"Now, you wait here. Sherlock has a marvelous surprise for you."
John furrowed his eyebrows suspiciously.
"What is it?"
Mycroft had asked John to come to his office – Actually, no, he hadn't asked. Mycroft had simply sent a car to pull up beside John as he was walking out of the doctor's office where he worked. "Anthea" wouldn't tell him anything, naturally, so John was just as baffled after being shown to Mycroft's office as he was when he was faced with the large, shiny, foreboding black car outside his office.
In fact, if it were possible, John was even more confused now than he was before, because he thought he heard Mycroft say that Sherlock has a surprise for him. Sherlock abhorred surprises; he simply didn't see the purpose. Of course, that didn't stop him from leaving shocking messes on the kitchen table or dragging John out the door without warning, but those certainly didn't count as proper surprises in John's eyes.
Mycroft laughed unpleasantly, causing John to blow out a puff of air in exasperation.
"Come off it, Mycroft. Just tell me."
Mycroft's face twisted into a smile that more closely resembled a sneer.
"No-no-no-no-no-no-no, this is just for you and your detective. You know, a sort of…flat-mate thing."
John glared at Mycroft, obviously not amused in the slightest.
This only caused Mycroft's "grin" to widen as he stared at John with his small, dark beads of eyes.
"Well, then, I suppose I'd better go get him," Mycroft stated abruptly, before turning to leave.
"I'll go with you!" John called after him, hastening to catch up with Mycroft and trying to follow him through the door.
"No!" Mycroft snapped. He had halted in the doorway and turned to face John, face twisted and eyes livid. His face relaxed a moment later as he regained his composure. Mycroft chuckled quietly, twirling his umbrella smoothly in his hand.
"No," Mycroft said more quietly but firmly to John. "Just stay in this room. You wouldn't want to end up in another mess like you did at the pool, would you?"
John's head snapped up.
"You know about that?"
Mycroft shook his head, that sickly sneer spreading across his face again.
"John, everybody knows about that."
John's mouth dropped open slightly. How did anybody else find out about that? John hadn't written the details of the finale of that case on his blog after it ended eight days previously, and Sherlock had sworn to secrecy on the matter.
"R-really?" John croaked, hating himself for the way his voice shot up half an octave. He cleared his throat.
This didn't go unnoticed by Mycroft, whose smugness seemed to inflate, if possible.
"Oh, yes. Lucky Sherlock was there to save you, eh?"
Clearly enjoying himself, Mycroft leaned closer to John, still not touching him. John could feel Mycroft's hot breath on the side of his neck and immediately began to feel nauseous.
"Oh…And just between us, you may want to work on those deduction skills of yours. Hmm?"
And then Mycroft was gone.
John lifted his head sharply just in time to see the tip of Mycroft's umbrella disappearing through the doorway.
"Mycroft!"
Mycroft paused in the doorway, before poking his head back through the door to regard John with a raised eyebrow.
John sighed.
"Mycroft, am I going to like the…surprise?"
Mycroft's grin widened.
"Oh, John, it's to die for."
And with that, John was left facing an empty room.
John sat down nervously in the leather armchair in front of the huge mahogany desk that dominated the large office. Mycroft always made John feel so…uneasy. The grand and foreboding atmosphere certainly wasn't helping his nerves. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.
Mycroft's words were still echoing around in his head.
Oh, John, it's to die for…
And just between us, you may want to work on those deduction skills of yours…
John shook his head sharply to get Mycroft's horrible taunting voice out of his head. Were his observation skills really that dreadful? John knew he was no Sherlock Holmes, for instance, but he still resented being picked on by his flat-mate's older brother for it.
John glanced around the spacious office. There wasn't much here to observe, really. The room was quite clean; the desk was free of any papers or clutter, the dark wood floor was uncovered by rugs or carpets, and the only book visible in the room was an ancient-looking Oxford dictionary. A light layer of dust seemed to coat everything in the room. It obviously wasn't Mycroft's usual office; no, it was far too bitter and unused.
He drew his attention to the door, which was mahogany, like the desk. The impeccable brass doorknob was unmarred by scratches. John noticed with some surprise that Mycroft had left the door open a few inches. That seemed rather unlike Mycroft, especially after his insistence that John stay in the room and wait for their return.
Upon glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner, John realized that he had been waiting for Mycroft to return for nearly twenty minutes. He was just popping off down the hall to fetch Sherlock, wasn't he?
John pushed back the idea that something had gone wrong; more likely, Mycroft had gotten roped into some international crisis, or Sherlock had gotten bored and run off to a crime scene, and Mycroft had to go fetch him.
John pushed himself up out of the leather armchair with a sigh and a groan, stretching his arms and his bad shoulder before hesitantly approaching the large mahogany door that had fallen open ever so slightly on its hinges.
"Mycroft?" he called uncertainly, pulling the door open a few more inches. It swung silently, without any audible creak or scrape. "Sherlock, are you there?"
All of the other doors in the hallway were shut tightly, and knowing Mycroft, probably locked as well. John considered trying a few of them, but decided against it. He wasn't keen on walking into a room of posh aristocratic politicians or getting dragged off by the brawny security team.
"Mycroft?" he called again, his voice sounding small in the hallway of the grand building. "I'll wait five more minutes for the bloody surprise, alright? Then I'm leaving."
John's proposition was met with further silence, which John took as an affirmative. Shaking his head exasperatedly, he turned around and made to push open the door to the office when something large and heavy hit him on the back of the head.
The office door disappeared along with the hallway behind a black curtain that forced itself over John's vision, quickly obscuring his consciousness as well and leaving John alone in the dark. So very, very, alone in the dark.
