Ingenium (✓) | Sherlock Holmes

🎓 2*doubt

Cover by lovely, talented pensive-; thank you, my darling!

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I was a man of astounding perception, yet the past week was nothing more than a blur – a smog circling around like a swarm of bees. I was not supposed to add the word "feeling" into the dictionary of my life, yet that moment in the office was a clear change of rules.

I was ashamed of putting Miss Adair on some sort of podium, like she resembled a highly-respected goddess. I was even more ashamed of my lack of indifference regarding the courses. She was plastered in my thoughts like a shroud to a corpse – sticking vehemently to the palace of my mind, a dodgy misdemeanour I had to conquer.

Unfortunately for my sanity, her storming in the office while I was speaking to Mycroft one day made my reasoning crumble to the floor.

"How dare you, bugger? How dare you deprive her of the mourning process?"

If I held a glass in that specific time line of events, I would most certainly have dropped it. Mycroft froze, for he did not expect Miss Adair to octavate so furiously. Mind my confusion, I had no idea what she was referring to.

"Oh, blimey, what have I done now?" I inquired, my voice as monotonous as a cytoplasm.

Mycroft approached Miss Adair and placed a fatherly hand on her shoulder. She slightly flinched, turning around to shoot a glare to brother dear. If normality was functional, she would face some unexpected consequences for defying me. But Mycroft might have already lost the plot, because he was definitely on her side.

As if sets of rules did not apply anymore, he left the office with a playful smirk, whistling carelessly. Miss Adair crossed her arms, revealing a sweet trace of defined cleavage. I would have considered her gesture as an invitation if it wasn't for the thin line of her lips and the narrowing eyes full of contempt.

"Explain yourself, Miss."

I pointed towards the chair, but she refused – again – to sit down. I sighed, feeling rather knackered, and accepted her choice. She brought herself inches away from my body, her countenance as rigid as before.

"I understand that you find death rather amusing, but people with common sense value grief and respect every state of spirit. You, however, refused to close your eyes when Sophie was unable to provide you with her assignment. Her best friend died, Mr. Holmes, and grieving is yet another process of closure."

She was about to add more scolding, or maybe a few unorthodox sequences of words, but I stopped her, raising a finger in the tension-thick air. If I were to gratify her status of intellectual plaything, I had to push her over the edge. As a result, I asked her what every diplomatic individual would have avoided.

"How about your God, Miss Adair? Sophie's friend was a youngster, he should not have died so soon. How is that myth you call God merciful and kind? Why did He steal the boy away from this world?"

Miss Adair's emerald orbs widened, and her lips finely parted in a state of utter awe. I was to demolish her guard, and I might have just done that.

What I failed to acknowledge was that I found myself demolished as well. She slapped me with a force that almost made me lose balance. A burning mark was then staining my right cheek, and would have met its twin if it wasn't for my reflex. At her second attempt – an unsuccessful one, fortunately – I grasped her wrist in a brutal manner, almost twisting it. She let out a moan of pain and squeezed her eyes shut, but her reaction left me unimpressed.