A snippet of an original story I'm writing. With a few familiar faces.

There is the classical architecture of Petite-France, medieval half-timbered houses and baroque sandstone offices. The morning sky is overcast, sunlight diffused through the dense clouds – a couple waltzes by upon the lavish pavement, weaving by other travellers, lost to their own tune.

Utena Tenjou, aged 16, in her tan trenchcoat, calmly surveys her surroundings for any sign of Das Menchen's approaching. Her partner, Robin, is still inside the comforts of the Chevalier Hotel, likely searching up facets about the region on her finicky jeejah. As far as they're concerned, savouring the delights isn't their biggest priority, but the swift execution of whatever the fuck Timothy IV (their boss) needs them to do, which they don't know yet. Das Menchen will be telling them that shortly – the good German guy, as Timothy described him: rough and grizzly and cold-blooded vigour under his skin. He should be arriving around 8 minutes.

Utena ought to be learning Humanities in school, but her job's much more hands-on and it pays better than bagging groceries. In spite of her sultry demeanour, she doesn't think herself the cheerleader type. “Yawwwnn--!” She must confess though, this sort of life can get quite demanding. But as long as she gets her footsies and backsies afterward.. when they rub that tender spot it is bliss.

Robin Sena emerges from the hotel, aged 15, stoic as usual and walks over to where Utena's standing. She leans on the balustrade, where behind the blue roses bloom, and pulls out her pocket book of Daemonology. It's not just about Daemons, it also has Gothic romances, and Robin has been falling in love secretly with those tragic gentlemen who've tried to endure the allure of Succubi. It is something of a guilty pleasure for her. Shhh.

“Sheesh, you're bookwormy,” Utena goes, tapping feet. “You should get out more.”

“Hm.” Robin nudges her chin, holding book one-handed by the spine.

“You wanna know what I think, this is just so Timmy could get kicks out of us blowing off his enemies' asses. What, we've.. bumped two off this week, so far?”

“Mhm.”

“And this will make three.. or is he making us fetch his Sauerkraut takeout now?”

“Hm..” Robin licks her finger and turns a page.

“That is, if we don't nab some of the sausages in-between, hehe. I dunno. I think I'll like the food here, if our breakfast was anything to go by.”

“I liked the bread.”

“Yeah. Crunchy. Irresistibly so with the garlic flavouring, and once you've added the meat inside. Oh-- he's here. Robin!” Utena snaps her fingers.

Robin snaps to reality as she pockets away her book. A white van has arrived, with the label Plumbing Inc. on the sides, the driver's door open and Das Menchen slumbering towards them. It's almost surprising how the guy seems mundane as any other in his utilitywear, until you really catch the intensity in his eyes.

When they can just smell the Turkish Delight on his breath, he says to them, “You are Utena? You are Robin?” He has his hand out – Utena shakes it. “You may call me Monsieur Valken. Come in my van, I drive you to a good place.”

M. Valken slides the side door open, where inside you can see the seats by the sides, tangled nets enmeshed over the windows, surrounding the empty space in the middle – save for three worn toolboxes awaiting their duty. Once Utena and Robin seat themselves the best they could (it seems holding onto the nets must suffice as seatbelts), M. Valken ignites the van.

The ride is rough. Those pangs of acceleration M. Valken gives makes it feel like entering warp drive at every stop, and the rattling below – *titttuttititttutt*-- Robin realises she's clutching onto Utena.

“So how do you know Tim?” Utena asks, half-shouting over the noise.

“We've good friends,” M. Valken goes. “I met him during a fishing trip, I was throwing my speciality hook in the waters when it caught on one of the albatross birds – right in the eyes, and I said to one of my friends, 'Damn! That cocksucking scoundrel try to swindle me from my 200-pound tuna!' I nickname her Fishy.”

He veers the van into a cul-de-sac of tall, half-timbered residences, where he manoeuvres in-between into an alleyway, bump, and out into a street of more such residences; this village of peculiar arrangement, the shrubbery outgrown like vines from the windows, the overall idyllic charm especially impressionistic if under a clear blue sky – a paradise by any other name almost.

