Spiracle

by Ethra Esme

Del Patrick was hired by John Watson to be Sherlock Holmes' assistant and transcriptionist. Both haunted by pasts full of trauma and addiction, Del and Sherlock bond quickly over intellect and attraction. But the things that sometimes draw two people together don't always make for healthy attachments.

4. Jungian Junkie Collective Unconscious

Chapter Four: Jungian Junkie Collective Unconscious

The air in the room closed in on me with a sense of thick and heavy sadness, the silence present like a corporeal body.

I felt like I had stepped into someone else's life entirely. The feeling had already been present within me to a certain extent, but I could tell this move would serve to unmoor me even further.

I was surrounded by space that was not yet mine, filled with sounds and smells that were unfamiliar. Even the voices that drifted in from the street only served to alienate me further, their crescendos and cadences foreign from those I heard as a child in Los Angeles.

I tried to remember that this was all tantamount to a fresh start. A new city, a new degree, a new field of study. Yet I remained haunted by the same history, the same father, the same recurring nightmares, and the same sucking, sinking feeling in the core of my being. No amount of degrees or travel or accolades or strutting could numb that burning ache.

I thought for a moment about playing myself a sad tune and then closed the lid to the piano keys. The weight landing on the piano reverberated through the strings inside.

I noticed that not only was the piano in tune, but the thick coating of dust present in 221B was not present here. I wondered if they had outsourced the cleaning of this unit to a professional. I certainly couldn't see Sherlock up here with a vacuum and feather duster. John, maybe.

He seemed to be very in tune with Sherlock and serving his needs and random preferences. Although Sherlock heeded when John insisted he help with my things from the truck. An interesting dynamic, not necessarily a heterosexual one.

Not that I had any judgments on that front. Over the years I had had few relationships, either purely sexual or deeply emotional. Although the sample size was small, there were really no similarities between anyone I had been with, man, woman, otherwise. And that exploration wasn't out of an abundance of love, but rather a lack of passion or conviction.

With love, as with every other part of my life, I didn't seem to know what I wanted, and no compass existed within me to point to a due north in my soul.

I popped the piano back open. One of my Master's degrees was entirely paid for by a musician's scholarship I earned as a concert pianist in my later teen years. As always, this came from a dalliance, a brief flirtation with passion that I excelled at and tried to continue as long as possible, until burning out on it shortly after enrolling at UCLA. The piece I played that won me my scholarship was Mozart's No. 8 in A Minor. I knew I still remembered it. I would never forget it.

I allowed my fingers to move along the keys, a tad under tempo at first but then, as my mind began to wander, the part of my brain that didn't forget things even when I wanted it to took over and guided my hands, the autonomous rhythmic swaying of my body keeping tempo with the beat of my heart.

About seven minutes into the piece, I felt a loud bang at my feet and stopped.

Sherlock was hitting the roof of his flat with something, possibly a broom handle if one were stereotypically inclined.

I blushed for the benefit of no one and closed the piano, deciding instead to explore my new flat.

The door in the front room led to a bedroom, and the door past that led to a bathroom.

All recently cleaned.

No kitchen, though. Surely I wouldn't be expected to use the kitchen in 221B-2. There must be another kitchen somewhere.

I opened my front door and peeked out into the dimly lit hallway. Silent and dark. I walked downstairs as quietly as possible, wishing I didn't have my giant motorcycle boots on.

I cleared the landing of 221B-2 and made the turn to head to the ground floor when the door to 221B-2 swung open and I turned around, stumbling a little bit and bracing myself on the handrail.

"Hello. Mr. Holmes. Sorry for the um…music."

He considered me for a long moment. "It probably won't be a big deal. I'll get used to it. Probably. The noise you make coming down the stairs, however…"

His eyes dropped to my boots, as did my own. "Yeah. Sorry about that. Hey weird question. Do I have access to a kitchen somewhere?"

Sherlock grunted. "There used to be a kitchen which Mrs. Hudson would utilize on the ground floor, but it is currently in…disrepair. You'll have to use the one in my flat."

"That's inconvenient." I mumbled and then caught myself. "I mean, for you."

"How often do you need a kitchen?" He sneered.

"Daily? To eat, usually."

"So you cook, then?" He looked as if he hadn't considered the possibility.

"Well, typically, yeah. It's cheaper than takeout."

Sherlock snorted. "Are you any good at it?"

"I'd say so. I've been doing it since I was a kid." I shifted in my strange position between the stairs and looking upward at Sherlock. He rolled his eyes at me and turned to go back into his flat, leaving the door hanging open.

I hesitated for a moment before turning to go downstairs but then I heard him bark, "Come!" from inside his flat. I jogged up the stairs and slipped into his flat, closing the door behind me.

