Dedicated to Eki Tok, who knows why :)
Two cabs pulled up to the curb outside 221B Baker Street, including the one Sherlock himself was in. He found this to be odd, as generally clients didn't show up at 12:20am unless they had bad intentions and as John and Rose were both home, and Mrs. Hudson wouldn't stay out this late, he wasn't certain who this unexpected visitor was. Thus it was with great surprise that he saw Louise emerge from the cab in front of his own, dressed in an oversized sleep shirt featuring the Grumpy dwarf and a pair of long-john pants, an unzipped coat and an overnight bag.
"Louise?" Sherlock asked as he passed by her to unlock the door. "Bit late to be running about London, isn't it?" It was almost reflex to express concern over the thought of his sister's best friend running around London late at night in pajamas. There were often times when Rose was growing up that he swore he'd acquired a second sister in Louise Gardner and, alternately, days he'd wondered if Rose was ever coming home again from perpetually on-going sleepovers.
"Oh! Sherlock, hi," Louise greeted, trying not to appear thrown off by his presence. "Just, uh, going up to see Rose."
"Bit late to start a sleepover, isn't it?"
Louise snorted. "Well it's not like Rose has a bedtime! Or does she?" The whole practically living with Sherlock and what all that entailed was something she hadn't quite put her finger on yet, other than acknowledging it was the sort of arrangement she herself would not enjoy.
"No, she doesn't," Sherlock confirmed. He gestured toward the door he was now holding open. "Go on up."
Flashing him a smile, Louise dashed up the stairs and knocked lightly on Rose's door. She slipped through the small opening Rose made when she answered the door. Once the door was closed, her arms immediately went around Rose, hugging her best friend tightly. "I'm so sorry Rose. I'm so so sorry. I shouldn't have encouraged you."
"No Lou, please don't feel that way," Rose hurried to assure her friend. "It needed to be done. I needed to know, one way or another. Now at least it's settled."
The taller, redheaded Louise hugged Rose even tighter. "Poor babe," she murmured. "I brought over the emergency kit for just this situation."
"You're squishing me," Rose murmured. "What's in your kit?"
"Oh! Sorry," Louise responded, letting go of the shorter girl. "Well! I got everything a girl needs." She opened her overnight bag and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a massive bag of peanut butter m&ms.
Rose smiled despite her tear-streaked face. "My favorite!" She grabbed the bag of m&ms and hugged it to her chest. "I don't know if I like whiskey though."
"Ah, there's a reason for the whiskey," Louise assured her. "It goes hand in hand with the visual therapy I've got lined up!" Putting down the bottle, she dug around in her bag for a moment before pulling out two DVD sets of the US show Once Upon a Time. "Whiskey goes hand-in-hand with the ultimate of visual therapy, m'dear: the ultra dashing and sexy pirate Killian Jones, aka Hook. You're caught up on series one, yeah?"
Rose nodded. "I am. Haven't been introduced to this Killian Jones yet."
"Oh. My. God. He drips sex appeal, seriously. His voice could make me orgasm," Louise said with a pleasurable sigh. She grinned brightly when Rose burst into hysterical laughter. "That's what I want to see! I mean, who doesn't like a sexy pirate in the most gorgeous leathery pirate attire?"
"More dashing than Douglas Fairbanks?" Rose asked seriously. "Because that man could cut a dashing figure in a black and white silent film and that isn't an easy thing."
"Loads more dashing! Fairbanks doesn't have anything on the luscious Killian Jones. Besides, if pirates aren't your thing, there are others. Rumple if you want the baddest baddie in all the realms," Louise suggested. "Or Charming, if you want the sweet, sappy, sword-swinging type."
Rose's face fell at that description, which for some reason immediately reminded her of John.
"None of that," Louise said sternly. "It'll be Killian Jones, trust me! Now, go get your DVD player going and I'll pour the drinks. Open the bag of emotional eatery known as m&ms while you're at it!"
The sun was coming up by the time Rose turned off the telly and the DVD player. The girls were happily buzzed, gorged on peanut butter m&ms and already snuggled into the pull out bed of Rose's sofa. "Love you Lou," Rose murmured, burrowing under the covers. "Love me some sexy pirate too, mmmm."
