Brothers Stick Together Chapter 13, a sherlock fanfic

Sherlock read the whole book that evening, staying up until midnight reading it. The next morning, he went downstairs to find another book to read, thinking of the comfortable stump in the woods. He found one he liked - it was called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about a woman whose cells had been stolen and used to revolutionize science without her knowing - then headed outside to read.

He tromped all the way into the woods, reading as he walked. In consequence, he didn't realize until he was all the way there that there was already someone on his stump.

Cassidy was reading the first book he'd read a few days ago. She didn't notice him for several awkward seconds as he stood there, unsure of what to do. When she did look up, he had turned around and was walking away to go find somewhere else to read.

"Hey - Sherlock!" she called. He turned back around to look at her. "Did you want to read here?"

"It's okay," he said. "You were here first."

"No, it's no problem, I was just about to leave anyways, as soon as I finished this chapter. Honestly, I'd much rather sprawl out on the couch to read right now," she told him, getting up and walking over to where he was standing. "What are you reading?"

In answer, he held up his book for her to see.

"Oh, that's a good one. Have you read it before?" she asked him. He shook his head. "It's really interesting. It has all of the important science-y stuff, but it's also kind of a moral debate through the whole book - that's a terrible description, but you'll see what I mean. Tell me what you think of it when you finish!" He stared at her in disbelief. Why on earth was she still talking to him? After yesterday afternoon, he would have thought that she would be mad, but no. She was still completely and terribly friendly.

"All right," she said, breaking the momentary silence that had fallen between him. "I'll leave you to your book. Enjoy it! I'll see you later." And with that, she walked away.

"Cassidy," he called to her suddenly. She turned back towards him.

"Yeah?"

"Well... thanks.." he said, all of a sudden unsure about what he was going to say. For what must have been the thirtieth time in the last few days, he felt his cheeks turn red,and he turned away quickly to cover it up. Why did this keep happening?

He finished the book before lunch started, which was a mercy - he wasn't interrupted at any point. Cassy had been right. It was an interesting book, and it definitely was a debatable subject. It had made for an interesting morning.

When he went back into the house to put it away, he saw Cassidy lying on the couch in the living room where she'd said she'd be. When he came in, she looked up at him, shocked.

"Did you finish it that fast? It's only been two and a half hours!"

"I read fast," Sherlock shrugged. She nodded.

"You definitely do. What did you think of the book?"

"I - it was interesting," he said, put on the spot.

"Did you think that the author did a good job of staying unbiased while she wrote the book? That's an important thing when you write about stuff like this," she said.

"Well, I don't know... it kind of felt like it was slanted towards the Lacks family. it was definitely sympathetic to them..." he said, trailing off.

"Yeah, I think she did an okay job, and she definitely presented both sides well, but I don't know... it definitely felt slanted to me. What did you think of how she wrote it?" Cassidy asked.

"I didn't really - I didn't like her writing style much," he said, shocked himself at how much he was talking. "I felt like it was too much narrative, and not enough a presentation of the relevant facts. I would have liked it better if it weren't so much a story."

"Oh, really? I thought that writing it like a story made it all the more interesting. It gave it kind of a more human side than if it had been purely facts and evidence," she said.

"Yeah, but you can't form an opinion based on emotion. You have to base it off of facts," he said, fired up. "Otherwise it's incomplete and completely a waste of time to even have that opinion."

"Well, you're right there. But you have to take into consideration that it was made to be sold - if it was just a facts list, no one would buy it," she replied. "It was kind of a novel, don't you think?"

Just as she finished speaking, Mrs Johnston walked in to the living room. She was just passing through, and she didn't say anything, only glancing from Sherlock to Cassidy and grinning. Sherlock realized suddenly how much he'd said and how much he'd revealed about himself, and, flustered, excused himself from the room.

Cassidy grinned, turning back to her book. Sherlock read the whole book that evening, staying up until midnight reading it. The next morning, he went downstairs to find another book to read, thinking of the comfortable stump in the woods. He found one he liked - it was called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about a woman whose cells had been stolen and used to revolutionize science without her knowing - then headed outside to read.