Starving Artist

She has been sitting there for the past few weeks. Always with the pad of paper and some utensil. Sometimes pencil and pen but her favorite it seemed was charcoal.

She had been there every day since the first. Even when it rained. The fool still was drawing in the rain. Like today. Sherlock held his binoculars to his eyes. HE had been studying her intensely. He was perplexed.

Well, as well as a stranger can entertain him. He had been without a case for about a month nnow. At first he dismissed her as yet another boring individual. But then a week passed, he only saw part of her face at his best efforts to deduce if she was a spy for a criminal intending to do him or John harm, She was always there, always drawing. But what was she drawing?

It was driving him insane. What on Baker street could captivate an artist's attention. She obviously had some level of skill, he could tell from the precision of her muscle movements. Relax and tense, slightly relax her wrist, increase stiffness of her fingers.

But what was she drawing? It was the same thing over again. The same movements. But it never satisfied her. Her mouth would form a scowl and she would rip the paper off and stuff it in her bag. Then she would stand and waltz off to return the next day.

When he dared to venture outside, His eyes would train on her, studying her, as he walked across the street. He tried walking behind her but she clutched it to her chest.

Something private. She was drawing someone. She did not intend harm, but wished to keep her identity a secret. When he tried to see under her messenger hat to see the rest of her face, she turned her head to the opposite side.

She was poor. Her tired shoes, ragged clothes. She was also possibly starving. She seemed to be losing weight and quickly. Over the past few weeks, her cheeks (what he could see) had showed signs of hunger and her cheek bones became more pronounced. Her hair would have told him a bit more, but she kept it under the hat, not a rebellious strand peeking out.

He could not detect perfume. If she wore any at all, it was masked by Baker street.

Today, he sat perched at his window, binoculars trained on her. He heard the door open and close, the sound of his flatmate approached him but ignored his presence.

"Still gazing at the mysterious woman?" He said as he set down a bag off food.

Sherlock hmmed. John sighed. "Sherlock, why not ask her? Simple communication?" He said as He leaned over Sherlock and peered at the woman.

"And how is that entertaining?" John shook his head. He went back to staring at the woman as well, trying to see what he can deduce from her himself.

The woman's mouth formed a scowl and Sherlock expected to she her rip it up and stuff it in her bag. However, This time she scratched it out furiously, with such anger, Sherlock was wondering if she would rip through the entire book. And to throw another loop, She stood up and slammed the entire notebook into the nearby bin. Along with her pencils and pens. Nxt her bag and she stalked away, Back tense and fury radiating off her.

Sherlock saw his chance and flew down the steps and out the door. He did not bother with shoes but sprinted across the street before stopping at the bin.

Completely absorbed with how close he was to solving the infuriating mystery, he did not notice the running person barrelin right towards him as he reached in to pull the sketch pad out. He got it all the way out but did not get a chance to open it.

A light person had managed to throw themselves t him and used her force to fall onto the concrete. He landed on his stomach, breath knocked out of him momentarily and he noticed the treasured sketch pad being yanked out of his hand and the slight pressure of the person leave him as they ran down the street. It was the girl.

The very girl he had been studying. And her hat had fallen off in the struggle. It was very short and brown. He grabbed her hat in his fist and floored it after her, barefeet and all.

He felt the adrenaline pump through his veins. Ah! The chase!

He found it challenging to keep up with the short woman. He had not been able to deduce her stamina for sprinting. He could tell she was as fit as she could be, starving as she was. But lucky for him, his height allowed him to still see her move through the crowed switftly and discreetly.

He watched her turn down a street. He was slightly bhind.

When he crossed onto the one the girl had ran through, he noticed her coat was in the bin.

She was clever. But he could still identify her by her ragged jeans and navy turtleneck. He caught sight of her again and ran after her.

She started to slow down, thinking she lost him. She meandered through the streets, dodging people, keeping her head down, and the sketchpad close to her chest. She peered over her shoulder to double check. Her dark brown eyes widened in fear and she bolted.

The chase lasted a few more blocks, the girl switching streets. She was getting tired though. She needed to end the chase quickly. She ran to her alley that she had used a escape multiple times.

She looked to see how close he was when she was a few feet from the alley. Fear ensumed her and urged her faster as she was his hand reaching for her. He was only a few inches away! How?!

