The Book Collector

anthony bridgerton

modern! anthony hcs

a slight lovers quarrel with anthony

doting anthony

modern! anthony texting

anthony procrastinating (s)

sick anthony :(

seducing modern!anthony

late nights in autumn

modern! anthony and his lady

lovemaking (s)

anthony crying after hyacinth leaves

headlock (s)

needy anthony (slight nsfw)

anthony character study

an unexpected return

benedict bridgerton

modern! benedict hcs

mycroft holmes (ys)

a day out

his wife pestering him (s!)

taking advantage of his intelligence

a lapse in propriety

conspiring with james

unravelling mr holmes series⬇️

hustling for the good life, never thought i'd meet you here your ivy grows, and now i'm covered in you so inviting, i almost jump in we learn to live with the pain, mosaic broken hearts wherever you stray, i follow i love you, it's ruining my life wreck my plans, that's my man i want your complications too i think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why you pull me in and i'm a little more brave when i get you alone it’s so simple opalite: epilogue

a torturous dinner party

migraine with mycroft

finding comfort in his love

period pains

birthday celebrations

a long day (s)

soft!dom mycroft

modern!mycroft

You stand at the door in your nightgown, the letter in your hands, reading the same line over and over.

Your father, Bucephalus Hodge, was killed this afternoon. My condolences. — Edie.

That is all.

No elaboration. No comfort. Just the fact of it, delivered in her clean, unhurried hand, as though it were a matter of administrative tidiness. As though she had simply seen to something that needed seeing to, and now it was done.

You are not certain how long you have been standing here.

The night air moves against your bare arms. The field beyond the open door stretches dark and still, and you look out into it the way you might look into water — not seeing it, only aware of its depth.

"What is it?"

Sherlock appears at your shoulder, voice tinged with the careful quiet of someone who already suspects the answer is not a small one.

You do not turn. You do not speak. You only loosen your fingers, and he understands, taking the letter from your hand with a gentleness that would have undone you if you had been paying attention.

You are not paying attention.

Somewhere behind you, footsteps descend the stairs — not in any rush at first, then quickening as they read the room. James. You know his tread by now without needing to look, know the particular rhythm of it the way you know things you have never meant to learn.

Your ears are ringing.

Your vision has blurred at the edges, the doorframe and the dark field beyond it bleeding together into something that does not quite resolve.

"What on earth—" James's voice arrives mid-sentence, still roughened by sleep, and then stops.

The rustle of paper as Sherlock passes him the letter.

Silence.

Then the kind of silence that has weight to it. The kind that presses.

You go on looking at the field.

Edie.

Of all the people who might have written. Of all the hands this news might have arrived in. It had to be hers — composed and correct and faintly, impossibly, kind, as though she had every right to be the one to tell you. As though she had simply been there, at the end, in the place that was never yours, and had done what needed doing because someone had to and it had always fallen to her.

She had his ear in life.

She kept his counsel.

She sat at his shoulder while you sat across a dining hall and learned, slowly and without ever intending to, to stop waiting for him to look your way.

And now, it seems, she was there at the last of him too.

Something shifts in your chest. Not grief, exactly. Not yet. Something deeper and less clean than grief — the ache of mourning a man you never fully had. Of losing something that was already, in every way that counted, lost.

You had always told yourself there would be time.

Not for forgiveness. Not for anything so neat as that. Only time — the vague, unexamined possibility of it, sitting somewhere ahead of you like a door left ajar, one you had always meant to approach and never quite did. One you had grown so accustomed to deferring that you had stopped noticing it was there at all.

It is not there anymore.

And the cruelest part — the part already pressing against the inside of your ribs with a persistence you cannot ignore much longer — is that she knew.

Edie knew where he was. How he was. What his last hours looked like.

You did not.

You had not even known to ask.

She had been given every piece of him you were never offered, and now she has given you this — the last piece, the final accounting — in four words and a signature, and you cannot even be angry at the manner of it because she is not wrong to have been the one to send it. That is what makes it impossible to bear. She was simply there, in all the ways you were not, and there is no one to blame for it — least of all her — and that absence is its own particular kind of torment.

Behind you, James says your name.

Not a question. Not a prompt. Just your name, placed quietly into the dark, as though to remind you that you are still here. Still standing. Still in possession of it.

You do not turn around.

If you turn around, you will have to be somewhere. You will have to be in a room, in a body, in a moment that is actually happening. As long as you go on looking at the field you can remain just slightly outside of it…a step removed from the full weight of what is in that letter, from the fact that the door is gone and you never opened it, and you never will.

You hear Sherlock's quiet footsteps retreat. The hushed click of a door further down the hall. And then there is only the night air and the distant dark and the sound of James moving closer, until you feel the warmth of him at your back.

His hand finds your shoulder first. A palm. A steady, wordless press of it, the kind that asks for nothing and offers what it can.

Then he exhales — as though he is breathing on your behalf — and his arms come around you properly, both of them, folding you in with a care so entirely unlike everything sharp in him that it nearly breaks you where you stand. His mouth finds your shoulder, and he tucks his head against your neck. It is not graceful, not performed, nothing like the James Moriarty who deploys charm the way other men deploy weaponry. This is something else entirely. Something that has no use for cleverness.

He simply holds you.

And something in you, some taut and exhausted part of you that has been braced since the moment you read that letter, since long before that, since the first time you learned that fathers did not always look the way they were meant to, releases.

You close your eyes.

You take the first full breath you have managed since Edie's handwriting swam into focus, and it shudders a little on the way in, and you let it. You can feel the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing against your back. In and out. Patient. Present. The most uncomplicated thing in the world.

Then, so quietly you might almost have imagined it:

"I'm sorry."

The words arrive muffled against your shoulder, pressed there rather than spoken, as though he could not quite bring himself to release them into open air.

You say nothing.

He does not rush you.

"I'm so dreadfully sorry."

This time it is not the death he is apologising for. You both know that. It is the rest of it — the dining hall, the years of careful distance, the letter, the clean unhurried handwriting of a woman who was permitted to be present in all the ways you were not. He is sorry for the shape your life with your father took. For the door that has closed on any possibility of a different ending. For every version of that ending you will never now be able to choose.

That is what he is sorry for.

Your throat tightens.

"Tell me what you need."

No wit, no angle, no careful management of how the words land. Just the question, pressed against your shoulder with the same quiet firmness as the rest of him, and the unmistakable willingness to mean it entirely.

"Whatever it is," he adds, softer still. "I will do it."

You open your mouth. Close it again.

What do you need.

You need the door to still exist. You need the years back, or at least some portion of them — enough to have stood in that hallway at Oxford and chosen differently. Said something different. Been braver, or angrier, or simply more present than you ever allowed yourself to be. You need it not to be Edie's handwriting on that letter. You need to stop hearing her voice in your head, that maddeningly composed voice delivering the news as though it were a footnote, as though your father's death were a task she had simply had the efficiency to complete.

You need to stop thinking.

"Make me stop thinking," you beg.

His lips press again to your shoulder, then travel slowly to the curve of your neck. You tilt your head to one side without quite deciding to, and he takes the invitation — his mouth finding the top of your spine, the soft place behind your ear, warm and entirely without expectation. Your fingers find his where they rest at your waist and curl between them, holding on.

A long moment passes.

Then his lips return to your shoulder, and he speaks against your skin, low and careful, as though the words are something he has been turning over for some time and has only now decided to say aloud.

"Come to bed with me." A pause, brief and honest. "Let me hold you."

An offer, plain and open, from a man who has spent the better part of your acquaintance deploying words like instruments, and has chosen, tonight, to simply mean them.

You turn in his arms then.

You look at him — at the tiredness in his face, the careful way he is watching you, the complete and uncharacteristic absence of anything guarded in his expression — and you feel something loosen in your chest that you had not known was still held tight.

"Alright," you say quietly.

It is the smallest word. It carries everything.

He takes your hand and leads you away from the open door and the dark field and the letter lying on the floor. Away from Edie's handwriting and the years you did not get and the grief that will still be there in the morning, patient as it always is.

But morning is not now.

Now there is only the warmth of his hand around yours, and the quiet of the house, and the particular mercy of not having to be alone inside this.

You let him lead you.

For once in your life, simply looked after.

Simply enough.

The first thing you are aware of is light.

Not the thin, reluctant grey of early morning, but proper light… the kind that indicates the day has been going on without you for some time and has simply been waiting for you to catch up. It falls in long pale strips across the bedclothes, across the unfamiliar ceiling, across the empty space beside you where the sheets are cool to the touch.

You lie still for a moment, taking stock.

The grief is still there. Of course it is. It has simply settled overnight, the way deep water settles after something has been thrown into it — calmer at the surface now, but no less present beneath. You are aware of it the way you are aware of the weight of the blankets, or the cold of the room against your face: constantly, without drama.

You push yourself upright.

The room is quiet. The door is closed. On the small table beside the bed, someone has left a glass of water and, beside it, a single folded note.

You reach for it.

Don't go anywhere. — J.

You set it down and reach for the water instead, and you are still drinking when the door opens and James appears in the frame, coat off, shirtsleeves rolled to the forearm, looking entirely too composed for a man who held you while you fell apart less than twelve hours ago.

"You're awake," he observes as though this is the only thing that needed to go right today, and it has.

"Where did you go?"

"Downstairs." He steps into the room and closes the door behind him with quiet care, the way you might close a door in a house where something fragile is resting. "Sherlock and his mother are out for a walk. I have had the run of the kitchen, which I used with varying success." A pause. "There is also a bath."

You look at him.

"I drew it," he adds, with the slight defensive air of a man who is unused to performing domestic kindnesses and would prefer not to make too much of it. "It will get cold if you leave it long."

"You drew me a bath."

He gives you a look. "I said...it will get cold."

The bathroom is small and warm, filled with steam that has left a haze at the edges of everything and turned the mirror to pale fog. The bath is full, and someone…James…has found, from some corner of Appleton Manor's many pantries, a jar of something that smells faintly of lavender and has turned the water a pale, milky white.

You stand in the doorway and look at it for a moment.

Then at him.

"I suppose I'll leave you to it," he assumes, and there is something almost uncertain in it, something that does not quite know what comes next — which is, you think, the most human you have ever seen him.

"Stay." The word is out before you have decided to say it. "Please." A breath. "I dread the thought of being alone right now."

He looks almost startled. Not by the asking, but by what it costs you to ask it. He knows what it costs you. He nods once, says nothing, and turns his back while you undress and lower yourself into the water.

"Alright," you say quietly.

He turns.

He looks at you for a moment — just a moment, no more — and in that moment you see him make a particular effort to be a gentleman, which is not an effort James Moriarty is accustomed to making. The water keeps what it keeps. But there is enough. Enough to make his jaw tighten slightly. Enough to make him look away first, which he does, clearing his throat and dragging the small wooden stool from the corner with rather more focus than the task requires.

He sits.

You reach for the soap.

His hand finds yours before you get there.

"Let me."

Somewhere between a question and a command…the register he occupies when he means something and has no interest in embellishing it.

You let go of the soap.

You lean back.

He begins at your neck, the soap moving in slow, unhurried passes, and you feel the warmth of his hand through it — present and deliberate, every movement considered. You tilt your head to one side. Then the other. He follows without being asked. His touch is careful in a way that has nothing careful about it, the kind of care that takes a sacrifice to maintain.

He moves to your arms, one at a time, from shoulder to wrist and back again, and goosebumps rise in the wake of his hands despite the heat of the water. You do not remark on this. Neither does he.

Then his hands move to your collarbone.

Your breathing quickens.

He notices. Of course he notices. He notices everything, catalogues everything, and he does not stop. His hands move lower, slow and certain, over the rise of your chest, and the breath you take is not entirely steady and neither of you pretends it is. The steam presses close around you both. The water laps gently at the sides of the tub.

He stands from the stool then, and kneels beside the bath instead, bringing himself level with you, and the change in proximity does something immediate to the quality of the air between you. His hands move beneath the surface, up and then down the length of your legs, and you watch his face as he works — the focus in it, the restraint in it, the way his eyes move over you with each gradual pass of his hands as though you are something he is learning by heart and intends to remember.

He sets the soap aside.

He cups the warm water in both hands and begins to rinse you, patient and thorough, and you watch the water run in rivulets over your collarbone and think: you have never been looked at quite like this. Not with this quality of attention. Not as though being permitted to care for you is something he considers a privilege.

His thumb traces your collarbone.

Slowly. As though it is the only thing in the world worth doing.

Then it travels up the line of your throat, and his hand curves around the back of your neck, warm and certain, and he tilts your face up toward his.

He kisses you.

It is not the kiss of a man taking something. It is the kiss of a man offering everything he has and waiting to see if it will be received. Tender at first, almost unbearably so and then deeper, when your wet hands find his hair and pull him closer, deeper and full of all the things neither of you has said aloud yet and both of you have known for some time.

He sighs against your mouth.

When he draws back it is only a fraction, only enough to speak, his lips still grazing yours with every word.

"You are allowed whatever you need today." A pause, purposeful and gracious. "Comfort. Company. Space." Another pause. "Distraction."

The last word lands with perfect, devastating precision. The acknowledgment straightforward, that he knows what exists between you and is not pretending otherwise. That whatever you need from him today he will give without condition or account.

Your fingers curl into the front of his shirt.

He does not need to be told twice.

He reaches for the hem and pulls the shirt over his head in one motion, dropping it somewhere behind him without looking. Then he is stepping out of his trousers, and the water rises as he folds himself into the bath, his legs bracketing yours, his hands finding your waist beneath the surface and drawing you forward until you are settled in his lap with a sureness that feels less like an invitation and more like a homecoming.

The water settles around you both.

He pushes the wet hair from your face with both hands, tucking it back behind your ears the way he has done before in darker moments, and then he simply looks at you.

There is nothing guarded in his face right now. Nothing held at the careful distance he usually maintains between himself and the world. Only him. Only James, in a bath full of lavender-clouded water in a house that belongs to neither of you, looking at you as though you are the most significant thing he has encountered in a life that has, by any measure, not been short of significant things.

"I've got you," he says. The same three words as last night. Quieter now. And this time, somehow, more certain.

You rest your forehead against his.

Outside, the morning continues without you. The grief will be there when you are ready for it — it always is. The world will want things from you soon enough.

But not yet.

Not now.

Now there is only this: the warmth of the water, the warmth of him, and the hard-won peace of being, for once, entirely held.

“Observant as always.” Sherlock’s voice came from somewhere above you, that distinctive blend of admiration and arrogance that made your stomach flip in ways you’d never admit. “Note the indentation pattern. Hexagonal, approximately two inches in diameter. A wrench, most likely. Common enough to be untraceable, which suggests premeditation rather than crimes of passion.”

You glanced up to find him studying you rather than the corpse, those sharp eyes cataloging something that had nothing to do with the investigation. Before you could call him on it, the warehouse door screeched open, admitting a shaft of grey London light and a figure you recognized immediately. 

“Holmes! Didn’t expect to see you here.” Inspector Morrison from Scotland Yard strode in with the kind of confidence that came from never being told no. Handsome in a conventional way - square jaw, broad shoulders, perfectly pressed suit. He was everything Sherlock wasn’t. “And Miss - my God, you’re even lovelier than the last time we met.”

You straightened, brushing dust from your skirts. “Inspector Morrison. I’d say the pleasure is mine, but we’re standing over a corpse, so perhaps we should maintain some decorum.”

Morrison laughed, warm and easy. “Sharp as a tack, this one. Holmes, you’re a lucky man to have such an intelligent assistant.”

“Associate,” Sherlock corrected, his voice dropping several degrees below freezing. “She’s my associate. And her intelligence, while considerable, is hardly the most remarkable thing about her.”

You felt rather than saw Sherlock move closer, his presence suddenly overwhelming as he positioned himself at your shoulder. His hand came to rest at the small of your back - possessive, proprietary, and entirely unlike him in public settings. 

“How fascinating that you’ve noticed,” Sherlock continued, his tone dripping with false pleasantry. “Tell me, Morrison, do you make a habit of cataloging the physical attributes of women at crime scenes, or is this a special occasion? Perhaps it explains why your solve rate is hovering at a dismal forty-two percent.”

“Sherlock,” you warned, though you couldn’t quite suppress your smile. 

Morrison’s expression tightened. “I was merely being polite.”

