Edited by Caroline who helped as best she could.  Some chapters I write and I high five myself – which admittedly is just clapping – but some I’m unsure of when they’re done.  So with that grand introduction!  Also this chapter is absolutely massive.  So.  Sorry?

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“Well, that was
dramatic,” Greg said.  If the fortress
house and the posh art hadn’t been enough of a hint. The whole setup felt very
BBC.  All drama and swelling music.  He seemed to have taken the little
confrontation well, but then Greg felt like he had taken the whole weird other
universe pretty well as a whole.  He’d
already decided he wasn’t going to be too bothered by the situation last
night.  If they were there for more than
a week he’d have a break down.  Until
then there was no point in panicking when he could be paying attention.

That show of force
aside, he liked Bad Davey, liked something about him.  Or maybe just felt sympathetic to him
somehow.  For one thing the kid looked
like he’d just gotten over a ten day flu, for another he had the prickly vulnerability Greg had gotten used to in the
Holmes brothers ages ago.  David sat down
at the table again, his hands tight on the chair arms, too tightly buttoned up
to flop back down like a teenager.
Sherlock looked pale, like a man pushed to the very, very edge of
things.  That did bother Greg.

Greg still felt
like he was floating a bit, had ever since last night, he had put some things
together himself.  He might be a low
hanging fruit, but he was a regular golden plum.

Despite what
Sherlock said, Greg wasn’t a DI for nothing.
He might miss the sort of things Sherlock stitched together a mystery
with, but could still read a room, still could pick things up with a mixture of
experience and opening his eyes.

“That’s the only
language the idiot knows.  Drama,”
David’s face seemed to sharpen up into something about twenty years older.  “Did he ramble on about our tragic
backstories while reclined on a settee with a handkerchief clutched to his
bosom?”

“Something like
that,” Sherlock said, but he looked like he had to work at it.  That was troubling.

The door to the
dining room popped open and in marched Timothy Dimmock.  Greg had tried to talk to him last night, but
the man hid behind that Irene Adler.
That woman took special pleasure in her cheek, and under that had the
sort of protective streak that could teach a mother bear a thing or two.

“David,” Tim
said.  The affectionate exasperation in
his voice informed Greg all about the relationship between the two of
them.  Next the man would be telling
Davey to eat his fruit and veg.

“Greetings and
felicitations, Auntie.  I haven’t even
killed anyone yet.”

A giant dog bound
into the room, its white ears flapping.
It tumbled over to John who half stood to block its way to Mary.  It pressed its face against John’s chest and
huffed.

“H-Hey.”

It let out a high
whine.

“Wrong John,
sweetheart,” Tim said, patting his thigh.
The dog made that tick of movement that trained animals had and trotted
over.

“Hello again,”
John tried, but Tim just flinched, his shoulder lifting up almost to his ear.

“Are the Nortons
still out?” Davey asked, interrupting anything more John might try to say.  The whole interaction between John and Tim made
Greg sit up and pay attention if only because of how hard Tim was trying not to have an interaction with John.

“You know them,”
Tim answered.  His hand curled around the
head of his giant dog, rubbing its ears while it stared up at him with adoring
eyes.  “Real Sherlock wants to lead a
field trip with the members of the family whose faces won’t get us all killed.
Everyone else gets to stay here and eat cake with me.”

That was
interesting.  Greg would have bet Tim
would rather have been on the moon.

“What if we don’t
want to eat cake with you?” John asked.

“If you leave the
house my brothers’ life will be in danger,” David cut across the conversation
again.  His hands turned the tablecloth
red-pink where they flexed.  The plates
shivered and clinked against each other.
The threat was clear enough that saying anything more would almost be an
insult.  John and Mary sat up straighter,
squaring up somehow.  Sherlock leaned
forward, his face finally brightening.

