Fic: A Little Competition, Part One
Title: A Little Competition, Part One
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.
AN: I decided to write something short and fun for Halloween, something with ghost stories. Short turned into long but I was having far too much fun indulging myself. And then the lovely and amazing miya_tenaka did artwork for the story and I felt very spoiled indeed.
The world is trying its level best to sweep humanity away in a terrible flood. Or at least that's what it feels like as John makes his way home in the dark. The rain is falling so heavy and so fast that he can't see more than a foot in front of him. It's running through the gutters almost ankle deep in rushing streams, and even this far away from the curb he's absolutely soaked. It's gone all the way through his jacket, his jeans, his boots. Every inch of him is cold and sore and has wet fabric stuck fast to it. He's fairly sure he's not getting a taxi either, since the entire population of London has decided it has a sudden and desperate need for one. Not that he could see to find one anyway, since he's been walking into the rain for the last ten minutes, eyeballs stinging like buggery.
So much for a cold but dry Halloween. John's never listening to anyone proclaiming to be a weatherman again. Judging by Mrs Hudson's 'better take a brolly, dear' this morning she was a more reliable source of information. He might as well just start asking her what the weather's going to be like before he goes out.
Lightning briefly outlines the sky overhead in jagged flashes. The echoing grumble of thunder comes roughly six seconds after it. If John's very lucky he'll make it home before he's deafened or struck by lightning. Which is a nice, comforting thought.
He continues to splash through what used to be the pavement, tread heavy - and squelchy, god how he hates that familiar squelch on every step. It's almost impossible to get into a good rhythm when water is sloshing around temperamentally inside your boots.
He's so far beyond wet when he reaches the front door that he's not entirely sure he's going to be able to get his key in the lock. Though that apparently doesn't matter, because he barely has it half raised before the door opens anyway.
John squints curiously at Sherlock's narrow frame between the rivulets of rain water coming out of his hair and eyelashes. Because John had thought that opening the door for people was a skill Sherlock hadn't mastered yet. That had always been one of those things other people were for.
Sherlock's perfectly dry, and judging by his hair and the fact that he's not wearing any shoes, he hasn't even ventured out today. He'd probably spent most of it sprawled artistically on the sofa watching things he hated on TV because he couldn't be bothered to get up and change the channel.
"You're late," Sherlock says. Which might - if stretched a little - be Sherlock speak for 'I was worried' or it might just as likely be Sherlock speak for 'there was no one around to make me tea.'
John can't really see his watch beneath the mess of water and sleeve, but he thinks it's about eight o'clock.
"Not by much - are you going to let me in or am I going to have to soak you?" he threatens.
Sherlock grunts and moves back so John can step inside out of the rain. It's still almost as loud when he pushes the door shut as it was when he was standing outside in it. John can hear it drumming on the door and the windows, and possibly still the inside of his own head. The flash of lightning is almost immediately followed by the heavy shake of thunder.
"I'm lucky I made it back before the storm was right overhead."
"The chances of being struck by lightning -"
"Don't tell me," John says and then carefully pushes off his soaking wet coat and shakes it, hard enough for Sherlock to draw back a step and pull a face. "I don't want to know how close I came to being fried on my way back, thank you very much."
He hangs his coat up downstairs, because he'd rather not have Sherlock throw it on the furniture in the flat. Not that the furniture hasn't had worse, but it's the principle of the thing. They don't need exciting cultures of mould to add to their collection. There's already an experiment in mould going on under the sink that John has so far resisted asking about. He's not entirely sure whether it's on purpose on not.
John eyes the wet umbrella in the stand.
Something occurs to him.
"We have an umbrella stand, since when?"
"Mycroft's here," Sherlock says tightly, as if that's the far more important observation than how long they've had an umbrella stand. John's still amazed how Sherlock can make his brother's name sound like some sort of horrible plague.
"He's insisting that he can't leave until it stops raining."
"Seems sensible enough, it's pissing down out there." John's tempted to shake his head as well but it's probably not going to do much but make his brain hurt and Sherlock's probably too quick to be caught in the shower of second-hand rain anyway.
Sherlock pouts, he honest-to-god pouts. "It's an excuse, and I told him he has an umbrella."
"There's lightning, Sherlock, that's not nice."
"With all the choice spires in London to ground itself on it's unlikely to pick one ridiculous umbrella."
"Don't sound so disappointed," John says and then heads upstairs, because much as Sherlock would probably like to stalk the front door and ignore his brother until some fiendish and dramatic crime happens, John's not that impolite.
He squidges his way into the flat proper. More than aware that he's running water and everything he's wearing is stuck flat to him. He suspects that isn't a flattering look for him at all. Diminishing, and he's not exactly working with extra there to start with.
Mycroft's seated in his usual chair, which is normally John's. He's also managing to make near-perfect posture look like careful relaxation, one leg folded over the other. He turns his head at the sound of shoes squelching.
"Ah, John, it's still raining I see."
"'Raining' is certainly one word for it," John agrees.
He's making a small wet pool on the carpet around his shoes.
"Yes, well, I'm just going to - dry off," he offers, before remembering, belatedly, that he doesn't actually need Mycroft's permission for that.
Sherlock follows him upstairs, quietly complaining all the way. When John pointedly walks him outside the bedroom door again and then shuts it, he continues his complaining through the wood at a slightly louder volume.
"Mycroft likes you better, because you offer him tea and biscuits."
John peels off his jumper and shirt and drops them in a soggy heap, leaving sad dribbles of water everywhere. "And you tend to throw things at him if he stays too long. Like a small child having a tantrum."
He can feel Sherlock glaring at him through the door. There's a sigh which doesn't forgive him in the slightest.
"Overly insulting, if strictly true."
John's jeans and boxers come off in a handful of very unpleasant shoves. He really is soaked all the way through. He knew he shouldn't have gone out today.
"You'd think with all your vast intelligence you'd be able to think of a more mature way to get rid of him."
There's a thud and John knows Sherlock has just leant back against his door, probably in some sort of dramatic pose that's currently completely wasted on him.
"Why, when I've already accomplished the end goal. He's gone."
"Not today," John points out. Because Mycroft is quite clearly still here.
There's a thud of angry shoulders against the door.
"I was working on that."
"You can live with your brother until the rain stops, Sherlock."
Sherlock's strangled noise says clearly enough the fact that he 'can' is irrelevant. And John is being unnecessarily difficult in refusing to be a distraction. As if Mycroft is likely to be distracted away from his original purpose with whatever random or shiny thing Sherlock throws in front of him.
"Fine, but you can entertain him," Sherlock says, with the air of one talking through his teeth. He probably has his arms crossed as well.
It's worrying that today John seems to be the random and shiny thing.
"I'm not entertaining your brother. In fact I'm fairly sure Mycroft's old enough not to need constant entertainment. Which makes one of you at least."
"Maybe he thought there was entertainment to be had here," Sherlock grumbles.
John can hear the 'at my expense' that he doesn't say out loud. "Or maybe he thought you'd killed me and hidden the body."
Sherlock answering noise is loud and rude, which John knows means Sherlock would never do anything so stupid.
"My mistake, killed me and alreadydisposed of the body," John corrects.
"I doubt I'd be able to concentrate if you were decomposing under the floorboards." Sherlock sounds petulant but John thinks there's a sort of honesty there too. Sherlock-speak is sometimes difficult to translate into English.
"It's sweet that my mouldering corpse would disturb you," John says at last, digging for a clean jumper and failing to find one. "And I'm surprised you left Mycroft alone down there. He could be doing anything."
"That's a hideously transparent ploy to get rid of me," Sherlock complains. "I expect better from you."
John's too busy trying to find another pair of jeans to worry about whether he's capable of making Sherlock go and sit with his brother using complex psychology.
Or reverse psychology.
Some sort of psychology.
"Uh huh," he offers instead.
There's silence from the other side of the door - and then the sound of narrow feet heading hurriedly back downstairs.
John shakes his head and finishes getting changed in peace.
When he's dry and dressed again, he throws his wet clothes in the bathroom and heads downstairs. His hair's going to dry looking absolutely ridiculous and he's pulled out an old jumper that's a few sizes too big but he doesn't care.
Sherlock and Mycroft are now eyeing each other from opposite chairs, like jungle cats trying to decide the best time to go for the throat.
"Who wants a cup of tea?" John offers, to break the tension if nothing else.
"Yes," Sherlock says without looking up.
"Mycroft?"
Mycroft turns far enough to look at him, mouth stretching slowly into a smile. "That would be very nice, John, thank you."
John finds some cups which haven't been contaminated, or anywhere near any of Sherlock's recent experiments. Especially since he's fairly sure that Sherlock's last experiment involved pig intestines.
He even opens new milk and new sugar. Just in case.
Sherlock and Mycroft are talking in half-sentences and facial expressions. In a way which is, frankly, terrifying to watch. Neither of them seem to be winning at the moment, though John knows subtle, protracted warfare when he sees it.
He carries all three mugs back to where the both of them are sitting.
