[[Author's Note: Howdy! I'm here and leaving you a well-deserved chapter. Thank you all for the follows, favorites and reviews (they make me dance). So, I wrote a wondrously entertaining (to write, at least) filler chapter, mostly because I wanted to leave you a mental cliffhanger (and I needed to take a break from preparing my con costume). Bear in mind, history might repeat itself in 221B Baker street, but do not think for a moment there is nothing unusual. Hope you like it; let me know what you think in the review box. I am open to suggestions, challenges and prompts. Also, the next chapter should be up fairly soon, since this was basically a veeeeery long chapter that I started sectioning out. Keep an eye out. I own nothing but the OCs and a bottle of red acrylic paint.]]

The front door to 221B Baker Street swung open, revealing a zombie version of Adelaide Villalobos in her pajamas, hair all a mess from a night of restless sleeping and rolling in bed. She seemed calm enough, but her aura showed that she was more than a little irritated about having been woken, even if it was by two of her favorite people in the world.

"We got a sitter!" Mary and John exclaimed with the excitement of naughty teenagers announcing they had gotten someone to buy them booze. Although, they were swinging a bottle of wine in front of her as if telling her that she needed to expect something fantastic to happen that day. Well, perhaps she would have put that thought together had her nervous system and her brain been together in any sort of communication. For the moment, however, she just managed a grunt that was supposed to express her discontent.

"It's six in the morning," she replied, her voice raspy and barely intelligible in her sleepy slur.

"Yep. We've got such a day planned!" Mary shrieked, tugging Addie alongside her just as she brushed past to enter the flat.

John looked around the room and put down the many parcels he had been laden with, Addie just noticing them now. "Where's Sherlock?"

"If there is any sense of justice in the world, dead," the man in question grumbled, rubbing his eyes in an almost childlike manner as he struggled to get his opposite arm into the sleeve of his dressing gown. "Where's the sane one?" He asked, tilting his head and surveying all the people he could sense were in the room.

"We got a sitter! So Del is going to spend all day playing with blocks and getting spoiled rotten and we're taking a fun day out." Mary said once more, the smile on her lips threatening to break her skin. Sherlock frowned and joined a nearly comatose Addie on the couch.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" He asked Addie, the young woman curling up to his side and growling back something he neither understood nor had the interest to understand. "Why am I up at this hour?" Mary braced herself, knowing that they were all borderline close from watching Sherlock throw a tantrum.

John chuckled, a brilliant smile like a beam of light in the detective's gloomy outlook of the situation. He set down a tray of tea on the coffee table and an assortment of breakfast items for them to have. "Come on, Sherlock! It'll be fun! You never used to sleep; dig deep and fight Morpheus. Just like the old days." The doctor had to admit that the payback for all of those sleepless nights felt fantastic. Not that he'd say it out loud.

"I also forced people to punch me so I could make my stories believable and did horrendous amounts of cocaine. I don't think your argument is sound. Besides, you have yet to answer my question. Why am I up?"

John rolled his eyes. "If you must know, we are going to be taking a little trip, courtesy of a cold case that Lestrade has just given me and we're going to have a day out, and then we're going to get pissed."

"Does that include a bullet from Mary or is that bit optional?" He shot back, his clever remark marred by the yawn escaping him. The dark haired man glanced sideways to see that Addie had fallen asleep and was fitfully muttering things to invisible creatures. "Addie, if I'm awake, so are you!" He shook her gently, a groan leaving her lips. "You are not landing me with these lunatics at six a.m., Ad!" The distressed woman balled up her fist and properly sucker punched him in the side, eyes still closed, in a fierce command to leave her the hell alone.

Mary grinned, shaking her head at their frankly foolish behavior. Of course, she knew how to remedy Adelaide's case of bitter contempt for her friends. She padded softly next to Addie, leaned down to the level of her ears and whispered, "I made you chocolate crepes."

Addie raised her head; great, big doe eyes opened immediately to the world with an innocent expectation gleaming within. "With strawberries?"

