AUTHOR'S NOTE: This series is a spinoff of Derplock. If you haven't seen the original yet, I highly suggest you start there (link can be found on my page).
TILLY BRIGGS CRUISE OF DERP
It was pouring rain. The days were getting shorter, with the darkness that blanketed London before even 5 o'clock providing proof of that, and lights from inside shop windows glistened off of the wet ground. Sherlock and his flatmates were currently standing under an awning hanging from the building they'd just come out of. Emily shivered and clung to the crease of the detective's elbow.
Sherlock shifted his gaze down towards her. "Cold," she whimpered. John looked over from where he was standing beneath an umbrella less than a foot away and smiled a little.
"Yes," Sherlock agreed slowly. He looked annoyed, but he didn't pull away either, so he couldn't have been all that bothered by the gesture. "A typical attribute whenever water falls from the sky."
"Not cold, just want cuddles," Scottie said and latched himself to Sherlock's other side. Sherlock held in a breath for a moment and then exhaled dramatically.
"Rain doesn't always mean cold," muttered Emily. "Hawaii, for instance." She stared forward distractedly as she spoke, watching the occasional car pass by and splash up a small tidal wave in the process. "In Hawaii it rains so frequently and so lightly that sometimes it'll still be warm and sunny out."
Sherlock pursed his lips but didn't respond.
Scottie leaned forward a bit to see Emily past Sherlock. "We aren't in Hawaii," he pointed out.
"No. No, I didn't think so."
The group was then quiet for some time. The rain was heavy and loud, smacking against the pavement and running down the street's curb like a river. Emily started to slide her hands further down Sherlock's arm until they nestled tightly around the man's wrist inside of his coat pocket, as if she were attempting to sap up whatever remaining body heat he had.
Sherlock stiffened. "Do you want my gloves?" he offered, although it was difficult to tell from his tone whether he was being sincere or sarcastic.
"No, but thank you," Emily answered regardless.
John shifted his weight and looked down at his wristwatch with a frown. "I don't think a cab is coming," the man finally concluded, looking up at Sherlock. "Suppose they're busier in weather like this?"
"Maybe we can try calling again?" offered Scottie.
Sherlock scanned his eyes across the scene as if making sure that their taxi wasn't just about to pull up. "We could probably walk. We aren't all that far from Baker Street."
"But John's the only one who brought an umbrella!" whined Emily.
"Then I suggest you walk quickly." Sherlock then tried to pull his hands from his pockets, which Scottie and Emily pushed back in and gripped tighter with a determined "no." Sherlock frowned and attempted to take a step. All three of them moved forward ever so awkwardly. "John. Help."
"Your problem, not mine!" John sang and gave his umbrella a little twirl over his head as he started further down the block.
Grumbling something inaudible, Sherlock waddled after him with the teens dragging along at his sides. They stopped at the curb and waited momentarily for the walk sign to come on, at which point Sherlock made an attempt to tiptoe around a particularly big puddle in the crosswalk. Emily, who was wearing rain boots, trudged straight through it, completely oblivious to the water that she had caused to seep into the boys' shoes. At the first opportunity Sherlock retaliated by shoving the girl underneath a waterfall that was gushing out from a rain gutter. Emily shrieked and leapt a full foot out of the splash zone.
Scottie started to cackle wildly at this. Grinning wickedly, Sherlock said "You turn!" and swept the boy off of his feet effortlessly.
"Wait no stop!" Scottie flailed, his smile quickly fading. Ignoring his protests, Sherlock set him down again directly under the gutter's consistent spew of cold water.
John had gotten much further down the block than them because of this, but he stopped and turned to face them. "Look at you skinny wet idiots playing in the rain," mused the doctor.
Scottie, Sherlock, and Emily, who were all equally soaked by this point, exchanged glances and then looked back towards John, who had apparently figured out what they were scheming and took off running.
The three of them darted after him, failing to suppress laughter, all the while running right through a 'don't walk' light. A block and a half later Sherlock caught up to John and snatched away his umbrella. The man yelped as Scottie and Emily wrapped their arms tightly around the older man. With a slight whimper in the back of his throat, John hung his head and accepted his cold and wet fate.
A puddle had gathered on the landing and followed the foursome in the form of a trail of water up the stairs and into 221B Baker Street. Shoes were immediately removed and thrown in a pile on top of one another in the corner of the living room. Sherlock hung up his coat and scarf and removed his gloves before shaking out his hair like a dog that had just taken a bath. He threw himself down in his armchair. Scottie followed suit and then wrapped himself up in a blanket on the couch. John had gone into the kitchen and started hearing up a kettle.
"Can we turn this thing on?" Emily asked, squatting down in front of the fireplace.
John came back in to have a look at it. "Oh. Geez, does that even work? I think it's electric." The man got onto his knees beside her and attempted to figure out how to light the fireplace.
Sherlock had started removing his socks and wrung each out over the rug. He let them fall to the floor beside his chair and clenched and unclenched his toes a couple times. John had apparently figured out the fireplace by then, because it crackled to life all at once and helped to light up the otherwise gloomy room.
A whistling noise sounded from the kitchen and John jumped up again to go deal with the tea. Sherlock let out a long and almost too-relaxed sigh and melted further into his armchair. Similarly, Emily slid onto her stomach in front of the fireplace.
John came back in with two mugs. He handed one off to Scottie and then Sherlock, respectively, and then went back into the kitchen to fetch the remaining two and set one of those down beside Emily. Once he had finished distributing the tea John finally had a seat in his own armchair.
"Nothing quite like a warm cuppa beside the fireplace while it's raining outside," the man mused.
"Someone tell a story!" Scottie suddenly exclaimed. He was sitting upright now and had the blanket draped over his shoulders.
Sherlock furrowed his brows and looked up slightly. "A story?" he echoed.
"Yeah. Read us a book, or… I don't know, make something up. Or tell me something you've never told anyone before."
Sherlock tilted his head. "Alternatively you can turn on the telly or something."
"Well you're no fun," Scottie grumbled into his mug.
"So," John said slowly. He pursed his lips for a moment and then glanced over at Emily, who had sat up just enough to drink her tea. "How's your leg doing? I haven't heard you complain about it for nearly a week now."
"Um. Well, at this point I don't think the mark is ever going away," shrugged Emily. "But I can walk normally without OD'ing on Advil first, so that's cool. And I'm not a pussy so I didn't need therapy or anything."
John's eyebrows just about shot up to his hairline, but still he sipped at his drink without commenting.
Emily leaned back as to sit up the rest of the way. "And what about you?" she asked. "Any new and exciting developments in the life of Dr. John H. Watson?"
"Actually, uh, Sarah and I were thinking about visiting New Zealand for a bit."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, a couple weeks maybe. A friend of mine recently reached out and offered up his guest home. And I just thought, well, after all those guns and bombs and maniacs… it might be nice for a little time away from the city. But of course, I was waiting to book tickets until… Well, y'know, I was sure things were alright over here. What with…" The doctor trailed off momentarily, looking down at his mug. "And I'm understandably a little hesitant about leaving you two in Sherlock's care for the rest of the month," he went on after a moment.
Emily had very much perked up at this news. "New Zealand!" she breathed. "Oh, it's beautiful there - that's where they filmed Lord of the Rings! Can't we come with you?"
"I don't think that's such a good idea," John countered.
"Why not?" begged Scottie from the opposite end of the living room.
"Well." John strummed his hand against the side of the cup for a moment. "It's certainly not that we wouldn't want you there, but…" He then looked up at Sherlock expectantly.
"Neither of you have passports," Sherlock finished for him, noticing.