"Thank you," Mycroft says when he slips his free with no trouble at all, giving the impression he juggles scalding mugs all the time. Sherlock manages not to spill any of his, even though he's slouching, and barely looks up when John hovers into range. John can't help but wonder if he was ever hauled up by the collar as a child.
Probably not. Or at least only ever once. He's clearly developed a fierce hatred for sitting up straight either way.
John takes his own tea to the other chair, pulling it out and sinking into it. He runs a hand though his damp hair in the vain hope of leaving it something that isn't the latest in 'escaped mental patient.'
"I don't know how long you're planning to wait for the rain to stop, Mycroft, but I don't think you're going to get lucky anytime soon."
"Though you have an umbrella," Sherlock reminds him flatly.
"Sherlock," John says again.
"I'm simply pointing out that it's an option -"
The entire flat abruptly goes dark.
There's a moment of pointed silence, and a flash of lightning that leaves the room briefly illuminated. Just long enough for John to catch the expression on Sherlock's face.
"I told you I needed a back-up generator." Sherlock's voice is irritated in the darkness.
"It's just a power cut," John insists, before Sherlock can start planning for the apocalypse in his own over-excited way. "It probably won't last long."
The tiny noise from Mycroft somewhere to his left holds a wealth of disagreement that John can't help but read into.
"Or maybe it will." John leaves his tea by the side of the chair where he's sure no one's going to kick it and finds his way to the kitchen. He manoeuvres round one of Sherlock's mountainous and questionably important stacks of paper. He's doing fine until the paper on the floor moves under him - threatens to send him sliding suddenly sideways. His flailing hand finds another one, surprisingly strong, and he manages not to crash into anything or end up on the floor in the time it takes to right himself. He assumes it's Sherlock. Until he remembers that Sherlock doesn't wear a ring.
Also, Sherlock is making unhappy noises three feet behind him.
"Thanks," John says awkwardly, mostly to the darkness.
"Where's my phone?" Sherlock demands.
John nearly walks into the edge of the table. It's ridiculous, he's walked through the flat a hundred times, negotiating Sherlock's experiments and Sherlock himself, and now suddenly he has no idea how far away everything is.
"Did you charge your phone?" he calls back.
"No."
John nods where no one can see him. "Then it's still on the sofa, where you threw it in disgust when the battery died."
John hears Sherlock get up and stride over to the sofa, seemingly without a problem. Of course Sherlock has memorised exactly where everything is. Of course.
The kitchen is completely dark and it occurs to John that he should have brought his phone to at least reduce the risk of giving himself a head injury on one of the cupboards. He manages to flail around with a hand and smacks his knuckles against at least four things.
"Sherlock, tell me we have candles?"
"First drawer on the left - "
John's fumbling in the depths of it looking for the familiar feel of wax when something thumps in the living room. Though thankfully not loudly enough to suggest Sherlock has fallen over the furniture.
"No, the second, the ones in the first drawer are experimental and prone to causing hallucinations."
John stops reaching, withdraws his hand with the caution of a man who expects to suddenly find far worse things than candles inside.
"Sherlock, what did I tell you about dangerous, experimental things and the helpful art of labelling."
"They're not dangerous," Sherlock protests from somewhere further away than before. John assumes he's getting the lighter off the mantelpiece.
When John stumbles his way back his flailing hand finds a narrow waist and his chin finds a bony shoulder.
"Ow."
Sherlock's hands come up and find his upraised hand and his chin.
"I thought your night vision was supposed to be good?"
"Good night vision takes roughly twenty minutes. And you were blocking out all the visible light," John accuses, smacking his hands away. "Stop prodding me."
There's a faint but audible laugh from John's left that suggests Mycroft is finding this all very amusing.
John manages to find his chair without falling and Sherlock flicks the lighter on and provides illumination to get the candles on the table. Sherlock lights them with an expression of deep unhappiness. While John spends a moment fixing them to the table with little pools of wax.
"I have several experiments in the fridge that are now likely to be completely ruined," Sherlock complains. "A reliable temperature-controlled environment really isn't much to ask."
"You wanted to keep the generator in the bathroom," John points out. Because anyone who can't see that that isn't an acceptable place for vast amounts of electricity isn't as clever as they think they are.
Sherlock's pouting via candlelight and John has never seen anything so ridiculous.
"It wouldn't fit in the kitchen."
"This is why we can't have nice things," John mutters under his breath. Then slightly louder "At least I managed to make tea before the power went out."
He reaches down the side of the chair and picks his mug up again.
"If I was with anyone else I'd suggest someone tell a story."
"Suggesting that we're not ordinary people," Sherlock says huffily, throwing himself back into his chair.
"No, Sherlock, you're not ordinary people, and don't even pretend you're insulted by that." John knows damn well that Sherlock's irritable 'take offence at everything and act like a five year old,' mood is almost certainly a protest at Mycroft's presence.
"So why did you even suggest it?"
"I thought it would be an alternative to sitting here watching you two glare at each other like vampires in the dark until the rain stops."
"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.
"Has it ever occurred to you that they're cliches for a reason?"
"Laziness," Sherlock offers. "Why tread a new path through the jungle when one has been helpfully hacked out for you."
It occurs to John that trying to tell any sort of story in a room with two men who can probably see every moment of it coming is a little ridiculous.
"You're probably right," John says, and stares at the steam coming out of his mug.
"Contrary to his own opinion Sherlock is not, in fact, always right," Mycroft offers. He still has his tea balanced in one hand, grey suit oddly luminous in the candlelight. He looks rather more like a vampire than Sherlock at the moment.
"Being right all the time would be an exceedingly unpleasant way to exist," Sherlock concedes. Which is surprising enough considering Mycroft was the one who suggested it. John would have expected him to protest just to be contrary.
"You only need to be right 95% of the time," John explains. "The other 5% you're happy to be wrong as long as everyone else is more wrong."
Mycroft hums in his throat in subtle agreement.
Sherlock pouts at them both but doesn't argue against the truth of it.
"John," Mycroft crosses his legs again. "I for one would be interested in hearing something that you consider strange and unusual."
"I don't want to bore Sherlock," John says, and he's half aware how ridiculous that sounds.
Mycroft turns his head back to his brother and there's a brief, complicated and completely wordless argument, which ends with Sherlock looking both irritated and chastised.
"Fine, I bow to the occasion, John, by all means, please tell your situationally appropriate ghost story."
John folds his hands round his mug, feels the warmth of the tea seep into his fingers.
He squints at the pair of them, but they're both silently watching him. Sherlock's even steepled his fingers like he's actually paying attention. Or willing to fake it.
It's more than a little unnerving. Though John supposes he's the one who brought it up, even if he is a little sorry that he had done now. He decides the only way to avoid cliches that both Holmes' will see a mile off, is to share something that's true.
John clears his throat.
John
The Three Knocks
"One of the men I joined the army with, Steve Finch, he had a sister, Heather, who was only a couple of years younger than him. He was always roping her into things, like older siblings tend to do. But she adored him, so it wasn't really that hard. One evening when their dad was out they decided they were going to copy something they'd seen on TV."
John drags one of his feet up under him and glances sideways at Sherlock. He's still watching him with a lazy sort of curiosity, all flickering shadows and untidy hair.
John takes a breath and continues. "There was a hypnotist, I don't remember the name of the program but I knew which one he meant at the time. Steve managed to convince Heather to let him hypnotise her - on the understanding that he didn't make her do anything stupid, of course. She had her friend Katie there just in case, probably because, adoring little sister or not, she understood that fifteen year old boys are going to take any opportunity to make their younger siblings do stupid things."
Sherlock glares at Mycroft with quiet venom.
"So, yes, Steve and a couple of his friends, Martin and Ben, decided that hypnotising his twelve year old sister would be a fantastic idea."
"I thought you said she was two years younger?" Sherlock says, he's dragged both his feet up in his chair, heels crushing the cushions.
John frowns at him. "I said a couple."
"Which is two."
John exhales
"Alright then, a few," he says stiffly. "Are you going to interrupt constantly?"
"I can't help it, if you're not going to be consistent."
"I think ghost stories are allowed a little flexibility for artistic interpretation," Mycroft says quietly.
Sherlock scowls at his brother in a way which suggests his opinion doesn't, or shouldn't count.
"They are if they're completely made up. If they're based in truth, as we're clearly supposed to believe this one is, then they should endeavour to be coherent."
"I never said it happened to me, and I heard it a long time ago," John protests. "I can't be expected to get everything absolutely right."
Sherlock throws up a hand. "So now it's hearsay?"
"Sherlock, do shut up," Mycroft says calmly.
Sherlock glares at him, and then sighs theatrically and sprawls back in the chair. "Fine, carry on with your inconsistent ghost story."
John sighs and honestly wonders again if it's worth it.
"John, please do carry on," Mycroft says quietly.
John drinks a mouthful of tea and exhales.
"Steve's friend Martin had gotten a book from the library -"
"The Young Adult's Guide to Hypnotism, no doubt," Sherlock says snippily.
John raises both eyebrows meaningfully at him. Sherlock sighs and then waves a hand for him to continue.
