Data Doesn't Lie (Johnlock)

Chapter 19

JOHN

Mycroft's home was terrifyingly large, which was expected, but made me no less nervous. He'd requested someone meet us at his front gate for our insurance, a staggering black row of towers and spikes curving deviously around the high red monster that was his home. It resembled a small courthouse, yellow light shining through the windows and fluttering pale in shaking curtains. The brown-red bricks piled high, expertly put together like blocks that rounded at one point and curved around the entire estate. The grass was clean-cut and a deep emerald, a few bushes leaning one way or the other as if they we're stumbling ghosts. I gulped, looking at so grand and desolate a place. Suddenly, I really wanted to be back in 221B.

Sherlock was grumbling angrily to himself, looking upset. I patted his arm gently, a sad smile on my face. The look he gave me tore my heart in half; his bright eyes dulled down and brimming with tears, his mouth a straight line of withheld words of regret."I'm sorry, John," he whispered shakily. I moved a fraction closer to him. "Tonight was wonderful, love. Nothing that happens makes any difference on that." He looked as if he hadn't heard me.

Mycroft sat up straighter, and for once I began to see a resemblance in the two Holmes brothers. They had the same worried face and melancholy eyes.

"Home, sweet home," he muttered as the car rolled through the gateway and onto the loud gravel path leading to the front of the house. Sherlock's already tight muscles tensed a tad more and he winced at the sight before him, eyes darting this way and that to soak up as much information as possible. "Have you been here before?" I asked him. He nodded stiffly, like his neck hurt. "On a few occasions, yes." At least he's not feeling it either, I thought.

Slowly, we made our way through the gate, gravel crunching like the wood chippers in a quarry. The sound made me frown to myself. Once we reached the front door; a high, grand thing it was, Mycroft slinked away from the two of us and out his door, muttering something quickly to his driver and beckoning us out. Sherlock pat my arm gently, looking worried. "It's alright, John. " I almost asked him what he was on about before realizing that my hand was digging into his forearm with the grip of a grizzly.

Hastily, we made our way from the car and it sped off around a corner, presumably to a space where it was kept, here or elsewhere. Mycroft led us up stone steps to a small porch and unlocked the door with the hurried fear of someone being chased. That didn't precisely make me feel any safer.

The lights came on immediately, illuminating a bright hallway with red carpet and a few frames on the walls. A row of degrees in law, signed in whispy writing which I could not read. A dull photograph of a younger Mycroft at the side of a rather important looking man. I stuck close to Sherlock, glancing at each frame and struggling to deduce as he might. He kept his eyes forward. At the very end of the hall, a lone picture caught my eye. A middle-aged woman in velvet held the arm of a dark-haired man in spectacles, similarly to the way I held Sherlock now. Both had the Holmes look, the strong, narrow gaze that always looked like they knew your darkest secrets by looking at your face or tie or shoes. At their knees was a young boy, maybe twelve, in a Polo and coat, with hair swept back professionally and an uptight face. To his right, a rowdy seven-year-old, with bright blue eyes and a broad grin, his hair sticking up on the ends and suit disheveled beyond ironing, a flame-red puppy in his arms like a baby doll.

As we three twisted down the hallway in solemn air, Mycroft drawled a few measures and protocols about his household and how it was run in a way that would properly be able to protect our well-being. Sherlock listened carefully. I did not. That was a first.

Before I could even register what he'd been going on about, Mycroft claimed he'd retire to bed and promised to speak with us in the morning. He was around and away up a spiral staircase before I could say goodnight. Sherlock leaned down a few inches to whsiper in my ear. "He's a damn liar. He won't sleep tonight. Hardly ever does." I smiled despite myself. "Sound like anyone?" He scoffed, taking my hand and pulling me down a corridor to the left. "Where are we-"

"I have a room," he explained. "I chose it the first night I came here, should I ever have to stay another time. It's the best one, besides Mycroft's." We passed the doorway of the dining room, which was nearly three times the size of our whole kitchen. "You've spent the night before?" His pace slowed so that he was no longer dragging me along and I could step up a few feet. "Once..."

The room itself looked normal enough from the outside, a wicker door with a few carved designs and swirls built around the frame. It was unlocked, and Sherlock swept in the doorway like it was his own, claiming it as his territory. It was large, Victorian-esque, with calm tan walls and calm tan carpet and calm tan everything else. Even the nightstand and wardrobe were a light-colored wood, soft and perfectly sculpted and placed. There was an individual desk off in the corner, shadowed by a small lamp with a yellow top that I flicked on. The only thing that stood out was the shimmering red curtains that matched the bedsheets, which matched the pillows and drawstrings and the carpets in the bathroom atop the beige marble floor. Everything matched, everything had a place and a pattern. No wonder Sherlock liked it here.

"It's quaint," I commented, stopping short with a choked sound. Almost immediately Sherlock had begun to strip, tossing his coat and shirt over the chair of the desk and kicking off his pants. He was left in an undershirt and black boxers, sighing and shaking out his hair and flopping face-first into the mattress. He muttered something about being tired and stared at me with an expectant face. "Coming?"

"Uh...yeah..."

MORIARTY

I smirked, sitting idly in a fold-out chair upon the rooftop of a rather prominent London hospital. No, not St.Bart's, dufus. A different one.

To my right was one of my men, there only to hand me my coffee every once and a while. Obviously, I can't hold it myself. Not when I have my hands full trying to rule the world of crime and what not. Imagine, if I had to handle simple, everyday tasks like that.

The horror!

"Taylor, love," I crooned to the cronie at my side. "Tell Sebby our little detectives are in place. Get Dodger to take your position. " Like a puppet, he was off as soon as I snapped my fingers. I counted the seconds to Dodger's arrival.

I will make you burn, Sherlock Holmes. But when one needs fire, one needs a match. And lucky me...

I have seven.