Work Text:
It was a rainy day on Baker Street.
Enola had cleverly outwitted an organised gambling network that paid the wages of club-employed waitresses not out of the business’ profits, but out of the tips that said waitresses should be earning on top of their salary. A young woman, Sophie, had recruited her onto the case as she had started to suspect wrong-doings by her employer. Enola had easily confirmed the suspicions as it seemed even shady gambling institutions keep a track record of their expenses. After a bit of hiding behind doors and fighting her way out of casino back entrances, she had collected enough proof for Sophie to involve the police and had notified Scotland Yard of the larger implications of the network. This had happened approximately 25 minutes ago.
Now, Enola was in a velvet chair in 221B Baker Street and sipping on hot chamomile tea as the rain bounced off the window panes.
“Would you like a biscuit with that?”
Enola smiled back at the doctor. “Oh, that would be lovely.”
John Watson had helped Enola in a joint effort to escape one of Sherlock’s ‘you should not have involved yourself in such a case’ lectures, when John had asked her how her morning had been and she had answered honestly. The doctor had snuck himself into Enola’s life faster than the nincompoop had. And that was saying something, as the nincompoop had literally dropped from the heavens. Enola more than enjoyed the company of Sherlock’s curious friend, he was bright and often laughed at Enola’s jokes when Sherlock didn’t. He’d taught her how to stitch up a wound (in theory) and how to hold a revolver (in theory as well, although Enola did test the grip on his pistol when John went to answer the door to the mailman).
It was days like this, wet trouser legs from the rain and a chill in her fingers, when Enola was grateful John had decided to move into Baker Street and inadvertently agreed to look after Sherlock. He’d made the three of them tea as soon as Enola had entered the flat and was now padding into the kitchen to fetch the promised treats. He made 221B a real home, as opposed to its previous function as a space to hold Sherlock’s random paper files.
As the doctor disappeared behind a doorframe and Enola’s eyes fell onto her brother, she realised the same internal monologue was happening in his brain. Though, there was something odd about him these days. Mycroft had called it ‘finally growing up’, her mother had called it ‘mellowing out’, Edith had described it with a smile, but none of it seemed to hit the nail on the head. So, as one would, Enola approached the subject from an angle of deduction.
Left hand in lap, right arm propped up on the side of his armchair. Chin resting in palm. Slight creases around the corners of his mouth. Soft complexion. Gaze directed at the end of the corridor. Mmh.
“You’re being emotional, brother.”
“Huh?”
Enola rolled her eyes. “You’re not even listening.”
“I am and no, I am not being emotional.” Sherlock’s mind was playing catch-up and Enola’s was beeping like a lie detector.
“And you don’t even admit it. Interesting.”
Sherlock huffed and sank further into his seat, one leg now draping over one of the arm rests. Enola’s face softened.
“I recognise what has happened. The doctor has made you soft.”
The detective’s face scrunched up in disgust. “What an idiotic and quite insulting remark.”
Enola was gesturing wildly. “No, I didn’t even intend for it to come across as mean! All I’m saying is, I recognise it because Tewksbury has the same effect on me.” She smiled, but then confusion arose in her. “And I admitted to loving him, which—”
“That is quite enough, Enola,” Sherlock spat, hideous bite in his voice. Her eyebrows shot up.
A pause.
“So, you enjoy his company?”
“I am not entertaining you.”
“…and his personality, I suppose?”
“This conversation is over.”
“…and don’t you might think the affection could be returned? He does handle your dirty linens at times.”
“Enola, enough!—“
“You two!”
John rounded the corner and strode along the corridor, carrying biscuits with urgency. “No squabbling. On a Sunday at least, I beg of you.”
The Holmeses retracted, but Enola felt fairly triumphant. A new case, and a good one, too.
A fortnight later and Enola regretted her accurate deductions immensely. Her youngest brother had somewhat admitted to the fact that he cared for Doctor Watson, mostly to himself. So, as Enola was the only other person who was in on this piece of information, she was the only outlet for his frustrations. And since she was a working young woman running a business in central London, she really didn’t have the time to listen to his cupid agonies any longer.
