A Case of Identity
Title: A Case of Identity
Author: 4mation
Type: One-shot
Rating: T
Genre: AU, Crime, Mystery, Humour, Friendship, Family
Warnings: Violence
Sexualities: Bisexuality, Asexuality
Pairing: None.
Characters: Elsa, Anna, Gerda, Gretel
Summary: For others, boredom is a minor inconvenience which is easily and harmlessly dispelled after some mildly entertaining activity. For Elsa Holmes, boredom was often a catalyst for an international incident. (Sherlock!AU)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All names mentioned do not represent the true persons. All brand names do not belong to the author. No copyright laws or personal privacy laws are intended to be infringed.
A/N: While I deal with real-life stuff and writer's block, I thought I might as well show that I haven't been entirely idle these past few months. Here's a little something which I've been working on.
Oh, and to those wondering what happened to "Argos", "Watching You, Watching Me", and "Facets", they got deleted off FF by the admins, on the grounds that they contain content above the stated rating. How sex is considered too detailed for M is beyond me, but that's how it goes. I've moved them to my new Archive of Our Own profile. If you want to read them, I'll be moving them there ASAP. Thanks for your patience.
This story is essentially an AU amalgamation of Frozen, Sherlock, and Fables. Other than that, I hope you enjoy an idea that has been stewing in my brain for over a month and sitting on my computer for twice that long. On to the story!
Boredom
Bang!
Bang!
Bang-bang!
Bang!
The air reverberated with the last shot, a throbbing silence descending as the residents of 22B Baker Street uncovered their ears. The faint smell of gunpowder wafted down the stairs, as if fleeing from the thunderously dark mood that had fell upon the upstairs suite.
"Think she's done yet?" Mrs Hudson asked hesitantly, hands inching reluctantly away from her ears, no doubt in case her eardrums would require additional protection should her tentative be question be answered with a negative. Her carrot rolled earnestly off the chopping board, as if seizing the chance to escape from the salad-y doom that had been the fate of its vegetable comrades.
Anna rose painfully from the floor, rubbing her aching shoulder. She had been rocking on the stool, watching earnestly as Mrs Hudson prepared lunch, and subsequently learnt that keeping balance was incredibly difficult when you were quite unexpectedly the victim of an auditory assault. The redhead tilted her head to the side, listening intently. Silence was her only response.
"Yeah, I think she's done," the younger Holmes said cautiously.
"Oh, thank goodness," Mrs Hudson said with a sigh of relief. "You'd better go up and check if she's alright, the poor dear."
"Right," Anna said, picking up her toppled stool. "Probably might need a cup of tea as well, or something stronger. Something to cheer her up."
"You sure that's wise? I'm not sure if anything will agree with her when she's like this."
Anna gave the landlady a dazzling grin to assuage her doubts.
"I'm sure it'll be fine. You know her, she just has these moments, nothing a good cuppa won't fix-"
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!
"On second thought, forget it. I'll just go up and see what she's broken this time," Anna grumbled as she marched up the stairs, leaving Mrs Hudson to deal with her ringing ears.
Despite being midday with glorious sunshine outside, the shared suite was so dark that Anna could barely see a thing. Smoke hung in the air like a foul-smelling mist, rising up from the fireplace where dark red embers glowed menacingly. The curtains were drawn and looked like they had been taped down, keeping the cheerful sunshine outside so as not to infect this den of brooding mania. Strewn across the floor were the tattered remains of that day's newspaper as well as shreds of letters and envelopes. A laptop pulsed in a corner, the faint light from its screensaver doing nothing to lighten its surroundings. Atop the coffee table was what looked suspiciously like Anna's copy of the Guinness World Book of Records, which she sincerely hoped it wasn't, since it currently had a knife slammed into the front cover. Chocolate wrappers were littered everywhere, including one that was currently pinned to the dartboard by a sewing needle.
And in the centre of this absolute carnage, half-buried under empty boxes of Hershey bars, blonde hairs jutting in every direction and nicotine patches peppering her arms, sat the world's greatest detective, reclining in her chair with an empty look in her eyes and a smoking revolver in hand. The wall opposite her currently had a smiley-face tattooed into it, the damaged wood jutting out as the splinters pointed accusingly at their tormenter.
Anna sighed.
"Elsa Jane Holmes, what have you done to our wall?"
A tangled mess of platinum blonde and liquorice wrappings lilted to the side in a shoddy imitation of a nod.
"I have been redecorating," rasped the dejected blonde in a voice rusty with disuse. "I came across the most irksome article in your collection of mundane human achievements, and felt the need to prove that recreating that abominable digital representation of human emotion via an application of concentrated force is not only unchallenging but utterly elementary at best."
Anna tried to keep her utter exasperation out of her voice as she made her way to the curtains. Tried.
"Elsa, that emoticon was forty feet tall, and chiselled into a solid block of concrete with a hammer and a stake. I'm not sure that your redecorating is quite the same thing. Also, just putting this out there, just because you felt irritated by a single paragraph, you do not have the right to stab my books."