Louise smirked. "I want Killian Jones on the floor, all the things that that means. Can't think of 'em right now. Later. But every, every minute of every day, sex, sex, sex," she decided, closing her eyes.
"Floor? Anywhere, anywhere, everywhere, every place, elevator, I dunno. Don't care. Just where… everywhere… all the wheres and there," Rose slurred, due to a mixture of exhaustion and whiskey. "Or just whisper in my ear, that'd do it too. You're really bestest." She smiled as she closed her eyes.
Louise nodded, smiling as well. "You're bestest. Love ya girl. Let's to 'merica and stalk him. That man that plays the sexy pirate. We're gonna do it. Tell Mycroft we want a trip."
Rose's eyes fluttered open for a moment and put her hand up to her ear, pretending it was a phone. "'llo Mycroft? This is Rose. I wanna go to 'merica. Why? Pirate stalking; perfectly legal, promise. Because reasons! Gimme money."
The girls giggled hysterically. "Rozen Holmes," Louise slurred. "You're ridiculous. No money for you. No stalking, highly irregular!"
The hysterical giggling continued for a few minutes more as the girls did various impressions of Mycroft and his refusal to provide the necessary means for stalking a star, before snuggling close and blissfully passing out.
When 10am came along without any sight of Rose, not even the rather funny staggering into the flat demanding coffee, John began to feel concerned. "Have you seen your sister this morning?" he asked Sherlock.
"No; wasn't my day to watch her."
John looked at his flatmate and blinked several times. "She's your sister. When is it not your day to watch her if she's still alive? Sometimes I wonder how exactly she survived her childhood."
"Nearly didn't at times," Sherlock admitted. "There was that whole Paddington Bear incident, experiments gone wrong, the balcony incident, the whole pirate ship debacle to name a few," he mused. "God, how did she survive?"
"The what?" John asked, laughing. "You've got to tell me this pirate ship thing."
Sherlock sighed heavily. "Rose fell down the stairs, turned out to be fine, but decided she needed more appropriate pirate gear. Who was I to deny her? Naturally I stole Mycroft's bank card-"
"That's not natural Sherlock. It is not natural to pick-pocket your brother," John interrupted with a semi-scolding.
The other man scowled and continued on. "So I bought her a pirate ship. A complete pirate ship in the backyard, christened the HMS Mycroft at her insistence. She got to keep it in the end, didn't work out so well for me. Something about 2500 pounds is a ridiculous amount of money for a 'glad you feel better now' gift." Sherlock waved his hand dismissively.
John promptly spit out his tea at the mention of 2500 pounds. "Yeah, I'd have murdered you too. How are you not dead and buried?"
Sherlock looked a bit uncomfortable and shifted in his chair by the fireplace. "There were moments I wished I was. About two week's worth of moments. Mycroft was… very, very angry. I had to sacrifice myself in order for Rose to keep the ship. Not much of a choice really."
The doctor smiled at his flatmate with a sort of nostalgic air, imagining a young Sherlock bravely sacrificing himself for Rose.
The detective sighed heavily. "John, please don't get all sentimental about it. It's annoying."
"Alright, alright," John agreed, raising his hands in surrender. "In any case, despite it not being your day to watch her- still not sure how that works exactly- have you seen Rose at all today?"
"No; Louise came over late, they're probably still sleeping. If you're really that concerned take the keys and go check on her," Sherlock suggested. He wasn't at all surprised when John immediately acted upon his suggestion.
Taking the key to Rose's flat, John went next door and let himself in, stopping just inside the door at the sight in front of him. What he assumed were Rose and Louise was mainly a tangle of blankets, limbs, and snoring. The open bottle of whiskey didn't go unnoticed and apparently neither did he as the jumble of girls began to stir.
"Whoizzet?" Louise slurred, her redhead popping up a bit.
"Is it Killian?" Rose called out. She started to sit up, only to have Louise push her back down in her own efforts to do the same.
