Can't Live On Milk Alone Part 1/2 | Sequel to "Time in Lieu Of "
Title: Can't Live on Milk Alone
Part: 1/2 Sequel to Time in Lieu Of
Warnings: None really. Mentions of John and Sherlock being together. AU crack fic of crackness. Considerable volumes of OOC. Unintended cross over with Good Omens.
Prompt Link: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/4076.html?thread=10033900#t10033900
Prompt: John Watson has three siblings, not one...and together they are the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Length: 16,000+
---
It was Remembrance Day when Sherlock awoke with a headache to end all headaches. Confused, he had rolled off the couch in an attempt to avoid the cousin of whatever blow had caved his skull in, before realizing that the agony was being brought on by internal forces.
He lay on the musky carpeted floor staring at the ceiling. Oh. My. God. The room swam. He felt vaguely nauseous. He was dying, surely.
“JOHN?” He managed, before realizing that everything, especially shouting, was far far far too loud. It was worth it, he consoled himself, John was a doctor and surely could spare a moment to medicate him out of his misery. If he was lucky, medicate him into a coma. When no answer was forthcoming, Sherlock set his not inconsiderable intellect to figuring out whether John had a shift at the surgery or not. Sherlock winced at the pain in his head and attempted to concentrate on anything but the tempest in his tummy.
This sucked.
Just when he really needed a doctor he was off … oh right, he was off in Afghanistan, blowing something up or some such thing. Sherlock hadn’t really been listening, too busy with an experiment, although he did vaguely remember the foot shuffling and awkward goodbye. Sherlock had spent the afternoon whining to Molly about needing a new flat mate, and now this. Sherlock sat up slowly, wincing, before shuffling to the kitchen in search of paracetamol.
Salvation located, he downed it with a cup of milk from the fridge. John must have gone shopping before he was deployed, that had been thoughtful. John was always thoughtful. Sherlock winced as another sharp spike of pain attempted to crawl out of his left eye.
He glared at the milk sitting inconspicuously in the fridge. There was milk. So why did he feel like he was forgetting something important?
---
The cab ride from Scotland Yard was making the world swim before Sherlock’s eyes. Oh yes, this had been a VERY bad idea. The testimony probably could have waited for another day. That said the feeling that he was missing something was growing stronger by the moment. Everyone at Scotland Yard was obviously more broken up about John leaving than Sherlock was. Furthermore, they apparently felt Sherlock was doing an admirable job hiding how upset he was over John’s disappearance. Donovan had laid a hand on his forearm and handed him a coffee. Black. Two sugars. Anderson had avoided him. Lestrade had patted him on the back and reminded that John’s tour of duty was likely to last only a year and he would be back soon. Everyone seemed rather disheartened over the lack of John.
Sherlock felt like he was going out of his mind.
The worst of the headache eventually passed but the feeling nagging at Sherlock did not. Something had happened. If he didn’t know better he would have assumed that he was suffering from a concussion, but other than the headache he showed no other symptoms. His entire body ached, so he prepared for bed while trying to puzzle the strange feeling out.
He should be absolutely broken up over something. He was sure of it. It was a feeling he was familiar with, he had on one memorable occasion deleted a highly unpleasant memory, or rather he thinks it was unpleasant because he remembered thinking to himself, “I am going to delete this unpleasant memory, please do not try to remember it” and then proceeding to do so. He had probably written over it by now, but he could still recall a slightly uneasy feeling whenever something had skirted too closely to it. He was feeling something like that now, but only much much worse.
If he had deleted a memory, why not leave a quick message for himself indicating why it was deleted? He thinks back through the past few months and cannot recall anything that would have lead to an incident that could have been traumatic (except maybe the fact he had willingly spent Christmas with Mycroft the previous year; that was plenty traumatic). Also, there was the fact that he rarely deleted experiences; he usually stuck to deleting useless trivia.
There were other inconsistencies. He had left his violin out, leaning against the window frame, as if he had meant to come back to it in an instant. Sherlock would never do that, unless it was some sort of clue. But why would be he setting out clues for himself?
Also, he realized as he flopped back onto the bed in preparation to sleep, muscle memory curled him on his side, closest to the door. He apparently now slept on only one side of the bed.
Bugger. Did he delete a romantic entanglement?
But no, the flat had been inhabited by no one other than him and John and the only remarks he had garnered from Scotland Yard had been pursuant to John’s departure. Oh. God. Was he shagging his flatmate? Not outside the realm of possibility, John was fit, but straight (e.g., Sarah, Mary, Amita and Mycroft’s Secretary to name a few of John’s conquests).
Besides, their parting was not consistent with the departure of a lover (whether that departure was conducted on good or bad terms). John had looked uncomfortable and somewhat pained, and Sherlock had felt mildly put out to see him go. But that was it. That and (obviously) Sherlock could not remember shagging John, which he surely would have backed up on his hard drive.
Frustrated, Sherlock leapt out of bed, threw off his pyjamas and naked stood in front of the mirror. Long pale limbs and a slim torso greeted his inspection. He sported no bruises, hickeys, or abrasions on his knees or elbows. This, considering the level of sexual activity in his life (nearly none) was not surprising. He also sported no abrasions on his hands, not even a paper cut. This, considering his experiments was VERY surprising. In fact, a second degree burn he had acquired in a vicious fight with a Bunsen burner three nights prior was gone. As he was bending down to retrieve his bed clothes he was stopped by what appeared to be an enormous scar running the length of his back. Three months old, if he was to judge from the discoloration. No stitches had been used to hold the skin together as it healed.
Conclusion: Something was severely messed up in his head and his memory could not be trusted. This was worrisome.
Repetition was an annoying but sometimes beneficial exercise. Sherlock thought back to the previous morning. It had been 10:03 am, windy and above average in temperature with a high probability of rain, and he had been playing the violin (Vivaldi) while sorting out the details of the latest case and angry at himself for nearly getting John killed again. Hearing John coming down the stairs, his steps hesitant and the third step (which John avoided unless upset) squeaked. Sherlock panicked, put down the violin and closed the curtains. John then called for Sherlock’s attention, his voice troubled. Sherlock turned to look at John (John was wearing his beige jumper, it was stretched out over the sleeves as if John had been recently pulling at it which he only did if he was nervous). He looked at John’s eyes. He shivered. John mentioned they needed to talk, so Sherlock put away the violin. This is when John told Sherlock he was being deployed immediately. They had chatted for a few minutes. John had returned to his room to pack. Sherlock had entered the kitchen to work on his experiment and picked up a pipette before being interrupted by John returning to the kitchen with his pack, to say goodbye.
Half-dressed, Sherlock ran back into the kitchen and inspected the experiment laid out on the table. In his memory, he was holding a pipette, which made no sense for the experiment he was running. Why was John wearing a beige jumper when he came down stairs, but a blue jumper when he said goodbye? Why did Sherlock remember putting away the violin when it was still leaning against the window frame? Why was the memory fuzzy?
The memory was broken, not something Sherlock had ever experienced before, even under the influence of powerful hallucinogens (Mycroft would never again convince him that experimentation with illegal substances couldn’t be useful). Therefore, the memory was a fabrication, somehow introduced into Sherlock’s brain.
Sherlock settled back on the couch ignoring the headache that was brewing behind his retinas. He thought back through the last few weeks and realized that he was missing chunks of his memories. Sherlock frowned trying to remember the attacker from the evening previous. The memory had been severely edited. He remembered a tall man with a ridiculous weapon (A long knife. No. Something else). He remembered pain, like fire across his back, and the need to protect John. Sherlock’s frown deepened. He couldn’t remember his deductions on the man’s profession, relationship status, fighting style. He couldn’t remember why he had been afraid.
He paced the room. Everyone at Scotland Yard was sad that John had been deployed, yet everyone seemed to already know. So, why had John only told him yesterday? Unless they had all found out in the same manner. So a group brain washing?
He hesitated for only a second.
November 12, 01:13: When did you find out JW was being deployed? SH
November 12, 01:17: Do you know what time it is?!
November 12, 01:18: Urgent! SH
November 12, 01:22: You can try ignoring your mobile, but can you ignore your door bell? SH
November 12, 01:23: I dont remember Im going to sleep you bastard
November 12, 01:24: Punctuation. I highly recommend using it. SH
November 12, 01:26: Drug bust Imminent
Lestrade appeared confused on the exact time he had been informed of John’s deployment; therefore it was likely that he had the knowledge planted. He would surely not need an elaborate memory of John’s departure like Sherlock’s long term (and possibly romantic) relationship warranted. Alternately, Lestrade was an idiot who couldn’t find his arse with both hands let alone remember a simple fact. The two options were weighed approximately equally at present.
Sherlock refused to entertain that idea that he was going insane himself. Although it was a close thing.
The only people Sherlock could think of who would have both the inclination and potentially the ability to enhance science in the direction of mental reprogramming were Mycroft and Moriarty. However, he had the mobile number for only one of them.
Sherlock flopped back on the couch and rang Mycroft’s super-secret personal number (the one that most certainly did not exist and why would you even ask such a silly question, Prime Minister?). The phone rang exactly three times.
“Still at the office, Mycroft?”
“Sherlock. What did you do?”
“I thought you had an assistant to keep you from working yourself, or has she finally gotten tired of you eclipsing the sun and moved towards a different brighter fu-“ Sherlock cut himself off. A chill ran up his spine.
The room was freezing. She was sitting on the couch facing John. From the scent, Sherlock could deduce that they were drinking a single-estate Darjeeling, which he most certainly did not kept in the flat. Her clothing and hair were impeccable even though the wind and drizzle outside should have soaked her. The whole room smelled of ozone. “We are dating.”
“-she’s gone, isn’t she?”
“Sherlock, what have you taken?”
“No. You wouldn’t be this blasé if you thought she had vanished. She is working on a project for you, somewhere away from the office. Do you remember conveying the assignment to her?”
“Good night, Sherlock.”
“Mycroft! Listen to me. Do you remember your conversation with her? Does the room look right in your memories? What were you deducing when you told her? Does the memory feel right?”
For a moment he thought Mycroft had hung up the phone. “No. It does not.” They both sat in silence for the count of 30. “I will look into it.” With that Mycroft hung up the phone.
Sherlock threw his phone onto the coffee table. Unable to sleep he eyed the window frame where his violin rested innocuously. Curious, he pulled back the curtains allowing the streetlights to shine through the fogged-over glass and caught his breath. There, spanning the two panes, written in the fog, were the symbols for 6 and 1. Most disturbingly, they were in Sherlock’s distinctive scrawl, but rushed and nervous. He couldn’t remember writing them.