“Politeness.” Sherlock circled the body with predatory grace, never quite removing his hand from your back until distance made it impossible. “Yes, I’m sure that’s what you call it. How very… conventional of you. Tell me, have you even examined the body, or were you too distracted by your ‘politeness’ to notice the defensive wounds on the victim’s right hand? No, of course you didn’t. You were too busy -”

“The defensive wounds suggest he saw his attacker,” you interjected smoothly, shooting Sherlock a look that promised retribution later. “Which contradicts the angle of the blow. Unless…” 

“Unless there were two assailants,” Morrison finished, his eyes lighting up. “Brilliant! You see, Holmes, this is why I always appreciate running into you both. Miss, your mind is absolutely extraordinary.”

Sherlock’s jaw could have cut glass.

“How very astute of you to agree with her conclusion, Morrison,” he said, each word precisely enunciated. “I’m sure it took tremendous intellectual effort. Tell me, do you often take credit for observations made by others, or is that another example of your ‘politeness’?”

“I wasn’t taking credit, I was -”

“Sherlock, for God’s sake,” you snapped, rounding on him. “Could you possibly be more insufferable?”

His eyes met yours, dark and stormy and filled with something that made your breath catch. “I could try,” he said softly, dangerously. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”

The air between you crackled with tension that had nothing to do with the investigation and everything to do with the way he was looking at you - like Morrison’s very existence was a personal affront.

“If I might continue,” Morrison continued, oblivious to the undercurrent. “Miss, I was wondering if you might join me for dinner this evening? I should very much enjoy discussing the case further, and perhaps -”

“She’s occupied.” Sherlock’s voice cut through the warehouse like a whip crack.

“I’m sorry?” You turned to him slowly, eyebrow raised. “I wasn’t aware you managed my social calendar.”

“We have the Blackwood files to review. The Pemberton case requires your attention. And Mrs. Hudson specifically requested -”

“Mrs. Hudson can wait. The files can wait.” You crossed your arms, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Perhaps I’d like to have dinner with Inspector Morrison.”

Sherlock moved so quickly you barely registered it, suddenly close enough that you could smell his cologne - tobacco and something darker, more complex. “Perhaps,” he said, his voice low enough that only you could hear, “you’re trying to provoke me.”

“Perhaps,” you whispered back, “you’re making it remarkably easy.”

His hand found your elbow, fingers pressing just firmly enough to send heat racing up your arm. “The victim’s wallet is missing, but his pocketwatch remains - a gold Swiss watch worth at least three hundred pounds. The killer wasn’t after money. Note the scuff marks leading to the eastern exit, the pattern consisten with someone dragging a second object. Approximately forty pounds, cylindrical shape. Morrison, do make yoursel useful and check the perimeter for a discarded pipe or rod.”

It was a dismissal, plain and simple.

Morrison’s expression flickered with irritation, but he nodded. “Of course. Miss, perhaps we could continue our conversation later?”

“Perhaps,” you said noncommittally, very aware of Sherlock’s fingers still wrapped around your elbow. 

The moment Morrison disappeared through the eastern door, you yanked your arm free. “What in God's name was that?”

“Investigation,” Sherlock said coolly, though his eyes were anything but cool. They burned. “I’m investigating.”

“You were being an absolute ass.”

“I was being accurate. There’s a difference.”

“You were being jealous.”

The word hung between you like a confession. Sherlock’s expression shuttered immediately, that brilliant mind working overtime to construct a denial. But you’d seen it - that flash of raw, unguarded emotion before he could lock it away.

"Don't be absurd," he said finally. "I merely find it tedious when incompetent detectives waste valuable time with transparent attempts at -"

"At what, Sherlock?" You stepped closer, challenging. "Say it."

His jaw worked, muscles tensing beneath skin. When he spoke, his voice was rough, barely controlled. "We're leaving. Now."

"The investigation."

"Can proceed without us. Morrison is perfectly capable of contaminating the crime scene on his own." He was already moving toward the exit, his movements sharp and agitated. "Come along."

You should have argued. Should have insisted on staying, on finishing the investigation properly.

Instead, you followed him into the grey London afternoon, your heart pounding with anticipation for the confrontation you both knew was coming.

________________________________________________________________

The carriage rattled through London's narrow streets, the silence inside thick enough to choke on. Sherlock sat rigid across from you, his fingers steepled beneath his chin in that infuriating way that meant he was thinking - or more accurately, seething.

You lasted approximately forty-five seconds before breaking.

"If you have something to say, say it."

His eyes snapped to yours, dark and dangerous. "I have several things to say. Shall I begin with your appalling lack of judgment, or would you prefer I start with your apparent inability to recognize when a man's intellectual capacity rivals that of a particularly dim-witted spaniel?"

"Ah, there it is." You leaned back against the worn seat, crossing your arms. "The great Sherlock Holmes, threatened by a man who dared to compliment me."

"Threatened?" He laughed, sharp and bitter. "By Morrison? Please. I'm merely concerned that prolonged exposure to his staggering mediocrity might prove contagious. Tell me, what exactly did you find appealing about his ham-fisted attempts at deduction? Was it when he failed to notice the victim's missing wedding ring? Or perhaps when he completely overlooked the tobacco ash - Turkish blend, distinctive enough for a child to identify - scattered near the body?"

"Not everyone processes crime scenes like a machine, Sherlock."

"No, some people process them like Morrison. Which is to say, not at all." He shifted forward, invading your space with predatory intent. "But that's not what this is about, is it? This is about his 'charming' smile and his 'polite' interest and his pathetically transparent dinner invitation."

Heat flooded your cheeks. Anger or something far more dangerous, you couldn't tell. "And what if I accept it? What if I'd like to have dinner with a man who actually treats me like a woman instead of a walking encyclopedia?"

The words hit their mark. Sherlock's expression flickered with something raw and wounded before the mask slammed back into place.

"A woman," he repeated slowly, dangerously. "I see. And here I thought you preferred being treated as an equal. My mistake. By all means, go simper over Morrison's pedestrian observations. I'm sure you'll find his company... adequate."

"Adequate?" You leaned forward until you were inches from his face, close enough to see the gold flecks in his eyes, to smell the faint scent of his cologne. "At least he notices me as something other than a convenient assistant. At least he -"

"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. Sherlock's hand shot out, gripping your wrist with barely restrained force. "Don't you dare finish that sentence."

Your pulse hammered beneath his fingers. "Why not? Afraid of the truth?"

"The truth?" His laugh was hollow. "The truth is that Morrison looked at you for thirty seconds and saw a pretty face. I've worked beside you for two years and I see everything. Every brilliant deduction, every sharp observation, every moment of breathtaking insight that makes you the most remarkable woman in London. But please, do tell me more about how he 'notices' you."

The confession hung between you, unexpected and devastating.

"Then why…" Your voice came out rougher than intended. "Why do you treat me like I'm just another piece of your investigations?"

"Because it's safer." The admission seemed torn from him. His thumb traced an unconscious circle on your inner wrist, right over your racing pulse. "Because if I treated you like what you actually are to me, I'd -"

He stopped abruptly, jaw clenching.

"You'd what?" you challenged, your free hand coming up to grip his lapel. "Say it, Sherlock. For once in your life, just say it."

The carriage lurched to a stop outside 221B Baker Street. Sherlock's eyes burned into yours, his breathing harsh and uneven.

"Inside," he growled. "Now."

It wasn't a request.

________________________________________________________________

The door to 221B slammed behind you with enough force to rattle the frame. Sherlock was already halfway across the sitting room, his movements sharp and agitated as he stripped off his coat and flung it toward the chair. It missed, pooling on the floor in an uncharacteristic display of disorder.

"You didn't answer him," he said, his back still to you. "Morrison. When he asked you to dinner."

"I said 'perhaps.'" You closed the distance between you, refusing to be cowed by the rigid set of his shoulders. "Which isn't a yes."

"It isn't a no." He spun to face you, and the raw emotion in his eyes stole your breath. "Tell me… were you actually considering it, or were you simply enjoying watching me lose my composure?"

"Maybe both." You tilted your chin up defiantly. "Maybe I wanted to see if the great Sherlock Holmes was even capable of jealousy. Congratulations. You are. Spectacularly so."

His jaw worked, a muscle ticking beneath the skin. "This isn't jealousy. This is -"

"What? Concern for my wellbeing? Professional interest?" You laughed, sharp and bitter. "Don't insult my intelligence, Sherlock. You were ready to eviscerate that man for the crime of finding me attractive."

"He doesn't find you attractive." Sherlock moved closer, predatory and precise. "He finds you available. There's a difference. Morrison sees a pretty woman at a crime scene and thinks 'opportunity.' He doesn't see the way your mind works three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. He doesn't notice how you worry your bottom lip when you're concentrating, or how your eyes light up when you solve something particularly complex, or -"

He stopped abruptly, as if realizing he'd revealed too much.

"Or what?" you pressed, taking another step forward. You were close enough now to see the gold flecks in his eyes, the barely controlled tension in every line of his body. "What else do you notice, Sherlock?"

"Everything." The word came out rough, almost broken. "I notice everything about you, and it's." He turned away sharply, one hand raking through his dark hair. "It's distracting. Inconvenient. Entirely counterproductive to maintaining any semblance of professional objectivity."

"Then stop maintaining it."

He laughed, hollow and bitter. "And what? Become like Morrison? Reduce you to some… some conquest to be won with dinner invitations and empty compliments?"

"No." You grabbed his arm, forcing him to face you. "Become honest. For once in your life, stop hiding behind that brilliant mind and just - feel something. Admit something."

"I admit things constantly. I admitted Morrison is an imbecile. I admitted the killer used a wrench. I admitted…"

"That's not what I mean and you know it." Your fingers tightened on his sleeve. "You don't get to act like you own me and then pretend you don't care. You don't get to sabotage every man who shows interest and then claim it's professional concern. Either you want me or you don't, Sherlock. But you don't get to keep me in this - this limbo while you decide if I'm worth the risk."

Something cracked in his expression. That carefully constructed mask of indifference shattering to reveal the raw need beneath. "Worth the risk?" His voice dropped to something dangerous, intimate. "You are the risk. You're the variable I can't account for, the equation I can't solve. Do you have any idea what that does to a man like me?"

"Then why?"

"Because I'm terrified." The confession exploded out of him, sharp and desperate. "Because everyone I've ever… everyone who matters eventually leaves. They die or they betray me or they simply realize I'm too difficult, too demanding, too fundamentally broken to tolerate long-term. And you." His hand came up to cup your face, thumb tracing your cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "You're the one person I can't afford to lose. So yes, I keep you at arm's length. Yes, I treat you like a colleague instead of -"

"Instead of what?"

His eyes searched yours, wild and vulnerable in a way you'd never seen. "Instead of the woman I think about every waking moment. The woman whose safety I prioritize above my own. The woman who makes me want to be something other than a consulting detective with no personal attachments."

Your breath caught. "Sherlock."

"So forgive me," he continued, his voice rough with emotion, "if I find it somewhat unbearable to watch Morrison - or any man - look at you like you're something they might possess. You're not his. You're…"

"Yours?" The word hung between you, a challenge and an invitation.

His pupils dilated, his breathing harsh and uneven. "Say you won't have dinner with him."

"Why should I?"

"Because." His other hand found your waist, pulling you flush against him. The heat of his body seared through your clothes, and you could feel his heart hammering against your chest. "Because if you do, I'll spend the entire evening imagining him touching you. Kissing you. And then I'll have to arrest myself for what I'll do to him afterward."

"That's not a reason," you whispered, though your hands had somehow found their way to his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. "That's a threat."

"Then let me give you a reason." His forehead dropped to yours, his breath ghosting across your lips. "Don't have dinner with Morrison because you don't want to. Because you'd rather be here, with me, doing this -"

"Doing what?" Your voice came out breathless, challenging. "We're not doing anything, Sherlock. We're just…"

"Standing too close?" His nose brushed yours, a whisper of contact that sent electricity racing down your spine. "Breathing the same air? Pretending we don't both know exactly how this ends?"

Your fingers tightened in his shirt. "And how does it end?"

His eyes locked with yours, dark and burning with barely restrained hunger. "With me finally admitting that I don't want you as my associate. I want you as mine. Completely. Irrevocably. In every way that matters."

The words hung between you for one suspended heartbeat.

Then you closed the distance and kissed him.

For a fraction of a second, Sherlock went absolutely still. As if his brilliant mind had short-circuited entirely. Then he made a sound low in his throat, something between a growl and a groan, and his control shattered completely.

His hands were suddenly everywhere - one fisting in your hair, angling your head exactly where he wanted it, the other gripping your waist hard enough to bruise. He kissed you like a man starving, like he'd been holding back for years and had finally, finally been given permission to take.

And God, he took.

His tongue swept into your mouth, claiming and demanding, and you met him with equal ferocity. Your fingers tangled in his dark hair, pulling hard enough to make him hiss against your lips. The sound sent heat pooling low in your belly.

"Two years," he growled against your mouth, his teeth catching your bottom lip. "Two years of watching you, wanting you, imagining -"

"Then stop talking," you gasped, "and do something about it."

His eyes flashed dangerously. "Careful what you wish for."

Then he was moving, walking you backward with predatory intent until your back hit the wall beside the fireplace. The impact knocked the breath from your lungs, but before you could recover, his mouth was on your throat, teeth scraping over your pulse point.

"Mine," he murmured against your skin, and the possessiveness in his voice made you shudder. "Say it."

"Make me," you challenged breathlessly.

His laugh was dark, wicked. "Oh, I intend to."

His hands found the buttons of your blouse, and for a man whose fingers could pick locks and perform delicate chemical experiments, he showed absolutely no patience now. Buttons scattered across the floor as he tore the fabric open, baring you to his hungry gaze.

"Sherlock! That was expensive."

"I'll buy you ten more." His mouth traced the curve of your collarbone, teeth grazing sensitive skin. "A hundred more. I don't care. I've been patient long enough."

"Patient?" You gasped as his hand cupped your breast through the thin fabric of your chemise, thumb circling your nipple with devastating precision. "You call today patient? You nearly eviscerated Morrison. Oh God!"

"Don't," he snarled, his other hand gripping your hip possessively, "say his name. Not now. Not when I'm touching you."

His mouth replaced his hand, hot and wet through the fabric, and your head fell back against the wall. Your fingers scrabbled for purchase on his shoulders, his back, anywhere you could reach.

"Then give me something else to say," you managed, your voice shaking. "Give me a reason to forget he exists."

Sherlock pulled back just enough to meet your eyes, his pupils blown wide with desire. "I'll give you several."

He dropped to his knees so quickly you barely registered the movement. His hands slid up your legs, pushing your skirts up, up, until cool air hit your overheated skin. His fingers found the ribbons of your drawers, and he looked up at you with something almost reverent in his expression.

"Tell me to stop," he said, his voice rough. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll -"

"Sherlock Holmes," you interrupted, threading your fingers through his hair, "if you stop now, I'll never forgive you."

His smile was absolutely sinful. "Good."

He pulled your drawers down with agonizing slowness, his eyes never leaving yours. Then his mouth was on your inner thigh, kissing, biting, marking a path upward that made your legs tremble.

"Still thinking about Morrison?" he murmured against your skin.

"Who?" you gasped, and felt him smile.

"Exactly."

When his mouth finally reached its destination, your knees nearly buckled. Only his hands on your hips kept you upright as he worked you with his tongue, with his lips, with a precision that shouldn't have surprised you but somehow did. He mapped you like one of his crime scenes - learning what made you gasp, what made you moan, what made your fingers tighten desperately in his hair.

"Sherlock! I can't - I'm going to -"

"Then do it," he commanded against you, the vibration of his voice pushing you over the edge.

You came apart with his name on your lips, pleasure crashing through you in waves. He didn't stop, didn't relent, drawing out your climax until you were shaking and oversensitive and pulling at his hair to make him stop.

He rose to his feet with the grace of a predator, his lips glistening, his eyes dark with satisfaction and unfulfilled need. "Now," he said, his voice rough, "tell me you're mine."

You were still catching your breath, still trembling, but you managed to meet his gaze with a challenging smile. "Prove it."

Something feral flashed in his eyes. He lifted you effortlessly, your legs wrapping around his waist as he carried you to the couch. He laid you down with surprising gentleness, but there was nothing gentle about the way he covered your body with his, nothing soft about the kiss he claimed from your lips.

You could taste yourself on his tongue, and it should have embarrassed you, but instead it sent fresh heat coursing through your veins.

Your hands found the buttons of his shirt, and unlike him, you took your time, revealing inch by inch of skin and lean muscle. He shuddered under your touch, his breathing harsh and uneven.

