John Watson led a shaking Sherlock gently through the door of 221B Baker Street and over to the sofa.
''Right. You sit there and I'll make you a cup of tea yeah?''
Sherlock only nodded vaguely and when John returned a few minutes later with a mug of tea, Sherlock clung to it like a lifeline.
"So uh... What exactly happened? I mean, I went off to talk to Anderson about the case details and then when I got back, Lestrade said that I'd better get you home because you looked a bit ill.''
"I don't want to talk about it." came the moody reply.
John sighed. "Fine then. I'll just confiscate the skull then..." he said, making a motion towards the mantelpiece.
"No! Don't... Fine, I'll tell you."
John smirked, settling into his armchair again. "Though that'd work. Right then. What happened?"
Sherlock pulled his long legs up so that he could hug his knees. "I was deducting the victim's family details and... Igotitwrong."
"What?"
"I got it wrong. He had two brothers, not three."
John would have burst out laughing right there and then, were it not for the look of utter dejection on Sherlock's face. So he suppressed the snigger and made Sherlock another cup of tea instead.
"Everyone gets it wrong sometimes Sherlock."
"But I'm ME! How am I meant to belittle Anderson when I got it wrong?"
Well, thought John, this was new. Sherlock being hysterical. Childish, inconsiderate, yeah but not this. Then John realised something. Sherlock was actually upset about this. Or, if not upset, then severely shook up about it.
"You've never got anything wrong before have you?"
"What do you think John? I'm not meant to get things wrong. I'm me. My job is getting thing right. Sure, messing up about the number of brothers isn't all that bad but what if it's the beginning of the end, the start of the slippery slope? What if it keeps happening?"
John reached out as though to take Sherlock's hand but then thought better of it and withdrew it again. "Sherlock, I'm sure you'll be fine. I mean you got everything else right and we got the guy who did it!"
Sherlock merely turned away and lay morosely down on the sofa.
"I'm going to bed Sherlock. Good night." John didn't expect an answer and so wasn't surprised when Sherlock appeared to ignore him. He sighed, shook his head and went to bed.
Well, he would have, if the gunshot hadn't rang through the room, the bullet missing his head by a millimetre. Instinctively he rolled into a crouch to avoid it, flinging himself around to face his attacker. Only to see Sherlock standing behind him, holding a gun -which, thankfully, he was now pointing at the wall- with the intense expression on his face that John had come to dread as it was usually followed by an experiment of some kind.
"I'm bored." whined Sherlock. John groaned. He was back to his old self. Damn.