"I can't remember what it was but I'm fairly sure it wasn't the Young Adult's Guide to Hypnotism. It gave a fair enough account of the basic procedure. They sat Heather in a chair in the middle of the room, brought the ticking clock in close. Steve said that his friends kept breaking into laughter and no one could quite make themselves sound serious enough to do the whole 'you're getting sleepy' bit. I don't think they really expected it to work, hoped it would definitely, but actually thought it would, absolutely not."
John drums his fingers on his mug, tries to remember the details exactly. Because it's been a hell of a long time since he's last shared this particular story.
"But it did work, Steve said it took a few minutes, but then Heather was gone. She was staring into space, completely unresponsive. Martin, Ben and Heather's friend Kate thought she was pretending, which is an understandable assumption to make when you're a kid doing something silly."
Sherlock's legs stretch out on the carpet. Feet a glint of pale skin in the darkness. "The most logical assumption, if you're going by convention would be that she kills someone while in a hypnotised state."
"She doesn’t kill anyone, Sherlock." John doesn't quite sound irritated but only just.
"Slightly below murder, possibly higher if we're assuming a supernatural twist to your supposed true story, is that she ends up possessed," Sherlock tries.
John sighs through his nose.
"Sherlock, would you please stop guessing how it's going to end."
Sherlock grumbles something and slumps lower in his chair. "I don't know how I can be expected to make a sensible guess at the probable conclusion if you're allowing for the supernatural anyway."
John's quiet until Sherlock stops making noise.
"They went through a few things, made Heather touch her nose, make animal noises, repeat sentences. Steve thought it would be funny to get her to answer every sentence with the phrase 'answer the door.' It was some sort of in-joke in their family. Something her parents always said to her because she was always nosy about visitors, always had to get to the door first. But mostly there was apparently a lot of laughter. That sort of half scared, half excited and half nervous laughter you get when you know you're doing something you shouldn’t."
"That's three halves." Sherlock feels compelled to point out.
John glares at him.
"Steve eventually worked out that there are only so many things you can make a hypnotised person do before it all gets a bit silly."
"Clearly he wasn't very imaginative," Sherlock offers. John realises that that wasn't directed at him. Mycroft raises an eyebrow at his brother in a way that manages to be agreement and feigned innocence all at the same time. John hadn't even known that expression was possible.
"Yes, well, Steve was clearly very normal and didn't harbour any secret desires to take over the world or build his own zombie army." John makes a note somewhere in his head, 'never let either of them hypnotise me, for any reason, at all.'
Then he drinks his tea and tries to get the details straight in his head.
"She was supposed to come back on three knocks. That was the signal for her to wake up again. The whole 'you'll wake at the sound of three knocks.'"
"Only she didn't," Mycroft offers casually.
John eyeballs him, but there's no smugness there, just quiet, patient interest.
"No, she didn't. Steve tried the wake up command followed by the knocks, a dozen, two dozen times. Heather just stood there like a blank doll repeating the phrase 'answer the door' whenever anyone spoke to her. The book had told them that people couldn't get 'stuck' in a hypnotised state, that it was impossible. That even if they were unresponsive at first, they'd come out naturally within a few minutes. They waited twenty minutes, then half an hour.
Steve said that's about the time he started panicking. They splashed water on her face, shook her, took her out into the fresh air, made her lay down, put loud music on. When they hit an hour Steve even slapped her to try and bring her out of it. She didn't even react to that. He said he wasn't exactly gentle about it either. He was scared and he swears he didn't mean to but he slapped her hard. It did absolutely nothing though. 'Answer the door,' was all she'd say, for an hour, over and over. Like she'd gotten stuck in a loop. Staring at them and barely blinking." John takes a second to remember how Steve had sounded when he'd told the story, voice thin and unsteady with a sort of half disbelieving bewilderment. It had genuinely felt like he'd been scared telling it. That it still had the power to scare him even years later. One of those situations it even felt wrong to look back and try to laugh at.
John rubs the back of his neck, the back of his jumper's still slightly damp.
"Steve tells the story better, since he was there when it all happened. He still remembers what it felt like. He still remembers being scared while it was all happening. He was absolutely convinced that he'd broken her."
John sets his empty mug down on the floor.
"Steve's friends weren't even sure they wanted to be there any more. So now Steve's terrified, and Katie's crying her eyes out. And then Heather starts bleeding. It just starts running out of her ear and her nose."
"From the slap, no doubt," Sherlock offers, though there's no eye roll to accompany the opinion this time.
John nods. "That's what Steve thinks now. But then, while it was happening all they knew was that she just suddenly started bleeding in front of them. So now they have his twelve year old sister that they've hypnotised and they can't get her out of it - she's completely unresponsive, keeps repeating the same phrase over and over. And now she's bleeding with no obvious cause.
There's an argument about whether to call an ambulance and whether that will get Steve in trouble. Though I don't think they had any idea what they were going to tell them when they got there. Martin thinks she's possessed at this stage, which I'd imagine is exactly the sort of thing you want to suggest to a group of already hysterical teenagers."
The rain briefly tries to drown out all sound with a thunderous rush against the windows. As if it's decided suddenly to make an attempt at invading the flat. John's honestly surprised that neither of the Holmes' use the silence to make an observation, or tell him how bored they are.
"They have an argument about what exactly they're going to do, when they realise Heather's not there any more...and the front door's open. Steve nearly dislocates his own shoulder getting out of it. They find Heather standing in the middle of the road, right in the middle of it at gone seven at night - and to this day Steve has no idea how she got out there - he swears they looked away from her for a minute at the very most. Though I'm willing to believe it was longer. Time can get away from you in situations like that. They were lucky they didn't live on a busy road, she could easily have been hit by a car. But they manage to take her back into the house and Steve said he actually felt physically sick at this point. At half seven their older sister Vicki gets home from work, knocks on the door -"
"The knocks wake her up, obviously," Sherlock says.
John glares at him. "Sherlock, are you telling this story, or am I?"
Sherlock sighs and throws his arms out sideways.
"Fine, fine, continue."
"Honestly, you must have been absolutely impossible to read bedtime stories to."
"Oh, he was," Mycroft says. "Always trying to turn the page to see what happened next."
John can't help the surprised cough of laughter at that. Sherlock does nothing but roll his eyes at the pair of them.
"Anyway, Heather didn't snap out of it when Vicki got home." He spares a glare for Sherlock. "Instead she gets worse, I don't remember who noticed it first but now her pupils had started oscillating back and forth."
"Nystagmus," Sherlock offers, like there was a medical index in his head that was just waiting to be rifled through. "Most commonly caused by drug use, a brain tumour or seizure. Which, under the circumstances, suggests some sort of epileptic event rather than true hypnosis."
"Yes, thank you, I came to that conclusion myself, eventually," John says. He can't even be bothered to be irritated any more. Sherlock's compulsion sometimes feels as involuntary as a nervous tic.
Mycroft clears his throat, quietly.
"But I'd imagine they almost certainly thought she was possessed then," Sherlock adds, reluctantly. John's fairly sure that he's just witnessed the Mycroft Holmes equivalent of a swift kick in the arse. It occurs to John that if Sherlock learned subtlety from Mycroft then it's no wonder the rest of the world seems so loud and obvious and obnoxious.
"Yes," John continues. "Steve admitted that they were all pretty much useless by then, they wanted to call an ambulance, or a priest - though none of them were quite sure where you got a priest from - Vicki wanted to call their dad, though he was due home from work about then anyway. God knows what their dad eventually came home to, but he probably assumed the worst."
John shifts in the chair.
"That's when she came out, though she didn't just snap out of it. She came out fuzzy and confused, tired. For a minute she didn't know who any of them were. They took her to the doctor, but as far as I know, nothing like that ever happened again. Though Steve still calls it 'that time I broke my sister.'"
The rain has a moment of enthusiasm against the windows and the candles flutter when Sherlock shifts his legs.
"That was a terrible story," Sherlock says. "Badly structured with questionable conclusions. You omitted important details and it definitely lacked a certain amount of dramatic tension. Also, there was no unexpected twist ending, I'm disappointed in you, John."
John raises an eyebrow at him. Because he'd almost been expecting that.
"Real life tends not to have twist endings," he says. "Sometimes creepy things just happen for no reason. People are funny like that. Also, there's not always a Scooby Doo moment at the end where the villain is dramatically unmasked."
Sherlock looks blank.
Mycroft shifts in his seat. "Though, the one thing it did tend to get right. The villain is almost always human at the end."
For some reason, John honestly hadn't expected Mycroft to know who Scooby Doo was either, and he's laughing before he realises it. It's a quick, surprised laugh which makes the candle flames flicker.
Sherlock scowls at both of them.
"And there was no ghost in your ghost story," he adds. There's something in his voice that sounds almost smug at the fact that he's discovered a flaw. Like someone was going to be disqualified for it.
"I never said there was, you assumed because I said it was creepy and it's Halloween, that there would be a ghost. What do you always tell me about working on assumptions?" John tuts at him for effect.
Sherlock's face is a thing of beauty, John thinks perhaps he'd just won a rare and precious point off of the great detective.
Sherlock surprises him by letting him have it with a huff and a roll of his eyes.
