Sherlock took a taxi after dropping the bike off at the rental shop, but still managed to beat Y/N home. Probably because---while her car was stuck lumbering through traffic---Sherlock's little rental bike could weave through any congestion like a kestrel through trees.
He'd rather still be on the road, if he's honest; even though the old borrowed leathers had smelt of Febreeze and were so old they'd hardened to a point of mummification.
Being on the road means having to think about the vehicles around you, the signposts protruding from the streets, the hum of the engine and what it means.
Being at home means your mind is free to wander, and, at present, Sherlock's mind keeps wandering to the same thing: the case.
He knows he'd been right to call the police on the car dealers---there had been so many of them, after all---too many for Y/N and himself to deal with alone, anyway.
Raids are like insect nests, Sherlock had always thought, rather poetically.
The little ones---one or two unarmed perpetrators in a poorly-planned location---are like a bee's nests. Sherlock can usually deal with these alone. He may get a few stings, but, overall, they're not too bad to split open.
Next is a wasp's nest. They usually consist of low-level groups of organised criminals or highly guarded buildings peppered with security features. They're harder to infiltrate, and usually require assistance of some kind (Sherlock's go-to being Y/N), but not impossible to bust without help from professionals.
Finally, there are hornet's nests; highly equipped, well-thought-out locations teeming with swarms of highly trained, ruthless hornets.
The BMW dealer's warehouse had definitely been a hornet's nest. There had been over eleven men inside, from what he could see through a narrow strip of window, and God knows how many more from what he couldn't.
Sherlock would rather the shiny expensive car run him over than drag Y/N in there.
So he'd immediately---yet graciously---stepped down to Plan B, and tipped off the police about a shifty car dealership in the warehouse lot down Grey Street.
It had been the right thing to do, even though it meant he'd miss out on the satisfaction of personally dumping some low-lifes at the police station.
...
When Sherlock had texted Y/N telling her to meet her back at the flat, she had almost been tempted to hang behind a little while to see if that man on the motorcycle---
If that man on the motorcycle what?
Would go past her as he drives back from wherever he came?
Then what?
She can't ask for his number---she has no idea what he looks like, after all.
Well, she knows he's lean and tall; his long, svelte body had to be around six foot, didn't it? It had been hard to tell while the length of it was arched over a bike, and even harder to tell from the pixels of her phone screen. He hadn't been old, but he hadn't been overly young either; his body moving with the easy efficiency of a strong, deft male who was probably somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties.
If she had seen him again---for real---and if she had gotten a peek at his face---and liked it---would she have had the guts to ask for his number?
She brushed that thought aside and relaxed into the back of the cab.
...
When Y/N finally arrived home, Sherlock tossed the book he had been reading onto the coffee table, not even bothering to mark his place. It was something his brother had leant him, something old and translated from French.
"I can't speak French," Sherlock had said, which was both true and a relief.
The relief was short-lived, however, because Mycroft then gifted him with a rant about his lack of culture, and, two days later, an English version of the blasted book through his letterbox. A post-it was pressed to the front, suggesting he 'compensate Mother for those wasted language lessons'.
The book was simplistic and mundane. Sherlock suspected the majority of its splendour had been lost in translation, which was a pity, really, because at least some pleasing imagery would have spruced up the monotonously basic plot.
It featured some comely damsel who spends seven chapters fawning over a gallant knight. She's never seen his face---for it is always obscured by a helm---and yet she becomes instantly infatuated.
Sherlock found it irritating. No comely damsel has fawned over him, even when they can see his face.
Y/N kicked off her shoes as Sherlock crossed the room to greet her, welcoming the company. Her hoodie was missing a tassel.
"What happened here?" Unable to bite back a smile, he plucked the material where the string would ordinarily be danging from like a piece of nibbled, ropey spaghetti. He knew what had happened: as something to do, Y/N has a habit of making one end disappear into the hood so she can try to grab it and pull it out again.
The corner of her lip twitched: "I got it stuck and now I can't get it out again."
"I'm sorry the case bored you. Would you like some help?"
"It wasn't boring," Y/N insisted quickly, and Sherlock merely raised an eyebrow as he fetched a paperclip from his desk draw. "Okay, the waiting around bit was, but I enjoyed all the rest of it. "
Sherlock hooked the end of Y/N's missing tassel with the bent wire easily, and tugged it free. "Do you think anyone saw you?"
He hadn't seen her on his arrival, and she hadn't come to find him whilst he'd been parking the bike, which had aroused feelings of both pride and disappointment. She is sharp enough to know that she should remain hidden, and he trusts in her ability to find a suitable place to do so---yet, he'd still have liked to see her.
