Day 7 – December 12th

Dashing through the snow…

Mycroft groaned and pulled the pillow over his ears. Not again...

Although he had planned to work from home on the previous day, he had been called in in the late afternoon. When the crisis was averted and he could finally return home, it was so late that it was early again. At this moment he had little more than two hours of sleep left. And that would still have been fine if it hadn't been for that awful song that started playing every so often. The first time, he had been half asleep and ignored it. After growing up with Sherlock, more than a simple Christmas carol was needed to make him wonder what was going on. He had almost dozed off again when it started again. And a few minutes later again. Where the hell did it even come from?

The next time, he gave up hope that eventually it would stop or that he could sleep through it. Breaking his own ground rule of not coming out of bed for anything once he was finally in it (with an exception made for his alarm in the morning), he walked over to the wardrobe where the sound seemed to come from. But there was nothing there. As he stood there looking, he could hear the faint jingling of small bells accompanying the song.

Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh...

"SHERLOCK!" Mycroft shouted, but no reaction came – possibly because he had made the wise decision of putting Sherlock and John in the room furthest from his own. Soon he decided to give up looking for the source. He rolled his eyes when the only dressing gown he could find, was his pink, fluffy one. Sherlock had definitely been in his room.

As he stopped by Sherlock and John's door, he could hear fast breathing and soft moans inside. Again he rolled his eyes. It was almost four in the morning, for god's sake. He banged on the door with all his force.

"Sherlock! Get off your childish pranks! Some people have work in the morning!"

It went quiet inside the room.

"You come and switch that music off right now!"

Sherlock tried to smother a giggle as he looked towards the door where his brother could still be heard complaining. Then he turned to look over his shoulder at John, and his confused expression coupled with his very ruffled hair tipped Sherlock over the brink into loud laughter, which he tried to smother by shoving a corner of a pillow into his mouth.

John, who was still sitting on his knees between Sherlock's legs, shook his head. "What did you do now?"

"I…" Sherlock tried to stifle another giggle."I just wanted to spread the Christmas cheer."

John raised his eyebrows.

"If you don't fix it right now, I'm coming in!" Mycroft shouted.

"As long as he's not coming out," Sherlock whispered and then snorted.

John rolled his eyes but giggled a little. "Maybe he shouldn't barge in right now, though. And he'd better be grateful you don't go out like this right away."

Sherlock nodded, then called out: "We'll be done in ten minutes, I think. Maybe fifteen. You're just going to have to wait."

"No, Sherlock, I'm not waiting," Mycroft yelled back. "You can spend the whole day in bed, but I can't, so I'm sure John can pause his interests in proving that his oral fixation stretches to unhygienic regions for a moment."

John went bright red and looked mortified. "How does he…?" He scrambled off the bed and threw Sherlock his dressing gown. "Make him go away."

Sherlock groaned as he stood up, walked across the bed while throwing on the robe, jumped down in front of the door and opened it, wearing his very best scowl. "You have nine bedrooms in this house. Why could you not just go sleep in any of the others? You knew John had been out most of the day, you have already seen that two champagne glasses were missing. You knew you'd be interrupting. Mummy did not raise you to be so rude."

"Mummy did raise you to always close your robe before opening the door. I guess she failed with the both of us," Mycroft replied.

"You did not answer my question," Sherlock huffed as he tied the robe closed while pushing past Mycroft, and stalked towards his brother's room. "Surely you can have the cameras switched off in any room you want. Or do you not trust your own staff?"

"Cameras?" it sounded from the bedroom, where John had now gone from scarlet to very, very pale.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. "It's not about the cameras, I have nothing to be ashamed of. But I prefer to sleep in my own bed. Remove that damned noise."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Once inside Mycroft's room, he pulled a chair over to the wardrobe and stood on it so he could reach over the top of the old, finely carved piece of furniture. He loosened a board, reached inside and drew out a rather horrid plastic Santa figure, just as it started another round of Jingle Bells, shaking the small bells it was holding in both hands while wiggling its hips enthusiastically. He flicked the small switch in its back and tossed it down to Mycroft. "Happy?" he asked as he jumped off the chair and headed for the door.

"Thank you," Mycroft said in a clipped voice, closing the door right behind Sherlock.

Almost skipping with delight, Sherlock hurried back to their room. He abandoned his robe just inside the door and jumped eagerly up on the bed. "Where were we?" he asked John, happily.

"Sherlock, is he really recording this?" John was staring up at him, still in shock.

Sherlock laughed. "Of course not. I've disabled the feeds in this room. First thing I did when we got here while you were in the loo. No cameras in there, by the way." He reached over for his half empty glass and sipped the champagne. "We really must thank Ms Hodges for a very wonderful night."

"Yeah…" John looked a little reassured, but was still uncomfortably glancing up at the corners of the room.

Sherlock wiggled, almost as enthusiastically as the plastic Santa. "Come on… I believe you were far from done down there."

...

Late in the afternoon, Sherlock came to John as he was blogging from a borrowed laptop in the downstairs library. "Lestrade's coming over," he said. "He has some questions about the case." He flopped down in one of the armchairs by the window. "I invited him to stay for dinner."

John gave him an approving look. "So you've actually learned some manners? I'm proud of you. Is it about Ms Hodges, or the case that had you sending so many texts a few days ago?"

"Hodges. She's being less than cooperative. So they need my help. As usual."

"Interesting. So that other case is solved?" John asked.

Sherlock frowned. "What other case?"

"The one you were texting about."

He laughed. "That wasn't a case. That was several possible cases. All stupid, it turned out."