He couldn’t have wanted to delete whatever was gone.
He searched the flat from top to bottom and turned up nothing else, except a light green jumper of John’s that was stashed in the back of Sherlock’s closet. The jumper meant nothing to Sherlock, although it was a terrible colour for John. Why 6-1? He had scanned the London A-Z guide, but the word made no sense. On a lark, he entered “6 1” into Google and was barraged by celebrity heights, a Liz Phair song (which he didn’t think was code), and the Canadian Charter of Rights. With the addition of “book” to the search terms things got weird. Sherlock took a sample of the milk and ran a tox scan on it.
The milk was clean, and, apparently, somewhere there were two other people who were missing someone.
He considered his options for a moment, before logging onto the Science of Deduction.
If you lost something yesterday morning but can’t remember what it is call me. SH
In his bedroom the pink-encased phone was ringing.
---
Sherlock eyed the phone suspiciously, before picking up.
“I have a better question for you. What does your dog and my sniper have in common? Now try not to be obvious.” Moriarty’s voice was somewhat distorted by static, and less echoed than it had been at the pool. Strangely familiar. Sherlock swallowed, his eyes narrowing. “They served in Afghanistan together.”
“John and I were stationed together.” From his stance and the remains of a military haircut and a poor tan, Sherlock can deduce that he is likely a soldier. From the controlled way he extends his hand and the callouses on his fingers, the near silence of his movements, Sherlock can deduce that he is likely a sniper. From the slight tremor in his hand and the direction of his gaze as he addresses Sherlock, Sherlock suspects that he may be lying. But most telling is the slight flush on John’s features. He looks panicked. Sherlock ignores the shiver that crawls lazily up his spine. The man is not John’s lover (surely Sherlock would have noticed by now), not his friend (or at least not one that visits regularly), but they seem close (perhaps family, despite the lack of family resemblance).
“Wrong. Try again.” Sherlock’s clipped response appears to aggravate the sniper. John’s panic begins to meld into concern.
“Sherlock, Seb and I served together in Afghanistan.” And John is stating something he believes to be truth; however, he is omitting facts. Sherlock is too well versed in John’s facial expressions, his stance, the movement of his hands and the speed of his breathing to be fooled easily.
“Liar. Not obvious, but not playing by the rules. Don’t you want to know what happened to your pet?” Moriarty’s voice seems to crackle across the space between them. Sherlock can almost smell ozone, like when he first met with Sebastian Moran.
“Bluffing when you don’t have any facts, Jim? Bit desperate, isn’t it? You don’t have John any more than you have Sebastian Moran.” It was a gamble, but a relatively safe one, if Sherlock was to judge.
For a heartbeat he could only hear Moriarty’s slow exhale. “Very good, Sherlock. But you can’t just guess, you have to show your work.”
“Or what?”
“Or I won’t tell you what you and I currently have in common.” Jim’s sing-song grated across Sherlock’s nerves. He sprawled back in the couch, regarding the ceiling in trepidation.
“Didn’t we already have this discussion at the pool?”
“MMM, oh that was so long ago. I have new data; surely you of all people can appreciate some new data, Sherlock?” And it was so very tempting. The black holes in Sherlock’s memory seem to pull at him, ideas and intuition stumbling over them like an uneven sidewalk. He’d had a friend. He was reasonably sure he’d had a lover too and it was vaguely heart breaking to barely remember one and completely forget the other. He swallowed.
“No. I didn’t lie. They served together.” Revelations 6-1 suggested they always would. “Just not recently and not at a time when computers would keep records. You can check for yourself, I guarantee that their birth certificates are forged and a search of the military archives will yield the remaining results. What do you and I have in common, Jim? and don’t be obvious.” Sherlock mimicked, forcing the words through his teeth.
“Is that what passes for analysis in the vaulted mind of Sherlock Holmes? I’m a bit disappointed. No wonder you’re chasing your tail still looking for me; and you always will. But, since I’m feeling generous, how’s this? You have a scar on your back. It feels like it’s three months old but it’s more like thirty hours old. I know because mine is sooo much worse Sherlock. To get to you they went through me. Literally, apparently.”
“Prove it.”
“I didn’t throw a fit over your suggestion that something a teensy bit supernatural is going on, did I? I have a ruined shirt with your blood and mine. Still fresh. With spinal fluid on it. Both yours and mine. My scar runs all the way round my body Sherlock. Around, not just through.”
“That isn’t possible. We should both be dead then.” Sherlock imagined the wild angle of the scar on his back, and could image the cut from Moriarty’s left shoulder to his right hip.
“Apparently, getting cut in half and glued back together, is as impossible as someone selectively blacking out a year’s worth of our memories. Until you mentioned Sebastian’s name I couldn’t remember it. Funny that, seeing as I have never lost data that could be useful to me.” His voice was a harsh whisper, and Sherlock could acutely remember a promise to burn his heart out. “Help me find who is responsible for doing this and I swear you will find the revenge sufficient reward.” Moriarty sounded, if at all possible, madder than he did at the pool, his voice rising into a menacing howl. Sherlock frowned.
“Revelations 6-1.” The most dangerous and the second most dangerous men Sherlock had ever met were missing assistants and Sherlock was missing John. While smoke did not always indicate a fire, perhaps following this pattern would lead him back to John.
“Religion?” Moriarty released a sigh “I’m disappointed Sherlock. Is that the best you can do? It’s not really my thing. I had hoped it wasn’t yours. Although, my expectations of you run much too high.”
“No, it’s another thing John and Sebastian have in common.”
“Their mutual love of Jesus? If religion is the opiate of the masses it would follow that your -pet- would indulge. ” Moriarty spat out the word “pet” as if it physically hurt him to say it. Oh. Perhaps it did.
“You’re afraid of John. You weren’t afraid when he was using you as a human shield, so why are you afraid of him now?”
“No. I’m not.” Jim’s voice was high and mad, but beneath the bravado trembled hesitancy, fear.
The third step squeaked menacingly. Sherlock could hear his heart pounding as he rapidly rested the violin against the window frame and drew the curtains the rest of the way closed. His hands clenched once, twice, his grip white-knuckled before he forced his fingers to relax, to fall to his sides. His breath felt like it was burning, although that might have been a reflection of the fiery pain from the night before. Stupid. God he had been so stupid. Him and John and… and…the thug had nearly killed them with … and…
“Sherlock, we need to talk.” John sounded grim, which wasn’t surprising considering the third step, but that was just a symptom of last night not the cause and last night was...
Sherlock looked John in the eye and felt as if he had been doused in cold water. A shiver ran through him and his body froze. Cold like the rooms John walked into. Cold like Sherlock’s body after he first met Sebastian, when John had looked at him and it had been like…like staring into the fissure of a glacier, unfathomably old and deep and intent on ripping you apart and swallowing you whole.
“Revelations 6-1 pertains to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. You should be afraid. We all should be.” He had been playing Vivaldi, which was popular enough to ensure he never played it. Playing Winter from the Four Seasons was surely a bit heavy handed.
“But you’re not.”
John’s eyes looked cool and blue but looking at them felt like a chasm opening beneath Sherlock’s feet and swallowing him alive. But not a week prior, Sherlock had been in a mood and John had made him tea. Cup after cup. Untouched, they sat along the edge of the table lined up with military precision. The waxed wood still showed off the rings. “No.”
"You're excited"
"I'm not the only one." He didn't have to see Jim to imagine the manic grin he received in response.
---
“No, you’re not.” Sherlock froze. Mycroft’s voice sounded vaguely amused.
“And who the fuck are you?” Jim sounded bored. Although Sherlock was sure that his interest was piqued. He rolled his eyes, and heaved himself off the couch, pacing the flat in an agitated manner.
“An interested party.” Did Mycroft have any original lines? Nope, Sherlock didn’t think so. He was tempted to throw in a comment about dieting just so they could all read off the same old script.
“Interested in scripture?”
“So it would seem.” Sherlock could almost see Mycroft’s little self-satisfied grin. He rolled his eyes. “Enjoyable as your discussions are to listen in on, I believe that a meeting would be the most expedient manner in which to address this complication. Also, James, I would not bother attempting to trace the location of this number.”
“Why would I do something so obvious?” Jim sounded unnerved. If Sherlock guessed right, which he always did, he would say that Jim had been attempting to trace Mycroft’s location in addition to figuring out how Mycroft had managed to get onto this call. His elder brother could be a bit unnerving, he supposed; well, when he wasn’t being an annoying twat, that is. “Shall we meet at the pool at midnight for old time’s sake?”
“Do attempt to keep up James, since Sherlock’s last discourse with you I have had my misgivings about his continued interaction with you. So I shall have to ensure all your subsequent relations are monitored. Now, there is a car waiting outside of your door. You too, Sherlock. I recommend you take it.” Sherlock pulled back the curtains over the living room windows once more, and gazed disdainfully at the car parked in front of the flat.
“Noooo. I don’t think I’ll take the prize in mystery car one. I’ll wait for the address instead.”
“Jim, just get in the car or this ‘experience’ will become even less savoury. Difficult as that is to imagine seeing as Mycroft is already involved.”
“Sherlock, try to avoid such puerile behaviour. I am merely looking after you as we attempt to untangle this series of events.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, tempting as it was to hang up something else nagged at him. “Wherever you want us to meet won’t work. We need to look at the scene where Jim and I were attacked yesterday.”
Mycroft was already there when Sherlock’s car stopped in front of the park; although describing the empty lot as a park was perhaps too generous. Rather, it was the absence of buildings. Scraggly grass pierced the hard packed dirt and heaps of garbage. Here and there Sherlock could see evidence of children having played in the debris, but children playing did not a park make. A rusted swing set swayed in the chilly wind, its chains creaking and its seats broken.
Mycroft looked unflappable as always. His body superficially relaxed as he leaned against the umbrella. Overall, Mycroft was handling the whole situation with more calm than Sherlock felt. Then again, if Jim was any indication, Sherlock had maintained the most memories of any of them.
With a nod, he led Mycroft to the approximate area of the attack. It was annoying, Sherlock decided, being unable to remember precisely the previous night. His memories hazy and only snatches hinting at the location. He made do. It was along a flat area of grass like any other, but he could make out the scuffs where the dirt was disturbed and the signs of a scuffle were buried. He crouched low to the ground, running his hands through the loose dirt.
“You realize, I don’t remember any of this.” The crunch of gravel under Jim’s shoes alerted Sherlock to his presence, although Mycroft had probably tagged the other man with GPS by now and knew his location in relation to Sherlock at all times. Sherlock looked up at the approaching man, and was glad it was so early in the morning. Three men in dark suits, studying freshly turned dirt in a deserted park would have looked somewhat suspicious. He suddenly ached for the loss of someone to share the joke with.
