The case of the denied friendship, part two
John stared at his cup of tea wondering how on earth he was supposed to approach this. He had a self (mis)diagnosed sociopath sulking on the sofa, which was apparently his fault, two cups of tea in his hand and not even the faintest idea of what he was supposed to do about it.
What was the appropriate way to inform his flatmate that they were actually friends without the situation degrading to nursery school levels? What did he want? A sodding friendship bracelet? A request on facebook? A hug?
God. This certainly wasn't what he'd been expecting when he woke up this morning (well, not that morning really – he wasn't sure when he'd actually slept in the last few days, but it certainly hadn't been enough for him to be able to deal with this); being ignored a bit more, yes, criminals and crime syndicates and lots of taxi fares, but not the stark realisation that everyone had gotten Sherlock all wrong.
He had thought that on that first day, with all the running about and the laughing and the Chinese, but then he seemed to turn off the charm and let John turn into a resource rather than a person, when apparently Sherlock did, actually, think of him as a friend.
Probably his only friend.
And John had been the biggest arse ever and humiliated Sherlock in front of some mean tosser.
John took a sip of tea and remained in the kitchen.
As far as social etiquette went, he didn't think any guidelines could possibly help with this god awful situation he'd landed himself in. He didn't want to walk back into their sitting room and announce that Sherlock was his best friend ever just in case that he'd gotten it wrong and Sherlock really didn't care about what he thought, along with the fact that he'd imagined the embarrassment it would cause both of them might actually kill them. Sociopathic tendencies regardless, they were still both far too male and English for this to be a remotely comfortable situation.
(Likely, that was how the whole thing had come about anyway).
"Tea, Sherlock," John said, when he finally decided he'd spent far too long in the kitchen for it to be acceptable and that the longer he left re-entering the room the more awkward the situation was going to become.
"I thought I said I didn't want tea." Sherlock muttered into the sofa.
"No, actually, you said it didn't matter whether you were dead or not. Which, in my book, means you're being a melodramatic teenager and definitely need tea. Now budge up, would you? You're hogging the sofa."
"I'm –"
"- hogging the sofa, yes," John said, nudging Sherlock's back with his knee, "and you can hardly drink your tea if you're having a staring competition with the upholstery."
Sherlock, with his usual mad elegance, managed to sit up and glare at John in one movement. "I don't want tea."
"All right," John said,falling into the sofa next to him and flicking on the television, "no need to get upset about it." John hadn't got the slightest idea where he was going with this, but it seemed slightly better than standing in a different room worrying about it. "Your neck, Sherlock. What's poor Molly going to ogle now?"
"I highly doubt they're permanent." Sherlock said, his voice clipped again. John thought that was probably a slight improvement on sulky-and-angry Sherlock, but he wasn't quite sure.
John benignly considered creating a Sherlock catalogue of expressions and behaviours and patterns so he couldn't actually pin down who the hell his flatmate was, and what were the signs he needed to watch out for that meant he needed to be told he was brilliant or had just been strangled. He had a feeling that it would be a life's work , though, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to dedicate his whole life to man who left him locked outside and crashed his dates.
Then again, the fact that he was even considering it was probably a bit weird.
"Hmmm," John commented, "well, at last you've got a Doctor on hand now."
"Do I?" Sherlock questioned; all his limbs and muscle still a little too tense, expression still fixed into something that made John want to give him a hug (if he wasn't Sherlock, who tended to rip people to pieces if they actually brushed past him on the tube).
"Yes," John took a cup of tea for strength, "so we should probably talk about what went wrong with this case," Sherlock looked somewhat dubious. "Seriously, Sherlock, I want to help you with your cases –as long as you want me too, obviously – and I want to continue living here, but we weren't... we haven't been very nice to each other these past couple of days."
"Nice?"
"And, for what I can see, it seems like a massive failure in communication."
"Please refrain from treating me as though – "
"- if you're going to say child," John interjected, "don't. You're the one sulking on the sofa." Sherlock's lips thinned slightly. "So, at the beginning I was irritated because I had to get the shopping on my own –"
"- and took exception to a self check out."
"They'll be an unexpected item in your bagging area if you don't let that go," John muttered, "but, yes, and then I came back and tried to ask you for money, which you ignored. Now, I see that's because you'd just got an email from that tosser-Sebastian and we're trying to decide whether or not to take his case. I get that, Sherlock, but at the time I thought you were just... disregarding me because I didn't matter, okay?" Sherlock was silent, but at least he wasn't being told to shut up – it was the little things, really. "So, we turn up at the bank, you're still not telling me anything, you didn't give me the heads up about Sebastian being a prick, so then...then, being the git I am, I... well, I didn't mean to be an idiot, Sherlock."
The lines of Sherlock's shoulders tightened slightly.
"So then, in reaction to me humiliating you, you keep me locked out of Van Coon's apartment, so then I sided a bit with Dimmock, and then you keep me out with Soo Lin... then you crash my date. So, we just keep irritating each other and pissing each other off, when it was all so unnecessary. I'm not saying you needed to give me an emotional breakdown of events... but if you'd just mentioned a little of what was going on – just eluded to it – then we could have... not worn each other out by punishing each other. Okay?"
"Hungry?" Sherlock questioned, eyes fixed back on John for a split second.
"Definitely," John said, "but no Chinese, thanks."
Sherlock almost smiled, some of the lines of tension melting away from his shoulders for a second.
0o0
Later, John pieced together a new blog post. The whole business involved trying to get a picture of Sherlock, which was a pain in the arse in itself, but he eventually managed it. Then he attached a picture of himself and of Sherlock, labelling one 'this is me' and 'this is my friend, Sherlock' for the sake of never being mistaken for that mad tosser again.
Next time John read the blog post, the 'friend' bit had mysterious disappeared.
Message received, anyway.