Scottie made a face. "Okay. But I mean. How difficult can those be to procure?"
"Very difficult. And in your case impossible, unless you have all the proper documentation to show for it. Birth certificates, social security numbers, and of course, being minors only adds a whole 'nother layer to the conundrum…" The detective leaned forward in his seat and folded his hands in his lap. "And that's just on your end," he shrugged. "The government apparently isn't as pressed on time as one applying for a passport; a point that is almost constantly being proven . Even with everything on hand, I wouldn't guarantee the possibility of flying out of Britain within the month."
"But… that's where having Mycroft as a brother comes in?" Emily asked hopefully. Sherlock smiled falsely down at her just before pressing the mug to his lips.
John and Sarah took off on their trip two days later. In their absence things were fairly slow around Baker Street. Sherlock kept himself busy running back and forth between experiments, and Scottie and Emily mostly lay in wait for the second season.
One particular morning Sherlock had just about finished up an analysis of perfumes on his website when he decided to crack open his violin case. Except that it wasn't in the corner of the room where he usually left it. Sherlock hesitated for a moment. He looked over at Scottie, who was entirely engulfed in his computer and had apparently not noticed Sherlock coming into the living room. The detective then ventured downstairs and into 221C, where he found Emily exactly as he expected to.
Emily also didn't seem to notice Sherlock's presence, but the consulting detective waited patiently in the doorway as she finished up the piece she was playing on his violin. After the last note Emily held the instrument down. "I don't know that one," Sherlock commented, causing her to jump a little and whip her head around.
"Phantom of the Opera," she answered.
"Hm. Not bad. But maybe try using more of the bow. You're relying too much on the upper half."
Emily rolled her eyes a little. "You sound like my conductor. Is there something you wanted, or…?"
Sherlock pursed his lips. "No," he said after a moment, "just checking in."
"What's this?" Scottie asked. He turned to face Sherlock, who had just reentered the room.
Sherlock blinked. "What's what?"
"This," the boy repeated, waving a pamphlet that he had picked up off of the dining table. "Tilly Briggs Pleasure Cruise," he read.
The detective gave a disinterested shrug and strode across the room. "Must've come in with the mail," Sherlock answered nonchalantly.
Scottie squinted. "But it was next to your…" With a shake of his head he unfolded the three-part advertisement to get a better look at it. The cover showed a very white ship's deck with a young couple lounging about and clinking their glasses, all the while laughing with altogether too-fake grins. Scottie carefully folded the pamphlet back up again and set it down. He then went bounding after Sherlock, who had gone back to the kitchen table and started distributing something that looked like dirt into several different ziplock bags.
Scottie tilted his head and frowned down at Sherlock's latest project. "Were you thinking about taking us on a holiday too?" he asked.
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, the flier-"
"Was likely dropped into every mailbox on Baker Street," Sherlock finished for him without looking up. "Drop it."
Scottie exhaled dramatically and left the room, swiping up the pamphlet again on his way. After scurrying down the stairs he pushed open the unlocked door to 221C and found Emily playing Sherlock's violin in their shared bedroom, which, aside from the bathroom, was still the only room in the flat that looked lived in.
She stopped when Scottie came in and set the violin down on top of its closed case. "Hey hey hey," the girl sang. "Oh, so check this out: you know how Mrs. Hudson always does our laundry, right? Well, as you probably remember, last time she gave me a hard time about being old enough to start putting the folded stuff back into my drawer. Anyway so she left the basket at the foot of my bed and out of spite I hadn't touched it since before John left, but now - look!" Emily skipped over to her dresser and pulled open the first drawer, which she gestured to the contents of. "All of them, neatly put away exactly where they belong and even color coordinated! Magic!"
"Yeah," Scottie seethed. "That's because I did that, you lazy fuck."
"Oh. Well… thanks, then."
"Anyway, I wanted you to have a look at this." Scottie came up to Emily's side and handed her the pamphlet for the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise. She took the paper and then looked back up at him blankly. "Sound familiar?"
"Um. Not really, no?"
"Tilly Briggs," the boy repeated.
Emily shrugged.
"It was a case," explained Scottie. "On John's blog; not from the episodes themselves."
"Wh… So you think we're going on another case? Before season two?"
Now it was Scottie's turn to shrug. "I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe. I mean, probably, yeah."
Emily sucked in a breath and turned the paper over in her hands. "So like… a real case, huh? Not the kiddie errands we ran between the other episodes? There wasn't anything like this in the first season, though."
"I don't think there was supposed to be anything in the first one. John's blog started to pick up after all that, remember?"
"I guess," the girl muttered. "So what do we have to go off of?"
"I'm not… sure, actually," Scottie answered slowly. "I don't remember reading anything about this one on the blog, I just recognized the title. Sort of. Technically Sherlock hasn't even said anything about a case yet. We might be jumping the gun on this one."
"Or he's waiting for John to get back from New Zealand?" offered Emily.
"Yeah. Could be."
The teenagers each had a seat at the edge of Emily's bed at the same time and stared forward in contemplative silence.
"This is going to be an entirely different ballpark," Scottie finally said. "They're probably smaller cases, but we won't have the advantage of knowing line-for-line what comes next."
"Real life isn't typically equipped with a script," Emily reminded him.
"Let's just try to be careful, okay? No more getting shot at if it can be helped."
Scottie and Emily met the couple just outside the airport, each holding up a brightly colored sparkly sign - one for John and one for Sarah. John and Sarah came out from a pair of sliding glass doors and wheeling a single suitcase each. Spotting the kids and their signs, John smiled and gave a little wave and they both ran forward to hug him.
"Oh, geez, I wasn't gone that long," laughed John.
"Yes you were," disagreed Scottie. "Promise you'll never ever leave us alone like that again."
"Alone? Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson were there. Oh - is that the line for cabs over there? We should probably get in it."
"You guys go on ahead," Sarah said. "I've already called an Uber."
"Why wouldn't we carpool?" Emily squinted and shifted her eyes from Sarah to John and back. Her eyes then widened with realization. "Oh. Shit. I'm so sorry, I didn't-"
"What? No, we-" John said quickly.
"It's okay," Sarah interrupted at the same time. "Two different directions. Easier this way."
"Oh. Um… okay."
"Yeah, that's… Yeah. Yeah. What she said."
Sarah glanced down at her phone and then awkwardly said goodbye to them all just before going to meet her ride. Scottie and Emily couldn't help but notice they hadn't done their usual parting ways kiss and exchanged uncomfortable glances.
"Is, uh, everything okay with you guys?" Scottie asked as they were getting into the back of the line. Emily shot him a look that implied he had no right to ask that, to which Scottie shrugged.
"It's… a long story," John answered wearily. "We're fine," he then said a little too quickly. "Things are fine. Sarah's… We're good. Nothing you need to be concerned about."
Emily raised a skeptical eyebrow at the man. "And other than… that, how was New Zealand?"
"Green."
"See any hobbits?"
"No hobbits, no."
"Bummer."
"Reading!" Emily scoffed as she was stepping out of the cab in front of 221 Baker Street. "That trip was wasted on you."
Scottie followed her out and they waited while John unlocked the front door. "Says the girl who hasn't picked up a book since we got here," he muttered.
"That's not true! I must've at least picked one up."
"It was probably the prime spot for it anyway," Scottie shrugged, "and if nothing else the poor guy needed a break after toadying to you for however many weeks!"
Emily threw Scottie an incredulous look. "Toadying?!"
"Oh, c'mon; he tucked your blanket underneath you every night!"
At this Emily folded her arms and stuck up her nose. "Fine. When it's your turn to get shot, you can be cold at night."
"Alright, that's enough out of you two," John laughed.