“Unsurprising, considering the extent of your injuries. Both of you were taken by surprise. Initially you could fight off the attacker back to back; but not flush against each other, you stood with approximately fifty centimetres between you, protecting someone.” Mycroft looked between the two men and then turned his attention to the dirt. “Initially, the attacker was hesitant to harm you.”
“We were attacked by a man with a blade of some sort…I thought it was strange. Judging by the depth of our wounds it had to be a sword. For some reason we were a superior barrier to the attacker than John.”
“One hell of a swordsman; cleaving a human body in two takes considerable strength. I would know.” Jim muttered as he bent to study the dirt.
“No organic debris in a three meter radius of this area suggests that it was cleared. The angle, size and depth of our scars confirm that anyone we were protecting between us was eviscerated.” Sherlock stood back, eying Mycroft. Infuriatingly, his brother had undoubtedly already unravelled this bit of mystery.
Mycroft nodded. “Precisely. You were shielding Sebastian Moran. You failed.”
“But we lived.”
“An interesting if obvious observation, James. You were healed but Sebastian Moran could not be. Similarly, John Watson was shot and wears the scar to this day and my assistant had her appendix removed. There are no fake birth certificates so why fake hospital records?”
“They can’t heal their bodies. But they can heal ours.”
“I did not observe the strangeness of my assistant’s disappearance until Sherlock impressed it upon me. However, James, it is your memory that is the most compromised. How did you take notice of your missing assistant?”
“I have my ways.”
At Mycroft’s raised eyebrow and expectant look, Jim sighed. He had probably come to the same conclusion as Sherlock, if he did not voluntarily divulge the data Mycroft would find a way to obtain it involuntarily. “I have routines I follow each night. They had not been followed when I woke up.”
Sherlock nodded “That makes sense. That badly damaged, John must have been worried, especially with Sebastian dead. He had to take us somewhere safe. Acting on instinct, he would have taken us to the flat. Once he confirmed that we would remain alive he decided to ensure no further harm would come to us. At approximately ten in the morning, seven hours after the attack you were removed from the flat and both of our memories were modified.” Because John, while considerate of other people’s lives was inconsiderate of their intellect.
Jim nodded. His eyes scanning the ground. “Then the plot of this little drama is obvious; something’s hunting them and will go through us. That said, I don’t exactly appreciate being cleaved in half and would be so very delighted to share my displeasure with said something.”
“To kill one Horseman and worry the rest, whatever it is, it’s powerful.” But Sherlock had taken on murderers, drug lords, Jim Moriarty, and apparently slept with one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. He had come out alive if not unscathed. Additional supernatural dealings were hardly an issue.
“So are we. In our own quaint little human way.” Jim’s pleasant smile twitched. His dark eyes sinister.
Sherlock shrugged, before heading towards the main road. He froze as he looked across the park and towards a tobacco shop, magazines, newspapers and daily rags displayed prominently across its windows.
“So we represent three of four; any ideas on who the fourth is?”
Sherlock read through the headlines. On each was pictured a laughing blond supermodel who apparently was planning to spend a year in a Buddhist monastery in an effort to kick her drinking habit. Of course John would be related to that Harry Watson. “Yes, the wife of Harriet Watson.”
--- foyer
For a woman who was married to a famous super model, Clara Watson was surprisingly difficult to track down. She avoided the media like the plague and the few photos available of her showed a short brunette woman in oversized clothing wearing ridiculously oversized sunglasses. Furthermore, she was in neither the trendy flat Harry maintained overlooking the Thames, nor in the little house they maintained in the City of London. Mycroft eventually tracked her to a sprawling country estate just outside of London which, while looking barely lived in, was newly restored. Although well lit and airy, the structure made Sherlock’s skin crawl, and based on the slightly uncomfortable stance Mycroft was using, and the displeased sneer on Jim’s face, they were similarly affected. This, of course, amounted to a signed and sealed invitation for Sherlock to break and enter.
The security system on the main structure took some creativity to overcome. There were security systems, and then there was “national secret” level security systems. The house surpassed both. Luckily, between the three of them there was very little that could pose an actual barrier. Mycroft had even offered to short out the power grid in the area.
After disabling the electronic systems, James steered them around no less than four traps that would have ended in either being disembowelled by or becoming imbedded on large spikes, Mycroft disabled seven cameras and identified five blind spots, and Sherlock defused a particularly nasty piece of biological weaponry. Slightly winded by definitely and -finally- inside the house, they were greeted in the sumptuous and overly furnished lobby by a woman reclining happily in a chair, munching on a marmite sandwich held in one hand and aiming a sawed off shotgun with the other.
The grin was wiped off her face when she caught sight of them, and she looked a bit green as her eyes darted between Mycroft and Jim. Sherlock couldn’t blame her. Being around them made him a bit nauseous too.
Mycroft and Jim shared a bit of silent communication that spiked Sherlock’s suspicion about their past interactions. He gave a bored huff to hide it.
“Good Afternoon, Mrs. Watson.” Mycroft was using his ‘highly displeased but refusing to show it so let’s sound especially pleasant’ voice. The last time Sherlock had heard that tone he had just -accidentally- poisoned Mycroft’s cat. He didn’t even use the voice when the Korean election didn’t go quite as well as planned.
“Hiiiiiiiiiiiii.” Jim apparently hid his displeasure behind soul grating cheerfulness. Clara winced at the high pitched inflectionless greeting. Sherlock wondered if there was a fifth horseman dedicated only to the destruction of sanity and if Jim was it.
Obviously they all knew each other. Clara put down the sandwich but not the gun. Right. They definitely knew each other.
Without the oversized apparel, Clara was revealed as a petite Asian woman, probably Vietnamese, approximately 40 years old but with the youthful appearance of a woman half her age. Her brunette hair was an expensive dye job and her clothing, while casual, was obviously designer; her posture and the tell-tale callouses on her fingers and the skin condition of her palms suggested that she worked very extensively with computers. Not that Sherlock needed to deduce what was patently obvious, the custom laptop she had been using the track their progress through her security measures was housed in a case Sherlock knew to be custom built from titanium. The machine was also deathly silent. Furthermore, he did not doubt that she had set the electronic security and surveillance systems personally. He was still debating about whether or not she had contracted the pit with spikes herself. It seemed a bit archaic.
Obviously she was some sort of computer protégée. Considering Mycroft’s dealings she had undoubtedly done some work with him in the past, probably on a contract basis as Sherlock could not see a woman with purple nails and what appeared to be twelve, no thirteen, visible piercings working in Mycroft’s IT section. He did so love to look like he was conforming. Judging by the technological prowess Jim displayed it was likely that he also could make use of a contracted computer hacker with considerable knowledge of encryption. Neither Mycroft nor Jim would want a valuable asset to become a tool of their enemies. Therefore, the current tension in the room was the result of a breached exclusivity agreement. Booooring.
“So. Ummm. I don’t suppose you’d buy that this isn’t what it looks like?”
“No, my dear. I wouldn’t.” Jim looked murderous.
Clara’s grip on the shotgun tightened. Mycroft looked bland, as per usual. Sherlock rolled his eyes and hoped that the tableau would end before his boredom got any worse. Also, the creeping feeling of déjà vu was starting to get on his nerves. Screw it, he was going to end this right now.
“Your wife is one of the four horseman of the apocalypse. In comparison, an exclusivity clause seems rather banal.”
Mycroft gave Sherlock a glance that he usually saved for special occasions where Sherlock had been singularly socially inept. Sherlock simply gazed back in Mycroft in a manner he had perfect at age four, and which translated roughly to ‘piss off Mycroft.’
Clara lifted one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Creative, and would certainly explain a few things…but really, why do I have the founding members of the League of Evil in my living room?”
“Bad news, darling, he isn’t exaggerating.” Jim decided to ignore the shotgun in favour of dropping into an overstuffed chair. “Although ‘League of Evil,’ hello? The lack of originality pains me.”
Clara snorted. “Right, because a life that reads like Doctor Terrible McBad of every children’s cartoon is novel.”
“James, Claire, please -do- contain your excitement.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes as both Clara and Jim regarded Mycroft with varying levels of displeasure. “You suggested that Harriet being classified as a biblical entity would explain some peculiarities? Perhaps you are alluding to the absence of her birth certificate? Her effect on ambient temperature? Or something more obvious, such as her arranging of physical security measures on these premises and her insistence on you developing an additional electronic system?”
Clara’s disdainful look melted into surprise. “What? I mean yes. No wait, I definitely meant ‘what?’.”
“Your wife is in danger.” Sherlock chimed in.
“From Buddhist monks? Are you mad? Wait, of course you’re mad. You’re related to Big Brother.“
“How unoriginal, doll. Anyway, he’s right, she’s being hunted by a supernatural being with a big sword. So why don’t you get through this denial bit faster and join the rest of us over here on the side of ‘Oh m’god this is really happening’ and ‘fuck my life.’”
“Did you know that using internet speak outside the internet is fucking stupid?” Clara snapped. Jim and Clara had a contest of wills. It was the world’s shortest contest. Jim apparently got bored about three seconds into it, deleted why he was staring at Clara, and began to amuse himself on his mobile.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Anyway…”
“So what you’re trying to tell me is that my wife is a monster and you have proof of this?”
All three men prepared themselves for histrionics and were disappointed at their wasted effort when Clara had the gall to look relieved at the revelation.
“I’ve been trying to convince her of the fact for three years now. What with appearing in two places hundreds of kilometres away from each other within minutes, the creeping chills, the fact that all my dogs mysteriously vanished, and the glass eating. I always thought that the glass eating was a bit not on.”
“My dear. A -bit- not on?”
“She’s a supermodel, they’re supposed to eat crazy shit; Two years ago she went on a diet of newspapers, which I thought was nuts, but it was a trend, there were hundreds of the dumb twats on that diet. That’s about when I gave up and learned to love the crazy.”
“And your missing memories? Specifically those pertaining to yesterday at ten in the morning?” Mycroft had seated himself near the entry on a low bench. He softly tapped away at the carpet with his umbrella. Sherlock couldn’t tell if the tapping was his usual show of vexation or whether he had realized he had a tell and was now faking it to piss Sherlock off.
Clara froze. Her face screwed into an ugly scowl. “Oh, that bitch. It’s so on.”
