A/N: I should write more often, I really enjoy it. Need to figure out when else in my day can I fit it in, though. And if my eyes are glazed when I'm at work today, there are equal chances of me being really tired or trying to fix this plotline. -csf


4.

'We should go check on your brother, Sherlock. You must be worried sick about him', I decide, getting up suddenly.

It's a cold damp night with no promises of tomorrow anyway, why sit, legs dangling out, in the middle of a bridge, looking down at a Thames that refuses to flow, or spot the bats that hang impossibly suspended in the air, wait for the reverberating strike of Big Ben's clock that will never come on the hour even if the arrow in the dial precariously tilts towards 12 as we stand in a Time Freeze world.

The detective grimaces at my sudden animation. 'I'm not worried about Mycroft!' he growls, a deep, dark threat underlining his words. As I turn my head to look at him, his mercurial eyes narrow to a viper's slit.

I shrug, nonchalant.

'Yeah, I heard you, mate. You don't do human emotions, fine. Just pretend I'm the one worrying, alright?'

A small hint of a knowing smile tugs at his lips. Without bite he flips upside down his volatile emotions and snaps in easy banter:

'That I can believe. You are a worrier, John. Really, you can be highly irrational at times, don't know how I put up with you sometimes.'

I scoff, as I know he's just got to have the last word on this touchy feely topic; sibling love.

The skinny detective still smirks as he allows me to lead the way.

'Are we walking there, then?' he challenges me, amused.

'Unless we wake up a cabbie and have him follow us about in this middle of the night wander, yes.'

Sherlock is not pacified by my short-sighted, honest man's logic.

'There must be some car, somewhere, left with the keys in the ignition...' he mutters, looking round.

Knowing the detective's unprecedented mastery on materialising cabs as soon as he searches for one, I am almost willing to believe he'll find his magic car. Almost. This is London, too busy as a city not to have some opportunistic thief taking immediate advantage of such a scenario.

'Sherlock...' I start, my voice sounding odd even to my own ears. 'If at best we are in a dream, your dream I'd guess, why can't we – I don't know – dream up a car, or close our eyes and upon opening them we're there?'

Baker Street's famous detective scolds his features to a carefully studied impassiveness. He ponders me for a long moment, then sighs heavily, before stepping up closer. I watch him approach, wondering why won't he take me seriously. But he just stands there, towering and non-threatening in a weird composite manner that is Sherlock Holmes all over. Disconcertingl yet familiar.

I decide to ignore his inner antics, and resume my power walk. He follows closely.

Before I can make sense of anything, I'm startled and almost trip on my feet and fall wayside into the curb. Sherlock has just slapped my backside and immediately stared out into the night in his most innocent expression. 'Felt that, John?' he asks fleetingly, as if a particular shop window was most intriguing.

I wouldn't put it past him that he's studying my reflection.

'Felt it? You made me jump a meter high! You know I felt it! Why not tap me on the shoulder? Are you trying to prove this isn't a dream because I can feel pain?' I'm rubbing the affected area, and blushing too, I know not why. Sherlock can be a big kid sometimes.

'Wouldn't slap you on your war wounded shoulder, John. Do give me some credit, I'm not that heartless.'

I watch him move on, utterly confused.

.

London is oblivious to our presence, showing itself to us without filters or glamour. We walk through rougher areas of the city, and even a gang scuffle on a side alley, without a pause to consider our safety. Of course we're safe, we don't even belong here, we won't infringe our presence on the memory of this place.

'What are you looking at?' Sherlock asks me in genuine curiosity, as he ignores easily a couple of basic crimes – they hold no mystery, hence no appeal to my friend.

Or he'd want me to believe. I know better. I know Sherlock's motivation is that of a good man, righting the world's wrongs. It's not what keeps that ecstatic, goofy smile on his face when we get to a crime scene laced with mystery, but yet, it's there, his desire to do good, to be one of the good guys.

I should know. He keeps me right.

'Idiots', I mutter under my breath, as I glance sideways, just before taking off in short, stony steps to a bunch of kids – not that young, but kids altogether – confronting each other in territorial expressions of the gang mentality. One's got a knife. Two egg him on. The other side has another kid, playing brave as he faces the weapon, but something in his greenish expression tells me he's got no weapon and his mates won't stick around for long. He's lucky if he gets out of this unscathed and he's just realising that.

'John?' Sherlock calls me, rushing forward, ready to get into any fight I wake up from the stillness – and I'd just about do that, to tell off these young fools.

I grab a discarded soda can from the pavement and swing it on the knife blade, so conveniently poised out in prominent front stage. Twisting the aluminium I manage to squeeze the impaled can and knife ensemble off the young fool's grip. No touching, so I haven't woke him up either. Smirking I just walk off with the attack weapon to be, confiscated permanently from irresponsible hands.

This is a scuffle where no one needs serious injuries tonight. Can't quite fix the criminal intent, but it helps that rage fuelled gestures won't be backed by sharp cold steel tonight.

'Are we going?' I call my smirking friend, as I toss the knife into a nearby street gutter. Better clogging up rainwater drains than blood spilling, I'd say.

Sherlock follows me with a wide eyed expression of curiosity.

'You're mastering the rules of this parallel reality already, John. Shouldn't be surprised, an unruly mind like yours would be naturally flexible to take in such fluid reality', he adds with rancour.

Sweet lord have mercy, I think Sherlock has grudgingly just paid me a compliment.

.

'What do you remember from last night, John?'

