Calvin was found asleep on Sherlock and John's couch when they got home. She woke up and tackled Sherlock, immediately starting to ravish him whilst John looked on with horror in his eyes. He admired her bold move, though, and started to remove his coat to join in.
(AHEM)
Calvin was found asleep on Sherlock and John's couch when they got home. Sherlock sighed irritably, throwing his coat over the top of the couch and striding into the kitchen. Calvin did not stir.
"What is she doing here." Sherlock muttered, setting up his microscope in the kitchen. John rolled his eyes.
"I texted her after she left and told her to stay." he explained.
"She's no safer in here than she would be downstairs." Sherlock reminded him.
"This flat hasn't been broken into by a psychopath, though it may be inhabited by one." John growled angrily, opening his laptop and beginning to type something.
"Sociopath, John, sociopath." Sherlock drawled, putting a slide into the microscope and staring through it. "Besides, this flat's been half blown up. Not very good 'mojo' here, either."
John sighed, typing more furiously. "I'm going to take a shower." he announced, closing his computer forcibly and heading out the room. He was grateful, however, that Sherlock neither woke Calvin up or insisted that she leave. Sherlock soon heard the shower going, as did Calvin.
She blinked sleepily, her heart skipping a beat before remembering where she was. John had been right: she felt much more safe in the boys' flat rather that her own. Right now, she felt watched whenever she entered her apartment.
She sat up sleepily, rubbing her eyes and yawning just slightly. She rose, heading into the lit kitchen to find Sherlock working.
"Find anything?" she asked, tone very unguarded due to her sleepiness. He didn't even glance up to answer.
"Not yet." he responded, changing the slide in his microscope and adjusting the intensity. "Leave me alone, I'm working." Calvin smiled, not effected at all by his rudeness, and turned to exit the room.
"Wait." he said, and she turned expectantly.
"Get my phone." he told her.
"Where is it?"
"Pocket."
Calvin stared at him silently for a moment, glancing from his hand to his pocket a few times before complying. She slipped her hand into one of them to find no phone, hand grazing his thigh.
"Other pocket." Sherlock ground out, and Calvin chuckled at his tone.
"Calm down, you didn't specify." she said, voice full of amusement. She slipped her hand into her other pocket, retracting it with his phone and placing it in his outstretch palm. He glanced at it, pressing a few buttons before setting it on the table.
He glanced up at her. "Why are you still here." he demanded, and she laughed again, sauntering away.
"I sincerely apologize for my existence." she called to him, he only 'hmm'ing in response, as she returned to the couch and flopped back down. She had a book on the armrest that she retrieved and began to read.
John walked back into the room with wet hair but in the same clothes he had gone in with. He was expecting to be dragged back out with Sherlock later that night, but he had desperately needed a shower.
"What are you reading?" he asked, noticing Calvin was awake. She glanced over at him with a smile.
"Harry Potter." she answered.
"A kids' book?" he questioned, finding it a bit odd. She shrugged.
"I don't believe in books specifically for children or adults. If a book speaks to you, it is for you." she replied, eyes flying over the page as she spoke. "Besides, I like fantasy. Makes me forget about reality for a while." John had no idea how much that meant to Calvin, to forget reality for a while.
"Only imbeciles seek to distance themselves from reality." Sherlock told her, entering the room to retrieve something from the pocket of his coat, which was still slung over the back of the couch. She stared up at him, face curiously blank.
"And by imbeciles you mean people who differ from you." Calvin answered, and though Sherlock neither agreed nor disagreed, it was obvious that she was correct.
"And you so wish for everyone to be more like you, then?"
"It would lead to a much less idiotic world, yes." Sherlock answered in a drawl that would set any normal person to become angry. Calvin, however, was completely calm.
"It's curious, Mr. Holmes, you say that you'd want the world to become more like you, but we both know that's not true." Calvin told him, closing her book with a bookmark sticking out the top. "If the world was like you, than you'd no longer be extraordinary. And being ordinary wouldn't suit you very well, Mr. Holmes, because you crave - you need - the attention you receive for being amazing and clever."
