the infamous sherlock holmes

221b bakers street.

knock, knock, knock.

you stood back for a moment, waiting- no, hoping - for a response at this time of night.

ten seconds passed, you began to lose faith.
twenty seconds, yeah nobody's awake.
thirty, why are you still here?

then suddenly, the knob turns and a man, 6'0 at most, dark hair and beady eyes appears. "what do you need? i'm busy." his voice is flat, unnerved at why a 20-odd-year-old woman is doing at his door after dark. you know for sure that you wouldn't answer.

"oh! um, well i'm olive thompson and i heard you were in need of some help?" you play with your hands and gave him a kind smile, nervously.

"anxious wreck... come inside before you have a mental breakdown on my doorstep." he ushered you in, rolling his eyes. slowly, you calmed down. until it hit you that you'd just entered a strangers home, who you have had no introduction to, never heard about apart from twenty minutes ago and never having seen in your life. you're breathing began to become scarily fast.

walking up the stairs, the man quietly said, "oh, calm down. do i look like a killer?" before quickly adding, "don't answer that." you followed the man warily, before meeting a door. 

"i'm guessing you're sherlock."

"no shit." he said, pouring two cups of tea. "the question is, who're you? besides the most anxious person i've met... this week." he smiled, adding three sugars to your cup. "i've seen you at the cafe, but that's it; and i'm going to guess that barista you're always talking to is the person who told you about me?"

"yeah, um. i'm olive and i just graduated from med school up north. i've been looking for a job..." you say, ignoring the skull on the wall opposite you, that you now believed must have been staring at you. "sorry my anxiety likes to mess with me when i leave my house."

"i could tell." 

you raises an eyebrow. "you seem to be able to tell a lot so far."

"i could tell you a lot more." he rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his tea. "like you've been bed-ridden the past two weeks - probably down to stress from finding a job. let me guess, as a child you've been pressured into getting top grades, doing exceptional in school and your parents are the only reason you've gone to med-school. however, parents could be relative. a lot of trauma in your childhood, your dad could've left. ooh a bad case of daddy issues. seems to be it and brothers? you've got a lot of them, clearly. but surely you'll have to have at least some sisters. big family - huge even."

you sit there, not moving until you realise your mouth was open and then shut it. "well, i guess you're half right..." your words came out, cracking at the end.

"really?" he asked in disbelief "which parts?"

"not really any of your business. um so... back to my point right. you're offering a job?" you ask, placing your tea on the side table. "i was wondering what this 'job' would be and the salary?"

mr holmes looked at you from the other side of the room, his hands together, close to his face. seemed as if he was inspecting you. "you're hired, salary is whatever you need to live on just tell me about yourself and we've got a deal."

slowly, you hung words together that you thought could've been an acceptable sentence. "sorry to come off rude, but i don't really want to open up to some person i met in the space of 20 minutes."

"that's what you said to your last therapist right? and you never went back after that first meeting. didn't give them chance to get to know you over those 20 minutes. so come back here tomorrow if you want the job but you're going to need to talk to me in that time. take it or leave it." he offered his hand to shake.

looking him up and down, you inspected him yourself. "but if i didn't return, you'd never know what you got wrong and what you'd got right. it'd drive you mad, insane even. you'd never know about the girl that knocked on your apartment door at 11:14pm on 23rd of august 2009. and you'd have to live without ever know for sure what her deal was, wouldn't you?"

he stared at you for a moment. two moments. quite a long third moment too. until eventually he stood up and broke the silence. "if you're not going to take the job, leave."

smiling, you scoffed and picked your tea back up. "i'll take it." you drank the last of your drink before meeting mr holmes in the doorway. "it was nice meeting you detective, i'll see you tomorrow?"

"12pm. sharp." he said.

"got it."