(Sherlock x Reader) Never trust those who are never truthful

Chapter 7 - Dinner and letting slip

"What did you hear?" His eyes looked frantic, of course you knew why but you wouldn't tell him that. Especially since he had referred to you as an error in his life so many times before. How rude of him.

"Just a lot of whispering to be honest but you sounded stressed so I left it, or at least tried to" you sounded as casual as you could possibly get, laid back almost. Damn you were good at this lying game.

"Right well, you only have an hour to get ready so..." he trailed off as you looked at him blankly, still basking in the light of your lie. It was a good one (even I'll have to agree).

You snapped back rather quickly, realising the pause was getting a little too long to be comfortable, "ah yes, well...ahem...see you then!" and so you rushed down the corridor to go and finally decide on a dress whilst Sherlock tried to figure out if you had actually told the truth or if you were more like the woman than he had expected.

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You emerged exactly an hour later, you thought you looked alright but you could never be sure. You were almost Sherlock would make a snide remark about how your hair wasn't in the right position or how you'd spent too much time on your eyeliner for it to actually look good any longer. But in fact he did no such thing.

"You look rather nice," he said simply as he turned around to face you.

"As do you," you decided to return the complement as it seemed only customary but he did infact look very dashing. You felt that it must have been something about the tie he was wearing that made him look so different. It was a good sort of different though.

You arrived to the restaurant in good time 7:24, your table was booked for half past. It also turned out that the Watson's were already here. This made sure that you didn't have to cope with any awkward conversations between you and the consulting detective. Thank god. You seemed to be thanking God a lot recently, not normal.

"Hello again," John greeted you warmly, holding his hand out again for you to shake, "We met before but didn't really have a chance to talk, _____ was it?"

"Ah yes, It's nice to see you and Mary again, it's like a breath of fresh air seeing you two after living with that," you jabbed a finger at you accomplice who was currently frowning at your remark and looking not at all pleased.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," John chuckled a little and then offered to get you drinks after you had sat down and made yourself comfortable next to Mr. Holmes. Whilst John had left, Sherlock not soon after as he decided he should go and help bring them over as they would be from the bar and needed to be carried. You and Mary had decided to start to talk, at least to break the tension.

"So what are you doing living with funny old Sherlock?" Mary smiled at you sincerely, if she was being like this around you when no one else was around then surely she didn't know about...that. Maybe she wasn't who you thought she was, maybe she was just a simple nurse who worked along side her husband nicely in a comfortable life. You decided to go with the latter option just because it sounded a lot less uncomfortable to deal with and a much easier story to swallow. Even though it may not exactly be the real one.

"Well my mother's in hospital for terminal cancer see and I thought it be best to move down here to keep an eye on her, Sherlock seemed the best option because he had the lowest rent for this part of London. it is a bit of effort putting up with his experiments!" You and her both chuckled a little about that. "So what's the baby? Boy or Girl?"

" Oh I'm so sorry to hear that and it's a Girl," she said smiling, happy that she had a new girl friend to talk to about baby stuff finally instead of her husband and other nurses. Sherlock seemed to have refused to go anywhere near that subject, it was like poison to him he had said.

"Aww that's so sweet, have you come up with any names yet?" you wondered, completely forgetting about the men that seemed to be arriving back to your table with drinks in hand.

Mary seemed to notice otherwise, "Ah John, _____ was just asking about our baby names, any ideas?"

"Well we thought Alice might be quite nice," he said setting the drinks down quickly and sitting down himself before Sherlock had to be so rude and cut in.

"I think it would be best if we got on to a better topic and actually got on to why we're here in the first place." He gave a sarcastic smile to all of you which all of you returned with a frown, of course he was oblivious to all that, "Any ideas yet ____? What do you think of the owner?"

This seemed like a test and little did you know it was, Sherlock would never admit it, not even later on in both of your lives, but he may have been rooting for you because if you didn't he was sure he would loose all interest in you. And nobody really wanted that did they? "Well, he's a balding man, late fifties, married twice and he seems to be..." you squinted trying to get a better look at the man about twenty yards away on the other side of the room, "trying to feel up one of the barmaids."

"Okay..." the man next to you sounded a little bit disappointed, maybe you hadn't looked hard enough to impress him, "But is he poisoning his guests?" he was looking at you now, but you didn't you had to look. To figure him out.

"Yes, I mean look at him he's got the symbol of The Arena on his necklace of course he's killing off his rich clients, who wouldn't?" Shit. You may have just given away a game changer. Quick cover up, cover up!

"The Arena? Isn't that that gang who gave a lot of trouble up in Manchester a few years back?" John asked before taking a sip of his martini. Perhaps he was the only cover up you needed, thank you for John Watson.

"Uh yes, my brother used to be in the police up there so i used to hear a lot of stuff about them," phew panic over, panic over. Truth was that you actually knew a lot about them for other reasons but you'd never reveal that, not if you didn't have to. It would mean that you'd then have to tell everything to everyone, and that would jeopardise your job.

"Right well Sherlock, shouldn't you be getting on with the case then?" John seemed to be prompting Sherlock or something but he didn't seem to get the hint. You were just thoroughly confused, John continued, "Sherlock wasn't here just to observe that man over there tonight." Mary looked as confused as you were, she shrugged as she sipped on her drink. A Bloody Mary.
"What? There's another case?" Your eyebrows knitted and you tried to understand, he hadn't said anything about another case so what was John on about? Surely he would have told you if he had something else to observe?

"That case was just a six but I've heard that the other case is easily an eleven, especially after what just happened," you looked over to the detective who seemed to have gone a little red. None of this was adding up, what could be more interesting than this case? And how come it was only a six? You thought it was quite interesting. You'd heard of Sherlock's ranking system for his cases but you had never heard of an eleven before so this must be quite special for him to see it that high. Very special indeed.

"Sherlock?" You asked quietly.

"_____, he was observing you, you're the other case," John said just as quietly, revealing it all. The detective was still avoiding eye contact with you. Just like he had been doing so the whole day, and this was the reason? Your head buzzed, the butterflies had returned and your cheeks rose to a pink colour. This was cut off however by a shrill beeping coming from your dress pocket. A text. Shit. Not now, anytime but now.

You read it, "I'm so so sorry, I've got to go." You rushed about collecting your coat and bag, "We'll talk about this later okay? I'm so sorry, and I'll make this up to you okay?" And with that you left, to work. Limping on your ankle that would surely inconvenience you later but you left nonetheless. Your foot wouldn't be the only thing that would be distracting you from your work, just the same as Sherlock just a day before.

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A/N - Well I seem to be getting better at writing more for each chapter. i'm also starting to get into this story, I don't know about you. It's just gonna start to get intense but we're gonna have some character development first, i feel that it would be nice to see you and Sherlock get closer first. Sound good? Oh and there won't be an update tomorrow, I'm busy. Apologies.