"That is not literature," Elsa grumbled, as she rolled onto her side, wrappers crinkling beneath her. "That is a self-indulgent hash of unimpressive feats, so-called, of boring people with nothing interesting to do, all printed onto pages that are then bound together between two cardboard covers."
"Elsa," Anna said pleasantly, fingers gripping tightly onto the curtain's fabric. "Please look in this direction."
"What are you doi- GAH!" Elsa shrieked and fell out of her reclining chair, chocolate boxes tumbling to the floor alongside her the midday sun blasted her in the face. Illuminated by sunlight, Elsa's pale skin looked pasty instead of ghostly, the light reflecting off of icing-smudged cheeks and highlighting the dark circles forming beneath manic, sleep-deprived eyes that were a dull greyish blue, with none of the sparkle or fire of inspiration. Rumpled clothes looked like they'd been slept-in for the last few days, and the normally-sleek golden locks looked like a rat's nest made out of straw.
All in all, the world's greatest detective looked more like the world's most stoned hobo.
"You know, I'm really disappointed in you" Anna said in slow, deliberate tones as she flung the window open to let in some fresh air. She moved over to the next curtain, wrinkling her nose as she realised that what she had assumed to be tape turned out to be napkins stained with treacle. "I mean, I leave for one weekend to go check up on our parents, and look at what you've been up to in the space of 48 hours."
"You can't talk to me like that," came the disorientated objection as Elsa flailed blindly on the floor, eyes squeezed shut against the invading light of her most despised enemy: the outside world. Her fingers closed around a cardboard box, and she quickly lifted it up and jammed it over her head, heedless of the DVDs that tumbled out. The box turned to glare in Anna's general direction, following the sound of the redhead's voice. "I'm older. I get to do what I want. You don't have a say in anything. I should make you go to your room, you brat. I have the right of primogenitu- BE GENTLE WITH ME!"
Anna rolled her eyes as she jerked the other curtain wide open. Ignoring the moans behind her as Elsa burrowed deeper into her den of shredded paper and other assorted litter, Anna heaved the window open, taking in a deep breath of the autumn air. She let out a content sigh, enjoying the cool breeze on her face.
The elder, meanwhile, had managed to find her way back to her reclining chair, and was currently leaning into it, trying to turn it so that it didn't face the glaring light. However, scrambling on all fours didn't tend to lend oneself to a co-ordinated effort, and thus all that Elsa succeeded in doing was toppling her recliner onto its side. Dejected and exhausted from the effort, the blonde decided that it would have to do, and flopped gracelessly onto the overturned chair, butt sticking into the air as if she was mooning the midday sun.
"I should shoot you," Elsa mumbled around a mouthful of cushion, face planted firmly into the chair's seat. "I should shoot you and then bury you and then not go to your funeral, because you're a horrible partner and an even worse sister."
Anna considered dumping the jar of water she'd found next to the wilted flowerbox over Elsa's obstinate head, but thought better of it. Sighing, she instead turned to the still-smoking fireplace and quenched the embers. Anna frowned as she realised that she recognised the burnt contents.
"Were you on my computer again? I told you that you weren't allowed to read my fanfiction, let alone print it."
"I ran out of nicotine patches," came the grouchy response. "I had to do something to entertain myself."
"Hang on," Anna frowned as she stopped down to snatch a nicotine patch off the floor. Bewildered, she stared at the teeth marks imprinted into the fabric. "Elsa, were you chewing these patches?"
"Injection into the bloodstream began to prove inefficient after the twentieth or so. I was experimenting to see if there was a different way of ingesting it."
"Oh, you can't be serious," Anna groaned, tossing the tattered patch off to the side. She looked around the room, trying to make sense of the utter chaos that was their suite. "Where's the dustbin?"
"What time is it?" Elsa groaned as she rolled half-heartedly off the recliner. She fell with a thump onto the ground. "Ow."
"Why does that matter?" Anna said as she swept the ruins of a card castle off the table so that she could set down her handbag.
"Well, depending on what time it is, the dustbin could be either in one place or several."
"Elsa!"
"I needed to test the explosive properties of turpentine when ignited with a concentrated laser! Obviously, I can't do that in here, so I had it sent to Lumiere. He's well-versed in explosions, he should be okay. If not, well, at least we know that my hypothesis was correct."
"Look," Anna said, sighing. "I think that you should take a case. It'll be good for you."
"I've looked over all the letters, read all e-mails, even went through that ghastly blog of yours," Elsa groaned as she dragged herself over to the coffee table. She picked irritably through the mass of wrappers, wondering where the other half of her nougat had gone. "There's nothing there that warrants interest. Just the usual lot of missing pets and cheating husbands and stolen corporate secrets and potential international incidents. Absolutely banal." Elsa frowned as she stared at the top of a newspaper buried under the mess. "Hang on; is it November already?"