"We should discuss a few things anyway." He said, sitting heavily in the armchair John had sat in during my "interview" on Friday. I went to sit on the couch and before my ass could hit the cushion he snapped at me "Not there." I jumped back up as if I had just made contact with fire. He stabbed his pointer finger at the armchair across from him and I walked quickly over and sat down obediently. I looked across at Sherlock. He looked incensed, honestly. His nostrils were slightly flared and there was a fire behind his slightly narrowed eyes.

I opened my mouth to defend myself against nothing but he spoke first.

"Let's go over some ground rules." He drawled, steepling his fingers in front of his face, leaning back into his armchair with his right ankle rested on his left knee.

"Okay." I prompted him to continue, thinking to myself that after hearing his rules I was most likely to have some of my own to insist upon.

"In regard to the kitchen. It is free to use but try and text me beforehand in case I am indisposed."

I nodded.

"I think it may be best if your duties are expanded to cooking for me, also. With a compensatory bump in pay." He finished quickly before I could protest.

I frowned in deference, shrugging. "That works for me." I agreed.

"Don't enter 221B-2 without asking, my room is on the other side of the kitchen, you don't ever need to go in there. Don't move or touch anything in 221B-2 unless I ask you to. I will be asking you to shortly because I feel it may be time to clean things up a little around here. Another pay bump for those services." He tacked on.

"So far this is a lot of work." I told him. "I'm helping you with fact finding, transcribing for you, cooking and cleaning."

"Maybe you should drive me around, too." He said thoughtfully, not quite looking at me.

"Um, no. I can't do that. I don't have a car."

"I'll buy you one." He stated simply. "I don't like the thought of you riding around on that motorcycle. You bashing that brain against a curb would be a terrible waste."

"I think I'm flattered but probably mostly offended." I commented wryly.

He put his hands down flat against the arms of the armchair, gripping them with his lithe fingers as he shifted in his seat, cocking his head at me in what felt like a invasively predatory fashion.

"I looked over your resume. I listened in on your interview with John-"

"I know, I saw you."

"In the window."

I paused. "No. I felt you looking at me from the window, but the sun was in the way. I caught sight of you in the reflection of John's reading glasses."

"Ugh, those ghastly things. They make him look terribly old."

"I can't disagree with that."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, as he was wont to do whilst looking at me.

"You do seem to…flail about in your existence."

"Can't disagree with that, either."

"To save both our time you should decide not to disagree with me ever."
"I would disagree with that."

We sat in silence, sizing one another up. He looked tired and haunted, and I felt hungry and overwhelmed.

"Did you have any questions about my history, or were you just making an unkind observation? Because I am an–"

"-open book. Yes. I heard that too."

I shrugged. "Well, it's true."

"Is it?" He looked at me as if I had directly challenged him. He did not push me further at that moment, but I was afraid I may have ignited some competitive streak within him, like he wanted to find some way to push me past my point of comfort.

He did succeed in making me slightly uncomfortable as he stared me down. In my defense, he had the upper hand in height, sex, wealth, social status. He had many metrics at his disposal to make me feel inferior, and he knew it. The smug shift in his facial expression irked me and I opened my mouth to say something snarky but he cut me off. Again.

"You will prepare us dinner tonight. We will dine in 221B-3."

My face remained impassive. "Any requests?"

"Surprise me." He smirked. "You may take my charge card and get whatever is needed, as I'm sure you are currently…low on funds."

I didn't argue with him, although I probably had a bit more money to my name than he assumed. I certainly was not wealthy, but I was not in the habit of spending money needlessly. My childhood of unnecessary poverty had convinced me that frugality was the wisest way forward. I wouldn't be drinking or gambling away my funds.

He leaned forward and took his wallet out of his back pocket, producing a heavy black card and holding it out for me between his fore and middle fingers. With a feeling of humility I reached out and took it, tapping my fingernails against it.

"Am I dismissed?" I asked impatiently. His gaze darkened.

"Yes."

He didn't move so I just got up and tried to ignore his eyes on me as I walked into his kitchen and tried to orientate myself with what ingredients he had and didn't have and his cookware. There were quite a few non-food items in his kitchen but nothing incredibly shocking. It needed a cleaning, though. I sighed heavily.

"Mr. Holmes I am going to need to clean this kitchen before I cook in it. So, I'll need to buy something for that too."

"I don't need to know the details of your operation." He huffed and I stood up straight from looking underneath the sink. His eyes were still level upon me.

"Fine." I answered. I wanted to tell him I was leaving and would be back later, but he seemed irked by every unnecessary word I uttered so instead I just left and went upstairs to 221B-3, digging into one of my bags and changing into tennis shoes to walk to the store.