The crepes were not worth it! "John! John, help!" The sound of Adelaide's cries echoed in the dark, damp basement. Her arms were tied behind her back, and a fraying wire set above three-dozen blazing hot pokers currently suspended her mid-air. Hot tears streamed down her face, and she sobbed in relief at hearing the doctor's footsteps closing the distance between them. The well-practiced adrenaline junkie that was John Watson had her down from the death trap in mere minutes, having finally found a clever use for the corkscrew in his Swiss Army knife that wasn't uncorking wine. With a gasp, Addie collapsed against him, trying desperately to catch the thin air that surrounded them inside her lungs so that she could breathe properly. She hadn't half-way succeeded before she was tugged along by the ash-haired deviant and forced once more to run faster than her legs allowed.

They were in a decrepit apartment building; the type that was left to rot long ago in hopes Mother Nature would do the city the favor of demolishing it. The group had been running inside it upwards of two hours. Addie had been tied for one and a half. She was still unaware how this Shadow Gang had even manage to pull her away from Sherlock and Mary when she was holding both their hands in sheer terror the whole time. She supposed it was the funhouse-type mirrors and false walls that allowed them move unseen and trick her mind into thinking she was completely safe. Now, however, she was holding onto John like it was her job and they were circling back into the main room where she had first been separated from her friends.

"Addie? John?" Mary called, holding a small torch in the center of the dimly lit room, trying to ignore the strobe lights and noises that pounded on and off every so often.

John grabbed hold of his wife and they sighed in unison. "I've got her! Where's Sherlock?"

There was a flash of panic on the young mother's face. "He went after you!"

"Fucking hell!" He cursed lowly. "Sherlock!" His voice bellowed far above the sound of creaking metal and howling screams.

The sound of glass breaking caused the three of them to start. One of the mirrors in the far left side of the room had been shattered to pieces and a flash in the lights revealed Sherlock being pushed against the jagged edges by two figures in hauntingly ghoulish bird skull masks. The detective kicked out, landing a blow on one of the figure's chest and momentarily knocking the wind out of him so that he could deal with the other with a sharp uppercut. Mary was beside him in seconds, the other two not even aware that she had left them. The lights flashed off: there were gunshots; the lights flashed on: there was nothing but Mary bent over Sherlock on the floor. Addie shrieked, breaking away from John and sprinting to the scene. The lights disoriented her a few times in their erratic flashing, but she was soon next to Sherlock, who seemed to have rolled over and gotten to his knees, coughing up blood like it was no one's business.

"Sherlock! What's wrong? Tell me!" Glass was digging into her hands from gripping the detective's coat, but she ignored the burning pain to tug him to his feet in one motion.

He spat blood on the floor. "I'm alright. Nothing life threatening." He coughed and leaned heavily on Addie. "For fuck's sake; Mary, shoot the lights out! They're giving me a headache." Three rounds were fired and the room was plunged into darkness, the only light source being Mary's torch. Addie pulled her thoroughly cracked mobile from her pocket and enabled the LED flashlight, making a little lighter in the area. Sherlock's preternatural eyes looked even eerier in the artificial glint of her mobile, but they still contained a world of worry as he, battered and bruised, surveyed her thoroughly. "You're hurt." It was more an affirmation than a question that Addie quickly brushed off as an odd bruise and cut. The man sighed, squeezing her shoulder in some non-verbal contract to lay off the worry about battle wounds for that instant and turned to the Watsons, "Let's get out of here before they decide to go for round two. I already texted Lestrade about who's responsible. "

They walked from the scene and made it, astoundingly fast, to civilization. The four sat on the soft, green grass of the Hampstead Heath, a picnic basket between them while they enjoyed the sounds of the birds, the hot sun on their skins and Addie's dark oaths as John plucked glass from her hands. "Ow! Ow! Motherfucking ow!"

John clucked his tongue and gave her a look. "If you stay still, it'll hurt less."

"If you stop talking, I won't break your bloody face, Johnny-boy!" Addie growled, far more aggressive than she had been in the last few months. Then again, she did tend to get snippy where there were guns, knives and the possibility of death involved. She thought it was a natural reaction. Her sociopathic –read, psychotic- companions, however, did not.

Mary laughed. "I don't know what you're so grumpy about, this was great fun!"