"Where? Is he bringing breakfast?!" Louise asked. She blinked several times trying to focus her eyes, which landed on John. "Piss off, you! Unless there's breakfast. We want that first, and then piss off."
Eyes wide, feeling rather confused, John hastily retreated back to his own flat.
"Still alive in there?" Sherlock asked, looking up from the paper.
"Well," John began, "I think they're a bit drunk and they were looking for someone named Killian and then demanded breakfast. So… yes?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Well at least she's drunk here and not elsewhere."
"Who's Killian?" John inquired, trying to sound very casual while actually feeling something between slight alarm and a tinge of jealousy. He shouldn't feel that way; he had no right to feel that way, so John forced the feelings away, angry for having had them in the first place.
As if John's words had only just registered, Sherlock shot out of his chair and hurried into Rose's flat. "Do you have a man in here?!" he demanded of the still happily buzzed girls.
"Huh?" Louise asked. "Sher, go 'way. We're very busy with... with… things."
"A man? What man? Is there a man? Is it Killian?!" Rose squealed, looking around excitedly.
Deciding that questioning the little idiots any further would likely cause his brain cells to start dying he began searching the flat. Thankfully it was empty of any persons of the male sex. Just as he was leaving the flat, the girls began clapping and hollering, causing him to turn around. There on the telly was some sort of pirate.
"Killian?" he asked, indicating the television.
Both girls nodded, not bothering to take their eyes from the screen, looking for all the world like love-struck thirteen-year-olds rather than the reasonably mature twenty-year-olds they actually were. Most of the time; or at least some of the time at any rate, if Sherlock was honest.
"Well, this has been… awkward," Sherlock decided. "I'll leave you to whatever it is you're doing." Shutting the door behind him, he headed back into 221B, shaking his head.
"So what were you planning to do if you found a man in there?" John asked curiously when his flatmate returned.
"Assist him in exiting her flat very quickly, via the window," Sherlock responded. "And threaten massive bodily harm if I ever saw him near my sister again."
"I'm pretty sure being thrown out the window would be threat enough," John chuckled, shaking his head. He could only imagine Lestrade's reaction to Sherlock throwing yet another person out of the window. Life with the Holmes siblings was certainly never boring!
Across London, enjoying a cup of tea while doing paperwork in his study, Mycroft Holmes picked up his mobile and dialed the number of his most trusted and valued employee.
"Afternoon sir," Anthea answered.
"Afternoon. I have something I need you to do for me that's a bit unorthodox," Mycroft began.
Anthea laughed on the other end of the line. "Sir, most of what I do for you is a bit unorthodox, particularly depending upon whose definition of the word you're referring to."
Mycroft smiled, though Anthea couldn't see it. "True enough. My sister has plans to go out and celebrate the New Year tonight with her friend, Louise Gardner. I'm concerned for her safety, namely because she's an immature twenty-year-old who has no threshold for alcohol."
"I can certainly discreetly follow them," Anthea responded. It would take no effort at all for her to gain entry to any club Rose was admitted to and fit right into the crowd.
"I knew I could count on you. I merely want to make certain she doesn't drink herself into a stupor and/or get herself into some sort of trouble. I'd like to be contacted should things get… out of hand," Mycroft added. "Keep an eye on Louise as well, of course." While Louise had spent much of her life in pursuit of annoying him, Mycroft didn't like the thought of anything happening to her either.
"Of course, sir," Anthea replied. Her boss's level of concern for his sister was rather endearing, but she couldn't help thinking that he was probably overly concerned in this instance.
Very little was heard from Rose and Louise for the remainder of the day as the girls lounged about, continuing their Once Upon a Time marathon until they decided to get ready for their night out. It was New Years Eve, both were single and Rose had a lot of things about this past year that she wanted to forget. The initial fighting with Mycroft when she returned, being stalked and attacked, and last but certainly not least, the whole business with John. It was time to start out the New Year as she meant to go on: throw caution to the wind, live in the moment, and have a hell of a lot of fun.
"Oh yeah, you're dressed to kill baby," Louise announced as Rose presented herself for inspection.