"I suspect the moral of the story is 'don't experiment on your younger siblings,'" he grumbles and John doesn't miss the look he shoots across the room.
Mycroft sighs very quietly. "Are you still holding a grudge over that? It was a very long time ago, and, as I recall you did volunteer for it."
Sherlock's heels rock on the floor in a way that's clearly angry. "You left out pertinent information."
"Which would have voided the results if I'd told you."
"My right hand was numb for a full day. I could conceivably have chopped my fingers off and never noticed."
"And yet here you are with all your fingers intact," Mycroft points out.
Sherlock narrows his eyes. "You continue to protest that you never had an 'experiment on small animals stage.' I will continue to disagree, you simply didn't use animals."
Mycroft sighs and tips his head forward in something that's almost amusement but not quite. As if Sherlock hasn't just accused him of being a sociopath too.
John shakes his head.
"I'm going to consider myself lucky that Harry didn't have any sort of interest in science or engineering. So, y'know, normal, boring sibling rivalry. No one got experimented on. Nothing ever blew up."
There's a very brief, almost unnoticeable twitch and a sidelong glance from Mycroft. John really isn't surprised at all that Sherlock is the one that had a callous disregard for chemical reactions. Though he's tempted to wonder what Mycroft got caught doing. If he ever got caught. That would explain a lot actually.
Harry had once threatened to put John inside a tumble dryer when he was younger. He can't remember for the life of him what had brought that on. Possibly that happened the time he'd gotten marmalade all over the hair of her favourite Barbie.
"I never actually blew it up," Sherlock says tightly.
"I believe the correct term is 'firebomb,'" Mycroft says. "But to an inexperienced observer there's really very little difference."
"A minor miscalculation," Sherlock says, half to John and half irritated, giving the impression this is something he's already protested a number of times, and will continue to protest every time Mycroft brings it up.
"I think I'd like to hear that story." John thinks he's says that mostly under his breath but Sherlock twists his head round.
"No, you wouldn’t, it really isn't very interesting at all."
"It's quite interesting," Mycroft says, all half smile and threat. Two expressions which really shouldn't go together and certainly not so well.
"If you tell him about that I shall tell him about the library incident," Sherlock says stiffly.
Mycroft spreads his hands and leans back, surrendering gracefully. John knows those sort of stories well. He and Harry have a few of them.
"And thank you for the story, John," Mycroft adds.
"Even though it wasn't very exciting." John should probably be annoyed how much that sounds like an apology. But now he thinks it's only fair that someone else tell a story, since he told a story. Especially since it's still heaving it down, with the occasional rumble of thunder and bright fork of lightning off in the distance.
Sherlock shakes his head.
"Oh, the story doesn't matter. Because it's not the story itself so much as the way you tell it. Where you pause, the emphasis you place on words, the detail or lack of detail, moments that affect you personally opposed to moments where your voice doesn't change at all. How you tell a story gives away a surprising number of things about the person you are."
John realises he's waiting for the punch line, waiting for Sherlock to tell him something he's discovered about him during the storytelling, something he doesn’t know about himself yet. Sherlock raises an eyebrow, like he knows exactly what John's thinking and he's not going to be predictable for once. Which means he'll probably tell him later, at some more inappropriate time, probably in front of the police. Or someone he's trying to ask out.
John wonders if it's at all possible to make that not happen. Decides probably not.
For all that Sherlock seems oblivious sometimes he appears to have paid special attention, and possible underlined the word 'cock-blocking' in the dictionary.
"Stop looking at me like I'm an exam paper," John says.
"Why do I get told off for looking at you? Mycroft's looking at you too."
"Not so much in that 'I'd quite like to cut you open and see how you work' way."
"Oh, he looks at people like that too," Sherlock protests. "It's just how he normally looks, that's why you don't notice it."
John catches himself turning to look at Mycroft and then stops, because he's not rising to the bait.
"Also, I don't have to clean up after him, or find his phone, or fish things out of his pockets at a moment's notice, or remove his disgusting experiments from the kitchen appliances."
"That wasn't disgusting it was a time-lapse experiment in desiccation."
Which Sherlock had had a truly epic flounce over when he'd realised John had thrown it away.
"It was a dried frog," John says flatly, because there's no getting around that fact.
"It was important." Sherlock insists. He'd insisted that at the time as well. John hadn't quite believed him. At the time it had seemed more like one of those things Sherlock did because he was curious and because he could, rather than something that was essential to solving a mystery.
"And it ended up in the food processor."
"Oh, but of course Mycroft would keep his experiments in an appropriate place," Sherlock snaps and folds his arms.
"In a secret laboratory under the stairs, perhaps?" Mycroft offers.
"There isn't room under the stairs," Sherlock says, like that should be obvious to anyone. He frowns and looks up, gauging ceiling space.
"That would be my room - " John shakes his head the second Sherlock opens his mouth " - and no, you're not building a secret laboratory in my room. Neither of you are building a secret laboratory anywhere in the flat."
Sherlock sighs, throws his feet up on the table again, candles juddering and throwing odd shadows everywhere.
"I need more tea," Sherlock decides.
"Power's off." John almost adds a 'genius' to the end of that, but he suspects Sherlock will choose not to hear the sarcasm.
"If we had a generator that wouldn’t be a problem."
"Not until you can learn how to follow basic safety procedures," John says calmly. He suspects this is an argument they're going to be having more than once.
Sherlock simply grunts. "There's a mini blow torch in that basket of paper, boil the water with that."
John twists his head until he can see behind him. The basket is a blur in the darkness. The fact that he half expects it to be on fire isn't funny in the slightest.
"Why is there a mini blow torch in a basket of paper - no, sorry, I'm going to repeat that, why is there a mini blow torch in a basket of paper?"
Sherlock stretches a foot out and pokes John in the leg with his bare toes. Which he seems to think is the universal signal for 'that is not important, tea is important.'
"Oh for heaven's sake." John pulls himself up out of the chair and collects their mugs. Then goes down on one knee and digs in the dark mess of files and envelopes and paper until he pulls out the cold curve of metal and plastic. He flicks it on to prove it works. Then he tugs one of the candles off the table with his other hand and carries it to the kitchen, grumbling complaint all the way.
He fixes the candle to the side so he can see while he looks for a small enough saucepan that it isn't going to take him hours.
"Is this thing even going to last long enough to boil water?" he calls.
"Probably," Sherlock decides. "I was using it the other day."
John looks at it, but there's no suspicious marks on it.
"What were you using it for?" Because it's Sherlock and so he has to ask. Whether he comes to regret it or not.
There's a rather incriminating sort of quiet from behind him.
"Sherlock?"
He turns around and Sherlock is frowning.
"I'm fairly sure you wouldn't approve," he says, nose wrinkled up. Though there's a suggestion that he'd quite like to tell John what he was doing with the blow torch because it was something fascinating and marvellous.
John frowns and shakes his head and turns it on. He spends what feels like an irritatingly long time standing in the kitchen with a blow torch held against the bottom of a saucepan while Sherlock complains about the inefficiency of the National Grid, and Mycroft makes the occasional agreeable noise and weathers the odd carefully barbed insult. Mycroft seems to be resisting all Sherlock's efforts to lure him into conversation, or verbal warfare. Instead he retrieves his phone and gives it his full attention. Rescheduling meetings, or possibly ordering assassinations. John assumes running the country - or possibly the world, honestly he wouldn’t be surprised - is a full time job, no matter how much rain or lightning tries to ruin your evening.
Though the full moon was on the twentieth so no glorious horror movie hat trick for them tonight. Or would a black cat make a hat trick. Does a black cat trump a full moon? Or would they need a pumpkin? John's never been all that interested in Halloween. A pumpkin, he decides eventually. Because if they had a black cat Sherlock would probably just experiment on it.
The water is boiling, half-heartedly but boiling nonetheless. John finds the tea and the milk in the dark and does his best to work around the temporary collapse of modern society. Before carrying all three cups back to the table.
Mycroft clears his throat, expression thoughtful.
"Oh, not you as well," Sherlock says, sounding somewhere between frustrated and disbelieving. The candlelight gives his tilted down head a sharp, sinister quality.
"The weather still seems disinclined to let a sane man out in it. And since John has generously attempted to pass the time I thought it couldn't hurt."
"You don't know any ghost stories, you're hideously pragmatic," Sherlock says snippily. "No imagination at all."
"Oh, it's not a ghost story. But then that isn't the point, is it -" Mycroft turns his head to look at John. " - it's simply the inexplicable, the disturbing or the unnatural that's required. Whether you find the story unsettling or honestly frightening is completely subjective. But I have some experience with a case that fits all of the above."
Sherlock rolls his eyes and utters something under his breath about 'unnecessary drama.'
"I'd like to hear it," John says, because Sherlock's too far away to kick in the shins - not that he would do something so aggressively childish, but sometimes it's a nice thought.
"I'm not sure I've ever attempted to structure the events of that day in a way that would be considered entertaining -"
Sherlock's irritated noise cuts Mycroft's sentence in half.
"Oh, get on with it if you must, Mycroft, preferably before you bore us both to tears."
Mycroft raises an eyebrow at his brother, but doesn't comment.
