Temper: a calm frame of mind
There's a pub where John used to go. He went every so often by himself and drank a few beers before going back to their flat, back when it was their flat and they were a very unclear, but solid us. But that was then, and now is now, and John can't go back there. He doesn't understand why that place reminds him so arbitrarily of Sherlock, but he's stopped questioning himself a long time ago; no excuses, no pleas.
It just does, period.
He knows his temper is inherent to the center of his soul, but, depending on the circumstances, he can and will lose it. It's only a state John finds himself in; it comes and goes, like breaking waves of a very irritated tide, playing around in the shore with burning sand where the tide comes to soothe or make a mess out of his mood. It can make his soul explode or smother within its own limits. There're so many things that make him snap in and out of this state that he tries not to push too much. He lingers in the middle, vibrating at his own boring and obtuse frequency, specially now, after all they- he's been through.
John spoke his last words to Sherlock on June and now he feels emptied out. It's been months, long and dreary months, but he can't put it past him because every single time he sits on his chair and falls asleep, he wakes up looking at the one in front of him, vacant and cold, and wonders why June had to happen. He wishes to erase that month from his life and go back to what it was before, but he can't. So he hums a tune and forces himself to fall asleep again. It's become a ritual: waking-wondering-wishing-humming-sleeping. That last part is new, though, he's been sleepless for as long as he can remember; everything becoming grey, tiresome, dense, uninteresting, unmoving and deadly muffled.
He's lost the light that Sherlock irradiated to him, from him, through him, towards him, thanks to him. He's lost the light and he wants it back; to feel again the waves of warm brightness crushing onto him and hold on to it- him, him. And never again let go.
A morning comes when he gets tired of his own lamenting and he loses the poor control he has on his already fragile temper. The victims are a mug, scattered over the floor, and the tea, spilled all over the place. John sits down on the sofa, lets his head fall between his legs and grabs it, almost pulling his hair with a discrete violence to cover up the pain he now knows is settling in his heart. No tears fall, though. The soldier in him always wins these battles.