"Fu—What do you mean fun!? In the course of five hours, I've been shot at, kidnapped, held at gunpoint, held at knifepoint and tied over thirty odd jagged pieces of metal with faulty string. At what point was this declared fun!?"

"I thought it was Christmas!" Sherlock declared, whimpering lightly as Mary pulled the last suture through his right brow with nimble fingers.

"I need new friends—fuck, John!" She reclaimed her hand, glaring darkly at the doctor who had just poured antiseptic over her open wounds without warning.

"Give it back or you're getting no dessert!" He reasoned calmly, smirking the tiniest bit as she gave her hand back for him to wrap, not before sticking her tongue out at him. "And watch your mouth! You're cussing like a sailor today."

"Addie likes getting terribly dramatic when there's shooting in her general vicinity," Sherlock remarked casually, thinking about he was no longer allowed to shoot the walls when bored because it was a safety hazard.

"So's your face!" She spat back with a growl.

The detective rolled his eyes. "Aaand we've regressed a couple of years in our relationship."

"So's your face!"

"Why, thank you! I love hearing I look younger," he replied with cheek.

"So's your face!"

"That makes no sen—so's your face." "So's your face!" They said in unison, Sherlock rolling his eyes once more, much more petulantly than before, although there was a definite smile on his face. Stretching out his arms, painfully he might add, he reached out for Addie and brought her to sit between his legs, closing his arms around her and rubbing his cheeks against hers in that particular way he knew she hated. Green eyes glared at him with the intensity of a thousand suns before they softened at the sight of the blood, gore and collection of cuts he now sported on his otherwise flawless face (that is, if you're the type to call the small scar by the corner of his mouth by it's proper name—incredibly sexy). He crooked the index finger of his right hand and lifted her chin. "You alright?" She nodded, pouting and looking all around miserable to have been chased by bad guys –and getting caught—but relieved that he was still appeared to be in one piece.

"Why am I part of this, frankly, horrifying adventure?" Addie bit into a cucumber sandwich; ignoring the disapproving looks Mary was sending her way.

"To be honest, we didn't think it would be that dangerous. We thought it would be more puzzle than physical. You seem to like the puzzles just fine." The Watson woman replied, shrugging. Addie rolled her eyes.

"Of course you did." She chased her sandwich with a gulp of lemonade. "Please tell me there are no more cases."

"Well, yes and no." John answered, smirking slightly.

Addie's eyes widened, a sinking feeling settling in her stomach and the cucumber sandwich making a comeback. "John, I'm a good sport, but I rather space the opportunities to get shot at a little further than this."

"We're not going on a case, we're going on a case-themed pub crawl."

The younger woman turned to her lover. "Oh, Lord, I'm going to end up pulling you off random strangers, aren't I?" She groaned and had another sandwich.

"I'm offended!" Sherlock replied, appalled.

As fate would have it, there were currently five people trying to pull the illustrious Mr. Holmes off of a biker that was pretty much three times his size. Addie growled; the dispute killing the buzz she had worked so hard to obtain was quickly becoming nothing more than background noise to her all-too-responsible conscience. With no particular regard to the punches being exchanged by Sherlock and the biker she had learned was named Tiny, she placed herself between the two men, one hand on either one's chest and pushed them away. There was a noise of complaint from the detective and an unintelligible mumble from the biker, all which were ignored. "I don't bloody care what either of you think happened to the Loch Ness monster! If Nessie is dead, you two pummeling each other won't bring her back!"

The man in the denim and leather violently pushed her hand off of his chest and spat in her general direction. "What the bloody hell would a dumb, blond woman know about Nessie!?" He barked, his thick-fingered hands brushing against her shoulder and causing her to stumble back two or three steps.

"Oh! No, no, no, no, no, no!" Mary began to panic, trying to make her way through the crowd of people to get to Sherlock and Addie before the real bloodbath began. If only John had not taken that moment to visit the restroom, maybe she could have gotten through quicker. As soon as she heard her best friend utter a fierce battle cry, she hastened her pace and disregarded all forms of manners, shoving people left and right out of her way. At the spot where the crowd thinned out, she found a terrified, shell-shocked Sherlock, staring at Adelaide straddling the brawnier man and punching him after she completed a word from her chant.