An hour later I hauled three overfull canvas bags full of groceries and cleaning supplied upstairs, balancing on one leg to open the door to 221B-2 with my foot. Sherlock was nowhere in sight, so I quickly put away the food and pulled my hair into a ponytail, setting into work to clean the kitchen. That took about an hour, nothing was filthy, but it was certainly dusty and in need of a good reset. Once I was done with that, I went upstairs to take a quick shower and change out of my bleach-stained clothes.

Stepping into the front room with a towel wrapped around me, I saw my phone light up on the kitchen table.

"It reeks of bleach in here." It was Sherlock.

"That's what happens when you clean. It will smell like food soon."

I put my phone down and pulled some leave in conditioner through my wavy brown hair, leaving it down to air dry. I put on a plain white button up and pair of dark blue jeans, slipping on black ballet flats and flinging my denim apron over my shoulder.

"Can I come down and start cooking?" I texted.

"Yes." Was my only response received.

I trotted down to 221B-2 and opened the door slowly, sticking my head in. Definitely smelled a little like bleach. Thankfully, no Sherlock.

I pulled my apron over my head and tied it around my waist, taking my earbuds out of the pocket and nestling them into the shell of my ears, putting on some Nine Inch Nails as I set to work crafting my oldest and best tested recipe- my father's shepherd's pie. It was a time-consuming recipe involving making mashed potatoes and gravy from scratch. It was the only thing my father knew how to cook, or the only thing he ever bothered to at any rate.

My mind wandered and my body danced as I chopped, boiled, sauteed, rouxed, mashed, etc. Cooking was an underrated meditative practice, I felt. It was productive and physically nourishing, a test of dexterity and time management, and a treat for the senses, minus some unpleasantness when it came to onions off-gassing into ones eyes.

At long last I was ready to put the entire production into the oven. As a finishing touch I dragged a fork across the top in a geometric pattern and placed the glass dish into the oven.

I had thirty minutes until the potatoes were browned and everything had boiled together in the dish. I wasn't sure if I should retreat to my flat or hang around downstairs.

I walked over to the window behind Sherlock's armchair, watching as the people below, making their way around London at dusk, seemed to be walking to the beat of the metal in my ears. I cast a gaze toward the horizon, watching the sky turn golden as the sun sank slowly.

I cast a glance toward Sherlock's bedroom. No movement, only a seam of light uninterrupted under his door. I took the opportunity to dance the shit out of the bridge, my eyes closed to the dank, sunset stained flat, finding an empty area between the armchairs and the front door and the desk covered in shit I was apparently responsible for cleaning up sometime this week between moving the rest of my belongings upstairs and also, possibly, doing the job I was ostensibly hired for.

I spun in a circle and flipped my hair violently, one of my ear buds also flying out as the song crescendoed into the chaotic guitar rifts at the end.

"Shit." I mumbled as I watched it fly under Sherlock's chair. I pulled off my apron and draped it over the other armchair as I got down onto my knees on the rug.

"Why is there so much shit under here?" I muttered to myself in annoyance as my left ear began throbbing with the heavy one-two electronic beats of Nine Inch Nails' best known song.

I sang along under my breath as I pulled out a stack of newspaper clippings, sneezing once at the fuzzy dust that came flying as I pawed around for my other ear bud.

"I wanna fuck you like a– oh there you are!" I found my earbud and sat back on my ass, picking dust off of the earpiece.

A heavy shadow startled me from above and I legitimately screamed. I glared up at Sherlock who looked annoyingly amused by my fright.

"What did I tell you about touching things?"

I looked at the displaced pile in front of me and, without moving my glare from Sherlock's face, reached out my leg and shoved it back under the chair.

"It's day one and you're already disobeying me." He commented, watching me defiantly kick his things back under his chair.

"You told me I need to clean this up tomorrow anyway." I backed up a little so I could stand up without standing directly into Sherlock and rose to me feet, my nose crinkling in disgust as I batted debris and dust off of my jeans.

"You're supposed to be cooking tonight."

"Iam." I gestured toward the kitchen, where I had put the cooking dishes to soak and the oven was finishing the pie. "It's in the oven."

"It smells good." Sherlock bestowed an unexpected bit of positivity upon the situation.

"I know it does." I snapped and went to the sink to wash my hands before opening the oven to check the brown on the potatoes.

"Can't you ever just say thank you?" Sherlock whined, annoyed as he joined me in the kitchen and picked up my phone, looking at the music playing status on the lock screen.

Trent Reznor was telling me to bow down before the one I serve as I pulled my other ear bud out and stuffed them in my pocket and went to pull my phone from Sherlock's hands as he began trying different PIN combinations.

"What the fuck?" I asked as I grabbed and he reached the phone upward out of my grasp.

"Touchy." He chuckled, lowering the phone to try the PIN again.

"Rude!" I answered, diving at the phone again. He raised it again and I jumped for it. I only managed his forearm before he whipped his hand around his back, smirking at me.

