb, arms crossed, watching him with that open-book of a face he had. The story at the moment was half concern and half suspicion. He tried to lighten the situation. “As you say, there’s nothing for me to see, and nothing for me to do.”
“Which sounds not at all like Mycroft Holmes. What is your contingency plan, and what’s so terrible about it that you haven’t told me yet?”
“What makes you think I have a contingency plan?” he asked, mildly.
“I think you have three successive contingency plans, is what I think, because you’re you, and I know you.”
Mycroft’s work mobile rang from where it was sitting on the desk, saving him from a response. He glanced at it, registering the number as an office extension. “Strange, isn’t it?” he mused.
“What?”
“How things continue to go on in the world that manage not to revolve around my brother.” He leaned over and answered the mobile. “Hello.”
“Mr. Holmes,” said a voice he didn’t recognize. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Mycroft never forgot a voice. Ever. He looked at the CCTV image and said, evenly, already knowing the answer, “Sorry, who is this?”
“Oh, how rude of me,” answered the voice. “It’s Professor Moriarty. So silly of me, how would I ever have expected you to know that? Have you time for a chat?”
The Sherlock-emergency-only mobile chirped with a text. “Absolutely,” said Mycroft, smoothly, as he read the text. On the move. Change monitor. Down the block. SH Mycroft registered momentary surprise at the uncharacteristically helpful nature of this text and scrolled through camera angles, looking for his brother.
“I am, I think, about to have an interesting discussion with your brother.”
“Are you?”
“You don’t seem surprised that I’m having a meeting with a dead man.”
Mycroft found Sherlock, who was clearly following someone, and scrolled through to try to locate the object of his attention. “Nothing my brother does surprises me.”
“Yes, we have that in common, don’t we? Troublesome little brothers. Mine was good enough to simply die once he’d made a mess of things, but yours is rather more stubborn.”
“A flaw in his personality,” rejoined Mycroft, absently, realizing that Sherlock was following a pair of people who were moving swiftly through the pedestrian crowd and doing an excellent job of avoiding any head-on CCTV angles. Greg had moved from the doorway and was now leaning over his shoulder, watching what he was doing.
“Possibly a fatal one,” agreed Moriarty. “You have something I want, Mr. Holmes.”
“I would imagine I have several things you want.”
“Yes. True. Let’s focus on the one in particular. A file on my dearly departed brother, I believe. Interrogation records, things of that sort.”
Mycroft had combed through Moriarty’s interrogation records a million times and had never seen anything of importance. He had clearly missed something.
Professor Moriarty guessed the direction of his thoughts. “Don’t even think about it, Mr. Holmes. You’ll never locate it. I, however, am in need of that file.”
“That’s rather tragic for you,” Mycroft informed him, watching the progress of the pair of people, Sherlock darting through the crowd behind them.
“The scale of the fraud you’re perpetrating at the moment is quite astonishing. Were you anyone other than you, it would be difficult for your reputation to recover.”
“I am not overly concerned about that,” remarked Mycroft, scrolling through angles.
“I know you’re not. And I would have said, based on your recent actions, that your brother would be your weak point, but you’re currently allowing him to follow me through this crowd, and I know that you know I’ll kill him as soon as I get close enough to him, so your permissiveness on this point is telling.”
“As we’ve already established, he’s stubborn.”
“I am well aware that you know exactly where I am at this moment. You’re watching me on a monitor, no doubt. At the very least, you could have this call traced. You could have me killed easily, I am aware. You’re staying your hand because we both know you have a much bigger problem. There’s a detective inspector who works for Scotland Yard who knows a great deal about the way Mycroft Holmes’s mind works.” Mycroft did not move, but his eyes did shift from the monitor to Greg’s profile, leaning beside him and looking at the monitor. Moriarty kept talking. “Do you know how many terrorist cells would love to get their hands on information like that?” Greg, sensing his gaze, gave him a quizzical look in response. “I know that you do. I feel fairly confident that detailed information on exactly how valuable he might be would be released to many unsavory types, should I be killed.”
Mycroft leaned back in his seat, away from the monitor, his eyes on Greg, who, still looking puzzled, held his gaze, head slightly cocked. “Oh,” said Mycroft, coolly. “You’ve just made a mistake.”
“Have I?” asked Moriarty. He sounded amused, which Mycroft thought was another tremendous mistake on his part.
He spoke casually and lightly, watching Greg, who had by now straightened and turned and was leaning against the desk, his expression curious and confused. “I don’t share my brother’s penchant for noble self-sacrifice. If you’d like to declare war on me, that’s perfectly all right. Don’t be surprised when I win.” Mycroft ended the call without waiting for a response, dialing the second space in his speed-dial without delay.