When Rose wanted to dress up, boy could she do it! The shorter girl had no need for make-up, having inherited her mother's flawless skin with just a smattering of freckles across the top of her cheeks and nose. On special occasions when Rose chose to wear make-up, however, she did so with the skill of someone who did it all the time, applying just the right amount and the appropriate colors. Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail and Rose was wearing a particularly provocative dress. The skirt of it was short, coming only mid-thigh, with the top portion not only sleeveless but backless. The front of it was split in half, revealing a black strip of material across her breasts.
"You don't clean up half badly yourself," Rose told Louise, taking in her friend's scandalously short little black dress and killer pair of heels. "Purse and mobiles?"
"Check and check," Louise confirmed. "We're ready to go." She opened the door of Rose's flat and stepped out onto the landing where Greg Lestrade was standing just inside the door of Sherlock and John's flat, consulting with the detective.
"Oh, hey Greg! Happy New Years a bit early," Rose greeted, waving at him.
Greg turned at the sound of her voice and after getting one look at her outfit, his eyes went wide and he began gesturing towards Rose with his head.
It took Sherlock several seconds to figure out that Greg was subtly trying to call his attention to Rose and the consulting detective stepped out of the flat while the girls were descending the stairs. "Not so fast!" he called down. "You are not going out in that Rosenwyn. Find some appropriate clothes."
"These are clothes," Rose countered, an eyebrow quirking. "I'm covered."
"Not really. In fact that hardly qualifies as clothing at all" Sherlock told her. "Come back upstairs and change into legitimate clothing or we're going to have a discussion about it."
Rose's face flamed red at the mention of a discussion and she scurried back up the stairs to change. She slammed her door shut behind her for good measure.
"You girls on your way out?" John asked, sticking his head out of the flat.
Louise stared at him for a moment before a slow smile spread across her face. "Say, John, do you have a car?"
The doctor shook his head. "Need me to call a cab?"
"How disappointing. I was going to slash your tires and pay some drunken fool to piss in your gas tank. Pity," Louise mused. She'd have to find some other way to exact her revenge.
John's eyes widened. "Um… alright then." He quickly backed away, not doubting for a second Louise meant everything she said.
Sherlock gave his flatmate a penetrating look. "What did you do?"
"Nothing, nothing at all!" John hurried to assure him. He could tell, however, that Sherlock was not particularly convinced by his assurances. Thankfully, Sherlock was distracted when Rose came out of her flat once more.
"Happy? Spoil sport," Rose grumbled. She had donned a red long-sleeved dress with a few pieces of material cut out to expose the skin of her upper chest, shoulder, and side.
"Do you own clothing with all the pieces still attached?" Sherlock asked. "If you do, you need to find it if you want to leave this building today, because that's completely inappropriate."
"Sherlock! All the important things are covered! Good lord, you're such a problem!"
"As are you! Since the moment you were born," Sherlock grumbled. "Put on something decent already, this really isn't up for debate, just in case that wasn't clear to you."
Rose stomped back up the stairs once more to find something better to wear.
"Mmm, yes, stomping is absolutely becoming behavior for a twenty-year-old," Sherlock remarked.
Rose responded by sticking her tongue out at him.
Moments later she emerged in a black skirt just barely above her knees, a white top and a red leather jacket with studs on the shoulders. "Happy?"
Sherlock looked her up and down before giving her a curt nod. "Blissfully so. Go away now."
Rolling her eyes, Rose stomped all the way down the stairs and out of the building with Louise following her lead in support of Rose's protest.
The second they were out of the door, Greg began laughing so hard he almost doubled over.
"Oh, yes, please do laugh at my suffering Lestrade," Sherlock ground out, giving the inspector-detective a hard look. Much to his chagrin, Lestrade merely continued to laugh.
The girls started out at 10:30pm that night, fully intending to party as late as they were able. They bounced from club to club over a two hour period, ringing in the New Year with shots and kissing strangers before popping off to yet another dance club when that one got too crowded.
By the time 1:30am rolled around, Louise and Rose were quite happily sloshed, dancing their feet off to the latest remixed dance songs. Anthea was growing steadily more concerned as the girls appeared to knock back shot after shot, the fact that they were all over the dance floor making it hard to keep track of how many each of them had. When Rose straddled a boy and began kissing him rather enthusiastically, Anthea knew it was time to call her boss before things really got out of hand.