They were just starting up the stairs when Mrs. Hudson came out from her own flat. "Oh, John, you're back!" the woman exclaimed happily. "How is Sarah?"
"She's good," John called back, leaning over the railing.
"You'll have to tell me all about it! New Zealand, right? I bet you got all sorts of reading done there, didn't you?"
"Yeah, actually…"
"Oh, but you've just come from the airport, haven't you?"
John glanced down at his suitcase. "Um. Yeah. Yeah, I have," he answered, looking up again.
"Then don't let me keep you!" the landlady insisted. "Go on and unpack your things, but after you've settled back in I want to hear all about it, you hear?"
"Perhaps I ought to sit everyone down and avoid repeating the same stories three times in a row," John thought out loud.
"That would be lovely!"
"Maybe you can do, like, a Powerpoint recap of the trip," whispered Scottie.
"You shush. Although I do have pictures."
John promised Mrs. Hudson once more that he would absolutely remember to recount the entire experience to her and sooner rather than later, and then he struggled to drag his suitcase the rest of the way up the stairs. The man had just passed the landing in front of 221B on his way to his own bedroom when Sherlock came running downstairs.
"Don't unpack," the detective was saying, "we're going on a holiday. More or less."
John stopped and watched Sherlock pass him and start into the living room. "But I just came back from my holiday," John protested. "I've only just come in the door!"
Whirling back around, Sherlock held onto the door frame with both hands and leaned out. "Yes, hence 'don't unpack'."
Wrinkling his nose first, John backtracked a couple stairs and set his suitcase back down against the landing's wall. When he had turned around again Sherlock was already further inside 221B. John followed Scottie and Emily into the flat, where he could now see that the detective was furiously flipping through an assortment of papers on the dining room table.
"Scottie, did you move that foldout from the other day?" Sherlock asked loudly.
"Yes, but I brought it back."
Sherlock pushed aside several more papers before he found what he was looking for. This he brought over to John, explaining, "Four days ago I was contacted via email by Matilda Briggs, the owner of this cruise line, which departs from South Dock Marina and makes a two-day trip down the Thames going East and back. Miss Briggs had concerns about one of her boats, which had taken off on schedule but never made its return date. I'll admit, I wasn't interested in the misplaced ship until Miss Briggs reached out to me again this morning, saying that this was the same case with two more of its kind."
"Well, they've got to still be along the River Thames somewhere," John shrugged. "It would take quite a lot of skill to stray off of a path like that."
"That's what you would think. Ships don't vanish, particularly not in a confined space."
"But these ones did?"
Sherlock nodded grimly.
"This might be a dumb question," Scottie chimed in, "but wouldn't it make sense to talk to someone onboard? Even if there was some sort of radio malfunction, cell phones are still a thing, and I bet most of the passengers and crew had those on them."
"Communications with all onboard personnel was lost shortly after departure in each of the three cases."
Emily raised an eyebrow. "Really? You tried every number on passenger registers for three different cruises?"
"Yes, that would be how I spent most of my morning," Sherlock replied, looking vaguely annoyed.
"Wow. Impressive."
"Tedious if anything."
John glanced down at the paper in his hands once more, exhaled, and had a seat on the sofa. "So what then?"
"What indeed." The corner of Sherlock's lips rose into a knowing smirk.
John stiffened and leaned forward, his face dead serious. "You want us to go on the cruise and see if it happens again," the man realized. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"
"I already spoke to Miss Briggs over the phone. She said we needn't worry about purchasing tickets ourselves. They were all booked up anyway, but in case of overflow emergencies they apparently leave a couple rooms unoccupied."
John looked over at Scottie and Emily, who were already grinning back at him obnoxiously. "Fine," the man sighed. "How soon does it leave?"
"You know, when you said we were going on a pleasure cruise, I was picturing bathing suits and Hawaiian shirts," Emily grumbled. Instead she was hugging herself and in a sweater and puffy vest. A thick layer of fog blanketed the harbor. "There is nothing remotely pleasurable about freezing one's ass off."
"You forget that most of the world doesn't have the little bubble of nice you're used to," Scottie told her snidely.
"So you keep reminding me. God, I can't wait until summer rolls around and I can finally break out my short shorts…"
The two of them were patiently waiting outside of Matilda Brigg's tiny office not all that far from the docks. The fog masked most things just a few feet in front of them and blended in with the gray sky, but in the distance several ships' masts were still visible. Emily started to bounce in place a little in a poor attempt to warm herself up.
"Oh fuck me," Scottie suddenly wheezed beside her. Emily stopped and turned her head in time to see Sherlock and John coming out of the building, and Sherlock was now wearing an all-white uniform that looked almost too much like a Halloween costume to be the real deal.
"Permission to take a selfie, Captain?" Emily asked as little too eagerly.
"Permission denied," Sherlock shot back.
"Too late!"
Camera phone at the ready, Emily hopped up on the rope railing that surrounded the harbor and proceeded to take a picture of the both of them.
"Delete that," Sherlock frowned, making a grab for the phone. Emily snorted and stepped down, pulling it back and out of reach.
"Are you kidding? This is going on John's blog!"
"What's with the costume change?" Scottie asked, currently fighting back the urge to laugh or start sobbing with joy. He hadn't decided exactly which he was feeling more just yet.
"What better way to move about a ship freely than to appear to belong on it?"
"But… you didn't pick up a couple of those for us, did you?"
"Sorry bud," smiled John. "You two will be posing as regular passengers along with me."
Scottie frowned. "Well that's no fun. Why are you only one who gets to play dress-up?"
"Because I think we both know that that's too much responsibility for you to not screw up," Sherlock lectured. The man reached into a shirt pocket and took out two tickets and keys, which he handed off to each of the kids. "These are your passes onboard and room keys."
"Scottie Watson?" Scottie read off of his ticket.
"You're more or less undercover as a perfectly ordinary family spending their vacation sightseeing halfway down the River Thames. The ship shouldn't be difficult to find; only departure South Dock Marina has scheduled for this morning."
The boy tucked his key into a back pocket and started to fold his ticket in half. "Aren't you coming on with us?"
"I'll be just behind you. To avoid drawing attention we're going to have to pretend not to know one another prior to this cruise, understand?" Both teens nodded. "Good. That being said, from this point on try to avoid direct communication. Text me if anything suspicious comes to your attention and I will make an effort to do the same."
Once Sherlock was absolutely sure that Scottie and Emily knew what the plan was (not that there was all that much of a plan to go off of) he sent the three of them on their way further down the maze of docks up to the water, each lugging an overnight bag with them. It was there that they found their vessel. This was considerably smaller than that of a standard cruise ship, although neither of them knew enough about the subject matter to deduce much more than that. The bottom portion had been painted a bright seafoam green that looked as if it were trying as hard as it could to pierce through the thick fog. The words "Tilly Briggs Pleasure Cruise" were scrawled across it in enormous cursive letters, a phone number tacked on beneath them.
After crossing a wooden gangplank, the real Watson and his two fake Watsons handed off their tickets to a man that was dressed similarly to how Sherlock had been. "Is everything alright?" John asked, noticing that the other man was looking a bit confused as he took the tickets.
"Are you sure you've got the right ship?" he asked after a moment.
"I should think so," John insisted. "We were just talking with Matilda about a scheduling mishap and she managed to squeeze us into this time slot last minute. Specifically pointed us in this direction." John tilted his head, looking up at the cruise employee, who he was starting to think looked nervous. "Unless… you think there's been some kind of mistake and wish to talk to Miss Briggs about it?"