“Mycroft,” said Greg, sounding concerned.
Mycroft was furious, which was a hallmark of caring, which was never an advantage, but Mycroft didn’t care about the bloody chess board or where any of his bloody pieces were. He wanted the entire board knocked over completely; he was through with this game.
His voice was perfectly even when he said to the person who answered his call, “I’m going to text you the address of a building in London. I want every single person in that building arrested. Accuse all of them of murder. And if they resist, shoot them.” Mycroft hung up on the yes, sir he received in response, swiftly texting the address of the building where Moriarty had brought John.
“What the hell,” said Greg, and now he sounded downright startled.
“That was my contingency plan,” Mycroft told him, without looking at him, striving to sound unruffled.
“What did he say to you?”
Mycroft considered, putting the phone down carefully and looking up at Greg. He had said nothing Mycroft hadn’t already known, nothing that didn’t keep him up at night while Greg slept, nothing that didn’t make him check CCTV monitors every once in a while, just to be sure Greg was still alive and safe and there in London. At a certain level, Mycroft’s job was keeping people safe-the right people. He had accomplished it for years with aplomb, and he wasn’t about to falter at it now.
“Mycroft,” said Greg, more firmly, “what did he say?”
Mycroft stood, pinning Greg against the desk and leaning into him. He was comfortingly solid and warm and, though he radiated bewilderment, he adjusted, letting Mycroft settle into him, brushing a kiss over his jaw in a gesture of soothing concern.
Mycroft closed his eyes and breathed into him. “The wrong thing,” he answered.
***
The man’s hand was tight on John’s arm, pushing him along and wending a brutal pace through the crowd, no matter how much John tried to stumble and trip to slow him down. He’d put the gun away, and John wasn’t sure if he’d really use it in a crowd, so at least that had become a bit of a non-factor. Which meant that if John was going to make a move he needed to make it soon, while they were out in public and he had a chance of getting away. He’d made a grave error and was serving as a trap for Sherlock, who, if his note was to be believed, was taking the bait. He had to get out of this before he got Sherlock killed. Why didn’t the man think he would make a move? Did the man think he was terrified that anything he might do would hasten his own death? Was the man really so stupid as to think that John wouldn’t, even after all this time, take every risk of his own death, unthinkingly, if he thought it would keep Sherlock safe?
Actually, John hadn’t really given thought to it himself, but it turned out that yes, that was still true, even after every single bloody thing that had happened in the past eight months. John was furious with Sherlock for turning out to be alive and, damn it, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure Sherlock stayed that way, even if it did turn out to be the last thing he did.
His mind made up, John paid attention, hoping that he would choose exactly the right moment. What happened, luckily, was that the man had to pause abruptly to try to cross a street, and his sudden halt loosened his grip on John’s arm just enough. In the pause, John swung around and punched him as hard as he could. Much harder than he’d punched Mycroft Holmes earlier that day, although punching people was starting to really bruise up his knuckles, it had to be said.
The man hadn’t been expecting that at all. His grip loosened even more, enough for John to pull his arm away and give him a quick shove. Still off-balance, the man stumbled directly into traffic. There was a general outcry from the crowd around them, but, true to a London crowd, only a couple of people seemed inclined to get involved, and John didn’t give them an opportunity to make up their minds. He took off at a sprint in the opposite direction, not sure what his plan really was. Maybe hail a cab? Maybe-
A shot rang out, and John ducked instinctively, but that had been a stupid move on the man’s part, because he’d missed John in the weaving of the people on the sidewalk and the shot triggered a chaotic stampede of people screaming and running in all directions and in the midst of all of this, a hand closed into John’s, tugging insistently, and somehow he knew not to throw it off, not to struggle against it. Somehow, his hand recognized this hand, automatically, instinctively, clasped around it. He turned toward it and met a pair of pale eyes that he felt like a physical blow.
“This way,” said Sherlock Holmes, who just that morning had been dead. And then took off, dropping his hand.
John had no moment to ponder how it felt to see Sherlock Holmes again. He could only react, following him at a mad dash. This was oddly appropriate, he thought. He had never had the ability to comprehend how he felt about Sherlock Holmes, he had only ever reacted, pulled along in his wake, always running hard enough that breath was fast and quick and life was a joyous blur skimming past them.
The crowds were thinning out, and Sherlock slowed and came to a stop. John had lost track of where they were because he had been so determined not to lose sight of Sherlock in front of him. He stood, leaning over, hands on his knees, and gasped for breath while Sherlock pulled out his mobile.
John listened to him, the cadence of his voice, clipped with impatience. He was barely out of breath at all, which reminded John that it had been a while since he had had to run anywhere, and Sherlock had clearly spent the last eight months running.