I bit the inside of my bottom lip to stop from smiling. "It's not funny." I told him unconvincingly. His smirk widened to a grin.

"I know you're trying more combinations behind your back. You're going to lock me out of the phone."

Sherlock brought the phone back around to look at the screen. "Oh." He said simply and handed the phone to me. The lock screen informed me I was locked out of my own phone for five minutes.

"Thanks." I commented sarcastically, rolling my eyes and putting the phone in my back pocket. Sherlock sat on the back of the armchair closest to the kitchen and looked pleased with himself.

"Dinner will be done in ten, you can eat in 221B-3, obviously, but I'm probably going out." I told him.

His face fell and he looked at me in consternation. "What? Where?"

"Maybe for a drive? Probably grab some things from my apartment."

"No. You're going to eat dinner with me." He insisted.

"I'm not hungry. I ate like half a potato while I was cooking."

"No." He repeated, standing up and stepping toward me, using his height as leverage for intimidation. "You're going to have dinner with me, and we will discuss what to do about the motorcycle."

"What do you mean what to do about the motorcycle?" I turned the oven knob to off and slipped the oven mitts on, pulling the pie out of the oven and placing it on the stovetop to set for a couple minutes.

"I told you I am going to need you to drive me places and you can't very well do that on the motorcycle."

"That's debatable, you could always ride in the bitch position." I pulled off the mitts and set them on the counter. "Seems suitable."

Sherlock reddened and his eyes flashed.

"Besides," I continued, "Can you not drive?"

"I can." He said through set jaw.

"Then why don't you get your own car and drive yourself?"

"I don't want to." He said simply. What a frustrating answer, I thought to myself. And what a nice life. To do or not do things simply according to what one wishes to do with no considerations to others' wishes or comfort.

"Is that what you're wearing to dinner?" He snapped before I had time to address anything else.

I looked down at myself. "What is wrong with the way I'm dressed? Besides the fact that your disgusting floor got my knees dirty." I pulled my gaze over his frame. "We're practically wearing the same outfit."

"Well I will be changing." He huffed.

"Okay. Fine." I threw up my hands. "What is the dress code for this evening?"

"Semi formal."

I snorted and grabbed my apron, heading toward the door. "Semi formal? You have got to be kidding me. This has been the longest day of my life."

"Can you ever…not complain? About everything?"

I grabbed the front doorknob, looking back at Sherlock. He was standing erect, looking down at me slightly, his hands in his jeans pockets.

"Have I been complaining a lot?"

Sherlock tilted his head, surprised at the sudden lack of defensiveness. "A bit, I'd say. Yes."

I frowned. "That's unpleasant. I'm sorry."

Sherlock looked even more struck. "Well. Don't be sorry."

I nodded. "I'll be back in ten."

Back in 221B-3, I opened a couple of boxes and dug through some clothes I had shoved inside, hangers and all. The only thing I could find that was remotely semi formal was an emerald green, calf length velvet dress I had worn for my last piano performance back in college. It was a little bit tighter than it had been around a decade prior. I slipped it over my head, adjusting the off-the-shoulder neckline. I quickly dug out and slipped on the only dress shoes I could find, slingback kitten heels. I pulled my hair over my left shoulder and tied it into place with an elastic tie.

Running around a bit now, I pulled some dishes out of the cupboard and set two place settings, two glasses of water, and two wine glasses, as I had purchased an expensive bottle of red wine on Sherlock's tab.

I trotted back downstairs to 221B-2. Sherlock was nowhere in sight, I assumed he was making good on his promise to clean up a bit. I pulled on the oven mitts, put the bottle of red under my right arm, and picked up the shepherd's pie. Standing in front of the door I tried to catch it with my elbow a couple times before balancing and trying to open it with my foot. No dice. I stepped out of my shoes and used my foot to turn the knob, opening the door finally and giving a triumphant "ha!". I moved to step back into my shoes and felt a hand on my lower back as I almost ran backward into Sherlock. I controlled a scream but almost dropped the bottle of wine, which he caught. I turned to look at him as he looked over the label.

"Hmm. I spent a pretty penny on this one, didn't I?" He raised an eyebrow and looked at me with a slight smirk.

"You shaved." I said, staring at him. He suddenly looked five years younger.

"I did." He answered. "Shall we?" He gestured to the door and I soldiered forward ahead of him, leading us both upstairs.

"You can keep your shoes on." Sherlock muttered and stepped in front of me, opening the door and stepping inside, holding it open to allow me past.

I placed the dish on the table as Sherlock closed the door, taking a moment to look me over from the front as I pulled off the oven mitts.

"Do you not wear makeup?" He scrutinized my face, stepping toward me, coming close to my face, crouching down so that his nose was a few inches from mine.

"I do sometimes. I didn't expect to be dressing up today."

