The shrill, insistent ringing of Greg's phone echoed loudly through his small and impressively untidy flat. Despite the noise it still took Greg several long moments to register that his phone was going off. Reluctantly crawling out of his warm bed and wincing at the bright sunlight searing into his eyes he stumbled into the kitchen in search of it, eventually finding it beneath the crumpled pinstripe jacket lying beside the table. A faint blush crept to his cheeks as last nights events slowly came back to him. After leaving John and Sherlock's flat Mycroft had seemed so upset that inviting him back for a cup of tea had seemed like the only logical thing to do...shaking his head he picked up his phone and smiled. Well events had, somewhat, escalated.
"Hello?" He asked sleepily with a yawn before instantly feeling guilty after glancing at the clock and seeing it was officially the afternoon. Not that it really mattered. It was Sunday anyway and nobody had apparently noticed his absence at the office. Which was good because there was no way he would be able to explain this. "Greg Lestrade speaking." From the voice on the other end there came a perfectly legitimate question. "Oh Mycroft was so upset that I made him stay over (which was technically true). Anyway, what the hell happened to you? We are all worried sick when we went to the flat to discover you were gone!" He listened for a moment to John. A frown formed on his face and steadily grew more serious as he heard exactly where John had been for half a day. He almost couldn't believe it, the Elite Engifted were real!? Why this changed everything they knew about them! "Don't go anywhere okay. I'm on my way." And with that Lestrade hung up.
From behind him there came the sound of light footsteps and he glanced over his shoulder to find Mycroft walking slowly towards him, his eyes still half clouded with sleep. A smile spread across Lestrade's face and he paused long enough to lightly peck Mycroft on the lips. "Who's that calling?" The elder Holmes Brother asked with a yawn as he headed towards the bathroom. "News about Sherlock?" He sounded so hopeful that Lestrade felt a slight pang at having to let him down.
Lestrade located the rest of his clothes and hastily began pulling them on, not caring they were the exact same ones he had been wearing yesterday. He highly doubted that John would even notice. "John." He answered simply, "and apparently he had the honour of meeting the Elite Engifted." He laughed when he saw the wide eyed surprise on Mycroft's face, "I know! I had the exact same reaction. I can hardly believe it either."
Abruptly Mycroft was much more awake then he had been five minutes ago. Spinning on his heel he hurried back towards the kitchen with his mind reeling at what he had just heard. "Are you serious?!" He asked, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. Behind him his delicate icy wings were tucked into the hollow of his back. The Elite were supposed to be bedtime stores told to young Engifted. Nobody thought they actually existed! A sudden thought struck him and he cleared his throat. "Is John alright? Do you want me to come to Baker Street with you?" Sure he had meetings he needed to be in but he would willingly miss them today for John, who he knew had taken Sherlock's disappearance hard. There was a lot of love between the two of them. Mycroft's serious grey eyes softened slightly as he watched Lestrade buttoning his shirt all the wrong way in his haste to get out the door. "Here let me do that." He said with a smile.
Lestrade stopped, let out a sigh and admitted defeat, allowing Mycroft to take over. "Its okay, you don't need to come. I know you're busy at work today.." He sucked in a breath as one of Mycroft's fingers brushed lightly against his skin. It took quite a bit of willpower not to respond. Right now he had other things to focus on. "I'll call you if anything comes up."
Mycroft finished the last button and stepped back. "Okay, you're ready to go out into the world. And I'll hold you to that. Any news, any news at all and I'll expect you to call me." His face fell, his expression darkening as his thoughts turned to his brother. "I hope Sherlock is alright." He stared at the floor and let out a sigh that ended in a small cloud of icy breath. Engifted tend to loose control of their powers when they aren't in control of their emotions. With Sherlock being so new he would (in theory anyway) have terrible control over his powers. It was incredible no reports had been filed... Mycroft couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. He knew he shouldn't think like that but it was getting hard to remain positive. Sherlock had now been missing for several weeks and there should have been some sign of him by now. God only knew what was keeping him away.
His heart going out to him, though Mycroft may hide it Lestrade knew how much he loved Sherlock, Lestrade reached out to gently lift Mycroft's face to his. Then he slowly leant forward until their lips were almost touching. "I'm sure Sherlock will be fine. He knows how to look after himself." He said in an attempt to be reassuring. Deep down though he couldn't help but worry and he suspected Mycroft could tell, despite his best attempts to hide it.