“Where is he?” he said. And then, after a pause, “But why would you do that?” And then, after another pause, “Never mind, I’m not interested.”
There was a finality to this that made John think Sherlock had ended the conversation, so he looked up, and Sherlock was indeed sliding the mobile back into his pocket.
“My brother is an idiot,” he announced, and then, “Have you got your breath yet? We have to-”
“Hold on.” John put a hand up to stave him off. “Sherlock,” he said.
Sherlock looked at him, deliberately obtuse. “What?”
John lifted his eyebrows at him.
Sherlock had the grace to look a bit uncomfortable, at least. “Well, didn’t Mycroft explain?”
“I would punch you, you know, only my hand’s sore at the moment from punching too many people today. But don’t worry, I’m going to save it for later.”
“Too many people? Who else have you punched today?”
“Mycroft.”
“Mycroft?” Sherlock looked delighted at this. “Oh, excellent. About time that happened. Why did you punch him? I bet he deserved it.” Sherlock was rubbing his hands together with obvious glee, practically bouncing with anticipation over this story.
“I punched him for lying to me about your supposed death,” John informed Sherlock, scathingly.
Sherlock’s face fell. “Oh,” he said, awkwardly, an expression John recognized on his face, the one he wore whenever he ran up against a situation that called for socialized behavior that Sherlock had never really bothered to internalize. Sherlock looked hesitant, sliding his hands into his coat pockets. John waited, resisting the impulse to give him a hint as to what he ought to say, resisting the impulse to fall into the pattern of that with him, immediately, automatically, the way Sherlock had clearly expected him to.
“I…thought you’d be happy,” Sherlock managed, finally.
“That everyone lied to me for eight months?”
“No, that I’m not dead.”
John stared at Sherlock, who was practically hiding in his coat. He stared at the familiar scarf knotted in the same old way around his throat. He stared at the dramatic line of those cheekbones, at the fever-brightness of those strangely colored eyes against his pale skin, at the dark hair worn slightly too long, its riot of curls kicked into cowlicks by the breeze as they’d run. He wanted to stop and make a list of every single thing about Sherlock in that moment, so he would remember forever when he’d walked back into his life, remember all the things he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten over the past eight months. He wanted to press his fingers against the pulse in Sherlock’s neck, to be sure of the steady circulation of his blood. He wanted to press his fingers against every single pulse point in Sherlock’s body, really, to be sure that he wasn’t a ghost. He wanted so many things that his mind was a tumult.
He said, a catch in his throat, “When did you get to be stupid?”
Sherlock looked torn between frowning thunderously and earnestly defending his intelligence, but John didn’t wait to see what won out, because if he didn’t do something quickly he was going to burst into messy tears all over Sherlock, and in order to do something slightly more dignified than that he fisted his hands into the heavy wool of Sherlock’s coat and tugged him forward and kissed that ridiculous bow of a mouth he had.
Sherlock froze, and John, feeling mortified, drew back. Not enough so that Sherlock could see him clearly, because he didn’t really want Sherlock to see exactly how mortified he was, although Sherlock could surely sense it. His hands loosened in Sherlock’s coat, but he didn’t let go, and he tried to think of what he could do, now that he had made this monumental error. Could he laugh it off? Achieve the right level of casualness in his voice? Say Just checking, yup, flesh and blood, good to know?
While he was deciding, Sherlock cleared his throat. “Oh,” he said, his voice pitched lower than usual, and John thought he should point out to Sherlock not to use that tone, it made people-even men who had previously thought themselves to be heterosexual-think wicked things. “That’s new,” said Sherlock, as if anything about this situation of returning from the dead wasn’t new.
John had still not decided exactly what he was going to do, but it turned out not to matter because Sherlock’s hands suddenly settled on the back of his head, holding firmly and shifting slightly, and Sherlock Holmes kissed him. Actually, to say that Sherlock Holmes kissed him was not strictly accurate at all. Sherlock Holmes kissed him. Kissed every thought out of his head. Flattened him against the nearest wall and pressed into him until he couldn’t breathe, and then kissed him some more, just for good measure.
Sherlock eventually stopped kissing him in favor of leaning down and sucking underneath his jaw, which was going to leave a mark but also felt divine, and he knew he said Sherlock’s name in a fluttery little way and drew him closer, and that Sherlock said, “Mmm?” in response, against the sensitive spot on his neck, and at that point John managed to struggle down a choking breath, and his brain cleared enough to realize that his hands were in Sherlock’s hair, holding him against him, and Sherlock’s hands were somehow under his shirt, and he was grateful for the curtain of Sherlock’s coat hiding all manner of things where they were half-collapsed against the wall together.