"Oh how quaint, a deduction from the psychology major." Sherlock said with a mocking smile. "Anything else, or can I continue to be clever and save this woman's life."
Calvin smirked at him. "No, nothing else. Unless you're clever enough to have figured out my namesake. No? A shame, surely." she continued, reopening her book and closing the conversation. Her voice was mild and merely amused but her words had a sharp undertone that set Sherlock on edge. He left the room and sat back at his microscope.
"'If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.'" Calvin called to Sherlock, who did not answer. She was quoting Sirius Black from the Harry Potter movies. The room was silent for a moment before John spoke up.
"Uh, don't insult J.K. Rowling, then. Right." John noted and Calvin laughed, her usual persona returning, sharp undertone gone.
"I've met her, actually. Lovely woman." Calvin told him. "Told me to call her for tea anytime. Some people do like me, imagine." She glanced meaningfully in the general direction of Sherlock and John chuckled. He got up to check on Sherlock. He returned with a sigh, and headed for his bedroom.
When he came back, he told Calvin that he was off to speak with Mycroft for Sherlock and would be back later. She waved, nose buried in Philosopher's Stone.
The flat was completely silent. Neither Calvin nor Sherlock were inclined to speak to one another, both harboring some form of irritation towards the other. Calvin wasn't put off by the fact that Sherlock had called her an idiot. She supposed that she was one in comparison to him, but the fact that he insulted her favorite book series irked her.
The Harry Potter series, among saving countless young lives with messages of hope and friendship and love, had helped to save Calvin's.
'Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.' Calvin thought to herself, smiling softly at the memory of first hearing those words. So what if people thought her childish or, in Sherlock's case, idiotic? Harry Potter had helped her in a way that adults barely ever understood, claiming that because it was fiction meant that it wasn't real. It was real in the hearts and minds of every child who read or watched Harry Potter. The friendships, the love, and the hatred all resonated and taught people a lesson.
They weren't 'just books'. They were home. A much better home than Calvin had ever known.
Early July, 1997. Sitting in her bed, cool gaze reading the book she had just picked up from the book store as a treat for graduating high school. Skipping two grades as a child, Diana was only sixteen during her final year in secondary school and would be going to college as a sixteen year old, turning seventeen in April.
Though, skipping only two grades in her family was not as impressive as her older brother, who skipped three. The trials of being in a family of geniuses.
"Diana, what are you reading?" her mother's voice sighed in that condescending way that she used with all of her children, but most often with Diana. The young girl looked up, skillfully hiding her anxiety of being found reading a fantasy novel.
"A book." she answered dully, trying to bore her mother into leaving her alone. No dice, Mrs. Heidi Baker clicked up to her daughter, wearing full heels in their posh home as a way of intimidating her children with every. punctuated. step, and grabbed the book. Calvin did not protest, but fear flashed through her eyes as her mother lost her page and read the title.
"And how is this supposed to get you into college, Diana? Hm?" Mrs. Baker demanded. "Will this - this Harry Potter somehow help you pass your classes? You will need all the help you can get."
"Mother, please, you've lost my page." she protested, reaching for the book to have it pulled out of her grasp. Her mother slapped her hand with stinging nails, adjusting her glasses after she'd done so.
"Do something useful with your time, Diana. I cannot imagine what your father would say." she sighed in that disappointed way that made even the most powerful man feel inadequate. Diana shrunk back and her mother's sharp, analytical stare that could only belong to a hardest psychiatrist, caught the change. "Do not tell me you're having those... those anxiety problems again. Please, Diana, I thought you had grown out of that phase."
Diana straightened up, eyes hardening and expression becoming blank. "I want my book." she said in the voice that was completely void of any emotion that would betray her quavering insides. Her mother seemed satisfied that Diana's disorders were not present, and handed the book back.
"Fine. But if you think your father and I are paying for your education when you are rotting your mind on fantasy novels, you will be sorely disappointed." She turned to leave the room, heels clicking and echoing as she went. Diana flinched after every 'click' as her mother's back was turned.
"You're not paying for my education, remember? Full scholarship." Diana muttered, flipping through her book to find the page. Her mother turned back, blue eyes so much like Calvin's but lacking the humor that usually was held in her daughter's, stared, narrowed, at her daughter.
