A/N: Yeah, I'm still alive. I know, it's been a while. No excuse. Just writer's block, which is magnificently ironic given that I'm not a writer. The characters were feeling contrived, vaudevillian, mechanic. Slowly they are starting to come back in shape, I hope.

Keep safe, keep strong. Look how far we've come. -csf


Two.

Like two naughty children up at the odd hours of the night, Sherlock and I come down the worn wooden steps, carefully avoiding the creaky ones. No point in disturbing Mrs Hudson's sleep with sounds of break ins and intruders. Just a little mid night stroll, nothing to see here.

There's old familiarity in the scene before me, as Sherlock's flexible limbs mount down each step, a soft rattle of expensively tailored fabric hugging the straight lines, punctuated by soft curves, of his suit trousers, highlighted by the warm gleam of the lamp light above. A white shirt, with rolled up sleeves and tight hugging fabric, makes for a striking contrast. A classical composition of night and light that echoes his pale skin and dark waves.

I hug myself in my tatty pyjama bottoms and navy t-shirt as I feel the first chills of the drafts blowing in from the front door. I hesitate. Surely we should get a warm sweater each?

Never seen Sherlock actually wearing a jumper, unless he was mocking me or disguising himself as part of his network.

There are still so many simple life comforts for me to teach this incredible man.

Sherlock must have read the off beat thought in my walking pace as the fine musician sends a quick quizzical look over his shoulder.

I shake my head. I'm fine.

I've just been rattled out of bed by a gory nightmare, a mishmash of terrible memories and foreboding fears. I'm not about to feel uncomfortable whilst awake anytime soon.

He scans my face a couple of seconds too long, as if finding and cataloguing there new lines he has not encountered before. As he turns back to the path ahead I think I still catch a glimpse of genuine worry. He looked young, burdened, saddened.

But he still leads on. Grabbing his long coat and my short jacket from the coat pegs by the entrance.

Freaking gloating for his mind reading act, I can tell by the smugness emanating in waves from his back.

In my hands, I'd swear my jacket feels dusty, but it must be my imagination. We both still go out, sparsely, for essential reasons. We avoid it like most others, to avoid the spread of a virus that might lurk anywhere – everywhere. Then why do I feel mischievous for putting on my jacket?

For one, I'm wearing bed clothes underneath. I'm not in the habit of going to work like that.

Secondly, it feels like an adventure might be coming up.

I look on over to the great detective, suited up in his long coat. Like an armour in battle. We cross gazes, both analysing the other's wellbeing. I find nothing to worry me there.

I think we're ready now.

.

'This way, John.'

There is an overhead light bulb pending from the ceiling as we descend to the basement, marketed by Mrs Hudson as 221c. This dingy flat that she couldn't quite rent due to the constant battle with black mould, at first. Then as her other tenants' fame grew she would get offers from reporters, fans, hopeful apprentices and enemies, but she just couldn't quite warm up to any of them as she did to us. Thus sparing Big Brother Holmes overtime vetting each applicant. I believe he sent Mrs H an appreciative spa weekend offer in lieu of a proper thanks. Anonymously. She said it did wonders for her bad hip. So Sherlock and I got her another pampering weekend soon after. Or I did. Sherlock used that weekend to install spa features into Mrs Hudson's place. He likes to keep her near. Even the out of town spa was too distant for his liking.

221c remained, this way, vacant. Sherlock is not one to think highly of personal space and property, so he quickly started dumping some of his stuff in the basement flat. And how he once got a stolen race car in there I'll never know. My money is on it having been pulled apart piece by piece, then put together with the same meticulous precision. That would explain the forgotten tail light left behind after the race car mysteriously disappeared into the ether overnight.

I tried asking Sherlock why he put a race car in the basement. He logically replied it didn't fit in our living room. Not without my armchair having to go on top of the fridge, and I wouldn't like that much. Apparently he's a nice guy like that.

I look around in the low ceiling room, with the peeling wallpaper, the disused chimney breast and the high up window that opens to a railing fenced opening to the street. Not for the first time, I ask myself how different my life would have been if upon my return to London I would have found myself in a place other than 221B, a place like this?

'Sherlock, what if I had been able to afford 221C's rent? You'd have been my neighbour, not my flatmate', I tease.

My friend grimaces instantaneously. 'Nonsense, John, you had precious few things when I adopted you.'

I blink. 'Adopted? I'm not a stray!'

'No, of course not, John', he mutters, distractedly. 'Help me push this box.'

Reflexively I start helping at once. 'Sherlock, I'm not a stray mutt!' I insist. He ostensibly looks mad up and down.

'No, albeit you could still do with some grooming.'

He goes as far as to ruffle my short hair somewhat, before I manage to duck away.

'It's the middle of the night!'

'You had very few possessions to bring into the flat, John. I, on the other hand, had arguably too many and am extremely generous when it comes to sharing. Push, John!'

There's a huge crate between us. Sherlock only knows what's in it.

'Yeah, sharing is caring. Hence you use my laptop all the time! Your side now, Sherlock.'

'Our laptop, John. Be generous.'

'What have you even got in here, anyway? An Italian marble statue?'

'Hardly', he rolls his eyes. 'But I see your right leg is doing absolutely fine.'