"No, I don't think so. Thank you." Her eyes went slightly crossed as she watched Sherlock pull the strings of her hoodie to equal lengths below her nose.
Sherlock tried to bite back another smile.
"I got the footage. If we put it with the rest, the judge will have no choice but to find the car dealers guilty. Their trial should be pretty quick."
"Good, I'm getting sick of the witness stand."
"And I think the judge is getting sick of you," Y/N quipped, which got her a pretend frown.
"It's her fault for asking me stupid questions."
"They're not stupid, that's how the legal system works."
"Then the legal system is stupid." Sherlock crossed the room to his laptop and booted it up while Y/N hunted around their cable draw for the one belonging to her phone.
"You're stupid."
...
Sherlock stuck his tongue out at her, but she was still rifling through the cable draw, so probably didn't see.
She had pulled one cable out and three hundred had come out with it, so she shrugged and brought the whole bunch over and dumped it on Sherlock's desk. He regarded it for half a second and then plugged one of the protruding USBs into the old Macbook and one of the jacks into Y/N's phone.
The little 'connected' icon popped up immediately.
They both took a seat, having to shift some things around to make room to do so; a mug of cold, congealed tea (that could have belonged to either of them), a stack of papers featuring multiple photos of severed limbs (definitely Sherlock's), and several desk toys (again, either of them).
Y/N pulled the laptop closer to her side of the desk so she could watch what Sherlock was doing. Her presence isn't necessary, but she wanted to watch anyway, and her flatmate didn't seem to have any objection to her being there. In fact, he angled the screen downwards a little, to account for the lower angle of Y/N's eye line.
Y/N watched as Sherlock sifted through the many many files on her phone until he found the footage they'd taken of the BMW dealers over the past week or so, then dragged them to a blank email addressed to Lestrade.
Greg has nothing to do with this case and yet Sherlock had decided to send the evidence to him anyway. Y/N sometimes wonders whether he actually knows anyone else at Scotland yard, or if he just does it to get on the detective inspector's nerves.
Probably both.
"You might want to trim the last one," Y/N pointed out as he moved the cursor over to drag the final file. "There's almost a minute of stuff you don't need on the end." She felt her cheeks heat and almost reached over to open the window, then noted the frost crystallised at the corners of the panes.
Sherlock opened the editing tool and skipped the video until the dark silhouette of the motorcyclist graced the screen like a shadow. He said nothing, just looked slightly puzzled as he selected the tiny scissors icon and highlighted the footage he wanted to snip off.
When he dragged the little white arrow over to 'SAVE CHANGES', Y/N stopped him quickly.
"Why did you do that?"
She'd put her had over his, pushing it safely away from the trackpad, and released him, flushing under his confused pale eyes. "I want a copy of the original."
His eyebrows disappeared under his curly fringe. "Whatever for?"
"The motorcyclist is hot."
...
Sherlock blinked at her.
"The motorcyclist?" He repeated slowly. His tone had been edged with confusion, and Y/N's expression shifted from embarrassed to affronted.
More than defensively: "Don't say it like that, you probably look at women in a nice dress or short shorts; it's the same thing."
'Women', Sherlock laughed to himself bitterly. 'Woman.' Just one. 'Just you.'
"No," he said, aloud this time. "I mean what makes you say...he's hot?" he tested the word 'he' carefully, and Y/N didn't correct or question him. Does she really not know...? "You can't see his face." He watched her cheeks progress from delicate raspberry to deep strawberry.
It was strangely fascinating.
"I don't know. Look at him." Her eyes gravitated back to the screen.
Sherlock looked too, at the slightly-blurred shape of himself freeze-framed as he leans the bike to one side to around a tight corner. Now he's the one blushing, but the compliment feels strange, like a set of shelves put together wrong; it'll hold up, but there's still something... off about it. "You keep saying 'him'."
"Well, yeah. That's a guy, isn't it? The broad shoulders, the narrow waist---"
Sherlock preened.
"---the height---"
His hand had stilled over the laptop's trackpad, the task he was supposed to be doing long forgotten. Sherlock isn't really sure what to do with this information, he just knows that he should do something. It's an opportunity not to be missed. "You mean to say, you don't know who that is?" He clarified.
Y/N's brows furrowed as she looked up at him quizzically. "No, should I?"
He pushed his shoulders into what he hoped looked like a nonchalant shrug. "It's not that you should know who it is, it's just a little surprising that you don't."
