London fog clung to the hem of your coat as you followed Enola Holmes up the narrow staircase of 221B Baker Street. Your suitcase bumped against each step, your breath visible in the cold. The city had been cruel to you lately—landlords with fast tempers, employers with fast hands.

You hadn’t meant to ask for help, but Enola had always been the kind of friend who knew when you needed something before you said it aloud. “I asked my brother,” she had said with a knowing little smirk. “He has a spare room. He pretended to be inconvenienced. He wasn't."

Which was laughable, really. Because her brother was Sherlock Holmes. And you may or may not have had a very serious, very unspoken crush on him since the first time you’d met—quietly sipping tea at Enola’s, his voice slicing through a room like a scalpel and his eyes just as precise.

Now here you were. A suitcase in hand, heart in throat, standing in the sitting room of the most brilliant and emotionally unavailable man in all of England. He glanced up from his armchair as you entered. Eyes sharp, hair tousled, violin resting on his lap like he'd only just stopped playing seconds before.