She put a few more feet between them as she went left into the alley. She ran the few feet to the alley to the fence. The chainlink fence she had climbed many times. She heard the glass crunch under her shoes as she lunged at the fence. Her one occupied hand could not grip the fence well enough and it was either her or the sketchbook. She tried to climb with one hand but the man grabbed her arm and sketch book. He pulled and almost ripped her from the fence.

"Let me go!" she cried as she kicked out her foot weekly into Sherlock's face. I tstruck hard enough to get him off but not enough to do much damage. At the same time she tried to climb over the fence. The sudden release sent her falling on her head and shoulder.

Sherlock stumbled back and watched her fall. He heard her groan as she slipped out of reality. He took a minute to take in her and the situation.

Brown hair short with blonde bangs that reached right below her right eye. Naturally curly but forced straight. Her eyes were closed but her remembered the brown almost black eyes. Her cheek bones were as pronounced as ever and the dark circles under her eyes hinted at many hours of sleepless nights. And her head was bleeding. As the adrenaline wore off he noticed his feet did not feel right.

More like in pain. He looked down to see his feet bleeding from the glass he was standing on. Not to far he also saw the sketchpad. He picked it up and pulled out his phone and reached out to the good doctor still sitting puzzled at the flat.

John picke dup quickly. "SHelrock! Where are you! aRE you alright?I saw-"

"Your medical assistance is rwquested. Five blocks to the left then tun down the street turning left every other intersection for six blocks. Seventh alley. Do hurry. And bring my shoes." He hung up.

He moved closer to the girl and applied what little knowledge of first aid he has gatherd to tend to her head. He pulled out a white hankersheif and gently pressed it to her head. She snapped her head away from the touch. He raised his eyebrow and tried again. This time she snpped her head in the opposite direction and let out a grunt of displeasure. He furrowed his brows. He was stopping the bleeding and he was not going to let her unconscience stubbornness to stop him. Grabbing the uninjured side of her head, he placed the cloth on her cut that stretched over and around her ear. Her face screwed up in obvious annoyance.

He heard a taxi arrive and the doctor head towards him.

"What did you do to her?" he asked indignant.

"I persued her and attempted to stop her from jumping the fence. Apparently, she did not think her escape through well enough to compensate for the forces of physics used in this particular-"

"SHerlcok just pick her up." Joohn interrupted. Sherlock sighed and picked her up. He set her in the taxi and turned to John. "I will return home shortly, I wish to walk back. I have a few of her thinkgs to grabb."

He left without letting john object.

Sherlock walked back to bake street barefoot, picking up the discarded items of his target. Halfaway home, his feet began to burn from the stinging of his injured feet. The pain increased as he made his way home. As he walked, he tried to distract his mind from the pain and he opend the sketchbook.

The first page was general body parts : eyes, ears, hands. Boring. The second page held a profile picture of a familiar face. It was an old woman who frequently walked down Baker Street, owned several cats from the amount of cat her on her coat. She had old money. The girl was able to capture her quite well.

The third page held a charcoal sketch of a slightly…disturbing? Picture. The picture was a genderless face whose mouth was open and seemd to be screaming. The face seemed to be screaming in pain but he could not make that assumption with 100% confidence. Although he was 99.98%, he was bother by the eyes. He could not see them. She had crossed them out so well, she might was well not even drawn them. He could not even feel the dents the drawing of an eye would make.

He turned the page to see another pained face with the eyes crossed out. This one was femine with stringy hair falling in her face. Tears running down the face. He furrowed his eyebrows in thought.

The next two pictured showed again pained faces and no eyes.

The next picture was a different picture entirely. It made him stop.

The picture was started in pencil and almost completed in pen. It depicted a woman on her knees and back arched. Bat-like wings burst out of her back and what apeard to be smoke left her eyes and the tendrils snaked upwards to real actual snakes trying to east each other. A dark liquid fell from her screaming mouth. In the right hand corner, a fece that was half melted off stared at him. In the left, a headless body was being wrapped in sharp thorns and tight vines. tHe vines and thorns snaked to the bottom of the page and the woman in the middle.

Wicked semi human figures danced around her and some were jabbing her with spears and piercing her skin. The picture was not finished but there was a story from it and it caught his attention.

The pages after that had been ripped out. Ah yes, the missing pages.

He looked up to see himself right where he had started. Her coat and hat in his hand. He reached for her bag and drawing tools. He dug through her bag before seeing a crumpled paper at the bottom. He was about to reach for it when he heard a thud and looked up to see john pressed against the window. He ran to his apartment.

John dragged her to the apartment and set her as gently as possible on the couch. Her started dressing her head wound. When he was done, he admired his handiwork and studied her face. It was contorted in discomfrt adn irritation.

