Sherlock was uncharacteristically silent on the cab ride home, glaring out the window, and John wondered what it was – couldn't just be Anderson and his momentary insight into Sherlock's mind, although that was probably part of it. If it had only been that, however, Sherlock would have happily railed about it, finding any number of other examples to prove how the other man was really a dullard, highlighting the most interesting ones for John, even if John knew them.
Sherlock's eyes flickered to street signs and alleyways as the passed by them, and John wondered if he were tracing routes on foot for them. Maybe they should have walked? It usually took about forty-five minutes to do so, even with Sherlock's "short-cuts" – privately, John did not consider zigzagging through a maze of alleys to be a real short-cut – and this was a tolerable amount of time when it was not a freezing early November morning.
All things considered, he was glad they were warm in the cab.
John paid the driver when they arrived at the flat, because Sherlock just got out and strode toward the front door without bothering to check for pedestrians or traffic – not that these were a big concern at this time of morning. Although a bloke on a bike with a flashing headlight swerved around John when he stepped out, startling the doctor somewhat. John shook his head and hurried after his husband who had, at least, not just let the door shut behind him, so John could step into the welcoming warmth without having to fumble for his keys.
Once inside their flat itself, John opened his mouth to ask what was bothering Sherlock, but the detective forestalled him by pulling out his phone and ringing a number. John was tempted to snatch it from him, because he was not at all certain this wasn't another call to Sam in the early hours of the morning with questions about his personal life, or perhaps a similar call to Tricia, but he was mercifully wrong.
"Lestrade? No, I have not solved the case in the fifteen minutes since I saw you. I've only just got home. Shut up a moment. I want to press charges against the man who threw the beer mug at me. Yes, I know I said I didn't before. Now I do. Can you add accessory-after-the-fact to those charges? You did say you could be creative– what? Because if it bloody well weren't for him, I wouldn't have a concussion and I'd have been able to stop the murderer before the final victims! Or at least be able to trace his blasted patterns! Yes, of course I'm serious! What do you mean, no judge would accept that? The man is keeping me from doing my job properly! No, of course I don't mean the murderer, try to keep up, will you? What? What! Bloody typical, isn't it?" He paused for a sigh, shaking his head. "Well, yes, I'm still serious. Fine, if you can't add that, but what can you do, other than assault? Yes? Yes, yes. That sounds fine. Good. Thank you."
He rung off without saying good-bye, then turned to see John staring at him.
"What?" he asked.
"Sorry," John managed. "Just unexpected, is all."
Sherlock tossed his phone lightly on the coffee table, shooting John a glare.
"My head bloody well hurts, John," he said. "And itches like mad. And I can't concentrate. How am I to be expected to do my job like this?"
"Um, you deciphered his message," John pointed out. "Which no one else even picked up on as a message."
"And how long did this take me?" Sherlock snapped. "Meanwhile, he's roaming about, probably selecting more victims for his next ridiculous message while we try and scramble to keep up after him because some complete lackwit couldn't calculate angles and trajectories properly and hit me instead of his intended target."
With a huff, he threw himself into his chair. John repressed a smile, knowing it would be entirely misinterpreted; he wasn't smiling at Sherlock's injury, but Sherlock's attitude. It probably wouldn't do to say so, but this sort of petulance probably meant he was feeling more himself. John had been surprised when Sherlock had initially refused to press any charges.
Sherlock propped his feet on the coffee table and John ignored the fact that the soles were wet from a recent rain, and glared at John, still wrapped in his coat with its upturned collar and his purple scarf and leather gloves. He looked tired around the eyes, despite what were probably his best efforts to hide this.
"You know, there's a good body of medical research on the benefits of regular sleep and regular meals," John said.
"Oh, please," Sherlock snorted, pressing a gloved fist against his lips momentarily. "Do feel free to lecture me more, John. I already know that. Being married to a doctor allows something to rub off, you know."
