Calvin opened her eyes and squinted against the panel of light peeking through the unfamiliar curtains across from the bed. It was hitting her straight in the face. She groaned, instantly developing a headache, and rolled to the other side.
In doing so, however, she spotted a tall figure standing at the other side of the room. It was Sherlock.
"Why are you in here?" she asked sleepily, sitting up and pushing back her mussed hair from her face. He raised an eyebrow at her.
"This is my room." he said.
Calvin smiled as she began waking up more. "I understand that. But why are you in here now?" she clarified.
"One can learn a lot about a person by watching them sleep."
"You were watching me sleep?"
"Yes."
Calvin cocked her head, amused. "Why?" she asked, throwing the covers back and standing up to stretch. She heard the kettle whistling in the other room and knew that John was awake.
Sherlock snorted in irritation. "One can learn a lot about a person by watching them sleep." he repeated, following her as she walked out of the room and greeted John with a 'good morning'.
"You know it is somewhat frowned upon in society to watch a person sleep, right?" she asked, accepting the cup of tea that John held out to her. She smiled at John and sat cross-legged on the couch. "This isn't Twilight, you know."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her. "It was entirely for research, I assure you."
"Ah. That makes me feel so much better." Calvin teased, sipping at her coffee. "I suppose you hoped to find the secret behind my name whilst I was unconscious?"
Sherlock didn't say anything.
Calvin chuckled. "Anything to report, detective?"
"You twitch frequently while you sleep and you wake up at least three times an hour. You're a nervous sleeper."
John scoffed. "Maybe that has something to do with her sleeping in a new place?" he suggested. "And were you really watching her sleep? You understand how weird that is."
Sherlock ignored John's secondary commentary. "I notice that she goes to bed around five or six in the morning when staying in her own flat, staying up all night. She only sleeps when it is impossible for her body to stay awake." he answered.
Calvin smiled, setting her tea cup on the table. "That is true. But remember, Sherlock, I've only been living there for a few weeks. It is still rather new to me. Perhaps I still haven't settled in properly." she told him.
She stood up, rolling her shoulders before wincing. She had momentarily forgotten about her injury. Her hand flew to her wound and John stared at her, making sure that she was okay.
"And I've recently had my life threatened, being injured in the process. Your data from last night cannot be taken into account because of the added variables. Thank you for playing." Calvin smirked, arching her back to stretch out as she headed for the door. Sherlock blinked and glared at her back.
"Now if you'll excuse me, boys, I have a job to get ready for." Calvin smiled, waved and trotted down the stairs to get ready for work.
Sherlock rolled his eyes and glanced at John irritably. "Well, come on, for god's sake! We have to get to the Yard." he snapped, striding out the door, slamming it behind him before John had even moved.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
Coming home from work, Calvin was alone. John and Sherlock were out solving the case and Mrs. Hudson was shopping. The complex was eerily quiet and Calvin's shoulder twitched, reminding her what happened last time she was alone in her flat. Of course, the boys had been upstairs then. Now, she was all alone.
It was a strange feeling for Calvin. She'd lived with four other people for most of her adult life, and with six other people when she'd been living with her biological parents. She wasn't accustomed to being alone. She didn't like it.
Calvin's body shook slightly, anxiety taking over, as she unlocked her door and stepped inside. It was the same as she remembered, except now she spotted the blood stains on her floor. She wasn't sure if it was the attacker's or her own staining the wood.
She decided to ignore it. Her eyes shifted around the apartment, turning on every light and checking every closet. She threw back her shower curtain and checked under her bed. There was no one in her flat.
Calvin sighed and turned on the TV, the background noise making it easier for her to calm down. She rubbed her shoulder nervously, remembering the pain of being shot.
Pulling out her pastels, she decided to start on a new canvas. She threw her dark hair up into a messy bun, wrapping her smock around her after she changed into painting clothes. At first, her strokes were messy, as her hand was shaking violently, but her anxiety soon melted into the background as her mind forgot her fear and started to focus only on the colors.
That's the reason she painted. Calvin had an anxiety disorder. Her mind was riddled with fear of possible outcomes and impossible situations that her mind concocted in the dark of the night.
She was embarrassed by her weakness, as it was exploited by her family when she was younger. As a young child, her parents, who were renowned psychiatrists, considered her weak for her jumpy tendencies and nervous habits.