"How is it that when I leave for a single weekend, you immediately turn junkie again?"
"Because I'm concealing and not feeling, and a crow flew off with my rat skull," Elsa sulked, staring forlornly at the mantle where said skull had previously been displayed. Grumbling, the blonde snatched up a bottle of water that was rolling across the carpet. "Besides, despite all appearances, I can assure you that I am in prime condition. My mental faculties have never been better."
"You've been living on a diet of chocolates and nicotine patches for the past two days, you haven't had a breath of fresh air nor a shower in what smells like forever, and you're so stoned that you haven't realised that the bottle you're trying to open doesn't actually have a cap."
Elsa stared at her hands as if surprised to see that there was actually a bottle between them. Anna gave her a knowing look.
"Exactly."
Elsa glared at the redhead, and a dim light flickered in her dulled eyes. Anna could practically see the gears firing up as Elsa's eyes flitted up and down, taking her sister in.
"I really hope that you eventually plan on telling Mother and Father that you almost had a one-night stand last night."
Anna looked over at her in surprise.
"How did you- actually, don't answer that-"
"It's really quite simple. You went to go check on our parents, meaning that you would have stayed with them. Obviously that means that you would no doubt have met Rapunzel, who always insists on taking you out to clubs whenever you drop by. The fact that you're not currently suffering from a hangover further strengthens that argument, since you never drink when you have to look out for our dear cousin. I notice that you're covering a bruise on your left side, which would be reasonable if you'd been drunk, but you weren't, meaning that you'd probably bumped into something. Generally you're at your clumsiest when you've been unexpectedly approached by one you consider attractive, and I can assume that whoever this person was must have been very attractive, since you have the number written onto your left arm in marker. Judging by the lack of lipstick stains, I'm also going to assume that this apparently attractive person was male, though I will concede to being wrong if corrected."
"How could you possibly know that it was almost a one-night stand?"
"The numbers are faded, and not just because you wrote it down last night at some dingy bar. Looks like you've tried to wipe them away, most likely with a towel, given that your skin is still somewhat smooth despite the vigorous roughness that removal tends to entail. Also, your shirt is crumpled and creased, most likely because it's been slept in, meaning that you didn't take it off for any night-time nuptials, same applies to your jeans. You've reapplied your make-up, but neglected to put on any lipstick, probably because you don't want to draw attention to your lips, meaning that whoever it was probably wasn't that good a kisser and you'd rather forget about it completely.
"Before you ask, and I know you want to, it's written all over your face, I know that Mother and Father don't know about this little adventure because the jacket you're wearing is Rapunzel's, and you've got it zipped up enough to cover most of the creases on your shirt. No doubt you were displeased with your potential romantic's actual ability and declined his offer to take you back to his place, so you would have instead opted to escort Rapunzel, no doubt completely inebriated at this point, to her home, since you'd rather not take our completely drunken cousin before Mother and Father. Rapunzel lives far enough away from our parents' place that the drive there from the club and then all the way back to our parents' house would have been a long one, long enough that the sun was probably rising. You wouldn't be able to sneak back into the house unnoticed, so you borrowed one of Rapunzel's jackets to cover up your mess and pretend that you'd spent the night at her house. It's currently 1 in the afternoon, and you've been talking with Mrs Hudson for about half an hour now, so you arrived at half past 12. Your flight was at 10, the flight itself is an hour, and all the assorted baggage claim and drives to and from airports means that you wouldn't have had any time to freshen up beyond the aforementioned make-up correction, therefore proving my deduction that you arrived back home late enough in the morning that you barely had time to say goodbye to our parents before packing up your bags and going off to the airport, before probably falling asleep on the plane and thus further creasing your clothes. Am I correct?"
The stunned silence that followed seemed to be answer enough for Elsa, who sat back smugly while Anna contented herself with a glare.
"Very impressive," Anna said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "And I'm being sarcastic, by the way. Just wanted to clarify that, since you're currently deranged enough to not notice."
"You can be as snippy as you want," Elsa said in an annoyingly superior voice, especially for someone who was chewing absent-mindedly on the corner of a nicotine patch. "That won't help soothe your wounded pride, what little there is of it, and all it really does is strengthen my position. The socio-psychological dynamics and power balance within a conversation are so easily manipulated when one takes advantage of the inherent need to adhere to this strange concept of rules of social engagement."
"Elsa, you can use as words as big as you like; it still won't change the fact that you need a case, and we're going to find one," Anna grumbled, tiptoeing her way through the sweetshop apocalypse that was their flat. She snatched up Elsa's laptop and almost gagged when she spotted the mouldy nougat that was half-melted by the computer's heat. "Right after you take a shower and I clean this place up. Preferably via nuclear radiation."
"Dear lord, what happened here?" Mrs Hudson entered the room with a gasp, hand fluttering to her chest as she witnessed the brutal violation of that precious thing known as sanitation.