Davey turned back
toward Tim, wiping off his hands on the white linen serviettes.  Greg could practically feel his mother’s
ghost rising from the grave in disapproval.
No surprise, Tim tutted as well.
The man had that look about him like someone who trying to retire from
life.  Except those moments when Adler or
her husband had demanded the man’s attention, or when one of the boys’ got a
hair out of place.  He’d sit up straight
at them like he was their mother then go back to his phone.  This Tim looked more adult than the Tim that
Greg knew too.  Something about this Tim
made him seem more comfortable in his own skin if only because his suit actually
fit to him. He looked a proper
adult, not like he was playing dress up.

Greg wondered
where the younger Watsons were.  Getting
into trouble probably if he knew his own Watsons at all.

Roost Greg had
liked almost straight off.  The young man
had something going on with him, but also had that self-sufficiency that showed
he knew what he was about and would stand up for himself if it came to it.  He loitered by Greg for a short time, going
so far as to shake Greg’s hand and nick his warrant card.  Greg had grown so used to that sort of thing,
all it really did was make him feel nostalgic as he scolded the young man.  Roost just ducked his head, smiling to
himself as though he was used to that sort of treatment.  It made Greg feel fond of the boy.  Reminded him of Sherlock.

Johnny he wasn’t
sure of.  The boy had a shifty look about
him, like he thought he knew better.
Seemed the sort of dangerous little bloke who solved problems by acting
good and being friendly.  Greg had a
flatshare with a bloke like that when he was younger, he’d done all the dishes
for six months before he’d realized what was happening

They needed to
cooperate with this, the whole plan to divide and conquer.  He could see it with the same sort of
instinct that had helped him survive so long.

Sherlock needed a
break, needed to get away from everything, from John, from the last few
months.  He’d looked on the edge for a
while and last night when he’d been with that kid, Johnny, he’d looked
something like happy again.

“Sounds like fun,”
Greg said.  “What are you going to do
about the fact that Sherlock and I look like ourselves?”

“Fast talking,
pre-planning, and messing with the CCTV,” Tim said.  “The Yard liaison will want to keep the
trouble to a minimum.  Our Sherlock will
give her something to tell her superiors if they ask and you’ll just get out of
the way before anyone else who might ask more questions shows up.”

“She lets Sherlock
do what he wants then?” Mary asked.

Davey let out a
laugh, it sounded like silk that had been dragged across concrete.

Tim smiled, it
looked like John’s.  Sherlock and Mary
both jolted where they sat although Mary hid it better.  Greg wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been
looking for that sort of thing.  “She
likes to get the job done.”

“She does,” said
Holmes, looming in the doorway like some great, distinguished crane.  He looked both more rumpled around the edges
and like he’d been honed somehow.  He
looked, Greg realized, like a father.  “I
do hope you’re not just going to rip food up, Davey.”  He shifted sideways, pulling his phone out to
scroll through it.  “Seems wasteful.”

Davey narrowed his
eyes and shoved a fruit tart into his mouth.

“Charming as
ever,” he drawled in the kind of voice that usually got Greg wound up when it came to kids, but Davey just
grinned with stuffed cheeks and started filling up his plate with whatever was
closest.  Some of the tension that had
been in him had slid loose somehow, resettled his face.

Holmes’ eyes flicked to Sherlock, looking him
over with a sort of casualness that meant he was up to something.

For his part,
Sherlock’s jaw went hard, his back straightened.

“Mm,” Holmes
allowed and turned to Greg.  “Are you
ready then, Greg?  Or do you prefer Lestrade?”

“Greg is fine.”

“Very good, we
should go before John gets anxious waiting and starts improvising.”

“Does he…?” John
started then stopped at the sudden weight of eyes upon him.

“Does he what?”
Holmes tilted his head forward, just a bit.
Greg had never heard him sound so gentle.

“Does he do that
often?  Start… improvising?”

“He’s a genius
with an overinflated sense of his own responsibility.  If you don’t give him something to take care
of he goes and makes friends.”

Davey coughed out
a laugh into his eggs.

 

The ride to the
crime scene was in the back of one of Davey’s cars.  Holmes muttered about how cabs were better
while Johnny just jumped right in and started a conversation with the driver.

“This happen a
lot?” Greg asked.  

“What?” Holmes
said, his attention squarely on John via pretending he was reading something on
his phone.