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.
AN: I decided to write something short and fun for Halloween, something with ghost stories. Short turned into long but I was having far too much fun indulging myself. And then the lovely and amazing miya_tenaka did artwork for the story and I felt very spoiled indeed.
The world is trying its level best to sweep humanity away in a terrible flood. Or at least that's what it feels like as John makes his way home in the dark. The rain is falling so heavy and so fast that he can't see more than a foot in front of him. It's running through the gutters almost ankle deep in rushing streams, and even this far away from the curb he's absolutely soaked. It's gone all the way through his jacket, his jeans, his boots. Every inch of him is cold and sore and has wet fabric stuck fast to it. He's fairly sure he's not getting a taxi either, since the entire population of London has decided it has a sudden and desperate need for one. Not that he could see to find one anyway, since he's been walking into the rain for the last ten minutes, eyeballs stinging like buggery.
So much for a cold but dry Halloween. John's never listening to anyone proclaiming to be a weatherman again. Judging by Mrs Hudson's 'better take a brolly, dear' this morning she was a more reliable source of information. He might as well just start asking her what the weather's going to be like before he goes out.
Lightning briefly outlines the sky overhead in jagged flashes. The echoing grumble of thunder comes roughly six seconds after it. If John's very lucky he'll make it home before he's deafened or struck by lightning. Which is a nice, comforting thought.
He continues to splash through what used to be the pavement, tread heavy - and squelchy, god how he hates that familiar squelch on every step. It's almost impossible to get into a good rhythm when water is sloshing around temperamentally inside your boots.
He's so far beyond wet when he reaches the front door that he's not entirely sure he's going to be able to get his key in the lock. Though that apparently doesn't matter, because he barely has it half raised before the door opens anyway.
John squints curiously at Sherlock's narrow frame between the rivulets of rain water coming out of his hair and eyelashes. Because John had thought that opening the door for people was a skill Sherlock hadn't mastered yet. That had always been one of those things other people were for.
Sherlock's perfectly dry, and judging by his hair and the fact that he's not wearing any shoes, he hasn't even ventured out today. He'd probably spent most of it sprawled artistically on the sofa watching things he hated on TV because he couldn't be bothered to get up and change the channel.
"You're late," Sherlock says. Which might - if stretched a little - be Sherlock speak for 'I was worried' or it might just as likely be Sherlock speak for 'there was no one around to make me tea.'
John can't really see his watch beneath the mess of water and sleeve, but he thinks it's about eight o'clock.
"Not by much - are you going to let me in or am I going to have to soak you?" he threatens.
Sherlock grunts and moves back so John can step inside out of the rain. It's still almost as loud when he pushes the door shut as it was when he was standing outside in it. John can hear it drumming on the door and the windows, and possibly still the inside of his own head. The flash of lightning is almost immediately followed by the heavy shake of thunder.
"I'm lucky I made it back before the storm was right overhead."
"The chances of being struck by lightning -"
"Don't tell me," John says and then carefully pushes off his soaking wet coat and shakes it, hard enough for Sherlock to draw back a step and pull a face. "I don't want to know how close I came to being fried on my way back, thank you very much."
He hangs his coat up downstairs, because he'd rather not have Sherlock throw it on the furniture in the flat. Not that the furniture hasn't had worse, but it's the principle of the thing. They don't need exciting cultures of mould to add to their collection. There's already an experiment in mould going on under the sink that John has so far resisted asking about. He's not entirely sure whether it's on purpose on not.
John eyes the wet umbrella in the stand.
Something occurs to him.
"We have an umbrella stand, since when?"
"Mycroft's here," Sherlock says tightly, as if that's the far more important observation than how long they've had an umbrella stand. John's still amazed how Sherlock can make his brother's name sound like some sort of horrible plague.
"He's insisting that he can't leave until it stops raining."
"Seems sensible enough, it's pissing down out there." John's tempted to shake his head as well but it's probably not going to do much but make his brain hurt and Sherlock's probably too quick to be caught in the shower of second-hand rain anyway.
Sherlock pouts, he honest-to-god pouts. "It's an excuse, and I told him he has an umbrella."
"There's lightning, Sherlock, that's not nice."
"With all the choice spires in London to ground itself on it's unlikely to pick one ridiculous umbrella."
"Don't sound so disappointed," John says and then heads upstairs, because much as Sherlock would probably like to stalk the front door and ignore his brother until some fiendish and dramatic crime happens, John's not that impolite.
He squidges his way into the flat proper. More than aware that he's running water and everything he's wearing is stuck flat to him. He suspects that isn't a flattering look for him at all. Diminishing, and he's not exactly working with extra there to start with.
Mycroft's seated in his usual chair, which is normally John's. He's also managing to make near-perfect posture look like careful relaxation, one leg folded over the other. He turns his head at the sound of shoes squelching.
"Ah, John, it's still raining I see."
"'Raining' is certainly one word for it," John agrees.
He's making a small wet pool on the carpet around his shoes.
"Yes, well, I'm just going to - dry off," he offers, before remembering, belatedly, that he doesn't actually need Mycroft's permission for that.
Sherlock follows him upstairs, quietly complaining all the way. When John pointedly walks him outside the bedroom door again and then shuts it, he continues his complaining through the wood at a slightly louder volume.
"Mycroft likes you better, because you offer him tea and biscuits."
John peels off his jumper and shirt and drops them in a soggy heap, leaving sad dribbles of water everywhere. "And you tend to throw things at him if he stays too long. Like a small child having a tantrum."
He can feel Sherlock glaring at him through the door. There's a sigh which doesn't forgive him in the slightest.
"Overly insulting, if strictly true."
John's jeans and boxers come off in a handful of very unpleasant shoves. He really is soaked all the way through. He knew he shouldn't have gone out today.
"You'd think with all your vast intelligence you'd be able to think of a more mature way to get rid of him."
There's a thud and John knows Sherlock has just leant back against his door, probably in some sort of dramatic pose that's currently completely wasted on him.
"Why, when I've already accomplished the end goal. He's gone."
"Not today," John points out. Because Mycroft is quite clearly still here.
There's a thud of angry shoulders against the door.
"I was working on that."
"You can live with your brother until the rain stops, Sherlock."
Sherlock's strangled noise says clearly enough the fact that he 'can' is irrelevant. And John is being unnecessarily difficult in refusing to be a distraction. As if Mycroft is likely to be distracted away from his original purpose with whatever random or shiny thing Sherlock throws in front of him.
"Fine, but you can entertain him," Sherlock says, with the air of one talking through his teeth. He probably has his arms crossed as well.
It's worrying that today John seems to be the random and shiny thing.
"I'm not entertaining your brother. In fact I'm fairly sure Mycroft's old enough not to need constant entertainment. Which makes one of you at least."
"Maybe he thought there was entertainment to be had here," Sherlock grumbles.
John can hear the 'at my expense' that he doesn't say out loud. "Or maybe he thought you'd killed me and hidden the body."
Sherlock answering noise is loud and rude, which John knows means Sherlock would never do anything so stupid.
"My mistake, killed me and alreadydisposed of the body," John corrects.
"I doubt I'd be able to concentrate if you were decomposing under the floorboards." Sherlock sounds petulant but John thinks there's a sort of honesty there too. Sherlock-speak is sometimes difficult to translate into English.
"It's sweet that my mouldering corpse would disturb you," John says at last, digging for a clean jumper and failing to find one. "And I'm surprised you left Mycroft alone down there. He could be doing anything."
"That's a hideously transparent ploy to get rid of me," Sherlock complains. "I expect better from you."
John's too busy trying to find another pair of jeans to worry about whether he's capable of making Sherlock go and sit with his brother using complex psychology.
Or reverse psychology.
Some sort of psychology.
"Uh huh," he offers instead.
There's silence from the other side of the door - and then the sound of narrow feet heading hurriedly back downstairs.
John shakes his head and finishes getting changed in peace.
When he's dry and dressed again, he throws his wet clothes in the bathroom and heads downstairs. His hair's going to dry looking absolutely ridiculous and he's pulled out an old jumper that's a few sizes too big but he doesn't care.
Sherlock and Mycroft are now eyeing each other from opposite chairs, like jungle cats trying to decide the best time to go for the throat.
"Who wants a cup of tea?" John offers, to break the tension if nothing else.
"Yes," Sherlock says without looking up.
"Mycroft?"
Mycroft turns far enough to look at him, mouth stretching slowly into a smile. "That would be very nice, John, thank you."
John finds some cups which haven't been contaminated, or anywhere near any of Sherlock's recent experiments. Especially since he's fairly sure that Sherlock's last experiment involved pig intestines.
He even opens new milk and new sugar. Just in case.
Sherlock and Mycroft are talking in half-sentences and facial expressions. In a way which is, frankly, terrifying to watch. Neither of them seem to be winning at the moment, though John knows subtle, protracted warfare when he sees it.
He carries all three mugs back to where the both of them are sitting.
"Thank you," Mycroft says when he slips his free with no trouble at all, giving the impression he juggles scalding mugs all the time. Sherlock manages not to spill any of his, even though he's slouching, and barely looks up when John hovers into range. John can't help but wonder if he was ever hauled up by the collar as a child.