"You're enjoying this," he accused.

"Immensely." You pushed his shirt off his shoulders, your nails dragging lightly down his chest. "The great Sherlock Holmes, completely undone. It's quite a sight."

"You haven't seen anything yet." His hands made quick work of his remaining clothes, and then he was bare above you, all lean muscle and barely restrained power.

He settled between your thighs, and you could feel him, hard and ready, but he didn't move. Instead, he braced himself on his forearms, his face inches from yours.

"Last chance," he said softly. "Once I have you, I won't let you go. I won't share you. I won't pretend this is casual or temporary or anything other than what it is."

Your hand came up to cup his face, thumb tracing his sharp cheekbone. "And what is it?"

"Everything." The word was raw, honest, vulnerable. "You're everything."

You pulled him down into a kiss, deep and slow and full of promise. "Then take me," you whispered against his lips. "I'm yours."

He entered you in one smooth thrust, and you both gasped at the sensation. He stilled, giving you time to adjust, his forehead pressed to yours.

"Perfect," he breathed. "You're perfect."

Then he began to move, and coherent thought became impossible.

He set a rhythm that was both controlled and desperate, each thrust deliberate but increasingly urgent. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned your name like a prayer.

"Look at me," he commanded, and you opened eyes you hadn't realized you'd closed. His gaze burned into yours, intense and possessive and full of emotion he'd never been able to voice. "I want to see you. Want to watch you come apart for me."

"Arrogant," you gasped, but your body was already tightening around him, pleasure building with devastating speed.

"Accurate," he corrected, his hand sliding between your bodies to where you were joined. His fingers found that sensitive bundle of nerves, circling with the same precision he'd shown before. "Now come for me. Let me feel it."

The combination of his words, his touch, the feeling of him inside you - it was too much. You shattered, crying out his name, your body clenching around him rhythmically.

"Yes," he hissed, his rhythm faltering. "Yes, just like that - God, you're - I can't."

His control broke completely. He thrust into you harder, faster, chasing his own release with single-minded intensity. You watched his face as he came, watched the way his eyes squeezed shut, the way his mouth fell open on a silent cry, the way every carefully constructed mask fell away to reveal the raw need beneath.

He collapsed against you, his weight pressing you into the couch, both of you breathing hard. His face was buried in your neck, and you could feel his heart hammering against your chest.

For a long moment, neither of you moved. Then Sherlock pressed a surprisingly tender kiss to your throat, right over your pulse.

"Mine," he murmured again, softer this time but no less possessive.

You smiled, your fingers threading through his sweat-dampened hair. "Yours," you agreed. "But Sherlock?"

"Mm?"

"I'm keeping Inspector Morrison's calling card. Perhaps I shall reconsider his invitation, just to watch you lose your composure again."

He bit your shoulder in retaliation, making you yelp and laugh. When he raised his head to glare at you, his eyes were bright with affection and residual jealousy.

"You," he said, "are absolutely insufferable."

"I learned from the best." You pulled him down for another kiss, slow and sweet and full of promise. "Now, about those Blackwood files you mentioned..."

His laugh rumbled through both of you. "Later. Much later. I'm not nearly finished with you yet."

And he wasn't.

________________________________________________________________

An hour later, you lay tangled together on the couch, your chemise hastily pulled back on, his shirt hanging open and forgotten. Your head rested on his chest, rising and falling with each breath, while his fingers traced lazy patterns along your spine - up and down, a soothing rhythm that made you drowsy and content.

The fire had burned low, casting flickering shadows across the sitting room. Outside, London's evening sounds filtered through the windows - distant carriages, muffled voices, the city settling into dusk.

"Your heart rate has finally normalized," Sherlock murmured, his voice rough and satisfied. "Took approximately twelve minutes longer than I calculated."

You smiled against his skin, pressing a kiss to his sternum. "Perhaps your calculations need adjusting."

"Impossible. My calculations are always…" He stopped as you bit him lightly. "You're doing that on purpose."

"Doing what?" You traced the line of his collarbone with your fingertip, feeling him shiver. "Pointing out that the great Sherlock Holmes might occasionally be wrong about something?"

His hand slid up to cup the back of your neck, fingers threading through your hair. "I wasn't wrong about this," he said quietly. "About us. Was I?"

The vulnerability in his voice made your chest tighten. You shifted to look up at him, finding his eyes already on you - dark and uncertain in a way that was so unlike him it made your heart ache.

"No," you said softly, reaching up to trace his jaw. "You weren't wrong."

He caught your hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss to your palm. "Good. Because I meant what I said. I don't share. I don't do casual. And I certainly don't…"

"Let people in?" you finished gently.

His expression flickered with something raw. "Yes."

You shifted higher, until you could kiss him properly - slow and deep and tender. When you pulled back, his eyes had softened, some of that desperate edge finally easing.

"So what happens now?" you asked, your thumb stroking his cheekbone. "Tomorrow, when we go back to crime scenes and investigations? Do we pretend this didn't happen? Do we."

"No." The word was immediate, fierce. His arm tightened around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer. "Tomorrow, and every day after, you're mine. Publicly. Privately. In every way that matters. Anyone who looks at you the way Morrison did will know exactly who you belong to."

"Possessive," you teased, though warmth bloomed in your chest.

"Accurate," he corrected, echoing his earlier words. His hand slid up to cup your face, thumb brushing your lower lip. "I've spent two years pretending I didn't want this. I'm not wasting another moment. You'll move your things into the spare room. Or into mine, I don't particularly care which, though I have a preference and we'll continue working together. Only now, when Morrison or any other idiot tries to -"

"You'll eviscerate them with deductions?" you supplied, grinning.

"Precisely." He looked entirely too pleased with himself. "Though I may also kiss you senseless in front of them. For clarity."

You laughed, the sound bright and genuine. "Sherlock Holmes, jealous and territorial. Who should ever have supposed it?"

"I prefer 'protective' and 'committed.'" His fingers traced down your spine again, making you arch into him. "But yes, if you insist on being technical about it, I am... deeply opposed to sharing your attention."

"Just my attention?"

His eyes darkened. "Everything. Your attention, your time, your brilliant mind, your…" He pulled you down for another kiss, this one heated enough to make your toes curl. When he released you, you were both breathing hard again. "Everything," he repeated firmly.

You settled back against his chest, your fingers playing with the open edges of his shirt. "I suppose such an arrangement might prove... acceptable," you said, attempting a casual tone and failing entirely.

"You suppose?" He pinched your side lightly, making you squirm. "Shall I provide further evidence of why this arrangement is mutually beneficial?"

"Later," you said, echoing his earlier words. "Much later. Right now, I just want to stay here."

His arms tightened around you, and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head. "Then stay," he murmured. "Stay as long as you like."

"Careful, Sherlock. That almost sounded romantic."

"Impossible," he said, but you could hear the smile in his voice. "I don't do romance. I do facts. And the fact is, you're not leaving this flat tonight. Or any night, if I have my way."

You smiled against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. "What about the Blackwood files?"

"Burned."

"The Pemberton case?"

"Solved itself."

"Mrs. Hudson's request?"

"Can wait until morning." His hand found yours, fingers interlacing. "Right now, the only case I'm interested in is figuring out how I managed to deserve you."

Your breath caught. You tilted your head up to find him watching you with an expression so tender it made your chest ache.

"That's the easiest deduction you'll ever make," you whispered. "You don't have to deserve me, Sherlock. You just have to want me."

"Then I'm solved the case," he said softly, "because I've never wanted anything more."

You kissed him again, slow and sweet, and settled back into his arms. Outside, London continued its evening symphony, but inside 221B Baker Street, everything had finally, perfectly, fallen into place.

"Though I am keeping Inspector Morrison's calling card. Perhaps I might extend his invitation after all - one must maintain one's options.."

Sherlock's growl of protest rumbled through his chest, making you laugh as his arms locked around you like a vice.

Some things, you thought contentedly, would never change.

What was left of the Holmes' attended as well. Cordelia was elated, what with the return of Beatrice and the marriage of her eldest son. Sherlock and James made it to the church on time, which was all that could be asked of them.

They spent their honeymoon in Mycroft's flat at 221b Baker Street, recovering from the events that had led them there, while scarcely being able to keep their hands off of one another. After these blissful few weeks, they returned to Appleton Manor, which Mycroft had inherited since his father's demise. Jane spent her days gutting all traces of Silas Holmes from the house, and redecorating to her liking. She was mindful of Cordelia's opinions as she did not want to get rid of anything dear to her, but Cordelia maintained that they should burn the whole place down and start from scratch. Jane deemed this unnecessary, and worked on bringing color and life into the home.

Mycroft spent this time working his way up at work, and doing so with a success that startled all of his superiors. He had gained a new confidence since his father's death, along with an ambition to provide not only for his wife but for his sister and mother. But the one who used up most of his resources was Sherlock. It was not money that he used, but time and energy. Mycroft had employed several people to keep an eye on Sherlock, giving him eyes and ears in every corner of London.

Moriarty— exactly as Mycroft had suspected— had begun to build his connections in the criminal underworld. Mycroft tried, many times, to have this conversation with Sherlock. It became clear that Moriarty had adopted Silas Holmes as an inspiration, and wished to replicate his empire tenfold. Mycroft feared that he would be able to do so, and with very little difficulty.

Sherlock struggled to come to terms with this, and much to Mycroft's dismay, began spending many a late night with him. Sherlock's mind was becoming more faulty by the day under Moriarty's influence, and Mycroft was the only thing keeping him afloat.

"He has gone to see him again?" Jane said sympathetically at Mycroft's solemn expression as he entered their bedroom and began to undress.

Mycroft sighed, pulling on his dressing gown, "I can hardly make him stay away. God knows he won't listen to me."

Jane watched him intently, as handsome as ever, "Come here, my darling," she persuaded, patting the empty spot on the bed beside her.

Mycroft smiled, climbing in beside her and pulling her against his side. "I know, I know," he brushed his nose against her, making her giggle, "I worry too much."

"No, I would say in this case you are worrying a proportionate amount," she cupped his cheek, "You may worry to your hearts content, my love, so long as you come home to me and let me soothe your fears. You needn't worry alone."

“What the-”

“Sherlock!” James shouted, pulling Sherlock out of his worrying trance. He wasn’t used to seeing you injured, let alone still bleeding. 

“Right. Yes, right.”

Running down the hall to grab the items, James pulled a seat in front of you and sat down. 

“Is it broken?” You asked. 

He surveyed it for a moment. He was tense, but considering Sherlock was already panicking and you were trying to hold yourself together, he tried to follow your attitude. 

He calmed himself. “No. Are you alright? What happened? Who did this?”

“It’s a long story,” you told him. “And I’d rather not repeat it twice.”

James just nodded in reply, deciding to hold onto your hand as you both waited for Sherlock to come running back in. Which he did, barely a minute later. 

“Here.”

James took over cleaning away your blood, trying his best to be as gentle as he could, whilst you explained how you’d ended up with such extensive injuries. 

Mycroft had asked you to look into a few things for him. When Sherlock inquired why his brother hadn’t thought to ask him, you explained that he did. Until he realised he needed someone who wouldn’t be as easily detected. 

Being wanted for murder, once, meant his face had been plastered across London. Mycroft didn’t want to risk Sherlock being recognised. So, instead, he’d asked you. 

The case had taken you through Oxford; looking into underhanded government schemes that weren’t even remotely legal and could result in serious damage to a lot of people. 

Only, someone must have spotted you. And followed you. 

They gave you a warning; keep your nose out of business where you weren’t wanted. From the way they talked, there wasn’t a single chance they knew who you were or who you were working for. 

“They’re just hired fists,” you assured them both. “I got a couple of hits in myself, but there were too many of them.”

“How many?”

“Three?” You said, not too sure. “Maybe four. It all got a little fuzzy after they threw me across the floor.”

“Are you injured anywhere else?”

You nodded, but then stopped. Simply moving your head made you feel dizzy. “Yeah. Probably.”

James sat back, scanning his eyes over your body. You were tense; holding yourself in order to avoid more pain. 

“Can I look?”

Opening your eyes, you saw where his hand was wandering to. “Yeah.”

You tried to help him, but he just held your hand for a moment. “It’s alright. I’ll be gentle.”

“Okay.”

As Sherlock continued to question you, James took a look at the injuries underneath your clothes.

There were a few dried blood stains surrounding a giant rip. Whatever you’d been thrown across, it had been sharp enough to rip through your jacket, shirt, corset, and under-dress. 

Between the gap, James ran his finger across it to try and judge its size. 

When he pulled his fingers away, they were dry. But the scar was at least eight inches long.

“I’m gonna need to clean that,” James told you. 

“Shouldn’t you wait for Mrs Crowle?” Sherlock asked. 

But you were the one who spoke up. “I don’t want it getting infected. Do you know how long she’s gonna be?”

Sherlocked hummed. “She’s usually in the village for a few hours.”

James helped you stand and gently wrapped an arm around your waist whilst your own arm went around his shoulders. 

“Send for the doctor,” James told him. “I’ll help Y/n.”

As Sherlock hesitated, you confirmed your agreement with James. 

“We’ll take it slow, okay?”

You closed your eyes and hummed, trying to ignore your pain. “Okay.”

Upstairs, James helped you out of your garments until you were down to your shift. 

“It’s stopped bleeding,” he told you. 

As he tended to your wound, his eyes travelled to your face throughout. You didn’t say much, but he knew when you could stand the pain and when you couldn’t. 

To help, he talked through every movement he was taking. It helped keep you calm, whilst also managing to shift the awkwardness of the moment away from the room. 

Under the circumstances, the doctor wouldn’t pay much attention to the fact you were in a room alone with a man, dressed down to your shift. 

And, thankfully, he didn’t. 

“Up here!” James shouted from the door, just before the doctor and Mrs Crowle came rushing inside. 

“You’ve done an excellent job, Mr Moriarty,” the doctor said before he left. “Y/n will need a lot of rest. No strenuous activity for a while. Do try and keep her from over-exherting herself; though I suspect that may be a challenge. She seems…spritly.”

Sherlock and Moriarty nodded. They knew you too well. Being confined to your bed would not suit your mind, no matter how much your body needed it. 

“I’ll make sure she rests,” Mrs Crowle told him before walking with him to the door. 

“Thank you for helping her,” she told James when she came back. “But you ought to be more careful. If the circumstances were different-”

James took hold of the hand Mrs Crowle started pointing at him. “If the circumstances were different, I’m sure Y/n would have knocked my lights out before I even had a chance to think of anything else.”

Mrs Crowle hummed. “I’m sure. But, please, do be more careful.”

James kissed her hand. “You have my word.”

To his word, he was more careful. 

He just had to make sure, when he snuck up to see you, Mrs Crowle was in the village or - at the very least - far enough from the house to give him a couple of minutes to see you. 

“If you’re planning an escape, I can tell you,” Moriarty’s voice drew from the door behind you. “There’s much easier ways than climbing out of a window.”

You smiled, keeping your back to him. “Just when I think I’m unreadable, you show up.”

James clicked his tongue as he strolled inside. “Nobody is ever as mysterious as they seem.”

“Even you?” You asked, feeling him standing behind you. 

“Ah, well, you’ll find I’m a different matter entirely."

You chuckled, turning to look at him. “Is that really so?”

James nodded. “I’m sure.”

You hummed, turning to look back out of the window. “I’ll let you believe that. For now.”

You heard James laugh, but rather than ask follow up questions, he leaned behind you and followed your eyeline out towards the rolling fields. 

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing, really,” you said. “Just wondering.”

Faintly, you felt his hand graze down your side. “How’s the injury?”

“Painful,” you admitted. “But I refuse to lie in bed any longer.”

“It’s been two days.”

“Exactly my point. Have you heard from Sherlock?”

James took in a breath, pulling the telegram from his pocket and showing it to you. “I have.”

Plucking it from his fingers, you stayed in front of him and read it. 

“Are we meant to decipher this?” 

“You know what he’s like,” James pointed out. “Can never keep something, even a sentence, simple. But, from what I gather, he’s found the fellas that thought beating you up was a bright idea.”

You hummed before quietly hearing James add: “Better him than me.”

Looking up at James, you didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. You could see it in his eyes, though he wouldn’t look at you. Instead, he kept his eyes on the telegram that was held in your hand. 

His own hand came and held the back of yours. 

“He’s staying with Mycroft,” James told you. “He should be back tomorrow or the day after.”

