Chapter 12: Of Hackers and Policemen: Part 1.
Dedicated to CheyanneChika.
John was out getting milk and Moira had already left 221b Baker Street – was already halfway to Victoria Station, in fact – when a black car with tinted windows glided up the road and pulled to a stop. It was an unmarked – rather nondescript car, but if it were any other car, a traffic warden would have come by and landed the owner of the vehicle with a ticket. As it was, the last time anyone checked, traffic wardens didn't tend to ticket the British Government. Singular, not plural.
The driver got out and pulled open the back passenger door, allowing a certain 'minor' government official to get out and make his way up to the front door of his brother's flat, umbrella in hand.
He pressed the doorbell and waited for Mrs Hudson to bustle to answer.
He wasn't surprised to find that, when she did, he was awarded a chilly reception. He was used to it, though he never did quite understand why that tended to be the response he engendered in people who weren't very much afraid of him. Though, perhaps considering his part in the debacle with Sherlock and Moriarty – and that he had once told Mrs Hudson to shut up…well, he wasn't entirely surprised by her reaction.
However, she was kind enough to lead him up the stairs to Sherlock's flat and offer him a cup of tea.
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock demanded furiously, violin poised threateningly in his hands. The question brought Mycroft to a stop. Just a small one, one which no one noticed, but a stop nonetheless. "My dead brother turns up alive and you expect me not to be curious?"
"No thanks to you." A voice that wasn't Sherlock's muttered from the kitchen, to which Mycroft turned and fixed the man at the kitchen counter with a look that stopped short of being an outright glare. "Frederick." He greeted the long-haired man coolly, "though I hear you prefer to go by the name 'Dracula' now. You always were prone to unoriginal theatrics."
"And you were always prone to being a nosey, autocratic bastard."
Before Mycroft could arch his brow in disdain, Sherlock poked him with his bow and demanded again to know what Mycroft was doing there.
The elder Holmes pretended to consider the question for a moment, raking his eyes over his younger brother's lanky frame and his pale features. He didn't seem to have changed at all in the last two years – no, that wasn't quite true: there were creases at his eyes that hadn't been there before, along with an almost indiscernible grey hair or two amongst Sherlock's riotous curls, no doubt caused by the stress of running around the globe, hunting down the lesser spiders in Moriarty's web.
"I made a poor choice. And I chose poorly." He said simply, unwilling to say more on the subject with the Hacker in the room. Though he had never shown himself to be anything more than a minor nuisance, the Count had always been the only member of the House of Lords to be seemingly immune to Mycroft's manipulation, thus the 'minor government official' knew that he'd be a fool to trust him.
"You don't have to be so oblique; I know all about how you threw your brother to the wolves." the Earl smirked, his eyes devoid of any real mirth: so the death of Robert 'Dumbledore' Downey was definitely related to this case, then? Interesting…
"And I know all about your illegal antics," Mycroft said, his tone just congenial enough to be icy, "So, I'd very much appreciate your silence."
"Oh, please. I have enough on you to have you shot-"
"Oh?" Only one person aside from Sherlock had ever hacked into anything related to the elder Holmes' activities, and that person was most certainly not the man sat at the kitchen counter, laptop open.
"And where is 'Medusa' now?" he asked softly, dangerously.
"Isn't it time for your weightwatcher's meeting?" Sherlock snapped belligerently, abruptly taking up his Stradivarius, no doubt with the intent of assaulting the poor strings to torture his brother's unwelcome ears.
Fortunately for Mycroft, he knew when to quit. But he'd be back, certainly, and in the meantime, he'd find out exactly what the peer had been doing and with whom…
…
"It's a good thing he didn't turn up while Violet was here, you know." Oliver murmured absently to Sherlock, who slumped into his chair and began to play something of Corelli's. He didn't answer.
"I'm in. And she's there. Do you not want to see?" the Hacker enquired with an arched brow.
Again Sherlock didn't answer. "Suit yourself." Oliver shrugged, turning back to his computer screen which was currently logged into the CCTV at London Victoria station and monitoring the cameras and bugs that Scotland Yard's finest had set up. Contact was imminent…
Author's Note: Ok, so I meant for this chapter to go onto Moira talking to Lestrade, but then I realised that that would take me longer than I wanted it to.
Thus, here is a minor cliffhanger to keep you going until the weekend – when I absolutely will update.
I hope you're all enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it – well, otherwise there's not a great deal of point. *hint hint*
Soundtrack: Red Eyes and Tears by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Thoughts and Feelings welcomed and encouraged!