“Posh car ride
around London.”

“Not unless Davey
catches us.  Cabs are perfectly
respectable and reliable forms of transportation.”

“Unless there’s a
car already ready,” Johnny said, still half turned in his seat.

“Yes, yes, you
have lots of friends.  Still, I’d rather
not be associated with your brother if I can help it.  It’s bad for business.”

“If you say so.”

“Where are we going?”
Sherlock asked, his eyes twitching toward Johnny.

“The
aquarium!  Someone stole a turtle.”

“Take care of a
lot of stolen turtles then?” Sherlock asked.

“Turtles are
beautiful creatures,” Holmes answered.
“We should all try to be more like them.
But if you must know, both the Yard and I suspect it has something to do
with another case involving murder.”

“Really?” Greg
leaned forward.  “How?”

“We don’t know
yet, but the other person was stabbed to death with a walrus tusk.”

“Sherlock thinks
they were stabbed to death with a walrus tusk,” Johnny said.

“They didn’t fall
on that tusk, several times.”

“They looked
really surprised.  And it didn’t feel like a murder.”

“Evidence?”

“I’m not always
good with evidence!”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I’ll figure it
out.”  Johnny rolled his eyes and went
back to talking with the driver about puppies.
The whole exchange had been quick, almost pointed, but both of them had
been loose limbed and smiling during the whole thing.  They really were work partners, not so much
tossing ideas back and forth as lobbing them at each other, trusting each other
to keep up.

That had squashed
any other attempts at conversation until they came to a stop at an
aquarium.  “This is it.”  Holmes flipped up his collar.  “Everyone out.”

By the time Greg
was able to get out, last in the proverbial (or rather the literal) line as he
was, everyone was pushing for the police line and he’d had to fall in.

“Holmes,” Sally
said, then froze when she saw Greg.

“Donovan,” Holmes
said, he could hear the tilt up of the smile in the man’s voice.  He pulled up the police line to let Johnny
under and nodded for Sherlock to go after the kid.  Sherlock bristled a bit at being placed at
the kid’s table, but Johnny bounced on his toes a couple times and off Sherlock
went to try to observe him as much as he could.

“What?” Sally said again.

“Don’t think about
it too much, Donovan,” Holmes grinned, he was loving it.

“Just tell me
something, I need something to tell my boss.”

“Your boss is an
idiot, that’s what their job is, to be an idiot.  If they weren’t you would have been a DI
years ago.”

She let out an
irritated huff, “Who’s that then at least?”
She hovered between wanting to point at Greg and Sherlock and seemed to
settle on Sherlock.  He did have the
greatest potential as an agent of chaos.

“Cousin William,
clever lad.”  Holmes grinned, a silly
thing that illuminated his face.

“Part of the
family business,” Johnny added.

“Learning the
trade.”  

“Work experience.”

She looked
upward.  “Fine.  Just don’t blow anything up.”

“No promises!”
Johnny said and frolicked.  He just looked so happy.  He bounced off the
pavement and bounced off Holmes’ side, turning as he went to watch Holmes face
and laugh at what he saw.

Sally turned to
him.

He shrugged,
shoulders around his ears, “I don’t know if you’d even really want to know the
details of the situation?”

She covered her
eyes making a sort of growling sigh.  “I
really, really do.  But I guess I also
don’t.”

They’d been escorted
past three sets of doors down concrete halls, up some metal stairs, and to a
platform around a large tank of water.
Both Holmes and Sherlock set to poking around with the pocket
magnifiers, bumping into each other until Holmes made a sort of growling sound
and motioned Johnny over the railing in front of the tank.  

“Oh,” Johnny
blinked between them and then down at the railing around the top of the tank,
and then at the slow movement of the turtles flapping through the water.  “Well, whoever did it was really angry, it
was spur of the moment, impulsive.  One
of the employees, I guess, why he had the sudden impulse I don’t know.”

“There’s no way
for you to know that,” Sherlock said.
“Transporting a turtle of this size would have taken a lot of planning.”

Johnny’s brows
notched, his jaw set.  “Because it was
one man and he didn’t panic.”