"Wh-no! Of course not, I just… Well, never you mind that," the man said and blinked owlishly. "I'm sorry for the trouble. Welcome aboard, and do enjoy your stay on the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise!" The man backed up several steps and gestured out to the ship's deck.
"Well if that doesn't qualify as suspicious..." Scottie muttered under his breath.
There didn't seem to be too many other passengers onboard, and those that were generally kept to themselves. Scottie, Emily, and John saw Sherlock boarding but made a point to not ogle. The three of them instead migrated to the back end of the cruise ship and leaned over its railing, each of them quietly staring out at the partially obscured river.
"Alright, I'm gonna be the first to say I don't like this," Scottie said, turning his head towards John and Emily.
"Of course you don't," said Emily, "other people are involved."
"Okay but it's not just that. Did you see the way some of them were staring at us? Everyone seems a little… I don't know, hostile. Particularly for a pleasure cruise."
John nodded. "You're right. But probably best not to do or say anything about it just yet. Whatever's going on here, I doubt they'll take too kindly to our snooping."
It was a while longer before the ship actually set into motion, and it was so slow at first that they didn't even notice they were moving right away. Emily sighed and doubled over the railing so that her arms dangled off the edge. "Man, I was so excited about going on a cruise, but this is going to be rather boring, isn't it? It's way too cold to use the pool. There's too much fucking fog to do any sightseeing. I've got my fingers crossed that the buffet at least lives up to its Yelp ravings…"
"Hey, why don't you two find your room and drop off your things there?" John suggested. "Get to know your way around the ship a little."
Scottie made a face. "Um. I suppose we could… Do you know what direction that would be in?"
"No idea."
"Great. Really helpful."
Emily nodded her head to the side and took up her bag in one hand. "C'mon; I remember walking past the stairs leading below deck. They're probably around there."
"You know, another thing: this ship is very, very empty for a pleasure cruise," Scottie was saying as they descended the staircase. "I know I can't expect it to have hundreds like the Disney one you see on TV all the time, but there should be at least… what, sixty or so? I could easily count the number of passengers I saw out there on my fingers! On one hand, no less!"
"Why don't you keep talking about your conspiracy theory at twice that volume so everyone involved can hear?" Emily threw back sarcastically.
"In case you've forgotten, this case gets titled Tilly Briggs Cruise of Terror. I think I have every right to voice my anxieties concerning it."
At the bottom of the stairs they came to a long hallway that stretched out for the length of the ship. Lining it were a series of what looked like hotel rooms. Scottie and Emily each pulled out their keys and had a look at the room numbers carved into them - both of which were 26.
"Guess we're sharing," Emily muttered.
They had little trouble locating their room down the line, and once they got to it Emily unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was terribly small. On one side of the room was a bunk bed, and at the other a sink and mirror next to a door that probably lead to a restroom. A short walkway existed between where the teens were standing and a rounded window opposite them.
Emily wrinkled her nose. "The brochure didn't say anything about renting out a walk-in closet. Oh well. Dibs on top bunk." The girl came further into the tiny room and threw her bag onto the top of the bunk bed. Scottie set his own bag down at the foot of the bed.
"The view sucks too," Emily pouted as she pressed her hands up against the glass.
"At least it's considerably warmer than outside. I grabbed a pack of playing cards if you just want to chill in here for a bit." Emily looked back at Scottie, who was already starting to fish the deck out from his bag. "Since, y'know, we're not really supposed to hang with Sherlock right now and as far as I can tell there's nothing to do or see up there."
"Won't John get worried about us? You know he's like that."
"He has your number," shrugged Scottie.
And so Emily plopped down across from Scottie and they quietly proceeded to play several increasingly competitive rounds of spit and egyptian ratscrew before Scottie got bored and threw the entire deck into the air and exclaimed "Fifty-two card pickup!"
Emily rolled her eyes and started to clean up the mess. "Was that necessary?" she asked.
"Yes," Scottie answered with conviction.
"...Okay."
After they'd gotten the cards orderly again and tucked them out of sight Emily checked the time on her phone. It still was a little more than an hour before noon, which she found disappointing because that was when the buffet was supposed to open.
"So. What now?" Scottie asked.
"Well… we could go explore the rest of the ship? Maybe see if we come across something remotely entertaining?"
"Oh!" Scottie gasped. "Maybe we can play hide and seek! Or hide and seek tag!"
"One two three not it!" Emily exclaimed.
"Alright, you've got sixty seconds."
Emily's eyes widened at this. "Wh… No way, sixty seconds isn't enough to find a good place!"
"Better start looking then," Scottie shrugged. "One… two… three…"
"Ugh fuck you!" Without arguing further the girl pulled open the door to their room and took off down the corridor. She didn't see anything that looked remotely like a hiding place on that level, and so Emily started quickly up the stairs to the upper deck.
But she didn't make it very far.
Almost immediately after ascending the staircase someone grabbed at the girl's forearm, jerking her to the side. Emily tried to yell out but a hand flew over her mouth from behind. She could now see that aside from whoever was behind her, she was faced with three more men, two of which looked like employees and the other could've been another passenger. Starting to panic, Emily began to kick wildly at the strangers. Two of them each grabbed one of her legs and she was lifted off of the ground, thrashing about and letting muffled shouts all the while.
"...Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty!" Scottie finished and darted out of the room after Emily. But his smile quickly faded when he heard the commotion from up above. Clinging to the railing at the bottom of the stairs now, Scottie leaned out and only just saw Emily being pulled away by a group of men that were twice her size.
"Shit," Scottie wheezed. He instinctively began patting around his pockets in search of a cell phone, momentarily forgetting that he didn't have one, and then scurried back the way he came.
He had forgotten to lock the room again after vacating it, so luckily it swung open again on the first attempt. His breathing heavy, Scottie touched along the door for some way to bolt it shut further but found nothing. Scottie swallowed and pressed his back up against the door. He wasn't sure if or when they'd be coming him next, much less why, and that only made it harder to decide whether he should go try to help Emily or keep himself holed up in their room.
He apparently didn't have all that long to think about this because suddenly he heard the bathroom door knob jiggling. Scottie tensed up and stared at it for a moment. The jiggling had stopped and was followed by three knocks. Chewing at his lower lip, Scottie crossed the room and cautiously reached for the knob, already knowing that he was probably going to regret this.
Scottie sucked in a breath and held it as he pulled open the bathroom door. The boy then let out a sigh of relief. Standing across from him was Sherlock, who had a new cut across his left temple that was stained with blood but otherwise looked okay.
"So, the good news is that I think I've solved the case."
Emily was brought into what she eventually figured out was the ship's bridge - a boxy little room with a line of glass and control panels in place of one of its walls. As soon as the guys carrying her stopped walking she bit at the hand still cupped in front of her face. Its owner gasped and dropped her so that her top half fell backwards and hit against the floor. Emily yelped.
The others released her legs and Emily scrambled to her feet and made a hopeless attempt at getting back out of there. The man who she had bitten then yanked her around by her wrist, which he twisted behind her back and used to slam her down over one of the panels, pinning her into place with his other arm.
"Fuck!" Emily hissed. "What is your damage?!"
"Where's the other one?" someone else asked, ignoring her. Out of the corner of her eye Emily could see that he wasn't one of the ones who had brought her, and there was one more man standing behind him. One of them was in uniform.
"Other one?" another one of the uniformed fellows echoed.
"Yes, the other kid. The boy."
"We… never saw anyone else. Sir."
The other man pinched at the bridge of his nose for a moment in obvious annoyance. "Great," he grumbled, letting his arm drop again. "Stash this one with her dad. I'll round up the rest of the boys and have them do a sweep of the lower decks. He isn't leaving this ship, you hear?"
