Fic: A Little Competition, Part Two
Title: A Little Competition, Part Two
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: R
Word Count: 18,000
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: "Still, John, a ghost story at Halloween, during a power cut, in a thunderstorm. The terribly predictable cliche of it all." Sherlock slides down in the chair until his chin touches his chest.
Mycroft
James Phillimore
"Very well, then I shall share the story behind the curious disappearance of James Phillimore."
Sherlock grunts. "That case is still unsolved."
Mycroft simply smiles at him, in a way that makes Sherlock's eyes narrow. John can see the quiet clench of his teeth.
"Who's James Phillimore?" John asks.
Mycroft leans forward, just a little, and the light draws a line of shadow down his nose.
"On the twelfth of April 2004 James Phillimore left his home for work at exactly seven forty eight in the morning. There were six witnesses, one of whom was his sister. However, upon realising that he'd forgotten his umbrella he re-entered his house to collect it. And was never seen again."
Mycroft folds his hands together on his raised knee.
"People rarely disappear without trace. No matter what the police seem to think, whether under their own power, or the coercion of outside forces. There's always a chain of events that will lead to either their person, or their remains. People don't simply disappear into thin air. Yet, by all accounts, that was exactly what Mr Phillimore had managed on that wet morning in April. In less than four minutes he had simply ceased to exist."
There's a rather appropriate flash of lightning.
"I had no real interest or connection to the case other than the fact that I knew Sherlock had briefly reviewed the evidence and remained baffled."
"I never said I was 'baffled,'" Sherlock says huffily.
Mycroft tilts his head to one side, as if in apology.
"It was, nonetheless, written in the police file, 'Sherlock Holmes, baffled by disappearance.'"
Sherlock grumbles something unflattering and John suspects he's going to find the police file at the first opportunity and burn it. Possibly with his mini blow torch.
"I suppose that my curiosity was piqued," Mycroft admits. "Sherlock does so hate to let things go if there's still a mystery to be solved."
"There was no evidence," Sherlock says tightly. "Unless I was supposed to start making wild assumptions."
Mycroft tips his head back. "Sometimes it's necessary to start at a wild assumption and work backwards."
John can't help himself.
"And what was your wild assumption?" he asks curiously. Then immediately winces when Mycroft smiles at him, because now he's the one interrupting. Sherlock is catching.
But Mycroft laughs, like he doesn't mind the interruption at all, as if John's questions are interesting in their own way. John suspects he isn't going to answer though. At least not yet. Mycroft's seems like the sort of person who knows that a story has to be told in the right order.
"There were no more than four minutes between his entering the house and his sister realising that something was amiss. The gardens on either side were both occupied at the time, one by a woman feeding the birds and the other by two children collecting their bikes for school. Mr Phillimore did not exit via the back door or any of the windows."
Sherlock sighs and swivels around until his head hangs over the arm of the chair, legs flung up the other end.
"Perhaps he was teleported into space," he offers.
"That, naturally, was the first possibility that occurred to me," Mycroft says dryly.
John's actually surprised to hear Sherlock snort amusement at that.
"The first opportunity to spirit Mr Phillimore away via the back would have been at roughly ten o'clock. The first opportunity to take him via the front is harder to judge, but we shall consider it roughly the same time. Either way he would have had to have been in the house at least two hours. By all accounts while it was being searched by both his sister and a neighbour."
Sherlock exhales in a way that's unimpressed, legs gently thumping against the side of the chair. John continues to be amazed by the childlike contortions he can get into and still manage to give off an air of arrogant disdain. It's a strange and unusual skill and John can't help but wonder where he learned it.
"I've seen the so-called enthusiastic searches of friends and family members," Sherlock says with a snort. "Which seems to consist solely of running wildly from one room to the next calling the person's name like they're a lost pet. Certainly nothing I'd call thorough."
Mycroft's slight nod actually seems to be in agreement.
"My thoughts exactly, when I found myself absently perusing the case some four months later. I found it unlikely, but not completely impossible, that James Phillimore was still in the house, somewhere. Though he'd almost certainly be dead after four months. And unless he was somewhere extremely dry and cold, or dry and hot, someone would have complained about the smell of a rotting corpse."
"It's hard to miss the smell of a rotting corpse," John agrees.
"The police had already searched the house, and I'm willing to believe that their search was indeed conducted thoroughly."
Sherlock's disbelieving huff gives the impression that Mycroft is more generous than him.
"To their standards at least," Mycroft adds and John raises an eyebrow. Mycroft gently tilts his head to the side, a refusal to apologise for their own arrogant perfectionism.
John just snorts amusement and drinks his tea (which isn't all that bad.) Sherlock and Mycroft are more alike than is probably good for the world in general. If they didn't fight, they'd team up and John's not quite sure what would happen then. Explosions probably.