“James?”

He turned and looked at you. “Yes?”

Unsure of what to say exactly without bringing up the fact that if he had gone with Sherlock, the men that had beaten you up probably wouldn’t live to see another clear day, you searched for the right thing to say. 

“Thank you,” you settled on. “For staying.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” he told you. 

Taking a hold of his hand, you kept your gaze on him. “But I want to. So…thank you.”

James tried to hide the fact he felt himself blushing. “Then, as a gentleman, I will say you’re welcome.”

With a brief smile, you leaned up and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. 

Suddenly, from the door, someone cleared their throat. 

“If my wife catches you in here again, she might just string you up by your ankles,” Mr Crowle said, setting the tea tray down. “But, since I like you, I won’t say anything.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But she’s gonna need help outside so you better make yourself available,” he added. 

Still holding your hand, James traced his thumb across your knuckles as he looked at you. “I’ll see you later?”

You nodded, trying to hold back your smile. “Yes.”

As James left the room, Mr Crowle handed you a cup of fresh tea. “You should be in bed.”

“I know.”

“You need to heal.”

“I know.”

Mr Crowle smiled at you as your gaze drifted to the door James had just walked out of. 

“I suppose he is helping in his own…uncoventional way.”

“What?”

Mr Crowle lowered his voice. “You like the fella, no?”

You started getting hot from your feet to your head. “I- uh- well-”

Mr Crowle just chuckled as he added a teaspoon of sugar. “Helps with the nerves. And, don’t worry,” he said. “He has the same starry look in his eyes when he looks at you, too.”

Unable to speak, you watched as Mr Crowle left the room and left you with the slight nervous embarrassment at the first vocal question of how deep your feelings actually were for James Moriarty. 

*~*~*~*~*~*

“And how is the patient?” 

A hand landed on your shoulder as James strolled across the grass towards where yourself and Cordelia were sitting. 

You smiled, looking up at him. “On the mend.”

“She’s bored out of her mind,” Cordelia said with a knowing smile. 

James gave a fake gasp. “Y/n? Never!”

“Ha, ha.”

“Well,” James took a seat. “You’ll be glad to know I’m not just here for Mrs Crowle’s delicious tea and toast.”

From his jacket, he pulled out a three-fold piece of paper. 

“Why am I looking at the Last Will and Testament of Mister Jones?”

“Because Sherlock has a case.”

“Of course he does.”

“And he needs your help. Well, he needs our help.”

You looked him over, carefully. “Okay?”

“Fancy a little entrée par effraction?”

Cordelia raised her brow. “Break-in? Where?”

“Oh, trust me Mrs Holmes-”

“Cordelia, James. Please.”

He graced her with a gentle smile. “Cordelia. It will be very light. I hardly need to call it a ‘break’. More of a little…shove.”

Cordeila sat back with a hum. “She’s not to complete any strenuous activity.”

“I’ll be fine. When do we leave?”

Two hours later, James was helping you step out of the carriage and walk down the streets of London until you reached the decommissioned office of Mister Jones. 

“It’s locked.” 

Before he could slam his elbow through the glass pane, however, you reached for him. 

“Hold on.”

Searching around the building, you found what you were looking for. 

An open window. 

“Give me a boost.”

“You’re meant to be resting. No strenuous activity, remember?”

You simply looked at him. “James, I am fine. Now, give me a boost.”

Following your orders, he helped you climb up towards the window before you pulled yourself inside. You could hear him calling your name as you rushed through the house to get to the front door. 

“Are you okay?”

You nodded, a smile on your face. You felt alive for the first time in three weeks. “Perfect. Now, come on. I think I’ve found what we’re looking for.”

Taking James by the hand, you pulled him throughout the house before you got to a locked door at the top of the stairs. After the second shove with his shoulder, the door busted open. 

Several hours, a few Shakspeare quotes and one minor injury later, you were collapsing onto a lodging house bed beside James.

He had managed to convince the landlord that you were both newlyweds whose honeymoon had been delayed by an engine failure on board one of the boats by the docks. 

“Remind me again why we’re friends with Sherlock?” James laid an arm over his eyes. 

You groaned. “Ask me when I don’t feel like killing him.”

James lifted his arm to look at you. “Your side?”

You nodded, pulling at the hooks on your skirt and lifting your shirt. 

Sitting up, James helped you until he was able to slip his hand under all the fabric of your clothing. 

“It’s burning.”

You nodded. “Probably aggravated it when…when we crawled through the basement.”

“It’s not infected, is it?”

You shook your head. “No. It can’t be.”

Rather than ask anymore questions, James took the feeling of your hand laying over his as an answer all on its own. 

So, simply spreading his hand over the hottest part of your wound, he felt you relax into his touch. 

And, somewhere between the feeling of his thumb rubbing gently against your skin and the ache in your bones from running across London, you both leaned back on the bed and fell asleep. 

“James? James!” 

Shaking his shoulder, trying to keep your voice low so your neighbours didn’t wake up, you called his name til he finally sat up. 

“What? What’s going on?”

“It’s almost six. We’ve gotta go.”

“Where?”

Showing James the newspaper, he rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the blurry print. A message in the social column; from Shirley. 

Twelve hours later, the case was solved and yourself and James were slowly falling asleep at the dinner table, leaning on each other as Sherlock told the wild story of the latest case. 

“Though, I can only speculate as to what these two got up to in the missing hours of our case.”

“Speculate all you want,” you told him. 

“We’re not telling,” James finished. 

Sherlock leaned forward. “What did happen?”

Cordelia leaned forward, laying a gentle hand on her son. “Sweetheart, why don’t we let them get some sleep?” Then, laying another gentle hand on James’ arm, she told him as much. 

“Your rooms have been made up,” she told you both. “Get some sleep.”

“Thank you, Mrs Holmes.”

“Goodnight, darlings.”

Neither Sherlock or his mother said anything about the way James reached for your hand, or the way you willingly clasped yours into his. They didn’t say anything about how you took his arm and you both climbed the stairs, completely shattered and in need of sleep. 

But, they both knew something had changed – grown between both of you. 

To make matters worse, when you looked around to the others, they couldn’t see it. It wasn’t because they refused to, or because they were simply distracted with others. It was because they couldn’t see him. At all. 

Mycroft Holmes. Eldest son. Eldest child. Forced to grow up quickly for his family. Who lost his sister. Who felt responsible she had died, despite two parents being there to take care of her. Who felt he had to do things in order to make their lives easier. 

Mycroft Holmes. A man who's always been compared to his genius brother. Who has taken it in his stride. Who hasn’t resented Sherlock for it. Who loves him and cares for him. 

Mycroft Holmes. Who had no-one in his corner. Who is the quiet strength for the rest of his family, even if they, or he, doesn’t see it. Who hides his hurt when his family’s first opinion of him is that he would betray his family. 

That last scenario you were watching unfold right in front of you. 

Silas, Bea, Mycroft, Sherlock, Cordelia, James and yourself. All sitting around a dinner table in Constantinople. 

After everything you’d experienced with both Holmes brothers, you were mere seconds away from attacking Silas. Wanting to make sure he understood the kind of pain he’d put his family through, the kind of torture he’d put Cordelia through. 

You saw the stiffness in Mycroft’s shoulders as Silas addressed him first. Your gaze flicked between Mycroft and his father. 

How could someone so monstrous father a man like Mycroft? Or even Sherlock?

“Promise made,” Silas said before slamming his hand down on the table, leaving the glasses rattling. “Promise kept.”

It was the first time, ever, you’d seen Mycroft have a physical reaction to his fear. Most often, he would breathe through it and try to keep his mind on something calming. 

But from his reaction and the fear in his eyes, you wondered if this dinner wasn’t the first time Silas had led with such actions. 

Loudness, brutality, violence that just showed how much he wanted to hit someone. 

As attention quickly turned towards Cordelia as she pleaded with her daughter, you kept your focus on Mycroft. He was in distress. Everyone was, but something inside of you was growing more angry by the minute. Because Mycroft’s distress was killing you, too. So how could it not be hurting anyone else?

Without a word, you reached for Mycroft’s hand under the table. His hands were shaking as he searched for your hand and held onto it, tight. 

Maybe you weren’t friends, exactly, but in your quietness you understood him. Saw what he was. Saw who he was. 

You agreed with James when he called the entire thing A Greek Tragedy. 

“You seem to agree with James?” Silas asked you, a wicked grin on his face whilst anger brewed underneath. 

“How could I not?”

“Don’t talk to her,” Mycroft warned his father, his voice low and almost growling. 

Under the table, you squeezed his hand gently. I’m okay. It’s okay.

“A not-so-dead daughter, a committed mother, a genius brother who landed himself in jail. His best friend who is just like him, although less prison as far as I’m aware. The eldest son who understood his responsibility but that same responsibility was used against him by the psychotic father.”

Silas laughed. But only for a moment. Slowly, the tips of his fingers pushed the handle of his dinner knife back and forth. 

“And where do you come into the picture, Y/n? Where do you fit into our little Greek tragedy?”

This time, you laughed. “I don’t think that’s a question you want answering.”

As Silas chuckled, his voice laced with something inhuman, Cordelia tried to reason with her daughter, again. 

Very quickly, things became loud. 

Mycroft’s fear made you want to cry. To hug him and tell him he didn’t have to stay. That you could all leave. 

But that wasn’t true. No matter how much you wished it was. Because Silas had at least a dozen men carrying weapons, spread out across his property. And Mycroft still had to make his plea on behalf of the British Government. 

You watched the fall-out. 

Sherlock and Cordeila believing they had been betrayed. Silas’ adoring shock that his son had been the chosen one to keep communications open. James’ shock and surprise at Mycroft’s news. Bea’s hopeful look that she had a buyer and the pay-out could be extraordinary. 

“Did you know?” James asked you. 

Every word that fell from Mycroft’s mouth seemed more painful than the last. You didn’t answer James, though even if you did you didn’t know what you could say. 

Truthfully, you didn’t know. You didn’t know what the British Government had asked of Mycroft. But you had a feeling. Mycroft wanted security in his work and he had easy access to the things the members of the government wanted. 

The government saw it as nothing more than a simple trade. Even if that trade came with emotional warfare. 

By the time things were wrapping up at the diner table, you practically sneered at Silas as he laid his hand on Mycroft’s shoulder. And, whilst Sherlock was calling his own brother Judas, Mycroft removed his hand from your own before taking total leave from the table. 

A little over an hour later, you were slipping out of your bedroom and down the hall towards Mycroft’s room. You knocked twice before turning the knob and pushing the door open. 

“You awake?”

Mycroft was laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. 

“Well, the lights are on,” you said, mostly to yourself as you closed the door behind you. “So, I’ll take that as a yes.”

Without another word, you walked to the other side of his bed before laying down next to him. 

“I’m here,” you told him. “If you want to talk.”

“What’s there to talk about? My father is…well, you saw. And my family thinks I’ve betrayed them.”

“They’ll see sense,” you assured him. “Did they really ask you to betray your family?”

Mycroft nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. “Yes.”

You could figure out the rest of the conversation from there. Mycroft didn’t have much of a choice – there was a chemical weapon about to hit an open market. In a perfect world, men like Silas and his weapons wouldn’t exist. 

But the world was far from perfect. 

Mycroft made a judgment and took it. Choose the world where he gives his father the opportunity to give one buyer the weapons, and hope to god he can figure something else out before it’s too late. 

“He’ll have you followed tomorrow,” you pointed out. “What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t you hate me?”

Reaching between both of you, you took hold of his hand. “I’m on your side, Mycroft. If you want me to follow the ones following you, I’ll do it. If you want me to stay here…I’ll fight you on it, but I’ll stay here if that’s what you need.”

Mycroft turned and looked at you. “You really don’t hate me?”

You shook your head. “No, Mycroft. I don’t. I didn’t have the best impression of you when we first met, but I’m gonna place that blame on myself and Sherlock. You were just his annoying, rule-following, older brother.”

Mycroft nodded, looking back at the ceiling. “People often tell me Sherlock is the better out of the two of us.”

“But then I got to know you,” you said. “Even if you didn’t mean to, you let me see parts of you that I don’t even think your family sees. Let alone, understand.”

“And what parts are those?”

“You’re strong, Mycroft. There’s no doubt about that. But I can also see you’re scared. Almost all the time. You worry for your mother, and your brother. You did worry for your father, before all this went to shit. You keep trying. And when something doesn’t work out, you run yourself into the ground until you find a new solution. Those are the parts I’m talking about. And I wished to god that your family would see it, too.”

Mycroft nodded, unable to speak for a moment. So, he held your hand. 

“I’m glad that you’re the one that sees it.”

Taking in his gaze, there were words left unsaid between both of you. But, with a single look, you knew everything you needed to. 

Mycroft pulled you into him and held onto you for dear life. And you held onto him just the same. 

You were silently thankful that Mycroft couldn’t see your face for the moment, because the tears you’d been holding in all day were threatening to come to the surface. 

“Just…promise me something?”

“Anything,” Mycroft said in an outward breath. 

“Be safe tomorrow?” You asked him. “Don’t try and…fight someone if they’re gonna kill you. Don’t die on me, Mycroft. Not at the hands of your father. Not at the hands of anyone.”

Mycroft moved a little so he could see your face. Soaking in the moment, Mycroft laid a gentle hand against your cheek and, for a moment, your eyes fluttered shut as you melted into his touch. 

Laying your own hand on the back of his, you opened your eyes to see Mycroft memorising you. Your face, your touch, your voice, your presence. 

“I don’t think we have much control over the hands of time,” Mycroft told you. “But, if it’s in our control? I promise.”

Letting out a breath, you leaned further into his touch. “Thank you.”

Pulling his palm to your lips, you pressed a long kiss to his palm. Then his wrist. Finally, you reached up and wrapped your arms around him. In return, he held you just as tight and buried his face into the crook of your neck. 

His moustache tickled a little as he pressed a feather-light kiss to your skin. 

In the morning, just before he was followed out of his father’s complex, and just before he walked past the rest of his family who believed he had betrayed them, you pulled him back. 

“Wait.”

“I’ll be okay,” Mycroft assured you. “I made you a promise, remember?”

Gently, he tucked your hair behind your ear before tilting your chin up so you would look at him. 

“Don’t say anything,” you said, keeping your hands flat on his chest. “When you come back, if you want to talk about it, we can. But, just for now, don’t say anything.”

“About what?”

“This.”

Leaning up, you kissed him. 

It was…new. But meaningful. Not exactly a good-bye kiss, but one for good luck. One that told him that the thoughts he’d been having last night as you laid beside him, fast asleep and both of you fully clothed, weren’t just his own. 

For a moment, he kissed you back. Not long after that, you pulled away, rolling your lips to memories the brief taste of him. 

“Keep your promise?”

Mycroft nodded, leaning in once more. Only, this time, he pressed his lips to your forehead. His fingers ran through your hair as he did so; a quiet, comforting gesture. 

“Always.”

Waiting for him to come back had dragged. Between the curious looks you were receiving from James who desperately wanted to ask – the only thing that was holding him back was the clear worry he could see in your face. And the clear hurt and anger on Sherlock and Cordelia’s face. 

You just wanted him to be okay. 

And, thankfully, he was. 

Long after the dust had settled, both figuratively and literally (a hidden mine blew up), you were all heading back to London. 

On the train, neither you or Mycroft spoke. But you held hands. And, when you grew tired, you laid your head on his shoulder. When he grew tired, he laid his own against yours. 

When the day finally came that you all returned to Appleton Manor, you stayed close to Mycroft. 

Bea was growing closer to James – something else only you seemed to notice. But she was still struggling with the comprehension that her father had lied to her, for her entire life. 

Learning who her family was, and who she could trust, would be a long road. 

It would be a long road for them all. 

In the quiet moments, where Mycroft excused himself and pretended everything was okay, you would follow him. A simple reach of his hand, or a gentle hand against his shoulder soon opened the gate to you hugging him. 

Mycroft, for as long as you had known him, had never really been the physically affectionate type. So, when he reciprocated your touch, your hug, your hold, without reservation, you were glad. 

Even more so when he sought you out for that very thing. 

If you were standing in the kitchen, early in the morning or late at night, making a snack or a drink. You would feel his hands tenderly grip your waist or your hips. Mere moments later, his head would be on your shoulder, or his lips would press soft kisses against your exposed neck. 

Sometimes it would go further than that. But, the most common outcome was Mycroft just standing there, holding you against his chest, without a word. 