"Yes sir."
The man who had been shouting out orders turned to his companion then and whispered something. The other gave a curt nod as soon as he had finished and left the room from the opposite side. Emily was then yanked up once more and guided out of the bridge by a thick hand gripping tightly around her neck. She had seemingly given up on putting up much of a resistance.
Emily was taken across the ship and into what appeared to be the dining hall, which consisted of a bar and several rounded tables and chairs. At the far end of the room was a janitorial closet, which Emily was unceremoniously shoved into. Emily immediately lost her footing over something, but her fall was broken by some metal shelves that were holding up various cleaning supplies.
It was an insanely tight space. The door shut behind her, cutting off the only light source. Emily whirled around and tried to pull at the door knob. "Hey!" she yelled out amid the blackness. She slammed the palm of her hand against the door. "You can't do this!"
When she wasn't answered right away Emily started to feel around the wall for a light switch. She found one, but it wasn't working. The girl exhaled anxiously and took her cell phone out of a back pocket, half surprised that it hadn't been confiscated. She hit a button on the thing, causing its screen to light up, and took a minute to figure out how to turn on its flash to use in place of a flashlight.
As soon as she had that working Emily looked down and saw that what she'd initially tripped over wasn't a bucket, but a body.
Emily shrieked and dropped the pink phone.
Now facing the floor, her light was almost entirely blocked and the room darkened again. After a moment of heavy breathing and squishing herself into the corner of the room, Emily finally found it in herself to crouch down and pick her phone back up. She pointed the device at the figure lying face-down and now recognized it as John. Emily gasped and scrambled closer.
"John!" the girl choked. "John! Oh my God, John! Are you alright? Can you hear me?"
Emily shook the man's shoulder, but he didn't respond. She set the phone down with its light facing up and put her face closer to John's just to make sure he was still breathing.
He was and that was at least a bit of a relief. Emily's arm brushed past the back of the man's head then and she jerked her arm back, having felt something wet. When she looked down at her wrist she could now see a smear of what could only be blood that looked black in that lighting. Emily pressed a hand over her mouth and took several deep breaths.
"What the fuck is going on!" she finally exhaled, her voice weak.
"And… is the bad news that Emily just got dragged off by a bunch of creepy strangers?"
"She what!" Sherlock snapped, eyes widening. "I thought she was with you! How could you let this happen?!"
Scottie frowned. "I'm sorry, but did you just say how could I let this happen?"
"Well there's no sense in pointing fingers about it now," Sherlock sighed and invited himself into the room, "doubtless they've got her and John in the same place, and hopefully they'll stay there until the rest of us are rounded up."
"They've got John too!"
"Yes of course they've got John!" Sherlock yelled back. "And that one I'll take responsibility for. I should've seen what was happening the second I stepped onto this floating metal tin. God, what were we thinking? This was such a stupid plan!" The detective kicked at the bottom bunk frustratedly and then threw himself down on it with a grunt.
Scottie rubbed at one of his arms and looked nervously at the man. "So… uh, am I allowed to ask why some people grabbed John and Emily?"
"Because we weren't supposed to be here," Sherlock threw back matter-of-factly.
"I'm sorry?"
"Technically speaking neither were any of them, but that's not the main point. We stuck out like a sore thumb and the best of our disguises wouldn't have done a thing to change that. There's an old story, um… that there used to be a man who would cross from East Berlin into West Berlin while the wall was still up. Every morning he would ride up to the same checkpoint on a bicycle with a sack of sand tied to it. Every morning the guards would cut open his sack and search it. Finding nothing, they would let the man through. He would return that night and repeat this the following day."
Scottie blinked. "Okay…?"
"The guards apparently never realized that this man was smuggling bicycles. Whether the story is true or not is irrelevant. The point of it is how easy it is to slip something by right under another's nose without drawing attention to the main item. For instance, how would you steal a ship?"
"You… find a way to pretend you belong on it," Scottie caught on.
Sherlock smiled a little. "Bingo. It was a clever scheme, I'll give them that much. And it would explain the considerably smaller number of people onboard. The bare minimum to avoid drawing suspicion. I imagine they paid off whatever crew members aren't directly involved. I wouldn't know the exact worth of a boat this size but I imagine it's quite a lot, and they likely intend on smuggling out all eight that Miss Briggs has in her possession."
"But you had a passenger list," Scottie reminded Sherlock. "What about all of them? Were they paid off as well? Because that many would be rather impressive. Not to mention costly. I'm not sure if it'd even be worth it at that point."
"Aliases. None of those passengers actually existed, which would explain why none of them could be contacted as soon as the ships went off the grid. All expenses paid with the same set of fake cards, no doubt. And the time frame matches up. There was just enough time between trips for the group to take the ship across the Thames, where the Coastguard obviously wouldn't see it as out of place, and then circle back around with plenty of time to take out the next one. Either the first three were already handed off to a buyer or they're stashed in a private dock somewhere at the mouth of the North Sea."
Scottie scrubbed his hands over his face. "Okay, okay, congrats on solving the thing!" he let out. "I believe you. But if what you say is true, we're kind of trapped in a confined space and very much outnumbered. I don't suppose you have a plan for stopping these guys?"
Sherlock hesitated with his mouth opened slightly. After a moment he closed it again and hung his head in shame. "I'm still working on that bit," the man admitted.
They both fell quiet and Scottie folded his arms and leaned his back against the wall opposite Sherlock. "We can't take them all out and turn the ship around ourselves, can we?"
"...No," Sherlock sighed, his voice much softer now. "I seriously doubt it."
More silence.
"We need to get above deck undetected," Sherlock suddenly announced and lifted his head.
Sherlock went to the door and touched its handle, but before opening it he came closer and pressed his ear against the door's crack. The man made a face and instead started to climb up the bunk bed. Scottie watch him with intrigue as he felt along the paneled ceiling and then pushed up one of the plywood panels. This he turned at its side so that it would slide down. Sherlock let it drop to the floor and stood up so that his top half disappeared into the ceiling.
"Uh... Sherlock? You okay there, buddy?" Scottie started up the ladder after him.
"This might not work," the detective admitted.
"Oh, well thanks for that boost of confidence."
"Stick close to me," Sherlock instructed and pulled himself up out of the room. Scottie crawled closer and craned his neck up. It was dark up there and all he could see now were Sherlock's feet, and even those disappeared after a moment. "Try to evenly distribute your weight and avoid kneeing the center of the panels," Sherlock went on, unseen.
"Alright, wait up!" Scottie shouted. The boy cautiously found where he could stand without hitting his head and struggled to pull himself up through the crawl space.
"Also probably avoid talking at this point."
Scottie wrinkled his nose. Now that he was completely up he could just make out Sherlock's outline scooting away from him and into the darkness that seemed to stretch out in every direction. As they got further out he began to hear muffled voices from below and made an extra effort to keep the volume of his movements to a minimum.
They were doing so far so good up until Scottie lost his footing over one of the panels and it snapped in half and dropped. The boy slid backwards but stopped himself from falling completely through with one foot while his other leg dangled off the edge.
A series of excited shouts told Scottie that this mishap hadn't gone unnoticed. Beginning to panic again, Scottie kicked and tried to push himself back up but he had nothing to grab onto. Without giving it much forethought Scottie slammed a fist through another one of the panels and used the bar between the missing ones to try and pull himself up.
Suddenly he felt a hand grab hold of his ankle and pull it down. Scottie gasped and clung tighter to the bar. He looked up and saw Sherlock had spun around and was lying on his stomach in front of him now. Sherlock held out a hand to Scottie and pulled him in the opposite direction.
