27/6/11: Day One

So, I've decided to start keeping a journal. I know, weird, isn't it? A girl decides to keep a jornal for the first time after seventeen years of life? The answer as to why is simple. I've never had a reason before now. I suppose I should introduce myself, for anyone who ever happens to read this. My name's Lo Hudson. I'm seventeen years old. I'm average height, with blonde hair, brown roots, and hazel eyes. My parents' marriage is deteriorating rapidly. They didn't want me to see them fighting. That's why, this morning, I moved in with my Grandmother, on Baker Street in London. 221A Baker Street, to be precise. But the real reason I'm starting this journal, as I said, is simple. 221B.

I thought that living with my Gran would be unbelievably boring, but I was proven all too wrong within just a few hours of crossing the threshold.

"Lo!" Gran said, wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug outside the cab. How she can still manage a hug like that at her age is beyond me. She obviously isn't the youngest bird in the nest. "I haven't seen you in so long, you've grown so much! And blonde now, too!" I tugged at my braid, smiling slightly. I only really dyed my hair blonde to piss my mum off.

"You look amazing, Gran! Not a day older than the last time I saw you." I smiled wryly, a real smile for once. What can I say? When in doubt of what to say to your grandmother, say she looks young. It was a bit of a lie, though. She has a few more smile lines and her hair's paler, like she hasn't dyed it in a while. I pulled my suitcase and duffel bag out of the trunk and Gran pulled them onto the sidewalk. I paid the cabbie and slung my bag over my shoulder. I reached for my suitcase too, but Gran insisted that she'd take care of it. I'm still surprised that I was able to fit all of my important things into two bags. True, it was a very large suitcase and a very large duffel bag, but it was still only two bags. I just hope that I've packed enough stuff. I'm not very high maintenance when it comes to my appearance, but I'd still have packed more if Mum would have let me. Anyways, I'm getting off subject. Bloody hell, I haven't even told you the subject yet, have I? Don't worry, I'm getting there.

So Gran and I tossed my stuff in my room and had a cuppa and a chat, and she told me a little about her tenants upstairs in 221B. Let me tell you, I was immediately fascinated. Two men, whom Gran's well convinced, are in love, who solve mysteries and murders, surviving all sorts of craziness. As creepy as it may seem, I wanted to meet them then and there. They seemed so interesting, I think I was hoping that if they liked me enough I'd be able to accompany them on whatever the hell they did. But, then again, I'm an idiot.

"Gran?" I asked after a few moments of silence, "Do you think that they would mind if I dropped in for a bit? Sherlock and John? I don't want to intrude or anything, but you know…"

"Lo," she said, smiling, "I think you are exactly what Sherlock needs right now."

"The moment after the words fell from her lips, the unmistakable sound of three gunshots erupted above our heads. I screamed loudly and looked, panicked, at Gran. I think I half expected her to pass out, or have a heart attack or something, but all she did was slam her teacup and saucer down on the table and made a very angry exclamation.

"That is coming out of your rent, young man!" She yelled at the ceiling, then picking her cup and saucer back up. I stared, incredulous. Three bloody gunshots reverberating throughout the flat and Gran just raged a bit and went back to her tea.

"Is that a regular occurrence?" I asked weakly. I well and truly hoped not. I'd never get any sleep with that. Gran sighed.

"No, don't worry love. He's just bored is all. Why don't you pop up for a mo'?" She added, in a grim undertone, "Might result in a little less damage for my walls."

So, off I went, up the short flight of stairs. The door to 221B was open, so I hesitated for a second. Was it rude to step into someone's flat? I guessed on the side of yes before reaching in and rapping on the door lightly.

"Hello?"

A deep baritone voice answered me.

"Hello, Elona." I knitted my eyebrows together and stepped in, having caught sight of a figure curled in the corner of the sofa, wrapped in what seemed to be a blue silk dressing down.

"Ugh, don't call me Elona," I sneered.

I severely dislike my name. Elona Shay Hudson. It's not that it isn't a lovely name, but it doesn't fit me in the slightest. Much too… elegant. So, I just go by Lo.

"How did you know it was me, anyways?" I asked. He sighed, like this simple question was incredibly tedious and a complete waste of his time. Come to think of it, it probably was.

"Mrs. Hudson's been telling John and I about you coming to live with her for the past few weeks, she's been quite excited about it. I heard you coming up the stairs, and I could tell by your footfalls that you were not John or Mrs. Hudson or even Lestrade, seeing as you're the average height and build for a seventeen year old girl. And, naturally, there was your voice when you poked your dull little head in." He seemed to draw the word dull into the next century. I raised my eyebrows. I was wondering how he was possibly able to figure all of that out.

"Dull? I resent that, you know. And would ya turn around so I can see your face?" He sighed again and flipped onto his back, where I was finally able to get a good look at him. He's bloody tall, six feet at least, and very thin along with that. He's really rather attractive in the face too, to be honest. I mean, if it weren't for the considerable age gap I would definitely, well, y'know. Beautiful cheekbones, steel grey eyes, and thick, curly, chocolate brown hair. Anyways, I'm going off again. I'm sure I'll get better at this.