“I must return to London,” he told you one afternoon. “There’s…there’s a lot of work waiting for me. After everything…”

You nodded. “I understand. If you’re not sick of me already-”

Mycroft chuckled, reaching out for you. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

You hummed, letting him pull you closer before you wrapped your arms over his shoulders and around his neck. “Beg to differ.”

He chuckled, again, pulling you in at the waist. 

“But, if you’re not, would you mind me coming with you? I’ve got a bit of business to tend to in the city.”

Mycroft raised a brow. “Oh? Something I might like to know?”

“Not yet. It’s not fully thought out yet.”

Mycroft knew that was a lie. Not from you, but to the world. You had thought it, whatever it was, out. There were just a few more steps to take and you needed to clear your path before you could safely step on them. 

“Okay,” Mycroft kissed you. “But I am curious.”

“You will be the first to know.”

“Will I?” 

You nodded. “You’ll be the only one in London. Geographically speaking, nobody here will know until I come back.”

Mycroft chuckled, letting his hands slide down towards your arse. Slowly, you leaned your hips into his whilst he tried to kiss you. 

“You. Are a pain.”

You chuckled, kissing him. “You love it.”

“You drive me mad, woman.”

“You love it.”

A small growl left his throat as he kissed you. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

The next day, when you finally reached London, you and Mycroft went your separate ways. Whilst he headed towards his office, you headed towards a for-sale sign that wasn’t too far from Bow Street. 

“Darling?”

From the rafter office, you peered over the wooden balcony, both of you completely unaware of the new nickname Mycroft had used and you had answered to. “Up here! Come on!”

A little- no. A lot confused, Mycroft looked around the dusty, sheet-covered office. 

“When the boy said to meet you here, I thought he was mistaken but apparently-” Mycroft got to the top just in time to watch you tear another sheet away, proudly, to reveal a sturdy desk. “Not.”

“This is to be our new office.”

“Our?”

“Myself, Sherlock and James.” You were almost beaming with excitement. “We’ve been throwing around the idea for a while. A private investigation agency. Sherlock and James have the experience, and so do I.”

“How did you even find out about this place?”

“It’s great, isn’t it?! Got it for a steal, too.” You were rushing about, pulling sheets off items in order to check their condition. “I’ve had feelers out for a property for a while. I figured I’d be turning it into a tea-shop, or a library or a charity house. But, this one? This place is perfect for what we need.”

“This one?”

You nodded. “There’s an old building just past Fleet Street. I suppose in a couple of months I should have a functioning Charity House for women, mothers and children. My father always said if I was going to invest my time in something, it should be useful. So…here we are.”

Mycroft looked around whilst you mapped out your vision for the place. It was almost fully furnished, save for a few touches that would make it seem less…dreary. 

Lighter curtains in the back would help. So would printed letters on the front of the window, a slightly more welcoming seating area to the right hand side, which was hidden a little due to the position of the storage closet. 

With an open space on the ground floor, there was a perfect opportunity for Cordelia to make some of her cordials. That way, a business was growing and women who didn’t want to seem overly suspicious could simply say they had popped in to buy a few items. 

By the time you turned back to Mycroft, he didn’t seem as in shock as he had done when he first walked inside. Instead, he looked…proud. 

“So, what do you think?”

“I think making sure Sherlock and James are still attached to the hip might cause more trouble than my stress can handle.”

You chuckled, climbing the stairs to reach him, as he smiled. 

“But…I think it’s brilliant. This is brilliant. You’re brilliant, Y/n.”

“Thank you. Now, all I have to do is tell those two.”

“They don’t know yet?!”

You shrugged. “The idea, yes. That I have been looking for a building, no. But, now I can break the news.”

“Good lord, help us all.”

Laughing, you hurried over to Mycroft’s side and wrapped your arms around him. “So, how was work?”

“Boring. Even more so without you there to pester me.”

“I’m sure I’ll be back there soon,” you said.

“Is that a threat? Or a promise?”

You shrugged. “It can be both.”

Mycroft just hummed before leaning down and pressing a kiss to your lips. Melting into him, you felt his fingers fan through your hair as you let him back you up towards the desk. 

A small gasp escaped you as you finally hit the desk. 

“Sorry-”

“Don’t be,” you said. “Keep going.”

Pulling his down to your lips by his tie, Mycroft helped you scoot further back onto the desk. 

It was amongst the growing darkness of the office, and the empty street outside, that you and Mycroft fell deeper with each other. For however much he was straight-laced, tight and controlled; when it came to you, he was a man untamed. 

With your thighs still trembling from the two orgasms he had served you, you begged for him to thrust harder and deeper for the third. His grunts and moans of pleasure as he felt you clamp and pulse around him only drove him on. 

Leaving you dripping, Mycroft’s arms cradled your body as you held onto him for dear life. 

“Good lord.”

You had long since lost count of time, with nothing but darkness surrounding you and no hope for any light to work its way into this godforsaken pit, days were passing by without your knowledge. It had been years at this point, how many, you didn’t know but long enough for the world outside to be a distant echo and for your presence to have faded into a pitiful whisper.

Years passed by with only the reminders of your old life to keep you company; you often dreamed of those times your brother carved out time in his day to braid your hair or when you would both jump out of the windows late at night to fly over Velaris together. You’d dream of your mother, how she’d let you sit and ‘help’ her make dresses or that time you were so outraged when you were learning how to fly and she pushed you straight from the balcony of the House of Wind so that you had no choice but to fly.

Your days were filled with flashes of them all; your mother, Rhysand, Mor and Cassian.

You wondered how much of life had moved on without you.

Was Rhysand High Lord yet?

If he was, how had your father died?

Had Rhysand found his mate?

Had he made her High Lady like you both always spoke about?

In those extra difficult times that your control slipped even further, those memories of the Shadowsinger would linger the harshest.

You did not like thinking of how much his life had moved on without you.

Rhysand and Feyre stood together in the kitchen of the townhouse, looking through the window into the garden where Elain was tending to the flower garden and Azriel was sprawled out nearby, sunning his wings.

“Do you think the Cauldron can make mistakes with mates?” Feyre asked him, a look of confused anguish on her face.

Rhysand looked towards his mate, surprise dancing in his eyes at her question. “Nobody truly knows what makes the cauldron put two people together. They’re not always perfectly compatible, my own parents were examples of that, they never truly loved each other. Others, like us, are lucky to find love with their mate.”

Feyre continued looking out into the garden. “Why couldn’t the cauldron have made Azriel, Elain’s mate, instead of Lucien. Lucien is good but they look good together,” Feyre pointed out to where the Shadowsinger was still sprawled on the grass.

A pulse of pain pulled through their bond causing Feyre to snap her eyes back to Rhys. She was surprised to see the pain in his eyes, it wasn’t just any pain. It was the sort of pain that lingered and dwelled, a grief that would forever remain no matter how much time passed but there was also a subtle protectiveness in his eyes that could almost be missed.

Feyre was confused.

Rhysand swallowed a lump in his throat before speaking. “Do not mistake Azriel’s kindness towards your sister as affection. He is spending time with her because I ordered him too, to try and understand her powers. You’re reading into something that isn’t there.” His voice was stern but not unkind.

Feyre’s brows furrowed at his words. “It would be an honour for Azriel to find his mate, with anyone.”

“Azriel does not want a mate, Feyre.” The sheer confidence in Rhysand’s words only confused her even more.

“But why would he not want a mate? I thought everyone dreams of having one.” She questioned, looking out at Azriel’s figure in the garden.

She thought Azriel of all people would want a mate.

“Azriel has already had his great love,” Rhysand said. “No mating bond could ever live up to that for him. There are loves that even the cauldron cannot compete with.”

“What?” Feyre asked, shock taking over her face. “Who?”

That pain appeared in Rhys’ eyes again, a quick flash but it was there. “I meant it when I said I have no secrets to keep from you but not all stories are solely mine to tell. I am not going to tell you Azriel’s secrets.”

Feyre nodded silently. She understood, it didn’t diminish her curiosity but she would not pry for answers that weren’t hers to have.

Azriel’s footsteps were silent as always, shadows licking at his heals and fingertips as he walked towards Rhys’ office.

Not bothering to knock, his gloved hand unlatched the handle as he stepped inside. “You called, brother?”

Rhys was sat back in his chair, unsurprisingly dressed in his formals but the conflicted look on his face ruffled his demeanour. “I’d like to preface by saying you haven’t done anything wrong, my mate simply is too nosey for her own good and sees things she hopes are there rather than reality at times.”

Azriel’s face remained at an impasse other than the slight narrowing of his golden, hazel eyes.

Rhysand sighed. “Feyre is under the impression that you and Elain may make for a better match than her and Lucien.”

The control Azriel had on himself immediately slipped as he stepped back, eyes widening in shock, fists clenching by his sides as his shadows fluttered around him. “No. Rhys, I would never-”

“I know” Rhys interrupted. “I am not accusing you of doing anything, Az. I just thought it best to let you know.”

Azriel shifted uncomfortably at his words. “You know there is no one else, there never has been and there will never be anyone else.” He insisted, wanting his brother to believe him.

Rhysand’s gaze softened. “I know. I have never doubted that even though it would be okay if eventually-”

“No!” Azriel’s cut him off, “There will never be another.”

“Okay,” Rhys conceded. “I just wanted to let you know, Azriel.”

Azriel nodded his head, not hesitating in taking his exit, leaving Rhys there in a suffocating silence of loss.

“You’re distracted,” Cassian dropped his stance, looking towards Feyre intently.

His High Lady sighed in frustration, leaning back against the ropes of the sparring ring.

“What’s on your mind?” He asked.

Feyre pursed her lips in contemplation before relenting. “Did you three actually used do things in the same room as each other?”

Cassian barked out a deep laugh at her question. “That’s what’s on your mind?”

Feyre shrugged sheepishly.

Cassian shook his head, a large smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, Rhys and I did. It would be a bit weird and incredibly uncomfortable for us all if Azriel did.”

Feyre tilted her head curiously, “Why?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be very nice for Rhys to see his best friend having his way with the girl he loves more than anything, would it?” He said, as though it was obvious. “Besides, Azriel has way too much respect for him to do that anyways.”

Feyre’s eyes widened in shock but there was also a sickening feeling of jealously bubbling in her stomach. “So, Azriel and Rhys loved the same girl?”

Cassian, way too focused now on stretching to acknowledge how his words had been interpreted. “We all love her but those two always have and always will love her most. She’s their number one girl.”

Number one girl.

Feyre did not like the sound of that at all. She hated it and she hated herself even more because of the jealously that gnawed at her. “They didn’t hate each other for that?” She questioned.

Cassian shook his head, mid lunge. “Azriel had no reason to hate Rhys. It was difficult for Rhys to accept in the beginning and Azriel understood that but Rhys saw how much love was there, it was impossible to miss so who was he to stand in the way of that?”

Feyre stood in thought for a moment. “So, Rhys loved her first?”

Cassian laughed. “Of course he did. It’s not really a competition though, is it?”

She didn’t answer him, she simply stood there, thoughts swirling.

Feyre hated herself, she hated that she could not stop thinking about this girl who must have been something really special for both Rhys and Azriel to both love.

She’s their number one girl.

No matter how hard she had tried to not think about it, she couldn’t help it.

“What’s on your mind, Feyre darling?” Rhys’ smooth voice slipped through the silence of their bedroom.

She looked up at him from her place at the edge of their bed. “It’s nothing,” she stated simply.

Rhys frowned at her dismissal, placing his watch on his bedside table before walking to stand in front of her. He pressed a palm to the side of her face. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”

She sighed, mostly in frustration at herself, partially in his insistence to talk about it. “Where you in love with Azriel’s mate?”

The utter bewilderment that appeared on Rhys’ face made her immediately regret her words and watch to shrink back in on herself. “What!?”

Feyre shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she tried to pull away but Rhys kept his hand on the side of her face, steadying her.

“Azriel doesn’t have a mate,” he told her, utter confusion lacing his words.

Feyre shrugged, “Were you in love with the same girl then?”

“I’m so confused, no?” Rhys said, having absolutely no idea where she could’ve gotten this from. “Where have you gotten this from?”

Feyre looked at him, frustration beginning to build within her. “I asked Cassian about how you used to do things in the same room, he said you and him did but not Azriel because it wouldn’t be nice for him to be pleasuring a girl that you loved! He said she was yours and Azriel’s number one girl.”

Rhys pulled his hand from her face and placed it over his mouth. The confusion in his eyes had faded into a an amusing sparkle as his shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.

“What!?” Feyre huffed. “What are you laughing at!?”

Rhysand released a full deep chuckle at her frustrations. “Cassian is an idiot and you are utterly beautiful when you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous!” She argued.

Rhys simply raised an eyebrow at her, completely unconvinced. “You’ve completely misinterpreted Cassian’s words, Feyre darling. It is still not my story to tell but I can promise you that Azriel and I have never been in love with the same girl.”

It had been five centuries since the disappearance of you and your mother and Azriel had never been the same.

Long before he met you, Azriel had learned what it meant to live in loneliness with nothing but his shadows for company but loneliness in response to your absence was never quite something anyone could become familiar with.

It was an endless void of nothing. Normally the thread of silence would at least end somewhere; a place where you simply got used to the feeling of someone not being there; but not with you.

It had been five centuries since your last laugh and that entire time Azriel has spent sleeping in your room. The room that sat right next to his own where your beds were pushed against the shared wall so even in your own beds you would be sleeping as close as you could get to each other.

It remained exactly how you left it, the same books sat on the nightstands, the same jewellery littered across a dressing table and a beautiful dress of deep blue with glittering silver stars on the bodice hung from the door of the closet, preparing to be worn for a day that never came.

Each morning that Azriel woke and got ready for the day, his last words to the House of Wind always remained the same. Leave it exactly how she left it, please.

The House always listened.

Whilst Azriel no longer slept in his own room, it had changed. The walls that were once a basic white had been transformed into a purple so unique it could only reflect the colour of your eyes.

In those rare moments that Azriel was able to relax away from the world, he would lay in his bed and stare at the walls of his room and whilst they could never reflect the light in a sparkle the way your own eyes could, the paint would simply have to do.

The winter chill of the Illyrian Steppes bit harshly into your cheeks as you ran through the thick snow into the forests surrounding the Windhaven camp.

The males were awful here, brutal even but even they knew to leave the daughter of the High Lord alone and so you were free to wander without the risk of your wings being torn from your back.

The trees created sanctuary for you here, as you weaved in between them you thought of your brother, Rhys and how quickly he would lose his mind once he found you gone.

A deep rooted feeling of being watched suddenly stirred in your stomach causing you to pause. It was the most subtle weight you had ever felt and yet you could not help but feel it as it settled into your bones.

You cast a quick glance up into the branches of the trees above you, where their leaves and twigs clashed and combined with one another, it took a moment for you to spot them but eventually you did.

Within a particular tall tree that was shaped in all groves and turns towards the top, deep within the shadows is where you saw him.

A male.

Sitting, observing.

“Hello,” you greeted softly.

No answer.

“What are you doing up there?” You asked.

The shadows fluttered and twitched at first before melting away into a black mist behind the males shoulders, revealing his face.

“Oh,” you whispered, taking in the hard expression of his face. He had hair of a dark midnight sky, eyebrows just a shade lighter that were furrowed deeply, shadowing his eyes that, against his dark features, seemed to glow golden when they narrowed towards you. He was all sharp lines and tensed muscles.

He shifted slightly in his place against the branches of the tree before stepping forward and allowing himself to gracefully drop down in front of you, merely inches away as he stared down into your eyes.

“How did you see me?” He asked, his voice was rough and deep for his age, possibly a couple years older than you, but his tone was steady.

“I didn’t,” you admitted. “I felt your eyes on me.”

It was then that you took notice of just how tightly his wings were pulled in at his back, a complete contrast to yours that were much more relaxed; pulled in just enough to protect them but let out enough that you didn’t have to consciously hold them in all the time, “you’ll get back pain holding them in like that,” you told him, pointing briefly at his wings.

They twitched in response, shadows fluttering wildly around the tips of his wings. It wasn’t a purposeful movement, that you could tell.

“I can’t control them,” He admitted to you.

Your brows furrowed, “what do you mean?”

“I cannot fly,” he said. “I never learned how to control them.”

You stepped back at his words. “You can’t fly!?” You spluttered in outrage. “Why can’t you fly? Are you injured?”