It's a fair question as we walk the long streets of London in our mid night stroll.

I shrug. 'Not much. Must have been worn out. Went to bed early.'

'And before that?'

'We were up chatting in the living room, right?'

'Can you remember what we were talking about?'

I try hard. Then it hits me. 'My miserable love life...' I groan. Sherlock "the machine" Holmes is not the best agony aunt I could find myself. 'Maybe this is my time freeze after all.'

He hums, distantly. More of an acknowledgement that he heard me than agreement.

I particularise: 'All I remember is saying I don't think I'll ever be in love again.'

'I disagreed, wholeheartedly', Sherlock tells me.

I look him straight. He never shifts his face, still looking on ahead himself.

'I thought you didn't believe in love, Sherlock.'

'I believe in you, John.'

'What does that even mean?' I scrunch my forehead, trying to understand. Some foggy memory making an effort to reappear.

He tells me with as much emotion as one reads a takeaway menu:

'Yesterday, I told you I believed you had been in love before—'

'True', I recognise easily.

'And still were.'

I blow a raspberry, trying to break the spell of Sherlock's sudden solemnity.

'In love with whom? No one loves me mate, not like that.' I shake my head with a hollow laugh. 'It's easy for you, isn't it? High cheek bones, slick suits and dreamy eyes. You're a hit with the ladies. With the blokes too, I suppose, for those who go for that. It's all good.'

'I know it's all good.'

'That's just what I said. You're repeating yourself.'

'I don't repeat myself.'

'I heard you the first time.'

He stops short, forcing me to a standstill, a couple of feet between us.

'John, you are immensely loveable. I believe I told you that yesterday.'

I huff in derision. 'Yeah, right!'

'John, would I lie to you?'

'Just all the time.'

'If you don't believe me, then how can I prove you my sincerity?'

I shrug, feeling grumpy now.

Not much of an agony aunt, and I should have known better than to share this with a human machine.

.

If Mycroft Holmes, aspiring secret leader of the free world, knew how easy it was for us, tonight, to enter his mansion domains, he'd – understandably so – freak out.

Special circumstances, or not. Mycroft would probably berate himself – secretly – for not having pondered the chance of a Big Universal Time Freeze event. He likes to credit himself as pondering all scenarios.

The cctv's master-in-command has not spared himself of his own video surveillance at his residence, both recorded and analysed in real time by a security guard, off-site. But that's not all. Twelve digit password on the front door and reinforced, bullet proof glass on the Edwardian house in upside London are the easy to spot modifications. Add reinforced concrete cellar insulation, anti-nuclear radiation paint on the exposed façades and what else the MI5 wanted a voluntary test for their prototypes and Mycroft's got it – the extended pro version too.

I wager Mycroft could be worried that by inhabiting homes next to foreign diplomats and movie stars he'd be a target by mistake at some point, he'll surely downplay the importance of his governmental work if I point out the security features about. I might just do that anyway. Just to watch the paranoia build up behind his listless eyes.

'My brother will not mingle with the criminal classes, John', Sherlock comments as he confidently analyses the password dials. As if that was a terrible short-sightedness on Mycroft's part. And kept Baker Street protected by some thieves and thugs' honour code.

'You know the code to your brother's house, right?'

'Of course not, John. It's meant to be secret after all.'

'But... in case of an emergency? I've got Harry's flat key, and we hardly talk.'

'The ones on the red lanyard? They don't open Harry's front door.'

'What?'

'Old keys, convenient excuse. She doesn't want to give you a chance to find her booze stash ahead of Christmas. It's... significant.'

'You're just messing with me now.' I shake my head, jaw firmly set; against who, in particular, I don't know. 'And how would you know all that?'

'I take much interest in you, John', he tells me naturally.

'Quid pro quo, you expected me to burglar Mycroft's pad for secret stashes of cake?'

Sherlock smirks openly and leaves it at that. 'Mycroft rightly assumes I can deduce the chosen code to enter his dwellings. Ah, of course, child's play!' Confidently, Sherlock presses a long sequence of numbers – and it's not one-two-three up to twelve.

The display flashes red. Sherlock seems taken aback, as a personal defeat. A soft blush colours his cheeks.

I sigh and roll my eyes.

'Sherlock?' I try to call him.

He shushes me indignantly and focuses harder on the panel. I ignore my friend, knowing he needs to figure this out, get it out of his system, and that he won't stop until he's defeated the elder Holmes.

'Sherlock, please?'

Again he ignores me, frantically punching different code sequences, getting more and more affronted by the repeated denial red lights.

'Sherlock!' I shout.

He finally turns to his side. Then twirls around, trying to find me as I'm not where he's left me. He sees me at last, within the building, holding the door open.

'How did you do that?' he shoots the question, so fast as back when we first met as he deduced orally at the speed of his mind.

I shrug. 'Didn't touch the door whilst jimmying the lock, so not to "wake up" the electricity. Things don't wake up until we touch them, right? So the alarm system was "asleep" and the door just opened for me.'

Sherlock blinks.

'Found the code yet?' I add. 'It will be something like "if you must, Sherlock" in Arabic translated into an arbitrary numeric code – your brother lives for these moments.'

'More likely "piss off, numbskull" in French', he admits, amused. 'We shared a childhood, alas.'

I chuckle. Sherlock's mouth tugs itself up at the edges, and he follows me inside the building.

'Mycroft doesn't have a secret stash of cake, John. He has a personal chef.'

.

TBC