In answer to this Mycroft closed the gap between them and pressed his lips to Lestrade's, wrapping his arms around him to draw him closer. Unable to help himself Lestrade brushed one hand over the cold and yet surprisingly soft feathers of one wing. A shudder of pleasure ran through Mycroft and he buried his head in Lestrade's shoulder. "Careful Heart of mine, that's how we got into this in the first place." Mycroft said in a breathy voice, swallowing hard and forcing himself to take a step back. Oh how he wished he could crawl back into bed with Lestrade and not leave. He sighed. With Sherlock missing he shouldn't be enjoying himself like this... A wave of guilt swept over him and he hung his head. He didn't even look up as Lestrade sat down to lace up his boots.
"Why did everything go so wrong?" Mycroft muttered to himself, clenching his fists even as ice crept up the wall behind him. If his little brother was hurt...He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about the terrifying vision that had appeared in Baker Street just yesterday. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't. He swallowed hard and opened his eyes to find Lestrade was already gone, heading out into the cold of a wintery London afternoon. All Mycroft could do now was pray everything, somehow, turned out okay. He didn't know what he would do if anything happened to Sherlock.
Poor John Watson never knew what hit him. One moment he was gazing out of the window after having just phoned Lestrade. The next he was lying halfway across the room with his ears ringing and blinking back a blinding flash of light. Every muscle burned and ached and his vision flickered, the edges momentarily going black. What the hell just happened? John tried to get up but his limbs shook and refused to hold him. Panic flooded through him. He attempted to cry out and only managed a weak, indistinct gurgle. He couldn't even reach his phone to send for help. From somewhere nearby came the sound of beating wings but John was unable to turn his head and look. Still it didn't take Sherlock like powers to work out who it might be. Wings and feathers could only mean an Engifted.
"Bloody hell Stormbringer. I said knock him out, not try to kill him!" Cried a husky voice in an exasperated tone. Footsteps sounded against the floorboards, heading in John's direction.
"How was I to know he was standing so close to the window?" Another, more petulant voice protested. "Its hardly my fault you read the life signs in the room wrong!"
John let out a groan. Definitely Engifted. He could only assume their appearance here had something to do with Sherlock's disappearance. Not that that piece of information helped him all that much. There was nothing, in his paralysed state, he could actually do. Despair replaced the panic, flooding through him in a black wave strong enough to make his breath catch in his throat.
The husky sounding Engifted snorted loudly in obvious disbelief. "It's hardly my fault you can't control your powers. I said a light blast of electricity- not a fucking lightning bolt." There was a pause before a fearsome, skeletal face peered down at John, whose eyes widened slightly. Bony fingers with hardly any skin lightly brushed against his neck as they searched for a pulse. "Lucky for you he's still breathing or you'd been facing Nightmare when we arrived back." The skeletal Engifted eased John up into a seated position and leaned him carefully against the wall. All John could do was blink his eyes and listen.
The other Engifted, the one addressed as Stormbringer, let out a hollow sounding laugh. "Nightmare doesn't scare me anymore. His powers are weak compared to the new Black wing he captured the other day."
The skeletal Engifted sighed and shook his head at his companion's stupidity. "It is not for us to question Nightmare Stormbringer. We simply obey him." John shivered when the Engifted turned blank white eyes to him. Unlike Mycroft who just had wings these Engifted were truely inhuman, and unsettling as a result.
John's heart skipped slightly. The Black wing they were talking about could only be Sherlock! He gritted his teeth. There was no way he could just lay there and allow himself to be taken. Concentrating hard he tried to force an arm, or even just a finger to move. To his frustration nothing happened. If he could only reach his phone he could activate the homing app Lestrade had made he and Sherlock install after they had gone missing for two weeks. From what John could remember the case had featured an Engifted with powers similar to that of a mythological siren. Now that'd been an interesting few weeks...
John was shaken from his thoughts when the skeletal Engifted bent down and easily lifted him, casually tossing him over one shoulder. A jolt of pain tore through John's head, shaking him into unconscious. After that there was nothing but blackness.
As was beginning to become normal for Greg Lestrade he literally missed the excitement by a few minutes, arriving to find an empty flat and a shattered window. Shaking his head in despair Lestrade swore under his breath, frustrated this was happening again. Maybe one day he would be able to save John and Sherlock before the bad things happened to them.
Hastily he began to search the room. It didn't take him long to find a few white and acid yellow feathers scattered beneath the window amongst the broken glass. Angrily he punched the room, instantly regretting it when pain shot down his arm. This was starting to get ridiculous. He sighed, hanging his head. Great- now he had two missing people to find. Reluctantly he reached into his pocket for his phone, feeling guilty for the extra distress he was about to cause, and dialled the first number he came to. It took a second to connect. "Mycroft, we may have a slight problem..."