Enola was tapping away on her typewriter, while Sherlock sat on the floor with his legs crossed, ranting more to his own person than his sister.
“Perhaps he does feel similarly and I’ll regret not expressing myself?”
Enola kept typing. “Agreed.”
“But I’d make a fool of myself. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t ‘like’ people.”
“But you like me?”
Sherlock briefly lifted his head. “Yes, but that’s different. I have to like you.”
Enola didn’t dignify the statement with an answer and started typing again.
“I ought to say something before I shoot the wall.”
“Jolly good, then.”
“But I can’t possibly!”
The younger detective huffed in barely contained annoyance and shoved her seat backward. The sound of key tapping vanished.
“Why not?”
Sherlock Holmes, on the floor, looked like a nine year old experiencing life’s worst tragedies. He kneaded his hands in his lap. “Because I’d ridicule myself, before the world and the doctor.”
In his state, Enola couldn’t help but feel sympathetic. “But what if he feels the same way?”
“Preposterous.”
“How is it preposterous?”
Sherlock just harrumphed angrily. “You wouldn’t understand. This concerns adult relations and besides, I don’t know why I’m seeking your advice in the first place, if—"
Enola rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the typewriter. The sympathy had passed.
Sherlock raised his voice over the loud typing. “Enola, are you even listening?”
“Nope.” She popped the P such that it really rang through the room.
The older detective supported himself off the ground and regained his usual large frame. “I shall leave then.”
She didn’t look up from her paper this time. “Good-bye!”
The great detective, Sherlock Holmes, huffed out loudly and made sure to fill the air with an overexcited ring of the bell above the door as he strode out of Enola’s office.
Mission ‘Force Sherlock and John into a passionate confession and in the process, stop Sherlock from moping into his sister's ear' was underway. Enola had painted the plan perfectly in her head, and it helped her confidence that she had noticed lingering gazes from John’s end of the room after Sherlock had called him his ‘dear doctor’ when she had picked up an Old English literature book at 221B just a few days prior. Now, all she needed was a little favour for her master plan to come to fruition.
“Might it at all be possible for you to halt the underground system this Tuesday at quarter to nine?”
Tewksbury stared back at her with wide open eyes, gauging whether she was playing a trick on him. She was not.
“No?”
Enola rolled her eyes and turned away. Bummer.
“Of course not! And why would I?”
“It’s for a case. Well, sort of.”
It was Tewksbury’s turn to roll his eyes. “Why exactly do you need the entire London underground to malfunction for a sort-of-case?”
They both took a seat on one of Tewksbury’s chaise lounges, generously framed by exotic and native plants. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. She leaned in closer with a glint in her eye.
“You must promise not to tell anybody, especially my brothers.”
Tewksbury nodded but with growing concern.
“I need Sherlock to confess that he’s sweet on Doctor Watson.” She squealed in her seat at the notion.
“What?”
“I know, I know, it’s very exciting. I mean, Sherlock has been a nightmare this week with all his broken-hearted moping and I need to put an end to it for the sake of my own sanity. Simultaneously though, seeing him in such a besotted state has been absolutely thrilling. I shall never be in trouble ever again with something as quaintly embarrassing as a fancying of his as blackmailing material in my dress pocket. It’s quite the personal advantage on my part.”
She cut off when Tewksbury didn’t meet her with matching enthusiasm. “Don’t you see the potential?”
“Enola, are you certain you know what you’re talking about? These are serious allegations.”
Enola wrinkled her nose. “Allegations? I won’t blackmail him for money, just to get him off my back during a difficult case.”
Tewksbury dropped his head. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Why don’t you explain what you mean, then?”
“If the situation is as you state, then this involves people’s feelings.”
“Quite correct. That is the crux of the matter, Tewksbury.”
Tewksbury started kneading his hands. He seemed rather tense. “All I mean is that you don’t know what people’s reactions may be… Doctor Watson is a fine and a kind man but I don’t know a lot of his political views… and you can hardly expect the London public to cheer in support.”
Only now did it dawn on Enola what the nincompoop was alluding to. In her exaltation, she had forgotten what had been in the newspaper only a few months ago.
