A/N: this story may sound like a canon plot - in the beginning. But, do not be fooled. Strange things are going to happen and in the end, Baker Street will be a strange place to come back to, in more sense than one...
So, give it a chance. Read, enjoy - and review!
1 Unfit for dinner
„You're nuts, Mycroft" Sherlock said, as cool as the cucumber on his plate, and he bit into the same with more gusto than the sadly aged vegetable deserved.
Much to John Watson's amusement, the punishment followed swiftly, as Sherlock grimaced disgustedly. "What on earth is that? This tastes like …. "
"Bilge water that has been eaten before" Mycroft interrupted his younger brother. "I know. I told the chef the recipe must have gotten it all wrong. He didn't listen. Like someone else I could mention."
"Then why let me eat it?" Sherlock snapped back accusingly.
"Because I wanted to proof a point. With you, that always takes cruel mistreatment. It's because of your inbred intransigency."
While John rolled his eyes, the younger Holmes glared beastly at his elder brother. "And the point is…?"
"The point is that I'm not talking nonsense, usually, that I know what I'm saying, and that therefore listening to me and heeding my advice is not a sign of utter foolishness!"
Sherlock huffed sarcastically, Mycroft paled with anger and John found it necessary to intervene before nuclear war would be declared. "What advice are we talking about, exactly?"
"Good question, John" Sherlock destroyed every chance of maintaining peace and civility "which advice, indeed? There are so many of Mycroft Holmes' bits of sage and wisdom, one gets confused."
Pointedly Mycroft turned to Watson. "I had the nerve, John, the unbelievable insolence, of telling my most august younger brother to keep out of harm's way for a change. Lestrade has done his best to pacify his superiors, Anderson and Donovan have been transferred…..
"And promoted" Sherlock interposed and his tone, at the same time outraged, disbelieving and dismissive, showed what he thought of that.
Mycroft sighed sadly, cleared his throat and assumed that he might as well go on "Still the media want to see the blood of Sherlock Holmes. This journalist never forgave herself for her blunder with Richard Brook. It is obvious that she will continue to blame Sherlock as the guilty part in this. She was, after all, fired."
"Serves her right" Sherlock said viciously.
"Shut up, Sherlock" John and Mycroft said in unison, and, astonishingly, he did exactly that. If only to finish the wine bottle, and order a glass of whisky from the Diogenes Club Restaurant's old, distinguished waiter. Single Malt, Scotch Highlands, Single Cask, at least 18 years old. No, the waiter could choose, nobody could say Sherlock Holmes was a very particular customer.
John restrained himself with admirable effort. "You know" he calmly said "that this will cost your brother a King's ransom?"
"Consider it a compensation for luring me into a trap" Sherlock barked back. "He's lying, you know. He doesn't give a damn about my wellbeing, or my good name in the press, he wants me to work for him, on a case I do not like, that's all."
Watson opened his mouth to berate his friend for his unfounded paranoia –doubtlessly to be himself reminded that paranoia per definitionem was always unfounded – when he saw Mycroft's pinched face.
"See" little brother sneered triumphantly. "He can't hide it. I'm right, as always."
"You know, John" Mycroft stately said as he dabbed his mouth with the embroidered serviette in the most genteel, dainty and becoming way "there are times at which I wish you'd broken his jaw for good when you punched him in the face."
At once John felt a red hot wave of guilt and remorse flood his neck and face. He looked at the table cloth – naturally it matched the napkins – and uselessly fingered the cutlery. "Sherlock took me by surprise" he muttered "I didn't know what I was doing."
And it was true. On a sunny Friday afternoon, actually the third anniversary of his burial, Sherlock Holmes had entered Dr Watson's practice, grinned and said "hello, John. How's life? By the way, don't be sad about your wife, she was a bitch from the start, only married you for a doctor's salary, you didn't lose much when she left you for a richer, more successful man."
After a heartbeat of adjusting to the situation John's reaction had been quick, forceful and straight to the point - which happened to be the point of Sherlock's chin.
Holmes' lean, pale and strangely unchanged face still bore the mark of it, although the misguided reunion had taken place a fortnight ago. John remembered the first thing he had said, no, roared loud enough to make the windows rattle, as soon as Sherlock was down on the floor and covered his head with both arms: "How dare you not being dead and not tell me?"