Soon they had convened their miniature war council around a massive oak table in Clara’s dining room (which was, give or take, the size of Sherlock’s flat). The immense room was already filled with uprooted electronic equipment: approximately seventeen racks of servers, thirteen routers (that Sherlock could see, and really who needed that many routers?), nine laptop computers, and three printers hummed angrily while heating the room to near stifling levels. Apparently Harry had been quite insistent that Clara uproot and move into the manor immediately.
“If she thought she could erase my memories fine, but Harry can be a bit dull with computers. She types with two fingers. So she might have missed something in here.” Clara waved in the general direction of the servers as she offered each of them coffee in a sippy cup. The suspicious look on her face coupled with a twitch in her trigger finger spoke volumes. If even a drop of coffee landed on a keyboard anywhere, they would all be killed. Possibly with the shot gun, but most likely at a random time in the future and by a flash mob.
Mycroft managed to make sipping coffee out of a blue cup with penguins on it look dignified. Damn him. “It is interesting. I did not find files pertaining to your marriage to Harriet Watson during your employment with me.”
Clara shrugged, a bit uncomfortable, as she dropped into a chair nearest a “We were divorced at the time and I was kinda angry with her.”
“Nevertheless, if you had ever been married I should have located the records.” Mycroft gazed at her in an assessing manner, even as he perused a book he had extracted from god knows where. At his current angel Sherlock couldn’t see what it was. Mycroft was undoubtedly hiding it on purpose.
“I was -really- angry at her.” She grinned nervously at him. Sherlock couldn’t blame her for being nervous he had first-hand experience that pissing off Mycroft was liable to make your life hell. “Anyway, I don’t have everything with me. I had to grab only my most essential machines.”
“Most essential? what are you the Imelda Marcos of computers?”
Clara stared at him in disbelief. “Dior, Westwood, Imelda Marcos. What is it with you and fashion? Aren’t you supposed to be evil?”
“It’s perfectly acceptable to be both.” Jim drawled in his erratic accent. He then proceeded to descend into a drivelling lecture on high fashion and its link to dictators and the mob. Sherlock could almost feel his brain liquefy. That is when they began to quibble. Did he really think Moriarty was his mental equal? God, he had been so stupid.
“Shut. Up. The server fans are more adroit than either of you.” Sherlock had apparently developed a twitch, it was disturbing, and he was starting to sympathise with Mycroft, which was so not on.
“Don’t mind him Clara dear, he’s just gloomy because he had to trade sexual favours for his pet’s loyalty.”
“And you’re still in a strop because I didn’t call you back.”
“Sorry, not my type. I like my partners to mental challenge me. Not really your thing, my dear.”
“Well, you certainly are mentally challenged.”
“Enough.” Mycroft didn’t shout. Mycroft very rarely needed to shout. Sherlock felt approximately five years old. “This is a serious situation. It would be most prudent to cast our attentions to the matter at hand. Claire, have you found anything that might further inform our theories?”
Clara cleared her throat. She clicked distractedly at a laptop nearest to her. “I’ve actually been following some weirdness for a couple of nights.” Mycroft waited patiently while Sherlock and Jim aggressively ignored one another. “A handful of weather satellites and a chunk of the Global Positioning System are on the fritz. So at first I thought it was a virus. But this thing is damaging all builds, operating systems, programs and the ilk; even mobile phone, internet and satellite television providers are reporting signal loss. Whatever it is, all the blackout areas correspond. Competitors aren’t that keen on talking to one another, so no one’s figured out the connection and those that have think it’s solar storms.”
“Could it be whatever is attacking the horsemen?” Sherlock frowned at the memory of the man with the sword.
“Sure, why not? But if it is, we should be able to see it from the dining room window because it’s about thirty kilometres north from here and about the size of London.”
“Huh.” Jim scrambled out of the chair and poked his head out of the window. “Nothing.” He sounded supremely disappointed.
Clara shrugged. “Yah, I have a web cam pointed in that direction and it’s picking up nothing.” She glanced at the video feed being displayed on her screen. “God, I need to clean the lens on that thing. Anyway, there are some jamming devices that have a similar effect, but they’re stationary or don’t have enough juice to cause the blackouts.”
“The appearance of these blackouts coincides with the attack. If we assume that it is the hunter, why is it hunting the horsemen now?”
“Unlikely that they prematurely commenced the apocalypse. I would hope that my assistant has the decency to dispatch me from the Earth prior to destroying it. Consequently, something must have changed, unfortunately I am unlikely to recall exactly what that is.”
Sherlock leaned back in one of the dining room chairs, staring at the ceiling. A monstrous chandelier hung affixed to it; radial cracks crept along the blue toned plaster indicating that at one point the light fixture had broken from the ceiling, the damage had been repaired and a new chandelier affixed. He stared at the cracks willing them to give him his memory back. The humming of the servers and the scent of overheated electronics did nothing to dispel the slightly ominous feeling of the room nor the smell of ozone.
“Maybe they’re trying to stop the apocalypse?” Jim stretched from his perch on the window.
“The four horsemen of the apocalypse are trying to stop the apocalypse?” Sherlock managed to bite that out with at least twice the venom he usually used on Lestrade when the man was being especially dense. “And why would they do that?”
“Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re a fantastic shag, Sherlock.” Clara offered cheekily.
“I am.” There was no point in employing false modestly where the lie would be clearly detected. Besides Sherlock had no shame and was quite proud of it; he had even acquired documentation (for science, of course). “However, while stopping the apocalypse for me is very flattering, it seems a ridiculously unreasonable conclusion.”
“It would.” Mycroft sounded thoughtful. “In fact, any refusal to follow command for any reason would seem unreasonable for creatures that were not gifted with free will.” Sherlock finally got a glimpse at the book Mycroft was reading.
“The Bible?”
“Merely collecting intel on our associates.”
Jim’s grin grew. “The apocalypse has been cancelled because Sherlock’s a tiger in bed? My. Dear. Now I’m sooooo disappointed that you didn’t call.”
Mycroft ignored Jim with the ease of someone who had spent the majority of his life dealing with Sherlock. “Likely, having refused an order they were forced to flee and are being pursued by something powerful.”
Mycroft leaned back in his chair, his closed hand resting against his lips. The man was one cat short of a Bond villain. Perhaps Sherlock could get Mycroft a fluffy white cat for Christmas. John would find it hilarious. He would smile charmingly at Sherlock, as if Sherlock had said something especially brilliant at a crime scene. Sherlock clenched his jaw. This simultaneous memory and friend loss was unbearable. He wondered if madness was a common side effect of the procedure because, frankly, he was getting there. “What if we make it look like they were following their orders?”
“Interesting. It is disappointing that our colleagues did not see fit to make use of our not inconsiderable resources. I do not appreciate having my faculties so thoroughly undervalued.” Mycroft’s neutral expression had devolved into a sneer.”
“It’s such a shame, that they’ve underestimated us. Interpol is still identifying the bodies form the last time that happened to me.” Jim pouted as he dropped himself artfully onto a dining room chair; he happily sipped at his Sippy cup.
“Of course, my poor sweetheart only wanted the best for me, the stupid tart. I love Harry but she isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the box.”
He was going to get John back, Sherlock decided. Even if he left a path of destruction in his wake that would put Jim to shame. A frown stretched over his lips. “From what we’ve seen, they’re disorganized. They need time. They need something to draw attention from them. Something guaranteed to be a surer form of annihilation than renegade horsemen. Something like us.”
“I always knew you had the potential to be interesting.” Jim looked happily besotted with Sherlock’s plan. “My dear. I’ve been waiting to use my powers for evil, forever!”
Clara rolled her eyes at him. “So the past twenty years were you waiting?”
“That, Clara dear, was business. This is creative freedom.”
Clara rolled her eyes. “And how, exactly, do you propose we outdo chaos, disease, famine, and death?”
“Too much for you to handle, Clara-doll?”
“Screw you, you short little shit; any mass destruction you can conceive of I can do better. I just want a plan so I don’t get axed. Literally.”
“Children, for optimum annihilation we must work in concert. Your commitment to this endeavour must be absolute. Is it?”
“Umm, hello, chaos and burning? I’ m so in.”
“I want my wife back.”
“I’m in. Obviously.”
===
“So what do we set fire to first?” Jim rubbed his hands together gleefully.
Sherlock examined the assembled geniuses. The electronically overcrowded room held the wet dream of the MI6, CIA, SVR and MSS. He signed. Then again, having been subjected to Mycroft’s lamentations on being subcontracted by various intelligence agencies, hiring mentally deranged monkeys would be an improvement.
Mycroft pursed his lips, before standing from the couch, leaning on his umbrella. “Everything.”
“Ppppppssst, Sherlock, you were fun for a while, but now I’m kind of in love with your brother.”
Sherlock snorted in disgust. “PPppppst, Jim, your love is a commodity.”
“You’re just mad I don’t care for you anymore.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’m not too concerned. You obviously have no taste.” Mycroft was regarding them with a well veiled vexed expression. Not well enough to hide from Sherlock (of course not). He was most definitely developing an eye twitch. This was proving to be a more amusing venture than Sherlock had ever hoped. He kind of hoped the twitch would develop into uncontrollable spasms that would redirect mummy’s attentions from Sherlock’s endeavours and instead onto her eldest son’s mental health (or lack there of).
“Ohmygod!” Clara seemed to skip from her spot by her laptop. “I just figured out why noone’s been able to get a reading off this thing. They’ve been going about it the wrong way! To think, a supernatural creature, It’s just waiting to be explored, documented…let’s shoot at it and see what happens.”
“My dear, are you me? Because that is awesome.”
Mycroft sighed. Eye twitch was up by 1%. “I am certain that you realize the futility of engaging an unknown enemy who threatens not only our Horsemen but also the population as a whole. While they have seen fit to merely block communications to date, their future direction cannot be predicted. Therefore, I recommend that we take some time to plan our actions.”
Jim tossed his head hauthily. A manic grin spread across his face. “Planning? How dull. Next you’ll be wanting to avoid casualties…oh bugger. You do, don’t you. What do you do for fun, my dear? Balance your cheque book?” As a fact Sherlock knew that Mycroft balanced national budgets on his slow days.
“Until we have a clearer indication of the hunters’ intention it may be wise to avoid their ire. Certainly we wish to inspire their curiosity but anything that is capable of destroying an entity with not inconsiderable power should arouse our caution. Of course, if the threat of disembowelment by a biblical creature is insufficient motivation, then perhaps I should remind you that not all consequences require a religious foundation.” Mycroft levelled a meaningful glance at Jim, who shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“I was wondering whether it might have been you in South America. Bit excessive wasn’t it?”
Mycroft merely cocked his head and paired it off with his most self-satisfied smirk.