"The Punch. Loch. Punch. Ness. Punch. Monster. Punch. Is. Punch. Not. Punch. Real—," Mary caught her fist just as she reared back to strike once more.

"Sweetheart, he's unconscious!" The nurse explained calmly, taking her bloodied hand and trying to tug her onto her feet so they could all get the hell out of there.

"Good! That'll aid his short-term to long-term memory conversion and he'll remember not to piss me off ever again!"

"What the hell? I was gone for three minutes!" John exclaimed, having just brushed past Sherlock and immediately stepped forward, wrapped his arms around Addie's waist and tugged her off of the fallen gentleman. She kicked and screamed and vowed to the other men trying to wake the injured man that she would be back to deal with him another time. "Come on, Sherlock! Before the police get called!"

The quartet made it to the door of 221B panting and more than a little worse for wear. John leaned against the door, staring at his wife, best friend and his fiancé sitting on the staircase leading to their flat, equally out of breath and not completely amused. "Well, that didn't go exactly as planned."

"Planning pub crawls is not as easy as it looks, is it?" Sherlock slurred with a goofy smile, his arm draped casually around Addie who was nursing her bleeding knuckles. "Have I told you how sexy you look when you fight?" He asked, placing a sloppy kiss on her cheek and wriggling his eyebrows suggestively. "The things I'd do to you. If I told you, would you hold it against me?" He laughed. "See what I did there? Because I want you against—do you get it?"

"Sherlock, we all got it. Let's go upstairs. I brought an emergency stash of alcohol." The doctor explained, trying to keep the mental pictures popping into his head from making him violently sick.

Mary laid out some food on the coffee table, four shot glasses, three bottles and a bag of ice for Addie's left hand. Addie quickly snatched a glass, poured herself a shot of scotch and swung it back like it was nothing. "Ooh, we should play a drinking game," she exclaimed, all foul mood from earlier forgotten and nothing more than a past nuisance in her mind. To aid her mood a little more a pleased Cassiopeia leapt onto her lap and curled up for a nap while Bart nuzzled his head against her leg and yipped playfully.

The doctor smirked, sensing the imminent danger in the idea, but glad there was still hope for the day. "Like what?"

"Like King's Cup!"

"We're already half-way drunk. We play King's cup and we'll be at St. Bart's for alcohol poisoning."

The woman rolled her eyes, twirling bits of her hair between her fingers in an unconscious manner. "How about never have I ever?"

"With us? We've done pretty much everything," Mary commented with a smile, stuffing a cracker into her mouth before further information could be extracted from her.

"Exactly. It wouldn't be a problem for me." She smirked evilly, sitting back on the sofa and crossing her legs at the knee, staring at her best friend with an air of challenge.

"Oh, you are on, girly!" The four sat on the floor, leaning onto the four separate edges of the table, taking turns declaring what they have never done and getting their friends to drink. Mary was, by far, the person who had taken the most shots at the moment. "Er," she slurred slightly, "Never have I ever… uhm… done background checks on Del's teachers." John and Sherlock shifted uncomfortably before tossing back a shot of tequila and grimacing at the sensation of their throats burning.

John coughed. "Never have I ever accidentally shot someone." With a groan Mary and Sherlock took a shot.

Addie laughed, still about seven shots behind everyone. "Never have I ever broke into someone's apartment to steal evidence." She giggled at the bitter look Sherlock gave his shot glass before tossing it back. His face contorted in disgust, and he looked ready to throw up.

"I don't want to do this anymore," Sherlock complained, leaning heavily against the sofa behind him, a permanent grimace on his face.

"Buck up! It's your turn!"

He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to find something that had not been said. "Never have I ever… I don't bloody know… assembled a bomb."

The four looked at each other from across the table, John and Mary shrugging, declaring it was not their style before staring at Addie, who seemed conflicted about something and was drumming her fingers against her shot glass in a nervous tick. She whimpered, shutting her eyes tightly before knocking the drink back. Everyone, including Bart who had raised his head to stare at her curiously, sat with their mouths open and a gasp caught in their throat. "It was for a physics project!"