"You said you didn't want me to be dead" Holmes had retorted, a bit muffled as two teeth were wobbly.
"You weren't supposed to be listening. Have you no shame?"
"I thought you might be glad to see me."
"Of course I'm glad to see you, what has that to do with anything?"
Not for the life of his John could recall how things had developed from there.
Somehow, much later that day, or, rather, night, they both had ended up at Angelo's, where the much moved and shaken proprietor had treated them to Sicilian wine and streams of grappa, until they had taken to their beds, which happened to bear a sudden yet striking resemblance to the restaurant floor.
It had been a long, arduous Saturday after that, full of physical suffering and emotional awkwardness. But in the end, Sherlock Holmes, by one way or the other, convinced his friend as well as a thunderstruck Mrs. Hudson that he was, as usual, not to blame for anything. He had acted in the best interest of the innocent public in persecuting the remainders of Moriarty's gang, and he had been a virtuous angel all the time, who had not even looked at another landlady or another army doctor in more than three years. Cross my heart and hope to die.
Since then, things had returned to pre-fall normal at a breathtaking pace. A happy and very merry Sherlock had moved back in into 221B, called Lestrade, who unfortunately had been warned of the conspicuous event by Mycroft, revived his website, forgotten to ask John how he had afforded the rent during the three years of his flatmate's absence, caused a chaos in the kitchen, turned the rest of the flat upside down, and hacked John's laptop, "to be on top of recent developments" as he had aptly put it.
It was a secret John shared only with Mycroft – or so they both thought – that the doctor used to sneak into Sherlock's bedroom at night to make sure that he was really there.
14 days and it was as if the three years of absence had been nothing but a childish night mare. Except for one thing: Sherlock couldn't get any work. Lestrade fought like a lion, Mycroft pulled an overwhelming lot of strings behind the scene, and still the Superintendent was adamant. He insisted on the Consulting Detective applying for a license. As no official authorities can issue a PI's license in the UK, the simple lawyer's trick banned Sherlock Holmes from his profession indefinitely.
The British Government, in the person of Mycroft Holmes, did not hesitate to remind his younger brother of that small yet not altogether unimportant detail. "Dear boy, it's not as if you're struggling with an overload of meaningful occupation. Unless you call stalking Mrs Hudson's latest love interest an important issue."
Sherlock's cheeks showed hectic red spots; John muttered "I'm sure he means well" and left it in the dark whether he meant Mrs Hudson's lover or her wayward tenant.
"It's your fault, Mycroft. You promised me an American license, weeks ago" Sherlock flared up.
"Dear boy, you only returned from the dead two weeks ago, and I did call my American friends day before yesterday. Patience, dear boy. One way or the other, we will get you back into trade. In the meantime…"
Slowly, deliberately, Sherlock rose from his chair, the perfect image of a furious wolf, angered by a most stupid attempt at caging him.
It was the waiter's timely return that saved Mycroft from a fate too gruesome to think about.
The old man put the ridiculously expensive whisky in front of the youngest guest and stayed where he was; waiting for the most exquisite and delectable show of Mycroft's younger brother choking on a drink he detested, as they all knew perfectly well.
However, there was nothing for it. As Sherlock had ordered the most expensive drink on the menu, he had to drink it, if only to spite his penny-pitching brother.
In a rare moment of glory, John Watson excelled himself. He grabbed the unsuspecting glass, and gulped the fine stuff down in one, determined stride. Deep inside his inner self he pitied his own bad luck immensely. To waste a divine whisky by swallowing it like bad medicine….. A bit hoarse, he smiled into their awe-stricken faces. "What exactly is the case that brought us here, me in my finest clothes and Sherlock on his worst behavior?"
Mycroft indicated to the waiter to leave them alone before he answered. Or tried to answer, as his little brother spoke first. "Why ask, John? Our beloved government have made a fool of themselves. Or are about to do so. My brother wants to make a cat's paw of me, but he will fail. Some paid agent will make a mess of pulling the chestnuts from the fire, and we will have a good laugh as soon as it is all in the papers."
"Your amusement is your province, dear boy, you may have it or not have it when- and wherever you like. But let me put it this way: If you do not accept this case, I will stop paying your bills. You're unemployed, penniless, and, to put it mildly, you're of a somewhat dubious legal existence. By law, you aren't a British citizen. You're technically dead. And it can take British authorities a boringly long time to clear up such messes."