“What happens next,” M. Valken continues, “it may be sounding ridiculous, but listen well anyway. I saw dear Timothy come with his boat and he saw the poor birdie acting a seizure over water.. he crawled down and, he made tsk-tsk sounds like tendering to a son's boo-boo, and pulled out my hook. The birdie wasn't going to make it though, so he grabbed out his rifle and shot the animal down its backside. Boom. Like that. Such a pity, and then.. we saw Fishy coming to the surface, it must've been the blood, and I struggled, and.. Gods be damned, I got my Fishy! Father Fucking Fantastic!”

From what view the van offers her, Robin glimpses the passing sights, a maelstrom of images flickering by into her focus before regressing into indistinguishable blurs. The sturdy tower, and the bridge over the meditative river, and another tower to signify an end. Utena's chatter with M. Valken just brushes over her awareness, irrelevant and soothing as background music could be. What's inside these toolboxes? Does Das Menchen really take plumbing jobs? Or plumbing jobs? Why are there three of them?

“Wow,” Utena exclaims, “you must be really proud of yourselves, I bet.”

“Ohh.. you know. I split money half an' half with Tim, we took photos..” M. Valken scratches his nose. “Fishy now rests peace and sound in my office. Ever since, we go fishing every now and then when M. Timmy comes visiting.”

“But Tim isn't here, is he?”

“Non.”

“So what are we really here for then? Another clean-up?”

“I tell you when we arrive.”

“Why not here?” Utena asks.

“Because the job is fairly difficult to explain adequately without proper visual assistance. I have PowerPoint all prepared, you just stay nice and calm until we get there.”

“Well, you can at least sum it up in a sentence, right?”

“It involves multiple stages, quite complicated, I need to also tell you the background information – lengthy in its own right.” (Jeez.) “Let's say, Timmy needs you to bump that guy.. and that guy, and that guy, all in the correct order and on the right time. It is a matter of polityczny. Erm, what's word.. political.”

This piques Robin out of her daze. “Assassinations?” she asks.

“Kinda like that.” Truly, it must be a complicated matter. M. Valken looks at them in the mirror. They're dumbfounded! “Hey, you girls are cleaners, no big deal! It's just one step up from your usual.”

Utena actually is growing very excited at the prospect, as you might see from her cheeks flushing. She's passed her driver's preliminaries and now she's about to handle the rouge Chevrolet-- harnessing all its 270 horsepowers (compared with the dinky 1.7 L flat-four of her family's hand-me-down coupe). Except – that slightest ache holding her back: it could go so fast she'd lose control, before she knows it. “Politics, what do you mean, like in those elections?”

“Strasbourg is one of the European Union's strongholds,” Robin goes. “They hold general assembly every two months to discuss issues, current and upcoming.”

“Is that it?” Utena asks.

M. Valken visibly nods in the mirror, and he brings the van to a crawl up along the driveway, and presses a button on the dashboard. Ahead the garage door pulls open. “This is it, we've arrived.” Once he hauls the van inside, he tells them to grab the toolboxes (they're heavy!) and follow him close.

It is a house close to the Inner City, to the north overlooking the Prater, a house that, large, dark and imposing, is a fantastic museum in encountering. The long rococo halls, giddy with plush and whorled designs in gold, are peopled with Roman fragments, white and disassociated; a runner's leg, the chilly half-turned head of a matron struck at the bosom, the blind bold sockets of the eyes given a pupil by every shifting shadow so that what they look upon is an act of the light.

They rest in the great dark Salon room – it is of roasted hazelnut. Over the burning fireplace rests impressive copies of the Medici shield and, beside them, Fishy the Giant Tuna is well-preserved under glass, her mouth gaping open and expecting to sing Falsetto tunes any moment. Three massive pianos sprawl over the thick dragon's-blood pile of rugs from Madrid.

Utena and Robin place the heavy toolboxes by one of the couches, then seat themselves, Robin clutching onto one of the pillows. Phew.

“How do you take your Tea?” M. Valken asks them. “Sugar? With some creme?”

Utena: “Sugar, no creme.”

Robin: “I'll have both.”

M. Valken must have given some invisible signal, because suddenly a door has opened and his personal butler comes out and immediately has both teas on tray, preferences considered. Robin wonders what would have happened if she'd said, “I'll have coffee instead.” Maybe another door would have opened and another butler would have come out.

Now M. Valken gets to his desk and clicks a button on a remote. The fire dims, and a large projection screen scrolls down from the heavens. The screen lights up with the presentation – tentatively titled 'Das Plan.'

