221B Baker Street felt as inviting as it had when I first saw it. This time, however, it wasn't quite as empty.

"John?"

The voice came from the kitchen, and it could only belong to John's father. I found myself to be correct when John lead me into the living room of 221B. A man of greying blonde hair and eyes to match his son’s stuck his head out of the kitchen and smiled at me.

John's father quickly shook my hand. "Hello! Arnold Watson. I'm just making pasta in the kitchen, if you boys are hungry. It should be done in-" There was a loud clatter from the kitchen, and Arnold scampered away to continue cooking. (If you could call it that. It was all a bit of a train wreck, honestly.)

John smiled and looked at his feet. "Sorry, he's not the best chef."

I thought about the failed experiments sitting back home in my fridge. "I can relate. Anyways, shall we get to work?"

John let out a breath of a laugh and looked at me curiously. "Work?"

I shrugged. "Obviously. John, we're so close to solving this!"

The blogger laughed. "You're overworking yourself. Come on; let's just have a guy's night in! That's what you're here for!"

I furrowed my brow. "You were serious about the movies and all of that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Of course." After a deep breath, John continued. "Sherlock, I... I really love being around you. And I think I'd like to try being around you when you aren't completely focused on a case."

"Am I not pleasant to be around while at work?"

My blonde friend laughed and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Honestly, Sherlock, I could be around you no matter what mood you're in. But, really, you do get a bit worked up while you're hard at work."

"Is that a... Good...?"

"Your focus is admirable. I'll leave it at that."

I grinned. "Thank you, John Watson." Clapping my hands together, I began to look around the room for any DVD collections. "So! Movies. Movies, movies, movies. Where are they kept?"

John sighed and shook his head as though I was some sort of lost cause. "Oh, Sherlock. For someone so brilliant, you know very little."

Before I could ask him exactly what he meant by the half-insult, John had taken my hand and led me to his bedroom. It was a fairly sized room, but a queen bed managed to fill up just over half of the space. I could tell from the covers that he slept on the left side of the bed, and often had nightmares that caused him to have small fits in bed. This was shown by the many scrapes on John's headboard. With no pets ever having lived in the flat (No hair.), my blogger was the only one to blame for the damaged wood. (These nightmares were quite possibly about John's accident those many years ago, and were yet another side effect of PTSD.)

My blond friend grabbed his laptop off of the nightstand and opened it, spreading himself across the left side of the bed. After a few moments longer of me standing awkwardly in the doorway, he looked at me expectantly, eyebrows raised.

He patted the space next to him, on the other side of the bed. "You know, you are allowed to sit down."

I nodded and silently made my way to the bed, sitting cross-legged on the spot he'd directed me to. "Right."

John pushed his laptop towards me. "Sherlock, this is Netflix. Just pick a movie, and we can watch it. No DVDs or anything!"

I raised my eyebrows. "That's brilliant. Movies are, of course, unnecessary and rather trivial, but the convenience of this website... Interesting."

As I picked a movie, I focused not on the words on the screen, but on John's expressions (both of which are equally easy to read). That way, when I made my selection (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), I knew that John would be pleased.

The movie was nothing extraordinary. In fact, it was rather plain and completely unrealistic. However, John thoroughly enjoyed it, which worked well enough for me. As long as he was happy, everything was okay.

By the time the credits were rolling across the screen, John was yawning and covering himself with his blankets. I shut his laptop and placed it back on the nightstand before quietly clearing my throat. "John? I haven't brought a sleeping bag. Should I just-"

Before I could finish my sentence, John was pulling me towards him, practically forcing me to lie down. He curled up against me. "Sherlock, it's a queen size bed. There's room for two."

 I wrapped an arm around John. "Oh. Alright. I suppose I could... Work with that."

I heard the smile in John's voice as he spoke. "Oh, Sherlock. You know, you can't work all the time. Sometimes you have to slow down and enjoy things."

I laughed quietly. "Oh, John. I do enjoy working."

"And why is that?"

"Because, dear blogger, I work with you."

--

Despite wanting to stay with John when morning came, I walked out of the flat at seven A.M., before either of the Watsons woke up. There were things to do. This case was unbelievably close to being solved, and I couldn't slow down now. John had fallen asleep just a few minutes after our short conversation, so I'd had time to form a plan for the upcoming day. I had to fill in the missing pieces.

As I approached my family home, I remembered the inconveniences that lay within it. I'd completely forgotten about my parents.

The front door opened with a slight creak, and I silently hoped that no one woke to it. Upon peering around the corner into the kitchen, I found my parents to be sleeping at the kitchen table. I grimaced. They had tried to wait up for me? I was definitely in for something.

However, my parents presented a battle that I would have to fight some other time. For the moment, there were things to be done and thoughts to be had. I hurried up to my bedroom, sock-clad feet padding almost silently up the carpeted stairs.

I was relieved to find my wall of notes and details left completely untouched. I picked up my violin and launched into Mendelssohn's Sinfonia in D Major, simultaneously opening the doors to my newly formed Mind Palace.

As soon as I'd entered my artificial oasis, it was as though the real world faded away completely. It was just me, the quiet music, and the wall of notes. Here, I could focus. And here, things began to make sense.

Lilly's parents. They had to have been good people, to leave her with such a great fortune. Unless, of course, the husband left the fortune? No, no. Certainly not. In the older photos on Lilly's wall, he looked, to be frank, disgusting. Unwashed. Thin face. Bloodshot eyes. Tiny pupils. Of course! Drug abuse. His children stand far away from him in the picture. Bad parent? Spouse? That's a possible reason for murder. But was he even married to Lilly? 