“I’m not attempting to storm parliament.”
“I understand that and it’s not what I’m accusing you of. But after hearing Labouchère speak before the Lords, so convinced and with thunderous applause, I reckon we need to be very careful with your brother in the public eye. Even with the connection to Lestrade, I’m not sure how sympathetic Scotland Yard would be if somebody held Section 11 against Sherlock.”
Enola shook her head confidently. “Mycroft would pull strings to stop such things. There is no need to worry about Sherlock’s public image.”
Tewksbury laid a soft hand on hers. “And what if it isn’t Sherlock’s reputation that is damaged, but Doctor Watson’s by proxy?”
Enola chewed on her lip in thought. “Perhaps a master plan of confession that’s… a little less public than the underground?”
Tewksbury visibly deflated with relief. “Oh, thank the heavens.”
Enola was great at plotting and planning. Once as a little girl, she had conned a mouse living in their shed on the Holmes estate into a self-constructed, wiry trap that allowed the creature to crawl in but not out. Enola had wanted to prevent the mouse from running into the deadly traps scattered around the kitchen and so had cleverly led it to the shed by a bacon trail. The mouse, of course, had not known it was being saved from a worse fate and had squeaked like a lamb waiting for slaughter. If only it had understood that little Enola had had a more benevolent, far superior plan for it than the kitchen maid did.
It turned out that trying to get her much older brother and his living companion to speak honestly with one another was a very similar situation to the mouse in the mouse trap, except there were two creatures to lure in and they both had human heads. And obviously there were no deadly traps in the kitchen. Or any squeaking.
Enola was in despair; she had come up with several carefully constructed schemes that would have Sherlock and John in the same place at the right time. She had tried anonymous flower deliveries, mysterious inn table reservations, and any other thing she could’ve thought of which she would have understood as a hint from a distant admirer. Somehow though, all her undertakings would coincide either with a new murder or some other trouble that would leave the targeted clue flying right over the detective’s and the doctor’s heads (quite literally in the case of the flowers when Sherlock had chucked them carelessly over his shoulder on the doorstep).
After a fortnight of attempts and failures, Enola accepted defeat. She slumped on the chaise longue in Baker Street, the place only reminding her of how she’d never be as cunning as her younger brother. Sherlock walked through the front door with a furrowed brow, confusedly turning a greeting card in his hands.
“This must have to do with the kidnapping case. Miss Troy is taunting me, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what she is trying to tell me. There is no pattern, there cannot be if I don’t see it.”
Enola didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and slapped her forehead.
“What is the matter with you?” Sherlock observed her from where he stood for a second until suddenly a figurative lightbulb lightened his face followed by a shadow of anger.
“This was you all along.”
Enola rolled her eyes. “World’s smartest detective,” she mocked, staring at the ceiling.
“But for what purpose? Why would you send me anony—”
The penny dropped just then.
A few snappy remarks later, a screaming match ensued.
“Stop meddling with my life!” Sherlock dangerously brandished his cane in his sister’s direction.
Enola was so angry, she could feel her nostrils flare. “Oh, you mean like you and Mycroft always leave me and my affairs in peace, hm?”
Sherlock met her volume. “You clearly don’t understand what you’re talking about, you are behaving like a child!”
“I am the one behaving like a child?” Enola gasped. “At least I had the guts to tell Tewksbury how I loved him!”
The detective visibly flinched. “Emotion muddles logic and you of all people should understand that I cannot afford that in our line of work!”
“I manage to be perfectly professional, thank you very much—”
“…as is quite evident right now.”
“—and you were so distracted by your emotions, you didn’t even realise I was seducing you from afar! Why are you behaving so cowardly?”
Sherlock’s chin was scrunching up. “Cowardice?!” His voice sounded different now. “I am afraid of ruining my reputation, the reputations of my associates, my relation to the one man who can tolerate me as a roommate?”
Both their heads turned simultaneously as they heard a creak near the entrance to the room. In his brown overcoat bespeckled with drizzly weather, Doctor Watson was half-heartedly hiding behind the ajar door, wringing a newspaper between his two hands. He looked as if he was trying to make himself smaller than the glass-encased dog skeleton on the coffee table.