Elsa snapped around in her chair, glaring at Mrs Hudson through red-rimmed eyes and bared teeth, looking rather akin to a psychedelic blonde snow leopard.
"Out, woman! You are disturbing the balance of power and the integrity of my social experiment!"
"Hello, Mrs Hudson," Anna said in a remarkably amicable tone, a stark contrast to the wild ravings of her sister. "Do you happen to have a vacuum cleaner, dustpan, broom, and a modified Fat Man that has been approved for household use?"
"Do not invite this she-devil into the sanctuary of our home!" Elsa barked, turning sharply strike Anna with a disapproving glare. "This is the only place that has thus far successfully kept that creature away, and I will not have you sabotage the thus-far impenetrable defence!"
"Elsa, Mrs Hudson comes up here every day with tea."
"Not for the last two, she hasn't," the blonde sniffed, eyeing their landlady suspiciously. "Ever since I caught on to her schemes, I've had her banished from this sanctum. We'll have no more of her plot to permanently poison me with that vile sodium stearate."
"You'd think that she's allergic to soap, the way she goes on," Mrs Hudson said dryly as she made her way over to the fridge, no doubt wondering what damages Elsa had inflicted upon the suite this time. "Anna, honey, your sister's keeping a jar of eyeballs next to your strawberries. Want me to move them?"
"That would be much appreciated, yes," Anna said as she scrolled through her blog, looking at recent posts for anything that might catch her manic sister's attention.
"Mrs Gerda Angeline Hudson, if you move my eyeballs, I will turn your kneecaps into splinters!" Elsa exploded, leaping over the back of her armchair and striding purposefully to the fridge. She slammed the fridge door closed, and glared accusingly at the unimpressed landlady.
"When did you learn my middle name, I wonder?"
"I was bored and you were out of the house, how could I not ransack the building for personal details? It was either that or reading Anna's e-mails to her girlfriends and occasional boyfriend, which in hindsight would probably have been funnier."
"Just like to put out there that I'm not seeing Meg anymore, so your point has been rendered moot," Anna said from her corner of sanity.
"Out!" Elsa barked, pointing emphatically at the door.
Mrs Hudson walked past the livid blonde and began to clear the table of the mess of wrapping papers, tossing them into one of the many empty boxes, leaving Elsa to stand and contemplate just when her life had gone so wrong, if she could be so easily ignored by her housekeeper of all people.
"All right," Elsa said in a defeated tone, visibly deflating. She shuffled back to her chair and flopped down dejectedly into its familiar embrace. She waved her hand vaguely in Anna's direction, the latter cringing when she noticed the cracked, hideous state of her sister's nails. "Give it to me; what have we got?"
"Oh, here's a nice murder for you: 'James M. Bay, film director, was recently found dead in his office. Although the apparent cause is ingestion of a poisonous tablet, sources in the police suspect that there may be a greater conspiracy at work-'"
"The police are willing to suspect all the wrong things and dismiss all the right things as mere coincidence, as evident with this case; our dead man has recently gone through a divorce, a film flop with severe economic consequences, and has been fighting a drug addiction for some time, as evidenced by the stains around his fingernails, signs of redness around his eyes, subtle but constant twitching, and a tendency to either overreact or underreact, reactions which are wildly inconsistent at that. The combined problems of the former two led to the exacerbation of the latter, which led to an overdose resulting in his death. Simple, solved, and I didn't even need to leave my chair. Boring, move on."
"'A woman, Ms J Sultana, currently suspects that her husband-to-be is having an affair'. Oh, stop groaning and just listen, I wouldn't pick this without a good reason. 'She is currently having difficulty procuring evidence, however, as the husband is extremely thorough and always has an alibi. This is not the worst of the situation, however, as the truly worrying thing about this scenario is that it may just be that Mr O'Baba's relationship is in fact entirely imaginary on his part; that is to say, he is currently cheating on his fiancée with a figment of his own imagination. As J's close friend and therapist, I would like if you could devote your attention to this case and-'"
"Why should I? The answer's obvious, painfully so, a witless monkey could figure it out."
"Are you implying that I'm a witless monkey, Elsa?"
"I don't understand how we're related sometimes, I really don't. The situation couldn't be clearer. This person claiming to be Ms Sultana's friend is in fact the actual mistress in this affair; the whole 'insane fiancée idea is just to throw Ms Sultana off the trail, easy enough to fake, especially if your friend is the one feeding you the scenario. Besides the hormonal benefits of this arrangement, it also gives this woman financial advantages, since as the therapist she no doubt gets paid for each session in which they discuss Mr O'Baba's supposed instabilities, a Mr O'Baba who no doubt receives a portion of the fees as a reward for his performance, both in bed and in relationship. Next!"
"There's no way you possibly figured all that out from just hearing about the case-"
"I have no intention of going into the specifics of diction, rhetoric, word choice, construction, and reading the local newspaper. Next!"
