Born in Black and White

Chapter 31

The clamoring for Sherlock's personal life eventually died down. Kairi and Sherlock were careful in their relationship. Sherlock was never one to participate in public displays of affection, but he had to admit it irked him slightly that he could not touch Kairi whenever he pleased. The next month or so progressed without incident. The Sandman did not commit another murder and so the police and therefore Sherlock were left with much less interesting cases to pass the time. Over the month Sherlock had solved three rather high-profile cases. There was the amusing and petite jewel thief who tried to kill John and Sherlock, dubbed the Poison Giant by John's tedious blog. The next was one for Mycroft which they couldn't talk about even if they begged, there was, obviously, an attempt on John and Sherlock's life. The last one, which John could not get over and Kairi practically revelled in was the case of the inexplicable matchbox. Sherlock had to dress up like a clown. No pictures were allowed to be taken but that didn't stop Kairi from sneaking one in. She kept it as the welcome screen on her desktop at work. It was so ridiculous that no one would ever believe Sherlock Holmes would be dressed as a clown. It was the perfect crime and she got to look at it every day.

Kairi had spent almost all of her time with Mycroft, digging into security and strengthening their systems. It was surprising just how often she needed to do that, but as the protector of the free world's secrets, there was always someone, somewhere trying to gain favor or collateral over the government. She had met many high-profile people; people of the government, people important to the government, people who struck fear into the government's heart. Those were the ones that creeped her out the most and she wasn't sure why Mycroft had been interested in her handling those cases.

She was hesitant to admit that Mycroft was almost pleasant to be around. 98% of the time he was silent, his mind moving a thousand miles a second, taking in everything, understanding everything. She wasn't sure who was smarter to be truly honest, Mycroft or Sherlock. She believed they both had their strengths and weaknesses. She didn't believe either of them were true psychopaths. Especially since psychopaths and sociopaths are practically the same thing under different names. They were both charming, manipulative, and entitled. They shared many common traits with the DSM-V classification, but there was always something that permeated their behaviors that made them a hair off of psychopathy. They cared and they cared greatly. Though they showed little to no emotion and did whatever they pleased, Mycroft cared for his brother and Sherlock Holmes cared for John and his people (he cares for Mycroft too, but would never admit it). They still tended to act without consideration for others, with little to no remorse, but there was always the tiniest flash of regret in their eyes when they did something that truly hurt a person they cared for. They were surprisingly intuitive, practical chess masters in the game of life, knowing what actions would evoke the most intense responses. They were interesting men to be around and it kept Kairi as busy as possible.

Kairi and Sherlock tried to spend some nights together when Sherlock wasn't traipsing all around London getting into trouble. She was surprised by his warmth in private, another obvious reason he was not in fact a sociopath, as he so lovingly declared he was. Most people would consider this some sort of slight, him only showing his modest affection in private, but she knew him. She knew that he cared for her in his adorable attempts at sentiment. He was always direct, frustratingly straight forward, lied continuously, but not always about things that mattered. She was able to look him in the eye, ask for the truth, and more likely than not, she would get it.

More recently, he had been trying to lie his way out of going to Thanksgiving and was willing to skin someone alive to get out Christmas, but Kairi held strong and John and Molly were helpful. Lestrade was less so of course, when he found out about their "official" relationship and eventually about their domesticity with holiday plans and all, he was relentless with his jabs at Sherlock. Sherlock was determined to hack away at Lestrade with cold and calculating precision, but Kairi had told him that he deserved some level of teasing for always being such a cock to everyone. He didn't like that one bit.