In response to this, she created a cool exterior filled with teasing and evasion, to please her parents and make herself seem... normal. Or at least, make herself seem to fit the definition of normal that her parents and siblings had been comparing her to. So Calvin decided to hide herself, hide her disorders, and create a cool, collected, and slightly snarky version of herself in order to hide the scared little child inside of her from the rest of the world. Just as her parents and four siblings judged her harshly for her mental disorders, she so fears the world will, as well. Seeing nothing but distain for her disorders, she is terrified that if the world saw that scared little child, that she would be shamed like she was as a young child. Which was why she took no medication and sought no professional help; fear of exposure.
What had started as a childhood anxiety disorder had festered and transformed with her shame and as she hid it away, ignoring her need for the help that her parents would not supply. Calvin now had a general anxiety disorder, a panic disorder, and a slight separation anxiety disorder when it came to being alone. She had now had three disorders to mask, instead of just her childhood anxiety.
If she were an actress, she'd have a BAFTA.
This whole ordeal was why she moved to Baker Street, she felt -
BANG. The front door slammed and feet pounded up the stairs suddenly, snapping Calvin out of her thoughts. She jumped four feet into the air and felt her lungs constrict with the makings of a panic attack in progress. Her body trembled and shook as Calvin fought against it, willing herself to calm down as she dropped onto her knees painfully.
Nausea hit her like a train, and Calvin was now on her hands and knees. She breathed as steadily as she could, rocking back onto her heels and wrapping her arms around herself.
There she stayed for a long while. This attack was not her usual ones that she was able to control in a matter of minutes. The amount of stress that had been put on her over the last few days, all dealt with without incident, was crushing her from all sides. When she could finally stand from the dizziness, she collapsed on the couch, head in hands. No one could see her like this. No one.
OoOoOoOoOo
Calvin, though still exhausted, could not sleep. It was late evening when she decided to start painting again, to finalize her calming down. She had to have her mask back in place before she was to see Sherlock or John again. Namely, Sherlock.
Sure, she enjoyed playing little games with him. It was fun, and kept the edge off, but she knew one day he would figure her whole life out. She would be an open book to him, and she would leave. Calvin regarded herself as just clever enough to keep him at bay, but not even close to being clever enough to keep him in the dark forever. Or even keep him interested forever.
Calvin shook those thoughts from her mind, taking on a calmer persona as she painted, glancing at the TV every so often to chuckle at the American television show that was on.
Gunshots went off in 221B, but it wasn't as shocking as it should have been. Calvin had successfully calmed herself down to the point of shutting down her anxiety for the time being, as she usually did in public and especially around Sherlock. Her heartrate increased, but there was no tell-tale signs of her chest constricting that signaled another panic attack or the like.
She smirked up at the ceiling, amused by John's voice yelling, "What the hell are you doing?" and Sherlock's replying, "Bored!" It was very similar to the first few days she had lived at 221C. Setting her paintbrush down, she took out her hair and headed up to the flat above her.
"You know, with the amount of time I spend up here, I should just live with you two." she commented with a grin as she found Sherlock on the couch and John standing by his desk, setting the gun down, away from the detective.
"Oh please." Sherlock scoffed, obviously in a very bad mood at the moment. Calvin cocked her head.
"How is he bored, John? You still have a case, don't you?" Calvin continued, stepping further into the flat. John shook his head.
"No, we caught the bastard earlier today. That's why we didn't come check on you earlier, sorry..." John said apologetically, and Calvin shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Anything to eat, I'm starved." He asked Sherlock, heading into the kitchen and opening the fridge before closing it with a quiet, 'Oh god.'
He reopened it and Calvin craned her neck to see, and spotted a severed head sitting in the fridge. She glanced at Sherlock in amusement, then back at John.
"Is that a head?" John called from the fridge.
"Just tea for me, thanks." Sherlock responded, his tone bored as ever.
"There's a head in the fridge."
"Ye-es."
"A bloody head!" John growled, striding back into the living room, exasperated.
"Where else was I supposed to put it?"
"As if it's normal to have a head in the first place..." Calvin commented, and John nodded vigorously, holding his hand to where Calvin was leaned against the wall.
"Exactly!" he exclaimed.
"Got it from Bart's morgue. I'm measuring the coagulation of saliva after death... I see you've written up the taxi driver case."
"Yea-..., uh, yes."
"A Study in Pink... nice." Calvin smiled, glancing at John. She had already read his write-up of the case and found it fascinating.
"Well, you know, pink lady, pink case, pink phone. There was a lot of pink." John said, defneding the title. He cleared his throat. "Did you like it?"
Sherlock had opened a pamphlet and was reading it. "Umm, no." he answered distainfully and Calvin turned to look at him.
"Why not? I thought you'd be flattered." John told him, slightly confused.