“Don’t look at how
he feels,” Holmes said.  His voice was
slow, patient.  He seemed to plant his
feet and sink into his roots.  “Look at
what he did.  Let all the residual
feelings be a signpost, not the road.”

“Very poetic.”

“I’m a man of many
talents.”

“Roost is better
at this,” John said like every teenager from the beginning of man.  

“Don’t be lazy,
John.  I’m not interested in teaching
Roost right now.”

Greg had never
seen anyone more clearly look like they were sticking their tongue out without
actually doing it.  He projected the idea
of it like a physical presence into the room.

Holmes rolled his
eyes, “I’m not going to try to decipher your feelings, you can talk.”

“You’re the
worst.”

Holmes grinned.

“Ugh, stop
it.  Here next to post,” John pressed a
thumb under some marks on the railing Greg had to crowd up to see.  “Someone was in a hurry.  Someone who works here definitely.”

“Reasons.”

“There was an
effort to avoid something right below that spot there,” he pointed at a spot
below the lip of the platform and right in front of a gate.  “Even though from up here, from the way the
pulley works, it would have made more sense to pull the giant turtle up where
there was a gate.  The person showed a
care to avoid that spot but a lack of care for the railing.  Here, you can see a scrape mark as they
pulled the chain back in this direction.
Look at that.”

“Very good.  Why was he avoiding that spot?” Holmes asked.

“Look in the glass
at the far side of the tank.”

Greg and the
Sherlocks squinted.  “I don’t see
anything,” Greg finally said.

“I think I might
see something.  A… hatch maybe?” Sherlock
tried.

John let out a
little huff of breath, straightening up into military posture again.  “I don’t think it’s a hatch.”

He opened the
gate, crouching at the edge of the platform.
Holmes moved at a speed Greg hadn’t been able to catch, one pale hand
around the back collar of Johnny’s coat.
The boy acted with the sort of nonchalance about the hand keeping him
from tipping into the water that told Greg a great deal about the sort of
father Holmes was.  Johnny wiggled his
fingers in the water and pulled them back just in time for a pale shape to bob
up.  A turtle stuck its head up, snapping
its mouth at nothing, its eyes cloudy with cataracts.

Johnny went
utterly still, his face going blank in a way that turned Greg’s stomach into a
stone.  It looked like Roost wasn’t the
only Watson sibling who had something going on.
Alerted by the touch against the back of John’s neck, Holmes moved with
a fluid immediacy.  One large hand
covered Johnny’s eyes, while the other pull him back against his chest.  “The turtle’s fine, John.  John, it’s okay, it’s not hurt.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“But-” John
twitched in Holmes’ arms, face still scary blank.

“It’ll be
confused, that’s all.  John.  John, you aren’t the turtle.  John, you didn’t hurt it by doing that.  You didn’t even touch it.”

“It’s helpless.”  

The
way the kid said the word.  It made
Greg’s knee buckle a little        

“It’s
helpless and it thought there was food, but there isn’t.”

Holmes jarred the
boy gently, as though he was trying to wake him up.  He probably was.  “It’s probably a thousand years old and has
its own personal chef.  It probably has
its own personal assistant.”  

“It was an
employee who stole the turtle,” Johnny said, trying to talk his way back.  “They knew the second one was there, that it
was blind.  They wanted to keep the blind
turtle safe, prevent the two from knocking into each other.  They missing turtle, the thief is trying to
keep it safe.”

“Yes, John,”
Holmes said.  “Very good.”

“The turtle stays
there because it knows that’s where the food comes from.”

“You’re worried
about that old thing,” Holmes said voice steady, steady, steady, almost like a
metronome.  “It gets first picks.  What a spoiled turtle.”

Johnny gave
himself a little shake and Holmes was up and on his feet, staring at his phone
while Johnny staggered back to them.  He
was bright pink and wouldn’t look at anyone.

Then there was
Sherlock at Johnny’s shoulder, not so much bumping against him as drifting
through his personal space.

“The only question
now,” Holmes said, “is what he used
and why he stole the turtle in the first place.”