"And these glasses?" He asked, examining my round wire frames. "Do you wear contacts?"

"I have sensitive eyes." I grumbled.

Sherlock reached his hand out and, before I could pull away, touched the center of my chest, a couple inches under my throat.

"That cross necklace would have looked nice." He ran his middle finger along my right clavicle before removing his touch.

"I only wear it to church." I glared at him as he straightened up and I took the bottle of red wine out of his hands. I walked into the kitchen and started going through drawers, trying to find a corkscrew. Sherlock strode quickly toward me and reached around my to produce the tool. I took it from him and opened the bottle quickly and efficiently, walking back toward the table and pouring two glasses, setting the bottle aside and plating our food.

Sherlock came around the table and pushed my chair in underneath me before I could reach for it.

"Thanks." I said quietly and watched him walk around the table. He was wearing a tailored British suit with a white button up underneath but no tie. I couldn't decide if I preferred his face shaved or not. But he certainly looked put together.

"Do you want me to put some music on?" I asked as we began to eat. I saw Sherlock make a brief impressed facial expression but he did not compliment me.

"No." He said, chewing his food and looking at me closely. "You have a hard time with silence."

"I don't think so…"

"Wasn't a question." He took another bite. I opened my mouth to say something but realized that would be filling the silence and decided to try not to prove him right. I gave thought to what he said. Did I have a problem with silence? I always had a television or music on, that was true. But was it the silence that bothered me? Or was it the–

"Mental inactivity." I said.

Sherlock looked up at me, eyebrow raised. "You're saying it's not the silence that bothers you, it's the lack of distraction?"

"I rather think so, yes. I hardly read in silence, that is true. But if I do, I am also writing, or cooking. Running, sometimes, or at least I used to before I moved to London and lost access to my apartment gym."

"That would explain the ten extra pounds." He looked me up and down, as much as he could with the table in the way. His gaze lingered on my breasts, the swell of which was only partially visible over my neckline.

"Five." I countered.

"Ten." He was still staring at my cleavage.

"Six, maybe. And I'm about to go on my period." I felt my own breasts. Fuller and firmer than usual, and slightly sore.

Sherlock shrugged, accepting my negotiated weight gain.

I smiled smugly to myself and took a sip of my wine.

We ate in silence for quite a few minutes. I did my best to try not to fill the silence with errant comments but found myself rereading the label on the wine probably one hundred times as it was the only reading material accessible. I also spent a lot of time studying Sherlock's hands and wrists and the cuffs of his suit. I was impressed by his long nail beds and lack of hangnails.

"So." Sherlock finished his food and pushed his plate to the side, folding his hands in front of himself and focusing his attention on me. I put my fork down and pushed my plate away as well. I was done, I guess.

"Let's begin, shall we?"

"Begin what?" I asked suspiciously, taking another sip of wine.

"Our interview. I never got to complete my half." He smiled at me, the smile not quite reaching his icy blue eyes.

"If you are telling me I've done all of this-" I swirled my finger in the air indicating the apartment, and then down at the dinner, "-for free-"

"You are the eldest daughter of Francis "Frank" Patrick, a once decorated and celebrated policeman with the LAPD who, some years after being promoted to detective, succumbed to the temptation of bribes, be they monetary or sexual. He put your mother Amelia Patrick nee Hartley through a decade and a half of hell before she died, shortly after giving birth to you. You spent your childhood first raised by your older brother, and then when you were old enough you became the caretaker of the family. Your early onset of responsibility precluded many of your academic and personal dreams, especially because you were particularly gifted but your father needed you at home and disallowed your ability to take advanced classes or do any extracurriculars, save piano, which he allowed you to pursue because someone in your neighborhood was teaching you, which kept you close enough. You had a lonely childhood with few friends and no other hobbies except the reading, you read every single thing you could get your hands on. Your musical talents bought your way into UCLA, since your father had gambled and drunk away your tuition, and you landed on a double major because you couldn't decide whether or not to pursue something creative or something scientific, so you chose both. Both majors- philosophy and astrophysics- denote a certain…romantic view of life. You want to see that there is something bigger than yourself, your struggle, your pain. You graduated with honors. And then you disappeared for a number of years. Even I had a difficult time tracing your very existence during that time. Would you like to fill me in about all those missing years?"

I finished my wine and poured myself another glass, leaning back slightly in my chair, one arm wrapped around myself and my other elbow resting against it as I held the wine glass to my lips.

"How did you know about my sister?" I asked him. He smiled.

"When I looked into your deceased brother Michael and saw that he had been committed to St. Elin's after being convicted of murder, I looked into his victim. Five year old Abigail Rojas, daughter of Vera Rojas, no father listed on the birth certificate. Vera Rojas was unmarried at the time of her death by suicide, but she did have one piece of property to her name- a house in Los Angeles that had been signed over to her five years prior. Previous owner Francis Patrick, and your last listed address before you fell off the face of the planet and reappeared in London almost a year ago."