Why doesn't she know? Is the notion of him riding a motorcycle---and looking good doing it---that far fetched? So implausible in her mind that it doesn't even occur to her that he'd taken a bike to the warehouse lot rather than a blocky taxi or a stuffy rental car?
"How so? Is he famous or something?"
"No, he just lives around here."
A sudden look came over Y/N's face, a sort of blend of hope and interest. Her ears had metaphorically pricked. "He does?"
"Yeah. Close by, actually. Really close." His elbow is fifteen centimetres from your upper arm.
At that moment, Sherlock decided not to tell Y/N that it was him in the video. He's not sure why yet. It might have something to do with the flock of compliments she was carelessly letting loose seeing as she saw no reason to be embarrassed. Would she continue to compliment the motorcyclist if she knew it was the man sitting next to her?
She will know, one day. Sherlock will tell her when the moment suits him, but not yet.
He bit his cheek to keep from the corner of his lip curling into a smile, and turned back to the laptop.
"Have you met him?" There was a sort of soft hopefulness edging Y/N's tone, and Sherlock found it both amusing and unexplainably irritating.
He almost opened his mouth to say 'Yes, and he's a stuck-up bastard that you shouldn't touch with a six-foot pole'---but then he remembered he's talking about himself.
"Yes. I know him very well."
"Is he nice?"
Is he? He'd like to think he is. He tries to be. To her, anyway. "I'd say so."
"Is he clever?"
"That's important to you, is it?"
"Hey, I like what I like."
"Yes, he's clever. As clever as me, actually."
"High praise indeed," Y/N prodded, but she did look genuinely impressed, which made Sherlock flush. She thinks he's talking about another man, he reminded himself with a mental kick. "Is he good looking? You know, under the biker gear?"
"You know I'm into women, right?" Into a woman. You.
"Yeah---"
Good.
"But surely you can guess?"
Sherlock looked at his reflection staring back at himself from the laptop's grubby screen. His gaze weaved its way around the oily fingerprints from years of haphazard, careless use, and lingered over his high cheekbones, his almond eyes, his pointed nose. His hairstyle hasn't changed since college, and his face is all long, and not just because his reflection is warped by that dent in the Mac's casing.
He shrugged again. "He's okay looking, I guess."
For a moment he said nothing, teetering on the edge of wanting to know once and for all, and preferring to remain in blissful ignorance. Could Y/N ever find him attractive?
"He's got a narrow face. And almond-shaped eyes. His hair is dark and curly. Girly, almost. And his lips are girly too. He's kind of gaunt and lanky." His description had tripped up somewhere and rolled down a hill of self-depreciation, but Y/N lit up and said all the same:
"Just my type."
Sherlock couldn't tell if she was joking, even when he took a long hard look at her through the sides of his eyes. "...What is?"
"Tall, skinny, smart-ass dark-haired guys."
Sherlock tried to squash a sort of glowing sensation that was blossoming in his chest, and pressed his lips into a line.
He'd trimmed the video down and uploaded it to the email addressed to Greg, a silence setting in as they waited for the chunky old machine to muddle its way through the simple task they had set it. Sherlock's brain was churning away with equal energy, one finger having crept to his mouth so he could chew thoughfully on a nail.
"You need a new computer," Y/N said.
Sherlock blinked, pulling himself back to reality. She had a point, but he shook his head. "I like the way this one's keys feel when you press them."
Y/N's smile caught his peripheral.
"What?"
"You're weird."
People have said that to Sherlock hundreds of times throughout his life; his memories are peppered with that word, usually twisted with an ugly sneer.
But Y/N isn't sneering, she's still smiling.
Uncertainty: "Sorry?"
"Don't be. I like it."
Trying not to blush happily, Sherlock hesitated. But he had to know. He has to. "The man on the motorcycle. I could introduce you."
Y/N opened her mouth to speak, but he continued quickly:
"But you should know, he's...sort of weird too. He's new to..."
Everything.
"---dating. Not because there's something wrong with him, he just...hasn't found the right person yet. What I mean is, you'd have to be patient with him. He wouldn't be able to sweep you off your feet or anything, at least not at first. I mean, he'd try---"
Yes, he'd try, since Sherlock set eyes on her he'd wanted to try. He'd wanted to try make her grin until her eyes go all crinkly, try make her laugh until she can't breathe, try make her moan his name so loud the neighbours complain.
"You don't need to keep defending him, he sounds lovely."
'Would you stand by that statement if I told you who he really is?'
...