"Flattered?" Sherlock scoffed. "'Sherlock sees through everything and everyone in seconds, what's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things.'?" he recited accusingly. Calvin stifled a laugh and his green-blue eyes were on her immediately.
"Shut up." he snarled, and Calvin merely smirked at him in response.
"Now, hang on, I didn't mean-"
"Oh, you meant spectacularly ignorant in a nice way..." Sherlock interrupted, irritated. "Look. It doesn't matter to me who's... Prime Minister or who's sleeping with who..."
"Or that the Earth goes around the Sun..." John added, and Calvin once again had to stifle her laughter. This time, Sherlock ignored her.
"Oh not that again. It's not important!" Sherlock exclaimed,
"Not important. It's primary school stuff. How can you not know that?" John responded, incredulous.
"Well if I ever did, I deleted it."
"Deleted it?"
Sherlock inhaled sharply and sat up. "Listen. This is my hard drive and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful. Really useful." he told John. "Ordinary people fill there heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get to the good stuff. Do you see?"
"Yes." Calvin answered, and when Sherlock looked at her, he seemed to appreciate her imput a tiny bit for once.
"But it's the solar system." John exclaimed, still not convinced. Sherlock groaned and put his face into his hands.
"How? What does that matter? So what if we go around the Sun or we go around the moon... or 'round and round the garden like a teddy bear'? It wouldn't make any difference." Sherlock growled at John, irritated beyond belief at his inability to understand. Calvin thought it was fascinating.
"All that matters to me is the work. Without that, my brain rots." Sherlock continued, and snapped his head up. "Put that in your blog. Or, better yet, stop inflicting your opinions on the world." With that, he collapsed back on the couch and turned away from both John and Calvin.
John sat for a moment, then got up and went for his coat.
Sherlock looked up. "Where are you going?"
"Out." John answered, this time he was the one irritated with the other. "I need some air."
Calvin glanced after him, and then back at Sherlock. Mrs. Hudson's voice sounded from the stairs, and she knocked before entering.
"Oh, so you two had a little 'domestic'?" Mrs. Hudson asked, walking in. "Oh, hello, dear. How are you this evening?" she asked when she spotted Calvin. Sherlock had gotten up and stepped over the table to look out the window.
"Just babysitting the boys." Calvin joked, and Mrs. Hudson chuckled as she made her way into the kitchen. Calvin pushed off from the wall and joined Sherlock watching John walk down the street. He didn't seem to notice her.
"It's a bit nippy out there. He should have wrapped himself up more." Mrs. Hudson commented, placing a bag on the counter in the kitchen.
"Look at that, Mrs. Hudson. Quiet. Calm. Peaceful." he sighed. "Isn't it hateful?"
"Oh, I'm sure something new will turn up soon, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson told him. "A nice murder! That'll cheer you up!" She walked across the living room.
"Can't come too soon."
"Hey! What've you done to my bloody wall?" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed, noticing all of the bullet holes there. Sherlock smiled slightly and turned to look.
"I'm putting this on your rent, young man!" she declared, heading down the stairs. Sherlock sighed, and it was quiet for a moment before he suddenly seemed to notice Calvin standing next to him.
"What are you still doing here, then?" Sherlock demanded, glancing at Calvin. She turned to smile at him.
"Would you like me to leave?" she asked with a sly smile. "Don't want any alone time with me, then?" Her voice was mockingly sultry and Sherlock was about to answer her snide remark with one of his own when an explosion sounded through the windows and they were both thrown to the floor.
OoOoOoOoOo
I hate writing off of script more than you hate reading it, I assure you. I didn't want to fuck with it too much, so Calvin was basically jsut observing Sherlock through it, but yeah it was pretty boring when I got away from Calvin's mental issues and into script. I apologize. For that reason, much of the scripted dialogue will not be written out and Calvin will be absent from established scenes.
So yeah this marks the start of The Great Game and A Study in Balgravia! Irene Adler and Moriarty to write. Fabulous I am SO EXCITED.
So what did you think of the side of Calvin that was revealed? She's actually an extremely vulnerable person, but she hides that half of herself. You know why she's evasive with Sherlock but you still don't know why she calls herself Calvin. And though I want to give my readers a more in-depth view of Calvin, while John and Sherlock are kept in the dark, you will not find out why she calls herself Calvin until Sherlock does. Sorry not sorry!
Ohkay god my hands hurt I'm sorry this is so late!
Dramatic irony, thank ya'll! 50 points to everyone!
Okay so thank you ALL who reads, reviews, and favorites. I adore all of you! Thanks so much!
Jess