"However I was curious enough to decide on making a brief observation of the premises myself. The house was early Edwardian, I thought at the time that it was a rather unremarkable. It was badly maintained, one of the walls at some point having been reconstructed. It was suffering from both woodworm and damp. It was a little too well ventilated, the floors uneven."
"We're not intending to buy the house, Mycroft. The tour is tiresome."
"I'm simply sharing my first impressions," Mycroft says slowly. John suspects he's actually rather enjoying telling the story.
"You don't have to spell everything out for John, he's quite clever you know."
"Thank you, I think," John says with a squint. Because he really isn't sure if that's a compliment or not.
Though a second later he catches Sherlock smirking in his direction.
"The house had a number of peculiarities but that's really not so strange. Houses were built and rebuilt quickly and cheaply, short cuts were taken, things didn't always fit neatly."
"You assumed a space inside the wall." Sherlock manages to make it sound like only an idiot wouldn't have assumed as much.
"Naturally," Mycroft says with a small nod. "Though a brief investigation revealed no hollow spaces in either likely or unlikely places. I continued my examination of the house and James Phillimore's possible movements that morning. The man I had with me, Patterson, I left by the front door, an acceptable substitute for Mr Phillimore in height and weight. And it was almost exactly the same time in the morning as his sudden disappearance."
John realises he's leaning forward in his chair, because the cushion behind him is very slowly falling off the arm.
"On my way back through the house I believe it was the distribution of my weight which caused it - I was aware of a very faint noise, perhaps of metal rearranging itself, a draft of air where none had been before. Nothing I could absolutely build a picture out of - and yet I took one step back."
Mycroft frowns, like he's unwilling to admit to ever doing anything by instinct rather than logical thought processes.
"The entire right wall was abruptly pierced from behind by a collection of seven inch steel spikes. I escaped with a superficial tear to my left sleeve, but Patterson was not so lucky, and ended up pinned to the wall. He didn't die immediately, though there would have been no hope for him had we managed to pry him free. The spikes were rusty, many had broken on their trip through the wall and had taken a great deal of Patterson's internal organs with them."
John realises he's spilling his tea and abruptly rights his mug. Because he hadn't been expecting anything like that.
"Jesus, that's - that must have been horrific."
"I would imagine it was," Mycroft says slowly, like he's agreeing with a concept rather than admitting to actually being horrified.
Sherlock snorts.
John blinks, briefly confused.
"Remembering the way he felt about things is usually completely irrelevant, so often Mycroft chooses not to," Sherlock explains.
John raises an eyebrow because that's...that's a little bizarre. Though he thinks he vaguely remembers something like that happening in a TV series.
But he's fairly sure they were lizard aliens. So he doesn't mention it.
"Once the appropriate steps were taken to remove Mr Patterson I resolved to stay in the house and explore further, though I was aware I would have to use caution since it had proven itself...more temperamental than I'd first thought."
"Uncharacteristically hands-on of you," Sherlock says. He sounds genuinely surprised.
"I imagine I was intrigued enough to be momentarily reckless," Mycroft offers. "However, it was no longer such a puzzle as to where James Phillimore was. If he was living in a house with hitherto undiscovered traps, he may very well have been the victim of one. The question now seemed to be, where was he, and how exactly had he gotten himself killed?"
"I've already thought of five ways it could have happened," Sherlock says and when John turns to look at him he's actually tilted sideways in his seat a little. Like Mycroft has his attention now. Or more likely the mystery does.
"I'd already thought of nine, but it's bad manners to skip to the end of a story."
"Or to tell people how it ends," John says tightly, with a glare that he sincerely hopes Sherlock understands.
"Quite," Mycroft agrees and he's definitely amused. "I immediately acquired the plans of the house, of course."
"Cheating," Sherlock decides instantly, pulling a face at him under his eyebrows.
"You would have done exactly the same thing," Mycroft says smoothly.
"True," Sherlock allows, and waves him to continue.
"The original plans contained a significant number of discrepancies, nothing an ordinary tenant would uncover, of course, but there had clearly been changes made. Though nothing had ever been filed. No architects employed - at least none that ever admitted to it. Or were around to admit to it afterwards."
Mycroft smiles, uncrosses his legs and leans forward in the chair until he can set his empty mug on the table.
"I discovered that the occupant of the house between 1904 and 1916 was one Mr Edward Sullivan, who was generally considered to be..."
Mycroft stops and seems to be searching for a word.
"Distasteful," he settles on finally, dragging it out to give a sense of unpleasantness that John's fairly sure he can feel all the way down to his bones.
"Nice," John offers.
Mycroft shifts sideways and leans on the arm of the chair, ignores Sherlock's muttering in the background about the unreliable narrator.
"There was clearly a period of construction that lasted at least a year, suggesting that the trap within the hallway most certainly wasn't the only modification the unpleasant Mr Sullivan had managed to put inside the house."
