I spied John fiddling with his phone and couldn't stop myself from fidgeting. I looked away as John glanced surreptitiously over at me and away again. There was an air of awkwardness between us and I fidgeted again.

"You have concerns."

I hesitated.

John laughed mockingly and watched the scenery pass outside the window. "You're not very talkative for a journalist, especially an international one."

My head whipped 'round to search his face. "So you have heard of me?" I said with an edge in my voice. He'd recognized my name before, that's how he'd known about me. John huffed and made a noise clearly meant to be reproachful.

"Please. Your whole attitude screams it; you're like an open book to me, Holmes. I'm a genius, after all." John's tone was self-deprecating and I found that interesting. I was usually more down on myself than anyone I knew; it made a change to hear someone else doing it. I cleared my throat and went on.

"How do you know who I am?" I asked outright, flatly. I openly stared at the side of his face as his eyes moved from his phone to the scenery. I realized now his blank look to mean that he wasn't actually seeing what was passing in the window; he must be thinking of something else. John "hmm"ed and didn't reply at first. He only spoke after two minutes of silence besides the rumbling of the car.

"There are things you don't want me to say. I've learned to never answer anyone's questions but my own. We're almost there." John put his phone away and didn't speak for the rest of the journey. I refused to look at him again, annoyed by his reticence.

.O.O.

A woman lay dead on the floor of an otherwise empty and dirty room.

"What am I doing here?"

"Helping me with this case," came the bored reply.

My eyes narrowed at him and I said factually, "I'm supposed to be helping you with the rent—only."

John turned and looked me up and down very quickly. He stepped closer and lowered his voice so that none of forensics could overhear. There was a knowing sort of happy lilt to his voice that grated on me a little. "We both know you find this interesting. We both know you can't pay any rent. We also both know that you're acclimatized to violence and the unhappier side of things—so you tell me what you'd rather be doing right now." He grinned at me as if he had picked out my desires and laid them before me. Whatever way he claimed his skill for deduction or mind games, it sent a shiver down my back. Very few people were I close to and fewer than that knew such things about me. Our only mutual contact, Stamford, knew very little about me really, so where did he get it? Who was his source?

John looked disappointed then. He'd been studying my face eagerly but that changed. "Journalist. Always the worst. Always." John turned away in mild disgust, and I felt compelled to remind him again, when I didn't have the voice for anything else, that I most certainly wasn't a journalist anymore, so that rule didn't apply—whatever messed-up conclusion he'd come to about me. "A rule is a rule for a reason; it never lies."

"Did you just make that up? You're just having a go at me now, aren't you?" I glared at him and turned away to leave the room. I got out the doorway to the room and whispered, "Sick bastard." I whipped around at him to tell him off and was surprised to see that he was right behind me, expression stony. I spat, "You're just a know-it-all prick who likes to mess with people's minds. Good luck with that—I don't want any part of it. Let me know if you ever give up the act and want to join us humans again. Y'know, of 'normal non-intelligence.'"

John's face got darker and his tone held malice next. He bit out, "You have an intermittent tremor in your right hand. You don't acknowledge it.. but you don't seem surprised by my mentioning it, ergo you knew about it which means that you're letting it continue. Trauma. Family-related? Otherwise, why would you go gallivanting to other countries where people don't speak your native tongue?" John stepped forward and I stepped back, my eye fixed on his in quiet amazement and not a little fear. "You have family, but you stay away from them. You don't seem withdrawn enough to be an orphan, nor sad enough to be completely on your own… Who is it? Aunt? Sister? Cousin? Too-friendly or overly-strict prep school teacher?" John looked fascinated but my muscles were locked. I couldn't look him in the eye, I was so furious with him, whoever this man presumed to be. He was right.

I managed to get out, "None of your—" in a breathy sort of try at a retort, but John went on. I could have punched him, but I'd had far worse taunts before and from more intimidating, drunk men. One man. My older brother could never accept that he wasn't exceptional, merely ordinary. "Decent" didn't fall under that aspiration to be more than normal.

John advanced again but I was right by a wall and had nowhere to go. The scene was strikingly familiar to the one I'd been in only weeks before. Back then, I had cowered, but this time I was too surprised and bombarded to even flinch.

"You're lazy, a coward, disrespectful, too thin," I did flinch then, "and don't live up to the name of Holmes." John stared at me intently as if he were waiting for something. He must have found it in my eyes because his expression changed. His voice was quiet then and sounded regretful. His expression was sympathetic suddenly. He took a step back and looked away down the quiet hall of the upper level of the house. Everyone else was setting up downstairs and we were alone. "Only a family member could do that kind of damage. I can read it in your face, your body language, the way you talk, your responses, even the way you dress, Sherlock. You literally have no reason to let that git get to you. Trust me. Just because.. he?.. is older, it doesn't make him right. He's bored, and he takes it out on you. You ought to be proud of yourse—"

I hit him with my right fist and then I ran. I didn't have another tremor until the time I used the wrong shampoo.