My mind shot back to seeing Lilly standing at her front door. No ring. 

 Usually widows hold onto the ring. Wear it on a chain, for whatever emotional purpose that serves. So why not Lilly? Perhaps she just wasn't an emotional person. More likely, she just wasn't emotional when it came to her husband. Three kids, and yet- 

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes!"

I was ripped out of my mind palace by the screech of my mother, who had woken and rushed up to my bedroom. I placed my violin on its stand. "Good morning," I said.

"Do you realize how worried your father and I were? Not one call! Nothing! For heaven's sake Sherlock, you could have been died and the two of us would be none the wiser! We were this close to calling the cops!"

I sighed. "It was all very last minute, you know. I couldn't have everything sorted out for you."

My father appeared behind my mother. He had obviously been roused by my mother's near-screaming. "Sherlock, we were worried sick about you!"

I groaned. All I wanted to do was get back to work. "Alright, alright! I'm sorry. John just wanted me to sleep over and I completely forgot you two even exis-"

Their faces had softened when I'd mentioned John. Surely my own parents couldn't know about our relationship... Thing?! A few seconds of calculation let me know that, yes, they knew every last thing about the blond blogger.

"Mycroft," I muttered angrily.

My mother put a hand on my shoulder. "If you think Mike had anything to do with anything we know about John, Sherlock, you would be wrong. You two aren't very secretive about the whole thing, if I'm completely honest. So you just slept over at John's?"

My dad exhaled heavily when I nodded my head. "Alright, Sherlock, meet me in the kitchen. It's time we spoke about this."

Following that sentence came the most awkward ten minutes of my life. I knew how hard my father was trying, and that was actually a disturbing thing to know, especially when he decided he would replace the word 'sex' with phrases such as 'smacking the salmon' and ‘the humpity bumpity' as he tried to explain the birds and the bees to me. (This was, of course, a concept I'd known the ins and outs of since the age of twelve or so.)

My father was nowhere near finished when I was saved from the torture. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I checked it, I found a text from John. "I know how the Withers died." 

I held up my phone as an excuse as I left the table. "Sorry, dad. School thing. I've got to go."

The old man, in his stubborn ways, followed me to the front door and placed his hand on my shoulder before I could get out. "Now, Sherlock, just know... Your sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of."

"Dad, no."

"It's perfectly fine to date boys, but only if you can accept that you're a bit different from some of your peers. They may be rude, but know that at least you're being true to yourself."

"Dad. Stop."

"Mycroft swears that he called it from day one, but I think your homosexuality surprised us all. Hell, we weren't even sure that you had feelings at all! I'm glad you do, though."

"Oh my god, Dad."

"And remember, if John ever pressures you into doing the jiggy jiggy, you can always say no."

"Yes, well, it’s nice of you to refresh me on things I’ve known for ages. I'm going to leave because this speech of yours is getting progressively worse." I pulled his hand off of my shoulder and walked out the front door, leaving my parents within the old house to deal with whatever crisis they believed was on their hands.

Seeing John waiting inside the Attendant cleared my mind. My parents could be as weird as they wished, because I had John, whose smile grew wider with every step towards him.

Once I'd taken my seat next to him, John pulled out his laptop. A website popped onto the screen immediately. It was a blog. Of course. I'd almost forgotten that John was some sort of king on this blue-and-white website.

The blog open on the screen was full of conspiracy theories and posts about things people had seen in the news. John scrolled down to a post, and I immediately saw what he meant about this.

There was an image of a newspaper article, which stated that Lilly's parents had perished in a car accident. Lilly had been back at her house. Her husband had already died a year prior, due to a drug overdose. Nothing out of the ordinary. Despite being the fact that we seemed to need desperately, it brought us nowhere.

I groaned. "It's all too ordinary!"

"I know, I know. There's no way Lilly could be involved in her parents' death. Actually, I'm having trouble finding how this even links to Molly anymore."

"But if we rule out Lilly, we won't have any legitimate suspects anymore."

John snorted. "Jim would argue against that.”

I reached for my pocket, and pulled out a ringing phone. "Hm. Speak of the devil." I answered the call. "What do you want?"

"Sherlock, Loraine is guilty."

"Are you certain? Because I wouldn't want to start rumors that you're actually capable of doing work correctly without knowing for sure that you're actually right."

He sighed. "I don't have any evidence quite yet, but I know it's her. I can just feel it, okay, Sherlock? Don't you ever just feel so right?"

"Actually, Jim, I've been told many times that I feel nothing at all. In fact, I believe that you've told me this many times over the years. Deal with Loraine. When you have evidence, we can talk again. Until then, please, do us a favor and shut up."

I hung up before he could say anything sassy. "So, John. Should we meet up with Lilly? She does still have the body, and we could look into her actions while literally looking into Molly."

I noticed John grimace a bit at the gory jest, but he recovered quickly with a million-dollar smile. "Um, yeah. ...Yeah, that'll be productive."

Without even having purchased drinks, we left the cafe. John took hold of my hand almost as soon as we'd stepped into the relentlessly chilly autumn air. "So, do you always leave sleepovers early?"

"Was that abnormal?"

He laughed. "Yes, Sherlock, it was. Usually people stay for breakfast at the very least."

"Oh. Well, I suppose I'll have to do that for you next time."

I heard the grin in his voice. "Yeah. Next time."

--

Hey guys! Just to mix things up, leave a comment and let me know who you think killed Molly Hooper... [cue ominous staring and spooky music]