"You've got a private e-mail here, so I'm guessing this one's confidential. Those are always fun, right? 'Dear Ms Holmes, I am a representative of the Weselton Industries R&D department. We have recently had a breakthrough in creating a prototype portable reefer, which we believe may have a place in the commercial market. However, it has been stolen, along with all notes and files pertaining to its creation. Although we suspect corporate espionage, we are unable to find proof. The corporation is willing to pay you a substantial amount if you are able to find either the reefer or those who stole it, with a sizable bonus if you achieve both.'"
"Not interested, moving on."
"Elsa, we could really do with the money right about now-"
"Anna, do you even know what a reefer is? It's a refrigerated container! They want me to track down a prototype portable mini-fridge! This is the fourth case involving some form of refrigeration in so many months. If this keeps going, I swear that chipping away at ice will become my new occupation. More often than not, the evidence simply melted anyway. No. Move on."
"Fine. Here's one from the blog. 'Madame Bella Bête, an extremely successful authoress in France, has been accused of Stockholm Syndrome, assisted murder, and bestiality. Although there is much evidence against her, Madame Bête insists that she has been framed, and has demanded that the great detective Elsa I'm-The-Queen-of-the-World Holmes be the one to clear her name. Included benefits are an outstanding paycheque (name your price), great publicity, a new sister-'"
"Hang on, there's no way this is real. What the devil are you reading?"
"Nothing, actually. I'm just making this bullshit up on the point since if you're not going to take a case, I might as well entertain myself by testing out the premise for my next fanfiction. Opinions?"
"I am summarily disturbed by your need to relate sexual fantasy through online literature, and refuse to participate in such things."
"Whatever, I give up," Anna said with a sigh, snapping Elsa's laptop shut. Standing up, she stretched, enjoying the satisfying 'Pop!' in her spine. "You can find your own bloody cases. You're just bitter about the fact that I can make my own entertainment without getting high, whereas you are entirely reliant on drugs or the bizarrely unusual happenings of others. Now excuse me, but I have a wonderfully detailed chapter on the mechanics of anthropomorphised equine meatspin to write about."
"… Meatspin?"
"I'll tell you when you're older and less asexual, Elsa."
"Celibacy and asexuality are completely different," Elsa sulked, curling up into a defensive ball on the now-clean sofa. "Just because I don't see the appeal in rubbing my genitalia all over another person's mammary glands or phalluses doesn't mean that I am entirely ignorant of and uninterested in the mechanics and chemistry behind sex."
"I'll believe that when you start using the correct terminology," Anna said as she sat at her desk, powering up her own Mac Book. She counted them off on her fingers. "Pussy, tits, cocks, fucking."
"You are a curse upon the English language, and I no longer wish to talk with you. Begone, you autistic, incestuous, pansexual gibbering monkey."
"Bisexual, not pansexual, and you're not allowed to make fun of autistic people, Elsa," Anna said absent-mindedly as her laptop hummed to life. "Also, monkeys don't gibber."
"Making it all the more impressive that you are capable of doing so," Elsa shot back as she rolled dejectedly off the sofa to land on the floor, depressed. "A monkey capable of gibbering and arguing and being mildly entertaining in her actions but not in her own capacity, and ANNA I NEED A CASE!"
"Elsa, dearie," Mrs Hudson said as she carefully nudged the door to their suite open, shoulders hunched and head low in case Elsa decided to throw her teacup in frustration. "There's a lady at the front door who's asking for you-"
"I visited that disgusting den of wanton depravity as part of an undercover reconnaissance assignment, and have no feelings for or attraction to anyone whom I may have otherwise convinced. Tell her that I don't have a fetish for hats, have no intention of 'stalking her deer', and that while I am open to the notion of a non-committed serious relationship, I have no intention of doing so with other blondes."
"Elsa, did you seriously go to a strip club and flirt with the dancers for a case? Because if you did, I am going to be very disappointed-"
"Anna, go back to your meatspin and let the grown-ups talk in peace."
"Actually, Elsa," Mrs Hudson interrupted before the argument could fire up into another of the explosive banter between the siblings. "I don't think that this lady's from… wherever it is you may have been. She says she's here with a job, if you're willing to take it."
"Tell her that I have no interest in chasing down lost wedding rings, and that she should hire a plumber instead."
"No worries, Elsa," Mrs Hudson said, raising a placating hand. "I think that this one will be nice and interesting for you. The lady says that it's a kidnapping involving a serial killer. She thinks that you might be the only one who can help."
Elsa froze. Anna's eyes snapped up from her laptop to watch her sister, the same wariness in the redhead's gaze reflected by Mrs Hudson's cautious stance. The wheels in Elsa's mind were grinding so fast that they were almost audible. And that could mean only one thing.
Even a kidnapping by a serial killer wouldn't be enough to provoke such a reaction on its own. It might have gotten a glimmer of interest, but not much more besides perhaps some form of revitalised enthusiasm.