Exiting the club, she retrieved her mobile from her purse and was wholly unsurprised at how awake Mycroft sounded when he answered.
"This isn't going to be something I really want to hear, is it?"
"Not really sir," Anthea admitted, chuckling a bit.
"I'm so very glad you find this amusing Anthea," Mycroft grumbled.
"Sorry sir. Shall I go try to… extract them?"
This time it was Mycroft's turn to chuckle as he envisioned his very capable PA trying to herd the two girls out of a club. "Please do and take them both home. Call me if you have any difficulties."
Anthea made her way across the crowded dance floor towards where she'd last spotted Louise and Rose. Luckily enough for her the two girls were still chatting up two very handsome young men, though perhaps 'chatting up' wasn't really the most applicable term. What they were doing was more along the lines of bumping and grinding to the overly loud music while knocking into everyone else around them due to the size of the crowd. Both had a drink in their hand and were being held a little too closely for Anthea's comfort to the boys they were dancing with, making the bumping and grinding movements particularly inappropriate. She wondered whether the boys were holding them so close because they felt like it, or because the girls were starting to find it difficult to stand up on their own.
"Rose," Anthea said, taking gentle hold of the young woman's arm. "Rose, I think it's time to go now," she said. "You and Louise need to be done for the night before things get out of hand. Let's find your coats and go, please." It was difficult for her to find a tone that balanced enough sternness to get Rose's attention without patronizing her. Wrangling idiotic politicians and making them thing Mycroft Holmes's ideas are their own was one thing; handling a headstrong young lady was something Anthea didn't have in her admittedly vast repertoire.
Anthea's best attempt, however, was met with significant resistance as Rose yanked her arm away from the PA. "Oi! No! I'm dancin' Ana…Antha…Anthea! Yeah, Anthea. Dancin' and you're not m'minder. Piss off and tell My to piss off!"
"What she said," Louise added. "Don't worry; I got it unna…under… something!" She waved her hands as if to shoo Anthea away and cheered with Rose when the PA appeared to do just that.
"So it didn't go well, I take it?" Mycroft said by way of answering his mobile ten minutes later.
"No, not at all," Anthea sighed. "Something along the lines of 'You're not my minder, piss off and tell my brother to piss off.'"
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "That's lovely. I'll be there shortly and meet you outside. Let me know if they manage to escape before I get there."
It was like a scene out of his worst nightmare, Mycroft reflected as he gained entrance to the dance club. Drunken people dancing, doing things they thought were dancing but was definitely not dancing, sloshing drinks, blaring music with the bass up far too high, and all sorts of strobe lights and colored lights making it all seem to be a hazy mess. He was stone cold soberand it was still hazy. Mycroft could only imagine how hazy it was for those of varying levels of intoxication.
As Mycroft came nearer to the dance floor, with Anthea right beside him, a dance remix of Katy Perry's Last Friday Night began playing. Those at the edge of the dance floor caught sight of the sexy woman accompanied by an odd looking man quite a bit older than her, dressed in a three-piece suit that couldn't have looked anymore out of place if he tried. Yet despite looking so very out of place there was something about the man, a sort of presence or aura, that made those on the dance floor begin parting as he came towards them. Clearly this man, strange as he was, was on a mission that no one dared to interfere with, wisely choosing to just get out of his way.
It was an odd water-free reenactment of the parting of the Red Sea, as Mycroft made his way across the floor and he took a not inconsiderable amount of delight from that fact. Halfway across the room the music screeched to a halt and the club fell quiet for the most part as drunken people tried to figure out what was going on and who exactly was causing such a disturbance.
"Rose," Louise hissed, beginning to poke her best friend in the arm. "Rose! Stop snogging that guy, I think Mycroft is here! Either that or I'm way, way more smashed than I think I am. Rose!" She continued poking Rose, who was at that moment sitting on the lap of a boy at the bar, enthusiastically kissing him.
