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John arrived home around five; an atmosphere of anger and uneasiness surrounded 221B like a dense, putrid mist. Rushing up the stairs to put an end to whatever was going on, he crashed into Mrs. Hudson, nearly knocking her over. He half caught her, seeing a distraught shine in her eyes, and she half caught herself on the banister, but still clutched him for support.
"John! Thank goodness you're finally home. Sherlock and Marlene are at it again." She told him, wringing her hands in worry.
"At what?" John asked quickly. Either they were arguing or something else entirely was going on. Mrs. Hudson's frown deepened, her hands holding a kleenex in a death grip and anxiously twisting it to and fro.
"Oh, bickering again." She sniffed, shifting her weight.
"What about?" He demanded, inhaling sharply, mind filling with different images: Sherlock throwing a punch here, Marlene kicking a shin there, Sherlock retrieving his pistol in anger, Marlene slapping him so hard that a red hand mark decorated the detective's face. "Has it come to blows?"
"Oh no! Just going on about what to have for dinner. I guess I should settle down a trifle. At least I don't have to make your food." John let his breath out in a gust of relief and then hurried into the flat.
"Christ! You and your laboratory. I can barely cook anything." Marlene whined, throwing a dishtowel on the linoleum in frustration. John sighed. She and Sherlock were so alike in some aspects; and at the moment they were both positively intolerable. The detective simmered on his grey leather chair, knees to chest, anger coming from him in a miasma, holding an unfamiliar leather-bound tome, glaring at the television, another Connie Prince memorial special.
"Well make something!" Sherlock spat. Marlene stared at the back of his head from the kitchenette, awestruck at his lack of gratitude, and at her own as well, seemingly parallel to his. Are you fucking kidding me?
"Would you both just shut up and stop?! You're driving me insane and I haven't even been home two damn minutes!" John roared, and the two suddenly put off their mutual distaste for each other and noticed his presence. Sherlock turned to, John momentarily, eyeing him as if he were no more than a bug on the wall; Marlene waved.
"Shut the door, John." He said, sounding like a reprimanding mother. "There's a draft." He pulled his dressing gown around himself more to ward off the chill seeping in, turned the volume up on the television. Marlene rolled here eyes, started banging pots and pans around in the kitchen, already making a mental list of his annoying little habits: he was headstrong, manipulative, rude, and divisive. Certainly much different from the gentleman she'd met only a few days prior, the one who asked for her phone number. Maybe it was just a personality clash: her remnants of the psych 101 class she'd taken in Uni diagnosed him as bipolar with slight OCD tendencies. John's interruption brought the two to an uneasy stalemate, but the air was already poisoned with noxious, unspoken insults. They'd shot a few low verbal blows at each other, and Marlene made a conscious effort to hold in everything she wanted to say, her feelings of wanting to completely destroy his detestable self-confidence, her urge to slap him so hard his nose bled, the onslaught of panic when he first came in and caught her red-handed with the photo album, which was really what this whole stupid thing was about anyway, really. As much as the doctor's presence was slightly irritating-only in the sense that I can't properly defend myself, Marlene thought-he acted nicely as a buffer between the two; the two of them were terrified of letting him down.
Those god-awful changes of mood he has, Marlene thought, a frown etched onto her mouth, going over and checking the refrigerator for any type of food. So it would be chicken, then. That was the farthest away from the array of human appendages and miscellaneous body parts he had lying around on the plastic shelves.
Dutiful feet plodded into the kitchen, feet that sounded as if they had just gotten a lecture, feet that sounded as if they were walking just to humour someone. Marlene peered over from her place at the cutting board distrustfully; it wasn't John, the stride was too far-spaced, and although it was heavy, there was nothing military about it. The man in the blue dressing gown looked at her in utter repulsion. Despite her growing unhappiness with the living arrangement, she found herself blinking back tears, biting her lip, trying not to get upset. If he had noticed, he didn't say anything. She tried to shake it off, to let his obvious hatred of her roll off of her shoulders, but couldn't. It was much easier said than done.
The goddamn package of chicken.
It was bending this way and that under the sharp point of the knife, unyielding, finicky. Her struggle won a disgusted sigh.
"Do you need...help?" Sherlock asked, as if talking to her was a particularly nasty chore. Like he's changing a litter box. Marlene added in her mind, only causing a lump the size of an apple to form in her throat. Why did she always do that to herself? She blinked before looking at him, cleared her throat, carefully guarding her countenance, and shook her head.
"No." She responded, in a sharp stop-being-idiotic tone, but somehow it sounded more jagged and strained than she wanted it to. Perfect. Even making a fucking chicken breast was now a breeding ground for emotional wretchedness. She struggled with the package more; before she knew it, a metallic glint hit her eye and soon blood was running down her thumb.
"Fuck." She said, somewhere in between a mutter and a frustrated hiss, throwing the knife angrily into the sink, slamming her uninjured hand on the counter. A sudden craving for some sort of drug hit her, some sort of sleep medication, something where she could tune everything out. Pop a fucking Sominex, that should solve your problems.