Y/N adjusted her hair a little---for the millionth time that day---with one hand, using a particularly shiny coat button as a mirror as she tugged on her shoes with the other.
She doesn't know why she's bothering with her hair; Sherlock had arranged for her to go on a motorcycle ride with the hot biker guy, so it'll be flattened by a helmet anyway. She'd just like to make a good first impression between leaving the front door and tugging on the borrowed headgear.
Y/N had had the apartment to herself for the majority of yesterday, and now Sherlock was out again today, so she shamelessly spent some time trying on all the jumpers she owned one by one in front of the living room mirror. Sherlock had said the hot motorcycle guy---he hadn't given her his name no matter how many times she asked---would supply her with an armoured jacket to wear during their ride, which she had been excited about. However, it would mean whatever jumper she decides to put on underneath mustn't be too bulky, and it had taken her a while to decide on one.
Why is she so nervous?
Perhaps because she hasn't actually gotten a glimpse of this man's face yet. She'd just seen his body, his lean, muscled body effortlessly guiding a powerful machine---
Perhaps because it's her first date in what feels like a decade.
Since befriending Sherlock Holmes, Y/N has been reluctant to 'get back out there' due to a wild, daft little dream that she might 'get back out there' with him.
But days had passed, and then months, and then he invited her to move in with him---in separate bedrooms---and she gave up hoping he'd show a romantic or even sexual interest in her.
A few times she had wondered about just coming out with it and asking if he'd like to get a drink---but something had grabbed the words and pulled the back down her throat every time she opened her mouth to do so. He'd become her best friend; she loves him now, loves having him in her life. He's like a butterfly that had landed on her; she didn't want to risk scaring him away.
Y/N could hear the sound of an engine as she neared the front door, the hot motorcycle guy apparently having pulled up before 221B at exactly the arranged time. This engine sounded different to the one belonging to the little cafe racer he'd ridden a few days ago; a bike which Sherlock had explained the man had apparently rented.
The man would be bringing his own bike for their ride today, so Y/N had been told. She liked it already and she hadn't even seen it; the sound a low, rich purr vibrating through the front door as she unlocked it. She could feel it oscillating through the wood, down the key, and into her hand.
When Y/N stepped out into the brisk January air, it was sweet with the tang of fuel.
A great stretch of gleaming black and silver stood waiting by the road, the cylinders rumbling away to themselves as though the entire thing were breathing. Muscular, all slow curves and raw power, the bike was built like a cart-horse, but the hot biker guy sat easily astride it as though it were nothing but a pony.
Hands resting on his leather-covered thighs, he was wearing different gear to that the tatty stuff he'd had on the other day. This didn't look new either, but it was polished and as black as soot, hefty hidden metal plates complimenting his long legs and the broad width of his shoulders.
He raised his helmet-covered head as Y/N crossed the path to him, a shy smile playing on her lips; she could see its reflection in his tinted visor. He found the ignition key easily with one gloved hand and turned it, the engine falling quiet like a bee taking a break from beating its wings.
Y/N wondered what to say; whether she should fill the pregnant silence. Can he even hear her from inside his helmet?
"Your bike is beautiful," she said. It is. Her gaze couldn't help keep sliding along its body; there's something about the shape of it that drags your eyes from the delicate spindles of the front wheel, all the way down to the exhaust as thick as a tree branch, still hot, making the air around it wriggle with heatwaves.
The man's body has the same effect, apparently, because Y/N keeps finding her eyes following the curve of him, all the way down to the toes of his chunky black boots. They were spatterd with flecks of glistening mud, but there were no country roads around here, at least that Y/N knew of.
The hot biker guy sat up a little straighter, his leathers allowing the movement with nothing but a soft murmuring of material.
Y/N felt her heart rate pick up as he reached up for the helmet's chin strap. He unclasped it with well-practised gloved fingers and then pulled the whole thing from his head, and set it in his lap.
Sherlock gave her a nervous smile. "Thank you," he said, and it took Y/N a moment to remember what he was thanking her for.
She just blinked at him, her breath blooming in billow from her slightly parted lips.
His curls were ruffled from the static of dragging them from the helmet, and his cheekbones were dusted pink, but Y/N suspected that had nothing to do with the confined space.
He cleared his throat and leaned back enough to unclip the cargo box strapped to the sissy bar at the rear of the bike. Inside, sitting atop a pile of neatly folded leathers was a helmet, identical to his own apart from the size and the fact that it was missing a few scratches.
"So," he held it out to Y/N, that shy smile still curving his lips, "can I take you for a ride?"