Chapter Text
Throughout the next week, Katrina found herself trying her best not to let the fact that Sherlock was distant all over again get to her. Except, of course, her anxiety over the whole situation managed to manifest itself in new ways.
She’d ended up having to mute him on her phone because she found herself with a pit in her stomach every time a notification came through despite the fact they were all as innocent as him asking her if she wanted a takeaway coffee from somewhere or what to cook for dinner. The normalcy through texting versus the lack of actual attention from him in the flat and her trying to make conversation was enough to send her brain into overdrive at what the hell was going on. Muting him gave her the to space to choose when to read the texts and not answer immediately.
Naturally, that meant she was checking her phone much more. Every ten to fifteen minutes she’d enter their iMessage chat to see if he’d said anything only to find she had been left on delivered. She’d ended up turning off the ‘message read’ setting to try and ease herself further, but that did nothing much to help either. Sometimes she switched to WhatsApp to see if Sherlock was online at all, the ‘last seen’ time beginning to haunt her every waking moment.
The worst part was that she had nobody to talk to about this because it would give the game away that she and Sherlock were some sort of dysfunctional thing, and she couldn’t have people knowing about the dysfunctional side of it. Every sick feeling she felt had her put off food again; the now standard two meals a day dropping to one collective one because she’d eat half her breakfast and half her dinner but not be hungry for much else. Lunch was a whole different ball game, as the staff at Pret knew her too well and Daniel tried to insist on going out for lunch with her to which she often declined.
She didn’t want to accidentally spill anything on the situation at home.
When she got home on Tuesday evening, Sherlock handed her the usual cup of tea.
“You didn’t answer my message about dinner,” he said to her.
“Oh, sorry…” She hadn’t expected him to notice the lack of texting back. “It’s been busy.” A lie, but he clearly wasn’t ready to hear how she was feeling. “What was your idea?”
“You’re not eating much again, so I thought perhaps you’d want something dirty to cheer you up about whatever’s bothering you.”
Katrina was silent for a moment as she sipped on her tea.
“I’m going to need you to make a deduction. Think back to Friday night - should be easy enough for you to do - and I need you to remember what I said.”
“Ah. Still pissed off with me. Fine, if that’s what’s bothering you… I don’t want to talk about it yet. Friday added fuel to the fire without our conversation after.” He clasped his hands behind his back, a sheepish look coming to his face as his lips drew into a thin line.
“Fine. Sit down, Lock,” Katrina said, indicating the sofa.
He did as he was told, and she set her tea down on the desk before going to move the coffee table out of the way, getting on her knees in front of him. She placed her hands on his thighs and spread them apart a little bit so she could shuffle into the gap.
“We should lock the door,” Sherlock said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he realised what was about to happen and his arousal started to grow.
“It’s Tuesday. Nobody’s coming up or visiting.” She ran her hands up to his belt, starting to undo it. “Besides, poor choice of words on your part about me having something dirty to cheer you up.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Oh for god’s sake.”
He didn’t complain much after that, and Katrina retreated happily up to her room for the rest of the evening where she got herself off and managed to forget about the anxiety inducing nature of whatever the fuck was going on between them.
The next night, Sherlock was still out when Katrina got home and she changed into one of her new dresses but remained up in her room. Her stomach had been churning all day from hunger and anxiety, but she still couldn’t quite bring herself to finish off anything she started eating. She was standing at the counter in the kitchen quite miserably making her way through a piece of toast that she ended up setting down after having about half of it when Sherlock got back.
He took one look at her and didn’t even bother taking his coat off when he decided to march over to her in the kitchen.
“I’d suggest holding onto something,” was all he said before dropping to his knees and hiking up her dress so he could remove her underwear and bury his face between her legs.
Katrina stifled a moan and leaned back against the counter top, her knuckles turning white as she gripped onto it for dear life in an effort to keep her balance as Sherlock ate her out whilst she was standing up. Had the lack of talking between the two of them made the sexual encounters more intense? Quite possibly. There was something pent up within both of them that needed release and this was apparently the best way to get out what was left unspoken for now.
However it didn’t matter how good her grip was on the counter to keep her upright, when Katrina came her legs gave out entirely and Sherlock had to stop what he was doing so he could grab her at the waist as she collapsed down breathless. He had been fast enough that one of his hands made it behind her head to stop her from bumping it on the edge of the counter.
“I wasn’t - I wasn’t done,” Katrina gasped.
“I know,” Sherlock said, lowering her to the floor properly and snaking a hand up under her dress again. “Had to catch you first.” He slipped two fingers inside of her and worked her up again; the process was much faster as she’d already orgasmed once, so twice was easy work. He pressed a kiss to her forehead when she was properly done that time, and he sucked on his fingers to clean them.