My hands release the crate as if it had just shocked me. 'Wait, what?' I look down on my leg, reach out to rub the unfailing thigh muscles, then back to Sherlock's face. He looks amused, light, proud – and is that caring I see in his face?

He changes course perceptibly. 'The trap door is located on the other side of the room, John.'

'Wait, we moved a half-ton box just to prove my leg would manage?' I point at the crate, bewildered.

'Nonsense, John. I needed space for a grand piano.'

'What grand piano?'

He rolls his eyes.

'Obviously, it's not here yet? There was no room for it!'

'It won't go through the doors or the window!'

'Oh, John', he minimises, 'there's always another way.'

I groan.

Sherlock is already kneeling beside a shade darker set of floorboards in a sea of grey, scratched, worn-out floorboards. He pushes away a three legged chair that scratches the floor reluctantly. The grating sound echoes disagreeably in the low ceiling room. The detective moves a couple of card boxes too, clearing the space from all but the parallel black lines that the outside railings cast upon the floor under the electric lamp lights, with their spear-like endings.

My friend snatches his leather pouch from a coat pocket and removes a flat thin file. He inserts metal between wooden boards and snaps them apart. The removed plank reveals a portion of what is quickly becoming an exposed trap door, with a round hook centre stage. It looks old, rusty and forgotten. Over a century old for sure.

'Is it safe?' I ask, in a tight whisper.

He smirks audaciously. 'Would I ever do that to you, John?'

Point taken. Wouldn't want it any other way.

.

'As a doctor I couldn't possibly condone getting ourselves into narrow, suffocating passages, full of toxic moulds and slippery surfaces, without one other soul knowing what we're doing out here, with the emergency services stretched as they are—'

Sherlock is impassable as he interrupts my reasonable rant:

'And as a soldier?'

I take a second to study his earnest profile. He's being serious, quite serious.

'Let's get the hell on with it', I say.

'I'll have the soldier today, John', he says, flippant, as if ordering a food choice from a menu. I'll have the soldier special today, with a large dose of chips on the side, how about you, John? He smirks, too cocky, to say: 'Always a good choice when walking into the unknown.'

Sherlock always makes a mess of a proper compliment.

'Wait.' I grab the skinny detective by the arm, as he turns to go. 'You said you knew where this would lead us.'

'I read Mycroft's report', he admits, 'but not gone down there myself.'

'We're taking Mycroft's word now?'

'Problem?' he squints his cool mint eyes, shaded by the dusky room.

I scoff for a second. 'Yeah! Your brother doesn't do legwork. He's not the highest recommendation in the land, not when it comes to a possibly dangerous underground tunnel.'

Sherlock smirks, reading something on my face I didn't even know it was there until now.

'Coming?' he asks again, infuriatingly smug.

Damn it, something's definitely there.

'Yeah, alright, lead the way, MacDuff...'

.

It's not as ancient and decaying as I pegged it to be. In fact, Mrs Hudson could charge for this underground patio at will, with just a little sprucing up. A new layer of plaster, perhaps a lick of paint, upon the brick walls with the low ceiling and bowed steps leading us down, far into the underworld.

The weight of a full building above us, straining these stained, damp walls. A fleeting hint of worry crosses my mind, but I dismiss it easily. 221 Baker Street won't cave over our heads. It has been around for a long time, and it will always live on as it is, an unperturbed sanctuary for those in need. I don't know how I know this, or how I know it will come to stay like this, I just feel it in my bones, just like Sherlock, and the rest of London and beyond. Timeless and precious, it withstands the test of time.

Sherlock walks ahead in the narrow path, holding his phone up as a potent torch. Imperious in his attitude, determination squaring his shoulders, he insists on taking the lead as the first explorer.

Sherlock's dark curls brush negligently against the old drapes of cobwebs, weighed down by dust. Long abandoned, for not even spiders can get a decent feeding where nothing lives, nothing grows, all remains preternaturally suspended in time. I follow suit, behind the detective, not missing out on his graceful elegance and dastardly dare. I rather take my uneasy palms to the rough walls as I fear tumbling down the rogue steps, in a less fine and more grounded spectacle of daring.

Don't need to open my arms wide to feel each wall beside the stairwell. I touch the bricks and the feel cold, musty, unyielding of their hold on the house and on time itself.

'In which direction are we heading?'

Sherlock hums, before pointing out: 'What would you say?'

'Cutting across the street, easily. We are almost reaching the buildings on the other side.'

'Newer constructions, John. Any ancient connection to those houses is long severed.'

'Why connect the basements this way?'

'Shared cellars for groceries and coal, communal baths, or safe hideouts during restless times, who knows? Perhaps just the idea of a fun joke to the architect in charge. This part of Baker Street was expanded in one grand sweep of urban development. Most of all', he's slowing down now, 'it came to substitute what had been previously built here. An even older, forgotten part of town.'

My hand touches what feels like dried old tree bark. I remove my hand and marvel at the huge vein of wood protruding from the brick vaulted tunnel, scarring the patchwork of rusty browns. It's a tree root, but there are no longer trees up above us. A marker, a memento of the past.

'Get out of the way, Sherlock. What can you see ahead of us?'

He moves out of my way at last. And looks me straight on.

'Another tunnel, John. We carry on... I do hope you remembered to bring your packed lunch, you get cranky when you're hungry.'

.

TBC