Title: A delicate test
Author: clarrie
Disclaimer: Most of what you see is owned by, respectively, Joss Whedon, Fox, The WB, The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins, Bram Stoker and Laurie R King.
This is a Sherlock Holmes, Buffy, Dracula, Upstairs Downstairs, Beekeeper crossover. There was a bet.
An illustrated version of this fic can be found at www.geocities.com/bakesale_bitca/deltest.html
'Damn!' Watson bent to the floor as his door key slid though his fingers. 'Damn it.' He thrust the key savagely into the lock jamming it for a moment. 'Oh for pity's...' The door opened abruptly under the pressure of his shoulder.
'Holmes? Are you sleeping?'
The atmosphere in the darkened room was almost solid, what had begun as a cloud of smoke was now a bank of a volume sufficient to cause Watson a choking fit of such severity that he was forced to lean heavily against the door frame. The light from a single gas jet reflected eerily from this blanket of tobacco generated fog, reminding Watson, somehow, of a primordial swamp, the bookcase in the corner loomed organically out of the gloom, huge and malevolent, the darkness and filter cast by the acrid haze, transforming the familiar into the outlandish.
'No.' Answered Holmes.
'Wyndham, Just the man! Setenius the mighty, 11AD, which demon was it that he was bound to for his power again?'
Wyndham started at the unexpected voice in his ear, nearly dropping the manuscript he held to his chest like a newborn and frowned in recognition at the grinning young gentleman.
'Oh,' He politely twitched the corners of his mouth in an upward motion, 'Hello Travers.'
'Gods Wyndham! Try and control your emotions you extravagant fool. People will talk.'
Wyndham smiled wanly at his friend's good natured babble as he fell into step beside him. 'Um, did you get the...'
'Have no fear Wyndham, my mind has not known rest, my body succour, so filled have I been with the determination to fulfil the errand which you, in your infinite wisdom, chose to...'
'I take this to mean that you arranged the tickets then?'
'Yes.' Travers grinned like a tow headed monkey and reached into his pockets, misshapen with brightly coloured pebbles, confectionery bags and cheap trinkets, for a matchbox. 'Also that I am extremely tired and succour-less. You owe me a good dinner old man.' He lit his cigarette and blew the smoke up towards the high stone ceilings.
Together they passed through the adjoining door which connected the Diogenes club with the surrounding buildings, the discreet and unrelated public faces which together formed the urban hub of modern London Watcher society.
'Come on, I'm down to Faversham with Poll and the brood at the end of the week. Do you knowwhat the cooking is like at Faversham?'
Wyndham, whose thin frame and skimmed milk complexion told a tale of meals habitually overlooked in favour of study, confessed that he did not.
'It's absolutely ghastly,' Travers screwed up his face in disgust, his blonde curls bobbed around his plump cheeks giving him the expression of a moustachioed cherub, 'School dinners without the charm.' Travers shook himself out of contemplation of the horrors before him. 'Right, on to business - ' He rapidly finished his cigarette and ground the stub underneath his heel. 'We are going to order dinner, we are going to order wine, I am going to bore you rigid with tales of the adorable Emmy and you are going to worry about the tickets, which may I say were got with a satisfyingly large party discount. I just hope those Earlings appreciate Madame Rosa's tableau la femme - I'm joking!'
'So.' Holmes sprawled sideways across the wicker chair and lifted a half finished cigarette to his lips. 'The wanderer returns.' His eyelids flickered over Watson's dishevelled form. 'You have been walking in the botanical gardens.'
'Good afternoon Holmes.'
'I daresay it is. I can't claim to have looked.' A pale finger tapped the curl of ash onto the carpet. 'For some hours, if the mud on your boots is anything to go by.' Holmes idly examined a smudge on his fingertip. 'Did you pass an enjoyable night with Mrs Giles?'
'I-I-I...' Watson blustered. 'I...'
'Oh kindly stop bleating Watson, you sound like a budgerigar.' The cigarette was extinguished between Holmes' finger and thumb, and replaced with an unlit one. 'I must say you don't look well on it. Positively drained I'd say.'
'Holmes, I...I never, Holmes!' Watson cast his bag down at his side. 'Please, Holmes, this behaviour is unbecoming of you.'
'Of course, of course...' Holmes lowered his now lit cigarette from his lips and pushed the smoke out through his nostrils. 'I will draw a veil upon the matter Watson if you wish,' his eyes half closed in the gloom, 'God knows, I'm not one to affect a judgement on the behaviour of others.'
The pair sat in an edgy silence before the fire. An unpleasant smile crossed Holmes face and he snorted audibly.
'Holmes?'
'Wordsworth, Watson, Wordsworth.' He drawled. 'But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me - I wonder, Watson, you have more knowledge of certain areas than I.' Holmes' eyelids lowered dangerously. 'Is it the custom nowadays to move onto one's next whore when the last is hardly cold in the ground?'
'Bert, sweetie, there's a spot right in the centre of my back there, would you. Mmmm.' Albin purred in the shadow of the larger vampire. 'You're a blessing darling.'
'Albin.' Spike caught a chestnut in his mouth and raised his eyebrow. 'Is that all you ever think about?'
'I have an itch, William. You do me an injustice - Oh my! Bertie,' Albin fanned himself with his hand, 'Haven't you got big arms...'
'It comes...' Whimpered Drusilla, half-waking from her slumbers, curled around the corpse of the messenger, 'Spiiiiiike' She wailed, and stretched out her arms like a child waking from a nightmare. 'Spii-iike'
'What comes kitten?' Spike crooned, dropping to the floor and smoothing the hair from her face. 'What did you see?'
'Ooh!' Albin pointed over their shoulders to the figure in the doorway behind them 'Was it him?'
'What did you say?'
'My dear Watson, you really are the most dull-witted individual I have ever encountered.' Holmes yawned. 'What was it, that rather pleasing phrase that I managed to use during the Savage case? Ah yes, a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications, something of an overestimation on my part I think, you appear to have failed even in that highly restricted field of endeavour.' He sniffed. 'You are a parasite, Watson. Weak, and limited. You feed upon the intellectual and financial resources of those around you, and, frankly, it becomes tiresome.' He watched with disinterest as Watson rose angrily to his feet. 'Indeed, It's something of a relief that another sickly drab seems to have taken pity on your defective carcass. I may be rid of you for some small while at least.'
'I-I...GET OUT.' Watson grabbed at his companion's shoulders and lifted him bodily from the chair. 'Get out of my sight!'
'With pleasure.' Holmes paused at the door and smiled eerily. 'The nights draw in so early at this time of year...'