"It is not like you will be able to keep that scholarship for long." she dismissed and left the room with that hanging in the air and suffocating Diana. She felt a lone tear escape her eye and drop onto Harry's name on the page. She quickly wiped her traitorous eye and settled back against her pillows. Never good enough. Never ever good enough.
Calvin was awoken by a shaking of her arm. She looked up and saw John staring down at her with concern. She saw the stain of tears on the pillow her head had been resting on and immediately wiped her face. It had been a vivid flashback dream.
"Are you okay? You were muttering and, uh, crying in your sleep." John told her, and she sent the brightest, most blinding smile up at him.
"Of course, just a really scary dream." she said, as if it were no big deal.
"Well it was only in your head, it's not real. You're safe here." John assured her, presuming that the dream had had something to do with the frightening events that had transpired over the last few days. Calvin smiled, nodding and agreeing.
"'But why on earth should that mean that is is not real.'" Calvin whispered to herself as soon as John was out of earshot. She was quoting Harry Potter again, but with a much more dark meaning to it. She was unable to sleep for the rest of the night.
OoOoOoOo
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter related, the quotes aren't mine they're the lovely JK Rowling's, and for that matter I own nothing Sherlock related, either, just Calvin. Don't steal Calvin or her backstory or her personality or my story elements or I will be so fucking pissed.
Sorry this is so HP-centric. I love Harry Potter, I expect that you like HP as well because in my whole life I have met only ONE PERSON who does not, and so yay. This chapter turned out strangely heart warming, like when Calvin reflected on how HP touches lives. Fiction really does, guys, and it's beautiful.
YAY CALVIN FLASHBACK TO DIANA. I wrote 'Calvin' like 3524763 times in that because yeah. Did you all like the little insight to her life? I mean you know some about college and after and obviously all about her at Baker Street, but I haven't spoken much about her parents or childhood, besides that her parents died.
(Did you also like my little joke at the beginning of this chapter? Twas in response to WL Chastain's review, and I think myself to be somewhat funny sometimes.)
Let's do a little response:
KittyNyan2012: You make me happy, dahling. You flatter me, too. Actually everyone who reviews me flatters me. And god I hate not having Wi-Fi. I literally cannot survive without le internets for too long. But you're a sweetheart and I appreciate you as a person.
Emma: Gah. I love you too. And it looks like I'm staying up hella late again because I am not tired. And Calvin's mah beybey back off. (No we can share. I share her will all ya'lls.)
WL Chastain: Hi again. I just read your profile because reasons and you are my spirit animal let's be friends. I agree with EVERYTHING ON THERE. I hope you enjoyed the little blurb at the beginning cause that's dedicated to you. I had ribs and Sprite when I woke up, because I was up at like 3 so bam. And I don't like coffee. Unless it has like 22525634 pumps of chocolate in it.
Sneezy Whale: Calvin's not supposed to be normal. This is Sherlock/OC, do you really think he'd fall for anyone who's normal? Naaah. I mean look at his previous encounters: Irene and... well John. I'd say John because JohnLock is pretty much canon. Also, she actually was probably fazed by those things, but since she has anxiety and chooses to mask it, she pretended that she didn't mind it. But she also thinks it's kind of amusing because, well, she like different things. They freak her out and give her panic attacks, but she'd rather have an exciting life and deal with her problems than a life of dull, predictable, ordinary-ness. Sorry, I ramble.
kykyxstandler: Awe, thanks, hon. You flatter me/make me happy.
Hiding in the Shadow: Wait no longer! Here you go! Yay new chapter! Love you, dude, you always send me sweet reviews:)
Kira Tsumi: I was half asleep and loopy... I guess I get hate my writing when I can't think coherently, ahaha. Thanks for reviewing!:)
Okay I need to stop of the A/N will be longer than the actual chapter. Oops.
OKAY. Thanks so much for ya'lls support! I love you all! Don't forget to keep 'em comin'! Who's gonna be my 69th reviewer?;) OR my 100th Follower?!
Love ya'll!
Jess