“Wait,” he managed, looking at the gray sky past Sherlock’s head. “Wait, wait, wait.”
Sherlock lifted his head, cutting off John’s view of the sky and filling it with him, his pupils dilated and his mouth, red and thoroughly kissed, turned down in a frown. “But you started this,” he accused.
John said the first thing that came into his head, the truth of it slipping out. “I didn’t think you would know how to kiss like that.”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and he looked as furious as John thought it was possible for him to look when his fingers were still absently caressing John’s chest. But whatever he was going to say was cut off by a mobile chirping a text alert.
Mycroft with his CCTV cameras, thought John, immediately, abruptly noticing one out of the corner of his eye. Bloody hell, that had probably been quite the show.
Sherlock removed a hand to retrieve his mobile, and John refrained from saying that he would have retrieved the mobile for him and there had been no need to touch John any less than he was currently touching John and quite a bit of need to touch him more. John was proud of himself for this restraint on his part.
Sherlock glanced at the text, replaced the mobile in his pocket, and took a long step away from John, straightening his clothing in smooth, unhurried motions that made it seem as if nothing interesting had just occurred. Meanwhile, John leaned against the wall and focused on trying to catch his breath.
“We have to go,” Sherlock informed him.
“Go where?” said John, hoping that the answer was somewhere without CCTV cameras. Maybe Baker Street.
“See Moriarty,” Sherlock replied, already striding briskly away.
John stared after him. Of course. Why would it be anywhere normal that they would go after snogging against a wall? Of course they would go see a man who wanted to kill both of them. “Would you wait?” John requested, crossly, thinking that Sherlock was already annoying the hell out of him. He had to half-jog to catch up to him, trying to tuck in his shirt along the way.
Really, he thought. This was turning out to be the best day of his life.
Next
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - John, Mycroft, Lestrade, Sherlock
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - As it says on the tin: Sherlock Holmes comes home.
Author's Notes - Sorry for the long delay on this. It's been a bit of a crazy time. During which, apparently, the comm has shut down? Or something? Whatever. I'd normally post to a comm, but I no longer know which comm to use, so this fic now exists only here on my LJ, I suppose. Feel free to friend me, if you haven't already and wish to be able to get updates.
Thank you to all the usuals, to arctacuda for the excellent beta and sensiblecat for the lovely Britpick.
I don't think knowledge of the rest of my Sherlockfic is necessarily needed, although this does exist in the same Scotch-verse. If you're wondering about all the little background facts referenced here (who knows the secret? what's the deal with the violin? why the heck are Mycroft and Lestrade a couple?), you should read "Scotch" and "John Watson's 12 Things Happy People Do." (And, to a much, much lesser extent, "Middlegame.")
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four
Chapter Five
It really was an empty house. Similar in size and scale to Mycroft’s house, but run down, dusty, and entirely empty.
“Sorry,” said the man in the suit, still puffing on his cigar, “but I don’t have anywhere to offer for you to sit.”
“That’s quite all right,” John replied, matching the man’s politeness, while trying to catalogue everything he could. The house was devoid of furniture, but it was full of people, a veritable army, all of them well-armed. Even if he could pull his gun without being shot first, he would be dead after the first shot, if he was lucky. That didn’t seem as if it was going to accomplish much. The best he could hope for, he thought, was Mycroft tracking him, either through the CCTV or through his mobile’s GPS.
“It seems to me,” the man remarked, conversationally, “that there are two options. The first is that Mr. Holmes the Elder tries to come to your aid. I’ve no doubt his rescue attempt would be clever and impressive in scale, but it would lack a sense of humor. Which is why I’m hoping for the second option.”
John said nothing in response.
“The second option,” continued the man, “is that Mr. Holmes the Younger tries to come to your aid. I admit that’s the option I’m rooting for. I feel he’d attempt it with flair. That much is evident, I believe, from his choice of coat.” The man puffed on his cigar thoughtfully. “You should be rooting for the second option, too. Aside from the fact that it would be romantic, of course, there is also the fact that should the rescue attempt come from the elder Mr. Holmes, I would have no choice but to kill you, really. You will have become far too much of a liability at that point. If the attempt comes from the younger Mr. Holmes, I may let you go. I haven’t decided yet. I suppose it depends on your Mr. Holmes’s powers of persuasion. I’m rather hoping that he argues passionately on your behalf.”
John crossed his arms, thinking, but he had no thoughts of any utility. He had walked into a trap, and he was either going to get Sherlock or himself killed. Unless something miraculous happened.
There was a knock on the front door. John looked over at it in surprise.