"That's besides the point!" Mary replied, grinning madly and leaning on the table like a gossiping teenager, eager to hear the story behind the confession.

"It was a small thing. It was to prove how circuits, resistors and switches all came together to make the bomb and that if one of the parts were faulty it would not work as expected.

"Meaning you would end up as mince meat on the walls?" Sherlock asked, his head propped on his hand, his eyes wistfully appraising the woman at his left while a goofy grin tugged at the corners of his lips. He looked like a lovesick puppy, much to the disappointment of a certain hound dog, who seemed adamant to catch his attention so he could land a spot on his lap.

Addie fidgeted in her place, frowning at the way it was phrased, even when there was a very large chance that an inexperienced teenager might have wired something wrong and blown off a chunk of her body. "Yeah. Kind of…"

"That is horrendously hot." Addie's cheeks turned a deep shade of crimson at the words. Not because they in any way offended her or she was feeling shy about it, but because they came out of Mary Watson's mouth before she let out a long stream of giggles. "You should have seen your faces!" She managed through her raucous laughter. "Oh, I'm going to die!" She swallowed a large gulp of air before she continued. "Ok. Last round. Everyone drinks double!" With shaky hands, the assassin-turned-nurse poured two hefty shots each and distributed them around the table for the first statement. "Never have I ever seen Sherlock naked."

He watched as Addie and John (long story) both knocked their drink back and cursed at the burning sensation in their throats. "Do I have to drink if I've seen myself?" Sherlock asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Yes!" Mary retorted, forcefully. "Slut. I bet you shower naked, too." She broke into more giggles.

John refilled the shots and sat quietly as he pondered what else could be said. "Never have I ever… no, I've done that, too… er… oh, oh, learned a foreign language. A shot for every language you speak."

"Fuck!" Mary, Addie and Sherlock replied in unison, mentally apologizing to their livers before knocking down shots. Addie was the last to finish, and she realized that the small advantage she had gained at the beginning of the game was now gone. She held onto the table for dear life.

Sherlock sloshed tequila into their glasses and sighed. "Never have I ever had any intention of having a normal job."

"I hate all of you," Addie said as she and John took their shots. "Never have I ever…" she trailed off, slurring heavily, eyes clamped shut to try to stop the room from spinning around her. "Never have I ever… I'm going to be sick," she exclaimed, standing quickly from the floor (read, stumbling) and trying with all of her might to get to the washroom before she had repeat of lunch.

"See, I told you you'd lose," Mary called after her, a drunken grin splayed on her lips, folding into the body of her husband and taking handfuls of his jumper in her hands. "I don't feel so great, though."

"Oh, Sir Bartholomew. You and I have gone through so much," Sherlock said, nostalgically, patting the pup's head as he did so. "I mean, it's been you and me for a long time, but I can't help but feel that we've become different people."

"No, wake up. She'lock's tryin' to break up with Bart again," John giggled, prodding Mary in the side so that she may, too, enjoy the show.

"We've changed. I decided Addie wasn't icky and you decided to go and pick up a cat. Our paths have diverted," he explained, trying to soothe the dog's whining with soft belly rubs. "It's not that I don't love you anymore, Bart. I do. I only think of you, I swear."

"What's he on about?" Addie asked, dragging her sock-clad feet across the floor, visibly more sober than she was a mere five minutes ago. "Is he breaking up with Barty again?"

"Yeah. They've gone down different roads, it seems," John replied, although he was shushed shortly after by a teary Mary, who was looking on the scene as if it were the saddest love story in the Universe.

"I mean, what do you intend we do? Live like nothing has happened? I can't lie to you, Bartholomew!"

"One can only hope he'll be that sentimental if he ever breaks up with me," Addie remarked, sitting down on John's other side to enjoy the show.

The doctor rolled his eyes. "He won't."

Addie crumpled her forehead, confused. "Won't break up with me or won't be sentimental?" John was silent, although he was grinning mischievously.

"Yes, I know I've been close to Cassiopeia. I thought that was what you wanted!" The man boomed, causing the dog to bark at him, albeit playfully. "Don't mock me. I thought it would help me move on! If this is how it's going to be, maybe we shouldn't be together anymore!"