Cliched fanficer here. I specialise in swinging from crack to emotional trauma. Most recent works in the BBC fandom, but have been around the block a few times. I've also tried to start a cryptid community http://cryptic-cryptid.livejournal.com/on LJ, to little success.

Part of the most recent fic that made me weep tears of blood:

Her eyes are very blue and she’s very striking, but by no means beautiful. When she brushes past them she smells like sweat and semen as she exits 221B Baker Street. But it’s raining, it’s pouring, and Harriet Watson doesn’t want to talk to them this morning.  She darts across the street and a passing car throws up spray behind her, hides her and lets her escape. As she disappears, Sherlock hears Mycroft exhale with a hiss, sees Mycroft’s fingers clench around the stem of his umbrella. And the Science of Deduction rears up and smacks Sherlock in the face.



“Mycroft,” and Sherlock hears the inflection in his own voice; rising at the end, denoting fear or uncertainty.



“Come on,” growls Mycroft, and stalks inside.



The hallway is too warm and close, and sweat starts to prickle at the small of Sherlock’s back. Mycroft hangs up his coat besides Sherlock’s, and together they venture inside.



The door to John’s room is open; the sheets and blankets are rumpled and pushed back. John’s clothes are neatly folded and placed on the chair, and his shoes sit together at a precise right angle to the wall.



The bathroom door is also open and there is John himself, bare-chested, hair messy, jeans hanging off of his hips. There are light scratches down his back, horizontal across his shoulder blades. And he’s staring into the bathroom mirror like he’s looking at something vile. “Push off, Sherlock,” he says, almost conversationally.



“John?” Sherlock takes a tentative step into the bathroom.



“Push off, I said,” John snaps.



“Your sister, Harriet. We saw her leaving. Did you-”



John whips around. He sets his palm dead centre of Sherlock’s chest and shoves. Sherlock staggers back and the door slams shut in his face. He slinks back to the living room, where Mycroft is sitting uncomfortably perched on the very edge of a chair, foot tapping as he twists his umbrella around and around. The loud clanking and rattling of the Victorian plumbing fills the air as the shower starts to run.



Sherlock drops onto the lounge and steeples his fingers together, absently calculating the sun’s position by using the angles of the light filtering through the glass in the window. It’s a much more difficult task than usual because the rain makes the light hard to see. He quickly loses interest in that and calculates the likely probabilities based on the data:







Deduction One:

Clothes taken off and placed neatly on chair

+

Shoes taken off and set by the door

=

Deliberate disrobing, something that takes time and is highly unlikely to occur in a non-consensual sexual context







Deduction Two:

No signs of physical or emotional distress on the part of Harriet

+

Horizontal light scratches on John’s back indicative of the so-called ‘missionary position’, where the partner beneath tries to pull the one mounting them into closer contact. A rape in the same sexual position would result in rough, chaotic, deep scratches on the perpetrator’s back as the victim attempts to free themself

=

Harriet willingly assuming the position beneath John, excited and enjoying the act of congress







Conclusion:

John Watson and his sister, Harriet Watson, had consensual sexual intercourse shortly before the arrival of Sherlock and Mycroft.







“Consensual,” Sherlock says curtly.



Mycroft hums and doesn’t reply, but his foot tapping speeds up.







Therefore:

Incest







Incest. Such a nasty little word. And going by Mycroft’s face, he’s arrived at the same conclusion.



“I don’t understand,” Sherlock tells him.



Mycroft snaps, “Some things are impossible to comprehend.”



The pipes keep clanking as Sherlock scrabbles through a mountain of papers and the accumulated detritus of experiments abandoned when they got boring. He finally finds his violin, but he can’t find the bow. John would know where it is; John always knows. Instead Sherlock plucks a miserable little pizzicato on the strings as Mycroft’s foot taps and the umbrella twirls around and around.



There’s an especially loud clank as the water is shut off. Footsteps pad across the floor, the door opens and the smell of steam fills the room. John appears with his familiar smile.



“Cup of tea, anyone?”



“Doctor Watson!” snarls Mycroft, jerking to his feet.



“Mister Holmes?”



“Are you aware of the laws of this country concerning sexual acts between close genetic relatives?”



“Yes,” John says easily.



“Are you also aware of my position within the government that enforces those laws?”



“Of course.”



“Well?”



