earlgreytea68: (Inception)
[personal profile] earlgreytea68
Title - Keep the Car Running (6/31)
Author - [livejournal.com profile] earlgreytea68
Rating - Adult
Characters - Arthur, Eames, Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Moriarty, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Dom Cobb
Spoilers - Through "His Last Vow" in the Sherlock universe. This takes place post-movie, so I guess spoilers for "Inception"? But just for the basic fact that it's about dream thieves, nothing in this story depends overly much on the movie's plot.
Disclaimer - I don't own any of them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - If Mycroft Holmes lived in a world where people could steal information from the subconsciouses of others, tell me he wouldn't be all over that when he had Moriarty in custody.

Chapter 6

“Absolutely not,” was what Mycroft Holmes said.

Arthur, who now knew the man’s entire name and more about his family history than he thought Mycroft would want, said, “Then the job is off.”

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” began Mycroft furiously.

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Arthur replied evenly. “But you have forgotten that my job is to get you this information. That is my forger.” He pointed at Eames, who was sitting at the suite’s dining room table calmly eating a hamburger that had arrived with Mycroft. “And I’m not letting him go into a job that’s going to destroy him. Because he is the best and if you get this wrong with him, you’re not going to get a second chance. So we need access to Sherlock.”

Mycroft stared at him stonily.

Eames said, “This hamburger is ever so slightly overdone.”

Mycroft said, “Do you think the other forgers haven’t tried to forge Sherlock? It doesn’t work.”

“Did you give them access to him?”

“They don’t need access. Sherlock’s all over the news; he’s a minor celebrity here. Surely you’ve heard of him.” Mycroft looked pointedly at Eames.

“I only pay attention to the news if it’s about me,” Eames replied. “I’m serious about this hamburger. I don’t know what they’re charging you, but I might complain if I were you.”

“Watching the news isn’t how a forger works. Eames, tell him how forgery works.”

Eames licked a bit of ketchup off his thumb—which definitely did not get filed away automatically by Arthur for his Eames Being Hot In Ridiculous Situations mental file—and said, “Forgery needs first-hand exposure to be truly successful. I could do a passing mimicry based off of news reports if I had to, and it would be decent and would fool a lot of people, but clearly this Moriarty bloke isn’t easily fooled. So I need to meet your brother. Go for pints with him or something.”

Mycroft stared at him. “Go for pints with him?” he echoed faintly.

“Arthur, you really ought to eat something, you’re wasting away, darling,” said Eames.

Mycroft said, “You need to find somebody else to forge.”

“Somebody else to forge?” Arthur repeated flatly. “What the hell is wrong with you? Moriarty is obsessed with your brother. Obviously he’s the one Moriarty will tell all his secrets to. No one else will do.”

“What if you forge me?” offered Mycroft.

Arthur lifted his eyebrows. “Because Moriarty has been so forthcoming with you so far?”

“My brother is…” began Mycroft, on a sigh, and trailed off and stared out the window.

Arthur, alarmed, exchanged a look with Eames and said, “Okay, this is exactly why we need to meet him.”

***

Sherlock was incredibly bored. Sherlock measured his levels of boredom on a highly scientific scale. The highest previously recorded level of boredom was 38,920. Sherlock had now highly scientifically assessed himself as being at a boredom level of 1,801,203.

“You just solved a case,” John said.

John had such funny ideas about the definition of the word just. In fact, Sherlock didn’t think John even knew the definition of the word just, given how inaccurately he always used it. “That was ages ago,” Sherlock sulked at the sofa cushion. Sherlock was at the level of boredom where he was counting the fibers of the sofa cushions.

“It was yesterday, Sherlock.”

Sherlock made an exclamation and turned violently over on the sofa to stare at John.

John, sitting in his chair with a cup of tea raised to his mouth, said, sounding alarmed, “What?”

Yesterday? It’s been an entire day? This is even worse than I thought. I didn’t know so much time had passed.”

John sipped his tea and went back to his novel, clearly not appreciating the pressing nature of their problem. “Why don’t you play the violin?”

“Will no one murder someone in an interesting way?” Sherlock complained to the ceiling. “Is that simply too much to ask for? What’s happened to all the good serial killers?”

“The world is truly going to the dogs,” said John, without looking up, still failing to grasp the seriousness of what was happening.

“That hound case wasn’t even that interesting,” grumbled Sherlock.

“You loved it at the time,” John said.

Sherlock said, “The murder was old. This is the state we’ve come to, there are no good new murders, I must solve old ones.”

And then, even though Sherlock could barely conceive of it, the day got worse, because Mycroft arrived.

“Oh my God,” said Sherlock, with all the fervor he could muster, as he heard the door open downstairs, and rolled himself back over to face the cushions.

“What now?” asked John, but then Mycroft’s steps sounded on the stairs and even John could hear that and then Mycroft was saying, “Hello, John, lovely weather, isn’t it?” and John was saying, “Tell me you’ve brought a case.”