Scottie yanked his foot away from whoever had previously had him, losing a shoe in the process. The boy reared back and kicked whoever it was in the face just before being pulled back to safety.
"Are you okay?" Sherlock asked, his voice low.
Scottie nodded.
With the nod of his head Sherlock lead Scottie onward. It had just started to feel as if their pursuers had given up when something poked through another one of the panels several feet away from them, knocking it down. The gesture was repeated. Sherlock didn't look back but quickened his crawling pace.
Finally they reached the opposite end of the ship. Of course they couldn't see where it ended, but they could certainly feel it.
"Now what?" Scottie whispered, glancing back nervously at the panels that were still being knocked down one at a time. A good distance remained between them and the commotion, however, and it occurred to Scottie that this was because they were now above the rooms at the other end of the hall.
Scottie couldn't see what Sherlock was doing now, and the man didn't bother to answer him (one of his more frustrating traits). A new stream of light poured in when Sherlock lifted up a panel and put it aside. The detective peered down through it and then jumped in. Scottie took a deep breath and come closer to stick his own head through the hole.
Below him wasn't another bedroom but some sort of closet. Scottie still wasn't entirely sure what they were doing but he jumped in after Sherlock anyway. He had been just a little higher than he wanted to be and as such didn't land so gracefully.
"Need a hand?" Sherlock asked rather distractedly.
"Not anymore..." the boy winced back.
The paneled ceiling stopped halfway through the room, giving way to some kind of hatch with a metal ladder leading up to it.
"Is that a fire escape?" Scottie asked, picking himself up.
"Something like that."
The hatch brought the boys up at the rear end of the ship, hidden just behind its dining hall. It was midday now and most of the fog had burned off, but it wasn't much warmer despite this. Sherlock glanced out around the corner of the building and spotted the guys from before just coming up from the stairs at the ship's center. Sherlock sucked in a breath and turned back to Scottie, who was awkwardly waiting behind him.
"I'm just making everything ten times harder, aren't I?" Scottie asked guiltily.
Sherlock shrugged. "Well. Ten is a bit extreme, but… a bit, yeah."
"Sorry."
Sherlock leaned his back up against the wall and took out his phone. He made a face at the long string of missed calls and texts that Emily had apparently left for him, but he chose not to look at them just yet. "Lestrade," he said into the phone after a moment, "any chance you can call in a favor with the marine police forces? I need a cruise ship cut off. Somewhere between" - Sherlock shut his eyes tightly for a brief period of time before they snapped open again - "the East India Docks and Woolwich Foot Tunnel. Sorry I can't be more exact than that. Uh, smuggling. And abduction. Yeah. Don't take your time."
Sherlock hung up then and pressed the phone against his chest. Scottie frowned back at him. "You didn't think to make that call sooner?"
"How's your swimming?" the detective suddenly asked, acknowledging Scottie again.
Scottie squinted back at Sherlock distrustfully. "What are the odds of me saying I'm a strong swimmer and you not throwing me into the Thames to prove it?"
"Slim to none. I don't expect you to make it across all one-fifty-some meters, but there are plenty of other boats on the river, especially at this time of day. Your best shot is getting on one of those."
"Wh…" Scottie shook his head. "No, I wanna stay and help!"
"And if things don't pan out, knowing you got away is somewhat helpful." Sherlock made a quick glance around the corner once more. He didn't see the guys anymore, but figured it wouldn't be long before they turned their search in that direction.
"Why can't you come with?" protested Scottie.
Without giving him a reason, Sherlock hoisted the boy up over the railing despite his squirming and dropped him over the edge. It was a long fall and then the icy water engulfed Scottie. He popped back up moments later with a dramatic gasp for air and then flipped Sherlock off before starting to swim as hard as he could away from the ship.
Back onboard Sherlock silently hoped that he'd done the right thing just then. Now hoping to find John and Emily and get them to do likewise, the detective skimmed through Emily's texts until he found the ones saying where she was. Sherlock tucked his mobile away and began to circle around the building. He then spotted another person headed in his direction. Knowing that he'd been seen, Sherlock took off running around the opposite side, where he was immediately cut off by two more.
The first of the two threw a punch in Sherlock's direction, which he narrowly avoided. Neither of them were particularly good fighters, and their reflexes were slower than his. Sherlock probably could've taken both of them had they not had more friends just around the corner. In a matter of minutes the detective was outnumbered and thrown to the floor, where he was then kicked repeatedly until he couldn't even find to strength to try and stand up again.
"Alright, knock it off!" someone bellowed.
At this the attackers stopped what they were doing and the crowd took a couple steps back from Sherlock, who began coughing. Sherlock wiped the back of his hand against his bloodstained mouth and squinted up at the newcomer. He was dressed similarly to how Sherlock and some of the other men were, but this man was additionally wearing a captain's hat.
"Who do I contact about filing a complaint against this cruise line?" Sherlock croaked.
The man in the hat looked down harshly at Sherlock. "That would be me," he answered with a sly smile. "Captain Joshua Ratner."
"You're in charge, then?"
"That I am."
"Not of this ship, though. Not according to the registry."
The other man's smile quickly faded. "Get up," he instructed.
Sherlock thought momentarily about this demand. "No actually I'm quite good down here, thanks."
Several of the other sailors exchanged glances before hoisting Sherlock to his feet with a pained gasp. "Secure him to the railing," Captain Ratner ordered. "This one was hard to get hold of. I don't want to go through the whole thing again."
Ratner's instructions were carried out and Sherlock's wrists were bound behind his back and around a section of the ship's railing by some kind of rubber-wrapped cord. "Just who are you?" Ratner slitted his eyes and stepped closer as soon as the deed was finished. "We would've known if you were really with Tilly Briggs."
"I'm an associate of Miss Briggs," Sherlock answered. "I was asked to look into the recent disappearance of several of her ships."
Ratner snorted. "Private dick, then. Glorified trespassers if you ask me. How much do you know?"
"Everything."
"He's lying!" one of the other men accused. "Ain't no way he knows what's what."
"Don't suppose it matters either way," shrugged Ratner. "Whatever information he thinks he has on us isn't leaving this ship."
"Not true," Sherlock countered. "I've already contacted the authorities. They should be waiting to board and make the arrests at the next checkpoint. This ship won't make it out of the Thames. Not today." As he spoke, Sherlock had been already struggling to nonchalantly unclip a swiss army knife from a set of keys that were attached to a belt loop behind his back.
The man who had spoken before's nostrils flared. "A liar and a bluffer!"
"Alright, that's enough out of you!" snapped Ratner. The other man lowered his head and Ratner faced Sherlock again, grinning. "You must think you're pretty clever, don't you?"
"Well, I wasn't going to say anything but since you bring it up…"
With a soft click the knife came off and Sherlock flipped it open and got to work at cutting through the thick mess of cords. It was a difficult enough angle already without looking and more than once he pricked his hand with the tiny blade, but Sherlock kept on a poker face and forced himself to engage in conversation with Ratner.
Ratner folded his arms and puffed out his chest proudly. "I'm not afraid of being boarded. They can search this place high and low and won't find anything remotely suspicious about a cruise ship already pre-scheduled to pass by at that exact time. Maybe a ton of people heard about the previous incidents and decided not to show at the last minute? It isn't unheard of."
"And you aren't even a little bit worried that I might say something?"
"Why should I? By then you and the other stowaways will already be long since buried at the bottom of the Thames."
Sherlock stiffened. "Other stowaways?" he repeated.
"Yeah. That family of three you came with."
"I didn't come with anyone else," Sherlock lied. "Please, if there's a family onboard that isn't a part of your scheme then they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Leave them alone." Geez, just how many times had they wrapped that cord around?