---
Next Part > > >
---
Part: 1/2 Sequel to Time in Lieu Of
Warnings: None really. Mentions of John and Sherlock being together. AU crack fic of crackness. Considerable volumes of OOC. Unintended cross over with Good Omens.
Prompt Link: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/4076.html?thread=10033900#t10033900
Prompt: John Watson has three siblings, not one...and together they are the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Length: 16,000+
---
It was Remembrance Day when Sherlock awoke with a headache to end all headaches. Confused, he had rolled off the couch in an attempt to avoid the cousin of whatever blow had caved his skull in, before realizing that the agony was being brought on by internal forces.
He lay on the musky carpeted floor staring at the ceiling. Oh. My. God. The room swam. He felt vaguely nauseous. He was dying, surely.
“JOHN?” He managed, before realizing that everything, especially shouting, was far far far too loud. It was worth it, he consoled himself, John was a doctor and surely could spare a moment to medicate him out of his misery. If he was lucky, medicate him into a coma. When no answer was forthcoming, Sherlock set his not inconsiderable intellect to figuring out whether John had a shift at the surgery or not. Sherlock winced at the pain in his head and attempted to concentrate on anything but the tempest in his tummy.
This sucked.
Just when he really needed a doctor he was off … oh right, he was off in Afghanistan, blowing something up or some such thing. Sherlock hadn’t really been listening, too busy with an experiment, although he did vaguely remember the foot shuffling and awkward goodbye. Sherlock had spent the afternoon whining to Molly about needing a new flat mate, and now this. Sherlock sat up slowly, wincing, before shuffling to the kitchen in search of paracetamol.
Salvation located, he downed it with a cup of milk from the fridge. John must have gone shopping before he was deployed, that had been thoughtful. John was always thoughtful. Sherlock winced as another sharp spike of pain attempted to crawl out of his left eye.
He glared at the milk sitting inconspicuously in the fridge. There was milk. So why did he feel like he was forgetting something important?
---
The cab ride from Scotland Yard was making the world swim before Sherlock’s eyes. Oh yes, this had been a VERY bad idea. The testimony probably could have waited for another day. That said the feeling that he was missing something was growing stronger by the moment. Everyone at Scotland Yard was obviously more broken up about John leaving than Sherlock was. Furthermore, they apparently felt Sherlock was doing an admirable job hiding how upset he was over John’s disappearance. Donovan had laid a hand on his forearm and handed him a coffee. Black. Two sugars. Anderson had avoided him. Lestrade had patted him on the back and reminded that John’s tour of duty was likely to last only a year and he would be back soon. Everyone seemed rather disheartened over the lack of John.
Sherlock felt like he was going out of his mind.
The worst of the headache eventually passed but the feeling nagging at Sherlock did not. Something had happened. If he didn’t know better he would have assumed that he was suffering from a concussion, but other than the headache he showed no other symptoms. His entire body ached, so he prepared for bed while trying to puzzle the strange feeling out.
He should be absolutely broken up over something. He was sure of it. It was a feeling he was familiar with, he had on one memorable occasion deleted a highly unpleasant memory, or rather he thinks it was unpleasant because he remembered thinking to himself, “I am going to delete this unpleasant memory, please do not try to remember it” and then proceeding to do so. He had probably written over it by now, but he could still recall a slightly uneasy feeling whenever something had skirted too closely to it. He was feeling something like that now, but only much much worse.
If he had deleted a memory, why not leave a quick message for himself indicating why it was deleted? He thinks back through the past few months and cannot recall anything that would have lead to an incident that could have been traumatic (except maybe the fact he had willingly spent Christmas with Mycroft the previous year; that was plenty traumatic). Also, there was the fact that he rarely deleted experiences; he usually stuck to deleting useless trivia.
There were other inconsistencies. He had left his violin out, leaning against the window frame, as if he had meant to come back to it in an instant. Sherlock would never do that, unless it was some sort of clue. But why would be he setting out clues for himself?
Also, he realized as he flopped back onto the bed in preparation to sleep, muscle memory curled him on his side, closest to the door. He apparently now slept on only one side of the bed.
Bugger. Did he delete a romantic entanglement?
But no, the flat had been inhabited by no one other than him and John and the only remarks he had garnered from Scotland Yard had been pursuant to John’s departure. Oh. God. Was he shagging his flatmate? Not outside the realm of possibility, John was fit, but straight (e.g., Sarah, Mary, Amita and Mycroft’s Secretary to name a few of John’s conquests).
Besides, their parting was not consistent with the departure of a lover (whether that departure was conducted on good or bad terms). John had looked uncomfortable and somewhat pained, and Sherlock had felt mildly put out to see him go. But that was it. That and (obviously) Sherlock could not remember shagging John, which he surely would have backed up on his hard drive.
Frustrated, Sherlock leapt out of bed, threw off his pyjamas and naked stood in front of the mirror. Long pale limbs and a slim torso greeted his inspection. He sported no bruises, hickeys, or abrasions on his knees or elbows. This, considering the level of sexual activity in his life (nearly none) was not surprising. He also sported no abrasions on his hands, not even a paper cut. This, considering his experiments was VERY surprising. In fact, a second degree burn he had acquired in a vicious fight with a Bunsen burner three nights prior was gone. As he was bending down to retrieve his bed clothes he was stopped by what appeared to be an enormous scar running the length of his back. Three months old, if he was to judge from the discoloration. No stitches had been used to hold the skin together as it healed.
Conclusion: Something was severely messed up in his head and his memory could not be trusted. This was worrisome.
Repetition was an annoying but sometimes beneficial exercise. Sherlock thought back to the previous morning. It had been 10:03 am, windy and above average in temperature with a high probability of rain, and he had been playing the violin (Vivaldi) while sorting out the details of the latest case and angry at himself for nearly getting John killed again. Hearing John coming down the stairs, his steps hesitant and the third step (which John avoided unless upset) squeaked. Sherlock panicked, put down the violin and closed the curtains. John then called for Sherlock’s attention, his voice troubled. Sherlock turned to look at John (John was wearing his beige jumper, it was stretched out over the sleeves as if John had been recently pulling at it which he only did if he was nervous). He looked at John’s eyes. He shivered. John mentioned they needed to talk, so Sherlock put away the violin. This is when John told Sherlock he was being deployed immediately. They had chatted for a few minutes. John had returned to his room to pack. Sherlock had entered the kitchen to work on his experiment and picked up a pipette before being interrupted by John returning to the kitchen with his pack, to say goodbye.
Half-dressed, Sherlock ran back into the kitchen and inspected the experiment laid out on the table. In his memory, he was holding a pipette, which made no sense for the experiment he was running. Why was John wearing a beige jumper when he came down stairs, but a blue jumper when he said goodbye? Why did Sherlock remember putting away the violin when it was still leaning against the window frame? Why was the memory fuzzy?
The memory was broken, not something Sherlock had ever experienced before, even under the influence of powerful hallucinogens (Mycroft would never again convince him that experimentation with illegal substances couldn’t be useful). Therefore, the memory was a fabrication, somehow introduced into Sherlock’s brain.
Sherlock settled back on the couch ignoring the headache that was brewing behind his retinas. He thought back through the last few weeks and realized that he was missing chunks of his memories. Sherlock frowned trying to remember the attacker from the evening previous. The memory had been severely edited. He remembered a tall man with a ridiculous weapon (A long knife. No. Something else). He remembered pain, like fire across his back, and the need to protect John. Sherlock’s frown deepened. He couldn’t remember his deductions on the man’s profession, relationship status, fighting style. He couldn’t remember why he had been afraid.
He paced the room. Everyone at Scotland Yard was sad that John had been deployed, yet everyone seemed to already know. So, why had John only told him yesterday? Unless they had all found out in the same manner. So a group brain washing?
He hesitated for only a second.
November 12, 01:13: When did you find out JW was being deployed? SH
November 12, 01:17: Do you know what time it is?!
November 12, 01:18: Urgent! SH
November 12, 01:22: You can try ignoring your mobile, but can you ignore your door bell? SH
November 12, 01:23: I dont remember Im going to sleep you bastard
November 12, 01:24: Punctuation. I highly recommend using it. SH
November 12, 01:26: Drug bust Imminent
Lestrade appeared confused on the exact time he had been informed of John’s deployment; therefore it was likely that he had the knowledge planted. He would surely not need an elaborate memory of John’s departure like Sherlock’s long term (and possibly romantic) relationship warranted. Alternately, Lestrade was an idiot who couldn’t find his arse with both hands let alone remember a simple fact. The two options were weighed approximately equally at present.
Sherlock refused to entertain that idea that he was going insane himself. Although it was a close thing.
The only people Sherlock could think of who would have both the inclination and potentially the ability to enhance science in the direction of mental reprogramming were Mycroft and Moriarty. However, he had the mobile number for only one of them.
Sherlock flopped back on the couch and rang Mycroft’s super-secret personal number (the one that most certainly did not exist and why would you even ask such a silly question, Prime Minister?). The phone rang exactly three times.
“Still at the office, Mycroft?”
“Sherlock. What did you do?”
“I thought you had an assistant to keep you from working yourself, or has she finally gotten tired of you eclipsing the sun and moved towards a different brighter fu-“ Sherlock cut himself off. A chill ran up his spine.
The room was freezing. She was sitting on the couch facing John. From the scent, Sherlock could deduce that they were drinking a single-estate Darjeeling, which he most certainly did not kept in the flat. Her clothing and hair were impeccable even though the wind and drizzle outside should have soaked her. The whole room smelled of ozone. “We are dating.”
“-she’s gone, isn’t she?”
“Sherlock, what have you taken?”
“No. You wouldn’t be this blasé if you thought she had vanished. She is working on a project for you, somewhere away from the office. Do you remember conveying the assignment to her?”
“Good night, Sherlock.”
“Mycroft! Listen to me. Do you remember your conversation with her? Does the room look right in your memories? What were you deducing when you told her? Does the memory feel right?”
For a moment he thought Mycroft had hung up the phone. “No. It does not.” They both sat in silence for the count of 30. “I will look into it.” With that Mycroft hung up the phone.
Sherlock threw his phone onto the coffee table. Unable to sleep he eyed the window frame where his violin rested innocuously. Curious, he pulled back the curtains allowing the streetlights to shine through the fogged-over glass and caught his breath. There, spanning the two panes, written in the fog, were the symbols for 6 and 1. Most disturbingly, they were in Sherlock’s distinctive scrawl, but rushed and nervous. He couldn’t remember writing them.
He couldn’t have wanted to delete whatever was gone.