Just about all of the colour had drained from Sherlock’s face.
“How much of that did you hear?”
The newspaper was looking crinkled to the point of no return in the other man’s hands.
“No more than that I can tolerate you as a roommate.”
Both Enola and her brother sighed with relief. That only seemed to add to John’s confusion.
Sherlock straightened the front of his waistcoat nonchalantly. “Good. Otherwise I would likely have to kill you.”
Enola’s argument having been pointedly shut down, she huffed in annoyance and passionately grabbed her hat. Letting her heels click especially loudly on the carpet, she stormed out past the anxious John.
“Good-bye, good Doctor.”
“Always a pleasure,” he returned, mumbling like someone who was burdened with cleaning up a crime scene.
Sherlock had been feeling uneasy in his own home which he really didn’t appreciate with Moriarty dancing on the tip of his nose. John had been acting uncharacteristically awkward for the past two days, severely impairing the detective’s logical reasoning. His living companion poured tea into his saucer instead of his cup, he mistook his newspaper for a log when throwing the paper bundle right into the fire and when he tripped over Sherlock’s telescope strewn about the floor he didn’t even complain about it (the last instance worried Sherlock the most). Sherlock had been trying to help his friend out of this funk, asking medical advice concerning a case: blunt force head trauma, one of the doctor’s specialities. But by the time the Holmes sibling had painted out the scenario three times, John still wasn’t offering a coherent response.
Sherlock sunk into his chair, chewing on his pipe. “…and then the victim suddenly started floating above our heads.”
“Uh hu,” John offered absently from the kitchen. “Wait, excuse me?”
The detective rolled his eyes. “Ahh, so your brain is still among us. Honestly, John, what has got into you? You give the impression of someone who involuntarily witnessed a poltergeist dancing a waltz.”
“Would anyone witness such a thing voluntarily?”
Sherlock didn’t dignify the question with anything more than a disparaging wave of his hand.
John crossed into the living room wiping his hands on his waistcoat. “I do apologise, maybe I’m just not in the mood for bubbling conversation.”
The taller man sat up in his seat in despair. “But you love blunt force head trauma.”
John walked away from the fireplace and mindlessly started shuffling up Sherlock’s papers on the ground. Sherlock jumped out of his seat as if stung by a scorpion.
“Stop doing that immediately. You’re creating chaos.”
“‘Chaos’ is not being able to see the rug when I walk.”
“Deducing you has never been simpler. You are clearly evading my initial question.”
John’s tone turned a bit sour. “Why thank you to the great Detective Holmes. Maybe I should hire you to read me as a book whenever you please. At least then it will be on my terms.”
“What is the matter with you?”
“I heard everything,” John replied a little too quickly.
Sherlock furrowed his brow. “And pray, what exactly are you talking about?”
The other man’s voice lost its shrill, eyes quiet and soft and embarrassedly searching the wall. “The little skirmish with your sister the other day. I witnessed more than I said.”
Sherlock could feel the blood rushing from his face. “By which you mean…”
“I’m certain I heard close to all of it,” John sighed mutedly. “And I have made my own deductions.” Sherlock couldn’t bear the kindness and pity in his pupils.
“Ah.”
A rather uncomfortable stretch of silence ensued in which the detective internally debated whether he could jump out the window and flee London before Scotland Yard could catch him or, alternatively, before John could say another word. He felt too hot and too cold to devise a real defence.
“You haven’t left the room yet,” Sherlock stated smartly.
John shifted from one foot to another, his hands in his pockets.
“I have not.”
“I ought to understand, if you choose to ring Lestrade.”
The doctor looked at him painfully. “Of course I won’t be doing that.”
Sherlock wanted to exhale but couldn’t.
“So, you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind.”
Even to the most skilled detective in the country, John’s tone was unreadable.
“You don’t mind,” Sherlock reinforced.
John met his eyes. “I don’t mind.”
