PART ONE: VIOLET
Weeks passed, and neither Thor nor Odin, nor any other Asgardian suspected where Ljota and Loki were hiding. In fact, another whole case passed wherein Baker St. was left by all Holmeses to find John Watson (see the narrative I titled 'Oncoming Storms and East Winds'), and neither Asgardian made a sound. The only people who knew of their stay were the Watsons and the Shadow Proclamation. I ended up telling the Proclamation, and they, surprisingly, were fine with it. My and my father's birthday (the same date, January 6th) passed, and still, no incident. Ljota and Loki were now quite part of life.
In fact, Dad and Loki almost became friends… almost. See, when you have a bored Holmes cooped up in 221B Baker St. doing experiments, and bored Loki cooped up in the same apartment with Molly Hooper Holmes gone, and Bored Loki wants to see what certain chemicals do… let us just say that we ended up convincing the god of mischief to magic the walls clean, and Ljota and I went all the way to Harrod's to find a couch that looked like the old one. She magicked that one to look old. It was brilliant.
So when I say we had gotten used to them and their antics (we're odd folk ourselves anyway), then I tell you that nothing quite surprised us.
It was mid-February when I started noticing I needed new clothes. I was needed on a case to a rather cold planet — as if it wasn't already freezing in London — so I needed to get prepared. Of course, I looked for the standard four-layer outfit of stockings, thick socks, jeans, undershirt, polo, cardigan, overcoat, and scarf —the problem being that I could not find many of them. When Holmeses cannot find something, not to toot our own already-too-large horn, there is something very wrong. Sure, the blue polo and black jeans were where they should have been- but the stockings, the cardigan; the things keeping me warm on a planet that is below freezing? They were gone. Lokilein.
Sometimes, she "accidentally" nicked my clothes from the laundry, because, even though she insists I'm annoyingly taller than her, it is really just the boots- we're about the same size. And she liked my style. I walked into her room, where she was in bed reading a book (also mine) about Norse Myths.
"This is so inaccurate," she muttered as I walked in.
"Guten morgen to you too. Did you steal my stockings and cardigan?"
"Which ones?" she said, not looking up from her book, but not denying anything either.
"The black ones, both cases. Lokilein, hurry up and give them to me, I have to go to the Planet of the Ood, it's freezing there."
"What makes you think I've stolen them, Holmes?" she said, still not looking up.
" 'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,' as Dad says, and I've looked everywhere except for your room. Give them to me," I said, getting impatient.
"You didn't look everywhere-"
"Yes I-"
"Did you check your mother's clothes? No. People get confused…" she said, her nose still in the book, eyebrows furrowed. She had a valid point- Mum and I are also the same size.
"I doubt it, Lokilein, but I'll check. How did you know-"
"Timelords are not the only ones with excellent hearing…Oh, this is just idiotic! They portray Thor as some kind of perfect hero!" Ljota cursed the book.
"Well-"
"Comment on that, and I will cause your next Regeneration."
With that, I grabbed my socks and over-clothes, just in case she was right, and my cardigan was upstairs with Mum's clothes.
I walked up, arms in hand, and unlocked the door. Mum was already gone for work. Loki was on the couch in Asgardian clothes, an odd sight,(we had finally convinced him to wear "Midgardian" apparel, just in case, but on lazy days, he wore what he wanted), and Dad was preparing to go out on a case-Uncle Lestrade's baffled again, how lovely.
"Morning,Loki." He replied with a grunt towards my direction- he was reading the news, the tragic sections about murder and things- and liking it.
"Daddylock, hello! The triple homicide?"
"Yes. Planet of the Ood again?" he replied, instead of 'good morning".
"Indeed. But my cardigan is missing, mind if I look in your room? Mum could have taken it, accidentally, you know…"
"Mm…" he looked incredulous for a moment, then changed his mind, his face lighter. "Of course, Violet. Just be quick, I have to get my jacket and go-Graham's going to get angry-"
"Greg. Uncle Lestrade's name is Greg, Dad. Graham was the other Lestrade, remember?"
"Oh, yes," he said, absently, not caring. I went into his room and searched through Mum's clothes. As Ljota had guessed, there was a black cardigan(Mum rarely wears black), as well as stockings that did not belong to her.
I shut the door so I could quickly change into the stockings, then threw on the cardigan. The odd thing was that, not being wool, it couldn't have shrunk in the wash, but it was, indeed, smaller. But I had a schedule to keep- I could fix up the sweater later, the Ood were waiting, and they hadn't needed help in centuries.
I walked out, and Dad came in closely behind, as if he was waiting- he was, in fact. So impatient. Sleeve seam-a centimeter higher than usual. Buttons, straining even more.