He searched the flat from top to bottom and turned up nothing else, except a light green jumper of John’s that was stashed in the back of Sherlock’s closet. The jumper meant nothing to Sherlock, although it was a terrible colour for John. Why 6-1? He had scanned the London A-Z guide, but the word made no sense. On a lark, he entered “6 1” into Google and was barraged by celebrity heights, a Liz Phair song (which he didn’t think was code), and the Canadian Charter of Rights. With the addition of “book” to the search terms things got weird. Sherlock took a sample of the milk and ran a tox scan on it.
The milk was clean, and, apparently, somewhere there were two other people who were missing someone.
He considered his options for a moment, before logging onto the Science of Deduction.
If you lost something yesterday morning but can’t remember what it is call me. SH
In his bedroom the pink-encased phone was ringing.
---
Sherlock eyed the phone suspiciously, before picking up.
“I have a better question for you. What does your dog and my sniper have in common? Now try not to be obvious.” Moriarty’s voice was somewhat distorted by static, and less echoed than it had been at the pool. Strangely familiar. Sherlock swallowed, his eyes narrowing. “They served in Afghanistan together.”
“John and I were stationed together.” From his stance and the remains of a military haircut and a poor tan, Sherlock can deduce that he is likely a soldier. From the controlled way he extends his hand and the callouses on his fingers, the near silence of his movements, Sherlock can deduce that he is likely a sniper. From the slight tremor in his hand and the direction of his gaze as he addresses Sherlock, Sherlock suspects that he may be lying. But most telling is the slight flush on John’s features. He looks panicked. Sherlock ignores the shiver that crawls lazily up his spine. The man is not John’s lover (surely Sherlock would have noticed by now), not his friend (or at least not one that visits regularly), but they seem close (perhaps family, despite the lack of family resemblance).
“Wrong. Try again.” Sherlock’s clipped response appears to aggravate the sniper. John’s panic begins to meld into concern.
“Sherlock, Seb and I served together in Afghanistan.” And John is stating something he believes to be truth; however, he is omitting facts. Sherlock is too well versed in John’s facial expressions, his stance, the movement of his hands and the speed of his breathing to be fooled easily.
“Liar. Not obvious, but not playing by the rules. Don’t you want to know what happened to your pet?” Moriarty’s voice seems to crackle across the space between them. Sherlock can almost smell ozone, like when he first met with Sebastian Moran.
“Bluffing when you don’t have any facts, Jim? Bit desperate, isn’t it? You don’t have John any more than you have Sebastian Moran.” It was a gamble, but a relatively safe one, if Sherlock was to judge.
For a heartbeat he could only hear Moriarty’s slow exhale. “Very good, Sherlock. But you can’t just guess, you have to show your work.”
“Or what?”
“Or I won’t tell you what you and I currently have in common.” Jim’s sing-song grated across Sherlock’s nerves. He sprawled back in the couch, regarding the ceiling in trepidation.
“Didn’t we already have this discussion at the pool?”
“MMM, oh that was so long ago. I have new data; surely you of all people can appreciate some new data, Sherlock?” And it was so very tempting. The black holes in Sherlock’s memory seem to pull at him, ideas and intuition stumbling over them like an uneven sidewalk. He’d had a friend. He was reasonably sure he’d had a lover too and it was vaguely heart breaking to barely remember one and completely forget the other. He swallowed.
“No. I didn’t lie. They served together.” Revelations 6-1 suggested they always would. “Just not recently and not at a time when computers would keep records. You can check for yourself, I guarantee that their birth certificates are forged and a search of the military archives will yield the remaining results. What do you and I have in common, Jim? and don’t be obvious.” Sherlock mimicked, forcing the words through his teeth.
“Is that what passes for analysis in the vaulted mind of Sherlock Holmes? I’m a bit disappointed. No wonder you’re chasing your tail still looking for me; and you always will. But, since I’m feeling generous, how’s this? You have a scar on your back. It feels like it’s three months old but it’s more like thirty hours old. I know because mine is sooo much worse Sherlock. To get to you they went through me. Literally, apparently.”
“Prove it.”
“I didn’t throw a fit over your suggestion that something a teensy bit supernatural is going on, did I? I have a ruined shirt with your blood and mine. Still fresh. With spinal fluid on it. Both yours and mine. My scar runs all the way round my body Sherlock. Around, not just through.”
“That isn’t possible. We should both be dead then.” Sherlock imagined the wild angle of the scar on his back, and could image the cut from Moriarty’s left shoulder to his right hip.
“Apparently, getting cut in half and glued back together, is as impossible as someone selectively blacking out a year’s worth of our memories. Until you mentioned Sebastian’s name I couldn’t remember it. Funny that, seeing as I have never lost data that could be useful to me.” His voice was a harsh whisper, and Sherlock could acutely remember a promise to burn his heart out. “Help me find who is responsible for doing this and I swear you will find the revenge sufficient reward.” Moriarty sounded, if at all possible, madder than he did at the pool, his voice rising into a menacing howl. Sherlock frowned.
“Revelations 6-1.” The most dangerous and the second most dangerous men Sherlock had ever met were missing assistants and Sherlock was missing John. While smoke did not always indicate a fire, perhaps following this pattern would lead him back to John.
“Religion?” Moriarty released a sigh “I’m disappointed Sherlock. Is that the best you can do? It’s not really my thing. I had hoped it wasn’t yours. Although, my expectations of you run much too high.”
“No, it’s another thing John and Sebastian have in common.”
“Their mutual love of Jesus? If religion is the opiate of the masses it would follow that your -pet- would indulge. ” Moriarty spat out the word “pet” as if it physically hurt him to say it. Oh. Perhaps it did.
“You’re afraid of John. You weren’t afraid when he was using you as a human shield, so why are you afraid of him now?”
“No. I’m not.” Jim’s voice was high and mad, but beneath the bravado trembled hesitancy, fear.
The third step squeaked menacingly. Sherlock could hear his heart pounding as he rapidly rested the violin against the window frame and drew the curtains the rest of the way closed. His hands clenched once, twice, his grip white-knuckled before he forced his fingers to relax, to fall to his sides. His breath felt like it was burning, although that might have been a reflection of the fiery pain from the night before. Stupid. God he had been so stupid. Him and John and… and…the thug had nearly killed them with … and…
“Sherlock, we need to talk.” John sounded grim, which wasn’t surprising considering the third step, but that was just a symptom of last night not the cause and last night was...
Sherlock looked John in the eye and felt as if he had been doused in cold water. A shiver ran through him and his body froze. Cold like the rooms John walked into. Cold like Sherlock’s body after he first met Sebastian, when John had looked at him and it had been like…like staring into the fissure of a glacier, unfathomably old and deep and intent on ripping you apart and swallowing you whole.
“Revelations 6-1 pertains to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. You should be afraid. We all should be.” He had been playing Vivaldi, which was popular enough to ensure he never played it. Playing Winter from the Four Seasons was surely a bit heavy handed.
“But you’re not.”
John’s eyes looked cool and blue but looking at them felt like a chasm opening beneath Sherlock’s feet and swallowing him alive. But not a week prior, Sherlock had been in a mood and John had made him tea. Cup after cup. Untouched, they sat along the edge of the table lined up with military precision. The waxed wood still showed off the rings. “No.”
"You're excited"
"I'm not the only one." He didn't have to see Jim to imagine the manic grin he received in response.
---
“No, you’re not.” Sherlock froze. Mycroft’s voice sounded vaguely amused.
“And who the fuck are you?” Jim sounded bored. Although Sherlock was sure that his interest was piqued. He rolled his eyes, and heaved himself off the couch, pacing the flat in an agitated manner.
“An interested party.” Did Mycroft have any original lines? Nope, Sherlock didn’t think so. He was tempted to throw in a comment about dieting just so they could all read off the same old script.
“Interested in scripture?”
“So it would seem.” Sherlock could almost see Mycroft’s little self-satisfied grin. He rolled his eyes. “Enjoyable as your discussions are to listen in on, I believe that a meeting would be the most expedient manner in which to address this complication. Also, James, I would not bother attempting to trace the location of this number.”
“Why would I do something so obvious?” Jim sounded unnerved. If Sherlock guessed right, which he always did, he would say that Jim had been attempting to trace Mycroft’s location in addition to figuring out how Mycroft had managed to get onto this call. His elder brother could be a bit unnerving, he supposed; well, when he wasn’t being an annoying twat, that is. “Shall we meet at the pool at midnight for old time’s sake?”
“Do attempt to keep up James, since Sherlock’s last discourse with you I have had my misgivings about his continued interaction with you. So I shall have to ensure all your subsequent relations are monitored. Now, there is a car waiting outside of your door. You too, Sherlock. I recommend you take it.” Sherlock pulled back the curtains over the living room windows once more, and gazed disdainfully at the car parked in front of the flat.
“Noooo. I don’t think I’ll take the prize in mystery car one. I’ll wait for the address instead.”
“Jim, just get in the car or this ‘experience’ will become even less savoury. Difficult as that is to imagine seeing as Mycroft is already involved.”
“Sherlock, try to avoid such puerile behaviour. I am merely looking after you as we attempt to untangle this series of events.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, tempting as it was to hang up something else nagged at him. “Wherever you want us to meet won’t work. We need to look at the scene where Jim and I were attacked yesterday.”
Mycroft was already there when Sherlock’s car stopped in front of the park; although describing the empty lot as a park was perhaps too generous. Rather, it was the absence of buildings. Scraggly grass pierced the hard packed dirt and heaps of garbage. Here and there Sherlock could see evidence of children having played in the debris, but children playing did not a park make. A rusted swing set swayed in the chilly wind, its chains creaking and its seats broken.
Mycroft looked unflappable as always. His body superficially relaxed as he leaned against the umbrella. Overall, Mycroft was handling the whole situation with more calm than Sherlock felt. Then again, if Jim was any indication, Sherlock had maintained the most memories of any of them.
With a nod, he led Mycroft to the approximate area of the attack. It was annoying, Sherlock decided, being unable to remember precisely the previous night. His memories hazy and only snatches hinting at the location. He made do. It was along a flat area of grass like any other, but he could make out the scuffs where the dirt was disturbed and the signs of a scuffle were buried. He crouched low to the ground, running his hands through the loose dirt.
“You realize, I don’t remember any of this.” The crunch of gravel under Jim’s shoes alerted Sherlock to his presence, although Mycroft had probably tagged the other man with GPS by now and knew his location in relation to Sherlock at all times. Sherlock looked up at the approaching man, and was glad it was so early in the morning. Three men in dark suits, studying freshly turned dirt in a deserted park would have looked somewhat suspicious. He suddenly ached for the loss of someone to share the joke with.