"I find that hard to believe," the captain scoffed. "The trip was booked up months in advance. Managing to get onto it goes way beyond wrong place, wrong time. And even if that were the case, it wouldn't change a thing. Those guys have seen too much to be allowed to leave." Ratner turned around to address his men now. "Say, why don't you boys go and fetch our guests? Bring 'em a couple chairs too while you're at it."
Sherlock watched frustratedly as all six of the other men took off to do Ratner's bidding. "You don't want to do this," he begged.
"Oh? Pray tell, why not?"
"Because we aren't like the fake passengers on the registry. If we go missing people will notice and they'll come looking. They'll know where we last were and figure out you're responsible."
Ratner shook his head smugly. "Look all they want, but they won't find anything. We'll be long gone by then. And so will you."
Emily had been trying to get ahold of Sherlock for the last twenty minutes or so. Her phone said it had service but he wasn't responding and that made her worry that the messages weren't going through. The battery was beginning to dwindle and eventually Emily gave up and set the device down on the floor next to her.
She sat sideways, leaning up against the wall and unable to see anything in the darkness. Emily had absolutely no idea how long she remained like this, but after a fair amount of time she heard John let out a grunt.
At this Emily scrambled to pick up her phone and turn the flashlight back on. John was starting to get to his knees as she pointed it at him and he held up a hand to block the light and groaned louder.
"Oh, sorry!" Emily quickly apologized and set the thing down.
"Emily…?"
"Yes hello it is I."
Sitting upright now, John blinked a couple times in succession and touched at the back of his head and winced. He held his hand out in front of his face and looked unhappily down at the blood that was now staining it.
"I was hit from behind," he muttered. Although it was unclear if John was remembering this or assuming based off of the injury he just discovered.
"I assumed as much," Emily said softly. "And then, I was playing with Scottie and these guys ambushed me and… and threw me in here. Why would they do that?" she asked John. "Do you know why they would do that?"
John exhaled and shook his head. "My guess is as good as yours, kid. Where's Scottie?"
"I don't know."
"What about Sherlock? Is that your phone? Did you text him?"
"I don't know. I tried to but he wasn't responding."
John took a couple deep breaths and glanced around the very dimly lit closet. "Where are we?" he asked.
"Next to the dining hall," she responded. John clung to the shelves and used those to stand up. He then reached for the door knob. "Don't you think I tried that already?" Emily sighed wearily.
But the door did open as soon as John tried it. Emily's eyes lit up in surprise at having been wrong but they both quickly realized that that wasn't why it had opened. Standing across from them was a group of six men. Without a word in edgewise the both of them were pulled out of the janitorial closet and dragged through the dining hall and around the back of it. This was where they saw Sherlock leaning up against the edge of the ship and facing another man that Emily remembered very clearly from earlier.
"Where's the boy now?" spat Ratner, whirling around angrily at them as they approached.
"We… never found him. Sir." one of the men answered for the others.
Ratner balled up his fists. "What do you mean, you never found him?!"
"We searched the whole ship, every nook and crany. We thought he was with the man in our uniform but that didn't turn out to be the case."
"Well then keep searching!" fumed Ratner, starting to go red. "Roger, Eric, Chris - you go. I swear to God, you boys better find him or you'll both be taking his place."
"Yes sir!" the three of them nodded and excused themselves from the huddle.
"The rest of you tie the stowaways to their seats. I want them off my ship."
John and Emily were both unhappily forced into a chair and the coil of cords was brought over.
"H-Hold up!" one of the men suddenly exclaimed and tugged at Ratner's sleeve. "If you're just planning on killing them, couldn't I borrow the girl for a bit first?"
Several sets of horrified eyes fell on this man.
"Jesus," Ratner hissed, "are you serious?"
"Hey, waste not, want not! C'mon; all I need is an hour tops, then I can dump 'er myself."
Ratner hesitated briefly before yanking Emily out of the seat by her vest and shoving her into the other guy's arms with a shriek. "Fine, but make it a half hour. I don't want anything left lying around if and when the authorities get here."
John jumped up and lunged forward, but he was immediately pulled back by two of the men. As soon as he was back in the chair they started tightly stringing the cord around him. "Oi!" John barked. He pulled furiously against the binding. "Don't you dare touch her!"
Emily tried to pull away but the man took her by her wrists and held her into place with her own arms wrapped around herself. "Say Capt'n, would you fancy a go after I'm finished warmin' 'er up?" the brute snickered.
"I'll pass," Ratner said flatly.
The other man shrugged. "A'ight. Your loss." With that he let go of his current grip on Emily and grabbed a fistful of hair with one hand and dug his nails into her forearm with the other.
"I said don't touch her!" John yelled after him. "Did you hear me? Touch her and I'll kill you! I will actually kill you!"
"Alright, shut up, Daddy," one of the men behind John grunted and bent over to shut the doctor's jaw by force. John couldn't see Emily and the stranger any longer. Now there was just Ratner and two of his cronies remaining. Still fuming, John jerked his head away.
It was at that moment that Sherlock finally managed to sever the last bit of cord. Now wielding the swiss army knife out in front of himself, he charged at Ratner, pinning him against the wall. The other men exchanged glances but otherwise made no move to step in.
Ratner snorted. "Not bad. I'll admit, I'm impressed. Such a small blade, too."
"Small but just as effective," seethed Sherlock.
"Is that the title of your sex tape?"
"Bring her back up here and let the man go."
"Empty threats," sang Ratner, full of confidence. "As much as you might want to slit my throat right now, you won't. So long as I don't fight back, you don't have it in you."
Sherlock pressed the knife slightly harder against the captain's throat so that just a trickle of blood started to form along the very end of the blade. His breathing was heavy. But Ratner's smile didn't fade until he heard someone's voice calling out from over a megaphone.
"This is the Marine Police Forces," the voice announced. "We have you surrounded. Under British law, please halt your vessel and prepare to be boarded."
His face entirely transformed into a scowl now, Ratner met Sherlock's eyes. "Guess they're running ahead of schedule," Sherlock told him, it being his turn now to smirk.
"Throw the stowaway over," Ratner glowered.
Sherlock leaned back, his face falling again. "What?"
"THROW HIM OVER."
Sherlock whipped his head around just as the two remaining sailors hefted John's chair into the air and chucked it overboard. John let out a yell as this was happening. Sherlock let the knife drop from his hand and darted back to the railing, Ratner laughing from behind him all the while. One of the other men tried to pull Sherlock back by his collar but the detective snapped around and socked him in the face, making the guy topple backwards and knock over his companion in the process.
Sherlock leaned over the railing and then stepped back again and kicked off his shoes. Next he pulled off his uniform's shirt. Sherlock then climbed up the ship's railing and swan dove into the water after his flatmate.
Downstairs, Emily had been brought into one of the suites at the end of the hall. This room was considerably bigger than the one she and Scottie had been assigned to, but still wasn't even comparable to theirs back on Baker Street. The far side was entirely constructed from glass with a dark curtain pulled across and a queen sized bed sat at the other end.
The man threw Emily down against the bed and shut the door behind himself. Her mind whirling, Emily climbed over it and pressed up against the opposite wall.
"Look," the man rolled his eyes, "why don't you just make this whole thing easier on both of us and get back on the bed."
Emily shook her head furiously.
He sighed. "Alright then. Hard way it is."
Emily remained frozen in terror as the stranger unzipped her puffy vest and pulled it off of her. She was holding back tears now. The man tossed the article of clothing aside carelessly and came closer to her. As a gut reaction Emily threw out a leg suddenly, kicking the man in the crotch and sending him stumbling backwards a couple steps.