He noticed through her thin, worn shirt that the shoulder farthest from him was tense. He stood and leaned over her, lowering a hand to test her shoulder for reactions of pain.

Before he laid a hand on her, the girls eyes snapped open in shock and a fist connected with his face. It forced him away and she jumped up and pushed him to th window.

"Who are you?! Where am I?!" SHe demanded. Though small and frail, she used her body weight to force him back.

"Calm down, I am a doctor! I was tryin gto help." John tried to explain but she wouldn't let him.

"I don't need your damn help!" SHe yelled as she turned and ran for the door. SHe flew out it an dran down the stairs and reached the door right as it swung open, revealing a rushed SHerlock. THe door hit her and sent her back but she came back and tried to force her way through. Sherlcok foiled her attmepts by using his body to block the exit. She tried to slip through a gap by jumpping headfirst but Sherlock grabbed her by her waist and swung her into the building.

She pushed away from him and went up two steps. Sherlcok closed the door and waited for her next move. He could practicly see the wheel turning in her head quickly, fueld buy panic, pain, anger and desperation.

He saw her muscles tense and he reacted.

She went to jump over the rail, possibly to try to find an exit downstairs, when Sherlock grabbed her frail tense arm to stop her. But her being as famished as she was and as frail, the already injured arm let out a pop as it became dislocated. SHerlock's eyebrows raised as he heard and felt it. The pain caused her vision to blacken and her to slip yet again from this reality and she fell down the stairs and her back hit the door with a thud. SHe didn't move. Joh was halfway down the stairs from their apartment. Sherlock went to collect her and carried her back to the flat.

John instructed him to set her on the cleared table.

"I have to put her arm back in place. Set her there." Sherlcok did and went to secure one of her legs and her good arm. If she woke, she would be fighting. John put the shoulder back in place and SHerlock felt her muscles tense and try to kick or reach out for retaliation. Her eyse snapped open as she muffled a pained scream. Her leg swung, caught by sherlock, she twisted and fell off the table and SHerlcok was forced to let go as she brought the table down on top of her.

SHe hit the floor with an oof. She stilled once more. Her vision was fading, she needed food desperatly and god she was tired. John rushed to her side and SHerlcok righted the table before joining him. John saw she was still awake.

"I need you to calm down, we are trying to help you. Let us take care of you." he pleaded.

As the girl's eyelids fluttered closed she breathed out a word they barely caught. "Don't."

John furrowed his eyebrows. Why was she rejecting the help she desperately needed.

"Interesting." SHerlcok muttered. SHe appeared to be a small frail young woman but could handle hersefl well enough in a fighting scene. SHe has had to do it more than once. "Let's keep her." He said turnign to the doctor.

"What? SHerlock! we cannot just keep her here as if she were a cat off the street! SHe is a person not an animal!"

"A person who needs tending to! a person to distract me from my bordem as well! You are a doctor and thereby forced to tend to her until she is better!" SHerlcok argued feigning care. "Sherlcok i could send her to the nearest hospital."

"Look at her john, and tell me she does not intrigue you!" John pursed his lips and turned back to the girl. Sherlcok new he had won. He lfited her up and stood as well but fatered for a moment. He had forgotten the glass in his feet. He carried her anyway to John's room before genlty depositing her onto the ed and walked out.

"Watson, you have another patient." He said as he proped his feet up on the armrest of his couch. John question him about his injuries as he tended to them. Then berrated him for not wearing shoes.

She heard voices. Unfamiliar. Dishes being washed. She was pleasantly warmed and burrowed deepr under the covers. THen she realized she wasn't at home. Her body tensed as she flew out of the bed and ran toward teh door. sHe flew it open and took a few steps into the apartment's sitting room. SHe froze when two sets of eyes landed on her. One person was at the sink cleaning up and the other, taller, more threatenin gperson was standing over a desk, back straight and cold eyes on her, waitng for her move. The door was free.

She turned to make a run for it but the taller man bolted to the door and placed himself infront of it. "I am afraid I cannot let you leave." Her eyes anrrowed and turnd. She ran right for the window. SHe wanted out.

"John!" THe shorter man reacted adn looped his arms underneathe hers, picked her up"Let me go!" swung her around and let her stumble back into SHerlock who had advanced.