"You would push me into the streets if I do not do as you say?"
"No, Sherlock, I would put you in jail, that's something very different."
"That's absurd."
"Truth sometimes is."
"Now, boys, let's not get carried away" John said, feeling more and more uncomfortable with every passing minute. "Surely we can talk about this like grown-ups."
Mycroft cocked a brow. "I see two grown up men, do you see another adult around here somewhere?"
"Stop it, Mycroft, Sherlock, both of you. Now, what is this case about, what would we have to do and why can't the MI 6 solve it themselves?" As soon as he finished speaking, John glared at Sherlock with all the menace and threat he could muster. He would have no more of this idiotic bickering or he would leave.
For once, Sherlock got the message and kept quiet.
Mycroft fixated a point somewhere behind Sherlock's left shoulder while he answered. "My department…."
"One of your many departments" Sherlock couldn't resist correcting him.
"The British Government" Mycroft continued, clearly unnerved by the superfluous jibe "has been offered a ….. machine. A most revolutionary new technology that might be of the utmost military relevance. The price is … well, let's just say that three times the treasures of Solomon would not suffice. But, as this invention defies the laws of physic as Einstein described them, I assume, it is still for a song. If it works, that is."
John watched Sherlock undergoing a fascinating change. The change from boredom, anger and repulsion to interest and eagerness, as well as, finally, the thrill of the chase. "These two physicists, the Russian and the Frenchman who were murdered last week…" the younger brother slowly said with gleaming eyes.
"Elementary, isn't it?" Mycroft retorted. "It is so obvious, nobody saw it. I knew I could pique your interest."
"If you're speaking about Drs Alexei Iwanowitsch Usumov and Jerome Sassenage, they died in a car accident" John tried to keep this conversation in the realms of fact and sensibility.
"Nonsense" both Holmes brothers said at once and Sherlock added "one look at the dog's collar and you know it has been murder."
"But I thought…."
"Do not think John, it's such a distraction if ordinary minds overtax themselves. So, Mycroft, you think the self-styled inventor of this H. G. Wells machine wants to cheat the government of a lot of money by offering them a fraud. And the two scientists found out and died for it. Case solved. What do you need me for?"
"On the contrary, dear boy. I am the only man left in Europe who thinks the machine is real. This is it, Sherlock. Absolute power. We must not, indeed we cannot allow for this technology to fall into the wrong hands. I need you to prove that, as my colleagues think I'm mad."
"You most probably are, brother dearest."
"Come and have a look for yourself."
"I'm not a scientist."
"No. You are Sherlock Holmes. And I do need your help, little brother."
"I'd like to have that last bit in writing!"
"In every language and in as many copies as you like."
The rest of the conversation, which in fact went on for several minutes as soon as Sherlock had recovered from the shock of his brother's unheard-of meekness and amiability, was wasted on the third man at the table.
John was sulking, he knew he was sulking, and he was mad at himself for it, because it was immature, childish and unworthy of him but he couldn't help it. He was so very angry, his stomach burned and his heart fluttered. The two brothers might find their conversation fascinating, but he did not. He was sick of being insulted, belittled and what not. He was sick, sick, sick of it. He would go home and take care of himself, as nobody else seemed willing to do it.
Watson staggered to his feet. The room spun around him, and he grabbed the table to steady himself. The first, vague suspicion befell him that this state had more causes than his anger alone. Uncomprehending, helpless he stared at Sherlock. His friend was shouting at him, they both were, but John didn't hear a thing.
The pain in his abdomen became unbearable.
His sight was blurred and his body too numb to feel the two pairs of hands that kept him from falling. His mind was shutting down, bit by bit, the message from his professional knowledge reached his conscious thoughts in small instalments, and much belated.
Poison. The food – no, too much time elapsed. The whisky. With its strong natural taste, the burning sensation and the heavy colouring from the cask. The whisky that had been meant for Sherlock Holmes…..
John wanted to say it, wanted to warn him, but he could not speak.
The surgeon went limp while Mycroft barked frantically into his mobile for an ambulance.
With increasing despair Sherlock tried to rouse his flatmate, but to no avail.
When the restaurant, one of the few rooms at the Diogenes in which speaking was permitted, (speaking, yes, but not a rampaging scandal like this one), was invaded by the medics, both Holmes brothers could only stand by and watch as John's heart stopped beating.