Yeah, the knowledge, not the habits, John thought, his lips quirking. Sherlock gave him another glare for a good measure and John shrugged off his coat, unwinding the scarf from around his neck. It was the fourth one Sherlock had bought him, even though the other three were still in great shape. He bought one for John every year in November, and John had not worked out if the detective realized he did so on precisely the same day he'd bought the first one, three years ago. Was this important enough information to be stored in his brain? John didn't know. If it was, Sherlock was unlikely to admit to it.
He hung up his scarf and coat and turned back to his husband.
"Sherlock, you had– have, actually, a nasty concussion. Sure, it's getting better, but you're not helping by refusing to eat and sleep properly. It seems to me you need three things: a good, hot meal followed by a good long sleep."
Sherlock arched his eyebrows at him.
"That's two things, John," he said. "I know you've mastered basic counting. I'd hope they wouldn't let you become a doctor without that specialized skill. What's the third thing?"
"You need me to give you a really, really good shag."
At this, Sherlock's eyebrows twitched farther up in surprise.
"I do, do I?" he enquired.
"Well, it's been a week and a half," John said. "I'm starting to feel a bit antsy."
"I don't need the distraction, John," Sherlock replied. "You can take care of yourself, I'm sure."
"And what would you rather do?" John asked, gesturing with an open palm to the paper-disaster area that was their flat, files littering all the surfaces, the dratted scarves still on the table, the map pinned to the wall, the mirror with the killer's grim but almost self-indulgent message scrawled across the glass. "Sit out here uselessly, stewing about how you can't work and thinking about Anderson? Or come into the bedroom and have a good think about me for awhile?"
Sherlock stared and John grinned, knowing he'd hit his mark.
"How did–" Sherlock started, then clamped his lips together, refusing to ask John how he'd known Anderson's remark was eating at the detective. It annoyed Sherlock, he knew, that John had become so good at reading him. Not as good as John would like to pretend, though.
"If you were feeling so deprived, why didn't you say so before now?" Sherlock enquired coolly.
"Yeah, um, I had to make sure you wouldn't throw up on me," John replied. "I'll try a lot of things, but that really just doesn't do it for me."
Sherlock stared at him a moment longer then his lips twitched and he passed a hand over his eyes, and John considered that he'd won. A chuckle escaped his husband, probably unintentionally, because then he schooled his expression back to severe.
"I have not had any nausea in seven days, John."
"But you have had dizzy spells. Which can lead to nausea. Which can lead to vomiting."
"And how do you ensure this won't happen now?"
"I'm a doctor," John sniffed. "I can tell." He didn't bother including that he was just feeling impatient by now and wanted to get his way, which did not at all involve taking care of himself, as Sherlock put it, nor listening to the complete lack of patience Sherlock would develop for his work if he went on like this.
"It will completely ruin the order of importance you listed to me a moment ago. A hot meal then a good sleep?"
"The order can be changed," John said with a wolfish grin. "Good shag, good sleep, then hot meal."
"Oh, all right," Sherlock huffed and John laughed at the idea that his husband was actually acquiescing to something he found tedious because he knew it was not the case, he could tell by the increasing brightness in Sherlock's eyes that he was interested.
Sherlock peeled off his gloves, tossing them on the coffee table, and stood, reaching to undo his scarf.
"No, leave it," John said. "I'll take care of all of that." He gave Sherlock another wolfish grin, a glint in his eyes. "Plus, I might find some use for it."
John woke him up with a kiss, a smile, and two ibuprofen.
"Take these," he ordered in his Doctor John voice that brooked no arguments, but Sherlock seriously considered trying anyway, just to keep his hand in. It wouldn't do to have John assuming Sherlock would listen him just because he happened to be right once in awhile.
That sort of encouragement could be habit forming for John. Then there would be no end to his stubbornness.
"I just ordered Chinese," John continued. "Thought we could watch some Doctor Who while we eat. And then you can go back to work."