“Unsurprising, considering the extent of your injuries. Both of you were taken by surprise. Initially you could fight off the attacker back to back; but not flush against each other, you stood with approximately fifty centimetres between you, protecting someone.” Mycroft looked between the two men and then turned his attention to the dirt. “Initially, the attacker was hesitant to harm you.”
“We were attacked by a man with a blade of some sort…I thought it was strange. Judging by the depth of our wounds it had to be a sword. For some reason we were a superior barrier to the attacker than John.”
“One hell of a swordsman; cleaving a human body in two takes considerable strength. I would know.” Jim muttered as he bent to study the dirt.
“No organic debris in a three meter radius of this area suggests that it was cleared. The angle, size and depth of our scars confirm that anyone we were protecting between us was eviscerated.” Sherlock stood back, eying Mycroft. Infuriatingly, his brother had undoubtedly already unravelled this bit of mystery.
Mycroft nodded. “Precisely. You were shielding Sebastian Moran. You failed.”
“But we lived.”
“An interesting if obvious observation, James. You were healed but Sebastian Moran could not be. Similarly, John Watson was shot and wears the scar to this day and my assistant had her appendix removed. There are no fake birth certificates so why fake hospital records?”
“They can’t heal their bodies. But they can heal ours.”
“I did not observe the strangeness of my assistant’s disappearance until Sherlock impressed it upon me. However, James, it is your memory that is the most compromised. How did you take notice of your missing assistant?”
“I have my ways.”
At Mycroft’s raised eyebrow and expectant look, Jim sighed. He had probably come to the same conclusion as Sherlock, if he did not voluntarily divulge the data Mycroft would find a way to obtain it involuntarily. “I have routines I follow each night. They had not been followed when I woke up.”
Sherlock nodded “That makes sense. That badly damaged, John must have been worried, especially with Sebastian dead. He had to take us somewhere safe. Acting on instinct, he would have taken us to the flat. Once he confirmed that we would remain alive he decided to ensure no further harm would come to us. At approximately ten in the morning, seven hours after the attack you were removed from the flat and both of our memories were modified.” Because John, while considerate of other people’s lives was inconsiderate of their intellect.
Jim nodded. His eyes scanning the ground. “Then the plot of this little drama is obvious; something’s hunting them and will go through us. That said, I don’t exactly appreciate being cleaved in half and would be so very delighted to share my displeasure with said something.”
“To kill one Horseman and worry the rest, whatever it is, it’s powerful.” But Sherlock had taken on murderers, drug lords, Jim Moriarty, and apparently slept with one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. He had come out alive if not unscathed. Additional supernatural dealings were hardly an issue.
“So are we. In our own quaint little human way.” Jim’s pleasant smile twitched. His dark eyes sinister.
Sherlock shrugged, before heading towards the main road. He froze as he looked across the park and towards a tobacco shop, magazines, newspapers and daily rags displayed prominently across its windows.
“So we represent three of four; any ideas on who the fourth is?”
Sherlock read through the headlines. On each was pictured a laughing blond supermodel who apparently was planning to spend a year in a Buddhist monastery in an effort to kick her drinking habit. Of course John would be related to that Harry Watson. “Yes, the wife of Harriet Watson.”
--- foyer
For a woman who was married to a famous super model, Clara Watson was surprisingly difficult to track down. She avoided the media like the plague and the few photos available of her showed a short brunette woman in oversized clothing wearing ridiculously oversized sunglasses. Furthermore, she was in neither the trendy flat Harry maintained overlooking the Thames, nor in the little house they maintained in the City of London. Mycroft eventually tracked her to a sprawling country estate just outside of London which, while looking barely lived in, was newly restored. Although well lit and airy, the structure made Sherlock’s skin crawl, and based on the slightly uncomfortable stance Mycroft was using, and the displeased sneer on Jim’s face, they were similarly affected. This, of course, amounted to a signed and sealed invitation for Sherlock to break and enter.
The security system on the main structure took some creativity to overcome. There were security systems, and then there was “national secret” level security systems. The house surpassed both. Luckily, between the three of them there was very little that could pose an actual barrier. Mycroft had even offered to short out the power grid in the area.
After disabling the electronic systems, James steered them around no less than four traps that would have ended in either being disembowelled by or becoming imbedded on large spikes, Mycroft disabled seven cameras and identified five blind spots, and Sherlock defused a particularly nasty piece of biological weaponry. Slightly winded by definitely and -finally- inside the house, they were greeted in the sumptuous and overly furnished lobby by a woman reclining happily in a chair, munching on a marmite sandwich held in one hand and aiming a sawed off shotgun with the other.
The grin was wiped off her face when she caught sight of them, and she looked a bit green as her eyes darted between Mycroft and Jim. Sherlock couldn’t blame her. Being around them made him a bit nauseous too.
Mycroft and Jim shared a bit of silent communication that spiked Sherlock’s suspicion about their past interactions. He gave a bored huff to hide it.
“Good Afternoon, Mrs. Watson.” Mycroft was using his ‘highly displeased but refusing to show it so let’s sound especially pleasant’ voice. The last time Sherlock had heard that tone he had just -accidentally- poisoned Mycroft’s cat. He didn’t even use the voice when the Korean election didn’t go quite as well as planned.
“Hiiiiiiiiiiiii.” Jim apparently hid his displeasure behind soul grating cheerfulness. Clara winced at the high pitched inflectionless greeting. Sherlock wondered if there was a fifth horseman dedicated only to the destruction of sanity and if Jim was it.
Obviously they all knew each other. Clara put down the sandwich but not the gun. Right. They definitely knew each other.
Without the oversized apparel, Clara was revealed as a petite Asian woman, probably Vietnamese, approximately 40 years old but with the youthful appearance of a woman half her age. Her brunette hair was an expensive dye job and her clothing, while casual, was obviously designer; her posture and the tell-tale callouses on her fingers and the skin condition of her palms suggested that she worked very extensively with computers. Not that Sherlock needed to deduce what was patently obvious, the custom laptop she had been using the track their progress through her security measures was housed in a case Sherlock knew to be custom built from titanium. The machine was also deathly silent. Furthermore, he did not doubt that she had set the electronic security and surveillance systems personally. He was still debating about whether or not she had contracted the pit with spikes herself. It seemed a bit archaic.
Obviously she was some sort of computer protégée. Considering Mycroft’s dealings she had undoubtedly done some work with him in the past, probably on a contract basis as Sherlock could not see a woman with purple nails and what appeared to be twelve, no thirteen, visible piercings working in Mycroft’s IT section. He did so love to look like he was conforming. Judging by the technological prowess Jim displayed it was likely that he also could make use of a contracted computer hacker with considerable knowledge of encryption. Neither Mycroft nor Jim would want a valuable asset to become a tool of their enemies. Therefore, the current tension in the room was the result of a breached exclusivity agreement. Booooring.
“So. Ummm. I don’t suppose you’d buy that this isn’t what it looks like?”
“No, my dear. I wouldn’t.” Jim looked murderous.
Clara’s grip on the shotgun tightened. Mycroft looked bland, as per usual. Sherlock rolled his eyes and hoped that the tableau would end before his boredom got any worse. Also, the creeping feeling of déjà vu was starting to get on his nerves. Screw it, he was going to end this right now.
“Your wife is one of the four horseman of the apocalypse. In comparison, an exclusivity clause seems rather banal.”
Mycroft gave Sherlock a glance that he usually saved for special occasions where Sherlock had been singularly socially inept. Sherlock simply gazed back in Mycroft in a manner he had perfect at age four, and which translated roughly to ‘piss off Mycroft.’
Clara lifted one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Creative, and would certainly explain a few things…but really, why do I have the founding members of the League of Evil in my living room?”
“Bad news, darling, he isn’t exaggerating.” Jim decided to ignore the shotgun in favour of dropping into an overstuffed chair. “Although ‘League of Evil,’ hello? The lack of originality pains me.”
Clara snorted. “Right, because a life that reads like Doctor Terrible McBad of every children’s cartoon is novel.”
“James, Claire, please -do- contain your excitement.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes as both Clara and Jim regarded Mycroft with varying levels of displeasure. “You suggested that Harriet being classified as a biblical entity would explain some peculiarities? Perhaps you are alluding to the absence of her birth certificate? Her effect on ambient temperature? Or something more obvious, such as her arranging of physical security measures on these premises and her insistence on you developing an additional electronic system?”
Clara’s disdainful look melted into surprise. “What? I mean yes. No wait, I definitely meant ‘what?’.”
“Your wife is in danger.” Sherlock chimed in.
“From Buddhist monks? Are you mad? Wait, of course you’re mad. You’re related to Big Brother.“
“How unoriginal, doll. Anyway, he’s right, she’s being hunted by a supernatural being with a big sword. So why don’t you get through this denial bit faster and join the rest of us over here on the side of ‘Oh m’god this is really happening’ and ‘fuck my life.’”
“Did you know that using internet speak outside the internet is fucking stupid?” Clara snapped. Jim and Clara had a contest of wills. It was the world’s shortest contest. Jim apparently got bored about three seconds into it, deleted why he was staring at Clara, and began to amuse himself on his mobile.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Anyway…”
“So what you’re trying to tell me is that my wife is a monster and you have proof of this?”
All three men prepared themselves for histrionics and were disappointed at their wasted effort when Clara had the gall to look relieved at the revelation.
“I’ve been trying to convince her of the fact for three years now. What with appearing in two places hundreds of kilometres away from each other within minutes, the creeping chills, the fact that all my dogs mysteriously vanished, and the glass eating. I always thought that the glass eating was a bit not on.”
“My dear. A -bit- not on?”
“She’s a supermodel, they’re supposed to eat crazy shit; Two years ago she went on a diet of newspapers, which I thought was nuts, but it was a trend, there were hundreds of the dumb twats on that diet. That’s about when I gave up and learned to love the crazy.”
“And your missing memories? Specifically those pertaining to yesterday at ten in the morning?” Mycroft had seated himself near the entry on a low bench. He softly tapped away at the carpet with his umbrella. Sherlock couldn’t tell if the tapping was his usual show of vexation or whether he had realized he had a tell and was now faking it to piss Sherlock off.
Clara froze. Her face screwed into an ugly scowl. “Oh, that bitch. It’s so on.”
