You can imagine...

[impulsereader]

Dear FList - please go to my last post and join the fun!  Offer up your thinly-disguised relatives, request your favorite literary character, go wild with the Holmes family!  As a reward for the brainstorming already done...here's the beginning.

London’s air was December-crisp the day John arrived home to find Sherlock’s bag packed.  His violin case had been placed next to it by the door, and a garment bag was hanging nearby from the top of the closet door.  He raised his eyebrows a bit because there had been no prior notification given of an impending trip, and if there was a trip in the offing it would be the first since Sherlock’s return to Britain, England, London, Baker Street, and John.

He proceeded past the bag and found its owner peering into his microscope in the kitchen.  “Going somewhere then?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The country.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“No.”

“Sherlock.”

He tore his gaze from the instrument with a sigh which seemed to indicate doing so was tantamount to stabbing himself in the heart.  “It is the first Christmas since I came back from the dead.  My presence has been demanded in no uncertain terms for the duration of the annual familial gathering of seasonal celebration.”

John considered this carefully.  “Your family, which presumably consists of individuals in addition to Mycroft, goes to the country each year to celebrate Christmas?”

“Oh, well summarized, John.”

“Christmas isn’t for another ten days.  When are you leaving?”

“In an hour.”

“What are you going to do for ten days?”

“The tradition is a fortnight's stay.  Various activities take place; hunting, hill walking, recitations and chamber music in the evenings, there will be Shakespeare performed, the children will be given tuition in painting and chess among other things, we will all Dress For Dinner each evening.  It will all be terribly boring and tedious, but I have been threatened in the severest of terms if I do not present myself and pass the interminably dull time along with everyone else.”

John found this intriguing on a few levels.  One, there was presumably someone who could threaten Sherlock with something that actually got results; this he had to learn more about if at all possible.  Two, the idea of a houseful of Holmeses performing the listed activities was completely bizarre and bound to be thoroughly entertaining.  Three, he would happily kill to see either Sherlock or Mycroft tutor a child in anything.

“Right then, sounds like good fun.  I’ll be ready to go - in an hour you said?”

Sherlock’s expression turned from bored, thoroughly annoyed and mildly mutinous to astonished, and John was always pleased when he managed to astonish his brilliant friend.  “What can you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious?  I’m going with you.”

“Why?” he asked in a tone of complete bewilderment.

“Sherlock, if you think I’m going to spend another Christmas watching Harry get drunk when I've been presented with an alternate plan which sounds like it could feature in a Doctor Who special, you really are an idiot.”  He shrugged.  “Besides, letting you out of my sight tends to go badly for both of us.”

“Hm.”

John decided to take this for agreement and hastily went upstairs to pack his bag.

Comments

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I will do my best to follow through. Much of the story is just waiting to slot into place...

hm. you are not alone in wanting holmesian tuition. I am bound to add a scene.