Ten
Repercussions

I pried my jacket off before I even began climbing the staircase. Over the last month it had clearly gotten colder than it had been, and for late August it was certainly unusually cool, but that didn't mean I couldn't still get ridiculously hot when crammed into a full bus. At least I wasn't wearing those frightful black things today; otherwise I would have been sweating like a boxer.

"How'd it go?" I was asked as soon as I had entered the cosy living room.

I dumped my bag and collapsed into one of the free armchairs. I could see John perched on the sofa, waiting eagerly for an answer. I massaged the bridge of my nose.

"It's such an amazing job." I started wishfully. "It's at a university – not a café or anything – so it's real and would let me use my brain and I wouldn't have to spend my days cleaning tables and handing out coffee anymore. I wouldn't have to wear black every day or struggle to get by on minimum wage. It would be perfect for me. I would be so good at it and I wouldn't have to start at the bottom of the ladder either and I could actually be a grown up again."

John raised his eyebrows. "Great."

I sighed morosely. "And I didn't get it."

John shook his head. "You can't know that for sure."

"Yes, I can."

He rolled his eyes as if he thought I was being pessimistic and self-deprecatory. "How?"

"It was going so well." I complained with a wave of my hand, irritation boiling up and mixing with the disappointment. "I was getting on with the interviewer and we were laughing and chatting. Then it turns out the only reason I was able to get an interview was that she hadn't actually read the only reference I have from a job that isn't waitressing or a shop assistant or bartender until this morning."

John frowned, his face becoming twisted by pity and understanding.

"The one from the museum isn't good?" he spoke, obviously already knowing the response.

I ran a hand through my hair. "Carrying out suspicious activities requiring police involvement in secret."

John grimaced. "He wrote about that, huh?"

I let out a small growl. "He didn't write about that, John; he wrote that – word for word. The interviewer read it out to me."

"Ah."

Getting out of my old business attire had been strangely painful. I found myself missing the smart pencil skirt and blouse, the muted colours standing out as if they were neon in contrast to the dull garments I was forced to wear for work nowadays. And the heels – oh, the heels. For the last few months I had only been able to wear them when out with friends; swiftly finding that they did little to help me run around the café carrying trays of crockery for nine hours.

It was sad. For a moment this morning, I had thought that maybe I'd be returning to these clothes for good, but that dream had been crushed with a short conversation. In some respects, the neat pile of delicately folded material sitting on the foot of Sherlock's bed represented what I had lost – a career and a purpose.

"Hey, Sherlock, where do you keep-" I stopped my question upon entering the sitting room. "Oh, sorry, I didn't hear the doorbell."

"Ignore her." Sherlock dismissed, not removing his eyes from the cluster of people surrounding the sofa. "Continue."

The visitors seemed to be more surprised by my appearance than I would have liked. There were four of them, all male, all dressed in baggy jeans and hoodies. None looked older than fifteen. Since the fact that Sherlock was sitting in his thinking chair, hands raised in prayer position before his face, I could guess they were clients. I tried to ignore their confusing stares and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

"Err…" one of the boys began from behind my back. "Yeah… well… err… It was… What were I saying?"

"Was." Sherlock automatically corrected. I peered back into the room, catching John's equally bewildered gaze before settling my eyes on the detective. His pupils seemed to be flickering between me and the group of teenagers, coming to some sort of conclusion in his mind. "Melanie, go and put some clothes on. Three out of four of my clients have never seen a woman like that and it's distracting them."

The boys instantly snapped out of the stupor, each one eyeing up the other members of their group warily, as if trying to work out which one was the odd one out in Sherlock's deduction.

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm wearing clothes."

Sherlock gave me his copyrighted you're-being-stupid look. "No, you're not; you're wearing a dressing gown and I would really love to hear the end of this story. You know, sometimes I find it helps to know what my case is before I solve it."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on! This robe covers more than most dresses! And it's not as if I'm completely naked under here, anyway."

Sherlock lowered his hands and glared. "Your underwear does not count as clothes. My point still stands."

I looked down at the silky blue dressing gown that went past my knees, wondering what all the fuss was about, and then back up at the man shooting daggers at me out of his eyes. A realisation started in the back of my brain, causing a tug on my lips which turned into a smile.

"Are you…?" I said, trying to fight back what was surely becoming a smirk, "John, is he…?"

"Is he what?" John questioned.

Sherlock let out a long breath and looked away. "No, I'm not. Now, go away."

"You are." I announced, being able to see what was happening now in full. I struggled not to laugh. "You're jealous."

Sherlock just scoffed. "Why would I be jealous of a group of prepubescent morons whose idea of a good night is to stay at home with a bottle of value-brand vodka and cartoon pornography?"