“Well what, Mycroft? Of all the things that go on inside this flat- and outside of it, come to think about it- the thing that bothers you most is sex between two consenting adults? Really?”



As little attention Sherlock pays to the legalities of his chosen profession and his myriad of experiments, he has to concede that John has a point.



Mycroft’s mouth thins. He climbs to his feet, nods curtly at Sherlock, and stalks out, each footfall striking the floor with unusual force as he leaves.



“Tea, Sherlock?” John asks again. Sherlock goes back to plucking at the strings of his violin.



“No. No, John. No.”



“Suit yourself.”



**



Sherlock spends the night touching base with his homeless network. For reasons he can’t explain or define, he doesn’t care to be in 221B Baker Street right now. He wanders back and forth through the city, exchanging money or food for gossip and making down payments for the future. Eventually, however, as the autumn night begins to lighten he realises that he smells of unclean spaces, and he grudgingly turns towards home.



He comes back to find Mrs Hudson waiting for him.



“Sherlock,” she says, “Is something wrong with John?”



“No,” Sherlock lies automatically, but Mrs Hudson knows better than to believe him. She clicks her tongue disapprovingly.



“Oh, Sherlock, this isn’t the time for that sort of thing! There’s something terrible bothering him! He’s been cleaning all night. He’s even hoovered the entire flat three times! I’ve had complaints from next door. They are so upset about all the noise.”



Resisting an undignified urge to squirm, he says, “It might have been an experiment that went wrong.” Mrs Hudson’s eyes narrow in a way that usually means no fresh baked scones or biscuits for a fortnight and he hastily adds, “I’m sure that he’ll be done soon,” and moves quickly away. He’s halfway up the stairs when Mrs Hudson calls out to him.



“Make sure that John’s okay, Sherlock.”



He hesitates, and raises a hand in acknowledgement.



Inside the flat is a man on a mission. The place smells like furniture polish and glass cleaner. The laboratory glassware on the kitchen table has been neatly dismantled and cleaned, the bookcases nearly gleam, and all of the books have been rearranged, firstly by colour and then by size. If Sherlock had a system of organisation he would have been very annoyed indeed, but there isn’t one and John knows it. The picture frames have all been cleaned and rehung to be absolutely and perfectly level. The insides of the windows have all been polished. The curtains have been taken down and he suspects that there is a washing machine waiting for them in the near future.



And then there’s John himself, standing on a chair with his head stuck inside the very highest kitchen cabinet, which is such a bother to use the only things that end up in there are orphaned plastic containers, glass jars without any lids and anything that Sherlock wants to hide and John wants to pretend isn’t there.



At the sound of Sherlock stepping into the kitchen, John jerks his head out and glares. “I’ve got a little question for you,” he says coldly, and jumps down off the chair. He grabs a small glass jar and shoves it under Sherlock’s nose. It’s filled with a suspicious-looking white, greasy, grainy substance. “Have you been doing drugs again, Sherlock?”



“No.”



“Then what’s this?”



“Sodium sulphite,” Sherlock tells him, expecting that to be the end of it.



“Sodium sulphite,” John repeats. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that? If you’re using you can just get the hell out.”



“Do you even know what sodium sulphate is?”



There’s a beat of silence. John grimaces and places the jar on the table. “What is it doing here?”



“I bought it for an experiment.” Sherlock feels a sulk coming on. “It’s used for a lot of different things so I decided to keep it.”



John glowers at him. “Just get rid of it. I don’t want it in the flat anymore.” He turns away. “I’m going to get ready for work.”



“It’s just a salt,” Sherlock tells John’s retreating back, “It’s completely and utterly harmless.”



There’s the sound of the bathroom door shutting, and the pipes clank as the hot water is turned on. Sherlock gets up on the chair, removes a small fake panel at the back of the kitchen cabinet, and pulls out a handful of ziploc baggies and more tiny glass specimen jars, all of which are full and potentially of great interest to Inspector Lestrade and the Scotland Yard drug squad, not to mention Mycroft. He tucks them away in his coat pocket to be safely hidden in another place when John is not around to catch him.



The laboratory glassware has a faint but chemically significant sheen of detergent on it, inside and out. With malice aforethought Sherlock takes it to the kitchen sink to wash it off and listens, with a great deal of pleasure, to John swearing foully and at length as the water in the shower turns ice cold.



**