A/N – Hello again! Thank you so much to those of you who reviewed… I replied to those I could. To the rest of you, replied at the bottom! Now… onward! :)
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From the time John moved in, Sherlock had observed him. Over the months, the detective had become acquainted with his habits around the house, the way he interacted with others (in public and in private), his wry sense of humor, the experiments that were most likely to rankle the doctor, the way he took his tea (different in the morning than in the afternoon), the way his eyes crinkled when he sneezed and the way it differed from the crease of his eyes when he laughed.
No detail regarding his flatmate escaped his notice or interest, it seemed to Sherlock. That fact alone was almost as interesting as the doctor himself. He found himself daily awed by the equal ease with which his friend's hands could bandage Sherlock's wounds, console a victim's kitten, or incapacitate an attacker. He found himself spending hours trying to determine just what color his eyes were exactly (he still didn't know). And where the doctor smiled at him when everyone else frowned, he found himself wondering why before they dashed off together in another mad chase through the streets of London
However, after the initial confused inner struggle, Sherlock wasn't ashamed to admit (in the privacy of his own mind) that John and his quirks brought him a sense of pleasure he wasn't at all used to feeling in regards to another human being. Watching John had quickly become one of his favorite pastimes.
In fact, there were few things involving John that didn't bring Sherlock at least some degree of pleasure—even if it was only one of his stupidly inane comments about their needing milk again and wouldn't it be nice if Sherlock bloody well went and got it for once? But of course, they both knew he wouldn't (except that one time when he'd burned a hole in John's favorite jumper with an experiment-an aberration). John's long-suffering sigh in response to this knowledge would crinkle his eyes in an entirely different from either sneezing or smiling—and it was fascinating. The thought of it tugged at the corner of Sherlock's mouth.
But some things about John he watched completely without the usual concomitant pleasure. John's conversations with his sister, for instance, Sherlock observed with what he recognized distinctly as unease.
Dread and recognition on John's face, a hesitant crease to his brow as he silently listened, pacing and rubbing his neck uncertainly, his expression reading a distinct "I'm trapped," the voice on the other end of the phone increasingly loud and desperate: Stage 1, Harry apologetic and pleading after their latest fight. Sherlock's unvoiced analysis: not to be trusted. John always let her back into his life anyway. Even if only minimally.
Cautious optimism on John's face, head tilted receptively, standing in one place and nodding until finally easing down into a seat, hand occasionally coming up to rest on his chin, intermittent flittering of a pleased half-smile as he spoke and listened in turn: Stage 2, Harry sober. A rarity.
John, face disappointed but resigned, seated one minute, standing the next, pacing, then sitting, heavy sighs and attempts to interject his own voice into a loud, one-sided conversation on the other end of the line: Stage 3, Harry ebullient and no doubt beaming sloppily as she started drinking after one of her "breaks" in the habit—again.
John seated, head hung low, eyes closed, not even attempting to add anything to the hysterical conversation on the other end of the line, just occasionally shaking his head and rubbing a hand over his forehead: Stage 4, Harry drunk, angry, despondent, crying, blaming, vicious. Near the end of the conversation, John would rally enough to defend himself and try to set her right and they'd fight.
The next day (Stage 5), Harry would call, John would ignore it. She'd try again. And again. Then, Sherlock would watch the look of strained anguish on her brother's face as he finally picked up and realized that she once again had no memory of the conversation from the night before that had put him through hell. John would bite out a response, they'd fight again, and that would be the end of it for some days or even, several times, weeks. Then Harry would call to apologize and some variation of the cycle would begin all over again.
It was exhausting. And a little piece of his friend died every time it cycled through. Sherlock could see it.
This time was no different. From the lack of pacing and the late hour of the call last night, he concluded that Harry had moved on from the Stage 3 of the other night and into Stage 4. Sober she'd lasted… he thought back. Had she been sober at all this time? This seemed to be one of the rounds where she'd skipped Stage 2 altogether, making it the shortest cycle Sherlock had noted to date.
Then again, the turnover time between cycles had been becoming increasingly rapid. Where it had once taken well over a month to complete the cycle, that time had gradually shortened to roughly a week—and that was with John ignoring half her calls. If his recent cold was anything to go by, the stress of it was starting to wear on John. Although his endurance for pain when it came to his sister was idiotically impressive, Sherlock knew that even John had a breaking point, and he suspected he'd reach it soon.
Sherlock's only conclusion on the matter was that the best thing for John to do—by far the most logical and beneficial for him, anyway—would be for him to cut ties with his sister altogether. The man never would though. Apart from lacking slightly in the logic department, John didn't seem the type to approve of treating siblings as disposable. Sherlock thought of his own umbrella-ridden sibling and smirked.
Pity.
