Chapter 4
Sherlock sulkily threw himself into a cosy-looking armchair pushed up against the wall. Naturally, his elder brother had been given nicer accommodations than himself.
On the other hand, it looked as though Mycroft had been in this room significantly longer than he had been taken. By his calculations….
"Ten days?"
"Nine," scowled Mycroft. "And I take from the amount that your whiskers have grown in that you have been here five yourself. John?"
Sherlock scowled, and Mycroft nodded, clearly unsurprised.
Sherlock, although he would never admit it aloud, thought that if they had managed to capture Mycroft then it was small surprise that they had managed to similarly abduct himself and his loyal doctor.
From the unamused glint in Mycroft's eyes, he knew that his elder brother was well aware of this line of thought regardless.
"Your 'assistant'?" Sherlock asked in return, giving the preferred job title the scorn it deserved. As though the woman that Mycroft trusted to run the surveillance on his brother was a mere assistant. Though since she refused to reveal her real name, (and Sherlock refused to expend the energy that would be required to find it out when the gauntlet had so obviously been thrown- he was nothing if not contrary,) he supposed it served well enough as a descriptor.
Mycroft's lips thinned as he pressed them together.
Sherlock's brows shot up.
"Really? I would have thought that you could engender some level of quality in your employees."
Mycroft let out a small huff of air. "No doubt she thought that she could infiltrate them. Were it not for the device that Valentine has implanted in the scalps of all who join him, I might be more sanguine as to her chances. I strenuously advised against it, but she insisted that she could do more good from the inside."
Unsaid was the fact that this could quite easily get the woman that John persisted in calling "Anthea" killed. Sherlock grimaced in sympathy. As much as his brother might champion the view that caring was not an advantage that did not mean that he was incapable of doing so, especially in regards to a rare employee who had earned the degree of trust that his assistant did.
"Valentine of course found it all quite amusing that I was being 'betrayed' by my most trusted assistant, and carried on in the crude manner that he so enjoys," Mycroft continued, his tone deceptively apathetic. Sherlock, more acquainted with Mycroft's expressions than the average person, could tell however that his brother was seething.
He supposed it was some scant comfort that Valentine had managed to ensnare his brother as well as he- if Mycroft had not seen this coming, plugged into the global political networks as he was, then Sherlock, whose attention was firmly on London, could hardly have done so.
Since Mycroft knew Sherlock better than most, he answered to the unspoken thought. "I suspected that Valentine was up to something with the massive giveaway of those SIM cards, but I allowed myself to be distracted by the increasing numbers of politicians and celebrities who were disappearing worldwide. The sheer audacious lunacy of Valentine's plan caught me off guard," he admitted.
Sherlock grimaced in response. "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
Mycroft, recognising the olive branch for what it was, nodded in response at what another might have thought to be a partial non sequitur, the tiniest ghost of a rueful smile in his eyes.
He opened his mouth to respond, but his words were lost in the sound of semi-automatic gunfire echoing down the corridor.
Sherlock shot to his feet.
"Sit down," Mycroft sighed, "there is little we can do locked in here."
Sherlock ignored his brother and started pacing silently, listening for any sound that might clue him into what was going on out there.
"Always wasting your energy," he heard Mycroft mutter.
Sherlock continued to ignore him.
If something changed, he would be ready.
….
John was in the middle of his 27th sit-up when he heard the gunfire start.
Immediately, he rolled to his feet, and moved so that he was shielded from the most angles by the stone walls. The door certainly looked solid enough, but he had seen the weaponry that Valentine's thugs were packing, and he wasn't about to take chances.
He waited impatiently as the sounds of bullets hitting stone (and what utter numbskull had thought it would be a good idea to shoot semi-automatics in those narrow stone corridors deserved every ricochet that would lodge into their own side) continued, with occasional sporadic gaps. It sounded as though the fight was getting closer.
Suddenly, there was a bang nearby, that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting one of the doors.
"Merlin, I'm fucked," came a muffled voice through the door.
John, crouched in the corner, considered saying something, asking the young man (the voice was a light slightly husky tenor, inner-London working-class "chav" accent, John was no Sherlock, but that much was not hard to gather) who he was and what he was doing, but decided that for now, the smartest thing he could do was keep his mouth shut and his ears open.