Katrina held onto him by the coat lapels as she recovered. “I’ll have to wear this one day whilst you fuck me,” she murmured.
“Well, we know you look good in the coat,” he replied, gently rubbing his nose against hers before giving her a chaste kiss on the lips, not giving a damn in the world he still tasted of her arousal. She didn’t care either.
Once broken apart again, they remained on the floor for a few minutes simply staring into each other’s eyes with barely a few centimetres between them.
“It’s a funny thing, liking you in this way.” His voice was soft.
“Yeah?” She reached up to run a thumb back and forth over his cheekbone. He melted into her touch, humming as his eyes closed.
“I’m still not used to it. And you’re pissed off with me.”
“Only because it feels like you’re pissed off with me when we don’t talk,” she admitted.
“I’m not pissed off with you.” He opened his eyes as he said that.
“Then throw me a bone,” Katrina sighed, dropping her hand from his face.
“Stop ignoring my texts.”
“Stop ignoring me!” she huffed, pushing him away from her so that she could stand up. Of course he’d realised she had been ignoring his texts; the lie from the day before was never going to fly with him.
Sherlock rose from the floor with her.
“It’s John’s stag night on Friday. I won’t be in,” he said, changing the subject.
“Fine,” Katrina had grabbed her discarded underwear and was making her way to the bathroom to go and clean herself up. “If you’re out drinking, mind the noise levels when you get back home.”
“Don’t worry,” Sherlock called after her as she closed the bathroom door. “Molly’s sorted out a plan for John and I so we’re merry enough without pissing in wardrobes.”
Katrina didn’t say anything.
But she made herself scarce on the Friday just in case John did happen to stop by before or after their drinks out. At one stage - around seven thirty - she heard a light commotion downstairs but she didn’t bother going to investigate. Instead, she shoved her headphones on and watched Netflix until she fell asleep.
She was rudely awoken from her usual Saturday lie in by an unknown number calling her. Typically speaking she knew better than to answer an anonymous caller, but she was pissed off enough at being woken up that she wanted to give whoever was on the other end of the line a piece of her mind.
“You have ten seconds to tell me what is so important at this hour on a Saturday or I’m sending MI5 spooks to your location and implicating your Internet history,” she spat, desperately trying to hide the grogginess with anger.
“Uh is this Katrina?”
Wait a moment. She vaguely recognised that voice.
“I know you…?” She sat up in bed, suddenly more alert.
“It’s Lestrade.”
“Oh! Oh god, sorry. How can I help?” She immediately sweetened up.
“I just posted bail for Sherlock and John. I don’t fancy bringing them home. Would you mind?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, what?”
“Yeah they had a bit much last night. Ended up getting arrested, and here we are! I’m slightly pissed off I wasn’t invited to John’s stag do but… whatever. Come and get them. I’ll text the address where we’ve got them holed up.” Lestrade promptly hung up after that.
Katrina groaned and flopped back down into the pillows, tossing her phone down onto the duvet next to her. Trust Sherlock and John to get arrested on their stag night and Lestrade call her to get them because he was annoyed with them. Well, he should have thought to ask her if she was annoyed with either of them! Her and Sherlock had barely spoken recently and this seemed like the absolute worst way to bring the pair of them back together.
Besides, she didn’t even drive a car. She couldn’t fit both of them on the back of her bike so she was going to have to foot the bill on a cab on the way back.
It was barely six thirty in the morning, but Katrina got ready in record time and nipped into Pret on her way to the tube station once she had the details from Lestrade. She was barely awake whilst on the tube, but shoved her earphones in and nursed the coffee with the extra shot in it to try and get some sense into her head. She didn’t care about the odd looks from the early going tourists she received for looking as bedraggled as she did (she hadn’t had time to tame her hair) and by the time she arrived at the station, she was at least fifty percent more awake yet still not in the mood for Lestrade to also be unimpressed by her sorry state.
“You’re giving me the cab money,” she grumbled at him.
He rolled his eyes and fished his wallet out so he could hand her the money anyway. “Fine. I’ll go wake them up. Didn’t get them coffee?”
She snorted. “Yeah, like I’m doing that. I deserved my lie in. You owe me that. Not my fault those two got arrested. Anyway, why’d you call me for the both of them? Why not call Mary for John?”
“His future wife doesn’t need to bother with the drama of all this.”
“And I do?” She scowled at him.
Lestrade didn’t know how to respond to that so sensibly kept quiet for a moment. “Can you actually set spooks on me? And do the thing about internet history?”
Katrina perked up a little at the question. “Oh, I don’t know about setting MI5 spooks on you, but I can definitely fuck up your internet history and have you go down as a disgraced DI. I wouldn’t risk it next time.”
“Noted…” Lestrade disappeared, leaving Katrina to get settled on a chair in the waiting area still sipping on the remaining half of her coffee.