A murmur of fake agreement escaped from my tightly shut mouth as I nodded my head and bit down the sniggers.

John crossed his arms, a grin spreading across his own face. "You're so jealous."

Sherlock instantly swept his arm up and pointed at me.

"Out."

I stood in front of the wall, staring fixedly ahead.

Sherlock would consider the periodic table to be art of such a calibre that it deserved a frame, wouldn't he? It was interesting, of course. I just didn't think it was so interesting that it needed to be hung in his oddly tidy bedroom.

I only just managed to step out of the way of the moving door before it hit me squarely on the shoulder.

Sherlock bolstered into the room, not uttering a single word to signify that he had noticed my presence as he stepped around me and towards the bed. I blinked. Was he carrying a dead crab?

Yes, yes he was.

He flung the ex-crustacean onto his bedside table; it's oddly yellow legs being crushed at odd angles. I didn't think I had ever seen a clearly cooked crab with gold-coloured pincers before. But even the presence of the dead crab was unimportant when compared with the fact that Sherlock was wearing a t-shirt. A real t-shirt. Bright red and with Russian Cyrillic scrawled across it. Sherlock's disguises were getting stranger with every case.

"Uh," I began, my eyes flickering over the dead crab warily, "how did it go?"

"Dull." Was the only answer I got as Sherlock bent over and started removing the out-of-place beige trainers from his feet.

"But it's solved?"

Sherlock pulled at the other trainer until it came free, revealing his normal socks underneath. "Naturally."

I gazed at the man who had still to offer me so much as a glance since getting home. He was clearly upset about something. A gnawing in my gut was telling me what that something was. I swallowed feeling unexpectedly guilty.

"Look, Sherlock, about earlier…" my sentence trailed off.

Sherlock finished placing the trainers neatly back into their rightful place in his wardrobe and wandered back to his previous position before speaking. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific in your descriptions, Melanie."

I shook my head. "You know what I mean."

He began untucking the uncustomary t-shirt from his jeans. "Do I?"

"Yeah," I answered as he lifted the shirt over his head and dumped it onto the sheets, "you do."

I didn't get a reply. Silently, Sherlock just grabbed at one of his usual cotton shirts and began shrugging it onto his arms, going back to his 'ignore that anyone else is here' state.

I sighed, my voice coming out in what I hoped was a gentle, remorseful tone. "I'm sorry I teased you."

Finally, Sherlock looked at me. It, however, was only a brief shift of his eyes that indicated his displeasure with the situation. "If you thought that was teasing, then it only proves what a naïve life you have lived."

I slowly stepped forwards.

I was pretty sure that I was close enough to him to feel the heat emanating from his body. I placed a hand on top of his own, stopping the buttoning of his shirt that had been in process. I stared at him, wishing that he would look up at my face and not continue examining his now stationary hand.

"You do know that you have nothing to be jealous of though, don't you?" I asked softly.

Sherlock's eyes at last lifted, narrowed and focused. "I was not jealous."

"Because," I continued as if he hadn't contradicted me, "and I think that you've known this since roughly three weeks after we first met, I'm afraid you're stuck with me for now."

"I was not jealous," he repeated before swiftly adding, "and what do you mean 'for now'?"

A few short breaths of laughter crept out of my mouth, each one sounding more defeated than the last. With the hand that wasn't currently resting on Sherlock's own, I brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes.

Didn't he get it? Because I did. From almost the first time I had set my eyes on Sherlock Holmes, I hadn't been able to leave him for too long. Even when I had tried to and was only brought back into his world by the acts of a madman, it was less than a day before I saw him again. Sure, it wasn't love, but it was something.

"Oh, God," I let out quietly, looking up to the ceiling, "I'm completely trapped here, aren't I?"

I looked back at the bizarre man to see a large scowl occupying his face.

"Trapped?" he echoed accusingly.

I tilted my head to the side. "In a nice way."

Sherlock huffed, rolled his eyes and turned his head to the side. "It doesn't stop you parading around half-naked in front of teenage boys."

"I was not half-naked." I reiterated firmly, before a small twitch of a smirk jerked at my lips. An idea was formulating in my head. Mrs Hudson would have blushed. "Although, I could be, if you were feeling particularly bored."

Sherlock's analysing gaze swivelled and landed on my face. A tiny trace of a smile crossed onto his expression.

"It has been almost an hour since I solved a case."

Bit of fluffiness for you here, or as much fluffiness as you get in this story usually (I'm afraid it might gradually increase from now on, though).

I hope at least one person spotted the reference to the canon case in this chapter. It's quite subtle, but true Holmesians will spot it.

Oh, and apparently it was a misquote about when the next season will be out. Yeah, could have guessed that.

Guess what's going to happen in and what amount of time is going to pass before the next chapter! Go on, guess. I dare you.

Review?