Title: Like I Do
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Summary: He thought he saw someone walking up the stairs, moving out of sight just before John could properly look. This is excactly the part where the sidekick goes up the stairs, meets the ghost and gets killed. Well, if this was a movie anyway.
A/N: Halloween is almost here and I couldn't help myself. The second part will be here tomorrow or the day after.
Like I Do
"What do you mean you can't open the door?" John shouted an run past the lanky detective to pound on the door and furiously try to push it open. The door was cold under his hands and he could feel distant pain in his knuckles from where the harsh wood had broken skin.
"Just as I said, the door won't open, neither will the windows for that matter", Sherlock's usually calm and analytic voice held an edge to it, which worried John more that anything else in the situation. And considering what he had been through that evening, it was saying something.
"Ghosts don't exist. They just don't", he turned to look at Sherlock, hoping to see the usual "stating the obvious, John"- look on his face. Instead his eyes met an empty hall.
He thought he saw someone walking up the stairs, moving out of sight just before John could properly look. This is excactly the part where the sidekick goes up the stairs, meets the ghost and gets killed. Well, if this was a movie anyway.
"Sherlock?", he called, and looked around the dark and unfurnished hall again, before moving his gaze to the stairway again. Silence had never felt this loud.
"I'm here", came a smooth voice from upstairs, sounding as if it came just from the top of the stairs, just where the shadows were so thick John couldn't see if anyone was there.
The relief that took over his body at the sound of the familiar baritone didn't quite overhelm the sensation of wrong, that made the hairs on his neck stand up. The voice was too perfect. It lacked something, some undertone that Sherlock's voice had. And the waiting, predatory, malicious silence that followed didn't help at all to calm him down.
The truth was, that there really was something wicked in the house, he had seen it, had felt it. And he couldn't be sure it was really Sherlock waiting him in the shadows.
He licked his lips and considered his options. He could stand here, staring at the shadows so hard he started seeing things that weren't there. Or he could go wandering through the door on the left, or, John grimaced, he could go through the door on the far end of the hall and go to where he suspected were the stairs leading to the basement.
"Or I can go up the stairs. Right", sighing and fighting his instincts that were screaming for him to run and never stop, he took one careful step towards the stairs.
"Where are you?" His voice broke, betraying his trepidation.
There was no answer, but John was sure he could hear someone breathing just behind him, could feel someone breath right behind him and so he spun, looking behind wildly, fisting his hands and readying himself to either fight or flight.
And there was no one, nothing there.
He let out a long breath and took one step up the stairs backwards, so he could keep an eye on the cold hall.
"John." A deep voice murmured in his ear, so close he could feel the word dropping from the lips gently touching his ear.
His heart was trying to break out of his chest.