At quarter to ten in the morning, John finally plodded down the stairs, a fist in one eye as he yawned. When the hand dropped, Sherlock took in the drawn features, the dark circles under the eyes, and silently cursed his friend's sister. Why couldn't she have just let her brother sleep? Sherlock knew he'd almost soothed the man enough to get him back to sleep after his nightmare. And John would have done, if it hadn't been for… her. Sherlock cleared his throat and swallowed the urge to scowl.
"Morning," John croaked with a sigh.
Throat still raspy then. The cough was finally going away for the most part, but it still made an appearance occasionally. And of course the doctor still looked like hell. He supposed it was no surprise—that clinic John called his workplace was crawling with sickness—he was bound to catch something eventually—but still.
Sherlock felt the corner of his mouth quirk minutely in irritation. The older man was clearly exhausted. It was indecent. Hadn't Harry been able to tell from John's voice on the phone that he was ill? The signs were no doubt glaringly obvious, even to a drunk as idiotic as John's sister apparently was. From his perch on the couch, Sherlock peered at John over the top of his laptop before returning his attention to the screen. "Morning," he replied evenly.
John flopped into his chair and closed his eyes with another sigh. (Sighing for days after a phone call from Harry: typical of Stages 3 and 4.) He opened them again a moment later and focused on Sherlock. "So. Anything on?"
"No," Sherlock replied in a tone that he knew bordered on overtly petulant. He stared at his website for a moment, disgustingly bare of any new posts, before tossing the laptop to the bottom of the couch and scrunching his knees up to his chin. He curled his toes into the leather and pouted unabashedly. Bored. The only good thing about this particular gap between cases was that it was allowing John time to recover from his illness. In the meantime, however, there was no case, no sign of Moriarty, Sherlock was still in his pajamas because there was no bloody reason to leave the flat, and John was going to be falsely pretending he wasn't mopey and depressed all day.
It was going to be an awful day.
The two lapsed into silence and John adopted that vaguely somnambulant look he got when he was thinking before rubbing his forehead and sighing—again. Sherlock groaned under his breath and drooped despairingly into the couch. He hated it when John was depressed. And every one of those subconscious little sighs was a dagger in his heart.
Damn this caring lark. He admitted to a certain level of caring for John, but why did his pain have to hurt Sherlock too? It made no sense. Sense, it seemed, had little to do with it, however. He wondered idly if his apparent sympathetic response to John's pain was unique to emotional stimuli. There was certainly plenty of it this morning.
For the most part, John limited his interactions with his sister to phone calls, the occasional text, and Harry's comments on John's blog. Although it was obvious John cared deeply for his sister, half of all attempts at communication were ignored by John, and they only rarely met in person. He suspected it hadn't always been that way, that there had been a time when John had answered every phone call, before he'd gone to Afghanistan, but no more. Most likely it was because it would be too painful for John, and he was keeping her at a distance from years that had taught him not to trust her, Sherlock thought.
Whatever the reason, Sherlock found he was grateful for John's limited contact with his sister. If she managed to upset John with just the occasional phone conversation, he couldn't imagine what it would do to the doctor to meet with her in person with any sort of frequency. As it was, Sherlock had met Harry exactly once. It had been enough to read all he could from her—and his analysis had not been overly favorable.
It had been a week after the Pool, and Sherlock had just brought John home after the doctor had finally been discharged from the hospital. By the time they'd stumbled, exhausted, back into their flat, it had been well into the afternoon and they'd collapsed into their respective chairs with what could only be described as relief. Sherlock had folded his legs, cross-legged, up onto his chair and just watched him surreptitiously.
John was home. Finally.
A week. Sherlock himself had been discharged after only a few days, his injuries having been less severe. Since then, he'd been out of his mind worrying about the other man—not that he'd let John know that, not purposefully, at least. John was uncomfortable being fussed over. So he'd watched John in a painful combination of pleasure, guilt, and uneasiness. The ex-soldier had been… quiet since waking up after the explosion, and it had disturbed Sherlock. Still, he hadn't been able to put into words how very grateful he'd been that John was alive at all, quiet or not.
It had been a near thing. Too near. Sherlock could still remember the way the blood had glistened on John's too still face in the fire from the explosion, his face still wet from their dive into the pool to escape the blast—John had saved both their lives with that stunt. The brief moment when Sherlock had woken in the hospital, unable to remember what had happened and been afraid that John had… Well, now that he had him back, Sherlock hadn't been about to let John out of his sight for longer than he needed to. The man clearly needed watching.
Besides, the flat had simply seemed wrong without him. He'd hated it more than he cared to admit, and as a result he'd spent a great deal of time finding reasons to visit John at the hospital for hours on end, despite John's insistence that Sherlock needed to rest as well. He'd hardly left the doctor's side. There was no chance of the flat feeling like—that—again now, though. John was back. Things could finally get back to normal.
