It was a dreadful day for Sherlock Holmes. He was forced to spend the afternoon with Angela and Lorelin to get to know them better because Mycroft told their mother that Sherlock had been smoking and bonding with them was his punishment. Mycroft was too busy to watch his brother try to entertain the pair and John was spending time with his own family.
Angela, Lorelin, and Sherlock were sitting at a booth in a chip shop located somewhere in downtown London. There was a painfully obvious awkward silence while they were waiting for the food to arrive. Sherlock cleared his throat a couple of times but received no response from either of the females he was tortured to spend his day with. Lorelin was all caught up in her phone screen, clearly reading something. Meanwhile, Angela was cleaning up her purse a bit until her cell phone rang and the caller ID was her boss'.
She answered the phone and apologized to both her daughter and brother-in-law for having to leave for a meeting. Sherlock gave her a sarcastic smile and Lorelin was unfazed by her mother's absence, revealing that she often had to get up and leave at random times due to her job.
"So. What are you reading?" Sherlock asked the girl.
"Does it matter?" She looked up at him without moving her head.
"No. I just found the silence a bit disturbing."
"No you didn't."
"Very true. I didn't mind the silence, but it seemed like something John would consider "awkward"."
"Well, I'm reading a fanfiction about my favourite band."
"That's...dedicated."
"There's quite a collection of these about you and your cases. Would you like to see one?"
"Sure, why not. I'm just sitting here anyways."
Lorelin typed in a hashtag and handed her phone to her step uncle, who began sifting through the fanfic introductions. They all seemed romanticized and/or unrealistic until one particular title caught his eye- Uncovered (Sherlock Holmes AU). It was the same word that was marked onto the bodies he had seen earlier in the week.
He tapped on the start button, frantically reading as he realized that so much of the first chapter related to the first murder he saw that week with Tim Perry. All of the information was incredibly similar to real life and none of it was even really reported or put on John's blog. The second chapter even contained a poem that could've related to his case:
But as the story went along, the quotes slowly began spiraling into more madness as Jim Moriarty entered the story as the "good old-fashioned villain" he was. Like the lyric quote of chapter eight: I'm so happy, cause today I found my friends. They're in my head. -Nirvana (Come As You Are). Or the one from chapter twelve: So choose your last words, this is the last time. Cause you and I, we were born to die. -Lana Del Rey (Born to Die).
The first chapters, based upon actual cases, were written before Sherlock had even heard of them. Slowly, it all became more and mote suspicious to the consulting detective. The storyline had started swerving towards having his character die again. All of the brutal attempts at killing his character off failed throughout the chapters except when he had gotten to the last one where he dies in the most brutal and horrid way because of his enemy.
The story itself had finished completely at the lyric quote: And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me". I can't help this awful energy. Goddamn right, you should be scared of me. Who is in control? -Halsey (Control). There was a link to the audio above the final words and a small author's note written at the bottom. The note said something along the lines of "Sorry for killing Sherlock off since there have to be some stories with Grimm endings".
The dots immediately connected and Sherlock handed Lorelin's phone back to her after using it ad much as he meeded. "Uncovered" was a hint towards his life, not only a random marking on the bodies he found. The food was just being brought over to their table when Sherlock stood up from his chair, preparing himself to leave.
"Uh, where are you going?" Lorelin asked.
"We've got to leave. Now. I have to trace a website and solve something. Take what you want, the owner said this meal was on him since I helped find something important of his a while back." He urged, starting to take steps towards the door and leaving the shop.
Lorelin rolled her eyes, took some of the food, and followed after the damn sociopath who called over a cab to get back to the flat. The girl had barely hopped into the cab when it almost started driving off to Baker Street. When they arrived, Sherlock opened up a laptop and began to trace the URL while Lorelin tried to clean something off when she decided to sit down.
Each chapter had been published and written in different places, one in Sussex, another in Nebraska, and all of the others in completely different places. Sherlock began to read over the parts that were about his apparent future and gathered information for reference if needed. Angela later called her daughter, momentarily distracting Sherlock, to tell her that she was going to be picked up soon.
"Hello Sherlock. Lorelin, darling, we've got to go now. Say goodbye." Angela said as soon as she arrived.
Lorelin ignored her mother's instructions and left the flat silently, leaving the detective to do his job in silence and peace. Sherlock lied down on the couch with his eyelids shut and hands folded over his chest while he thought of anything that could help him solve any of his recent cases. But nothing seemed to fit together, it all made so much more sense when Moriarty was actually around and explained his plans. No matter how badly Sherlock hated to admit it- he needed Jim Moriarty in his life to cause chaos and challenges.
