I know it's fairly cliché, but when people review it makes me want to write more. Short chapter for you tonight, thank you to all as always!
K is for Khaki
The paintballing had been booked for the following Saturday, with arrangements having been made for cars to pick up Sherlock, Greg, John, Mary, Molly and Tom and take them to a large muddy field in Hertfordshire. Things had not gone entirely to plan however. Sherlock had to be all but dragged out of Baker Street, Mary had a cold so Mycroft came in to replace her, so overall it was not a good start to a 'team building' day. In the end, Sherlock had gone to mock Mycroft, who had only gone as it meant he could justify eating the cake Molly had brought along to celebrate/ commiserate the day with depending on how it went. How they were going to team up had also become a contentious issue, with everyone wanting John and Greg, and nobody wanting either Sherlock or Mycroft, so as a compromise it was decided that John, Mycroft and Molly would be one team, with Greg, Sherlock and Tom making up the other. The original idea behind this plan was to separate Sherlock and John, and avoid pitting Sherlock and Tom against each other, however they had inadvertently put the Holmes brothers against each other- which could only mean one thing: war.
Molly was very pleased about her team-mates, not only did they have the best shot, they had the smartest person as well. She'd be lying if she said those were the reasons she was pleased, she just wanted an excuse to shoot Tom and Sherlock a lot with no repercussions. They got to the paintballing centre and were given their 'uniforms', khaki with a blue head scarf for one team and khaki with a red head scarf for the other, as well as guns and ammunition. Whilst the group was used to Sherlock in either a suit or pyjamas, none had seen him in anything else- and certainly no one but Sherlock had ever seen Mycroft in anything but a suit, so to see the pair of them dressed up in makeshift khaki army uniforms with head scarves was enough to send them into fits of the giggles that only ceased when the brothers opened fire on them. And so it was as everyone expected it to pan out, and much to Molly's disappointment, it ended up as Sherlock and Mycroft against everyone else.
The person most pleased by this not so unexpected development was Tom, as it meant she could shoot Sherlock and Molly couldn't shoot him (theoretically- although he wasn't convinced it would stop her). He loved the idea of paintballing though, and was toying with doing it for his stag weekend, that was until he got hit in the back of the leg with a bright green paint pellet and howled in pain- it wasn't supposed to hurt! It was supposed to be fun! Oh how wrong he was…
John had found a vantage point to act as sniper for Team Other, while Molly acted as sentry for Greg. Tom was mostly sitting on the floor feeling very sorry for his sore leg. Molly would never admit it to his face, but she shot him to keep him out of the way and to an extent safe from Sherlock. John, Greg and Molly knew how competitive the brothers were, and could only hope that Team Holmes became engulfed in bickering or they were in serious trouble- after all, they had brought down one of the most notorious criminals London had ever seen in James Moriarty. They were also an unknown quantity when it came to shooting- Mycroft was a politician (in simple terms) and Sherlock deleted things he didn't need, surely neither of them could use a gun as effectively as John or Greg? Unfortunately the proximity of time spent in Serbia played into the brother's hands, they communicated in Serbian so the others wouldn't understand, and had both sharpened the skills required for that trip considerably before they left.
Thus, it was a comfortable victory, with much satisfaction on all sides -especially Mummy Holmes' when she found out. Molly was bruised, but very happy that she'd got paint in Sherlock's hair, Greg would be nursing his posterior for a couple of days after he had got in the way of one of John's sniper shots towards Mycroft. John himself had largely avoided being hit, except for one pellet that had hit him square in the nose and splurted blue paint all over his face, as well as breaking his nose. Poor Tom could have been mistaken for playing Joseph in a Tarantino version of Joseph and the Technicolour Dream coat, to further add to his misery, it had mostly been from Molly after she grew sick of him complaining about his leg. Sherlock and Mycroft were much in line with John, as in they were mostly clean but with a couple of well placed shots decorating Sherlock's hair and left foot, and Mycroft looked like a bra had been painted on the front of his shirt. They changed back into their attire, and reconvened at Baker Street for awkward tea and cake, before disappearing to their own homes for a shower and well deserved rest. Except for Mycroft, who had another piece of cake and went back to his earlier project of mediating relations between the Koreas- comparatively easy when compared with having to spend an hour being civil with his brother.
Prompts for K and L welcome :)