Soon they had convened their miniature war council around a massive oak table in Clara’s dining room (which was, give or take, the size of Sherlock’s flat). The immense room was already filled with uprooted electronic equipment: approximately seventeen racks of servers, thirteen routers (that Sherlock could see, and really who needed that many routers?), nine laptop computers, and three printers hummed angrily while heating the room to near stifling levels. Apparently Harry had been quite insistent that Clara uproot and move into the manor immediately.
“If she thought she could erase my memories fine, but Harry can be a bit dull with computers. She types with two fingers. So she might have missed something in here.” Clara waved in the general direction of the servers as she offered each of them coffee in a sippy cup. The suspicious look on her face coupled with a twitch in her trigger finger spoke volumes. If even a drop of coffee landed on a keyboard anywhere, they would all be killed. Possibly with the shot gun, but most likely at a random time in the future and by a flash mob.
Mycroft managed to make sipping coffee out of a blue cup with penguins on it look dignified. Damn him. “It is interesting. I did not find files pertaining to your marriage to Harriet Watson during your employment with me.”
Clara shrugged, a bit uncomfortable, as she dropped into a chair nearest a “We were divorced at the time and I was kinda angry with her.”
“Nevertheless, if you had ever been married I should have located the records.” Mycroft gazed at her in an assessing manner, even as he perused a book he had extracted from god knows where. At his current angel Sherlock couldn’t see what it was. Mycroft was undoubtedly hiding it on purpose.
“I was -really- angry at her.” She grinned nervously at him. Sherlock couldn’t blame her for being nervous he had first-hand experience that pissing off Mycroft was liable to make your life hell. “Anyway, I don’t have everything with me. I had to grab only my most essential machines.”
“Most essential? what are you the Imelda Marcos of computers?”
Clara stared at him in disbelief. “Dior, Westwood, Imelda Marcos. What is it with you and fashion? Aren’t you supposed to be evil?”
“It’s perfectly acceptable to be both.” Jim drawled in his erratic accent. He then proceeded to descend into a drivelling lecture on high fashion and its link to dictators and the mob. Sherlock could almost feel his brain liquefy. That is when they began to quibble. Did he really think Moriarty was his mental equal? God, he had been so stupid.
“Shut. Up. The server fans are more adroit than either of you.” Sherlock had apparently developed a twitch, it was disturbing, and he was starting to sympathise with Mycroft, which was so not on.
“Don’t mind him Clara dear, he’s just gloomy because he had to trade sexual favours for his pet’s loyalty.”
“And you’re still in a strop because I didn’t call you back.”
“Sorry, not my type. I like my partners to mental challenge me. Not really your thing, my dear.”
“Well, you certainly are mentally challenged.”
“Enough.” Mycroft didn’t shout. Mycroft very rarely needed to shout. Sherlock felt approximately five years old. “This is a serious situation. It would be most prudent to cast our attentions to the matter at hand. Claire, have you found anything that might further inform our theories?”
Clara cleared her throat. She clicked distractedly at a laptop nearest to her. “I’ve actually been following some weirdness for a couple of nights.” Mycroft waited patiently while Sherlock and Jim aggressively ignored one another. “A handful of weather satellites and a chunk of the Global Positioning System are on the fritz. So at first I thought it was a virus. But this thing is damaging all builds, operating systems, programs and the ilk; even mobile phone, internet and satellite television providers are reporting signal loss. Whatever it is, all the blackout areas correspond. Competitors aren’t that keen on talking to one another, so no one’s figured out the connection and those that have think it’s solar storms.”
“Could it be whatever is attacking the horsemen?” Sherlock frowned at the memory of the man with the sword.
“Sure, why not? But if it is, we should be able to see it from the dining room window because it’s about thirty kilometres north from here and about the size of London.”
“Huh.” Jim scrambled out of the chair and poked his head out of the window. “Nothing.” He sounded supremely disappointed.
Clara shrugged. “Yah, I have a web cam pointed in that direction and it’s picking up nothing.” She glanced at the video feed being displayed on her screen. “God, I need to clean the lens on that thing. Anyway, there are some jamming devices that have a similar effect, but they’re stationary or don’t have enough juice to cause the blackouts.”
“The appearance of these blackouts coincides with the attack. If we assume that it is the hunter, why is it hunting the horsemen now?”
“Unlikely that they prematurely commenced the apocalypse. I would hope that my assistant has the decency to dispatch me from the Earth prior to destroying it. Consequently, something must have changed, unfortunately I am unlikely to recall exactly what that is.”
Sherlock leaned back in one of the dining room chairs, staring at the ceiling. A monstrous chandelier hung affixed to it; radial cracks crept along the blue toned plaster indicating that at one point the light fixture had broken from the ceiling, the damage had been repaired and a new chandelier affixed. He stared at the cracks willing them to give him his memory back. The humming of the servers and the scent of overheated electronics did nothing to dispel the slightly ominous feeling of the room nor the smell of ozone.
“Maybe they’re trying to stop the apocalypse?” Jim stretched from his perch on the window.
“The four horsemen of the apocalypse are trying to stop the apocalypse?” Sherlock managed to bite that out with at least twice the venom he usually used on Lestrade when the man was being especially dense. “And why would they do that?”
“Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re a fantastic shag, Sherlock.” Clara offered cheekily.
“I am.” There was no point in employing false modestly where the lie would be clearly detected. Besides Sherlock had no shame and was quite proud of it; he had even acquired documentation (for science, of course). “However, while stopping the apocalypse for me is very flattering, it seems a ridiculously unreasonable conclusion.”
“It would.” Mycroft sounded thoughtful. “In fact, any refusal to follow command for any reason would seem unreasonable for creatures that were not gifted with free will.” Sherlock finally got a glimpse at the book Mycroft was reading.
“The Bible?”
“Merely collecting intel on our associates.”
Jim’s grin grew. “The apocalypse has been cancelled because Sherlock’s a tiger in bed? My. Dear. Now I’m sooooo disappointed that you didn’t call.”
Mycroft ignored Jim with the ease of someone who had spent the majority of his life dealing with Sherlock. “Likely, having refused an order they were forced to flee and are being pursued by something powerful.”
Mycroft leaned back in his chair, his closed hand resting against his lips. The man was one cat short of a Bond villain. Perhaps Sherlock could get Mycroft a fluffy white cat for Christmas. John would find it hilarious. He would smile charmingly at Sherlock, as if Sherlock had said something especially brilliant at a crime scene. Sherlock clenched his jaw. This simultaneous memory and friend loss was unbearable. He wondered if madness was a common side effect of the procedure because, frankly, he was getting there. “What if we make it look like they were following their orders?”
“Interesting. It is disappointing that our colleagues did not see fit to make use of our not inconsiderable resources. I do not appreciate having my faculties so thoroughly undervalued.” Mycroft’s neutral expression had devolved into a sneer.”
“It’s such a shame, that they’ve underestimated us. Interpol is still identifying the bodies form the last time that happened to me.” Jim pouted as he dropped himself artfully onto a dining room chair; he happily sipped at his Sippy cup.
“Of course, my poor sweetheart only wanted the best for me, the stupid tart. I love Harry but she isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the box.”
He was going to get John back, Sherlock decided. Even if he left a path of destruction in his wake that would put Jim to shame. A frown stretched over his lips. “From what we’ve seen, they’re disorganized. They need time. They need something to draw attention from them. Something guaranteed to be a surer form of annihilation than renegade horsemen. Something like us.”
“I always knew you had the potential to be interesting.” Jim looked happily besotted with Sherlock’s plan. “My dear. I’ve been waiting to use my powers for evil, forever!”
Clara rolled her eyes at him. “So the past twenty years were you waiting?”
“That, Clara dear, was business. This is creative freedom.”
Clara rolled her eyes. “And how, exactly, do you propose we outdo chaos, disease, famine, and death?”
“Too much for you to handle, Clara-doll?”
“Screw you, you short little shit; any mass destruction you can conceive of I can do better. I just want a plan so I don’t get axed. Literally.”
“Children, for optimum annihilation we must work in concert. Your commitment to this endeavour must be absolute. Is it?”
“Umm, hello, chaos and burning? I’ m so in.”
“I want my wife back.”
“I’m in. Obviously.”
===
“So what do we set fire to first?” Jim rubbed his hands together gleefully.
Sherlock examined the assembled geniuses. The electronically overcrowded room held the wet dream of the MI6, CIA, SVR and MSS. He signed. Then again, having been subjected to Mycroft’s lamentations on being subcontracted by various intelligence agencies, hiring mentally deranged monkeys would be an improvement.
Mycroft pursed his lips, before standing from the couch, leaning on his umbrella. “Everything.”
“Ppppppssst, Sherlock, you were fun for a while, but now I’m kind of in love with your brother.”
Sherlock snorted in disgust. “PPppppst, Jim, your love is a commodity.”
“You’re just mad I don’t care for you anymore.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I’m not too concerned. You obviously have no taste.” Mycroft was regarding them with a well veiled vexed expression. Not well enough to hide from Sherlock (of course not). He was most definitely developing an eye twitch. This was proving to be a more amusing venture than Sherlock had ever hoped. He kind of hoped the twitch would develop into uncontrollable spasms that would redirect mummy’s attentions from Sherlock’s endeavours and instead onto her eldest son’s mental health (or lack there of).
“Ohmygod!” Clara seemed to skip from her spot by her laptop. “I just figured out why noone’s been able to get a reading off this thing. They’ve been going about it the wrong way! To think, a supernatural creature, It’s just waiting to be explored, documented…let’s shoot at it and see what happens.”
“My dear, are you me? Because that is awesome.”
Mycroft sighed. Eye twitch was up by 1%. “I am certain that you realize the futility of engaging an unknown enemy who threatens not only our Horsemen but also the population as a whole. While they have seen fit to merely block communications to date, their future direction cannot be predicted. Therefore, I recommend that we take some time to plan our actions.”
Jim tossed his head hauthily. A manic grin spread across his face. “Planning? How dull. Next you’ll be wanting to avoid casualties…oh bugger. You do, don’t you. What do you do for fun, my dear? Balance your cheque book?” As a fact Sherlock knew that Mycroft balanced national budgets on his slow days.
“Until we have a clearer indication of the hunters’ intention it may be wise to avoid their ire. Certainly we wish to inspire their curiosity but anything that is capable of destroying an entity with not inconsiderable power should arouse our caution. Of course, if the threat of disembowelment by a biblical creature is insufficient motivation, then perhaps I should remind you that not all consequences require a religious foundation.” Mycroft levelled a meaningful glance at Jim, who shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“I was wondering whether it might have been you in South America. Bit excessive wasn’t it?”
Mycroft merely cocked his head and paired it off with his most self-satisfied smirk.
---
Next Part > > >
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