Sherlock and The Woman

The Mental Deterioration Of Mr Holmes

6. The mental deterioration of Mr Holmes

The days passed quickly, one getting lost in the other, and soon Irene had stayed with Sherlock at Baker Street for two weeks. Though it went against her nature, and the man's belief, the woman had managed not to misbehave in that time.

Despite of the challenge she presented and the amounts of cases Lestrade presented to him, Sherlock found his outlets made him restless. As a result, he returned to his nicotine patches in a desperate attempt to get his kicks, but they offered little comfort to his under-stimulated brain. This, in turn, resulted in him attempting more and more experiments in between cases.

For one such experiment, Sherlock decided he needed a live subject. During a bleak January evening, the great detective arrived home with his purchase.

"Evening, Sherlock," John greeted from one of the armchairs as he heard the door close and the distinctive sound of wood creaking as the detective climbed the stairs.

As most free afternoons, the blond man had come to pay his friend a visit - hoping to find him working on a case he needed help with. Instead, he'd only found Irene, who'd entertained him with a cup of coffee while they both waited for the extraordinary man. John had brought his laptop, as it was, and was working on a blog entry from his old arm chair. Irene, seated in the other arm chair, looked up as the flat owner reached the top of the stairs, and her eyebrows rose at once. Her reaction caught the doctor's attention and he frowned at her in confusion as an unexpected sound broke the silence. It was the sound of a cat's frail meow.

"Oh, please tell me Sherlock just has a cold," the blond man sighed and hesitated to turn around. At last he did and was met with the sight of his best friend, still clad in coat and scarf, holding a black and white kitten in his arms as if it was a brick and not an animal.

"Oh, for the love of-" John sighed, put the laptop on the floor and stood to meet the spectacle. "What do you intend on doing to that cat?"

"I have an important experiment-"

"That will what? Put the cat in a coma? Hmm? Kill it?" John remarked as Sherlock stepped into the room and dumped the cat in the woman's lap.

The tall man ignored his friend's words as he told her, "Don't cuddle with it while I prepare. I don't want it distracted."

"No!" John protested fiercely. "No experiments on live subjects, Sherlock! This is not a pet laboratory! What's gotten into you lately?"

The detective gazed down at his short friend as if he did not understand the question, "'Gotten into me', John?"

"You've done some intimidating and weird experiments in the past, Sherlock. I'll admit to that. But you've never experimented on a live thing," the blond man remarked and glanced at the purring kitten in Irene's lap. The poor animal had no idea what cruel fate it could meet in one of Sherlock's experiments, and truthfully neither did John.

"Would you prefer I tried my experiments on humans, John?" the dark-haired man asked and cocked his head to the side.

"Heaven forbid! We don't want a Frankenstein's monster on our hands… Besides, we both know you do those experiments already, but in utmost secrecy. Thank you again for that lost Wednesday..." the man muttered and sighed at length as Sherlock moved to take off his coat and scarf. The detective, pretending he hadn't heard the doctor's words once more, then walked over to Irene and looked down at her wordlessly. He held out an expectant hand but the woman pretended not to notice.

There was a soft pling from the laptop at that moment and John bent down to retrieve it. He opened it up and noticed he had a new message. Or that was to say, Sherlock did.