Sherlock is late home again. This is not unusual. In fact it is usual. Everything is fine. It is only midnight. Sherlock will be back in a bit.
John pours another Peroni, although drink is not the answer, and in the glossy tiled kitchen of his and Sherlock's flat, flips the bottle top into the recycling. The bottle follows.
Where is Sherlock?
Rain rattles against the windows. It is a filthy October night out there. Beyond the panes, London is a thousand droplets of orange streetglow, the red flares of brakes and streaks of warm and cool white headlights, as cars lurch along the Euston Road.
John checks his phone, even though he can detect Sherlock's text notification chime from anywhere in the flat, can hear it through Tube noise or the screaming of (the shame!) a Robbie Williams gig. Sherlock has not texted.
A couple of other people have though. Harry. Does John want to meet -
John does not. John's dating days are over. He is middle aged by any statistic, numeric or cultural or medical, and he is done. Plus, his sister. Her idea of John's type is so far outside the ballpark that it would need a map and directions to the game. And if any blind date were John's type he would never live it down. He would be gloated over for the rest of his life.
He texts back, Am seeing someone sorry.
Oh finally, comes the reply. Well, Someone has been pretty obvious.
John deletes the message and walks up and down squeezing the phone.
Then he takes one long breath and replies, Night sis.
Because it would be rude to type Fuck off into the phone and if he did Harry would start another Great Rift and John cannot stand the thought of that right now.
Next message. That girl from the library. He cannot be bothered. He texts her that he's busy. Sorry, etc. Polite, though - who knows when this apathetic phase may pass and he will once again be looking for comfort in the arms of someone who knows the Dewey Decimal System?
Next message. Oh. Why did he give that guy his number? It gave the wrong impression. And also, they met at the bus stop. The bus stop! It might as well have been the gents toilets. Classy it was not.
He was nice though. Gentle smile. Good hair. Hair is important. It has to be the kind of hair you want to bury your face in, the kind of hair you could stroke and smooth and tease with your fingers.
No. Not happening. John is not dating, plus, if Sherlock got one hint that John had met a male - friend - for a pint, then Sherlock would wear his intolerably smug expression for the next hundred years and that face, that specific face, is another thing on the long list of things which John cannot stand.
Where the fuck is Sherlock?
The beer is gone. Time to stop. John is not his sister.
Key turn, metallic scrape in downstairs front door. Sherlock is here. John flings himself into his chair as if carelessly.
The glass panel which is the flat's notional front door fills with the shape of a tall slender man in a large black coat, and then swings open. Sherlock whirls in.
"You're up." Sherlock is unwinding his scarf, scrunching it into a ball, stuffing it into his coat pocket. His dark hair is wet. John registers this as odd. Sherlock has been outside. Sherlock is not an outside person. He moves from indoors to cab to indoors except when necessary for a case. Why is his hair wet, water trailing off the sharp curls onto his cheeks like traces of sorrow, like tears?
"Yeah." Now John can go to bed. John has reflexively grabbed the paper as an accessory to the illusion of unselfconscious occupation, and now folds it up again. He stands. "Night."
"Night." Sherlock pauses in the act of shedding his coat. His eyes narrow. John is arrested in his journey across the living room floor, past the tower of mugs but before the discarded sheets from Sherlock's latest violin composition. John looks up at Sherlock, who has not moved from his spot beside the front door and is now therefore in John's way.
"Don't wait up for me," says Sherlock.
"I didn't," says John.
"You do."
The deliberate use of the present tense makes it sound like a felony. John is instantly riled. "I'm not arguing about it."
"Ok." Sherlock is focused on John's face, eyelashes flickering, beaming Nonetheless I Am Right into John's eyes.
"Right." John frowns a little and edges past Sherlock. Rain from Sherlock's coat transfers to John's sleeve, heavy and clinging.
"Why do you?"
But John has some traces of dignity still and goes off to bed without replying.
In any case, to a brain the size of Sherlock's, the answer should have been obvious.