“Interesting,” commented the man. “Politer than I would have supposed.” He walked over to the window, looked through it at whoever was at the door, and frowned. Then he walked over to John, easily divested him of the gun under his shirt, and shoved him to the nearest heavily armed man, who immediately pressed the muzzle of his own gun into the hollow behind John’s ear.
John thought he could have done without that.
“If I so much as flinch,” the man commanded, evenly, “shoot him.”
John watched him walk over to the door, holding his breath. He hoped it wasn’t Sherlock at the door. He hoped desperately it was Sherlock at the door. John thought it was probably inevitable that he should clearly be losing his grasp on sanity at this moment.
John couldn’t see who was at the door. What he could hear was a voice-a teenager’s voice-saying, uncertainly, “Did somebody here order a pizza?”
There was a moment of loaded silence, then the man said, “I don’t suppose it’s already been paid for?”
“Er,” said the delivery boy’s voice. “No?”
The man sighed. From his vantage point, John watched him peel off a note and hand it to the boy and accept a pizza box. Then he closed the door, opened the pizza box, and smiled before pulling a note out of it, stained with grease. “See? Flair,” he said to John, holding it up so John could see it.
It was Sherlock’s handwriting. You have my attention. We should negotiate. SH
***
Professor Moriarty, much as Mycroft hated to admit it, had been clever to choose a building with an interior courtyard, because it took Mycroft out of the equation as much as he could ever be taken out of the equation, which was something Mycroft never liked to be. Mycroft, however, was refusing to be annoyed by this. If he was annoyed, then he would have to acknowledge he was uncomfortable, and from uncomfortable it was just a short leap to nervous, and before one knew it one would be outright panicked. Mycroft had learned long ago it was best not to think such thoughts. Caring was never an advantage, and things like annoyance and discomfort and anxiety were all hallmarks of caring too much. It was a chess board, he reminded himself. It had nothing to do with Sherlock rushing headlong into danger; it was just a chess board, like the game set up downstairs.
“There’s nothing for you to see,” Greg said, from by the door.
“No,” Mycroft agreed, nonetheless keeping his eyes on the image of the alley leading to…he wasn’t sure. Sherlock’s plan was to make contact, indicate that he knew exactly where John was, and then wait and see what happened. Sherlock was supposed to inform Mycroft of the next move, which would doubtless be a negotiation somewhere, but Mycroft didn’t trust him to do so. John made Sherlock even more reckless than usual, made him contemplate seventeen different danger-laden scenarios rather than anything that made sense, and that was because Sherlock cared far too much about John, and that was terrifying and definitely not an advantage. So Mycroft sat watching an unchanging image on a CCTV camera and trying to outplay both Moriarty and a headstrong, desperate Sherlock in his head.
He sensed Greg hesitate in the doorway before saying, “Do you want company?”
Mycroft considered this. He appreciated the fact that it was an honest offer. Not You shouldn’t be alone right now. Not Don’t shut me out. Just Let me know what you need. “No,” he decided, not unkindly. “I don’t think so.” He finally looked up from the monitor. Greg was leaning on the doorjamb, arms crossed, watching him with that open-book of a face he had. The story at the moment was half concern and half suspicion. He tried to lighten the situation. “As you say, there’s nothing for me to see, and nothing for me to do.”
“Which sounds not at all like Mycroft Holmes. What is your contingency plan, and what’s so terrible about it that you haven’t told me yet?”
“What makes you think I have a contingency plan?” he asked, mildly.
“I think you have three successive contingency plans, is what I think, because you’re you, and I know you.”
Mycroft’s work mobile rang from where it was sitting on the desk, saving him from a response. He glanced at it, registering the number as an office extension. “Strange, isn’t it?” he mused.
“What?”
“How things continue to go on in the world that manage not to revolve around my brother.” He leaned over and answered the mobile. “Hello.”
“Mr. Holmes,” said a voice he didn’t recognize. “I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Mycroft never forgot a voice. Ever. He looked at the CCTV image and said, evenly, already knowing the answer, “Sorry, who is this?”
“Oh, how rude of me,” answered the voice. “It’s Professor Moriarty. So silly of me, how would I ever have expected you to know that? Have you time for a chat?”
The Sherlock-emergency-only mobile chirped with a text. “Absolutely,” said Mycroft, smoothly, as he read the text. On the move. Change monitor. Down the block. SH Mycroft registered momentary surprise at the uncharacteristically helpful nature of this text and scrolled through camera angles, looking for his brother.
“I am, I think, about to have an interesting discussion with your brother.”
“Are you?”
“You don’t seem surprised that I’m having a meeting with a dead man.”
Mycroft found Sherlock, who was clearly following someone, and scrolled through to try to locate the object of his attention. “Nothing my brother does surprises me.”