He shrugged in a way that showed this wasn’t a big deal to him, as though it was normal. “I wasn’t allowed outside,” he stated simply.

You frowned, the idea of not being allowed outside was unfathomable to you. “You weren’t allowed?”

“My father didn’t let me,” his words remained even, unaware of the turmoil that was stirring in your gut the more he spoke, a turmoil that you couldn’t quite explain.

“Why?” You asked.

“Because I am a bastard,” he said, his tone empty and detached, as though he had long since accepted that was all he was reduced to.

You did not like how he seemed to convinced that that’s all he was worth.

“You’re a Shadowsinger,” you pointed out, remembering old tales of myths and legends you had read before. “Those are very rare.”

The shadows clinging to him fluttered and preened at the tips of his wings and over his shoulders as though they understood your words.

Azriel nodded in response, feet scuffing into the dirt often forest uncomfortably at your words.

“That’s so cool!” You whispered in awe, the admiration you felt was completely authentic but you were also hoping it comforted him a bit.

He looked at you, the only hint of confusion on his face was the soft crease between his browns and the subtlest tilt of his head. “You’re not scared?” He asked.

“Of what?” You laughed, as though the idea was absurd.

“Of me,” he raised one of his gloved hands, tapping his index finger into his chest.

“Have you given me a reason to be scared?”

He paused at your question, internally baffled at this entire interaction. “I suppose not,” he muttered to himself, the idea of you not being scared simply just from his presence was beyond him.

“What’s your name?” You abruptly changed the subject.

He was silent for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell you or not. “Azriel.”

“Azriel,” you repeated softly, testing how it sounded. “That’s a beautiful name,” you told him.

His shadows twitched, his wings almost flinched at your complement, Azriel shifted uncomfortably.

“Do you want to be my friend, Azriel?”

“I’ve never had a friend before,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”

You pursed your lips in response, looking around the forest floor before speaking. “I’ve never really had a friend either, there’s my brother, Rhys, but he doesn’t count. Do you have any siblings?”

Azriel tensed at your question, his entire body stiffening, hands clenching in his gloves. “No, it’s just me.”

“Well,” you began, “I’d be honoured to be your first friend, if you’ll be mine?”

You were beyond confusing to Azriel, the first person besides his mother to not look at him with fear or disgust, to look at him and just see a person.

Azriel did not reply verbally but he didn’t need to, you didn’t mind and so he simply nodded in response earning a beaming smile from you.

“Spread your wings out wide,” you instructed softly.

“They’re heavy,” Azriel muttered, wings spreading in stuttering movements, face twisting slightly as he concentrated on holding them.

Your eyes ran along his wings now that they weren’t tucked in painfully right, taking in the large span of them, they fluttered under your gaze, completely against Azriel’s control.

“That’s because your back muscles aren’t used to holding their weight, we’ll need to strengthen them,” you explained, eyes snapping away from his wings, towards his own hazel eyes instead.

“How do we strengthen them?” He asked.

“Exercises, most are trained from babies to use their wings so it comes a lot more naturally but we can do it together.” You smiled at him encouragingly.

You knew this was hard for him, you knew he thought he wasn’t worth your help and you knew that this entire situation was uncomfortable for him but you wanted to help him and you liked spending time with him.

“I struggled with flying at first,” you admitted, hoping it would comfort him in some way.

His eyes stopped glancing to the trees around you, now focused. “Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah, Rhys was flying before he could walk but I was too scared to do it. I didn’t trust myself. I kept imagining my wings just not working one day and falling to my death.”

Azriel shifted subtly, shadows restless. “How did you do it?”

“I had no choice,” you said. “One day my mother and I were looking at the stars from the balcony of our home and she just pushed me off, I had no choice but to trust my wings or fall and I flew for the first time that day.”

Azriel’s eyes widened. “She pushed you off the balcony!?”

You smiled widely. “Yeah, I was so angry, I didn’t speak to her for a week but it worked. I won’t be pushing you off ledges until you can hold your wings properly though.”

You could detect the subtle relief that reflected in the golden hazel hue of Azriel’s eyes, as though he expected you to be able to push him off of any ledge and force him to command his wings that didn’t seem willing to answer him yet.

At some point, you will take great joy in pushing him off a cliff.

Not yet though.

Only when he was ready.

“Where does my starlight keep running off to?” Your mother’s gentle voice filtered through your ears as she brushed through your hair carefully.

You were silent for a moment, contemplating whether to reveal your secret. “I made a friend.”

You felt the comb pause briefly against your head before it continued. Your mother hummed absentmindedly. “Did you? Do I get to meet this friend?”

You pursed your lips in contemplation, an unexplainable feeling of protectiveness surging through your body. “He’s shy, he doesn’t like being around people,” you told her.

You missed the amused smile that appeared on your mother’s face, no doubt intrigued at the strange protectiveness that you had for your age. “He?” She asked, almost teasingly.

You huffed in response but a smile grew on your face that you couldn’t stop. “Yes,” you said strongly before your tone shifted to pride. “He’s my friend, I’m teaching him to fly.”

Your mother paused entirely, turning your body to face her own causing your eyes to meet her own that held the same violet hue she passed down to you and your brother. “Teaching him to fly? How old is this friend?”

Your shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Rhys’ age. His father never let him outside so he can’t fly.”

Worry clouded your mother’s face at your words. “Is he a good boy?”

A bright smile overtook your face at her question. “He’s the best! He’s very quiet but he still speaks to me and he listens to all of my complaining and his shadows play with my hair!”

“Shadows?” Your mother’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“He’s a Shadowsinger,” you whispered. “Those are very rare.”

“They are,” she repeated. “Don’t tell your father about him, starlight.”

“I would never,” you swore, your voice demonstrating the dramatic outrage of a child who couldn’t fathom sharing information like that to your father. “Mama?”

“Yes, starlight?” She asked, turning you back around so she could start braiding your hair.

“Don’t tell Rhys, okay?” You told her, your brother could get way too protective, it was embarrassing.

“I would never tell Rhys, starlight. Or Cassian.” She promised.

“Definitely not Cassian.” You agreed.

“I’m not ready!” Azriel protested, warily looking over the edge of the cliff you had pretty much dragged him too.

“You are ready!” You argued. “You’ve got great control of your wings and your muscles are as strong as can be!”

Azriel shook his head, shadows darting around him, showing his nerves. “What if I fall?”

“Then I’ll catch you!” You replied simply.

“I’m too heavy for you to catch me!” He protested.

“You are not, I’m strong!” You argued, outraged at his accusation. “I’ll hold your hands?” You proposed, already reaching out towards his own gloved hands.

Azriel looked down at your outstretched hands, hesitation clear on his face, he really wasn’t sure about this but he did really want to be able to fly.

He relented, placing his hands in yours, earning himself one of your bright smiles, stars twinkling happily in your eyes.

Your wings fluttered slowly, not enough to lift you off the ground, just enough to encourage Azriel to copy your actions.

You slowly increased the force at which your wings beat, air building with the crevice of each controlled flap of the membrane.

Azriel copied your movements, his own wings much larger in comparison to any you’ve seen on other children your age, your own were quite big for a female Illyrian so young.

Azriel felt the change in gravity, the way his feet were itching to leave the ground on their own accord, as though his body was fully attuned and aware to what was currently happening even if it was unfamiliar.

“You’re doing it,” you whispered proudly, your own feet lifting off the ground before Azriel’s but your hands stayed in his as you remained stationary in the air, feet just slightly off the ground as you waited patiently for his own body to rise into the wind.

“You’re so close, just a bit more.” You encouraged him.

The second the air swept beneath Azriel’s feet for the first time, it felt as though his entire body was about to fall backwards as he had nothing to stand on but your hands tightened on his own, keeping him straight as he unsteadily rose with you, trying to focus on keeping his wings moving.

“It’ll come naturally the more you do it,” you told him. “You won’t even have to think about it.”

Azriel wasn’t so sure about that but as he felt the wind beneath his wings as he became airborne for the first time, with your hands holding his, he chose to believe you anyway.

“You’re flying Azriel!” Sheer joy and pride filled your face as you looked at him, he thought you looked beautiful like this.

The wind causing your hair to flutter around your face, eyes sparkling at the freedom that flying gave you and your smile took up your whole face as it always did.

Distracted by the sight of you in your element, Azriel lost focus of his wings causing him to quickly drop a few feet but your hands tightened on his just as his heart dropped in his chest out of panic.

He concentrated on beating his wings again, fluttering slightly higher than previously.

But even as he concentrated on flying, his mind was also on something else.

You had caught him, just like you said you would.

Wake. Wake. Wake.

Their hissing little whispers nudged you from unconsciousness. The cold concrete of the cave dug uncomfortably into your back. You groaned, shifting as your eyes opened, adjusting to the thick, clouded darkness you had been forced to endure for five centuries.

Another day it remained the same.

A sharp, slithering coldness nudged against your cheek, and again against your fingertips. You looked down in confusion, taking in the grey-black strands of darkness fluttering around your hands.

You raised your hands slightly, it was hard to see clearly but they resembled beings you had not seen in a very long time. The dark strands fluttered around your fingertips as you stared intently at them and in a movement so sharp, one lone sentient being jumped to your shoulder.

Your head snapped to the side as you looked at it, moving around, nestling into your clothes that had long since been reduced to scraps of fabric.

The beating beneath your chest stuttered as you stared at them.

Shadows.

They were shadows.

Master. Master. Master.

She hears us. She hears us.

They fluttered around you in a way that seemed to portray excitement.

Was that them talking?

“Azriel?” You whispered, broken yet that sick part of you still held a bit of hope.

Many years you had locked out memories of the Shadowsinger yet it never worked too well, you could never forget him and you would never forget the sentient beings that obeyed him either.

No.

They almost sounded like hisses.

“Not Azriel then.” You muttered. It did not surprise you, not really.

You didn’t understand.

“Another Shadowsinger?” You asked, it earned that same excited fluttering dance as before. Yes.

But who? You wondered.

It seemed they knew your thoughts too.

You. You.

Your face contorted into confusion. You weren’t a Shadowsinger.

You allowed yourself to think of Azriel again. Not of him exactly or the feeling of his love that had faded long ago but of his story.

Azriel had not been born a Shadowsinger.

How had Azriel become a Shadowsinger?

He had been locked in a dark cell for eleven years and had no choice but to find companionship within the darkness itself.

Oh.

“You’re my shadows.” You did not question this time.

Yes. They hissed again.

“But the faebane chains?” You wondered aloud.

“Shadows are not magic, they’re simply part of me.” Azriel had told you that before.

You studied them again, more intently this time and whilst they resembled the shadows of Azriel’s so very much there was the slightest hint of a difference; they weren’t just a grey-black, they had the slightest underlying tint of purple.

They truly were yours.

Release chains. They muttered, not to you, to themselves, fluttering around frantically.

“I can’t,” you whispered in long accepted defeat. “They won’t come off, someone else needs to do it.”

Your newly acquired shadows ignored you, muttering to themselves.

Shadowsinger will do it. Spymaster will do it.

But your energy was draining again, conscious slipping into darkness, your shadows slipping through the cracks of the cave without you knowing.

Azriel had been born alone and he would die alone.

He had accepted that was all life was made for him, there were those years he had you, moments were he thought he’d have you forever but you were taken, brutally slaughtered along with your mother in the spring court.

He had never and will never forgive himself for not being there to protect you. Truthfully he did not know how Rhysand could go on with life after that, not that his High Lord and brother didn’t deserve to live, he did, but how had grief not taken his sanity Azriel would never know.

He would never know how Rhys could look in the mirror and not see the shadows of his mother and sister, not when some days Azriel could not look into his eyes and see the very reflection of the young woman he lost, his woman.

It would forever just be Azriel and his shadows.

Another night that Azriel slept in your room alone, beneath your sheets, on the pillows you always hid that ridiculous stuffed bat beneath.

When he awoke this time though, it was different.

His shadows, usually fluttering lazily were muttering and batting around recklessly, their unease settling in Azriel’s chest, having the spymaster looking around the room carefully.

The only thing that seemed wrong were his shadows themselves, it was as though they were fighting each other?

Intruder. Intruder. They hissed, flying into each other as though they were in a sort of disorientated state. Azriel had never seen anything like it before.

Deep down, Azriel understood that there was no intruder in the House of Wind but he did not understand what they could be referring to.

The bond between himself and his shadows was strange. They told him things yes, but a lot of their communication came down to feelings, he felt their unease, their frustration, as though they were participating in an internal battle.

But why?

He sat up in your bed and observed them closely. He too, could see that there was something off but couldn’t quite put his mind to it.

Intruder. But where?

The shadows hissed at each other, floating around the room in distress, it was when the golden rays of the morning sunrise shone through the balcony window that he saw it.

His eyes, always so sharp, caught that difference in his shadows. Not his shadows, he concluded. Eyes widening, he reached out to that invisible thread and called his shadows back to him with a snap.

There it was.

A small cluster that did not return to him, a cluster of shadows that looked just the slightest different to his own. That underlying purple tint was not his.

He tried to reach out, tried to find that tether to them.

Nothing.

They did not seem threatening though.

They fluttered and danced around before him, as though they were trying to communicate with him but could not.

Help. His own shadows muttered.

“Help?” He questioned.

They plead help. They hissed into his ears. Another Shadowmaster. Trapped.

Azriel shook his head, he was the only shadowmaster.

No. They hissed, more stern this time, as though telling him he was wrong.

Azriel removed himself from your bed, pulling on his Illyrian leathers as quickly as possible, not even strapping his weapons to himself. Instead he simply grabbed Truthteller alone into its sheath.

He approached the bedroom door, turning to see if those other shadows would follow, they were.

He let himself out of the room, shadows, his and not his following behind closely, he barged into Rhys’ study causing the High Lord to jump, not that he would ever admit.

“Azriel?” Rhys greeted, looking up from his papers in barely concealed surprise. “A knock would be nice.”

“We have a problem.” Azriel simply responded earning Rhys’ full attention.

“What is it?”

Azriel held out a gloved hand and while Azriel had no means to communicate with these shadows, they understood him and gathered into his palm, fluttering into a rounded shape.

Rhys simply looked at them in confusion. “What am I looking at? New party trick?”

Azriel shook his head, face contorting as he studied them. “They’re not mine, I can’t communicate with them.”

“What?” Rhys uttered to himself.

“There’s another Shadowsinger out there,” Azriel responded, mostly to himself. “They communicate with my shadows but I can’t understand them myself.”

“Another Shadowsinger?” His High Lord mumbled, shaking his head. “No, you’re the only Shadowsinger alive.”

“Not anymore,” Azriel argued, his and the guest shadows beginning to flutter wildly in their own disagreement. “Apparently they’re trapped.”

Chained. His shadows corrected. Caved.

“Chained,” he spoke aloud.

“Perhaps for good reason,” Rhys argued, whilst Azriel was his brother and he trusted him beyond measures, he was well aware just how powerful Shadowsingers were, if this other Shadowsinger was locked away then perhaps it was because it was deserved.

Azriel shook his head, a sort of confused anguish taking over his features as he observed the shadows sitting in his palm. “They don’t feel threatening, or evil. They’re scared, pleading for help, for freedom.”

“How do you know they’re not pretending? That this other Shadowsinger hasn’t sent these here to play a ruse just to get their freedom?” Rhys asked.

The guest shadows in his palm shrunk down in defeat whilst his own fluttered in agitation around his shoulders and the tips of his wings.

She doesn’t know they’re here. She can’t control it yet.

Azriel listened to their whispers with widened eyes before looking at Rhys. “She cannot control them, this ability must be newly manifested, they came here on their own. Besides, shadows don’t work like that, they can’t fake feelings or emotions.”

“She?” Rhys sat up straighter in his chair at the newfound information.

“I can’t explain it, Rhys,” Azriel muttered, deep in thought. “I have this feeling that I need to free her, I don’t know why, it just feels right to.”

Those lone little shadows of yours clung to Azriel in the following days, against your knowledge. Azriel spent that time preparing himself for rescuing you, not that he knew it would be you he was rescuing, trying to gain as much information as he could through his own shadows translating messages back and forth with yours.

It was strange for Azriel, not only that there were sentient echoes of darkness that for some reason he could not communicate with but also knowing that somewhere out there, trapped and alone, there was another like him, another who could communicate with the darkness and melt into the shadows, even if it was a new manifestation.

The cave you were imprisoned in, he learned, was located somewhere in The Middle, because of course it was.

What other place would be sick enough to have trapped a person so long that the shadows had sought them out?

