Hey, guyssss3 :} How's your Week From Hell going? Hopefully it's all full of carols and candy-canes and snowmen and you've already done your shopping and wrapping and cram-it-in-before-the-holidays-test-studying unlike a certain dorky fifteen-year-old who wastes all her time writing fanfiction... Oh well! ^^ Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Joyful Kwanza, Cheery Festivas, Blissful Holidays, and all that jazzzz... Have a lovely break, dawlfaces, and thanks a billion for the reviews.
"Sherlock..." His lips were parted, teeth exposed, cheek muscles slack beneath up-turned eyes. It was an ugly expression, a grotesque one, a sagging-lined caricature of disbelieving concern that churned my stomach with the longing to melt into a black-and-blue puddle of misery and hatred and self-rebuking horror, never to rise again. I couldn't stand this. I couldn't stand feeling those eyes staring straight through mine into the depths of a shattered mind, watching the shudders wrench their way free of my tightened muscles, the chest rise and fall for the heavy air, the left fingers curl and uncurl and curl and uncurl and...
My thoughts were going to rip each other into paper-scrap pieces if I sat here any longer.
Casually enthusiastic, I leapt to my stocking-covered feet, my hand instinctively catching the wing of the armchair my vision spun, the blanket falling around my ankles in a rip-off-the-band-aid heap.
"Lestrade," I replied coolly, turning my back to him and striding over the mantel on legs that were quite a bit more wobbly than they ought to have been, the warmth of a newly-made fire stroking my bare knees.
"You... You just can't... I don't... I... Sherlock..."
I hated that he was so shaken. What kind of a convoluted person was I to allow this to...
"Lestrade." A smirk twisted my lips.
"Stop that," he growled, his trembling voice committing treason to all sternness. The burning in my lower back curled my shoulders inward. I steepled my fingers. Smooth face. Tranquility.
"You need to quit."
"I may put the notion up for consideration if you would spare me the lecture. Possibly."
"I'll arrest you if that's what it takes."
"No, you won't."
"Do you think you're above the law, Sherlock? Because you're really not, you know."
"Do you think you could do anything without me, Lestrade? Because you really couldn't, you kn..."
"Don't take that tone with me, you... you ingrate!"
I spun around, fury boiling in my stomach, eyes flashing with cold vehemence, and strode toward Lestrade, advancing until I was mere centimeters away. He glared up at me, his face flushed with anger, teeth almost bared in primitive ferocity.
My lips barely parted as I spoke, my fists clenched. "Stop pretending to be my father, Lestrade."
His cheeks neared a dangerous shade of plum as the room went silent, his eyes darting spasmodically across my face, reading the swollen eyes, the chattering jaw, the twitching veins...
I'm undone, I'm so undone... There's no dignity left in this now... I'm dying; I'm going to die. I'm going to die.
...Please help me.
And then, he threw up his hands. And stepped back. And shook his head.
"You know what, Sherlock?" Lestrade muttered as he turned around, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his once-neatly-pressed pants, "You're right. Do whatever you want."
The door of the parlor squeaked as he opened it. I flinched.
"I'll tell John to come by and collect his stuff as soon as possible. Don't expect to see me again."