"Marlene," Shelock said, very matter-of-factly, so much so that she felt like strangling him. "It is not in the least sanitary to cook with an open wound." He only saw her grey eyes flick up to him momentarily as she turned on the faucet, running cool water over her thumb. He abruptly walked out of the kitchen, demeanor changed; he was no longer bored, he was on a mission. Walking throughout the flat with some sort of purpose. Either real or imagined; most likely the latter. Marlene's mouth straightened into a tight, humourless line. She clenched her bleeding thumb in a paper towel and stood, leaning on the edge of the sink, waiting for the bleeding to peter out. She'd nicked herself pretty good, not a deep cut but one that went form the top corner near her nail to where her thumb met her hand. And of course it would happen in front of Sherlock. She always fucked everything up in front of him. Even with all the contempt and disgust he treated her with, she craved his approval so badly it sickened her; she strived to gain some sort of pleased reaction. He rarely praised her when they worked in the "laboratory," it seemed more like he wanted a lab assistant that wouldn't talk much and was a bit miffed that he had to re-teach her chemistry-a subject she'd never been too fond of anyway, she always strayed more toward English and art.
He surprisingly returned only a few moments later with an antibacterial medicine and bandages. Sherlock placed them on the counter, grabbed her hand, peeled off the paper towel.
"Not deep." He murmured, feeling a rare strike of remorse. His flat was now cleaner than it had been in months, and he got home and yelled at her. She tried so hard, a woman with absolutely no chemistry experience, to help him in the lab, mixing molar solutions (the first one had been a disaster), correctly setting up apparatus. And what do you do? The little John Watson in his mind questioned him. You scream and yell and throw a tantrum. Marlene refused to look at him, which he found mildly disturbing, but occasionally took small, suspicious glances, keeping tabs on how he moved, where he moved. She detected nothing at all but pure scientific interest, that same look in his eye as when he'd helped her out with the shooting-
How many steps backward this has taken. She thought bitterly. From perhaps interested to utter repulsion. A force dragged her heart downward and made her stomach drop to her feet, again almost bringing tears to her eyes. There was a Marlene that was there in the kitchen of 221B with Sherlock, him attempting to tend to her hand, and then there was another that had retreated into her own mind, taking refuge, remaining detached. And all because you can't just fucking keep to yourself; no, you had to look. The two Marlenes became one again and she blinked a few times, ensuring that her eyes would successfully swallow tears, wondering why she took such offense to his aversion to her, wondering why she was putting up this antagonistic front.
Out in the living room, John had his eyes perched over the newspaper, watching with fascination and a latent notion of jealousy.
It had been nearly a minute, the bandage had been stuck carefully on, but Sherlock's hand traveled lower, pressing her wrist gently. Marlene finally stared up at him, brow convoluted in shock and question. 75 beats per minute. Average. Sherlock looked at her again, feeling something like disappointment; it was at an escalated rate. Like he was almost sure it would be. She tore her hand out of his grip, turning so hard she spun on her heels. Shock and hurt made themselves evident on her face; as to why they were there he was puzzled for once.
"Stop it." She said indignantly, going back to the package of chicken, successfully cutting it open, going about the motions of making dinner.
"Stop what?" He countered, folding his arms over his chest, leaning back on the ledge of the sink. She gave him a poisonous sideward glare, then turned her back to him, cutting the chicken viciously into strips.
"You know what." She muttered darkly. He remained silent as she continued to hack into the poultry. "Taking my pulse." He pulled the dressing gown around him more, looking to see if John had in fact shut the door. A sudden chill had come over the room.
"Good observation; however, you need more work with technique, subtlety, and deduction." He responded. Marlene was dumbfounded. Finally, some praise. "You're a bright girl. You aren't entirely stupid-"
"I know." She cut him off coldly. The time was too late for praise; he should've said something earlier, in her opinion. She'd take it though, he didn't seem at all the type to dish out compliments. As of now, she was not enjoying the company of His Pretentiousness. Outside of the kitchen, a newspaper page flipped, Marlene shuddered, feeling a chill go down her spine. "What are you getting at?" She finally asked. Being direct would be the best course of action, she decided, it wasn't worth any more pre-conceived notion induced panic attacks. She turned around once more, looking into his eyes, folding her arms over her chest and matching his stance. Hoping to look more intimidating than she felt, she corrected her posture minutely. There. He was a tall man, but she was a tall woman. The eyebrows framing the eyes over the newspaper raised. Sherlock blinked, once, twice, then spoke.
"You have such potential."
Her eyes darted up to him in disbelief; she'd been looking at her stocking feet.
"So?" She asked, hating herself for acting so juvenile, hating Sherlock for bringing it up in front of someone and acting so peculiarly, hating John for not going somewhere else, hating the situation. "You quite obviously get a bad taste in your mouth if you think anyone could be as clever as you are." She said casually, as if reciting a fact. Again, a blank yet insulted expression from him.
"Let me mentor you. Before I change my mind."
"I don't need a mentor-"
He hardened his jaw, jutted his chin out at her and growled:
"Don't be an idiot. My opinion of you varies from day to day and this is too rare an opportunity to waste."
"You certainly think highly of yourself." She responded haughtily. John whistled from the living room, Sherlock glared at him, and Marlene was grateful for the diversion. Talking to him for that long was like being placed under a microscope. She turned back to the food, trying her damnedest to prepare dinner without interruption.
"Before I change my mind." He thundered through clenched teeth. "You have exactly thirty seconds."
"Fine."
Thanks for all the response! Leave a review please, but be kind about grammar/spelling. I typed this up on a kindle. Ugh.