"Why would anyone do that?" John asks.
Mycroft raises both eyebrows.
"I'm afraid I couldn’t say what his original motives were. A thorough search into his background could probably provide some insight but record-keeping in the 1920's wasn't exactly a priority. Perhaps there were disreputable people that wished to do him harm, or perhaps he just liked the idea of gruesomely murdering people that came into his house."
"Perhaps he was sick of surprise visits from irritating relatives," Sherlock cuts in.
John glares at Sherlock in a way that he hopes manages to convey exactly what will happen if Sherlock even thinks of booby trapping their front door.
Sherlock rolls his eyes at John's expression like he's reading it perfectly.
"Please, if I thought Mycroft could be taken out by a spike pit I probably would have tried it before now."
"Sherlock," John says warningly.
"I seem to remember you electrifying the kitchen floor once," Mycroft says carefully.
Sherlock wrinkles his nose up. "That wasn't a man trap, that was an experiment in conductivity."
"It was an experiment which came very close to having an unpleasant ending."
"Mr Phillimore," Sherlock prompts. John honestly isn't sure whether he wants to know how the story ends or whether he wants to shift attention away from what, or who, exactly he managed to electrocute in his youth.
Mycroft spreads a hand on the arm of the sofa, taps his shoe on the floor and looks for all the world like he's re-ordering his thoughts.
"I managed to extrapolate, via careful examination where several of the traps were. Though they acted in such a way that Mr Phillimore would have ended up in either a variety of messy pieces or a long stain on the floor. He would certainly not have disappeared without a trace. I was clearly still missing something."
"I bet that was vexing," Sherlock says, drawing out the word with a smile like it has some sort of meaning.
Mycroft takes a moment to glare at him, then gives in and admits the truth of it with a tilt of his head.
"It was vexing, until I realised that I was working on a false premise. I assumed that he'd been somewhere between the front door and the kitchen, naturally. The man had returned for his umbrella. I considered what else he could have meant to collect in those few minutes and one of my conclusions was for a coat more suited to the weather. Mr Phillimore's coats were hanging on coat hooks beneath the stairs."
Mycroft looks at his nails. Which Sherlock clearly considers a blatant pause for effect.
"Get on with it, Mycroft."
If John had a cushion he would have thrown it at him.
"I wouldn't have touched them," John admits. "Not a chance in hell if there was any possibility of being run through by hidden blades, or spikes."
Sherlock looks tragically disappointed that John is in any way interested in Mycroft's attempt at dramatic tension. As if he expects better from him. John really wishes he had a cushion to throw at him, immaturity be damned.
"Oh, I had no intention at all of getting close enough to fall prey to whatever had caused Mr Phillimore's abrupt disappearance," Mycroft says. "I was however, quite prepared to lose an umbrella for the cause."
He taps the arm of the chair, which suggests that he finds the fact that his current umbrella is downstairs briefly irritating.
"I tested several of the hooks, the back wall, the ceiling and finally, the floor." Mycroft's shoe shifts on the carpet, a quiet rush of sound. "The entire left wall shifted sideways, and at some speed. My umbrella was, unfortunately, snapped into several pieces. If I had been fractionally closer I would have been flattened against the second wall and entombed in a space barely four inches wide, perhaps never seen again."
"An ignominious death," Sherlock decides. He sounds significantly less interested now the mystery has been explained.
"Indeed," Mycroft agrees. "I had the small false wall rendered harmless and opened up. And inside was the crushed body of Mr James Phillimore."
"God," John says quietly.
"The mechanism would have taken less than a minute to slowly crush him to death. He was almost certainly dead before anyone even registered that he was missing."
"That's horrible," John says quietly. "Really, really horrible."
"As to why a series of antique traps had suddenly decided to start working after almost eighty years of rust gathering inactivity -" Mycroft shrugs, slowly, and the movement looks oddly foreign on him. "I suppose an expert might have some explanation for it. Though I'm given to understand that Mr Phillimore had recently decided to look for a smaller house, closer to his work."
Mycroft spreads his hands as if the explanation could be found there.
"Perhaps the house simply chose that day to kill James Phillimore."
"Preposterous and overly dramatic," Sherlock says flatly.
John takes a moment to imagine exactly how the man must have felt that morning, being slowly crushed to dead inside a wall of his own house.
"That was...a good story," he says at last. Because someone would have to be seriously disturbed to want to fill their house full of traps.
Mycroft inclines his head, he seems genuinely pleased to have creeped the hell out of John.
Sherlock makes a rude noise.
"Your delivery was dry and it lacked emotional depth."
"I thought you told me stories didn't need emotional depth," John accuses. "You told me it was pointless to dwell on the emotional significance of things."
Sherlock gives a strangled noise and tips his head back to look at him. "It's a story, John. The purpose of which is to involve the listeners. Your characters need to be sympathetic, we need to care what happens to them."