"My father seemed to get his shit together right before I left for college, when he met Vera and got her pregnant. Something about that baby made him want to try, even when the first two kids hadn't been enough to convince him. I had nothing against Vera or the baby but I didn't want to know them. I never would have left if I knew Mike was a danger to her." I took a sip of my wine, looking down at my lap and running a fingernail over the velvet stretched across my thighs.

"He hadn't shown any prior propensity to violence?"

I shook my head. "He was only a year older than me. Did okay in school, quiet but sweet. He was taking a year off before enrolling in community college, which last I had heard he did. And next time I heard from any of them, Mike had strangled Abigail and then run off to London of all places."

"And you had no previous connections to London?"

I shook my head. "Nowhere outside of the US, really."

Sherlock sat back a little, steepling his fingers in front of his face thoughtfully and looking at me but through me.

"Don't tell me you're going to try and solve this or something." I said, annoyed, putting down my wine glass. "I don't mind giving some details, but everyone involved is either dead, dying, or deeply traumatized. No one needs all this dredged back up just because you're curious."

Sherlock's eyes focused, looking at me again. "What happened to 'open book'?"

I cocked my head at him. "I am. Ask me anything you like. I'll tell you anything you want to know. But please just leave this all alone after I've told you everything."

"Don't you want to know why Mike did what he did? And why he fled to Britain?"

I rolled my eyes, not in exasperation but because it had taken me many years of avoidance and substance abuse to not wonder at his reasons every night before I tried, often in vain, to sleep.

"Another thing you don't know about me, Mr. Holmes-"

"Sherlock." He looked me in the eye, somehow softer this time.

I paused a moment before I said, "Sherlock." His name feeling soft and round in my mouth. "I practically grew up watching police interrogations. My dad used to sit me in the room behind the two-sided mirror, doing my homework, reading a book, listening to The Beatles on my Discman. He interviewed murderers, rapists, thieves, criminals, innocents, victims. Psychopaths. Schizophrenics. I read some of the things my brother left behind in his notebooks and on his walls at our house in Los Angeles. He had hypergraphia. There was no rhyme or reason to what he did beyond what the voices told him. I couldn't have seen it coming." I hissed the last part intensely, glaring directly into Sherlock's eyes before collecting myself. "Nobody could have. Even if I was there."

I downed my second glass of wine and reached for the bottle, but Sherlock put his hand over mine, pulling it gently off of the bottle and placing it on the table. I almost thought he gave it a barely perceptible squeeze before releasing it.

"Where were you until 2017?" He asked me, his voice firm but surprisingly kind.

"Long Beach, mostly." I finally told him. I lived with various people. I wasn't lying on my resume about the retail jobs, it's just that I worked them under a pseudonym."

"What were you doing besides working?"

"Drugs, mostly."

"What sort of drugs?"

"Heroin, mostly."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and put his hand back on my hand, pulling it toward him and turning my arm over. I proffered my other arm.

"No track marks, strangely enough." I told him. "There are a couple scars between my fingers you can probably see."

He raised my hands and leaned forward to examine between my fingers, his own threading between them and probing them open. When he found one between my middle and ring fingers on my right hand, his pointer finger moved down to feel the space. His eyes narrowed and he flipped my arm back over, having noticed the scar parallel scar on the inside of my wrist. It was thin, about four inches long. I held up my other wrist.

"I'm surprised I didn't notice those before." He said quiet and thoughtfully.

"I did it when I was blacked out on something. I woke up in a hospital. They held me for two weeks, and I decided I had had enough. I was in the process of getting my life back in order. It was about a year after this-" I said, running my own finger over the scar on my left wrist, "-that I got a call from my Dad, saying he had come to London to be near Mike. And then Mike was murdered by another asylum patient. And it became evident Dad wasn't well. After about six months I decided I had to move here to be closer to him. And when I moved to London, it's like the last vestiges of his sanity fell apart. I was here to take care of it all." I flashed a mirthless smile. "I followed his directives and had him committed to the same place that Mike had been when he died. So that's what I've been doing, besides of course working on my PhD."

"So why biochemistry?"

"It started out as a fascination with biology's bearings on psychology. It sort of morphed into a generalized interest in the chemicals that run all of our body processes. Then I honed in on my project regarding the biochemistry of dying."

"So you've been clean for how long now?"

"I guess it will be three years in November. What about you?" I looked Sherlock in time to see his eyes dart up to me in an intentionally nonchalant fashion.

I knew he wouldn't deign to ask me how I knew about his habit, so I told him, "I saw that look in your eye when I mentioned it. It never goes away. Doesn't seem like it, anyway. I miss the way it quieted all of…this…" I tapped my temple.