He tented his fingertips and pressed them to his chin. I figured that he was trying to think of what to say next.

"My name's Lo." I smiled slightly down at him. He slid his eyes up to me for a meme moment and then they went back up to the ceiling. I bit my lip. "I take it, since you were talking about John, that you're Sherlock? My-"

"Mrs. Hudson told you about us, yes, I expected as much." He sighed deeply again. I sighed right back, starting to get a bit frustrated.

"Look, if I'm boring you or something, by all means, tell me so I can leave." I probably snapped a bit more than was needed, but you know. He rolled his eyes and gave me a look that in two seconds managed to say 'You're so right, you are boring me', 'Well, you're better than an empty flat', and 'I really wish you weren't my only form of entertainment'. At least, that's how I took it.

"Bored."

He pulled a handgun out from between his body and the couch cushion and put his hand up to cock it. I didn't know what to do. I had never seen anyone just randomly pull out a bloody gun before, was he going to shoot me to cure his effin' boredom? But no, Gran made it clear that he wasn't a psychopath, but I wondered right there.

"OY!" I shouted, making his eyes jump to me. "Stop blowing holes in my Gran's flat!" He rolled his eyes and put the gun on the already crammed coffee table. I picked it up gingerly, having never touched a gun before in my life, and placed it on the mantle, mostly because it was further out of his reach. I brushed my fingers against a bullet hole in the wall. I supposed that I'd found his target. I turned back to face him on the couch. "What's your problem, anyways?"

"Bored." He seized a skull off the coffee table (which looked very much like it could be real) and locked eyes—well, eyes and eye sockets—with it, almost like he was having a staring contest. I was starting to suspect more and more that he was a madman. Well, I still think he is. But that's beside the point.

"I realize that, you've said it already. Care to elaborate a bit?"

He gave another big sigh and I thought for a moment about just walking out right there, getting the hell out of his way.

"I am a consulting detective." He, again, seemed to drag his words into next Tuesday. Not that I'm complaining, really, he has a lovely voice, but anyway. Before I could open my mouth to ask exactly what a consulting detective was, he continued. "I solve crimes. Scotland Yard consults me when they come to a dead end. I am bored-" He dropped the skull back to the coffee table. "—because I haven't had a bloody case in nearly a month now. Therefore, I—" He sat up straight. "—am—" He stood up. "—bored." He walked right over the coffee table and into the kitchen, where I followed him cautiously. Good thing I used caution, too, 'cause it looks like an atomic bomb's gone off. There's lab equipment everywhere, and plenty of test tubes and beakers filled with questionable substances.

"Hoots, mon…" I muttered, letting out a low whistle. "Maybe you could clean this mess up if you're so bored…" This earned me a bit of a glare, so I quickly changed the subject. "How do you help the Yard with crimes, anyways? Are you a forensic specialist, or what?" He scoffed.

"Hardly." I raised my eyebrows.

"How then?"

I need to stop right here and just say something. Sherlock Holmes is a very curious man. So curious, in fact, that, once you find yourself in a room talking with him, you can't seem to tear yourself away. If I had a brain in my head, I would have turned around and walked out of the flat when the thought first occurred to me, went downstairs and told my Gran I wanted nothing to do with him.

But I didn't.

Because Sherlock Holmes is a very fascinating man.

So there I stood, watching him look me up and down. I probably should have been creeped out by this especially, but I could tell by the look that he wasn't checking me out in the conventional use of the phrase. He had a concentrative look on his face, almost like mine when I'm doing math. I thought he was trying to figure out something about me. I was about to tell him that he could just ask whatever he wanted to know when he started speaking.

"How long has it been since you broke up with your boyfriend?"

My jaw dropped, and I quickly snapped it shut, but not before a slight smirk crossed his face.

"How the ruddy hell did you know that I broke up with my boyfriend?" I crossed my arms and stuck my hip out, but the smirk remained on his face.

"Your phone, Elona." He nodded at my waist. "Or, rather, lack thereof. Most people are glued to their phones nowadays, especially teenagers, and the outline of it on your pocket is empty. Your nails have been bitten down to the bed very recently. You can still see the indentations where they sat on your finger, so they were long before, obviously not a consistent habit. Conclusion: you were rather reluctant to break up with Tyler; you only did so because you were moving here to London and you felt that it wouldn't work with the distance. Since then, he's been texting you and calling you constantly, begging you to take him back and trying to convince you that it would work with you in London and he in Cardiff. Rather than tell him to leave you alone—quite advisable, by the way, best not to beat around the bush—you've simply turned off your phone and left it in your grandmother's flat."

My jaw was on the floor. He was right. Completely right, about every little thing. Except for my boyfriend's name. I wasn't sure how he got Tyler instead of Mikey.

"Bloody hell…" I said faintly. "Gran told you all of that." I ignored the fact that she didn't know any of what he just said. "She must have! How could you possibly—"

"What did I get wrong?" Sherlock asked, cutting me off. "There's always something. Then again, teenagers are easier to read than adults, so maybe that isn't the case this time." I snapped my jaw shut again and shook my head.