Sherlock shakes his head at Mycroft.
"I personally didn't care whether you were horribly crushed by pre-war mechanisms," he says with a shrug.
"You're horribly biased," John points out. "I was rather invested."
"Thank you, John."
"Don't encourage him, he'll be impossible if you encourage him," Sherlock snaps. He huffs noisily and drags himself round in the chair until he's sitting upright again.
John pulls his mug out of the way before one of Sherlock's feet kicks it halfway across the room.
Sherlock tosses his head like an irritated horse. "I wasn't going to lower myself to providing entertainment but since I do, in fact, have a story that fits the criteria, it would be lazy of me not to throw it out there among your own offerings."
"You have a ghost story?" John says in disbelief.
"I have a story that's disturbing and inexplicable. Whether it contains a ghost or not is a matter of personal opinion and suggestibility. I shall present the evidence and let people make their own conclusions, which I'm given to assume is a style of the genre."
John raises a dubious eyebrow.
"If you're going to tell a ghost story, then I need more tea. Where did you put the blow torch?"
"It rolled under the chair," Sherlock says, seemingly without any sort of worry at all.
John glares at him. "I've been sitting on a blow torch this whole time and you didn't think to say anything."
"It wasn't on. I think you would have noticed if you'd caught fire, John."
"Still, safety procedures. Christ, Sherlock, you're supposed to be intelligent." John gets off the chair and kneels down, reaches underneath it in the dark and feels around for that hard jut of plastic and metal. Hoping to hell that there's no chance of burning his fingers off.
When he drags it out he glares at Sherlock again.
Which is the exact moment the power comes back on in a harsh click of sound, and painfully bright light.
"Christ." John shuts his eyes and winces. Because the world is much too bright, even through his eyelids. John didn't even know the flat was capable of producing this much light.
He's officially blind.
Well, no alright, but his night vision is shot to hell.
Sherlock makes an irritated noise. "Well that solves one problem I suppose."
"I'll put the kettle on as soon as I can see," John says irritably.
"John, stay where you are. We have power now. Mycroft, make yourself useful."
"Sherlock, guests don't make tea," John's still blinking away spots and even Mycroft is squinting unhappily. Sherlock's noise of protest suggests that calling Mycroft a 'guest' is an exaggeration he disapproves of. He seems to be happy enough peering through the hair that's managed to fall untidily in front of his eyes.
"No, Sherlock's right," Mycroft decides, unfolding himself from the chair and pushing himself upright. He holds a hand out for John's mug.
"You really don't have to," John says.
"It's the least I could do."
John's still half trying to hang on to everything - because honestly the idea of Mycroft doing things is frankly bizarre. But Mycroft manages to slip the mug out of his hand while he's still trying to think of some quiet and clever way to protest.
Sherlock doesn't quite throw Mycroft his mug but he's definitely less than careful passing it over. Mycroft drifts past the table in a waft of grey suit and expensive aftershave. John's left floundering. He's not quite sure how Mycroft Holmes ended up in their kitchen making tea with their temperamental kettle and dubious and often surprising sugar/coffee/tea arrangement. He feels like he may have failed in some way as a host and his mother would be so disappointed.
Sherlock can obviously see his guilt, which is irritating.
"Don't discourage him, if politeness can get him off his arse doing something useful then let him."
"Still, guests aren't supposed to make tea,"
"He's not a guest, he's Mycroft, though you shouldn't leave him near the cupboards for long -"
John glares, because completely ignoring the height difference Mycroft isn't all that far off of being the same size as him.
"If you make one crack about biscuits, so help me I will hide your skull somewhere even you won't find it."
"Ha," Sherlock says, like that's a dare.
Mycroft looks far too amused when he rejoins them, and John doesn't fail to notice that he gets his tea first and with a smile rather than a disturbing looking raised eyebrow.
"Thank you." John takes the mug and is briefly surprised to find it exactly the way he takes it. Though he's fairly sure he's never had cause to mention that to Mycroft.
Sherlock's peering into his, as if trying to decide if Mycroft is above obviously poisoning him. And whether he cares particularly given his current desire for tea.
Mycroft folds himself neatly back into his chair, hand wrapped round his mug.
It takes John a moment before he realises how quiet it is. It's stopped raining outside, and the storm appears to have moved on. Though no one else seems to have noticed - no, that's ridiculous, of course they've noticed. They notice everything.
Sherlock must eventually decide that tea wins because he's drinking it the next time John looks at him. Seemingly without the slightest care whether Mycroft's poisoned him or not. John's not surprised, it's probably impolite to poison someone when you're a guest in their house after all.
"You were about to tell us a ghost story," John reminds Sherlock over the steam of his own mug.
Sherlock wraps both hands around his tea and puts his feet up on the table, toes shifting bare inches from the candle flames.