"I bet you do, too."

He visibly stiffened in his chair, although I could tell he was putting effort into not showing any reaction or feelings.

"I haven't used in four years." He said, avoiding giving an anniversary.

"Our use overlapped." I said with morbid interest. "Perhaps we met at one time, on some Jungian junkie collective unconscious while we were both high."

Sherlock's eyebrows raised further than I had ever seen them on his forehead.

"That was really stupid, I'm sorry I said that."
He burst out laughing. "No, I love it. I wouldn't expect anything less from a philosophy major!" He said between chuckles.

"I'm a physicist, too." I said, feeling somewhat pouty about being filed away as a philosophy airhead.

"An astrophysicist. I feel there's a difference."

"I have a complete understanding of physics." I insisted. "And chemistry, thank you very much, I am an ABD, after all. I graduated months ago."

"AB- All But Dissertation." He chuckled. "Let me know when you've successfully defended your dissertation, and only then will I address you as Doctor."

"Oh, you probably wouldn't then, either." I huffed and Sherlock laughed again.

"Probably not. I barely call John a Doctor and he's an actual Doctor."

"Actual Doctor." I rolled my eyes and chuckled.

A less uncomfortable silence settled over us for a moment and I, of course, chose to fracture it.

"Now that you know my life story, can I ask you a couple of questions?"

"You can ask, I don't know if I'll answer."

I folded my arms and gave him a stern look, but his position didn't budge.

"Okay, fine." I considered my questions carefully, in case I would be limited in their number. "So, John has a daughter, and her mother died."

I saw Sherlock stiffen though his face remained unreadable. "But Rosie is not quite six, and John's blog indicates that you have known one another for over a decade. He either didn't mention the mother in his blogs or he edited her out at some point. My question is, are you two not…together?"

Sherlock looked mildly pained. "That's your question?"

"It's the only one I could think of that you might actually answer for me tonight."

Sherlock sighed. "You're probably right about that. No, John and I are best friends and spent many years as working partners. He was married to Rosie's mother. He was ridiculously in love with her. I was very fond of her as well. There is a frequent assumption that due to our travel and work together, and until somewhat recently, cohabitation, that we were in fact romantic partners. But I am entirely certain that John Watson is not gay." Sherlock looked at me during the last part, as if to gauge my reaction to that last bit of news.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked Sherlock, suddenly feeling a tad more emboldened by the wine.

"You're interested, are you not?"

"In John?" I asked.

"Yes."

"I…don't think so. He's very nice. And handsome. And helpful. But I don't think so."

"Really?" Sherlock asked in slight disbelief.

"I really don't think so." I shook my head. "What about you? Are you gay?"

Sherlock smirked. "I don't really think so, no. Not entirely, anyway. What about you?"

"Maybe a little? I don't know. I've had partners of various genders. I probably prefer men. Maybe." I laughed. "I do like sex, I'm not a big fan of relationships."

Sherlock leaned forward slightly. "Really? I find a lot of women say that and don't typically mean it."

"A lot of women? How many women have you experienced saying that?"

"There's been a few, lately." He admitted, when in fact I didn't expect him to give an answer at all. "I've been doing some…experimentation. Mostly involving flirting. Trying out techniques to get people interested in giving their number, inviting you home. Coming home with you. It's actually helpful data for the rest of my work."

I bit the insides of my lips together, trying not to laugh. "What do you do once you've brought them home, or gone home with them? Are you having sex with all of them?"

"Not all of them, no! Hardly any of them."

"That sounds…risky."

"Oh, don't be a prude, I get regularly tested. Until the last few years I was not sexually active at all. But I came to a point where it was really the last undiscovered aspect of my personhood and biology so I thought, better get a move on while the parts still work."

I threw my head back and laughed. "Oh my god. So, both men and women then?"

"Yes." He said matter-of-factly. "One has to be scientific about it, after all."

"Do you…" I stopped for a moment, disbelieving I was grilling Sherlock Holmes about his sex life and that he was willingly answering me. "Do you enjoy it at all?"

He looked down and thought for a moment.

"If you have to think about it, I'd say no." I grimaced a little and he looked up at my face.

"That's not entirely true." He said, surprisingly defensively. "Obviously I have had enjoyment in the occasions…very obviously." He made a broad sweeping gesture toward his body, and I caught his drift. "But I continue to not quite understand what all the fascination is about, frankly. I am leaning that my initial assumption was correct, sex is more enjoyable to people with simpler minds."

"No. I refute that. One hundred percent."

"On what basis do you refute that?" He asked with a smug look on his face.

"Look, I am not deigning to presume I am as intelligent as you are, obviously. But it's not like I've never been clinically tested before. I know that my IQ puts me in the top 1% of human intelligence. That is simply a fact. You cannot, factually, call me simple. And I adore sex."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, pushing back from the table and crossing his legs. "Give me a break."