"R-Right." I stammered, feeling like an idiot. "Well, I broke up with him because I was moving here and I dreaded it, so I was chewing my nails, and now he won't leave me well enough alone. But his name is Mikey, not Tyler." He sighed and muttered something that I wasn't able to catch, unfortunately. My guess is that it was 'There's always something'. I shut my eyes tightly, tried to clear my mind (without much success), and sat down at the crammed kitchen table.

"Sorry, I may seem a bit dim, but how the living hell did you know all of that?" He smirked.

"I told you, I'm a consulting detective. I simply observe. Who's Tyler, if not your boyfriend?"

"Uhhh…" I blinked. "She's my best friend. People make the mistake a lot." I blinked again.I was a bit dumbstruck. Ten minutes in a room with this man and he knew more about me than my gran did. And then, before I knew it, morbid curiosity had overtaken me.

"What else can you tell about me?" I clenched my jaw to suppress a yawn and brushed my bangs out of my face. He looked at me for another moment and opened his mouth again.

"You're an artist. Acrylic paint, usually, but chalk pastels as of late. Your art is a greater priority than sleep, most of the time. Your best friend is like a sister to you, in fact, more of a sister than your biological sister, which is why you don't bear her name on your arm as well. You're a fan of both Harry Potter and Doctor Who—good taste, I must say. You miss your mother, you're very close to her, but when it comes to the divorce, you're on your father's side." He tented his fingers and pressed them to his chin once again, gauging my reaction. I tried to keep a poker face.

"Okay. Now how'd you figure that?"

"Was I right?"

"How'd you figure it?"

I got another dirty look. I have a feeling that I'm going to be receiving a lot of those during my residence at 221A Baker Street.

"You have faint paint stains of assorted colors on your arms, up to your elbows, but under what is left of your nails there are bits of chalk pastel. You have dark, puffy circles under your eyes, so your body isn't accustomed to smaller amounts of sleep, but you push through anyways. One of the bracelets on your right wrist has a cookie on it with your preferred name, Lo, but on your left, milk and Tyler, a reference to the common pairing of milk and cookies. Mrs. Hudson told us that she has two granddaughters, Elona and Ronan, but you obviously aren't terribly close to Ronan, or you would have something bearing her name on your person. Your necklace has a charm shaped like the Deathly Hallows symbol and one of your bracelets says 'Are You My Mummy?' which is a reference to 'The Empty Child'. Your ring. I've seen it before, when your parents came to visit Mrs. Hudson. You wear it on your right ring finger, the one that they say has a vein that connects to the heart. So, you're close to her, close enough that she decided to give it to you, you miss her, and you want a reminder of her. But, at the same time, you're at your paternal grandmother's house when you do in fact have an option to go to a maternal grandparent, so you're trying to send a message of sorts. You love your mother, but she must have done something unforgivable. Since she's a woman, the most likely scenario is an affair, or possibly—"

"Stop." I said sharply. He looked surprised at this, like no one had ever told him to stop reading minds or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. The point is that he had hit the nail on the head. My mum had an affair. And now she's having an affair, to top it all off. Bloody brilliant. "I just… You're right. About most of it, anyways. I'm actually pretty close to Ronan, I just don't have anything from her."

"There's always something…" he mumbled to himself.

"That was brilliant, though." I said, trying to cut the awkwardness of the way I stopped him. "The analyzing or whatever you want to call it."

"Deducing." He said quietly, putting the kettle on the stove.

"That's what you call it? Huh." I scraped at the chalk fragments under what was left of my nails. "Well, this has been very interesting." As I stood up, I heard the door downstairs open and shut. "I'm going downstairs to unpack." I walked towards the door. "See you later, Sherlock." I received a slight grunt of acknowledgement and started running down the stairs, where I managed to stomp on the foot of a shortish, sandy haired man whom I assumed to be John Watson.

"Jesus, I'm sorry mate." I nervously looked down at his foot, shoving my hair out of my eyes. He shook his head.

"'S fine. I've had worse, believe me. You must be Lo, right? Mrs. Hudson's—"

"Mrs. Hudson's granddaughter, yeah. And you must be John? I just spent a bit of time with your flatmate." I said, shaking his hand.

"Ah. I see why you were in such a hurry to get out, then. I take it that he told you your whole life story?" I nodded. "He does get more bearable eventually. Or at least I'm hoping so." I furloughed my eyebrows.

"Exactly how long have you been flatmates?"

"Coming up on a year now." He grinned. "Still hoping."

We laughed and I dismissed myself, off to unpack.

But instead, I grabbed a notebook and a pencil and went to work. I promised to go up tomorrow for a cuppa, and now I'm sitting here. On my bed. Still trying to figure out what the hell happened 40 minutes ago. Sherlock Holmes knew essentially everything important about me within five minuyes of meeting me. It's kind of scary, really. But John seemed normal enough, so I am looking forward to that cuppa tomorrow. I'm really off to unpack now. I'll write again tomorrow.

xo,
Lo

AN: Well, what'd ya think? Please review, reviews make me happy. In the pants. Well, on occasion. Ahem. Anyways.

What would you like to see happen at Lo's tea with Jawn? Or at ANY point in the story? Leave suggestions! :3