BLUE IN GREEN

In which Sherlock is very rude to a perfectly nice woman and does not realize that he has an emotion, namely jealousy.

The doorbell rang at 6 p.m., and Sherlock heard Mrs Hudson fuss all the way down the stairs. He then heard cheery, if a bit forced, voices coming to a halt outside the door to the flat. There was a knock. Then Mrs Hudson exclaimed that she was going to get the spare keys to let her in. Sherlock did not move a centimetre from the lab equipment and did not look up as he heard the woman Mary enter the flat.

"Ah. Maya," he said with a tomblike voice. "John's not here." He could hear her fidgeting nervously in the hallway.

"It's Mary. And I know that he isn't here yet. He phoned me. Hello." Cautiously she came into the kitchen, and then sat down at the opposite side of the table. She still wore her tweed coat and red leather gloves, and clenched her purse close to her as a sort of shield. Sherlock could practically smell her almost nonexisting self-esteem.

"What are you doing?" she asked and tried her best to be as polite and British as possible. A certain amount of schoolteacher, determined to be accepting of all of even the weirdest children, shone through.

"I'm titrating human blood."

"Oh. Is it…?" She sounded faint, and Sherlock snorted at her in disdain.

"Yes, it is my own blood," he said. It was a standard follow up question he had found out through experience. People tended to be so uneasy around blood. Even at the morgue, which he found a bit silly. "It's a part of an ongoing experiment to produce an indicator that can detect even the smallest amounts of blood. Could prove useful in the field."

"So. Dinner at your place," he continued after a moment of awkward silence, still with a droning tone.

"Yes. John's going to cook for me. He's talked a lot about his special risotto Milanese, and I'm really looking forward to it." John cooking. Fancy that. If he was making his risotto, Sherlock had to move quickly. He decided to use a classic dirty tactic, that worked for jealous children of parents that brought home their new dates all over the globe.

"You know, I have wondered why he has waited so long to introduce us properly. Normally he would have gotten around to it much sooner." It was a lie, of course he knew why. The more John cared for a woman, the longer he waited to bring her back to Baker Street. But the line worked on Mary, as it had done on almost all of her predecessors. He let it sit in the woman's mind for a moment before he continued, to let it fester.

"In fact, I was very surprised when John decided to go out with you. He usually goes for younger women. They tend to be more…petite. Most of them have had actual careers, and all of them seems have had an interest in stylish clothes. He would never admit that such things are important to him, but just to let you know: they are. But, well, I suppose everyone needs to experiment now and then. Just to get it out of his system, if nothing else." He stopped for a breath, and snuck a quick peek at her face. She looked pale, tried to desperately hide her emotional discomfort and failed.

"You don't seem to like me that much," she said weakly, and the hurt was obvious in her voice. Good. If she was of the kind that acceptance and general friendliness were important to, this would not be as hard as he had anticipated. He continued with his dirty eightyearold tactic.

"Well," he began. "It's nothing personal, I don't really get attached to Johns girlfriends. They tend not to stay around for so long. Normally this is the point were I would warn you not to get too involved with him, but since you seem so happy that he's going to cook for you tonight…" He let it drift on purpose. Nothing worked as well as letting people fill in the blanks themselves. For some reason they always conjured up the worst possible scenarios in their minds. It was handy in some situations, and it always worked.

"I think I'd better go," Mary said as she rose hurriedly, and the chair she had been sitting on almost fell over. In the corner of his eye Sherlock saw that she wasn't far from crying. This was the fastest he had ever broken one of the girlfriends John brought home. Usually the women would get angry at this point, and tell him to stick it up you-know-where, and possibly slap him. This Mary really appeared to be the loyal and loving woman John had made her out to be. Maybe he had assessed the situation wrongly, and gone a bit too far with her. But, then again: mission accomplished. Sherlock knew she would not come back. When the door closed one last time behind her, he felt a pang of something, deep down in his stomach, but he dismissed it at emotional nonsense.

Sixteen minutes later John entered the flat, and from his laboured breathing and slightly red face Sherlock deduced that he must have jogged all the way from the tube. He was wearing his nice shirt, the blue one that Sherlock had given him as a Christmas present in self-defence. The man had no taste when it came to picking out clothes for himself, but at least he had the decency to recognize and appreciate a good fit when he saw it. The dark silky material fit snugly to his frame, and the top two buttons were undone. Sherlock knew that John thought it made him look more appealing. It did. Very much so.

"Where is Mary? She said she would be here," he said, slightly worried when he could not find her.

"She left," Sherlock answered, and tried his best not to let an ounce of guilt into his voice.

"What! When? Why?"

"Oh, she wouldn't wait for you, you missed her by just a few minutes. She seemed upset for some reason." John didn't say anything after that, but instantly stormed out of the apartment without getting his jacket.

(Pretty please, review?)