It's been a bad week, folks: too many finals projects due and too many scary pics from the season 3 set, so I figured that if I'm going to suffer from all the Abbington Angst I might as well make you suffer too :)
Disclaimer: You would already know if I really owned these characters. . .
Again, ANY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AT ALL - reviews especially - would justify my continued existence!
John was exhausted.
This in itself was not overly surprising – it had happened before, and there had been times in the army when he had been drained to the point of passing out on the nearest semi-stationary surface – but this morning, he mused, was an all-time low. God, he had lifted the same piece of toast to his mouth twice now.
He had missed both times.
John winced a little as he shifted in his seat. Damn Sherlock. Where did the man find the energy to chase a suspect halfway across London and then come home too wired to sleep? Did he bottle up all that excess energy just for the express purpose of shoving John against the wall the moment they set foot in the door?
More to the point – shifting again, John suppressed a groan – who in their right mind would let the blasted man get away with it?
No, best not to answer that one. John steeled himself to make a third attempt at the maddening toast.
Speak of the devil: just as he lifted the food to chin height, Sherlock himself breezed down the stairs and threw himself into the chair opposite. John had barely had time to register this strangeness – his partner never sat at the table, unless, well, he was on it – before the blasted partner in question slid a photograph across the table to him.
No. He was not doing this. Not today, not when he could barely see straight for fatigue. John made no move to pick up the picture. "You know precisely what state I'm in, you ridiculous bastard, don't start hounding me now. I'm not going on a case today: in fact, I may just call off at the surgery as well."
"Didn't sleep well?" Sherlock asked innocently, shifting in his own seat as if in sympathy but in the process actually pulling the blue silken robe a little wider agape at the chest.
"Didn't sleep at all," John said shortly, looking steadfastly down at the dry bread in his hand. Hell, where was his jam? He had been sitting there for ten minutes and hadn't even noticed that it was missing. . .
"I'll get it for you," Sherlock said, reading his frustration as easily as always, and standing with a rustle of silk and a flash of skin – acting, as always, on only half of the frustration that he understood or thought he could profit from.
"Don't bother," John said, a little too quickly. Sherlock and condiments didn't work well together – or rather, they did work well together, in fact rather too well for John's sluggish presence of mind this morning. . . "I'm not hungry." It wasn't even a lie – a man dying of exhaustion couldn't very well starve too, could he? "You eat."
"But I want it," Sherlock said with a mock pout, stepping gracefully around the table – and rather too close – as he went to stand by the cupboard.
"Sherlock." John rarely resorted to that tone of voice. "Sit." Sherlock had frozen in place, listening intently, fixedly, as if awaiting an order. God, if John had been any more awake he would have taken advantage of the reversal, but he was so tired: "I said I don't want it, and I know you don't really."
Having determined that he would get no more of that delicious tone, Sherlock returned to lounging in the opposite seat, watching John intently and even giving a sarcastic little cheer when John finally got a mouthful of bread.
"I ought to hate you," John said, his jaw moving up and down with excruciating slowness.
"Boring," Sherlock said. With a languid movement he pushed the photograph further down the table towards John. "You might as well admit that you wouldn't have it any other way."
No, John knew he wouldn't – what was left of the soldier in him could not admit defeat, even if it meant a marathon and a sore ass the next morning. . .
As if he could read this train of thought – and damn him, he probably could – Sherlock smiled, that lopsided one-corned smirk that could send shivers down John's spine at night but just made him even more tired, as if that were physically possible, the next morning.
"Just look at the photo, John."
"I told you, I'm not getting involved in any cases today. God, I have to get to work."
"And if I told you it's not for a case?"
"I'd say you were lying, and doing it terribly to boot. Sod off." John made a valiant attempt at a second mouthful.
"You can top next time," Sherlock said.
Low. In spite of himself, John smiled, and went to reach for the photo – although his triumph dimmed a little when he realized that he already had picked it up and was automatically scanning it.
She was in her late thirties. Her hair was blond but probably dyed, her face structure was prominent without being chiseled, her eyes were sharp and blue and pierced straight through the lens and into the viewer. . . even with the man sitting across from him, John would have said she was striking, but he was sure to have missed something he would be belittled for.
"Who's she, then?" he asked. "And what gruesomely horrible manner of death did she suffer that merits interrupting my breakfast?"
"Please, don't be ridiculous," Sherlock scoffed. "I don't see any breakfast to speak of, just a man trying with varying degrees of success to feed himself a particularly insipid grain product even he knows he doesn't want."
Before John could give that the retort it deserved, Sherlock had taken a deep breath – nerves? – and continued, as if afraid of where the words would disappear if not released.
"Besides, that's hardly the way I would have expected you to speak about the mother of our child. This is Mary Morstan. She has agreed to serve as our surrogate."
Review if you hate me or have an idea where you want this to go! I already have a few, evil snicker. . .