Probably not. Or at least only ever once. He's clearly developed a fierce hatred for sitting up straight either way.
John takes his own tea to the other chair, pulling it out and sinking into it. He runs a hand though his damp hair in the vain hope of leaving it something that isn't the latest in 'escaped mental patient.'
"I don't know how long you're planning to wait for the rain to stop, Mycroft, but I don't think you're going to get lucky anytime soon."
"Though you have an umbrella," Sherlock reminds him flatly.
"Sherlock," John says again.
"I'm simply pointing out that it's an option -"
The entire flat abruptly goes dark.
There's a moment of pointed silence, and a flash of lightning that leaves the room briefly illuminated. Just long enough for John to catch the expression on Sherlock's face.
"I told you I needed a back-up generator." Sherlock's voice is irritated in the darkness.
"It's just a power cut," John insists, before Sherlock can start planning for the apocalypse in his own over-excited way. "It probably won't last long."
The tiny noise from Mycroft somewhere to his left holds a wealth of disagreement that John can't help but read into.
"Or maybe it will." John leaves his tea by the side of the chair where he's sure no one's going to kick it and finds his way to the kitchen. He manoeuvres round one of Sherlock's mountainous and questionably important stacks of paper. He's doing fine until the paper on the floor moves under him - threatens to send him sliding suddenly sideways. His flailing hand finds another one, surprisingly strong, and he manages not to crash into anything or end up on the floor in the time it takes to right himself. He assumes it's Sherlock. Until he remembers that Sherlock doesn't wear a ring.
Also, Sherlock is making unhappy noises three feet behind him.
"Thanks," John says awkwardly, mostly to the darkness.
"Where's my phone?" Sherlock demands.
John nearly walks into the edge of the table. It's ridiculous, he's walked through the flat a hundred times, negotiating Sherlock's experiments and Sherlock himself, and now suddenly he has no idea how far away everything is.
"Did you charge your phone?" he calls back.
"No."
John nods where no one can see him. "Then it's still on the sofa, where you threw it in disgust when the battery died."
John hears Sherlock get up and stride over to the sofa, seemingly without a problem. Of course Sherlock has memorised exactly where everything is. Of course.
The kitchen is completely dark and it occurs to John that he should have brought his phone to at least reduce the risk of giving himself a head injury on one of the cupboards. He manages to flail around with a hand and smacks his knuckles against at least four things.
"Sherlock, tell me we have candles?"
"First drawer on the left - "
John's fumbling in the depths of it looking for the familiar feel of wax when something thumps in the living room. Though thankfully not loudly enough to suggest Sherlock has fallen over the furniture.
"No, the second, the ones in the first drawer are experimental and prone to causing hallucinations."
John stops reaching, withdraws his hand with the caution of a man who expects to suddenly find far worse things than candles inside.
"Sherlock, what did I tell you about dangerous, experimental things and the helpful art of labelling."
"They're not dangerous," Sherlock protests from somewhere further away than before. John assumes he's getting the lighter off the mantelpiece.
When John stumbles his way back his flailing hand finds a narrow waist and his chin finds a bony shoulder.
"Ow."
Sherlock's hands come up and find his upraised hand and his chin.
"I thought your night vision was supposed to be good?"
"Good night vision takes roughly twenty minutes. And you were blocking out all the visible light," John accuses, smacking his hands away. "Stop prodding me."
There's a faint but audible laugh from John's left that suggests Mycroft is finding this all very amusing.
John manages to find his chair without falling and Sherlock flicks the lighter on and provides illumination to get the candles on the table. Sherlock lights them with an expression of deep unhappiness. While John spends a moment fixing them to the table with little pools of wax.
"I have several experiments in the fridge that are now likely to be completely ruined," Sherlock complains. "A reliable temperature-controlled environment really isn't much to ask."
"You wanted to keep the generator in the bathroom," John points out. Because anyone who can't see that that isn't an acceptable place for vast amounts of electricity isn't as clever as they think they are.
Sherlock's pouting via candlelight and John has never seen anything so ridiculous.
"It wouldn't fit in the kitchen."
"This is why we can't have nice things," John mutters under his breath. Then slightly louder "At least I managed to make tea before the power went out."
He reaches down the side of the chair and picks his mug up again.
"If I was with anyone else I'd suggest someone tell a story."
"Suggesting that we're not ordinary people," Sherlock says huffily, throwing himself back into his chair.
"No, Sherlock, you're not ordinary people, and don't even pretend you're insulted by that." John knows damn well that Sherlock's irritable 'take offence at everything and act like a five year old,' mood is almost certainly a protest at Mycroft's presence.
"So why did you even suggest it?"
"I thought it would be an alternative to sitting here watching you two glare at each other like vampires in the dark until the rain stops."
"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.
"Has it ever occurred to you that they're cliches for a reason?"
"Laziness," Sherlock offers. "Why tread a new path through the jungle when one has been helpfully hacked out for you."
It occurs to John that trying to tell any sort of story in a room with two men who can probably see every moment of it coming is a little ridiculous.
"You're probably right," John says, and stares at the steam coming out of his mug.
"Contrary to his own opinion Sherlock is not, in fact, always right," Mycroft offers. He still has his tea balanced in one hand, grey suit oddly luminous in the candlelight. He looks rather more like a vampire than Sherlock at the moment.
"Being right all the time would be an exceedingly unpleasant way to exist," Sherlock concedes. Which is surprising enough considering Mycroft was the one who suggested it. John would have expected him to protest just to be contrary.
"You only need to be right 95% of the time," John explains. "The other 5% you're happy to be wrong as long as everyone else is more wrong."
Mycroft hums in his throat in subtle agreement.
Sherlock pouts at them both but doesn't argue against the truth of it.
"John," Mycroft crosses his legs again. "I for one would be interested in hearing something that you consider strange and unusual."
"I don't want to bore Sherlock," John says, and he's half aware how ridiculous that sounds.
Mycroft turns his head back to his brother and there's a brief, complicated and completely wordless argument, which ends with Sherlock looking both irritated and chastised.
"Fine, I bow to the occasion, John, by all means, please tell your situationally appropriate ghost story."
John folds his hands round his mug, feels the warmth of the tea seep into his fingers.
He squints at the pair of them, but they're both silently watching him. Sherlock's even steepled his fingers like he's actually paying attention. Or willing to fake it.
It's more than a little unnerving. Though John supposes he's the one who brought it up, even if he is a little sorry that he had done now. He decides the only way to avoid cliches that both Holmes' will see a mile off, is to share something that's true.
John clears his throat.
John
The Three Knocks
"One of the men I joined the army with, Steve Finch, he had a sister, Heather, who was only a couple of years younger than him. He was always roping her into things, like older siblings tend to do. But she adored him, so it wasn't really that hard. One evening when their dad was out they decided they were going to copy something they'd seen on TV."
John drags one of his feet up under him and glances sideways at Sherlock. He's still watching him with a lazy sort of curiosity, all flickering shadows and untidy hair.
John takes a breath and continues. "There was a hypnotist, I don't remember the name of the program but I knew which one he meant at the time. Steve managed to convince Heather to let him hypnotise her - on the understanding that he didn't make her do anything stupid, of course. She had her friend Katie there just in case, probably because, adoring little sister or not, she understood that fifteen year old boys are going to take any opportunity to make their younger siblings do stupid things."
Sherlock glares at Mycroft with quiet venom.
"So, yes, Steve and a couple of his friends, Martin and Ben, decided that hypnotising his twelve year old sister would be a fantastic idea."
"I thought you said she was two years younger?" Sherlock says, he's dragged both his feet up in his chair, heels crushing the cushions.
John frowns at him. "I said a couple."
"Which is two."
John exhales
"Alright then, a few," he says stiffly. "Are you going to interrupt constantly?"
"I can't help it, if you're not going to be consistent."
"I think ghost stories are allowed a little flexibility for artistic interpretation," Mycroft says quietly.
Sherlock scowls at his brother in a way which suggests his opinion doesn't, or shouldn't count.
"They are if they're completely made up. If they're based in truth, as we're clearly supposed to believe this one is, then they should endeavour to be coherent."
"I never said it happened to me, and I heard it a long time ago," John protests. "I can't be expected to get everything absolutely right."
Sherlock throws up a hand. "So now it's hearsay?"
"Sherlock, do shut up," Mycroft says calmly.
Sherlock glares at him, and then sighs theatrically and sprawls back in the chair. "Fine, carry on with your inconsistent ghost story."
John sighs and honestly wonders again if it's worth it.
"John, please do carry on," Mycroft says quietly.
John drinks a mouthful of tea and exhales.
"Steve's friend Martin had gotten a book from the library -"
"The Young Adult's Guide to Hypnotism, no doubt," Sherlock says snippily.
John raises both eyebrows meaningfully at him. Sherlock sighs and then waves a hand for him to continue.