“Yes, we have that in common, don’t we? Troublesome little brothers. Mine was good enough to simply die once he’d made a mess of things, but yours is rather more stubborn.”
“A flaw in his personality,” rejoined Mycroft, absently, realizing that Sherlock was following a pair of people who were moving swiftly through the pedestrian crowd and doing an excellent job of avoiding any head-on CCTV angles. Greg had moved from the doorway and was now leaning over his shoulder, watching what he was doing.
“Possibly a fatal one,” agreed Moriarty. “You have something I want, Mr. Holmes.”
“I would imagine I have several things you want.”
“Yes. True. Let’s focus on the one in particular. A file on my dearly departed brother, I believe. Interrogation records, things of that sort.”
Mycroft had combed through Moriarty’s interrogation records a million times and had never seen anything of importance. He had clearly missed something.
Professor Moriarty guessed the direction of his thoughts. “Don’t even think about it, Mr. Holmes. You’ll never locate it. I, however, am in need of that file.”
“That’s rather tragic for you,” Mycroft informed him, watching the progress of the pair of people, Sherlock darting through the crowd behind them.
“The scale of the fraud you’re perpetrating at the moment is quite astonishing. Were you anyone other than you, it would be difficult for your reputation to recover.”
“I am not overly concerned about that,” remarked Mycroft, scrolling through angles.
“I know you’re not. And I would have said, based on your recent actions, that your brother would be your weak point, but you’re currently allowing him to follow me through this crowd, and I know that you know I’ll kill him as soon as I get close enough to him, so your permissiveness on this point is telling.”
“As we’ve already established, he’s stubborn.”
“I am well aware that you know exactly where I am at this moment. You’re watching me on a monitor, no doubt. At the very least, you could have this call traced. You could have me killed easily, I am aware. You’re staying your hand because we both know you have a much bigger problem. There’s a detective inspector who works for Scotland Yard who knows a great deal about the way Mycroft Holmes’s mind works.” Mycroft did not move, but his eyes did shift from the monitor to Greg’s profile, leaning beside him and looking at the monitor. Moriarty kept talking. “Do you know how many terrorist cells would love to get their hands on information like that?” Greg, sensing his gaze, gave him a quizzical look in response. “I know that you do. I feel fairly confident that detailed information on exactly how valuable he might be would be released to many unsavory types, should I be killed.”
Mycroft leaned back in his seat, away from the monitor, his eyes on Greg, who, still looking puzzled, held his gaze, head slightly cocked. “Oh,” said Mycroft, coolly. “You’ve just made a mistake.”
“Have I?” asked Moriarty. He sounded amused, which Mycroft thought was another tremendous mistake on his part.
He spoke casually and lightly, watching Greg, who had by now straightened and turned and was leaning against the desk, his expression curious and confused. “I don’t share my brother’s penchant for noble self-sacrifice. If you’d like to declare war on me, that’s perfectly all right. Don’t be surprised when I win.” Mycroft ended the call without waiting for a response, dialing the second space in his speed-dial without delay.
“Mycroft,” said Greg, sounding concerned.
Mycroft was furious, which was a hallmark of caring, which was never an advantage, but Mycroft didn’t care about the bloody chess board or where any of his bloody pieces were. He wanted the entire board knocked over completely; he was through with this game.
His voice was perfectly even when he said to the person who answered his call, “I’m going to text you the address of a building in London. I want every single person in that building arrested. Accuse all of them of murder. And if they resist, shoot them.” Mycroft hung up on the yes, sir he received in response, swiftly texting the address of the building where Moriarty had brought John.
“What the hell,” said Greg, and now he sounded downright startled.
“That was my contingency plan,” Mycroft told him, without looking at him, striving to sound unruffled.
“What did he say to you?”
Mycroft considered, putting the phone down carefully and looking up at Greg. He had said nothing Mycroft hadn’t already known, nothing that didn’t keep him up at night while Greg slept, nothing that didn’t make him check CCTV monitors every once in a while, just to be sure Greg was still alive and safe and there in London. At a certain level, Mycroft’s job was keeping people safe-the right people. He had accomplished it for years with aplomb, and he wasn’t about to falter at it now.
“Mycroft,” said Greg, more firmly, “what did he say?”
Mycroft stood, pinning Greg against the desk and leaning into him. He was comfortingly solid and warm and, though he radiated bewilderment, he adjusted, letting Mycroft settle into him, brushing a kiss over his jaw in a gesture of soothing concern.
Mycroft closed his eyes and breathed into him. “The wrong thing,” he answered.