"Well, they were distracting enough at the time," John chided, but he smiled.

"Yes, well, I really really really wanted to find something that would take us away from here, didn't I?"

The doorbell rang.

"Perfect," Sherlock said, jumping up from the chair. "Mycroft will be home in less than thirty minutes."

"Why is that suddenly perfect?" John asked, staying where he was as it was clear that Sherlock would go open the door.

Sherlock paused and then went over to John. He leaned down and kissed his forehead. "You really are adorable sometimes, you know that?" he said, before turning and heading for the front door.

John rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I get the feeling you think 'adorable' and 'stupid' mean the same thing," he muttered.

Lestrade looked extremely uncomfortable as he followed Sherlock into the library. "I don't understand why you couldn't have come down to the Yard," he said, looking around.

Sherlock sat down again. "Oh no," he said. "We are visiting my brother. It would be terribly impolite to leave just before dinner."

"But…" Lestrade ran a hand through his hair. "I called you this morning. You were the one who insisted we should wait until now."

Sherlock didn't answer but just did a vague sort of get-on-with-it wave with one hand. "So," he said. "What exactly is the problem?"

"Wait," John said, "why do you suddenly want to have dinner here? You've been trying everything to get out of here!"

Sherlock glared at him before turning back to Lestrade, looking politely expectant.

"Uhm… I… Eh…" Lestrade cleared his throat. "Ms Hodges will not tell us anything. She claims she has never seen the man before. That she does not know why he would want to harm her. That it was probably just an ordinary case of burglary." He shook his head, looking a little helpless.

"And the gun is missing," Sherlock said.

"Yes… How did you know?"

"Well, if you had the weapon, you did not need her statement to get a conviction for anything more than breaking and entering. So… You either need her to start talking or you have to find the weapon."

Lestrade nodded.

"She's hidden it," Sherlock said. "Don't worry. I'll get it tomorrow."

"Why would she hide it?" John asked, confused.

"A burglary is random. A vindictive crime of passion is not. It has a motive. One that she does not want her husband to know about." Sherlock stood up with his usual 'case closed' attitude. "I think I hear Mycroft's car," he announced.

Lestrade flinched.

John frowned. "Everything alright?" he asked Lestrade.

"Of course it is," Sherlock said. "This is going to be fun." He rubbed his hands together and hurried out to greet his brother.

As Mycroft entered, he was still frowning at Sherlock's enthusiastic greeting, until he saw Lestrade. "Ah, Greg. Good evening," he said politely.

Lestrade nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Mycroft," he muttered.

"I presume Sherlock invited you here?" Mycroft inquired.

Lestrade nodded, just as Sherlock stepped in between them. "Yes," he said, happily. "The D.I. will be joining us for dinner. Won't that be cosy?"

"Of course," Mycroft nodded. "His company is always a pleasure."

Lestrade shuffled his feet, looking around the room. He caught John's eyes, with an almost pleading look.

John looked puzzled and shrugged.

"It was excellent, Freddie. Thank you," Mycroft said as the butler came to remove their plates. "Why don't you bring us some of that fine brandy now?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Oh, come on, Mycroft. Getting him drunk really isn't necessary. And it's so… crude…"

Lestrade shook his head too. "I… I really should get going. Dinner was delicious."

Sherlock reached out and put a hand on his wrist. "Oh no… Greg… Mycroft insists."

John's eyes flashed from one to the other as he was still trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently Sherlock had even learned Lestrade's name. "Surely Greg doesn't need to have a drink if he doesn't feel like it," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly. I know for a fact that this will be to his liking," Mycroft said smugly, taking over the bottle from Freddie.

"I'm sure you do," Sherlock said as he pushed his chair back far enough to put his feet up on the table.

Mycroft looked at them with disapproval. "Maybe we should move to more comfortable chairs in the living room," he said, getting up.

"Of course," Sherlock said and jumped to his feet. He took John's hand and hauled him along, practically pushing him down in one chair, taking the other for himself, leaving just the sofa for the other two.

"Are you sure we should, uhm, be here?" John whispered while Mycroft was following them with the bottle, and Lestrade came after him with a look as if he was walking to his own hanging.

"Of course," Sherlock said, smiling and not exactly keeping his voice down. "I wouldn't miss this for the world. It isn't often I get to see my brother…"

John quickly cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I want to see it. Can't we go upstairs?"

Mycroft was indeed sitting down a little too close to Lestrade and the latter didn't look happy with that at all.

Sherlock pouted. "No," he said, making puppy eyes at John. "I spent all day planning this."

Lestrade gasped and made a move as if to stand up.

"Oh, sit down, Greg," Mycroft said. "It's not because Sherlock wants us to, that we can't get comfortable."

Sherlock focused back on them, leaning forward slightly, as if observing a fascinating and exotic ritual, never seen by outsiders before.

John held up his hand as Mycroft wanted to pour him a glass of brandy too. "I really think we should go," he said urgently, trying to ignore Greg's panicked look. "Come on, Sherlock."

Sherlock ignored him.

"Sherlock."

"Go on, then," Mycroft said smoothly, directing himself to Sherlock. "I am sure John will make it worth missing this."

Sherlock stood up with a huff. "You really are much too old to be listening at keyholes."

Mycroft gave him a narrow smile. "Oh, that wouldn't tell me half as much as the footage does."

John went bright red again and hauled Sherlock off.

Sherlock struggled a bit until they were out of the room. Then he giggled. "Good thing I've hacked the downstairs cameras. It'll all be saved to my laptop for viewing at a more convenient hour."