No, to get a reaction like this, to actually trigger Elsa's full mental capacities after an entire morning of lethargic ennui, this meant that this was something Elsa was personally interested in. A case she must have been following, and raring to have an opportunity to go after it first-hand. And now, someone had just delivered the elder Holmes what she'd been wanting: an opening.
"Send her up," Elsa Holmes breathed.
"My name's Gretel Lügner, and my brother has been kidnapped," the woman said. She looked to be around Anna's age, younger than Elsa, but not by much. Sitting in the chair opposite Elsa's and adjacent to Anna's, Gretel looked extremely nervous to be there, wringing her hands and looking from one Holmes sister to the other, eyes flicking back and forth between them, as if afraid that at any moment one of them would reject her and kick her out.
As always, she would have found more comfort in Anna's visage, warmth and care and empathy, but like most people Gretel found her gaze drawn to the elder Holmes, a wall of cold logic and charismatic calculation. Something about the blonde detective drew the eye, something implacably magnetic. It was as if every person could tell that this was where the true brains of the operation lay, the inhuman capabilities that had made their business famous.
On the front door, it said 'Elsa and Anna Holmes', and not the inverse, for a reason.
"His name's Hansel," Gretel continued. "He's about my age, a bit older, bit taller too. Same colour hair as mine, but darker I guess, more auburn than ginger. Smarter than me too. I guess it's that last one that ended him up in this mess right now."
"I'm so sorry to hear that, Gretel," Anna said, eyes soft, tone comforting, body language distraught. She laid out a comforting hand to place on Gretel's shaking knee. "If there's anything we can do…"
"The best thing we can do is solve the case, and the best way to do that is to get the details. Tell us everything you know," Elsa said shortly. Calculating, logical, thinking, always thinking. She levelled a hard stare at Gretel, who looked somewhat stunned by the abrupt change in treatment.
"Oh, yes, of course." Gretel wiped at her eyes hastily, clearing her throat while she did it. When she spoke again, her voice was slightly stronger, but not by much; the tremor of tears was still there, subtle, underneath.
"Hansel and I, we don't have a lot of money. Our mother died when we were young, and our father wasn't really the best of men, no matter how hard he tried to be. But things only really got bad after our step-mother came into the picture. After Father died, she stole the inheritance and left us without a cent to our name. I thought for sure that we were going to be homeless or imprisoned or dead; we lived in a tough neighbourhood where the local gangs demanded protection money, and we were both so young, too young to hold jobs. Luckily, Hansel had a plan: he's something of a genius, you understand, just lacking the education was all, so he made a plan. We'd work odd jobs, enough to scrape enough cash to get by, just enough to give Hansel time.
"Because you see, Hansel was working on something. Something revolutionary. It was a computer program, which doesn't seem like much, but then you've never seen anything like the one he was making. It was a program which could let you track any person, make sure that anyone who got lost could always be found again, so long as you had access to the phone network and a sound clip of their voice. Then, if the computer system could recognise the person's voice, it could triangulate their position by cross-referencing all the devices picking up that person's voice, giving an extremely precise location. I know it doesn't seem too impressive, but you have to understand, it was almost fool-proof, and it could use anything that had a speaker; if he could have gotten it up and running, no one would ever be lost ever again. He called the program 'BreadCrumbs'."
There was a silence as Elsa and Anna processed this new information. A program which could track down any person anywhere on the world, so long as their voice could be heard? Anna couldn't even begin to think of the implications of that device if used for the right reasons… and the threat it posed if used for wrong ones.
"You said that 'if' Hansel could get BreadCrumbs working, it would change the world. Did something happen to stop him from completing it?"
"Obviously," Elsa interjected, before Gretel could respond. Elsa was still fixed on Gretel with a hard stare, not even turning to respond to Anna. Her attention was undivided. "Word got out that Hansel was working on such a device, and in doing so he became a target. There are many people in the world that would have great reason to hate and fear a program like BreadCrumbs, and in their fear they would be willing to do anything to stop the man who invented it from perfecting it. No doubt he was kidnapped before the project could be completed, likely by the group who felt most threatened by a device which could track down the location of any person. Such a group might be, say, an individual who has, in recent months, been quite occupied with kidnapping people. Kidnapping, torturing, and then killing people."
Gretel looked stricken. Her arms and shoulders were shaking, her hands trembling. With wide eyes and a pale face, she stared horrified at Elsa.
"Wha-"
"Don't take it too seriously, Gretel," Anna interjected hastily. She shot Elsa a meaningful look which was summarily ignored. "I'm sure that Elsa doesn't mean-"
"Oh, I think she knows exactly what I mean," Elsa said. Pressing her fingertips together, she glared over the arch, gaze uncompromising. "Did you bring it?"