Well, normal for them, anyway. The only normal that mattered. Their normal.
His mind had still been buzzing happily around that fact as they'd sat there on the couch in companionable silence after eating later that evening. The remnants of their Indian take-away dinner had sat on the table and the telly had been on, volume low, more like background noise than anything else. John had just leaned back and smiled softly, clearly dozy. He'd looked content, more peaceful than Sherlock had seen him in days. Sherlock wouldn't have disturbed him for the world.
So when they'd heard a knock, Sherlock had leapt up and thrown a quick "I'll get it!" over his shoulder before John could move. As he'd flown out the door, he'd heard John make a weak noise of protest before sinking wearily back down into the couch. The detective had smirked. A few bounds had him down the stairs and at the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he'd seen a bleary-eyed Mrs. Hudson peep her head out through the door to 221A.
He'd yanked the front door open to reveal a petite woman with blunt features and dyed red hair stemming from mousy brown roots. Another case? He'd frowned at her for a moment, studying her carefully, before immediately dismissing the idea. She'd obviously been drunk—she'd reeked of it—leaning heavily on the doorway with red-rimmed, far away eyes. Although her hair wasn't the odd ashy blond of his flatmate, there had been something similar about her features. He'd looked again at the eyes and something in his gut had twisted uneasily. They were the same indistinguishable color as John's. Related then. Drunk and at his doorstep at only ten at night? Alcoholic.
"Who is it then, dear?" Mrs. Hudson had asked from behind him.
His voice had been edged in ice as he'd replied. "No one to worry about, Mrs. Hudson. Go back inside." His eyes had narrowed as he stared at their visitor.
John's sister. Harry.
That determined, he'd felt himself almost unconsciously block her from sight to the upstairs, suddenly feeling the inexplicable need to protect his friend from whatever this woman had to say. Outside of informing her that he was all right, John had been ignoring her calls since the Pool, too tired to deal with her and full of some emotion Sherlock couldn't place. However, unless he was very much mistaken, they'd been nearing the inevitable Stage 4 in the cycle, and it was always the part that hurt John the worst.
The doctor was in no shape for it tonight. Sherlock had taken a step outside and tugged the door shut a little behind him. "Yes?"
She'd blinked at him owlishly. "'Sss…Johnny'ere?"
Sherlock's nose had wrinkled at the foul smell of her breath, and he'd drawn himself up a little in disdain. For a moment he'd simply stared at her, weighing his options. "You're his sister, aren't you." It wasn't a question. It rarely ever was. "Harry, yes?"
Her eyes had squinted up at him. "You're the flatmate, aren't you," she'd mimicked. "Sherlock, yes? What kind of name is that anyway?"
With an offended sniff, Sherlock had crossed his arms. "John's resting."
The John-like eyes had narrowed further. "You mean he's still hurt, don't you? Bad this time? God, that idiot… I'm gonna kill 'im." He'd credited her with slightly above average intelligence for having deduced the severity of John's injuries—although as John's relative some intelligence wasn't really wholly unexpected—but he'd made no move to get out of her way when she'd tried to push past him. Especially given her idle threat toward John.
She'd huffed in annoyance and thrown him a glare that could have melted glass. "Doesn't give a damn what happens to me if he dies, does he? Never bloody has. Would have thought he'd have had enough of that in Afghanistan, when he got shot." Her glare had fixed on him in disdain. "And while I'm at it, where do you get off dragging my brother all over London after criminals? You're gonna get his bloody head shot off, is what you're gonna do, you bastard. You just leave him alone, huh?"
Sherlock had had to work hard to suppress a wince at that one. After what they'd just been through at the Pool, the words had hit a little too close for comfort. The memory of John in that Semtex vest had stopped his heart all over again. For a moment, a part of him had wondered if John wouldn't be better off without him, but the thought of it… of no longer having John around… No. Going on cases seemed to make John as happy as he'd ever seen the man, and he'd felt rather invested in the former soldier's happiness since curing his limp, if he were to be honest with himself. Besides, it was ultimately up to John what he did. Wasn't it?
He'd been just about to scathingly inform Miss Watson—perhaps a bit defensively—that her brother was perfectly capable of making his own decisions and that if he chose to spend his time accompanying Sherlock on cases then it was hardly any concern of hers. But just as he'd opened his mouth to speak, a very befuddled John had opened the half-closed door the rest of the way to take in the scene with obvious unease. The group had then moved into the hallway for what had quickly escalated into a full-scale row.
Which had then turned into a row between Sherlock and John once Harry had left—mostly on John's side, of course. Outside of reminding his blogger (rather louder than he intended, he'd admit) that he was supposed to be taking it easy, Sherlock had really had nothing to contribute to the conversation. His "interfering" in trying to keep Harry out had been the only sensible action, given the circumstances, and he'd already drawn his own conclusions on the matter:
He did not like Harriet Watson.