She immediately realized that this could've potentially made the whole thing even worse (if that were possible) and looked desperately towards the door. There was no way she could make it out of there without being stopped. Instead Emily took a left and dove into the bathroom and looked around frantically for something - anything - she could use as a weapon.
"Oh, I really wish you hadn't done that…"
The first thing the girl found was a can of Febreze. She grabbed this and as soon as she had done so the man was blocking her exit. Emily charged forward, spraying the air freshener directly into his eyes. He let out a yowl and in his temporary blindness Emily shoved past him and made a mad dash for the door.
She just got to the foot of the stairs when he was upon her again. Emily screamed. But then he fell forward and face-planted into the wooden floorboards. Lip trembling, Emily looked up to see a familiar face rearing back with a fire extinguisher.
"Scottie!" she choked.
"If he moves I'll bash him again!" the boy spat. Both of them waited for several long seconds just to be sure, but he didn't move, as much as he may've deserved it.
"Y-You're soaking wet."
Scottie looked down at his attire, which was currently still dripping and stuck uncomfortably to his body. "Yeah," he agreed. "Sherlock kind of threw me off the ship, but then I didn't listen to him and swam around to the side with the ladder on it."
Emily tried to force a smile but instead ended up breaking down sobbing.
"Hey…" Scottie ran around the unconscious man and guided Emily so that she was now sitting on the steps beside him. He set down the fire extinguisher. "It's okay. The police are here now. Nobody's going to hurt you. It's okay."
The weight of the chair pulled John down just as effectively as any anchor would've. Sherlock grabbed the top of it and struggled to drag his friend back to the surface, but the task proved incredibly difficult. Despite his best efforts the combined John and furniture was too heavy. The more he pulled up, the further down John seemed to pull him.
Finally Sherlock had to let go and revisit the surface for air for himself. He immediately dove back down again, kicking furiously to catch up to where John had sank to. Since his previous attempt proved fruitless, now Sherlock tried to free John from the chair while still underwater.
Everything was cold and blurry underwater, but Sherlock located the knots at the back of the chair easily enough and started to fidget with them. It didn't help that as he was working the chair continued its descent into the Thames.
Several excruciating seconds passed and Sherlock wasn't any closer to untying the cords. They were too tightly knotted even despite the circumstances. Sherlock's lungs were starting to burn, and he could only imagine how much worse off John must have been at that moment.
Now Sherlock switched to tugging at the cords that were around John one at a time, hoping to free him that way. It wasn't easy but eventually he did manage to loosen the first one enough to pull it over John's head. The following strings of cord were considerably easier, each loosening more and more the further along he got. At last John was free and the chair continued to plummet to its watery grave without him.
The burning in Sherlock's lungs was almost tenfold now and he could've sworn they were about to burst. Sherlock fought through the pain and pulled John towards the surface with him by the man's arms. This time they both made it and Sherlock popped his head up, gasping for air. He looked over at John, at first relieved, but suddenly concerned that his friend wasn't doing the same.
Sherlock scanned his eyes across the horizon. At one side of him was the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise. At the other was a police boat, and they must've seen him because a long rope was tossed out. Needless to say, Sherlock swam himself and John in that direction.
The end of the rope was still a good five to ten feet off, but as soon as Sherlock had gotten close enough to get a firm grasp on it he had the help of two other men pulling at the rope from aboard the police ship. Once the flatmates were within reaching distance each of the marine officers pulled them up the rest of the way.
The one who had brought John in wasted no time in performing CPR. In an impressively short about of time John was sitting upright again and coughing and spitting up water. Sherlock looked up at the cruise ship but couldn't see what was happening on it from where he was.
"Which of you is Sherlock Holmes?"
Sherlock looked back and saw John pointing at him in response. The officer who asked looked like he was about to say something else but he was interrupted via walkie-talkie from one of the officers that had boarded the Tilly Briggs ship from another boat.
"We've got seven guys. Do you know if that's right?"
The officer held down his walkie-talkie and looked to Sherlock expectantly. Sherlock nodded. "Yeah. Seven. There should be seven."
"Confirmed," the officer answered.
"Ask if there's a girl with them," Sherlock requested. "There was a girl onboard. Ask if she's okay."
The officer nodded and clicked the button on his walkie-talkie, holding it up again. "Apparently there's a female onboard as well?"
"Yes. We have two children with us. A boy and a girl."
Sherlock exhaled rather loudly and flopped back all the way so that he was now staring up at the sky and beginning to ever so slowly dry off.
"Check it, we made the evening news," John announced. He came into the room through the kitchen still in his bathrobe and grabbed the remote off a nearby table.
Sherlock had run out without explanation about an hour ago and now Scottie and Emily were hanging out on the floor of 221B and eating out of microwave mac and cheese cups. John threw himself down in his armchair and turned on the TV.
"-have stressed that they had no idea what was going on," an older Asian woman was in the middle of reporting. "A full investigation of the incident is still underway in search of the three previously stolen cruise ships, but so far we have confirmed that as many as seven suspects were arrested under charges of theft, smuggling, and abduction."
The screen changed to show a still photo of the cruise ship now, but the reporter went on with her piece uninterrupted: "The discovery of this conspiracy has been accredited to private eye Sherlock Holmes, who was hired by the sole owner of the company, Miss Matilda Briggs."
Next the screen cut to footage from earlier that day showing Sherlock at a harbor. He was still shirtless but now had a towel draped over his shoulders.
"Mr. Holmes, is it true that you were able to sneak aboard the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise while the smuggling operation was underway?" someone offscreen asked. Their hand could just barely be seen at the bottom of the frame, now holding out a microphone.
"Yes," Sherlock answered slowly. He had this look on his face that suggested the answer to that question should have been obvious and he wasn't entirely sure why it was being asked of him.
"And was it you who phoned the police as soon as you knew what was going on?"
"Yes."
"Care to elaborate as to what did, in fact, happen this morning?"
"No," Sherlock replied after a moment of careful thought.
"Look, this isn't… It's not a good time," John chimed in. The camera panned over to show the man standing beside Sherlock. "It's been a long day, the kids are tired and we just want to get home. This isn't a good time."
The news story cut back to the first reporter. "Miss Briggs wasn't available for comment on the lawsuit currently being filed against her company for fraud and accepting bribes. To read more on this story, visit our website under 'recent headlines'. I'm Ashley Wu, reporting-"
John shut the TV off again, cutting of the tail end of Ashley's story. He looked over at Emily and Scottie, who had been watching it but apparently didn't have anything to say. "Shame they're suing Miss Briggs, considering she was the one being wronged in the first place," the man muttered. "What's your verdict?"
"I'm never going on another cruise again," Emily huffed. "Never."
"What about you?" John asked, looking at Scottie now.
The boy shrugged. "I always did think they were kind of overrated to begin with."
John smiled. "Fair enough. You know, I'm proud of you guys. You're a lot stronger than I usually remember to give you credit for."
"Thanks," Scottie said, looking down.
"Can we put this whole thing behind us and talk about something else now?" requested Emily.
John blinked and tilted his head. "Um. Alright. What did you want to talk about?"
"Let's talk about Sarah. Is everything really alright between you two?"
"Full disclosure…" John pursed his lips and took a deep breath before answering. "No. We spent half the time in New Zealand fighting and I haven't heard from her since. I was probably going to try and meet up at some point this week. See if it was… worth saving."
Emily frowned. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault."
"I know. I'm still sorry."
"Don't be."
"Or you know," Scottie butted in, "we could instead go on another case and just avoid dealing with everything else forever and ever?"
"We could," laughed John. "I like that. Yeah. Let's do that."