"AND STOP! TOSSING!ME! AROUND! UHR!" she ephasised the words she wall yell with a weak, open hadned hit to SHerlock's torso as she batted away at his ands tha were grabbing her ams. Her facade was breaking. TEars of stress and panic were runnign down her face. She angrily rubbed them away and focused on his shoes.

SHerlock spun her around and forced her onto John's chair. "Stay." He commanded. John rushed over to her and knelt infornt of her. "Sorry about that. Are you alright?" SHe glared and turned her head to the wall as she pulled her legs up and tucked them under her chin. SHe could smell food. And chemicals. She was hungry but glared at the wall. She heard the man named John sigh. But before he could say anything Sherlock took control of the situation.

"You sit with your knees under your shin, your legs act as a barrier between you and us. You are hidin gyourself and something else from us. CAre to enlighten us?"

Her scowl depened. "You do not trust men. Perhaps from poor experiences?" Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and her eyes snapped to him. "hit a nerve, have I?" SHerlock smirked. SHe snapped her heda to the wall again. SHe refused to answer his questions.

"You are obviously a starving child who is probably ignoring her body's need of food out of vanity. And the dark circles under your eyes from lack of sleep. What keep syou up at night? you horried weight?"

"Sherlcok!" John tried to interject. Hserlock was deliberatley being rude, these were false deductions but he wanted a reaction.

"And your attire is poor. Rugged jeans with holes, worn and falling apart boots, a thinning turtleneck. Are you trying to hide your true wealth? Or are you a runaway in search of an escape from her famil-" He was cut off by an angered remark from her.

"I have no family." It was almsot yelled and it was harsh. John flinched at the sudden sentece and the oldness behind it. But she was not done.

"You are wrong Mr. Holmes. I do not intentionaly starve myself. I simply have no money. I don't sleep becasue i do not sleep well enough. It is a waste of time. You yourself must understand as you suffer from insomnia. My clothes are shit because i have had them fro at least two years and i have a tiny selection back home of the same age. You most likely do not understand as you ruin your expensive shirts often and do not care tht they are silk or other fine matterial. I am not vain, you are. you spend more time on your hair than I do. And i hardly beleive your accustaions were an actual attempt. You merely want to piss me off. WHy am i giving you information? So you can shut up and leave me alone." SHe concluded. SHerlcok raised an eyebrow. So, she had some skill of deduction as well, no where near as good as him, but enough to warrant attention. ANd not once had she turned to look at either of them.

"WHy own't you let me go?"

"WHy won't you let us help?" countered Sherlock.

She didn't answer. He had another trick up his sleeve. "What do you draw?" He asked picking up her book. SHe stiffened and her attention was locked on the book in his hands. He walked over to her and stood right infront of the fire place. He opened it to the first page and flipped throguh commenting on each one. With each page turned she tensed. When he got to the ppage with the peculiar drawing, he attepmted to test her again.

"Ah and this is the real puzzle. You do not seem to be mentally disturbe so what could urge you to draw something like this?" he asked as he turned the page to her she tensed and before John could stop her, she stood and swiped the book into the fire. Sherlcok was thuroughly supprised. She settled back down tot he chair and watched it burn. She leaned her head back and her face relaxed. She looked fatigued adn emaciated. SHerlock stared adn deduced more things from her. True things.

John got up and walked to the kitchen. SHe heard him rustling around and putting food into a microwave. SHerlock sat across from her and watched her try to relax into the chair. She trusted fire. It was a source of warmth and a symbol of life to her.

Suddenly, the delicious smell of food overwhelmed her sense of smell and her stomach growled in hunger. SHe hadn't eaten in a few days.

SHe heard John approach her and eyed him and the plate of warm pasta adn tomato sauce. He handed it to her and she took it slowly. She stared from teh plate to John and furrowed her eybrows. She didn't want to eat but her stomach was basically forcing her.

"My pasta." Sherlcok said. He was not pleased his food was offered up to the girl. John rolled his eyes nad looked back to teh girl to see the pasta halway finshed. But he looked away for only a second! She was shoveling it in as fast as she could. He swiped the plate away and she tried to stabe him. "SLow down, you will throw it back up if you don't!" He said as he slowly gave it back.

Sherlock found her antics and mannerisms a a triffle amusing. AMusign enough to tolerate having her around for a while. ANd her deduction skills were adequate enough to take his attention. He wanted to see what she coudl do. He decided, the next time there was a case, she would join them and he would be able to test her. He was forming a plan as he watched

sorry for the errors and the ooc. Hope you like it thoguh! please reveiw but if it is constructive criticism please be gentle. THanks for reading!