Thank you so much! The response for the first chapter was stunning! You guys are amazing. I would like to extend a special thanks to Littlebirdd for being the first review, as well as AmeliaRoseOswald and Lady Gisborne 15 for being the two after that. It really does mean so much to me! I hope you like chapter two!
Again, thank you so much!
-lightinside
When I entered the flat, I couldn't help but feel a little stunned. My brother had always been a very neat person. Everything was just so, in its assigned place. This was something entirely opposite. Piles upon piles of books were crammed everywhere. In corners, on tables, on the floor, teetering on the edge of the too full desk. Papers spilling out of folders littered the coffee table. Sheet music was tossed about carelessly, almost as if it had been discarded out of boredom after it had fulfilled its purpose.
I took a few steps inside and found that the kitchen was very similar. What should have been the dining room table was instead a miniature science lab, full of beakers and jars of miscellaneous parts… I thought for a moment I saw one full of human eyes. The counters were crammed with equipment and forsaken glasses and plates that were gathering dust from disuse and even more books. Volumes upon volumes, fiction and non-fiction, biographies and manuscripts.
I tore my eyes away from the horrendous mess and found, sitting in a black leather chair across from a red, plaid armchair, a ridiculously lean figure with curly hair of the darkest brown with an angular face and piercing, intelligent eyes. He was plucking at a violin lazily with long, pale fingers, the bow leaning against the chair just in his reach.
"Sherlock Holmes?" I asked softly. "You contacted me. I'm – "
"Katherine Watson. Obviously." He sighed, almost as if he was aggravated. "Your powers of observation are positively astounding."
My mouth fell open and I felt, now more than ever, impossibly cross. What on earth had my brother seen in this man that had brought them to be best mates? I didn't understand. Just one more thing on a long list of things that I didn't understand, now that I was thinking about it.
"Look, you asked me to come here." I said. "I didn't have to!"
"And yet, here you are." Sherlock said, setting down his instrument. "At a stranger's request. I do say, your desire for trouble nearly matches your brother's."
"My brother was an Army doctor. He didn't desire trouble. He thrived on it."
Sherlock made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and clasped his long fingers under his chin and took to studying me as one would study something of little to no interest. "And what about you? What do you thrive on?"
"Ask me when I know."
Sherlock leaned back in his chair, legs sprawled out in front of him. "You have a medical degree and yet you work in a mailroom. Why?"
"How do you know that?"
"Why?" He repeated.
I began to fidget. There was one thing that was becoming glaringly obvious to me about Sherlock Holmes, and that was the fact that he had a way of making me extremely uncomfortable.
"The closest job offer I had was in the States. With John going back into the Army, I was afraid to leave my parents alone. So, I got the part time job at the mailroom. It pays the bills."
Why I was answering him was a mystery to me. He had no right to the details about my personal life. I was here on his request and on the hope that he was going to give me some small piece of my brother. I knew my parents hadn't come by. If they had, John's belongings would have been vacant from the entire flat, and yet I saw them everywhere. His laptop sat on the small table by the red chair and some of his patient files were stacked haphazardly beside it, as if he would be coming back any second. Like he was out going to the shop instead of lying six feet under.
I felt my hands begin to tremble and I clenched them into fists and stuck them in my pockets. With a forced swallow, I found myself looking back over at Sherlock.
"Do you have any of John's things for me? I assumed that was why you asked me here."
Sherlock scoffed and stood, towering over my slight 5'6 frame at what I estimated to be at least 6'1. "You were wrong to assume." He said, and breezed by me as if I was hardly even there.
"So… you aren't going to give me any of John's possessions, then?"
"You continue to astound me with your astute observations." Sherlock muttered, fussing over a microscope that sat on the kitchen table. I hadn't noticed it before. Looking at it now, I realized that it must have been buried behind a stack of books that Sherlock had only just swept into a chair.
"And I'm astonished to find that you are a very ill-mannered man." I snapped. "My brother spoke highly of you and, now that I've met you, I have no earthy idea why."
Sherlock's eyes snapped up from the microscope lens with a start. For some reason, what I had said seemed to bother him. And still he said nothing.
"Since you have no need of me, I think I'll be going." I turned on my heels and rushed out of the flat, past Mrs. Hudson who was in the process of carrying up a tray of tea.
"Katherine, dear?"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hudson." I apologized without slowing, "I can't."
But saying it out loud, I didn't really know what it was that I couldn't do. I didn't know if I couldn't tolerate his rudeness. Or if it was the fact that he seemed so unaffected by John's death. If he had been pretending for my sake, like some people had been earlier in the morning, I might have recognized it and tried to ignore it… but he seemed genuinely unaffected. Like this man whom my brother cared for so deeply thought absolutely nothing of him.
I heard the door slam behind me and I flinched at the sound. My eyes scanned the curb frantically for a taxi and, to my dismay, didn't find one. There was no way that I was staying there a second longer than I had to. I started to walk.
Not long after I had left the flat, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that I had a text from Sherlock.
Would an apology help? –SH
I didn't know if I should answer. All this text had done was further piss me off and I was afraid of what I might say should I dignify it with a response. Finally, I groaned and gave in.
Do you have one to offer?
I wondered what smart arse thing he would respond with, what he would say to make me feel like more of an idiot. Which I wasn't. I had a bloody medical degree. No way in hell was I stupid. But something about Sherlock made me feel inferior.
As I was in the middle of yet again overanalyzing what Sherlock could or couldn't be, my phone buzzed for a second time.
Simply asking if it would help. –SH
I huffed and shoved my phone back in my pocket. The absolute nerve. But then I remembered something John had told me long ago after he'd first met Sherlock.
"He comes across as a complete dickhead, but when he works, he's brilliant. He just has no clue about how he should interact with other human beings."
And, as if my brother were right beside me reminding me of what I should do, I dug out my phone once more and sent three words.
Ask again tomorrow.