The Side of The Angels (A Sherlock Holmes Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Four: Suck It, Mycroft

I accompanied John and Sherlock back to their flat.

"Sorry about the mess." John said politely, opening the door for me.

"We're working a case John. Claudia hardly cares about our house keeping practices." Sherlock said, chucking his scarf onto the leather couch and walking into what appeared to be the kitchen. I looked around, memorizing the flat with my eyes. It was strange, as John said the room was filthy. Papers strewn about, worn furniture. On the black and white wall paper, just above the couch was a smiley face riddled with bullet holes and about four inches of dust settled over everything, and yet...

It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

John looked at me apologetically.

"I love your flat." I told him, spinning around slightly.

"Really?" He asked. I nodded.

"It has character. That's more important than anything in my mind."

"Claudia!" Sherlock called.

"Duty calls." I walked into the kitchen to see the table covered in science equipment.

"Shut the door, will you." I did as he side, sliding the door to the kitchen closed and sitting across from him. Back to work.

~~~

I sat across the table from Sherlock, rifling through all the information of the Carl Powers case. The door slid open and John appeared.

"Can I help?" He asked. "I want to help, there's only five ours left." A phone beeped and I glanced up at John to see him look at his phone.

"It's your brother. He's texting me now." My phone beeped and I looked at it.

Please remind Sherlock the importance of this case.

Mycroft

"How does he have my phone number? I don't even know that man?!" I exclaimed, showing the phone to John.

"Must be a root canal." Sherlock said. 

"Look, he did say...National importance."

"Hm. How quaint!" 

"What is?" John asked.

"You are. Queen and country."

"You can't just ignore it."

"I'm not ignoring it. Putting my best people onto it right now." Sherlock replied, not taking his eyes off of a document.

"Right, good. Who's that?" 

"You...and Claudia." I looked at him.

"What? Why me?"

"My brother will be wanting to meet you anyway."

"Why?" I asked. He looked up.

"Well...presuming our working relationship goes beyond this case, he will want to...size you up."

"Are you suggesting that you want our working relationship to go beyond this case?" I asked.

"Too early to tell. Better to get it out of the way though, just in case I find your companionship adequate." I nodded. "Besides, every time you blink, your eyelids linger closed every few seconds, indicating that you are tired and in desperate need of a break." He was right. I was tired.

"Quite the charmer you are, Sherlock Holmes." I said sarcastically.

"You're going to have to change." John told me. "Mycroft runs a very formal establishment."