***
The man’s hand was tight on John’s arm, pushing him along and wending a brutal pace through the crowd, no matter how much John tried to stumble and trip to slow him down. He’d put the gun away, and John wasn’t sure if he’d really use it in a crowd, so at least that had become a bit of a non-factor. Which meant that if John was going to make a move he needed to make it soon, while they were out in public and he had a chance of getting away. He’d made a grave error and was serving as a trap for Sherlock, who, if his note was to be believed, was taking the bait. He had to get out of this before he got Sherlock killed. Why didn’t the man think he would make a move? Did the man think he was terrified that anything he might do would hasten his own death? Was the man really so stupid as to think that John wouldn’t, even after all this time, take every risk of his own death, unthinkingly, if he thought it would keep Sherlock safe?
Actually, John hadn’t really given thought to it himself, but it turned out that yes, that was still true, even after every single bloody thing that had happened in the past eight months. John was furious with Sherlock for turning out to be alive and, damn it, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure Sherlock stayed that way, even if it did turn out to be the last thing he did.
His mind made up, John paid attention, hoping that he would choose exactly the right moment. What happened, luckily, was that the man had to pause abruptly to try to cross a street, and his sudden halt loosened his grip on John’s arm just enough. In the pause, John swung around and punched him as hard as he could. Much harder than he’d punched Mycroft Holmes earlier that day, although punching people was starting to really bruise up his knuckles, it had to be said.
The man hadn’t been expecting that at all. His grip loosened even more, enough for John to pull his arm away and give him a quick shove. Still off-balance, the man stumbled directly into traffic. There was a general outcry from the crowd around them, but, true to a London crowd, only a couple of people seemed inclined to get involved, and John didn’t give them an opportunity to make up their minds. He took off at a sprint in the opposite direction, not sure what his plan really was. Maybe hail a cab? Maybe-
A shot rang out, and John ducked instinctively, but that had been a stupid move on the man’s part, because he’d missed John in the weaving of the people on the sidewalk and the shot triggered a chaotic stampede of people screaming and running in all directions and in the midst of all of this, a hand closed into John’s, tugging insistently, and somehow he knew not to throw it off, not to struggle against it. Somehow, his hand recognized this hand, automatically, instinctively, clasped around it. He turned toward it and met a pair of pale eyes that he felt like a physical blow.
“This way,” said Sherlock Holmes, who just that morning had been dead. And then took off, dropping his hand.
John had no moment to ponder how it felt to see Sherlock Holmes again. He could only react, following him at a mad dash. This was oddly appropriate, he thought. He had never had the ability to comprehend how he felt about Sherlock Holmes, he had only ever reacted, pulled along in his wake, always running hard enough that breath was fast and quick and life was a joyous blur skimming past them.
The crowds were thinning out, and Sherlock slowed and came to a stop. John had lost track of where they were because he had been so determined not to lose sight of Sherlock in front of him. He stood, leaning over, hands on his knees, and gasped for breath while Sherlock pulled out his mobile.
John listened to him, the cadence of his voice, clipped with impatience. He was barely out of breath at all, which reminded John that it had been a while since he had had to run anywhere, and Sherlock had clearly spent the last eight months running.
“Where is he?” he said. And then, after a pause, “But why would you do that?” And then, after another pause, “Never mind, I’m not interested.”
There was a finality to this that made John think Sherlock had ended the conversation, so he looked up, and Sherlock was indeed sliding the mobile back into his pocket.
“My brother is an idiot,” he announced, and then, “Have you got your breath yet? We have to-”
“Hold on.” John put a hand up to stave him off. “Sherlock,” he said.
Sherlock looked at him, deliberately obtuse. “What?”
John lifted his eyebrows at him.
Sherlock had the grace to look a bit uncomfortable, at least. “Well, didn’t Mycroft explain?”
“I would punch you, you know, only my hand’s sore at the moment from punching too many people today. But don’t worry, I’m going to save it for later.”
“Too many people? Who else have you punched today?”
“Mycroft.”
“Mycroft?” Sherlock looked delighted at this. “Oh, excellent. About time that happened. Why did you punch him? I bet he deserved it.” Sherlock was rubbing his hands together with obvious glee, practically bouncing with anticipation over this story.
“I punched him for lying to me about your supposed death,” John informed Sherlock, scathingly.
Sherlock’s face fell. “Oh,” he said, awkwardly, an expression John recognized on his face, the one he wore whenever he ran up against a situation that called for socialized behavior that Sherlock had never really bothered to internalize. Sherlock looked hesitant, sliding his hands into his coat pockets. John waited, resisting the impulse to give him a hint as to what he ought to say, resisting the impulse to fall into the pattern of that with him, immediately, automatically, the way Sherlock had clearly expected him to.
“I…thought you’d be happy,” Sherlock managed, finally.
“That everyone lied to me for eight months?”
“No, that I’m not dead.”