That was more noticeable, because, as some of his… fans… have noticed, my father's shirts are usually a bit fact they could be tighter? I felt bad for his buttons. I glanced at the shirt again, and he caught my gaze. He knew it was too tight, but his pride issues didn't want to admit it. He glanced in my direction, in the same area of my arm-seam, as if to say, "You are not one to talk. Say nothing, I say nothing."
He knew I have pride issues too.
No one said anything past that.
A while later, on Mum's birthday, we all went out to eat. The Watsons were invited, and even Loki and Ljota went- disguised, of course. Loki kept the face, but went with blondish hair, with modern clothing, and Ljota copied.
As I was changing in my closet, I noticed that nothing fit. Nothing! Not even what were the loosest jumpers fit, they were all tight! I had no idea what was going on-perhaps they had shrunk? I settled for the black shirt and jeans that I had worn when finding Loki a few months ago, hoping to Rassilon nothing would break.
Part Two:
LJOTA
Oh yes, I remember that prank. That was a good one. I had better explain.
For the better part of two months, my father and I had been doing a little . . . meddling, shall we say . . . in the wardrobes of our respective flatmates. It was a delicate operation, and frequently very tedious, but very rewarding. Very.
Each day, I would go to Violet's closet when she was out working a case — or sometimes at night, when she was sleeping soundly and didn't suspect a thing — and subtly resize her clothes. It was very gradual — it had to be, to escape attention for as long as it did — and took several hours out of each day. I had to go through every single article of clothing she owned (trousers, shirts, jumpers, and of course her coat), take the smallest sliver out of each side, just along the seams, so it wouldn't be noticed. Then, having magicked away the last traces of tampering — one has to be fastidious when tricking a Holmes — I had to replace each and every one of them and return them to the exact positions in which I found them. It was such a painstaking little process, I sometimes thought I would go mad. But my father and I agreed it was well worth the effort.
Since he had been effecting the same slight alterations to Sherlock's clothes, we watched as both of them grew more uncomfortable, day by day, and said nothing. Neither did the Holmeses though — one can always rely on Holmsian pride to keep tongues from wagging.
On the evening of Molly's birthday, we both made sure that the clothes were precisely tight enough that they would cause some public embarrassment by the time dinner was over. Not enough to cost us our lives, though — we do value those.
Most of the meal passed without incident. I was starting to get restless, but tried not to show it. Sitting in the corner booth with the Watsons, it wasn't until dessert that we reaped our reward for long weeks of labor.
An awkward-looking young waiter, suffering from a severe outbreak of acne, brought the cake and set it in front of Molly. Everyone starting singing — "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to . . ." Even my father was singing, which surprised me. I suppose he was making more of an effort to "fit in" here on Midgard.
At the "Happy birthday, dear Molly" bit, Sherlock leaned over and put his arm around his wife, smiling at her. Unfortunately for him — but to our great delight — this resulted in the beginning of the end. His top button was the first to go, the second one following shortly behind. He ought to have been grateful that they didn't continue, but the thought didn't seem to cross his mind.
The song forgotten as the candles kept burning down on Molly's cake, everyone turned to stare at Sherlock. Several people laughed. The man himself spluttered and extricated his arm from Molly's shoulders, trying to hold together his shirt. The awkward boy with the acne hurried over to see what was wrong, but Sherlock yelled abuse at him and he hurried away even faster than he had come. Lily Watson just looked embarrassed, which was understandable.
At that point, Violet decided to step in and help her dad — well-intentioned, but that only made it worse for her. As she reached toward him across the table, the strain became too much for her shirt. I think the sound of it ripping positively echoed in that restaurant. The laughter was hard to contain, but my father and I were, for the time being, playing innocent.
Violet and Sherlock exchanged glances across the table, clearly coming to the same conclusion. They turned to us in complete synchronization — it was almost eerie the way they moved in unison.
"LOKI!" Sherlock snarled, giving him the famed Time Lord Glare of Silence.
"LJOTA!" Violet said at the same time. She even called me by my real name; that meant she was serious.
Oh, well. We weren't being serious. We aren't known for that trait. "Yes, Holmes?" we said together. I'm sure we were the very picture of innocence, but that didn't fool the Holmeses.
"TELL ANYONE OF THIS," Sherlock continued furiously, "AND I WILL PERSONALLY TEST THE THEORY OF YOUR IMMORTALITY!"
Violet, meanwhile, continued to shout at me. "LJOTA, I SWEAR TO RASSILON I WILL KICK YOUR FROSTY RUMP!"