Trapped for centuries. The shadows had told him.

Bound by faebane chains, tormented by memories of a time that had long since faded.

Azriel, in all he had been through and in all his grief and terror over the years, could not imagine being trapped within the same four walls for hundreds of years.

He had barely lasted eleven, Rhys had hardly lasted fifty and yet out there, a poor woman had lasted hundreds of years, alone.

A woman of his kind.

The cave, as Azriel stood before it, was hardly a cave. It was more a carved hole in the ground, hidden by overgrown moss and shrubbery that even he, a spymaster, would have overlooked had he passed by without your shadows leading him to it.

He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to squeeze his overgrown body into it.

Your shadows shot forward like whips, diving into the underground cave, no doubt snapping back to you, even though your lack of control, they were drawn to you, desired to be close to your being.

Azriel crouched down, inspecting the gap in the ground, his own shadows fluttering around in agitation, some even darting ahead into the cave. He peeled off his outer layers that he strapped his weapons to, sending them down into the cave before him.

Risky, no doubt, but he felt no threat towards whatever presence was inside this cave, only an innocently, trapped Shadowsinger.

One that meant no harm, only desiring freedom.

He heaved himself through the gap, the concrete lining the underground cave scratching against his arms and shoulders as he dragged himself through, gravity doing most of the work, allowing him to drop down onto solid stone and rock.

It smelled awful; blood, dirt, faebane and a hell of a lot like someone had long since lost the will to live.

He saw the chains, loads of them, hanging from the ceiling, from the walls, even some bound to the ground with bolts.

Even as someone bound by shadows and member of the Night Court, Azriel could not see clearly in the darkness of this pit but his shadows led the way, they led him to your shadows.

Your shadows that covered just about every part of you, hiding you as though attempting to protect your presence from anyone who could possibly mean harm, leaving you just the image of a darkened, fuzzy blur.

“I will not harm her,” Azriel promised. “I only want to free her, take her back to the Night Court, help her heal and gain control.”

He saw the way they hesitated, how they debated whether they had made the right decision in finding him or not.

She trusted you. They whispered, confessed. His own shadows translating. Long time ago.

Azriel did not know what they meant by that. Had he known her once upon a time?

It was when they finally relented and made the decision to fade away from covering your body that Azriel, despite all the gore and torment he had witnessed in his life, felt like he was going to be sick as his eyes fell upon the battered figure of a young, fae woman.

His fae woman.

No. He shook his head, as though it would shake the sick illusion from his mind.

Yet you remained in his sight.

He knew that figure, that hair, those lashes. It has all haunted his every sleep and movement for the last five hundred years. The colour beneath your eyelids that he had drenched his walls in, that he would look upon every morning and every night.

Even unhealthily slimmer than you had been five hundred years ago, there would not be a single moment or a single version of you in which Azriel would not recognise.

The first person who had shown him grace, who had shown him that kindness and love does in fact exist, the person who had given him the family that he still clings to today in hopes of grasping at every last remainder of you that he had believed was long lost.

Your name was a ghost on his lips as he surged forward, shadows following, your own fluttering at his shoulders now as he unsheathed truth-teller and sliced through the chains binding you to this sick prison.

The dagger you had given him.

The first gift he had ever received.

He collapsed to his knees beside your battered, unconscious body.

Your breaths shallow, wrists and ankles raw from centuries of imprisonment, body all but skin and bones.

He smoothed a marred thumb over your cheekbone, hands shaking as he took you in, your body surrendered to his touch as though finally, it had found something safe it could relax itself in.

And though you were unaware, still in the depths of your mind, your eyes had fluttered open, a deep purple hue that he had missed for hundreds of years.

Azriel choked on a sob as he gazed upon you again, his soul shattering open at the sight of the only person he had ever loved in his five hundred years walking the lands of Prythian.

He felt the moment part of his soul tore from his chest and landed straight into yours, a golden thread deep within him keeping it tethered to himself even though it now sat with you.

Finally reaching Afshin, they stumbled upon what was most certainly Silas' factory, given that they spotted him walking around nearby, but seemed to just be at the side of a mountain.

"Shall we go and have a gander?" James said over Sherlock's shoulder, a strange sort of gleam in his eye as he gazed at him.

"That's all well and good, James," Mycroft interjected, "but how do we get in?"

As she looked up at Mycroft, she noticed that he too was looking at Sherlock expectantly. He had an expression reminiscent of a parent waiting for a child to find the solution to a very simple problem. He masked it with genuine curiosity, which may have fooled Sherlock, but did not fool Jane.

"Suggestions in a hat, if you please-" Sherlock called back, before pausing. He observed the side of the mountain closer. "The map in Silas's study. The outline of these mountains. They match."

Mycroft's eyes lit up, but he schooled his expression as he urged Sherlock further. "I thought you told me that map was useless? It didn't even have North marked on it."

"It's not a map," Sherlock replied eagerly, "It's a cross-sectional plan."

James joined Sherlock in his observations, swiftly deducing a second, less guarded entrance to the tunnels.

"You knew," she accused quietly as they made their way down, "You knew about the map."

He smiled, "You read me far too easily, dear," he said with fondness, "Yes, I knew. I went to look at the map before we left. But, it is better to let Sherlock figure these things out on his own. He needs the mental exercise."

James felled the guard outside the entrance very easily, and Sherlock felled the one inside, albeit with much less brutality. James looked pleased, almost hungry as he praised his work. Xiao-Wei, Emine, and James split from the group to go after Malik. Mycroft seemed pleased with this arrangement, and kept a steady hand on her the entire time they searched for Beatrice.

When they found her, she seemed to be already paranoid. Sherlock attempted to persuade her, but it was Cordelia who truly broke through to her. Beatrice, Jane realized, is possibly Silas's worst victim. To take a child away from a most loving mother and two elder brothers, molding her into a puppet, was perhaps more despicable than locking Cordelia in an asylum. Cordelia had support in her sons, while Beatrice was isolated and preyed upon in a way that Jane could only imagine.

A bittersweet reunion was had between the mother and daughter, and she found herself wiping tears from her eyes. But they were soon in motion again, as Beatrice led them to Silas. Jane thought for a moment that they had been duped, and that Beatrice was still very much loyal to her father. That was, until she pulled a gun on him.

As she understood, Silas had asked Sherlock to be the heir to his criminal enterprise, while having also promised Beatrice the same. Beatrice had overheard this the night prior, which led to her distrust of him. Silas, to his credit, tried his hardest to manipulate her back onto his side, pulling her into his arms. Beatrice seemed to reciprocate his embrace, but they soon found that this was only a ploy to press the gun to his side, firing a shot through his stomach.

The shot had only just rang out when an explosion ripped through the tunnels. Mycroft was atop her in a moment, shielding her from the debris and dragging her away.

"Where is he?" he yelled to Sherlock, "Where did he go?"

Beatrice grabbed hold of Cordelia's hand, calling for her brothers to follow as she led them outside.

Jane held her breath until the fresh air hit her lungs. But just as she inhaled, another explosion echoed from behind them, knocking both herself and Mycroft off their feet. She was still for a moment, barely registering the scuffle around them until she heard James call Sherlock's name. When she looked up, Xiao Wei, Sherlock, and Beatrice had fled along with Silas, and gunshots rang from the mountain. She looked over to Mycroft, who was already sitting up again and watching them retreat.

"James?" she called, seeing his crumpled form on the ground. She crawled over to him, and watched as he shoved a paper into his pocket. "Are you hurt?"

It was when he looked up at her that she finally saw the extent of what Mycroft meant by his affliction. His eyes were wide and manic, his pupils twice their usual size. His usual charm was gone, and what was left behind was something deeply unsettling as he stared past her after Sherlock. "…James?"

Mycroft pulled her away just in time as James moved to push her out of his line of sight. "Come. He can take care of himself." He hauled her away, and pulled her into the shade of a nearby tree, taking his handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the soot from her face.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, checking him over for any blood.

He shook his head, "A few bruises, and perhaps a temporary aversion to loud noises, as is typical for a bombing."

"Should we not go after Sherlock?" she questioned.

Mycroft looked up the mountain, "They took the horses," he said, "It is of no use. The probability of Sherlock being seriously hurt is low. It is three people against an already wounded man. It would do no good for you to witness such things, anyhow."

James had finally pushed himself up, and hobbled towards them. He too looked unharmed apart from a few bruises. "Terribly sorry, Jane. Had quite the shock," he tapped the side of his head lightheartedly.

"It is alright," she replied as gently as she could. James seemed back to his usual self now, but she couldn't shake the sight of his black, vacant eyes. "You should sit down, James."

The sound of hooves diverted their attention as three horses made their way towards them. Sure enough, Silas was not among them.

"He is dead," Xiao Wei announced.

Mycroft stood, noticing Sherlock's horse lagging behind slightly. He dismounted shakily, ignoring James' greeting completely, tears in his eyes as he tottered towards his brother, who moved closer to him. Sherlock crumbled before their eyes, seeking refuge in his brother's arms as he sobbed violently. Mycroft assumed the position naturally, softly shushing him until his breathing evened out again. "He fell," Sherlock whimpered, "He held me— and then he fell. I tried to- I tried to stop him but he wouldn't-"

"It's alright, Sherry," Mycroft assured, "Breathe, now, brother dear."

Cordelia seemed tearful as well, so Jane joined Beatrice in consoling her. Emine and Xiao Wei gathered their things and prepared for their journey back to their own horses. James stood and observed from the sidelines, scanning the human devastation before him.

Sherlock did not speak for the entire day's drive back to Constantinople. James tried his hardest to comfort him, but did not succeed in breaking through to him until they were safely back at Silas' manor in Constantinople.

The house was abandoned when they arrived, which was a relief to them all. She made her way to the room she had been assigned before they left, changing out of her clothes and bathing herself with the washbasin in her room. She was pleased to find that there were nightclothes in the wardrobe, as it was already very late at night, and she did not wish to impose upon Beatrice any further.

She had only just pulled her dressing gown on when there was a knock at the door. She had the good sense to peak through the crack in the door before opening it this time. She was very happy to find that it was Mycroft, and swung the door open. He smiled nervously at her, and it seemed that he too had cleaned himself up. He looked almost sinful, standing before her in his own dressing gown, his skin still damp.

"Mycroft," she cooed, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into the room. "How I have missed you in the past-" she glanced at the clock, "half an hour."

He laughed, "As I have missed you," he countered, "I… Well, I thought you may like a bath, so I've had one drawn for you, if you are not too weary."

She leaned back, looking up at him, a smirk tugging at her lips. "You are seducing me, Mr Holmes," she triumphed.

He grimaced at the phrasing, "I would not put it so lewdly."

"I would love a bath," she insisted, taking his hand, "Lead the way, my love."

He led her down the hall, giggling and shushing her so as not to rouse suspicion as the others settled in their beds. She was pleased to see that the bath was large enough for two.

"You will be joining me, yes?" she hoped, and he flushed softly.

"If that is what you wish," he squeezed her hand. She practically leapt at him, pressing her mouth against his much in the way they had at sunset two days prior. He groaned softly against her lips, "May I undress you?" he asked in a whisper.

"You may do whatever you'd like to me," she smiled, and he swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Do not say such things," he whined, "At least until the wedding."

She scoffed, "We are still waiting for the wedding?"

"It is what's proper, Jane," he replied firmly.

She stepped back and untied her dressing gown, letting it drop to the floor, swiftly followed by her nightgown until she was bare in front of him. She knew it was a foul move on her end, to resort to such lowly tricks, but she could not resist— especially when his lips parted in shock and he clapped a hand over his eyes after they had already spent a long moment flickering over her form, observing every detail.

"This," she stifled a laugh, blushing to her shoulders, "Is quite the opposite of propriety, Mycroft."

"Jane!" he tittered, "You startled me!"

He uncovered his eyes again once he heard the unmistakable sound of the water sloshing against her skin. He began to laugh, a contagious laugh that spread until they were both covering their mouths so as not to wake the whole house.

"My point still stands, you know," he added as he began to disrobe as well. "The marital act is named so for a reason. You are a lady, and deserve to be treated as such, yes?"

She made no response, only staring at him, entranced. He was beautiful, traitorously so. There was a light scattering of hair over his chest and a trail down his stomach, leading to the already rigid length of him. She was not oblivious to carnal desire by any means, she had more than once imagined him in such a state in the dark of her bedroom. Yet, he was more enchanting in the flesh than her imagination ever conjured. Despite all they had endured, all that he had endured, he was happy— comfortable even in this moment.

"It is your turn to fluster, then?" he teased, stepping in beside her and settling into the water. "Have you no witty reply to bestow?"

"You are magnificent," she exhaled, gliding atop his lap and kissing him fiercely, the water nearly splashing out of the basin, "You are the most handsome man in the world, and I the most fortunate woman."

He blushed and put his hands cautiously on her hips, one sliding up her back to tangle in her hair. "I must endeavor to best you, and tell you that you are much more magnificent than I. I feel I do not often remark on your beauty, so as not to seem shallow— but you must know that it occupies much of my mind. And now that I have seen you like this, I fear I shall never think of anything else again."

"Mycroft," she moaned against his neck, straddling his thigh and rutting against him.

"Heavens, Jane," he panted as she kissed and nipped at his jaw. "Perhaps- perhaps we can work around that one small limitation."

She giggled, "Yes. A loophole, perhaps?"

"Yes," he quipped eagerly with a chuckle, "Yes, that would be acceptable. We are engaged, are we not?"

"Yes," she nodded gravely, "Simple touches are not coitus. And we have had quite the difficult week, have we not? It is only natural to wish to unwind."

He laughed, and pulled her in again, parting her lips with his tongue and guiding her cunt over his thigh again, his eyes darkening at the whimpering moan that escaped her.

"There you are, darling," he praised in a hushed tone, "How is that?"

She found herself lost for words, and so she just nodded fervently, her lashes fluttering and her eyes wide as her hand ran over his chest and down his stomach. "Will you let me touch you?" she asked with equal amounts of timidness and desperation. His cock twitched, and he inhaled sharply at her words.

"Yes, God, yes," he muttered, his grip on her hair loosening in favor of cupping her face tenderly, pulling her in for another kiss. It lasted only a moment though, as she pulled away in order to trail her fingers down his pelvis. His breath hitched, and his brows furrowed as she wrapped her hand around him, squeezing the head softly. The water made him glisten as she stroked him, his swollen lips parted in ecstasy. She observed him keenly, watching every micro-expression on his face, every muscle twitch.

His firm grip on her hips never stopped, and she pressed her forehead against his, as she canted more and more desperately against him, whimpering with every praise he offered. Each of his breathy curses sent her closer to her pinnacle, and she gripped his damp hair with her free hand. "Mycroft-" she gasped, "Mycroft, I-"

"Yes, I- he shuddered, "Yes, I know, my darling. Go on. You've done so well."

He tensed his thigh underneath her, and with a few more splashes of water over the side of the bath, she found release in his arms, trembling violently and letting out sounds that were much louder than they should have been given the late hour. Mycroft did not seem to worry about that, however, as he spent over her fingers with a guttural groan.

"My darling," he said through labored breath, pulling away enough to look into her eyes, "I love you so very much. More than anything in the world."

"As I love you," she smiled, her own chest heaving. "More than life itself."

They laid there for several minutes, until the water began to run cold, and he helped her out of the bath and into a linen towel. "Your legs are shaking," he observed after drying himself off and putting her nightclothes back on her.

"If they are, the fault is all yours," she accused, tying his dressing gown and leaning against his chest.

"Indeed, you are right, my dear. I shall do my best to atone for my mistakes," with that, he swept her off her feet, shushing her playfully as he carried her to the other side of the hall and into his room.

"Who are you and what have you done with Mycroft Holmes?" she whispered through a laugh as he placed her gently down on the bed and perched next to her.

He leaned down to kiss her forehead before laying down beside her and allowing her to slot against his side, "You bring it out of me, my love."

You and James rush outside just in time to see Shou'an being hauled away, her wrists bound, her face looking more uncertain than you thought possible now. Men crowd the drive in a confusion of lantern light and shouted orders. The whole estate seems to pulse with the ugly thrill of danger only just contained.

For one breathless moment, all you can do is stand there and watch as they lead her off.

Then Edie appears at your side.

"Well," she remarks, drifting close enough that her shoulder brushes James's as though she has simply always stood there, "wherever you two disappeared to, I do hope it was worth missing the main event."