"Anymore? When did – you know what? I'm too drunk to care," Addie groaned, also leaning on John to use him as a pillow. She watched curiously as both beast and man stared at each other in a glare before they went off in different directions. Bart went to lay down on the kitchen floor, all fours open to catch the cool tile at its best, while Sherlock retired to the sofa, his legs pulled up to his chest, arms around his legs and the slightest hint of a quivering lip visible under the shadows cast by his mess of curls.

John stared at Addie for a few seconds before gesturing with his head towards Sherlock. The woman shook her head adamantly, sure that she did not want to get involved in the feud between the two; if you could even call it that. The man beside her insisted, and she refused, until the stronger doctor placed a hand behind her back and pushed her forward, the force alone propelling her to her knees. Reluctantly, she stood, brushing a few stray strands of hair that had flown free out of her face before dipping down onto the couch beside Sherlock.

"So… are you alright there, Lock?"

"Wouldn't you want to know?" He sneered, sniffling slightly before dipping his head back onto his knees.

"Well, nothing to do here, John. I'm going to get my dog."

The distraught man caught her arm just as she was about to get away from the sofa. "Wait, come here. Let's make him jealous. Pretend you love me!" Addie stared at him, deadpanned. "You know what I mean, just – come on, already."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm not making my dog jealous, Sherlock. That's ridiculous."

"Why does everyone hate me today?" He exclaimed, resuming his position and sniffling just the slightest bit.

"I'm murdering you two for this, you know," Addie whispered at the entertained couple across from them and turned back towards the man currently in shambles. "Sweetheart, no one hates you."

"Of course they do! First, I got shot at and I got glass everywhere and I had to get stitches and now Bart is mad at me because I've betrayed him!" He hiccupped like a small child and pouted severely. Addie rubbed his back and rolled her eyes.

"Lock, Bart's attention span isn't long enough for him to hate you. He probably just got bored of waiting for a treat. Or of your screeching."

Massive blue eyes lit up at the mention. "Really?"

"Bart, here boy." The hound came bounding over immediately and sat with rapt attention on his two humans. "I hate to break it to both of you, but, Bart, you're a dog. I love you, you're my best friend and you're the best, but please show Sherlock you are not capable of holding grudges just because he thinks I'm not, quote, icky anymore." The hound licked the detective's face eagerly and all was well. What transpired next was mostly a blur for the quartet.

With the morning light Sherlock Holmes groaned, wondering why the shades weren't closed as they usually were in his bedroom, and turned over, only to fall flat onto the floor. With a muttered curse, he pushed himself off the floor, realizing he was in the living room. John and Mary had fallen asleep on the kitchen table, as it were, after deciding to attempt to build a fort atop it and Addie was awake, in John's old armchair, sipping on some tea while she watched the others in the post-drunken mess.

"What -," the man found his voice hoarse and he had to painfully clear his throat before continuing. "What happened?"

"Before or after your lover's spat with Bart?" She giggled, excited.

"Don't give me cheek! After."

"We all had a dance, you did so on the coffee table, you and John decided to show Mary and I your Pinterest board because, at that point, you were so royally sloshed you no longer cared. You sang, rather loudly and out of tune, decided you wanted to be naked and eat chocolate, so you did, and then you sort of fell asleep." The man looked down, groaning before walking to the side of the room to retrieve his trousers, at the very least, and tugged them on.

"And them?"

"After they saw you parade naked, Mary decided she wanted to more cucumber sandwiches –trying not to read into that- so she ate those; John decided he was too drunk to attempt to explain anything that was happening in his head, and then they made a fort… sort of. It was imaginary. They need to get out more."

Sherlock decided it was not worth it, trying to make sense of the situation. "Right." He pointed towards her mug. "May I have a sip?" She scooted to the very edge of the cushion and patted beside her, inviting him to sit. Once he did, she draped her legs over his and smiled, offering her mug. "Much obliged." He sipped greedily, sighing into the mug with relief as the liquid burned down his throat in a not-at-all unpleasant way. "Where's Bart?"

"In the bedroom. You kept trying to prove yourself to him. He wasn't comfortable."