That finally got me, and once I had been set off, I could not be stopped. I burst into laughter, clutching at the table, then at my sides, then at my father to keep from sliding off my seat entirely. He laughed at me, but mostly he was too busy laughing at the Holmeses to care. John looked like he was having trouble breathing. Mary was laughing. Even Molly was smiling a bit. Lily still looked embarrassed, and the waiter with the acne was staying well out of reach.
Even though Sherlock and Violet were still glaring daggers at us, it felt good to make people laugh. It felt like we meant something to them, beyond a temporary flatshare. I had never felt that before.
Within ten minutes, Sherlock had succeeded in getting us all out of our seats. Someone had the presence of mind to blow out the candles on Molly's untouched birthday cake, and I had calmed down enough to walk, although I still kept one hand on my father's shoulder just to make sure I didn't fall over on our way out of the restaurant. Everyone in the place was staring at us. A few were laughing or smiling, but most of them were glaring in annoyance. I didn't care.
We parted with the Watsons in front of the restaurant, and Sherlock — who had forced on his coat, though unable to button it, and put on his scarf to hide the missing buttons — hailed a cab. The ride back was spent in an uncomfortable silence, which I tried very hard not to break every time Violet or Sherlock shifted or picked at their clothes. I exchanged glances with my father and we grinned in triumph.
Back at Baker Street, Sherlock and Violet stalked off to change into still-intact clothes. They didn't even think to ask us to magic their clothes back to the right size. Molly followed Sherlock, presumably to make sure he didn't shoot anything. Left alone, my father and I looked at one another again and both burst into laughter.
"Their faces!" I choked. "And right in the middle of the song!"
"I swear I saw Molly smile."
"She did! But the Holmeses — 'I will test the theory of your immortality!' 'I will kick your frosty rump!' Oh, that was glorious."
"Frosty rump? Was that an insult to your family?" He put on his mock-offended look.
"Most likely. I do feel bad about the cake, though. It looked like an excellent cake. A pity we didn't get to eat it."
My father nodded. "That, meine tochter, was an excellent joke."
I quieted a little at that. We hadn't pulled a prank like that together since I was much younger, and he hadn't called me tochter in decades. I smiled.
"Yes, Vater, it was, wasn't it?
A few weeks later, we all sat around in the main room of 221B Baker Street. After much pleading (on Violet's part) and threats (on Sherlock's), we had finally fixed up all their clothes so that they fit comfortably again. Violet and I were just back from a case, and Sherlock had refrained from extreme violence despite the lack of a case. Violet and I came up to 221B, and found an unusually peaceful scene. Molly was fussing around trying to clean up the mess left by Sherlock's latest experience. Sherlock was slouched in his chair, scanning over a mass of newspapers and ignoring his wife, except when she shook a petri dish full of various teeth right under his nose. My father was on the sofa, shaking his head in despair as he paged through Violet's book of Norse Myths — the same on I had been reading the previous month.
"How unflattering," he muttered. "A beard? Really? I don't think a beard would suit me."
They all looked up as we entered the flat.
"Oh, there you are, girls," Molly said, coming over. "How was the case? Successful? Good."
"Hello," put in Sherlock absently.
"Good day, fair wandering maidens," my father smirked. "Come in and take your well-earned rest and bread with us. Once all the bodily fluids have been thoroughly removed from the tabletop, of course."
Violet took a seat in another of the old armchairs scattered about the room, and I went and sat on the sofa to read over my father's shoulder. He was just reaching the legend of the birth of Sleipnir (the eight-legged horse I mentioned earlier). "I remember that," I said, nodding. "One of your stranger escapades."
"They bullied me," he defended. "Just because I said we ought to consider the wright's offer. We could have given him the sun and moon. We could always make more of those. And we needed a wall. There was the matter of Freyja, of course, but she was always a bit annoying. We could have done without."
"On the bright side, you did make a lovely mare," I replied, laughing. He glared jokingly.
"A mare?" Sherlock chuckled from across the room. "I must hear this story. Do continue."
"Oh yes, he was stunning, if the pictures in that book are anything to go by," Violet agreed, grinning. "Go on, Loki, enlighten the ignorant."
I prodded him in the back. "You heard them, Vater. Read."
He looked as though he was going to protest, but then he just shook his head slightly and cleared his throat.
"The legend of the Walling of Asgard and the birth of Sleipnir," he began.
As he read on, I looked around the room. Sherlock and Violet were exchanging amused glances and incredulous expressions. Molly had come to sit by Sherlock and was laughing along. My father was glancing around between sentences and smiling in that quiet way that only I could see.
I smiled, too, because in that room — surrounded by city sounds and laughter and the familiar cadence of my father's voice — I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was home.