The fact that she'd agitated her brother into such a state when she'd clearly known he was hurt only confirmed it, whether she was aware of her drunken actions or not. She'd even gone so far as to push him—physically push John! Sherlock's blood was still boiling. The doctor had made her leave after that, perhaps seeing the look in Sherlock's eyes, but the detective's mind had been made up. Her expressions of care for John may have had good origins, but they were shallow at best and solely self-serving and selfishly motivated at worst.
In the end, he'd managed to drown out John's yelling at him with his violin, and the doctor had stopped his crutched limp-pacing to sink onto the couch in exhausted defeat. "I'm sorry. Just… I'm sorry," John had muttered, then struggled back up and gone to his room.
Sherlock had spent the next day sulking while John had kept largely to his room.
Now, she was preventing John from the rapid recovery he needed from his illness—and she wasn't even here. Even more damning for Harry, John almost seemed a bit worse today than the day before. As John got up to make them tea, Sherlock noticed the hint of a limp in his friend's gait and couldn't decide if it was leftover from the Pool or if his psychosomatic troubles were acting up. He didn't like it. The idea of either possibility gave him an odd feeling in his chest and stomach.
Sherlock studied the feeling as he watched John work. (The doctor barely even flinched at the severed foot in the fridge, he noted with pride.) The feeling had become much stronger since the Pool, its occurrence more frequent. Then again, he had to admit that it was alternately possible that the Pool had just been when he'd truly noticed it. He studied the furrow of John's brow, the weary eyes, and he tried to identify the feeling as it swelled minutely. Protectiveness? he hypothesized. Discomfort on another's behalf, perhaps? He felt a jolt. Was this what it was like to worry about someone?
It was dreadful.
That didn't stop him fretting though, somewhat to his bewilderment. Sherlock curled up on his side, facing John, and stared at his phone as he willed it to ring. In the kitchen, John leaned against the worktop and his shoulders sagged wearily. Sherlock's frown deepened. It had been a bad one last night then, most likely the nightmare in addition to his sister's call. Not to mention that being confined to the house by his cold was starting to make the doctor rather restless. The feeling swelled again.
At this point, John needed a case as much as Sherlock did—despite his illness. John always threw himself into cases with such abandon after interactions with Harry. He knew it was because John needed to feel useful, needed, productive in his seemingly never-ending quest to help others. He could do through the work what he was apparently helpless to do for his sister. Sherlock was all too happy to provide that for him. Whatever the reason, Sherlock enjoyed having him along.
However, neither of them were going anywhere at the moment, with no case. Why were the criminals in London being so consistently dull? He hardly dared to hope that the police force had become any more competent. So why was Lestrade idiotically depriving them of an interesting case to distract them? Did no one care that they were bored? He blinked at the little screen on his phone, glaring. Ring, damn you. Ring!
To his surprise, the screen lit up as the phone began buzzing in his hand. Ah, Lestrade! Excellent! With a grin and a flourish, Sherlock sat up and answered the call. "What do you have?"
The detective inspector's voice was weary, as always. "Possible double homicide. No sign of cause of death, but mother and daughter both found dead in the same room in their house. Poison seems likely though. Might not be up to your usual caliber, but I thought…"
Sherlock glanced at John's rather dejected form in the kitchen as the doctor turned around mid-stir to look at him. "Doesn't matter," Sherlock interrupted the detective inspector. "We'll take it. Expect us within the hour."
"Oh," Lestrade replied, startled. Clearly, he'd expected Sherlock to refuse. Sherlock smirked. "Right then… I'll text you the address. Uh, see you shortly." He disconnected the call.
John came barely-limping into the room with their tea as Sherlock put down the phone. "Was that Lestrade?"
"Oh, yes." Sherlock beamed. He leapt from the couch to grip his flatmate's shoulders in excitement, and John held, wide-eyed, to his sloshing tea in surprise. "John, go get ready. We have a case!"
Cups steadied and spill averted, John handed Sherlock his mug and smiled back. "Finally."
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A/N – So what did you think? Like Sherlock's pov? Anything need any work? (This is mostly a cathartic writing exercise for me, so constructive feedback is super welcome!)
Replies to reviews:
Anon – I'm glad you found it believable, outside of the "wavily" issue. If it makes you feel any better, it was an intentional word choice. I was going for the fact that, waking up drugged and with a concussion, John was probably a bit disoriented and wouldn't be seeing/feeling things normally. Hence, perceiving the sounds as bouncing "wavily." Maybe it didn't work how I intended. Oops!
Tammy – Hmm… Not quite what I had intended for the story, but I hope you like it anyway!
Quirkyspirit – No, thank you! Behold: More! Thank you for your kind review. :)