He passed off a glass of water and Sherlock downed the pills without comment, then consented to get out of bed. John fetched himself a beer, but apparently this was not on the menu for Sherlock, who wrinkled his nose at John when he came back into the living room. Disregarding this, John fished around in Sherlock's coat, which he'd returned at some point to its proper place on its hook instead of on their bedroom floor, coming up with Sherlock's wallet.
"Hey now," Sherlock protested but John ignored this as well, taking out thirty pounds and tossing the wallet back at Sherlock before clattering down the stairs to receive their just-arrived Chinese food. Sherlock scowled, putting his wallet on the coffee table, since he was clad only in his pyjamas. Apparently, John had thought to insist on him dressing for sleep after they'd shagged.
Really, he was going to have to stop letting John win so often.
It was just unbecoming. And doctors were notorious for seeing the smallest acquiescence as an open invitation dictate every aspect of their patients' lives.
Unfortunately, the food smelled good in that greasy-westernized-Chinese food way and Sherlock was hard put not to want to eat it.
After that, there was indeed no stopping John.
He put Sherlock on a strict schedule of meals, sleep, and what he called an "exercise regime", and Sherlock vaguely regretted that John's memory extended to what he, Sherlock, considered unnecessary information. Such as Sherlock mentioning to John sometime the past spring that sex was very good for the cardiovascular system.
He could hardly escape his own words, and suspected he remembered saying them, which was even worse.
Between these chores – the last one not really being a chore, but best not let John start to suspect that Sherlock was not entirely put off – Sherlock was allowed (allowed!) to work as much as he pleased, although John put out four glasses of water on the kitchen counter every morning and expected them to be gone by the time he got home.
Sherlock drank two and retaliated by pouring the contents of the other two down the drain. He had considered watering their plants, but John would probably notice he'd done this.
He was thirty-seven, for pity's sake. Not seven.
Somehow, he could not bring himself to feel as indignant about all of this as he wished, particularly when John had left for work Wednesday morning – having called out Tuesday due to the chaos resulting from Sherlock's deciphering the message and then, of course, the shagging – he had caught Sherlock in a light kiss and reminded Sherlock that he loved him.
"Yes, John, I love you, too," Sherlock had said and John had smiled and had been out the door.
A day and a half later, Sherlock had made no progress on determining how and where the killer was selecting his victims.
It was absolutely maddening. There seemed to be no pattern, save for a general southward trend that ended in two pairs of murders in London and the fact that all of the couples were married and heterosexual.
Age, religion, ethnicity, income, it seemed to make no difference. Their fields of work didn't overlap, neither did their social circles, even the two in London. They weren't even all British; Rebecca Garrott had moved to England from Ireland after meeting her husband several years previous, and Sara Clayworth had been born and raised in New Zealand for the first eight years of her life. Sherlock checked to see if the others had lived abroad, and one or two of them had, for short periods, but the others hadn't, so there was no pattern there, either.
Had he just picked names out of an online phone directory?
Or perhaps out of a hat?
Regular updates from Lestrade were regular updates about nothing, and Sherlock tried in vain not to think about the fact that the three cases previous to the London cases had gone cold.
Shortly after lunch – which Mrs. Hudson ensured he ate and Sherlock was certain John was paying a bit more on their rent for this service – Sherlock got out his violin and tried to play, but it didn't help.
With a growl, he replaced the instrument and felt the silence in the flat pressing in on him. He closed the violin case and clicked the latches back shut and thought of the cellist he'd seen at Angelo's the previous week. Had it only been just over a week ago? He glanced about the flat, at the mirror he hadn't let John move yet, at the scarves still spread out on the table, at the map of England pinned to the wall, more of his handwriting scrawled all over it.
He needed music yes, he thought, but not his own.
Sherlock fetched his coat, scarf and gloves, ensured he had his phone in case John got it in his head to check up on him and had some sort of problem with being unable to reach him, and his wallet, and left the flat.