Brotherly Love

Friends and Foes

It had been two weeks since that dreadful letter from my brother and there had been no word from him since. I was getting a bit restless and tried to get my mind off of things, by helping Sherlock and John with a few cases. Running around London and catching criminals was oddly exiting and I relished the opportunity to do so. The plan was still in motion and I made no effort in disguising myself, when we went out into the streets. We were trying to taunt my brother into action, by parading me around the city and it was just a matter of time now, before he would either send another message or try to apprehend me.

Mycroft had been over at the flat a few times, voicing his concerns and trying to persuade me, to find another way of dealing with the situation. He told me in no uncertain terms, that he would ferry me off into a safe house, if there would be any indication of things going sideways. Surprisingly, Sherlock took my side in the ongoing argument and it almost got out of hand, when the brothers started shouting at each other. I expected Mycroft to get all protective over me, but it was a pleasant turn of events, that Sherlock stood up for me and defended my ability to handle myself.

We had grown closer over the last few weeks and I caught him initiating physical contact more and more often. His fingers would linger a moment longer than necessary, when he handed me stuff in the lab, he would keep closer than needed, when we compared notes about cases and he would find reasons to put his hand on the small of my back, when went in and out of buildings. At first I was uncomfortable and skittish, when he touched me, but soon I started to get used to it and at some point I almost craved for those lingering touches. 

John noticed the change in Sherlocks behaviour towards me and would make remarks about it from time to time, making me blush and Sherlock scoff indignantly, telling him not to be ridiculous. After all, John should know, it wasn't his area and he was married to his work, thank you very much. John would just smirk at his outbursts and snigger silently to himself, obviously relishing in the fact, that the great Sherlock Holmes wasn't as immune to sentiment as he wanted to let the world believe.

When we were at the lab, examining evidence from cases, I tried to keep him at arms-length. I had become closer to Molly and didn't want our budding friendship to relapse because of Sherlocks outwardly affection towards me. She was such a nice girl and I had become very fond of her. She would really come out of her shell, as soon as Sherlock wasn't around. Whenever we were visiting the morgue, I would take the time to get a coffee with her in the hospital cafeteria. We got along splendidly and I greatly enjoyed her company, her sometimes awkward jokes never failing to make me laugh. I couldn't understand, why Sherlock was so oblivious to her charm. She was beautiful in an unassuming way, with her cinnamon-coloured hair, big, brown doe-eyes and adorably upturned nose. And she was a bloody brilliant pathologist, graduating from Cambridge with honours two years earlier than her fellow students and she also was the youngest specialist registrar ever at Barts.

I had a hard time explaining why I was living at Baker Street as I didn't want her to know too much about what was going on. John had told me, that my brother had pretended to be interested in her, just so he could get closer to Sherlock. I didn't want her finding out, that I was related to the guy who had broken her trust by lying to her about his intentions. So I skirted along the subject every time it came up, diverging her attention to other topics. Even though we got along very well, I would still catch her watching me, whenever Sherlock and I interacted with each other. Sometimes she had an odd look on her face, when she noticed him standing too close, or touching me without real reason. As much as I tried to prevent him from acting this way in front of her, it wasn't always possible. Sherlock was like a cat, one minute he was at the other side of the room, the next he was standing next to me, closer than was strictly necessary. Molly never commented on this, but I could see it in her eyes, that she wasn't all that happy about it, so I made an effort to reassure her, that there was nothing going on between me and the curly-haired genius.