The air in 221B was stale as Sherlock attempted to hide his smoking. He had taken my laptop and was sitting in the kitchen with his back towards John and I and the doors shut slightly. The cigarette smoke had a revolting smell and everytime he would take a puff on it, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. He had apparently stopped smoking for quite a long time, but decided to give up on the patches around the time that I moved in. At about the same moment, John and I both got the idea to open the windows in an effort to get rid of the God awful stench.
“Do you even realize how bad those things smell? You and Mycroft both reek of those things and it’s disgusting,” I spouted as I fanned the windows to try to get fresh air circulating through the stuffy little flat.
“Yes, because you don’t smoke at all,” Sherlock snapped.
“I don’t, and you should know that. Jim never liked the smell, so that was a habit I never bothered with. Besides, you should be able to tell the difference between the smell of someone who smokes and someone who is constantly around smokers. What you smell on me is mostly Greg,” I corrected matter-of-factly.
“Who?”
I groaned, rolling my eyes as I took his cigarette to throw it out the window. “Greg Lestrade, y’know, the man whose name you can never seem to remember. Are you seriously that thick, or is his name another thing you can’t be bothered to remember like the fact that the Earth goes around the Sun?”
“Are you really bringing that up? My God, who even cares?” he half yelled in irritation, searching for his cigarettes and throwing off his blue dressing robe after he gave up.
“Well, obviously the scientists who discovered that and the ones that use facts like that every day as a real job,” I snapped in reply, falling onto the couch and grabbing my phone. I had another text from Jim, but I had only been out of the hospital for a week and I didn’t want to be back there anytime soon, so I ignored it.
“How is observing the Sun considered a ‘real’ job? It’s a job for those who couldn’t get into the harder sciences because they weren’t smart enough. But I suppose it’s still more of a job than yours.” I gave him a deathly glare and he just smirked in reply.
“Currently, I have no job, thank you very much. And how was my old job any less of a job than yours? Your ‘job’ is more of a hobby so you don’t end up on the other side of the crime scene. Oh wait, that already happened, didn’t it? Charles Augustus Magnussen. The first person the oh so great Mr. Holmes murdered.” I sat up from the couch and stared at him intensely, my playful grin betraying the coldness in my eyes. I stood up, getting closer to my twin as I spoke. “Who’s next, Sherlock? Who’s going to be the one person who snaps you? Makes you what they believe you are? That one last nerve that pushes you into my world?”
By the end of my tease, we were almost nose to nose. Our matching blue eyes were finishing the conversation for us, leaving poor John in an awkward silence. I was about to speak again when I suddenly felt something collide with my face. I looked back to Sherlock to realize he had hit me. It was open handed, but still a hit nonetheless. I was more in shock than I was anything else, but yet it didn’t surprise me one bit. I had almost expected it in a way. Call it twin intuition.
“I’m not and I never will be like you. The murder of Magnussen was by my hand, but not at the purpose of any of your murders. Nothing will ever push me down to your level because you and I are entirely different people,” he whispered with venomous intent.
I stood on my tiptoes to get by his ear so that only he could hear me when I said, “Are we, brother dearest? Are we really?”
And with those last words, I went into my room to lock myself in for the night. I could hear John and Sherlock speaking to each other in the living room after a long pause before I heard the door slam. The two of them had left, so I fell on my bed with music playing from my phone. I checked the text from Jim, finally, and sighed when I read it.
‘Getting bored is a dangerous thing for you, Kitten. -Jim Moriartyx’
Jim was beyond right. Me getting bored usually meant a murder was close to follow, and the fact that I was living with a detective and in a ‘relationship’ with another meant that committing one would be suicide. With that thought in mind, I decided to resort to my other boredom solver. I walked into the bathroom and worked one of the blades out of my razer, cleaning it off and sitting in the tub without my shorts on. My music played quietly in the background as I ran the cool metal across my thigh, moaning quietly as the cuts grew deeper. I ran my finger over the bleeding cuts, covering it in the bright, crimson liquid. I licked it off, getting an almost sexual pleasure from the pain and blood. I made one cut slightly deeper than the others, causing me to let out a rather loud moan that made me thankful to be home alone. I could remember when Jim did this for me...it usually led to much more than just what I was doing.
“Oh Jim,” I moaned quietly with a wicked grin. “What have you done?”
A loud knocking and a yell from Mrs. Hudson tore me from my torturous euphoria. I groaned and cleaned up fast before hurrying to open the door for whoever was there. Upon opening it, I smiled big when I saw Greg. I gave him a quick peck on the lips before inviting him in.
“Want a cuppa?” I asked as he took a seat on the couch that creaked under the pressure.
“Sure,” he replied, getting up to follow me into the kitchen. I saw the disgusted look on his face when he saw Sherlock’s science stuff everywhere and couldn’t help but to chuckle.
“You’ll have to ignore the mess. It’s always like this, but it is sanitary, I promise. I do actually attempt to clean this place whether John and Sherlock like it or not.”
“I feel bad that you have to clean with this stuff around,” he said as he gently pushed a jar of eyes away with his elbow.
“I’m used to it already.” I shrugged, putting the kettle on the stove then taking a seat on the stool beside him.
He held my hand as we spoke, out intertwined hands resting on my knee. I hadn’t felt so happy with someone for a while, so just sitting there with Greg and having a normal conversation felt like we were doing something special. That was something I hadn’t had with Jim for a long time. Of course, I did have to ruin it in some form. I used my free hand to rub my thigh absentmindedly in attempt to calm the itching feeling of my scars without opening them. I didn’t even think about it when the hem of my shorts came up a little bit to expose the fresh markings until Greg pointed them out. He was mid-sentence when he noticed them.
“Jayden!” He slipped my shorts up some more to expose the wounds and I looked away just as he tried to make eye contact with me. “Jayden, why would you do this?” he whispered.
“I-I…” I struggled to get the words out. I had to lie. I couldn’t let him find out who I was. I liked him way too much for us to be ruined by my past I had been very vague about. “Sherlock and I got into a fight earlier and after he left earlier I got into a bit of a depression. It happens sometimes. I’m a little bipolar, so it’s easy to trigger…”
He lifted a hand to pull my face back to his direction and kissed me gently. I had almost expected him to get angry, but no. He was calm and seemed more hurt that I would do this to myself. “Jayden, can you please not do this anymore? For me? I know times get rough, trust me, I do know, but this isn’t the answer.” He kissed me again just as the kettle began to whistle and I smiled against his lips.
“Looks like the kettle wants none of that,” I chuckled, pulling away from him and moving the whistling pot off the stove.
“Just like I want none of this,” he said as he hugged me from behind, gently rubbing my thigh.
Biting my lip and sighing, I turned to him and said, “Don’t do that.”
“What, this?” He rubbed my thigh again, sending a wave of electricity through my body, and I smacked his hand playfully.
“Yes, that. I’d like to not jump you in my brother’s kitchen,” I laughed, kissing his cheek then quickly stepping away.
“It’s your kitchen too,” he countered with a smirk. His sexy smirk and raspy voice just added to my want of him.
“No, I just live here. I pay for nothing,” I ‘tried’ to argue, but honestly, I think both of us wanted the same thing.
“We could get a cab,” he suggested.
“Oh God, yes!”
A/N: So sorry guys for such a long wait between chapters. I had mid-term exams, state testing, a small glimpse of a social life, and laziness. So, I really hope you guys like this one. As always, votes and comments are appreciated as well as recommended. No votes/comments=longer wait time for chapters. Thanks guys!
P.S. The awesome banner is thanks to kikibuscus2259