John stared at Sherlock, who was practically hiding in his coat. He stared at the familiar scarf knotted in the same old way around his throat. He stared at the dramatic line of those cheekbones, at the fever-brightness of those strangely colored eyes against his pale skin, at the dark hair worn slightly too long, its riot of curls kicked into cowlicks by the breeze as they’d run. He wanted to stop and make a list of every single thing about Sherlock in that moment, so he would remember forever when he’d walked back into his life, remember all the things he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten over the past eight months. He wanted to press his fingers against the pulse in Sherlock’s neck, to be sure of the steady circulation of his blood. He wanted to press his fingers against every single pulse point in Sherlock’s body, really, to be sure that he wasn’t a ghost. He wanted so many things that his mind was a tumult.
He said, a catch in his throat, “When did you get to be stupid?”
Sherlock looked torn between frowning thunderously and earnestly defending his intelligence, but John didn’t wait to see what won out, because if he didn’t do something quickly he was going to burst into messy tears all over Sherlock, and in order to do something slightly more dignified than that he fisted his hands into the heavy wool of Sherlock’s coat and tugged him forward and kissed that ridiculous bow of a mouth he had.
Sherlock froze, and John, feeling mortified, drew back. Not enough so that Sherlock could see him clearly, because he didn’t really want Sherlock to see exactly how mortified he was, although Sherlock could surely sense it. His hands loosened in Sherlock’s coat, but he didn’t let go, and he tried to think of what he could do, now that he had made this monumental error. Could he laugh it off? Achieve the right level of casualness in his voice? Say Just checking, yup, flesh and blood, good to know?
While he was deciding, Sherlock cleared his throat. “Oh,” he said, his voice pitched lower than usual, and John thought he should point out to Sherlock not to use that tone, it made people-even men who had previously thought themselves to be heterosexual-think wicked things. “That’s new,” said Sherlock, as if anything about this situation of returning from the dead wasn’t new.
John had still not decided exactly what he was going to do, but it turned out not to matter because Sherlock’s hands suddenly settled on the back of his head, holding firmly and shifting slightly, and Sherlock Holmes kissed him. Actually, to say that Sherlock Holmes kissed him was not strictly accurate at all. Sherlock Holmes kissed him. Kissed every thought out of his head. Flattened him against the nearest wall and pressed into him until he couldn’t breathe, and then kissed him some more, just for good measure.
Sherlock eventually stopped kissing him in favor of leaning down and sucking underneath his jaw, which was going to leave a mark but also felt divine, and he knew he said Sherlock’s name in a fluttery little way and drew him closer, and that Sherlock said, “Mmm?” in response, against the sensitive spot on his neck, and at that point John managed to struggle down a choking breath, and his brain cleared enough to realize that his hands were in Sherlock’s hair, holding him against him, and Sherlock’s hands were somehow under his shirt, and he was grateful for the curtain of Sherlock’s coat hiding all manner of things where they were half-collapsed against the wall together.
“Wait,” he managed, looking at the gray sky past Sherlock’s head. “Wait, wait, wait.”
Sherlock lifted his head, cutting off John’s view of the sky and filling it with him, his pupils dilated and his mouth, red and thoroughly kissed, turned down in a frown. “But you started this,” he accused.
John said the first thing that came into his head, the truth of it slipping out. “I didn’t think you would know how to kiss like that.”
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and he looked as furious as John thought it was possible for him to look when his fingers were still absently caressing John’s chest. But whatever he was going to say was cut off by a mobile chirping a text alert.
Mycroft with his CCTV cameras, thought John, immediately, abruptly noticing one out of the corner of his eye. Bloody hell, that had probably been quite the show.
Sherlock removed a hand to retrieve his mobile, and John refrained from saying that he would have retrieved the mobile for him and there had been no need to touch John any less than he was currently touching John and quite a bit of need to touch him more. John was proud of himself for this restraint on his part.
Sherlock glanced at the text, replaced the mobile in his pocket, and took a long step away from John, straightening his clothing in smooth, unhurried motions that made it seem as if nothing interesting had just occurred. Meanwhile, John leaned against the wall and focused on trying to catch his breath.
“We have to go,” Sherlock informed him.
“Go where?” said John, hoping that the answer was somewhere without CCTV cameras. Maybe Baker Street.
“See Moriarty,” Sherlock replied, already striding briskly away.
John stared after him. Of course. Why would it be anywhere normal that they would go after snogging against a wall? Of course they would go see a man who wanted to kill both of them. “Would you wait?” John requested, crossly, thinking that Sherlock was already annoying the hell out of him. He had to half-jog to catch up to him, trying to tuck in his shirt along the way.
Really, he thought. This was turning out to be the best day of his life.
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