"I can't remember what it was but I'm fairly sure it wasn't the Young Adult's Guide to Hypnotism. It gave a fair enough account of the basic procedure. They sat Heather in a chair in the middle of the room, brought the ticking clock in close. Steve said that his friends kept breaking into laughter and no one could quite make themselves sound serious enough to do the whole 'you're getting sleepy' bit. I don't think they really expected it to work, hoped it would definitely, but actually thought it would, absolutely not."
John drums his fingers on his mug, tries to remember the details exactly. Because it's been a hell of a long time since he's last shared this particular story.
"But it did work, Steve said it took a few minutes, but then Heather was gone. She was staring into space, completely unresponsive. Martin, Ben and Heather's friend Kate thought she was pretending, which is an understandable assumption to make when you're a kid doing something silly."
Sherlock's legs stretch out on the carpet. Feet a glint of pale skin in the darkness. "The most logical assumption, if you're going by convention would be that she kills someone while in a hypnotised state."
"She doesn’t kill anyone, Sherlock." John doesn't quite sound irritated but only just.
"Slightly below murder, possibly higher if we're assuming a supernatural twist to your supposed true story, is that she ends up possessed," Sherlock tries.
John sighs through his nose.
"Sherlock, would you please stop guessing how it's going to end."
Sherlock grumbles something and slumps lower in his chair. "I don't know how I can be expected to make a sensible guess at the probable conclusion if you're allowing for the supernatural anyway."
John's quiet until Sherlock stops making noise.
"They went through a few things, made Heather touch her nose, make animal noises, repeat sentences. Steve thought it would be funny to get her to answer every sentence with the phrase 'answer the door.' It was some sort of in-joke in their family. Something her parents always said to her because she was always nosy about visitors, always had to get to the door first. But mostly there was apparently a lot of laughter. That sort of half scared, half excited and half nervous laughter you get when you know you're doing something you shouldn’t."
"That's three halves." Sherlock feels compelled to point out.
John glares at him.
"Steve eventually worked out that there are only so many things you can make a hypnotised person do before it all gets a bit silly."
"Clearly he wasn't very imaginative," Sherlock offers. John realises that that wasn't directed at him. Mycroft raises an eyebrow at his brother in a way that manages to be agreement and feigned innocence all at the same time. John hadn't even known that expression was possible.
"Yes, well, Steve was clearly very normal and didn't harbour any secret desires to take over the world or build his own zombie army." John makes a note somewhere in his head, 'never let either of them hypnotise me, for any reason, at all.'
Then he drinks his tea and tries to get the details straight in his head.
"She was supposed to come back on three knocks. That was the signal for her to wake up again. The whole 'you'll wake at the sound of three knocks.'"
"Only she didn't," Mycroft offers casually.
John eyeballs him, but there's no smugness there, just quiet, patient interest.
"No, she didn't. Steve tried the wake up command followed by the knocks, a dozen, two dozen times. Heather just stood there like a blank doll repeating the phrase 'answer the door' whenever anyone spoke to her. The book had told them that people couldn't get 'stuck' in a hypnotised state, that it was impossible. That even if they were unresponsive at first, they'd come out naturally within a few minutes. They waited twenty minutes, then half an hour.
Steve said that's about the time he started panicking. They splashed water on her face, shook her, took her out into the fresh air, made her lay down, put loud music on. When they hit an hour Steve even slapped her to try and bring her out of it. She didn't even react to that. He said he wasn't exactly gentle about it either. He was scared and he swears he didn't mean to but he slapped her hard. It did absolutely nothing though. 'Answer the door,' was all she'd say, for an hour, over and over. Like she'd gotten stuck in a loop. Staring at them and barely blinking." John takes a second to remember how Steve had sounded when he'd told the story, voice thin and unsteady with a sort of half disbelieving bewilderment. It had genuinely felt like he'd been scared telling it. That it still had the power to scare him even years later. One of those situations it even felt wrong to look back and try to laugh at.
John rubs the back of his neck, the back of his jumper's still slightly damp.
"Steve tells the story better, since he was there when it all happened. He still remembers what it felt like. He still remembers being scared while it was all happening. He was absolutely convinced that he'd broken her."
John sets his empty mug down on the floor.
"Steve's friends weren't even sure they wanted to be there any more. So now Steve's terrified, and Katie's crying her eyes out. And then Heather starts bleeding. It just starts running out of her ear and her nose."
"From the slap, no doubt," Sherlock offers, though there's no eye roll to accompany the opinion this time.
John nods. "That's what Steve thinks now. But then, while it was happening all they knew was that she just suddenly started bleeding in front of them. So now they have his twelve year old sister that they've hypnotised and they can't get her out of it - she's completely unresponsive, keeps repeating the same phrase over and over. And now she's bleeding with no obvious cause.
There's an argument about whether to call an ambulance and whether that will get Steve in trouble. Though I don't think they had any idea what they were going to tell them when they got there. Martin thinks she's possessed at this stage, which I'd imagine is exactly the sort of thing you want to suggest to a group of already hysterical teenagers."
The rain briefly tries to drown out all sound with a thunderous rush against the windows. As if it's decided suddenly to make an attempt at invading the flat. John's honestly surprised that neither of the Holmes' use the silence to make an observation, or tell him how bored they are.
"They have an argument about what exactly they're going to do, when they realise Heather's not there any more...and the front door's open. Steve nearly dislocates his own shoulder getting out of it. They find Heather standing in the middle of the road, right in the middle of it at gone seven at night - and to this day Steve has no idea how she got out there - he swears they looked away from her for a minute at the very most. Though I'm willing to believe it was longer. Time can get away from you in situations like that. They were lucky they didn't live on a busy road, she could easily have been hit by a car. But they manage to take her back into the house and Steve said he actually felt physically sick at this point. At half seven their older sister Vicki gets home from work, knocks on the door -"
"The knocks wake her up, obviously," Sherlock says.
John glares at him. "Sherlock, are you telling this story, or am I?"
Sherlock sighs and throws his arms out sideways.
"Fine, fine, continue."
"Honestly, you must have been absolutely impossible to read bedtime stories to."
"Oh, he was," Mycroft says. "Always trying to turn the page to see what happened next."
John can't help the surprised cough of laughter at that. Sherlock does nothing but roll his eyes at the pair of them.
"Anyway, Heather didn't snap out of it when Vicki got home." He spares a glare for Sherlock. "Instead she gets worse, I don't remember who noticed it first but now her pupils had started oscillating back and forth."
"Nystagmus," Sherlock offers, like there was a medical index in his head that was just waiting to be rifled through. "Most commonly caused by drug use, a brain tumour or seizure. Which, under the circumstances, suggests some sort of epileptic event rather than true hypnosis."
"Yes, thank you, I came to that conclusion myself, eventually," John says. He can't even be bothered to be irritated any more. Sherlock's compulsion sometimes feels as involuntary as a nervous tic.
Mycroft clears his throat, quietly.
"But I'd imagine they almost certainly thought she was possessed then," Sherlock adds, reluctantly. John's fairly sure that he's just witnessed the Mycroft Holmes equivalent of a swift kick in the arse. It occurs to John that if Sherlock learned subtlety from Mycroft then it's no wonder the rest of the world seems so loud and obvious and obnoxious.
"Yes," John continues. "Steve admitted that they were all pretty much useless by then, they wanted to call an ambulance, or a priest - though none of them were quite sure where you got a priest from - Vicki wanted to call their dad, though he was due home from work about then anyway. God knows what their dad eventually came home to, but he probably assumed the worst."
John shifts in the chair.
"That's when she came out, though she didn't just snap out of it. She came out fuzzy and confused, tired. For a minute she didn't know who any of them were. They took her to the doctor, but as far as I know, nothing like that ever happened again. Though Steve still calls it 'that time I broke my sister.'"
The rain has a moment of enthusiasm against the windows and the candles flutter when Sherlock shifts his legs.
"That was a terrible story," Sherlock says. "Badly structured with questionable conclusions. You omitted important details and it definitely lacked a certain amount of dramatic tension. Also, there was no unexpected twist ending, I'm disappointed in you, John."
John raises an eyebrow at him. Because he'd almost been expecting that.
"Real life tends not to have twist endings," he says. "Sometimes creepy things just happen for no reason. People are funny like that. Also, there's not always a Scooby Doo moment at the end where the villain is dramatically unmasked."
Sherlock looks blank.
Mycroft shifts in his seat. "Though, the one thing it did tend to get right. The villain is almost always human at the end."
For some reason, John honestly hadn't expected Mycroft to know who Scooby Doo was either, and he's laughing before he realises it. It's a quick, surprised laugh which makes the candle flames flicker.
Sherlock scowls at both of them.
"And there was no ghost in your ghost story," he adds. There's something in his voice that sounds almost smug at the fact that he's discovered a flaw. Like someone was going to be disqualified for it.
"I never said there was, you assumed because I said it was creepy and it's Halloween, that there would be a ghost. What do you always tell me about working on assumptions?" John tuts at him for effect.
Sherlock's face is a thing of beauty, John thinks perhaps he'd just won a rare and precious point off of the great detective.
Sherlock surprises him by letting him have it with a huff and a roll of his eyes.
"I suspect the moral of the story is 'don't experiment on your younger siblings,'" he grumbles and John doesn't miss the look he shoots across the room.