Sherlock turned over and said, “I won’t take a case from him.”

“You’ll take a case from him,” said John, “or else.” John gave Sherlock the Captain-Watson look that Sherlock seldom disobeyed because he knew that that particular look was John driven to his limits. John generally had very roomy limits so Sherlock did try to respect them when he eventually hit them. Mostly because he lived in abject terror of John moving out.

But Sherlock wasn’t going to acknowledge that he was going to take a terrible Mycroft case, so he rolled onto his back and looked petulantly up at the ceiling and said nothing.

Mycroft led with a question Sherlock would never have anticipated. “What do you know about dreamsharing?”

Sherlock turned his head slowly and gave Mycroft an appraising look.

“Dreamsharing?” echoed John. “That’s just a myth perpetrated by conmen to get jumpy businessmen to pay them to ‘militarize’ against nonexistent threats.”

“So clearly you were never tapped for it in the army,” remarked Mycroft, and arranged himself in Sherlock’s chair.

John blinked at him. “What?”

“You’re having some difficulty with dreamsharing,” Sherlock deduced. “Why come to me?”

“Wait a second.” John looked between the two of them. “Dreamsharing is…real? A real thing? That works?”

“I don’t know how well it works,” said Sherlock, “given that the government runs it.”

“The government doesn’t run all dreamsharing,” said Mycroft. “There are…rogue PASIV machines that may have leaked out. Not from our government, you understand.”

“Of course not.” Sherlock was cataloguing everything he could about Mycroft but getting nowhere. What job involving dreamsharing could Mycroft have? Did he want Sherlock to track down one of the rogue machines?

“Dreamsharing is a sanctioned method of extracting information from persons of interest,” continued Mycroft, as if he had to explain this.

“For real?” said John, still sounding disbelieving.

“Yes, for real,” Sherlock assured him impatiently. “Dreamsharing exists, it’s an actual thing. But what does it have to do with me?” Mycroft was being annoying, so Sherlock decided he just had to be blunt.

Mycroft took a deep breath and said, “We have Moriarty in custody.”

“Since when?” asked John, surprised.

Sherlock was also surprised but he sat up silently.

Mycroft ignored John’s question, looking at Sherlock. “There is information within Moriarty’s head that we need. And it turns out that it is the opinion of experts that you are the only one he’ll divulge that information to.”

Sherlock drew in a delighted breath. “So you want me to dreamshare into Moriarty’s brain?”

“Absolutely not,” snapped Mycroft. “I have hired professionals to do that. It’s just that one of these professionals is a forger.”

“I’m guessing you don’t mean fake passports and counterfeit bills?” said John.

“He’s going to go into Moriarty’s head pretending to be you. It’s what he does. But he insists he needs to meet you in person to do it well enough to fool Moriarty.”

Sherlock arched a dubious eyebrow. “You have someone who you think is going to be capable of impersonating me?”

“I’ve been assured by multiple sources that he’s the best forger there is.”

“I don’t care, he isn’t going to be able to trick Moriarty into thinking he’s me.”

“It is what he does,” Mycroft insisted.

Sherlock considered. He knew that this forger’s plan to imitate Sherlock wasn’t going to work. But Mycroft would want the information in Moriarty’s head. Badly. And Moriarty was only going to tell that information to Sherlock.

Which meant that it was only a matter of time before Sherlock could convince everyone involved that he needed to go into Moriarty’s head.

No longer the least bit bored, Sherlock said, “When can we meet the forger?”

***

“I’m making tea,” John said, “because it’s only polite, but I’m making tea for criminals, so I’m trying to keep it in perspective.”

Sherlock was practically bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm. Sherlock had thought of nothing but dreamsharing since Mycroft’s visit the day before. Sherlock had stayed up reading everything he could about dreamsharing and going through the dossiers Mycroft sent over. Criminal dreamsharers. Not boring military ones, but interesting ones who had done things. Sherlock could not remember the last time he had been so excited about having guests over. He even helped clean, which caused John to make a terrible joke about whether or not Sherlock had already been replaced by the dreamsharer’s imitation. John making terrible jokes was #289 on Sherlock’s List of Reasons to Kiss John Watson, so that had been a bit distracting, but not that distracting in light of criminal dreamsharers coming to their flat. To discuss invading Moriarty’s mind.

John regarded Sherlock’s wild anticipation and looked equal parts amused and curious and resigned. “Doesn’t it creep you out?”

“What?” asked Sherlock. “Having criminals in the flat? Of course not.”

“No. Going into other people’s heads.”

“Why should it? It’s practically what I do already.”

“Right,” said John, looking troubled. “Yes. I suppose. It’s just that…some things you like to think exist only for you. You don’t want other people coming in rifling through them.”

Sherlock thought of all of the rooms of his mind palace devoted to everything John Watson and saw John’s point. “But think of how much you could learn,” Sherlock countered.

“It’s one of those things that’s much better happening to other people than you,” remarked John.