Something hot and immediate twists beneath your ribs.

Before you can offer anything properly cutting, Edie's gaze moves between you and James, alert and faintly amused, as though she has reached some private conclusion and intends to enjoy it in silence.

"You seem flushed," she adds.

James parts his lips, no doubt armed with something insufferably smooth, but you speak first.

"And you seem very eager to know where we have been."

Edie only smiles, completely unbothered.

"Professional curiosity," she replies. "Surely you cannot fault me for that."

You could.

Quite easily.

But before you can decide which barb to throw first, your father's voice cuts across the drive.

"Edie, please. I need you over here."

At once, your attention snaps toward him.

Of course it is her he calls for, with that same effortless expectation, as though she has long occupied a place at his shoulder — one he had never once thought to offer you.

Edie glances back, catching your eye before she goes, and the corner of her mouth tilts.

"I must go assist your father."

The words are innocent enough.

That only makes you resent them more.

You watch her cross to him through the lantern glow. Hodge does not so much as glance in your direction before drawing her into quiet conversation, already relying on her with that easy, practiced confidence — the kind you spent years trying to earn, and he gives to her without a thought.

Beside you, James leans a little closer.

"You are angry with the wrong person."

A laugh slips from you, though there is very little humor in it. "Am I?"

"Yes." His voice stays low. "She is useful to him. That is all."

"And is that what she is to you as well?" The question leaves you before you can temper it. "Useful?"

He turns to you at once.

"I fear her use to me and her use to your father are not comparable."

Heat rises to your face, though whether from embarrassment or irritation you cannot quite say.

"Are you quite sure about that?" you ask, your eyes returning to where Edie stands at your father's side. "It seems she is rather frequently employed as a pawn in you gentlemen's efforts to make me jealous."

That earns a change in him. Not quite surprise. Something closer to being caught.

"One gentleman," he corrects quietly. "Your father has no such ambitions on my behalf."

You cut him a look. "Do not be tiresome."

The corner of his mouth threatens at a smile. "I was only clarifying."

"And I am only observing," you return, "that Edie appears to spend a remarkable amount of time being useful to men who enjoy moving people about like pieces on a board."

His gaze drifts toward Edie and Hodge, then back to you, as though weighing how honest he means to be.

"I did not mean to use her."

"No?" You lift a brow. "Then the little performance in the drawing room was what, exactly? A lapse in your moral character?"

"That would imply I possess one."

You should not find that amusing. You nearly do anyway.

His voice softens when he continues. "I wanted to see whether you would care."

You blink at him.

There it is.

Plain at last.

The night around you seems to quiet, the shouting in the drive suddenly farther off, less immediate than the sentence standing between you.

"And?" you ask, quieter now despite yourself. "Were you satisfied with your findings?"

His eyes hold yours.

"Not at all."

Before you can decide what to do with that, he adds, quieter still, "I discovered I disliked seeing you angry with me far more than I disliked the thought of your being indifferent."

You glance once more toward Edie, who still remains at your father's shoulder, composed and calm and infuriatingly at ease in a place that has never belonged to you.

"I still do not like her," you say, though there is less bite in it now and more honesty.

"No," he says. "I gathered as much."

You draw a breath, steadying yourself by force. "I must find Sherlock."

Sherlock tells you and James to meet him at Appleton Manor. He is setting off to retrieve his mother from the asylum, and whatever questions rise in you are brushed aside by the urgency in his voice.

So you do not ask them.

You and James simply climb into the carriage and set off.

The ride is silent for most of the journey.

You sit on one side.

He sits on the other.

The carriage rocks over rutted ground, lantern light slipping faintly through the curtained windows with every turn, throwing the two of you in and out of shadow. The wheels rattle. The leather creaks. Somewhere beyond the glass, wind moves through the hedgerows in long, dry sighs.

The confined space magnifies everything you are trying not to think about: the near-kiss in the hidden room, Edie at your father's side, James's infuriating ability to put words to wounds you would much rather leave unnamed, and the far more dangerous fact that each time he does, some part of you is relieved to be seen at all.

Across from you, he sits with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, outwardly composed, though you know him well enough now to see the strain in the stillness. One hand rests against his thigh. The other turns his ring once. Then again. He has not looked directly at you in several minutes.

He stays frustratingly quiet.

That should help.

It does not.

If anything, his silence is worse than his wit. Worse than the teasing, worse than the little smirks and carefully placed provocations. At least when he is speaking you have something to push against. Something to answer. Something to blame for the way your pulse misbehaves whenever his attention settles too fully on you.

The carriage lurches over a rut.

You steady yourself with one hand against the seat.

He glances up.

Only for a second.

Still, it is enough.

"You might at least attempt conversation," you say at last, because the silence has become unbearable and because you would rather start a quarrel than sit inside it another minute.

His eyes lift fully now.

"I had not realized you found my company so lacking without it."

You let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "Do not be smug. I am in no mood to endure it."

"That," he replies, "would imply you are usually in the mood to endure it."

The carriage rocks again, and lamplight catches briefly across his face, tracing the line of his mouth, the tiredness at the edges of him, the composure he is wearing like a dare.

You hate how easily he can sit there after everything.

You hate more that he is not easy at all.

He is simply better at disguising it.

"You are very calm," you observe.

His gaze stops near the curtained window, then returns to you.

"I am merely quiet."

A beat passes.

Then, lower: "There is a difference."

You study him in the wavering light. "And which are you usually?"

His mouth shifts, though not quite into a smile. "You know very well I am rarely either."

"No. What I know is that you are impossible when you speak and intolerable when you do not."

His fingers still on the ring. For once, he does not answer at once.

The carriage dips, rights itself, and the silence stretches again between you, taut as wire.

At last, he says, "You are still angry."

"Perhaps."

"With me?"

You laugh again, more softly this time, though there is still no humor in it. "Do not flatter yourself. I am angry with everyone."

He leans back slightly, watching you now with that stupid, patient focus that makes it feel as though he is waiting for the truth to emerge whether you mean to give it or not.

"An admirably broad stance."

"Oh, do be quiet."

A faint curve touches his mouth. "Forgive me, but did you not just ask me not to be quiet?"

"For God's sake." Your temper snaps clean through the last of your restraint. "Are you truly going to sit there and pretend none of what happened in that house — or over these past days we have spent together — has happened?"

His eyes narrow slightly. "I had been under the impression that pretending was your preferred method."

That does it.

You move before sense can intervene.

One moment you are across from him, furious and breathless and sick to death of your own thoughts. The next the carriage jolts beneath your knees as you cross the narrow space between you and catch him by the front of his coat.

He barely has time to look startled.

Then you kiss him.

His breath catches hard against your mouth.

For one astonished second, he does not move at all.

Then he is kissing you back.

One hand catches your waist. The other braces against the seat beside you as the carriage sways beneath the sudden shift of weight. The kiss is hot and immediate and stripped of every last civilized pretense. It is anger and relief and wanting — the ruin of every clever thing left unsaid.

You feel the sound that leaves him before you fully hear it.

Feel the way his fingers tighten at your side.

Feel the helplessness in his answer when your hand slides from his coat to his jaw, holding him there as though you mean to punish him with it.

The carriage lurches again, and the movement sends you more fully against him. His arms gather you in, dragging your skirts up just enough to keep you close as his hands find the curve of your ass and hold there, firm and unashamed.

You bite lightly at his lip.

He groans.

The sound goes through you like flame.

When your mouth leaves his, only to find the line of his throat, his head tips back against the carriage wall. His breath comes uneven now, his composure in tatters beneath your hands.

"Do…" he gasps when your lips brush the pulse there, "whatever you please to me."

You draw back just enough to look at him.

His hair is already disordered, his mouth flushed, his eyes too dark to mistake. There is something in his face you have seen glimpses of before and never this plainly — something that wants not merely to take, but to be undone. To be at your mercy and glad of it.

It strikes something equally dangerous in you.

Your hand slides into his hair, not gentle now, and tilts his head back the way you want it.

He lets you.

More than that — he gives himself to it with a shuddering willingness that nearly steals your breath.

"You do like surrendering at the worst possible moments," you murmur against his throat.

A strained laugh leaves him. "Only when the terms are agreeable."

"You think these are agreeable?"

"I think," he says, his voice rough enough to fray at the edges, "that if you mean to ruin me, you need only continue."

Your fingers slide down his waistcoat, freeing the last of the buttons, while his hands find the hem of your skirts and gather the fabric slowly — almost reverently — until it pools at your hips. You lean in and kiss him once, hard, before guiding his hand to your thigh. He reaches for his trouser fastenings; you help, urgency turning careful movements careless.

Buttons give. Silk rustles. Breath tangles.

When at last there is nothing left between you, you claim the space you have been circling for days. The closeness wrenches a desperate sound from him and shatters whatever composure either of you had left.

"Use me," he whispers, the words tearing loose between shallow breaths. "Take whatever you need."

You do exactly that.

You set the rhythm — deliberate, unrelenting, a silent insistence that every ounce of your frustration will be spent here and now — and he meets it without protest. His hands splay across your hips as though he means to hold on or willingly be held hostage; you cannot decide which, and find you do not particularly care.

The carriage creaks around you, leather and wheel and rutted road conspiring to keep time, while the world beyond the curtains remains a distant, irrelevant blur.

Then the carriage rocks to a stand-still.

A timid yet, professional knock lands against the door.

“Miss Hodge? Mr. Moriarty? You have arrived.”

You freeze. Still straddling him, both of you desperate to catch your breath. His forehead drops to your shoulder in mute, incredulous torment.

He lifts his head. “How,” he asks, in a voice entirely unsuited to polite conversation, “did he know we both…arrived?”

Your fingers are still tangled in his hair. You tug once, not gently. “Behave yourself. Ugh. Fool that I am. I hadn’t even noticed the carriage stop.”

“Sir? Ma’am?” the driver calls again. “Shall I open the door?”

You scramble off him. He muffles a groan at the loss of contact, “Fuck.” In the dim light you both tug clothing toward some semblance of order, buttons and ribbons and whatever scraps of dignity remain within reach.

“One moment,” you manage, smoothing your hair and skirts with hands that are not entirely steady. “I’m — ah — looking for an earring I dropped.”

“That,” James starts, fastening the last button of his trousers, “is the best you can devise?”

“Have you something better?”

His answering grin is wicked and still breathless. “Nothing fit for a coachman’s ears.”

“Ma’am?” The driver again, sounding politely concerned.

“Found it!” you call, your voice cracking very slightly on the lie. “We’ll be right out.”

James leans forward, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Another moment and he’d need neither torch nor imagination to know exactly what transpired.”

You turn, catch the lingering heat in his eyes, and refuse to blush. “Then we had best compose ourselves.”

“Compose,” he repeats, tasting the word like a secret. “You may try.”

He offers his hand to help you from the seat. You hesitate only a heartbeat before taking it, your pulse still unsteady from what was nearly — perhaps inevitably — left unfinished.

When the carriage door swings wide and cool night air rushes in, you step down first. Spine straight. Gaze fixed ahead. Every inch the picture of a woman to whom nothing whatsoever has happened.

James follows, just a pace behind, and for once he keeps silent.

It is the quiet of two people who know they have crossed a line that will not be uncrossed, and who intend, at the earliest possible opportunity, to cross it again.

Sherlock pushes open the front door of Appleton Manor scarcely half an hour later, guiding his mother gently across the threshold.

You and James stand in the foyer a deliberate pace apart — close enough to suggest composure, far enough to keep from combusting. Your hair is freshly repinned; his cravat has been retied with suspicious haste. The space between you still hums with everything the carriage left unresolved.

Sherlock's eyes sweep over you both the instant he steps inside.

"Good Lord — are you two all right?"

"Why ever wouldn't we be, Sherlock?" James replies, rocking back on his heels with the serene expression of a man keeping a very good secret.

You clear your throat. "Perfectly fine. A long ride, that's all."

Your hand drifts to your collar, as though a fingertip could conceal the small bruise blooming where James’ mouth clearly was.

Sherlock takes in the details with that quick, merciless attention of his: the slight disarray of your skirts, the uneven rise of your shoulders, the way James radiates satisfaction like a man who has recently won something significant and intends to go on winning it.

"You look…" He hesitates, as though searching for a polite diagnosis. "Dishevelled."

James's smile widens — the expression of a cat who has not only had the cream but has secured the entire dairy. "Blame the road. Terrible ruts."

"And the wind," you add, a beat too quickly. "Very blustery."

“Flustered, my dear—that’s the word,” Sherlock’s mother chirps from his arm, eyes bright with unfiltered observation.

"An excellent diagnosis, Mother," Sherlock says instead, with the weary diplomacy of a man choosing his battles. "May I present Miss Hodge and Mr. Moriarty — my friends."

"Friends!" Mrs Holmes slips free of Sherlock's arm and catches your hands in hers, examining you with vivid blue eyes that miss nothing. "My son never had many companions growing up. Any…really," she adds in a stage whisper grand enough to reach the rafters.

Her appearance startles you. Pale gold hair in soft waves, a gaze that is focused and warm in equal measure. Nothing like the broken figure you had imagined after hearing of a grieving mother confined to an asylum. She looks disconcertingly vibrant, as though sorrow has merely sharpened her rather than hollowed her out.

"It is an honour to meet you at last," you say, managing something close to a steady smile.

She turns to James next. He takes her hand and brushes a polite kiss across her knuckles. "The pleasure is entirely mine, Mrs Holmes. You are radiant."

"Nonsense," she laughs, cheeks colouring. "Compared with your lovely companion, I am positively drab." Her eyes move between you with the satisfied air of someone assembling a puzzle she already knows the picture of. "You make such a handsome couple."

Heat climbs your neck.

James straightens, an elegant bow half-formed on his lips. "Thank—"

"Oh, we are not a couple," you say, rather too quickly.

A fractional pause. Sherlock's expression sharpens with dry amusement. Mrs Holmes tilts her head, entirely undeterred.

"Not a couple?" she echoes. "Mm. Perhaps not yet."

James's smile turns wicked — the look of a man who has just received unexpected encouragement from the universe itself. "Hope springs eternal, Madam."

You press your elbow into his ribs, subtle only in the loosest possible sense. He coughs out a laugh, delighted.

Mrs Holmes pats your joined arms as though bestowing a benediction. "I shall look forward to seeing which of you is right."

"Yes, well." Sherlock clears his throat with theatrical volume. "Mother, let me show you to your chambers before this devolves any further."

He steers her toward the staircase. She casts one last, sparkling glance over her shoulder as they go, the look of a woman who has already made up her mind and is simply waiting for events to confirm it.

When the hall quiets, you exhale.

James leans in, dropping his voice until it settles against your ear like silk. "A gracious guest indulges the hostess's fantasies."

You summon your sharpest glare. It only seems to feed him.

"I should hate to disappoint her," he adds, smugness polished to velvet.

"You already disappoint me enough for she and I."

It is meant to sting. It lands breathless instead, and you hate that he hears it.

His gaze drops briefly to the mark at your throat, half-hidden by your collar. When his eyes return to yours they are dark with the particular memory of how it got there.

"You did not sound disappointed twenty minutes ago."

Your breath falters. The silent carriage, the heat of him, the way you had dragged each other well past the point of sense — it is all still too close to the surface, too warm beneath your skin.

"James," you warn, though it comes out nearer a plea than a threat.

"Yes?" He steps closer, his voice dropping further. "You know…I have just noticed that we are, quite tragically…unsupervised again."

"Sherlock will return in moments," you manage.

"A lifetime," he seductively whispers, "compared with what I could do in one."

Your pulse hammers. You tell yourself to be sensible — to step back, to cool the heat he keeps fanning so effortlessly — but the space between you seems to be shrinking entirely on its own.

"Do not go forming any daft ideas," you whisper.

He dips his head until his lips brush the curve of your ear without quite kissing it.

"Too late," he breathes. The single exhale turns your skin to sparks. "Haven't you noticed? Daft ideas are my specialty."

Footsteps sound on the staircase — Sherlock's tread, brisk and unerring. James straightens at once, smoothing the front of his coat with a magician's unhurried ease, composure settling back over him like a well-fitted glove. You manage a step back, your heart still rattling.

Sherlock appears a moment later and launches immediately into his next plan, and you nod at the right intervals, making all the right noises of attention, while the ghost of breath hit with desire and a whispered promise lingers at the edge of everything…patient, certain, and entirely unwilling to be ignored.

One minute, he had said.

You are beginning to suspect he would make it feel considerably longer.