"No. Look. Just because you don't personally enjoy it, or have been pursuing the activity for such a short amount of time that you haven't had any really good sex yet, does not mean that you have to be an idiot to enjoy sex."

"So you think the problem is me?" Sherlock demanded, thoroughly annoyed.

"It's not that you have a problem. Maybe you are asexual."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Maybe."

"I just think you haven't been exploring for long enough. You may find yourself to have a particular orientation, or a specific preference for certain kinds of sex. You could try going to a sex club."

"Sex. Club. Both of those words make me nauseated separately. Put together, I've almost vomited your perfectly lovely shepherd's pie."

I stopped for a moment and grinned at him. "You thought it was lovely?"

"You could make it again." He answered nonchalantly.

"I should probably put it away before it goes bad, now that I think of it." I rose from the table, grabbing the leftovers and headed toward the door.

Sherlock got up too and used the length of his legs against me to reach me before I opened the door.

"Wait." He said, touching my bare shoulder. I turned around and looked up at him. He took my other shoulder in his hand and held me at arms length, looking at me from head to toe.

"You see, when I look at you, I can tell that part of me is physically attracted to you. I can feel my own physiology responding. I don't have that feeling for everyone, I don't have it for many women or really any men unless I am being otherwise stimulated. I don't think I'm asexual."

I blushed unwittingly but decided to ignore Sherlock's assertion. "So you're sticking to your theory that you're too smart to enjoy sex."

"Well, yes." He smirked, still gripping me by the shoulders.

"You don't see how it could be within the realm of possibility that you just haven't had good sex yet?"

"I find that very improbable. I've done my research. I know I have completely satisfied most of my partners."

"Just because you are good at sex doesn't mean that people have given you good sex. Unless you have a particular kink for it, you will require some additional effort being given back to you."

"I have hired a professional dominatrix before." He released my shoulders and stood up straight, raising his chin slightly in defiance that I could have a point that he can't knock all of sex until he's tried it.

"That's…wow. Okay." I snorted and opened the door, heading down toward 221B.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm putting the leftovers away so I'll have lunch tomorrow."

"You seem like I've upset you."

I stopped on the landing and waited for Sherlock to open the door for me. "Not at all. I think it's kind of cute that you've been sexually active for as long as I was at nineteen and you think that you know everything about everything."

I bent over, looking through the cabinets in the kitchen for aluminum foil.

"Cute?" Sherlock scoffed angrily. "Just because you can't handle the insinuation that your obsession with sex is indicative of-"

"My obsession?" I laughed. "I haven't had sex in like...well, let's just say it's been an embarrassingly long time. Like a year."

I ripped off a sheet of aluminum and folded it over the dish.

"What, really?" Sherlock asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, like I said, I enjoy it, but anything besides masturbation requires interacting with people, and that bit I am not a huge fan of."

"That is an excellent point." Sherlock conceded.

I shoved the leftovers into the refrigerator and turned around. "To that end, did you ever think that maybe part of your problem is that you seem to be having sex with random strangers?"

"Psh." Sherlock crinkled his face up like a child. "If you're insinuating that sentimental feelings are necessary for sexual enjoyment-"

"No." I held up my hand. "I'm saying that there can be benefits to having sex when there is an intellectual connection. It doesn't even have to be friends with benefits, just someone with whom you at least feel you share a same…species, honestly. Not everyone requires or prefers that in a sexual partner. Maybe you do."

Something seemed to dawn on Sherlock and I pointed at him. "Aha! You've experienced that, haven't you? You've experienced the thrill of sex with someone who also excites you intellectually."

"I…did. Yes." Sherlock admitted. "I don't want to talk about it." He said lowly.

I reached my hand out and touched Sherlock on the side of the arm, and he stiffened but did not flinch. "It's okay. I'm just glad you can see that I'm right." I slapped him on the side of the arm and went to walk around him.

"Ow." He rubbed his arm. "Where are you going now?"

"Back to my flat, probably. Unless you were wanting to work on your memoir tonight?"

He thought for a moment and I sat on the edge of the kitchen table, watching him, trying to guess what he might decide.

"No." He said finally. "You are dismissed for the evening."

"Yes sir." I smiled and stood up off of the chair. Sherlock's gaze darkened and he looked away as I walked to the door.

"Oh, would it be okay for me to come down here around six tomorrow morning?"

Sherlock sighed and waved me off. "Yes, that's fine. Just try and be quiet when you do so."

"Night!" I waved as I went out the door, but Sherlock didn't respond to me.

I went downstairs and changed into pajama bottoms and a tank top, hanging my cocktail dress in the back of my new closet, and spent the rest of my evening putting things away in my new space, collapsing into bed around eleven.