Chapter 2
Unfazed Sherlock looks up from the only barely dead man lying at his feet.
"You look awful", he states as though those are the obvious words to say to someone when you've just risen from the dead.
John is slightly taken aback, but only slightly. His anger is returning so quickly and overwhelmingly that he feels tears behind his eyes.
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?", he repeats, this time spitting the words across the room. When Sherlock just stands there, standing still, blood spreading in the carpet, he follows it up with a stupid: "I look fine"
Sherlock keeps standing there looking at him and after way too long a time in which John's blood is alternating between boiling and chilling, Sherlock just shrugs "No you don't", and returns his gaze to the corpse, his look changing to one akin to seeing a particularly challenging word in Sunday's crossword. That is, if he were Mrs. Hudson.
"I look fine", John reiterates, the overwhelming urge to cry having subsided somewhat, leaving more room for the boiling in lieu of the chilling.
Sherlock sighs and gives him a look normally reserved by normal children for petulant children.
"You haven't been eating properly, your personal hygiene is severely lacking, your limb hard returned and with it your therapist, you have a drinking problem and you are resorting to pharmaceutically enhanced emotions. Of course you look awful. Now what can be do about this?", returning to Mrs. Hudson's crossword at his feet.
John is both too enraged and amazed to decide on any action based on either one of those emotions. Finally his mouth settles on, "That's not…"
"Of course it is. You've only used one plate and a fork for months. Dust on all the rest in the cupboards. You wouldn't classify that as proper eating, you…"
"Why were you looking through the cupboards?" John interrupts, as though that is in any way the relevant question to be asking.
"Alibi", Sherlock shrugs while finally turning towards John before continuing. "You shaved this morning, but your skin is raw, meaning either longer hairs, no shaving cream or an old blade, probably all three." He start walking towards John. "You shaved specifically this morning, meaning you meant someone to see it. Someone who would take it as a sign of you being fine, so your therapist." He is now standing right in front of John, who sputters: "That doesn't mean my personal hygiene is lacking."
Sherlock's mouth twists into a half-smile. "No, but this does." He stretches out arm and softly lets his hand touch below John's jaw, under his ear. The skin feels coarse under his hand with the hairs that he's missed and hot.
It takes a moment for John to remember that it's not his skin that is hot but his anger. He pushes Sherlock's hand away with more force than is necessary.
"Fine", he spits, but Sherlock is already continuing with his vivisection. Postmortem, John's mind supplies unhelpfully.
"Your drinking problem, yes, that is interesting. A bottle of Scotch on the table, a used glass next to it."
"I don't have a drinking problem."
Sherlock continues like John is irrelevant, which infuriates him further. "Of course you do. A used glass, but no lip prints on it and only a bottom of clear fluid. Clearly not Scotch, water then, but you wouldn't poor yourself a bottom of water and you didn't drink from it, so melted ice. The Scotch is dusty on the top, but not on the sides. Handled many times, but not opened once." He pauses looking John in the eye for the first time.
"You got a glass with ice and a bottle of Scotch and watched the ice meld without drinking anything. Why not? If you were confident it would be one glass, you would have drunk it, so you weren't confident, ergo a drinking problem."
"That's not a drinking problem, Sherlock. In fact that is the opposite of a drinking problem." Through his anger, John vaguely notices how whiny he sounds.
"It's a problem related to drinking. It's a drinking problem." Sherlock actually smirks. "You should've drunk it too, sleep would have helped, I antidepressants are easy", nodding at the plastic Boots bag still in my hand. "New prescription though there was a full box lying in the bathroom. That means they weren't working." He catches himself and take one more step forward. "You didn't shave for your therapist, you shaved for your doctor."
"That doesn't mean I look awful", John whispers and suddenly he realises he has no clue why he is defending himself against Sherlock, who is standing too close to him, Sherlock who is trying to overwhelm him, and suddenly all that white and hot anger comes back to him in such strong waves he can't suppress them any longer.
Coolly he steps aside and his voice is perfectly even when he speaks. "Get out of my house. Now."
Sherlock's mouth is open and quiet. A genuine look of surprise coming over his face.
"You heard me. Get out."
Sherlock mouths closes and opens again, less quiet this time. "I doubt you want me to leave without clearing up the mess." He points behind towards the man and the bloodstain.
"I'll take care of it", John says and points a steady hand towards the door opening in front of which Sherlock is now standing. "Get out."
And then with a huff, Sherlock leaves.