Gretel looked like she was about to faint. "Bring wha-"
"Oh, let's not play this game, you know exactly what," Elsa said with an irritable jerk of her head. "The sooner you co-operate, the sooner I can save your brother, so why don't you hurry up and give me the scroll?"
Gretel gazed blankly at Elsa, completely stunned. The blonde had extended her hand, palm-up, expectant. Gretel looked down at the hand, back up at Elsa, swallowed.
"How did you know?"
Elsa didn't even blink.
"How I know is unimportant. What is important is that I know. Give it."
With a trembling hand, Gretel reached into her handbag and pulled out a tube. The opaque plastic shook as it was transferred into Elsa's hand. In stark contrast, Elsa's grip was firm, unrelenting, iron.
Elsa gave Gretel a tight smile, as if the very action was painful.
"Thank you."
With quick, clean movements, Elsa shuffled the scroll out of the tube, which was then carelessly discarded onto the floor. Elsa unfurled the unmarked, clinically clean paper, eyes scanning the words.
"It doesn't make any sense," Gretel began. "It's just a bunch of random words and sentences. I don't know what it means."
"It doesn't mean anything unless you know what to look for," Elsa said in a distracted, irritated manner, no doubt displeased with interruptions to her focus. She snapped her fingers at Anna distractedly, vaguely fluttering her fingers. "Anna."
"Got it," her sister replied. She stood up and hurried over to their study while Gretel looked on bewildered. Snatching up a notepad and a pen, she hurried back to Elsa, who took the offered items without even glancing. Tactful as always, Elsa gave her thanks in the form of a non-committal grunt.
Instantly, the detective began writing, pen flying across paper as she deciphered the words on the page. Anna had no idea how exactly Elsa had deciphered the code (cryptography was, as with most detective-related fields, handled by the great Holmes detective herself), but even she knew that there was no way Elsa would be able to figure it out immediately. If anything, her speed confirmed what Anna already suspected: Elsa had not only been following the case, she already had prior contact with the evidence.
Anna swore that she'd punch in the blonde's stupid face later for not informing her younger sister that she might be on the trail of a dangerous serial killer.
After a few seconds, Elsa put down the pencil, satisfied. She glared at the words on the page, extremely displeased.
"Blast it, not again," the blonde Holmes grumbled. Tossing the paper to the side, she let out a depressed sigh. "I was so sure that I was on to him, as well. The first two times the message was clear as day."
"What?" Anna and Gretel asked simultaneously. Anna quickly shot the distraught and confused woman a warning glance; it was never wise to provoke Elsa when she was unhappy about the progress of a case.
Luckily, wisdom had never been one of Anna's strong points. She picked up the piece of paper and frowned as she read what Elsa had decoded.
"'What Are Little Boys Made Of?'"
"The devil does that even mean?" Elsa said irritably. "Why is this one so infuriatingly inconsistent? Initially, the messages were obvious. Now, though… I wonder, does he know I'm on to him? Does he suspect?" Elsa lit up at the thought. It was always a constant source of despair for Anna that her sister's beautiful smile shone through only when she thought that someone wanted to kill her.
Springing to her feet, Elsa clasped her hands together excitedly.
"Oh, this is the best news I've had in weeks! I wonder, does he think of me as a rival? A challenger? Or am I a threat? Wait, that doesn't matter; the important thing is that he knows, or at the very least he suspects. Finally, to be acknowledged! Oh, it's like Christmas if Christmas was actually good!"
With that, Elsa strode out of the room into her office, a spring in her step. The door slammed shut behind her, but not so quickly enough that Anna and undoubtedly Gretel couldn't hear Elsa whistle a happy tune to herself.
Anna turned to the stunned Gretel and gave her a sheepish grin.
"Sorry about that; she hasn't slept in four days. Or eaten, really. I apologise for her… eccentricities?" Damnit, the last part came out as a question. "I assure you though, she will do her absolute best to catch the killer and rescue your brother."
Gretel looked like she was stuck somewhere in-between perplexity and doubt.
"Are you certain she can save Hansel?"
Anna gave Gretel her most sincere smile. "I promise, Gretel, Hansel will be safe. Elsa may not look or act it, but she is the greatest mind this world has ever known." Well, second-greatest, but let's not get into that right now. "Now that Elsa Holmes is on the case, it's only a matter of time before this killer is brought to justice."
Gretel looked so irreconcilably depressed that Anna immediately felt bad for cheerfully reminding the woman that her brother was in the hands of a madman.
"I want to believe you, Miss Holmes. I hope that what you're saying is true. But if the last week has taught me anything, it's that hope is poison to the soul. So excuse me, but I think I'll reserve my own opinions." Gretel rose to her feet and moved to the door, a cloud of depression sinking over her. "I'll show myself out."
Anna gazed unhappily as the woman left. The one part of the job she'd never get used to is seeing how trauma broke people. How it killed any emotion they might've had, turned any positive feeling into venom that rotted whatever well of happiness lay within the poor, depressed victims. Shaking her head, Anna turned and pushed open the door to Elsa's study.