Mycroft sighs very quietly. "Are you still holding a grudge over that? It was a very long time ago, and, as I recall you did volunteer for it."
Sherlock's heels rock on the floor in a way that's clearly angry. "You left out pertinent information."
"Which would have voided the results if I'd told you."
"My right hand was numb for a full day. I could conceivably have chopped my fingers off and never noticed."
"And yet here you are with all your fingers intact," Mycroft points out.
Sherlock narrows his eyes. "You continue to protest that you never had an 'experiment on small animals stage.' I will continue to disagree, you simply didn't use animals."
Mycroft sighs and tips his head forward in something that's almost amusement but not quite. As if Sherlock hasn't just accused him of being a sociopath too.
John shakes his head.
"I'm going to consider myself lucky that Harry didn't have any sort of interest in science or engineering. So, y'know, normal, boring sibling rivalry. No one got experimented on. Nothing ever blew up."
There's a very brief, almost unnoticeable twitch and a sidelong glance from Mycroft. John really isn't surprised at all that Sherlock is the one that had a callous disregard for chemical reactions. Though he's tempted to wonder what Mycroft got caught doing. If he ever got caught. That would explain a lot actually.
Harry had once threatened to put John inside a tumble dryer when he was younger. He can't remember for the life of him what had brought that on. Possibly that happened the time he'd gotten marmalade all over the hair of her favourite Barbie.
"I never actually blew it up," Sherlock says tightly.
"I believe the correct term is 'firebomb,'" Mycroft says. "But to an inexperienced observer there's really very little difference."
"A minor miscalculation," Sherlock says, half to John and half irritated, giving the impression this is something he's already protested a number of times, and will continue to protest every time Mycroft brings it up.
"I think I'd like to hear that story." John thinks he's says that mostly under his breath but Sherlock twists his head round.
"No, you wouldn’t, it really isn't very interesting at all."
"It's quite interesting," Mycroft says, all half smile and threat. Two expressions which really shouldn't go together and certainly not so well.
"If you tell him about that I shall tell him about the library incident," Sherlock says stiffly.
Mycroft spreads his hands and leans back, surrendering gracefully. John knows those sort of stories well. He and Harry have a few of them.
"And thank you for the story, John," Mycroft adds.
"Even though it wasn't very exciting." John should probably be annoyed how much that sounds like an apology. But now he thinks it's only fair that someone else tell a story, since he told a story. Especially since it's still heaving it down, with the occasional rumble of thunder and bright fork of lightning off in the distance.
Sherlock shakes his head.
"Oh, the story doesn't matter. Because it's not the story itself so much as the way you tell it. Where you pause, the emphasis you place on words, the detail or lack of detail, moments that affect you personally opposed to moments where your voice doesn't change at all. How you tell a story gives away a surprising number of things about the person you are."
John realises he's waiting for the punch line, waiting for Sherlock to tell him something he's discovered about him during the storytelling, something he doesn’t know about himself yet. Sherlock raises an eyebrow, like he knows exactly what John's thinking and he's not going to be predictable for once. Which means he'll probably tell him later, at some more inappropriate time, probably in front of the police. Or someone he's trying to ask out.
John wonders if it's at all possible to make that not happen. Decides probably not.
For all that Sherlock seems oblivious sometimes he appears to have paid special attention, and possible underlined the word 'cock-blocking' in the dictionary.
"Stop looking at me like I'm an exam paper," John says.
"Why do I get told off for looking at you? Mycroft's looking at you too."
"Not so much in that 'I'd quite like to cut you open and see how you work' way."
"Oh, he looks at people like that too," Sherlock protests. "It's just how he normally looks, that's why you don't notice it."
John catches himself turning to look at Mycroft and then stops, because he's not rising to the bait.
"Also, I don't have to clean up after him, or find his phone, or fish things out of his pockets at a moment's notice, or remove his disgusting experiments from the kitchen appliances."
"That wasn't disgusting it was a time-lapse experiment in desiccation."
Which Sherlock had had a truly epic flounce over when he'd realised John had thrown it away.
"It was a dried frog," John says flatly, because there's no getting around that fact.
"It was important." Sherlock insists. He'd insisted that at the time as well. John hadn't quite believed him. At the time it had seemed more like one of those things Sherlock did because he was curious and because he could, rather than something that was essential to solving a mystery.
"And it ended up in the food processor."
"Oh, but of course Mycroft would keep his experiments in an appropriate place," Sherlock snaps and folds his arms.
"In a secret laboratory under the stairs, perhaps?" Mycroft offers.
"There isn't room under the stairs," Sherlock says, like that should be obvious to anyone. He frowns and looks up, gauging ceiling space.
"That would be my room - " John shakes his head the second Sherlock opens his mouth " - and no, you're not building a secret laboratory in my room. Neither of you are building a secret laboratory anywhere in the flat."
Sherlock sighs, throws his feet up on the table again, candles juddering and throwing odd shadows everywhere.
"I need more tea," Sherlock decides.
"Power's off." John almost adds a 'genius' to the end of that, but he suspects Sherlock will choose not to hear the sarcasm.
"If we had a generator that wouldn’t be a problem."
"Not until you can learn how to follow basic safety procedures," John says calmly. He suspects this is an argument they're going to be having more than once.
Sherlock simply grunts. "There's a mini blow torch in that basket of paper, boil the water with that."
John twists his head until he can see behind him. The basket is a blur in the darkness. The fact that he half expects it to be on fire isn't funny in the slightest.
"Why is there a mini blow torch in a basket of paper - no, sorry, I'm going to repeat that, why is there a mini blow torch in a basket of paper?"
Sherlock stretches a foot out and pokes John in the leg with his bare toes. Which he seems to think is the universal signal for 'that is not important, tea is important.'
"Oh for heaven's sake." John pulls himself up out of the chair and collects their mugs. Then goes down on one knee and digs in the dark mess of files and envelopes and paper until he pulls out the cold curve of metal and plastic. He flicks it on to prove it works. Then he tugs one of the candles off the table with his other hand and carries it to the kitchen, grumbling complaint all the way.
He fixes the candle to the side so he can see while he looks for a small enough saucepan that it isn't going to take him hours.
"Is this thing even going to last long enough to boil water?" he calls.
"Probably," Sherlock decides. "I was using it the other day."
John looks at it, but there's no suspicious marks on it.
"What were you using it for?" Because it's Sherlock and so he has to ask. Whether he comes to regret it or not.
There's a rather incriminating sort of quiet from behind him.
"Sherlock?"
He turns around and Sherlock is frowning.
"I'm fairly sure you wouldn't approve," he says, nose wrinkled up. Though there's a suggestion that he'd quite like to tell John what he was doing with the blow torch because it was something fascinating and marvellous.
John frowns and shakes his head and turns it on. He spends what feels like an irritatingly long time standing in the kitchen with a blow torch held against the bottom of a saucepan while Sherlock complains about the inefficiency of the National Grid, and Mycroft makes the occasional agreeable noise and weathers the odd carefully barbed insult. Mycroft seems to be resisting all Sherlock's efforts to lure him into conversation, or verbal warfare. Instead he retrieves his phone and gives it his full attention. Rescheduling meetings, or possibly ordering assassinations. John assumes running the country - or possibly the world, honestly he wouldn’t be surprised - is a full time job, no matter how much rain or lightning tries to ruin your evening.
Though the full moon was on the twentieth so no glorious horror movie hat trick for them tonight. Or would a black cat make a hat trick. Does a black cat trump a full moon? Or would they need a pumpkin? John's never been all that interested in Halloween. A pumpkin, he decides eventually. Because if they had a black cat Sherlock would probably just experiment on it.
The water is boiling, half-heartedly but boiling nonetheless. John finds the tea and the milk in the dark and does his best to work around the temporary collapse of modern society. Before carrying all three cups back to the table.
Mycroft clears his throat, expression thoughtful.
"Oh, not you as well," Sherlock says, sounding somewhere between frustrated and disbelieving. The candlelight gives his tilted down head a sharp, sinister quality.
"The weather still seems disinclined to let a sane man out in it. And since John has generously attempted to pass the time I thought it couldn't hurt."
"You don't know any ghost stories, you're hideously pragmatic," Sherlock says snippily. "No imagination at all."
"Oh, it's not a ghost story. But then that isn't the point, is it -" Mycroft turns his head to look at John. " - it's simply the inexplicable, the disturbing or the unnatural that's required. Whether you find the story unsettling or honestly frightening is completely subjective. But I have some experience with a case that fits all of the above."
Sherlock rolls his eyes and utters something under his breath about 'unnecessary drama.'
"I'd like to hear it," John says, because Sherlock's too far away to kick in the shins - not that he would do something so aggressively childish, but sometimes it's a nice thought.
"I'm not sure I've ever attempted to structure the events of that day in a way that would be considered entertaining -"
Sherlock's irritated noise cuts Mycroft's sentence in half.
"Oh, get on with it if you must, Mycroft, preferably before you bore us both to tears."
Mycroft raises an eyebrow at his brother, but doesn't comment.
Part Two