The moment she saw Sherlock and John trailing behind Lestrade down the corridor about five minutes later looking absolutely haggard as anything, she had to refrain from laughing. Oh, what a sight to see Sherlock well and truly hungover, and John looking like he no longer wanted to be on this current plain of existence.
“Don’t you dare…” John murmured at her whilst going to retrieve his shoes and other belongings from the front desk.
“Not saying a word,” Katrina replied rather smugly. Sherlock barely glanced her way, too focused on trying to remain upright and walk in a straight line.
“Well, thanks for a… you know…” John started mumbling to Sherlock as they both followed Katrina out of the police station. “An evening.”
“It was awful,” Sherlock grumbled.
“Yeah. I was gonna pretend, but it was… truly…”
“That woman, Tessa,” Sherlock sounded more awake.
“What?”
“Dated a ghost. The most interesting case for months. What a wasted opportunity!”
Katrina frowned and glanced back at them. “You ended up on case last night?”
“Yes. Whilst unbelievably drunk. I need to go back to bed when we get home.”
The both of them dozed off in the cab on the way to Baker Street, so she snapped a couple of photos and sent them to Lestrade whilst quietly chuckling to herself.
On arrival at 221b, John mumbled something about going to see Mrs Hudson.
Sherlock trudged his way up to his bedroom and slammed the door in his wake, leaving Katrina on her own as had become the norm on the weekends. The distinct smell of a fry up drifted from 221A and she debated going to join John for it, but decided that actually going back to bed herself would be a far better use of her time right now.
The coffee had done absolutely nothing for her today except heighten her anxious state and she had to force herself to go back to sleep. She didn’t set an alarm, and ended up being woken up by Sherlock rapping on her door sometime after midday. She grunted in response to allow him entry and he wandered in with a laptop, sitting on the edge of her bed with very little regard for the fact she was still half asleep.
“John’s gone home. I’ve been on some chat rooms,” he started explaining. “All these women dated a ghost - potentially the same ghost. He’s been stealing the identities of corpses and using their apartments as love nests, so to speak. Do you think you could… possibly… maybe…”
“You want me to try and dig up more info on this supposed ghost using the identities of dead people to try and figure out why he’s doing this?” Katrina leaned up in bed, rubbing her eyes as she did so. “Come on, Lock, it’s a Saturday, Lestrade called me at a ridiculous hour to make sure you and John got back in one piece, and now you want me to do your dirty work on bad girl laptop?”
“We can have sex tonight since we missed last night.”
She groaned and slammed his laptop lid shut. “That’s not the point!”
“Hang on - you - you used to hate being dragged into my cases. Then you enjoyed it. Now you hate it again!” Sherlock stood up and jabbed a finger in her direction, tucking the laptop under his arm. “You think I’m back at square one with communication? So are you!”
“Because I’m piss-”
“Pissed off with me, yes, we established that,” Sherlock rolled his eyes, setting the laptop down on Katrina’s barely used vanity table. He placed his hands on his hips. “So what now?”
“You need to tell me what’s wrong, Sherlock!”
“Nothing’s wrong-”
“Something is wrong!” She jumped up out of bed so she could square up to him - easy enough considering only a few inches of height difference. “And I’m losing my patience in respecting a boundary about the fact you can’t figure out how to tell me! You are hot and cold on me and it’s confusing and I feel sick all the time because I don’t know why my best friend is treating me that way!”
Sherlock didn’t say anything. He merely blinked at her in surprise of the sudden confession, but his silence didn’t help matters at all.
Katrina clenched her fists and willed herself not to cry in frustration. “Please…” she lowered her voice back to a more normal level. “Please figure out what it is you want to tell me; what you want from me… or we have to call it quits on the sex and figure out how to be normal friends again, okay?”
Sherlock chewed on the inside of his lip. “Is me wanting you not enough for the time being until I figure it out? Are you really someone who needs more of an explanation even though this was meant to be casual?”
Her heart jumped into her throat: those sentences were probably the most honest things he’d said to her about their friendship before they started fucking.
So if that was his form of honesty, she needed to give him the same.
“No, Sherlock, it’s not enough. And that’s not fair. Just because something is casual doesn’t mean you get to be distant when it suits and close when it suits! I literally just told you I feel sick and I can’t eat because I’m so anxious about the fact you’re doing that and won’t tell me and you’ve glossed over it!” she shouted, not caring about his face being inches from hers. “You care better than that about me. What was all that last week about me being stuck with you? Is that not true anymore?”
“Of course not - it’s still true, but-”
“If there’s a ‘but,’ I’m not listening to what comes after it.” Katrina folded her arms. “Now get out of my room and solve your crime on your own or with John. Not me. Not right now, anyway.”