Sherlock Fic: 1 April, 1983
A true droubble written for princealia for this drabble-requesting meme. (I couldn't get it into a drabble...oh well...it's still fixed length, so it's okay, I guess?)
(ONLY FIVE SPOTS LEFT, MY FRIENDS!)
I have the ages of the characters in Sherlock the same as the ages of the actors in my head canon. The relative ages of the actors are pretty much the same as my impression of the relative ages of the characters in ACD canon, and it's a convenient way to set exact ages. (Also, Carl Powers died in '89, at which point BC-aged Sherlock would have been 13/14, which seems the right age for him to make his first attempt to solve a real mystery and be rebuffed by the adults...) So in this droubble, Sherlock is seven and Mycroft is seventeen.
1 April, 1983
He could hear that his alarm clock had been moved a quarter of an inch. So instead of slapping it with half closed eyes, he unplugged it to avoid the wet permanent ink on the snooze button.
He scanned the room quickly for... yes, two… three thin tripwires… and stepped over them towards the bathroom. Did his little brother honestly believe that he would not notice that the tube of (dyed? … yes... that WOULD have been difficult to remove) toothpaste was a replacement.
He unearthed three more not-subtle-enough traps before he satisfied himself that his room was safe. He’d have Roberts remove the balloons from the wardrobe later.
He walked through his bedroom door…
Only to be doused by a bucket of water on a complicated system of pulleys and Roberts’s ladder.
He didn’t miss the giggle or the snick of a closing door from down the hallway.
He’d been lulled into an unwarranted sense of security by the decoy tricks. Not a bad strategy from a child, he had to admit. Not the elegantly efficient April Fool’s Day trick waiting at the breakfast table. But Mycroft had high hopes for his brother. Sherlock was willing to do… legwork.