The Baker Street Record

[featherfish]

A/N: Presenting: an epic Sherlock Holmes/House of Leaves crossover. This was written for Part III of the Sherlock Holmes kinkmeme over at sherlockkink. It was a long and wonderfully arduous process and certainly the most rigorous exercise in dual pastiche (not to mention HTML) that I've ever engaged in. The original prompt was made by buriedbooks in Part II, then

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Exploration A (3/5)

[featherfish]

₪The cold threatened very quickly to undo him; it grew worse (though perhaps he only grew colder) the deeper he pressed into the enfolding void. He kept himself calm through the careful tracking of his footsteps, counting them, keeping them evenly paced. Sherlock Holmes was not a man to be undone by just anything, even in circumstances so dire. As the darkness grew ever stronger around him he began to curse his not having thought to bring a lantern, although something kept him from turning round; perhaps the anticipation of seeing Watson still standing there, framed against the minimal light of the doorway, watching him go.

The darkness grew so intense that he fumbled in his pocket for matches. He lit one and it flared up, briefly illumining the solid wall which was mere inches in front of him, utterly undetected, with which he would have collided had the desire for light not struck him first. He stumbled back with a surprised yell, which he quickly cut short. He stopped there, looking thoughtfully at the wall; his composure recovered, he threw a quick glance over his shoulder. Far in the distance, which had come to about seventy paces, there stood the little rectangle of light from his room. Watson no longer stood at the doorway, though that didn’t particularly surprise Holmes. The flame from the match began to scorch his fingers, and he quickly tossed it, plunging himself into darkness once more. He hesitated before lighting another, choosing to rely momentarily on his other senses. He reached out with a careful, minutely trembling hand and touched the wall. It was infused with the cold that surrounded him; it crumbled a little at his touch, oddly, not quite like anything he’d encountered before. He brought his hand away, and after a very long deliberation he licked at the residue.

An awful taste flooded his mouth; like rust, like smoke, like sickness. He sputtered and coughed violently, forgetting himself and wiping his hand on his trousers. He paused a moment to recover, staring ahead. As far as he had been able to discern moving down the hall, there was no other route such as might have allowed Gladstone to escape, building on his theory of the inconsistency of the interior, although this did nothing to comfort him, for it was outside any rationality that he knew and thus left him very much out of his depth.

He drew a breath and decided that the investigation could be resumed some other time, when he was better prepared, had brought more tools. He needed a drink. He turned and found nothing but blackness ahead. Had Watson closed the door? He grunted under his breath and fumbled for another match. Lighting it illuminated a new door, one he was quite certain had not been there before, to his immediate right.

Curiosity overpowering him, he stepped in.