"Yes, I was."
Part Three
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Rating: R
Word Count: 18,000
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: "Still, John, a ghost story at Halloween, during a power cut, in a thunderstorm. The terribly predictable cliche of it all." Sherlock slides down in the chair until his chin touches his chest.
Mycroft
James Phillimore
"Very well, then I shall share the story behind the curious disappearance of James Phillimore."
Sherlock grunts. "That case is still unsolved."
Mycroft simply smiles at him, in a way that makes Sherlock's eyes narrow. John can see the quiet clench of his teeth.
"Who's James Phillimore?" John asks.
Mycroft leans forward, just a little, and the light draws a line of shadow down his nose.
"On the twelfth of April 2004 James Phillimore left his home for work at exactly seven forty eight in the morning. There were six witnesses, one of whom was his sister. However, upon realising that he'd forgotten his umbrella he re-entered his house to collect it. And was never seen again."
Mycroft folds his hands together on his raised knee.
"People rarely disappear without trace. No matter what the police seem to think, whether under their own power, or the coercion of outside forces. There's always a chain of events that will lead to either their person, or their remains. People don't simply disappear into thin air. Yet, by all accounts, that was exactly what Mr Phillimore had managed on that wet morning in April. In less than four minutes he had simply ceased to exist."
There's a rather appropriate flash of lightning.
"I had no real interest or connection to the case other than the fact that I knew Sherlock had briefly reviewed the evidence and remained baffled."
"I never said I was 'baffled,'" Sherlock says huffily.
Mycroft tilts his head to one side, as if in apology.
"It was, nonetheless, written in the police file, 'Sherlock Holmes, baffled by disappearance.'"
Sherlock grumbles something unflattering and John suspects he's going to find the police file at the first opportunity and burn it. Possibly with his mini blow torch.
"I suppose that my curiosity was piqued," Mycroft admits. "Sherlock does so hate to let things go if there's still a mystery to be solved."
"There was no evidence," Sherlock says tightly. "Unless I was supposed to start making wild assumptions."
Mycroft tips his head back. "Sometimes it's necessary to start at a wild assumption and work backwards."
John can't help himself.
"And what was your wild assumption?" he asks curiously. Then immediately winces when Mycroft smiles at him, because now he's the one interrupting. Sherlock is catching.
But Mycroft laughs, like he doesn't mind the interruption at all, as if John's questions are interesting in their own way. John suspects he isn't going to answer though. At least not yet. Mycroft's seems like the sort of person who knows that a story has to be told in the right order.
"There were no more than four minutes between his entering the house and his sister realising that something was amiss. The gardens on either side were both occupied at the time, one by a woman feeding the birds and the other by two children collecting their bikes for school. Mr Phillimore did not exit via the back door or any of the windows."
Sherlock sighs and swivels around until his head hangs over the arm of the chair, legs flung up the other end.
"Perhaps he was teleported into space," he offers.
"That, naturally, was the first possibility that occurred to me," Mycroft says dryly.
John's actually surprised to hear Sherlock snort amusement at that.
"The first opportunity to spirit Mr Phillimore away via the back would have been at roughly ten o'clock. The first opportunity to take him via the front is harder to judge, but we shall consider it roughly the same time. Either way he would have had to have been in the house at least two hours. By all accounts while it was being searched by both his sister and a neighbour."
Sherlock exhales in a way that's unimpressed, legs gently thumping against the side of the chair. John continues to be amazed by the childlike contortions he can get into and still manage to give off an air of arrogant disdain. It's a strange and unusual skill and John can't help but wonder where he learned it.
"I've seen the so-called enthusiastic searches of friends and family members," Sherlock says with a snort. "Which seems to consist solely of running wildly from one room to the next calling the person's name like they're a lost pet. Certainly nothing I'd call thorough."
Mycroft's slight nod actually seems to be in agreement.
"My thoughts exactly, when I found myself absently perusing the case some four months later. I found it unlikely, but not completely impossible, that James Phillimore was still in the house, somewhere. Though he'd almost certainly be dead after four months. And unless he was somewhere extremely dry and cold, or dry and hot, someone would have complained about the smell of a rotting corpse."
"It's hard to miss the smell of a rotting corpse," John agrees.
"The police had already searched the house, and I'm willing to believe that their search was indeed conducted thoroughly."
Sherlock's disbelieving huff gives the impression that Mycroft is more generous than him.
"To their standards at least," Mycroft adds and John raises an eyebrow. Mycroft gently tilts his head to the side, a refusal to apologise for their own arrogant perfectionism.
John just snorts amusement and drinks his tea (which isn't all that bad.) Sherlock and Mycroft are more alike than is probably good for the world in general. If they didn't fight, they'd team up and John's not quite sure what would happen then. Explosions probably.