“You could always have your brain militarized, if you’re worried about it. In fact, I’d wager your brain is already heavily militarized. It’s probably your default position. John, you should let them—”

“No.” John held up a hand. “No one is going into my brain. Got it?”

Sherlock frowned.

Sherlock,” said John.

Sherlock thought again of the John Watson wing in his mind palace and agreed. “Yes. Fine. Okay.”

The doorbell rang, and Sherlock looked at his watch. “Right on time,” he pronounced gleefully.

“Just what I like: punctual criminals,” said John with wry amusement.

They walked in looking a great deal like the pictures in the dossiers, meaning that Mycroft’s surveillance had been decent for a change. The one named Arthur was in an expensive three-piece suit that would have looked at home on Mycroft, with just a slightly more interesting tie hinting at something better underneath the polish and the carefully slicked-back hair. The one named Eames wore a truly terrible shirt that rivaled John’s Christmas jumpers for poor taste.

They said hello to John pleasantly and introductions went around as if this was some kind of dull business meeting. Sherlock drank them in silently, filing away every detail about them that he could.

John said, “Tea?”

The one named Eames said, “Arthur doesn’t drink tea. It’s part of his sad national heritage.”

“I can make coffee,” John offered.

“No trouble necessary,” said Arthur, with a polite but quick smile. Arthur was clearly ready to get on with things. He was already walking toward Sherlock, pulling a notebook out of his inside coat pocket.

Eames, behind him, said, “It would be fantastic if you could make him coffee; he might be less grouchy with coffee.”

Arthur ignored this, saying, “You must be Sherlock,” and holding his hand out to him.

Sherlock took it, studying Arthur’s eyes closely. “Yes,” he said absently.

“It’s good to meet you,” said Arthur. “Your brother filled you in on what we need?”

“He said that one of you is going to ‘study’ me in order to imitate me in a dream,” Sherlock said, eyes cutting over to Eames, who was jovially adding milk to his tea as if this were a social occasion.

“Yes.” Arthur seemed to realize that Eames was now considering one of Mrs. Hudson’s biscuits, whilst John explained which kinds they were. “Eames,” Arthur said, his voice sharp with exasperation. “Can you come over here and do your job?”

“In a minute, Arthur. They’re offering biscuits. It would be rude not to have a biscuit. Arthur is never rude,” Eames told John. “Except for when he’s always rude. But that’s generally to me.”

Arthur rolled his eyes and sighed heavily and scratched something in his notebook. Sherlock looked between the two of them, considering.

Eames walked over to Arthur and handed him a biscuit. “Look, darling, I got you a biscuit.”

Arthur gave it a baleful look. “It’s a cookie.”

“You’re so very welcome, love, it was no trouble at all,” said Eames, and then turned to Sherlock. “Hello there.”

“You’re the forger,” said Sherlock.

“I am, indeed, the forger. Normally the person I’m going to forge doesn’t know that I’m meeting them so I can forge them, so this might be slightly awkward but generally you should—”

“You’re not going to ‘forge’ me,” said Sherlock.

This gave Eames pause. Eames’s face was basically an open book. Arthur played his cards much closer to the vest, but he did give Sherlock an appraising look.

So Sherlock started with Arthur, because why not? “You actually don’t care for coffee. You don’t like suits, and you don’t like wearing your hair that way. And you hate your dimples. You had a croissant for breakfast, so did Eames. Not your choice, which you know my brother realizes, it’s part of a power play. You’re naturally inclined to be right-handed, but you’ve carefully cultivated ambidextrous abilities, I suppose primarily so that you can shoot easily with either hand. You’re an older brother, with a younger sister, and you actually like her and she likes you, it’s all very sickening. You have a weakness for terrible spy novels—you should talk to John about this proclivity—but generally you read serious fiction. The English Patient, most recently, I think. Also, it’s obvious that you’re in lo—”

“That’s enough,” Arthur cut him off, eyes narrow.

“I was wondering how long you were going to let me go,” remarked Sherlock, and then turned his gaze to Eames. “As for you. You’re a terrible gambler, you should give it up altogether, but you never will because you are the exact opposite of Arthur and carefully cultivate all of the vices he has carefully given up. You never put down roots anywhere, also the opposite of Arthur, I might add, who can’t help putting down roots everywhere he goes. Clearly an illegitimate son, abandonment issues, et cetera, et cetera.” Sherlock waved his hand. “I don’t know what happened to your mother, but I can’t imagine it was anything good—”

“That’s enough,” said Arthur again, his voice colder this time than it had been the first time.

“Right,” said Sherlock, with a quick smile in his direction. “Exactly.”

“Exactly what?” demanded Eames. “What the bloody hell was that?”

“All the proof you need,” said Sherlock, pleased with himself.

“What proof?”

“That you’re never going to be able to imitate me well enough to fool Moriarty. So clearly the answer is that I need to go into the dream as myself.”

Arthur and Eames stared at him.

John said, “What?”

Sherlock said, “John, do please make that coffee. I suspect we are going to have a long day.” And then he beamed.
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