Abuse
Home at last from his shift at the practice, John drops into his favorite chair with a heaviness befitting a man as old as he feels just now. "Have you ever dealt with child abuse, Sherlock?"
Sherlock's eyes flit blankly from his test tube to John, then narrow at what they observe. John supposes he does look rather harrowed. "The clinic. What happened?"
"I saw a little girl today with a scald burn on her arm. You'll be so proud of me." Exhaustion twists the tone of his voice from wry to bitter. "Something about the splatter pattern didn't sit right, so I took another look. Sure enough, she had other marks. Nothing obvious, but I'm pretty certain her da's been at her." He rubs at his face, looks up through his fingers at his flatmate. "I have to file a report, but I already know they'll tell me it's inconclusive. There'll be a row over it with the administration because they won't want legal responsibility for filing on a dubious case of child abuse. God knows if I'll have a job next week." Not to mention little Margery, but he tries not to think about that because he wants to hit something badly enough as it is.
Sherlock is unreadable, occupying the kitchen doorway with a test tube in his hand and his face a sharp-eyed mask. John sighs into his hands. "This is what it's like to be you all the time, isn't it? To wonder what the hell is wrong with everybody because even if you lead them through it by the hand, they'll still refuse to see. Because it's easier to deny the truth than deal with it." He drives a heel into the floor with a thud that carries through the beams of the house. "God dammit!"
Sherlock's lips compress at the show of temper—irritation, but John doesn't think it's aimed at him. He's tolerated a lot worse from John than stomping, for one thing. Sherlock turns away to set the test tube down and turn the kettle on. "The world is full of idiots, John." Ceramic clinks as he reaches up to fetch down two mugs. "I find it's not worth my time to worry over whether they're going to hurt themselves on the sharp edges of their own stupidity." His eyes slide over in John's direction, a cold spark in their depths. "In this case, however…you never know what a closer study might turn up."
Whether Sherlock is outraged on the child's behalf or on John's, John hasn't the foggiest. Either way, he smiles gratefully when Sherlock hands him a cup of tea and then flings himself elegantly into his own arm chair—not spilling a drop from his own mug—to pick John's brains.
The fact that Sherlock can and on occasion does make a pitch-perfect cup of tea is a secret John can never be induced to tell.