"However I was curious enough to decide on making a brief observation of the premises myself. The house was early Edwardian, I thought at the time that it was a rather unremarkable. It was badly maintained, one of the walls at some point having been reconstructed. It was suffering from both woodworm and damp. It was a little too well ventilated, the floors uneven."
"We're not intending to buy the house, Mycroft. The tour is tiresome."
"I'm simply sharing my first impressions," Mycroft says slowly. John suspects he's actually rather enjoying telling the story.
"You don't have to spell everything out for John, he's quite clever you know."
"Thank you, I think," John says with a squint. Because he really isn't sure if that's a compliment or not.
Though a second later he catches Sherlock smirking in his direction.
"The house had a number of peculiarities but that's really not so strange. Houses were built and rebuilt quickly and cheaply, short cuts were taken, things didn't always fit neatly."
"You assumed a space inside the wall." Sherlock manages to make it sound like only an idiot wouldn't have assumed as much.
"Naturally," Mycroft says with a small nod. "Though a brief investigation revealed no hollow spaces in either likely or unlikely places. I continued my examination of the house and James Phillimore's possible movements that morning. The man I had with me, Patterson, I left by the front door, an acceptable substitute for Mr Phillimore in height and weight. And it was almost exactly the same time in the morning as his sudden disappearance."
John realises he's leaning forward in his chair, because the cushion behind him is very slowly falling off the arm.
"On my way back through the house I believe it was the distribution of my weight which caused it - I was aware of a very faint noise, perhaps of metal rearranging itself, a draft of air where none had been before. Nothing I could absolutely build a picture out of - and yet I took one step back."
Mycroft frowns, like he's unwilling to admit to ever doing anything by instinct rather than logical thought processes.
"The entire right wall was abruptly pierced from behind by a collection of seven inch steel spikes. I escaped with a superficial tear to my left sleeve, but Patterson was not so lucky, and ended up pinned to the wall. He didn't die immediately, though there would have been no hope for him had we managed to pry him free. The spikes were rusty, many had broken on their trip through the wall and had taken a great deal of Patterson's internal organs with them."
John realises he's spilling his tea and abruptly rights his mug. Because he hadn't been expecting anything like that.
"Jesus, that's - that must have been horrific."
"I would imagine it was," Mycroft says slowly, like he's agreeing with a concept rather than admitting to actually being horrified.
Sherlock snorts.
John blinks, briefly confused.
"Remembering the way he felt about things is usually completely irrelevant, so often Mycroft chooses not to," Sherlock explains.
John raises an eyebrow because that's...that's a little bizarre. Though he thinks he vaguely remembers something like that happening in a TV series.
But he's fairly sure they were lizard aliens. So he doesn't mention it.
"Once the appropriate steps were taken to remove Mr Patterson I resolved to stay in the house and explore further, though I was aware I would have to use caution since it had proven itself...more temperamental than I'd first thought."
"Uncharacteristically hands-on of you," Sherlock says. He sounds genuinely surprised.
"I imagine I was intrigued enough to be momentarily reckless," Mycroft offers. "However, it was no longer such a puzzle as to where James Phillimore was. If he was living in a house with hitherto undiscovered traps, he may very well have been the victim of one. The question now seemed to be, where was he, and how exactly had he gotten himself killed?"
"I've already thought of five ways it could have happened," Sherlock says and when John turns to look at him he's actually tilted sideways in his seat a little. Like Mycroft has his attention now. Or more likely the mystery does.
"I'd already thought of nine, but it's bad manners to skip to the end of a story."
"Or to tell people how it ends," John says tightly, with a glare that he sincerely hopes Sherlock understands.
"Quite," Mycroft agrees and he's definitely amused. "I immediately acquired the plans of the house, of course."
"Cheating," Sherlock decides instantly, pulling a face at him under his eyebrows.
"You would have done exactly the same thing," Mycroft says smoothly.
"True," Sherlock allows, and waves him to continue.
"The original plans contained a significant number of discrepancies, nothing an ordinary tenant would uncover, of course, but there had clearly been changes made. Though nothing had ever been filed. No architects employed - at least none that ever admitted to it. Or were around to admit to it afterwards."
Mycroft smiles, uncrosses his legs and leans forward in the chair until he can set his empty mug on the table.
"I discovered that the occupant of the house between 1904 and 1916 was one Mr Edward Sullivan, who was generally considered to be..."
Mycroft stops and seems to be searching for a word.
"Distasteful," he settles on finally, dragging it out to give a sense of unpleasantness that John's fairly sure he can feel all the way down to his bones.
"Nice," John offers.
Mycroft shifts sideways and leans on the arm of the chair, ignores Sherlock's muttering in the background about the unreliable narrator.
"There was clearly a period of construction that lasted at least a year, suggesting that the trap within the hallway most certainly wasn't the only modification the unpleasant Mr Sullivan had managed to put inside the house."