Louise's eyes went wide as she saw that yes indeed it was Mycroft in the flesh and not a drunken illusion or nightmare. It went some way towards sobering her up as she continued to poke Rose rather frantically. "Seriously, Rose, stop… Mycroft is here!"
Her efforts were rewarded just as Mycroft stopped beside them and muttered an "Oh, Rose," in a very disappointed tone. Just then the music and dancing resumed in earnest, leaving them more or less to their own devices there at the bar as everyone ignored the little huddled group.
Rose stopped making out and looked up at her brother, grinning brightly. "Lookie! The British government came for a drink! He'll have a scotch! Scotchy, scotch, scotch," she sang, slurring her words a bit.
Louise began giggling hysterically. "That's Anchorman! Anchorman, hooray!"
"What in god's name do you think you are doing?" Mycroft hissed at his sister. "And get off this boy's lap at once. This is a completely disgraceful display and your little party time is at an end."
"This isn't boy, this is Bobby," Rose explained, making no move to get up.
"Billy," the young man corrected.
"This is Billy-Bob," Rose amended. "We might be dating? Are we dating? I don't remember."
"Mmm, yeah baby," Billy mumbled, moving in to kiss her neck. Rose giggled as he did so and playfully pushed at Billy's chest.
Suddenly, Rose was no longer on Billy's lap and was instead rather roughly pulled off of it and onto her feet. Just as she opened her mouth to protest Mycroft's manhandling, her older brother grabbed the young man by the throat and pinned him to the bar. "You will not touch her again; you will not speak to her again; you will delete her number from your mobile if she was stupid enough to give it to you. If you see her on the street, you will run as fast as you can in the opposite direction, because if you don't, I will make very certain that you are never seen again. Do I make myself quite clear?"
Billy's eyes were wide and practically bulging out of his head as he made a very brief nod before squeaking "Yes." As soon as he said it, Mycroft let go and watched the young man fall to the floor before getting up and hurrying away.
"Let's get them outside," Mycroft said to Anthea. He took hold of Rose and began steering her through the crowd, which once more parted for him, though the music continued to play this time. Anthea followed him with Louise in tow. Neither adult spoke until they were well clear of the clubs entrance.
"Louise, Anthea will be seeing you home. I suggest you go quietly and obediently or I'll call your mother and I'm quite certain she'd have plenty to say to you regarding this little escapade," Mycroft said sternly. He was pleased that Louise merely nodded enthusiastically and immediately went with Anthea.
"As for you," Mycroft began, turning to Rose. "You are going home and you are in very, very serious trouble." He began steering her in the direction of his car, ignoring her indignant protests.
"Noooo! My I wanna go dance! It's New Years, I'm going to be all new! No more bad stuff! And where'd Billy-Bob go? I wanted his number," Rose informed him with a pout.
"He has gone far, far away if he has any connected brain cells left in his head. You, sister mine, have had far more than enough to drink for one evening and are going straight home. There will be no more drunken snogging or dancing this evening for you miss," Mycroft scolded. He prided himself on knowing his sister very well and anticipating her responses, yet he found himself surprised to be kicked in the shin seconds later.
"You're not the boss of me anymore!" Rose shouted at him. "Lemme go, My!"
After letting out a curse as her high heel connected with his shin, Mycroft rolled his eyes at her antics and decided to put an end to them immediately. Turning her around he bent her over the hood of his car and landed several hearty smacks to the seat of her skirt, ignoring the yelps that accompanied the swats. "Are you quite done?" he asked. "Because I assure you, I've had enough of your dramatics for one evening, Rosenwyn Aramantha. Are you going to be a good girl and get in the car so I can take your ridiculous self home?"
Rather than respond verbally, Rose merely nodded, afraid if she opened her mouth that she might start crying. That had really hurt. Mycroft hadn't been holding back much in her opinion!
"Good," Mycroft responded. He let go of her and opened the car door, giving her an expectant look. "And if you throw up in my car, I promise I'll spank you all the way back to Baker Street. Have I made myself perfectly clear, young lady?" After she nodded to indicate she understood, Mycroft helped her into the car and climbed in after her instructing his driver to take them directly to 221B Baker Street.