"They're coming at me from both sides, I'm out of options."
(John wondered who he was speaking to, and guessed that it was probably a radio, though how he had managed to get one working so far below ground was beyond John. He would have thought the bunker would kill all signals dead.)
"Rox, I need a favour. Call my Mum, tell her to lock herself away from Dean, and the baby…" his voice cracked a little, "and, tell her I love her."
Judging by the choice of words, things were not going to plan for the man in the corridor. John rather hoped he wasn't about to hear the sound of a possible ally getting gunned down. He wondered about the man's last request, what he meant by telling his mother to lock herself away.
John, having flicked through Prof. Arnold's book, and heard Valentine's recruitment speech, felt cold dread settle into his stomach.
What madness did Valentine have planned?
The distinctive clicks of guns being primed to fire echoed through the corridor.
But then suddenly, the tone of the voice changed, the desperate edge flattened out into a deceptive calm. "Merlin, remember those implants that were of no use to us? Any chance you can turn them on?"
There was a pause, and then suddenly, the hall was filled with the sounds of small explosions, with the distinct sounds of bones cracking and decidedly meaty-sounding impacts hitting against the walls and doors.
"Oh god," John murmured under his breath.
If that was what he thought it had been…
"Merlin, you're a fucking genius!" the voice enthused.
John gave an involuntary shudder. That was almost the tone that Sherlock got when he said it was Christmas. John had a distinct feeling that this time, the body count was significantly higher.
Suddenly, there was a loud banging noise, accompanied by a strident female voice with a Scandinavian accent.
"What the fuck is happening out there!?"
A very good question, John thought. One that he was not sure he really wanted to know the answer to.
There was a light clang, and John guessed that the man must have opened the vent in the door being banged on.
"…Aren't you that princess that went missing?" the man asked, sounding as though he already knew the answer.
"You can get me out?" the princess… wait, Scandinavian Princess, missing, John had seen this one on the news- Princess, Hilde, no Tilde? Could it be?
"Well if I do, will you give me a kiss?" the man asked. "I've always wanted to kiss a princess."
John resisted the urge to facepalm, and revised his estimate of the kid's age down a few years.
"If you get me out now, I'll give you more than just a kiss," Princess Tilde said.
John wondered if she really meant that, or if she was just that desperate to get out. Then again, he had heard the news about the princess going missing some time before he and Sherlock had been captured, so chances were, the long confinement was getting to her.
He could sympathise.
There was a brief pause, but then whoever was on the other end of the radio must have said something. "Sorry love, got to save the world."
Save the world? Oh hell. So Valentine was really going through with his insane plan. John silently wished him luck.
"If you save the world, I'll let you do me in the asshole," Princess Tilde responded, apparently unphased by what had to be the sight of fragmented body parts splattered around half of the corridor.
John blinked. Alright then.
"I'll be right back," the kid said in a tone of obvious forced calm, before running off down the corridor.
"Good luck!" came the cheery reply from the princess.
John slumped down the wall, until he was sitting.
Bloody fucking hell.
Well, on the upside, there was someone at least somewhat effectively working against Valentine.
On the downside, he was locked in a cell with a corridor of dead bodies outside, with a princess who was apparently doing her best Bond Girl impersonation as a neighbour.
John supposed that things could be worse.
He walked over to his bed, and picked up the trashy novel he had been reading.
Might as well finish his book whilst he was waiting.
…
When John was eventually let out of his cell by a kid in somehow surprisingly geeky glasses and a somewhat rumpled and blood-spattered suit, he couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"Seriously lad, you couldn't have waited to take her somewhere nicer than the cell she'd been stuck in for weeks with a corridor full of neighbours?" he grumbled as he pushed past the boy. "The walls might be thick, but these doors aren't exactly soundproof, if you catch my drift."
The shade of scarlet that the kid went was gratifying.
"D-Doctor Watson!?"
John frowned, looked the kid up and down, and then suddenly realised that he had seen the kid before. Admittedly, he had changed his look rather significantly, but…
"Wait." John couldn't believe it. "You're one of Sherlock's Irregulars, you're, you're Eggsy!"
Eggsy gave a sheepish grin. "Guilty."
Clearly John was trapped some kind of trashy mystery novel.
Because this was too ridiculous for real life.
A/N: It lives!