He laughed. "You must think I'm a ponce."

She shrugged. "Yeah, but what are you going to do?" Her fingers carded gently through his curls, untangling the bird's nest formed by having slept on the couch.

The detective groaned appreciatively, his eyes falling shut and his free hand tracing lazy circles on her bare thighs. "I, for the record, do not love the dog more than you."

Addie tilted her head. "Why not? I definitely love him more than you."

"Oh, thank God, because I definitely do, too." He kissed her temple. "He hand-delivered you to me."

"That's incredibly corny, Sherlock," Addie remarked, although she followed the remark by pecking his cheek and stroking his cheek affectionately.

John stomped into the living room with Mary in tow, curling his lip at the lovey couple on his armchair. "Ugh, fetch me a bucket so I can throw up. You two are sometimes so… blech." John commented, taking a deep breath and attempting to regain what little composure he had left, even with his jumper askew and his trousers not at all made up as they should.

"What's up with you, grumpy gills? Am I being loud?" Addie asked a decibel louder than it was proper, the three others stared at her.

"I will shoot you, Addie," Mary groaned, holding her head as if it might fall off.

"You won't. And if you do, you won't get your dream of seeing me damned for eternity to an egotistical, brash, rude sociopath."

"Oh, you'll make me blush," Sherlock mumbled, sarcasm dripping from his every word.

"I can shoot you in the arm," Mary replied, simply.

"Oh, right…"

"At least Sherlock is wearing something now. I don't understand your disdain for clothing, honestly," the doctor commented, rubbing his palms over his face to wipe away the sleep. "It made the dancing all the more horrifying."

"Aw, but he has the cutest mole right on the left side of his little ar—"

"Mary!"

"He does! It's so cute! I want to pinch it."

"Oi, no one pinches that arse but John!" Addie defended, causing both men to glare at her with unamused faces. She sighed, looking wistfully at the ceiling. "I miss the days of your questioned sexuality."

"I don't think they're over, if you ask me," Mrs. Watson replied while Addie giggled, causing John to make a face at the noise.

"And that's our cue to leave. Mary, let's go home."

Addie blew them a kiss. "Thanks for the day, yesterday. It was a lot of fun, shooting excluded. Give Del a big kiss for me. Call when you get home." There was mumbled assent as the couple exited the flat and made their escape. Sherlock tipped his head back, draining the remainder of English Breakfast from the mug and smacking his lips. "You drank my tea!" She gave his shoulder a shove, peering sadly into the empty vessel with a sigh.

"You know better than to let me have some." He grinned sagely. With a roll of her eyes, she gave up her initial idea of arguing and instead settled back in her seat and leaned her head against his shoulder, the sounds of the morning lulling her into an awkward trance state. Sherlock sighed, content, all the while his fingers tickled the nape of her neck, slowly tangling with the curls spilling down her back every now and then coming in contact with the metal chain her ring was kept on. He traced the band where it rested against her collarbone before his fingers dragged themselves back to her scalp, running in soft circles, much to the other's pleasure. Addie peeked through her half-lidded eyes, watching her companion mentally arrange data and worry himself with insignificant facts. He did, however, wear a dazed, reflexive smile on his face as he thought, piquing the interest of the small blond sharing his chair. He let out a small chuckle, as if he had remembered a joke from long ago.

"What?"

Snapping from his trance, he inhaled deeply and smiled, shaking his head, dismissively. "Nothing. Daft thought."

"Daft thought? You?"

"My thoughts are not all stellar, you know," he commented with a furrowed brow, but his smirk tugging at his face, nonetheless.

Intrigued, she leveled her eyes, green on blue and raised a smirk of her own. "Tell me."

He hesitated a moment before a low chuckle escaped his lips. "Adelaide Holmes." It took more time than necessary for Addie to finally understand where the discrepancy in his words lied.

"Well, when you're right, you're right. That is daft." She laughed, thinking how odd it would be and how it seemed that that title becoming official was very far in the future. She was about to open her mouth to deliver a witty repartee, when the door opened and a hunched figure stomped into the room with a sigh.

"Myc, what's goin—are those sweatpants?"

TBC