"Why would anyone do that?" John asks.
Mycroft raises both eyebrows.
"I'm afraid I couldn’t say what his original motives were. A thorough search into his background could probably provide some insight but record-keeping in the 1920's wasn't exactly a priority. Perhaps there were disreputable people that wished to do him harm, or perhaps he just liked the idea of gruesomely murdering people that came into his house."
"Perhaps he was sick of surprise visits from irritating relatives," Sherlock cuts in.
John glares at Sherlock in a way that he hopes manages to convey exactly what will happen if Sherlock even thinks of booby trapping their front door.
Sherlock rolls his eyes at John's expression like he's reading it perfectly.
"Please, if I thought Mycroft could be taken out by a spike pit I probably would have tried it before now."
"Sherlock," John says warningly.
"I seem to remember you electrifying the kitchen floor once," Mycroft says carefully.
Sherlock wrinkles his nose up. "That wasn't a man trap, that was an experiment in conductivity."
"It was an experiment which came very close to having an unpleasant ending."
"Mr Phillimore," Sherlock prompts. John honestly isn't sure whether he wants to know how the story ends or whether he wants to shift attention away from what, or who, exactly he managed to electrocute in his youth.
Mycroft spreads a hand on the arm of the sofa, taps his shoe on the floor and looks for all the world like he's re-ordering his thoughts.
"I managed to extrapolate, via careful examination where several of the traps were. Though they acted in such a way that Mr Phillimore would have ended up in either a variety of messy pieces or a long stain on the floor. He would certainly not have disappeared without a trace. I was clearly still missing something."
"I bet that was vexing," Sherlock says, drawing out the word with a smile like it has some sort of meaning.
Mycroft takes a moment to glare at him, then gives in and admits the truth of it with a tilt of his head.
"It was vexing, until I realised that I was working on a false premise. I assumed that he'd been somewhere between the front door and the kitchen, naturally. The man had returned for his umbrella. I considered what else he could have meant to collect in those few minutes and one of my conclusions was for a coat more suited to the weather. Mr Phillimore's coats were hanging on coat hooks beneath the stairs."
Mycroft looks at his nails. Which Sherlock clearly considers a blatant pause for effect.
"Get on with it, Mycroft."
If John had a cushion he would have thrown it at him.
"I wouldn't have touched them," John admits. "Not a chance in hell if there was any possibility of being run through by hidden blades, or spikes."
Sherlock looks tragically disappointed that John is in any way interested in Mycroft's attempt at dramatic tension. As if he expects better from him. John really wishes he had a cushion to throw at him, immaturity be damned.
"Oh, I had no intention at all of getting close enough to fall prey to whatever had caused Mr Phillimore's abrupt disappearance," Mycroft says. "I was however, quite prepared to lose an umbrella for the cause."
He taps the arm of the chair, which suggests that he finds the fact that his current umbrella is downstairs briefly irritating.
"I tested several of the hooks, the back wall, the ceiling and finally, the floor." Mycroft's shoe shifts on the carpet, a quiet rush of sound. "The entire left wall shifted sideways, and at some speed. My umbrella was, unfortunately, snapped into several pieces. If I had been fractionally closer I would have been flattened against the second wall and entombed in a space barely four inches wide, perhaps never seen again."
"An ignominious death," Sherlock decides. He sounds significantly less interested now the mystery has been explained.
"Indeed," Mycroft agrees. "I had the small false wall rendered harmless and opened up. And inside was the crushed body of Mr James Phillimore."
"God," John says quietly.
"The mechanism would have taken less than a minute to slowly crush him to death. He was almost certainly dead before anyone even registered that he was missing."
"That's horrible," John says quietly. "Really, really horrible."
"As to why a series of antique traps had suddenly decided to start working after almost eighty years of rust gathering inactivity -" Mycroft shrugs, slowly, and the movement looks oddly foreign on him. "I suppose an expert might have some explanation for it. Though I'm given to understand that Mr Phillimore had recently decided to look for a smaller house, closer to his work."
Mycroft spreads his hands as if the explanation could be found there.
"Perhaps the house simply chose that day to kill James Phillimore."
"Preposterous and overly dramatic," Sherlock says flatly.
John takes a moment to imagine exactly how the man must have felt that morning, being slowly crushed to dead inside a wall of his own house.
"That was...a good story," he says at last. Because someone would have to be seriously disturbed to want to fill their house full of traps.
Mycroft inclines his head, he seems genuinely pleased to have creeped the hell out of John.
Sherlock makes a rude noise.
"Your delivery was dry and it lacked emotional depth."
"I thought you told me stories didn't need emotional depth," John accuses. "You told me it was pointless to dwell on the emotional significance of things."
Sherlock gives a strangled noise and tips his head back to look at him. "It's a story, John. The purpose of which is to involve the listeners. Your characters need to be sympathetic, we need to care what happens to them."
