The Wicked Ones

2. How to get away with murdering your colleague

Asterin stopped at door and scolded back at him. "I will gut if you call me that again."

"I'll miss you too !" she heard him call after her mockingly as she continued her way.

Asterin was quick to deliver her report and join her friend in their usual lunch spot. She was now currently siping on her coffee as Lis finished telling her all the gory details of the crime scene of her new case. The woman set her cup back down. She hadn't been hungry anyway.

"Lucky you. This one certainly seems interesting. I would kill to get a case like that."

Blythe sighed and put down the bagel she was in the middle of eating.

"Usually I'd be thrilled that the Captain trusts me enough to give me a case like this, but right now it's eating up on my weekend. And I've got this weird feeling... That this bloody case won't leave me alone rapidly."

Asterin watched her coffee roil as she swirled her cup around.

"Yes, it is quite odd but it is what it is. Besides, I am afraid weekends are a luxury that people of profession can hardly afford. I cannot remember a weekend where I was not working either on a case or on reports." She drank the rest of her coffee in one go and ordered another one.

"Don't you use Sherlock as a means to have me be resigned to my fate. That's just cruel." The detective took an outraged sip of her tea. "I mean I don't know what's worse, not getting to have weekends because of my job or being constantly reminded by Benjamin that I don't have a life outside of work." She brushed a lock of ginger hair that had escaped her braid out of her face. As she looked at her friend, she raised an eyebrow. "Chuckaboo that's your third cup, you may want to slow down on the coffee."

"I need it." Asterin said clutching her cup defensively. "More than you can imagine actually. I have been working on every case I can get to beat Thornhood. And I really want that DCI promotion," she added after a sip.

"And I'm all for you getting that promotion," she raised her hands in surrender, "partly because you deserve it and partly because I don't know him well enough to be certain he does. But I'm not sure it's worth having coffee flow through your veins. Although it'd make for a very interesting experiment." She looked thoughtful for a while but snapped out of her thoughts and back into reality. "Has it really been this hard working with Thornhood ? You know if he bothers you too much I can make sure he tones down a little. Nothing too mean, just enough to straighten the few brain cells he has."

A small smile made its way to Asterin's lips. "I contemplated throwing him off the roof of the precinct a few times." she mused. A frown however quickly took over her facial features. "He is just so... irritating. Always finding his way to my office with that filthy smirk of his. I really don't know how that idiot constantly manages to get involved in my cases. And although it kills me to admit it, he is good. He better be grateful, it is the only reason he is still roaming around with his kneecaps."

"My, my, he must really be excellent at his job," a smirk slipped on Lis' face, "the last person you actually called 'good' was me. Honestly I'm dying to see how things will end between you two. So far it's a fifty/fifty between you beating him up and an actual friendship blooming." She finished her bagel and rubbed her hands on a napkin to get rid of the crumbs.

Asterin lifted her gaze to meet Lis' in an unamused stare. "Your funny little case is messing with that mind of yours." Before her friend could protest she continue. "Anyway, enough of Thornhood and his idiocy. I am bored to death now that I have finished my case on the murder of that karaoke singer. I suggest a night out. And before you start telling me no, that you have work and other dull excuses, consider this : you think you do not have a life outside of work, well neither do I and this is the perfect opportunity to see to that." Asterin was generally the last person to make such propositions, but she was tired of spending her evenings after work on open cases.