“How am I supposed
to know that?”  Johnny pressed his lips
together, pretending like he wasn’t leaning back against Sherlock.  “We could look in an inventory?  See if there are any conspicuous things
missing in the back room?”

“That’s a very
good guess,” Holmes allowed.

“If you know the
answer, why bother asking me?”

“I’m not asking
you for your professional opinion, don’t be lazy and apply yourself.  I’ll tell you my deductions later if you work
hard.”

“Fine.”  John spun on his heal and grabbed hold of
Sherlock’s sleeve.  “We’ll split up,
Cousin William and I will go one way, you and Lestrade there will go the
other.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Divide and
conquer.”

“Alright, I’m sure
you have some sort of plan and I’ll let you get along with it.”  

John nodded,
squaring up like a little soldier.
“Alright, sync up.  We’ll see you
at tea time.”

“You don’t need
all that time.  I’ve already solved it.”

“We’ve got to follow clues,” Johnny said,
nodding at Sherlock.  “It might take
time.”

“Don’t care,”
Holmes waved him off, not looking up from his phone.

Popping up on his
toes, Johnny made an irritated noise.

“Lunch and dinner.”

“Hmm?” Johnny
perked up.

“I expect you to
eat both.”

“Ugh.”

“And you’ll be
back by ten.”

“Eleven.”

“Good.  Ten.
It’s agreed.”

“Ugh, I’ll be with
you. Sort of,” Johnny nodded at Sherlock who was watching the interaction with
open fascination.  “He’ll help me reach
things on the top shelf or whatever else.”

“Have him back by
ten too.  And try not to become a
nuisance John, I’m not putting up with your whinging if you fall into the
Thames again.”

Johnny looked fond
for a moment, proud, before darting out the door with Sherlock behind him.  His voice trailed after them “Yeah!  Sure!
Later!”

“He is just a
kid,” Greg said, feeling a bit wrong footed.
“Wasn’t that a bit… something?”

Holmes actually
looked pained, like a parent who was too familiar with their child, as he
looked at the empty doorway.  “John can’t
always discern if he’s in physical danger or why he should stop himself from
getting hurt.  We have him stuck in a
conspiracy of safety, but he still needs to be his own person.  Making it a matter of convenience for him to
keep himself in one piece gives his brain an idea of what to avoid.”

“You’re serious.”

“I’m always
serious when it comes to John,” Sherlock said.
“John was trained to be a child soldier, programmed like some robot to fulfill certain tasks.  He wasn’t taught to understand or respect
care directed toward him, not from those who are supposed to take care of him and not from himself.  He only learned it later because his
father-”  His teeth snapped shut.

“Who am I going to
tell, Sherlock?” Greg held out his arms to gesture to the general himness of
himself.  “I’m not even from this
universe.”

“Child operatives,
children who are trained up to kill and kill well are generally taught to
despise acts of softness, of kindness and to respect harshness,
authoritarianism.”

“But Johnny seems
so well adjusted.”

“Hamish got him
out young.  And Hamish was…  Hamish was
authority, he was inarguable, he was a law of the universe.  The very symbol of ability and strength.  This old souldier. And he was so kind.
I doubted him.  Because he wasn’t
what I wanted him to be.”  His hands
flinched upward and Holmes finally looked Greg straight in the eye.

“You’ve been
crying,” Greg said, then could have kicked himself.  He recognized the way the white of Holmes’
eyes had gone pink, but that didn’t mean he should comment on it.  Them being here, all it was doing was ripping
these people up.  Making them stand in a
grief they thought they had climbed past.

Holmes shrugged,
seemed to notice the open gate and wandered over to it.  His hands seemed steady as he shut it, locked
it.

“Who was Hamish
then?  That turned you into… this.  If you don’t mind me asking.  Since I probably won’t get another chance?”

Greg could hear
the smile in Holmes voice.  “He was just
a man.  A stubborn, grumpy, belligerently
optimistic man.  He just saw your best potential
and then he militarized his faith in you and just-   He was just a man.  Just my friend.”