Only their breathing was audible in 221B. Time slowed as John crossed the few feet between them in long strides. Sherlock felt the warmth of the other man’s palms as they were placed on either side of his face. A hitch of air jumped out of his lungs at the contact. John searched his eyes, trying to confirm he wasn’t making a mistake, if not the worst one of his life. Sherlock wanted to banish the anxiousness in his eyes forevermore, pressing forward and closing the distance between their jaws. He could hear the blood pumping through his ears, soft curls under his grip.
After a while, they broke apart.
John patted at Sherlock’s shirt collar. “I certainly don’t mind.”
The detective had very little control over the incredulous laughing sound bursting out of him. John’s eyes crinkled and sparkled delightfully.
Pulling strands of hair out of her vision that the wind seemed to intentionally whip back into her face immediately, Enola trudged across the muddy street, aiming for the by now familiar black front door. She was still unwaveringly cross with her brother as he still hadn’t apologised for his blowout a few days ago. Enola had explained what had happened to the nincompoop who seemed to disagree with her on the fact that her measures had been justified and necessary. He couldn’t understand though; Enola knew that her intentions had only been the purest (and maybe only slightly selfish to get Sherlock to stop whining about his private life). Requiring a book on tobacco ashes and their differing chemical compositions had led her to put her ego aside temporarily. Such a find was only swiftly findable in one building in London, after all. And besides, her visit would give Sherlock ample opportunity to apologise profusely to her.
As she ascended the steps to the first floor, Enola was finalising her imaginary answers should her brother so much as try to have the final word in their dispute. Lifting her foot to kick open the door she already started rambling.
“I wouldn’t be calling in if it weren’t absolutely unavoidable, but my client relies—”
She barely registered a flurry of motion near the sofa that, after a few synapses fired in her brain, offered only one conclusive origin: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had quickly moved to sit further apart than they originally had before Enola stepped foot into the flat. Against her better judgement, Enola smirked into her coat.
Sherlock smoothed the front of his dinner jacket. “Good afternoon, Enola.”
The doctor wasn’t articulate enough to offer a similar sentiment out of shock. The poor man.
“Oh thank goodness Sherlock, at last my ears can rest from your incessant yearning. All I need is to fetch a book and I will be out of your hair. Are you dining out tonight?”
“Only as part of an undercover mission,” her brother supplied curtly, standing up and pacing slightly with his hands behind his back.
“Of course,” Enola quipped, studying the bookshelf briefly and swiftly retrieving her prize from the organic chemistry section. She spun on her heel and while walking past the flustered men inelegantly jabbed her elbow into her brother’s ribs. “I suppose sometimes emotions do do us well, even in this line of work. Wouldn’t you agree, John?”
“I— I suppose I—”
Sherlock rolled his eyes and Enola was already pulling the door shut behind herself. She dismounted the steps with a spring to her gate.
At last, the mice had tapped into her trap.
When she returned to Tewksbury’s home for the evening tea, Enola had already opened her mouth while she was still hanging her coat on the stand.
“Tewksbury, you will not believe the good news I bear tonight! At last, the woes of love are in our favour.”
She hopped into the dining room to meet an unexpected guest at the table.
“Mother?”
“Hello, darling,” Eudoria Holmes smiled, pouring water from a jug into three separate glasses. “Come come, what are your news?”
Enola shared a quick, questioning glance with the man in the room who just shrugged with a tray in hand the housekeeper must have provided for dinner. He looked just a little helpless.
“Oh, I’m not sure they are for me to share,” Enola tried to weasel her way out, lowering herself down onto the green iron-frame chair with a wicker seat that her mother patted for her to sit on. “Nevertheless, they are good news.”
It was Eudoria’s turn to exchange a glance with Tewksbury. “Why, you were about to share them with your boy here, it is hardly fair to exclude me from the joyous occasion.”
“He is not my boy, Mother,” Enola moaned, scooting her cutlery about the table with her fingers. “But perhaps someone else has found theirs…”
Eudoria raised her eyebrows in a gesture signalling something along the lines of ‘I understand you’ve been gossiping with your girlfriends’. A clattering tray lid on the tabletop and a blushing Tewksbury however let Enola know that she wasn’t the only one in on the joke. With a satisfied, accomplished smile, she accepted a hot plate of roast dinner and gravy.