Sherlock shakes his head at Mycroft.
"I personally didn't care whether you were horribly crushed by pre-war mechanisms," he says with a shrug.
"You're horribly biased," John points out. "I was rather invested."
"Thank you, John."
"Don't encourage him, he'll be impossible if you encourage him," Sherlock snaps. He huffs noisily and drags himself round in the chair until he's sitting upright again.
John pulls his mug out of the way before one of Sherlock's feet kicks it halfway across the room.
Sherlock tosses his head like an irritated horse. "I wasn't going to lower myself to providing entertainment but since I do, in fact, have a story that fits the criteria, it would be lazy of me not to throw it out there among your own offerings."
"You have a ghost story?" John says in disbelief.
"I have a story that's disturbing and inexplicable. Whether it contains a ghost or not is a matter of personal opinion and suggestibility. I shall present the evidence and let people make their own conclusions, which I'm given to assume is a style of the genre."
John raises a dubious eyebrow.
"If you're going to tell a ghost story, then I need more tea. Where did you put the blow torch?"
"It rolled under the chair," Sherlock says, seemingly without any sort of worry at all.
John glares at him. "I've been sitting on a blow torch this whole time and you didn't think to say anything."
"It wasn't on. I think you would have noticed if you'd caught fire, John."
"Still, safety procedures. Christ, Sherlock, you're supposed to be intelligent." John gets off the chair and kneels down, reaches underneath it in the dark and feels around for that hard jut of plastic and metal. Hoping to hell that there's no chance of burning his fingers off.
When he drags it out he glares at Sherlock again.
Which is the exact moment the power comes back on in a harsh click of sound, and painfully bright light.
"Christ." John shuts his eyes and winces. Because the world is much too bright, even through his eyelids. John didn't even know the flat was capable of producing this much light.
He's officially blind.
Well, no alright, but his night vision is shot to hell.
Sherlock makes an irritated noise. "Well that solves one problem I suppose."
"I'll put the kettle on as soon as I can see," John says irritably.
"John, stay where you are. We have power now. Mycroft, make yourself useful."
"Sherlock, guests don't make tea," John's still blinking away spots and even Mycroft is squinting unhappily. Sherlock's noise of protest suggests that calling Mycroft a 'guest' is an exaggeration he disapproves of. He seems to be happy enough peering through the hair that's managed to fall untidily in front of his eyes.
"No, Sherlock's right," Mycroft decides, unfolding himself from the chair and pushing himself upright. He holds a hand out for John's mug.
"You really don't have to," John says.
"It's the least I could do."
John's still half trying to hang on to everything - because honestly the idea of Mycroft doing things is frankly bizarre. But Mycroft manages to slip the mug out of his hand while he's still trying to think of some quiet and clever way to protest.
Sherlock doesn't quite throw Mycroft his mug but he's definitely less than careful passing it over. Mycroft drifts past the table in a waft of grey suit and expensive aftershave. John's left floundering. He's not quite sure how Mycroft Holmes ended up in their kitchen making tea with their temperamental kettle and dubious and often surprising sugar/coffee/tea arrangement. He feels like he may have failed in some way as a host and his mother would be so disappointed.
Sherlock can obviously see his guilt, which is irritating.
"Don't discourage him, if politeness can get him off his arse doing something useful then let him."
"Still, guests aren't supposed to make tea,"
"He's not a guest, he's Mycroft, though you shouldn't leave him near the cupboards for long -"
John glares, because completely ignoring the height difference Mycroft isn't all that far off of being the same size as him.
"If you make one crack about biscuits, so help me I will hide your skull somewhere even you won't find it."
"Ha," Sherlock says, like that's a dare.
Mycroft looks far too amused when he rejoins them, and John doesn't fail to notice that he gets his tea first and with a smile rather than a disturbing looking raised eyebrow.
"Thank you." John takes the mug and is briefly surprised to find it exactly the way he takes it. Though he's fairly sure he's never had cause to mention that to Mycroft.
Sherlock's peering into his, as if trying to decide if Mycroft is above obviously poisoning him. And whether he cares particularly given his current desire for tea.
Mycroft folds himself neatly back into his chair, hand wrapped round his mug.
It takes John a moment before he realises how quiet it is. It's stopped raining outside, and the storm appears to have moved on. Though no one else seems to have noticed - no, that's ridiculous, of course they've noticed. They notice everything.
Sherlock must eventually decide that tea wins because he's drinking it the next time John looks at him. Seemingly without the slightest care whether Mycroft's poisoned him or not. John's not surprised, it's probably impolite to poison someone when you're a guest in their house after all.
"You were about to tell us a ghost story," John reminds Sherlock over the steam of his own mug.
Sherlock wraps both hands around his tea and puts his feet up on the table, toes shifting bare inches from the candle flames.
"Yes, I was."
Part Three