"Hello sister dear, can you please check if my revolver is still underneath my pillow?" Elsa said cheerily as Anna entered. The blonde was typing furiously at her keyboard, fingers click-clacking at lightning speed, eyes flashing back and forth across the screen as she processed and categorised information. "I do believe that this kidnapping killer has marked me as a potential impediment to his schemes, and thus has devised an alternate method of encrypting his messages to throw me off his scent. If that is the case, then it is only a matter of time before his assassins close in."
"Elsa, I think you're being paranoid," Anna said flatly. "And your paranoia has just scared away Gretel from ever thinking that you are a sane and functional being."
"Who?" Elsa asked, frowning. Her expression cleared. "Oh, yes, Gretel, the newest victim. Unfortunate, but the more time I devote to her feelings, the less time I have to solving this case. Where is she, by the way?"
"She left. I think your behaviour scared her."
"So?" Elsa said, not even looking up. When her only response was silence, the blonde glanced at Anna and was met with stony disapproval. "Ah." Elsa pulled her fingers away from the keys. "This is one of those empathy things, isn't it?"
"Yeah, just a bit."
"I don't understand why you consider it so important," Elsa grouched, turning back to her computer screen. "What does it matter what people think of me, or what they feel after our meetings? Results are all that's important. She'll have her brother back, so what's the issue here?"
"People generally like being assured of that before you leave the room, hopefully after you already mention that currently kidnapped victim is probably being murdered, cremated, and thrown into the sea."
"Cremation is actually a terribly cumbersome way of disposing of corpses, leaves more traces than it gets rid of in all honesty-"
"Elsa."
"Oh, fine, very well, I'll make sure to contact Gretchen and assure her that I am on the case, the kidnapper will be brought to justice, her brother will be rescued, everyone will live happily ever after, whoopty-doo, all will be fine and dandy and everyone will dance merrily in a circle chasing butterflies around the downtown park."
Anna settled into her chair, spinning it around to face the blonde's back. Elsa was hunched over her keyboard, fingers clacking away as she sought to uncover the mysteries of the criminal mind.
"So, ever going to explain to me how you knew about the kidnapper?"
Elsa stilled. Anna could almost see the thoughts whizz through Elsa's brain as she debated whether or not to share what she knew. Even after so long, even after years as partners, even after years of connecting with her estranged sister, Elsa still had trust issues, especially where family was concerned.
The blonde turned in her chair slowly to face Anna, face serious, considering, contemplative.
"There is a man, here, in this city, who has made a history of kidnapping certain individuals, sending scrolls of riddles to their close friends and family, and then have them dance on his strings as they rush madly to solve the puzzle and save their beloveds. Thrice, they failed, and three more corpses have turned up. Twice, the victims' families came to me first, and I was able to uncover their locations and have the police intervene. Now, it seems that he's figured out that I'm on to him. This newest puzzle? 'What Are Little Boys Made Of?' It's not as clear as his previous riddles, at least not to me. Even the materials used for the scroll, the ink, the handwriting, all of it is different. It seems that our adversary has upped his game. He knows that I'm on the case. It seems he sees in me a challenger, a threat to his plans. And all the better for the chase, is it not?"
"And does he have a name, this foe of ours? Some grandiose moniker delivered to him by the press?" Anna said, altogether unintimidated by the news that a serial killer was directly sending a challenge to Elsa. It wouldn't be the first time the Holmes sisters were on the receiving end of some unwelcome, maliciously murderous attention.
"They call him The Crooked Man, after his first riddle. 'There Was a Crooked Man' indeed. Unfortunately for the victim, none were able to comprehend that a crooked stile involved a meat grinder, and that the crooked mile and the crooked cat were implications of a location. By the time the police cracked the case, our man had long since fled, and the kidnapped man was little more than meat patties all over the floor."
Anna winced. "Nasty. And I'm assuming that's not the worst of his crimes."
Elsa nodded once, face illuminated ominously by the glow of her screen. "Let's just say that old nursery rhymes have a lot of leeway for sadistic interpretation, if your mind is so inclined. Luckily for us, our Crooked Man is not the only one who wondered if Mary's little lamb was in fact a metaphor for a sadistic, child-hunting stalker. Trust me: I will find this man. Twice I have thwarted him already; I intend this third time to be the last. The noose has tightened, and he feels it. Now, I just need to let the floor drop out from under him, and drag the body triumphant back through the square."
"I hope that we have a living Hansel somewhere in there too," Anna quipped.
Elsa gave a tight smile. "Of course, of course. But that's beside the point, Anna."
"Actually, that's sort of the entire point, Elsa-"
"The point, Anna, is that the game is on. Let the Crooked Man run. The crooked mile has just gotten much, much shorter."
To Be Continued
A/N: Not entirely sure how often I'll be updating this. Oh well. Please leave a review! Otherwise, hope you enjoyed! Adios!