A Change of Season
John didn't know much about gardening - John didn't know anything about gardening, really - but he was fairly certain severed fingers weren't meant to be a big part of it.
"They all look to be from the same set of hands," he said. "That is, they all belonged to the same person, likely female, probably Caucasian." Glancing first at Anderson and then at Lestrade for permission, he plucked one from the wet soil and studied the raw end.
"Very clean cut, so a very sharp instrument, inflicted post-mortem, by the look of it. Not much blood in the soil, so this wasn't done here, but we already knew that." He stood, squinting at the finger in his gloved palm. Translucent worms, as fine and thin as strands of hair, wriggled in and out of the dried and dirty wound.
John wrinkled his nose as he dropped the finger into a specimen jar. Intellectually, at least, he didn't mind death and dismemberment. But he didn't care for the carrion-eaters, the flies and maggots and beetles, that came crawling and writhing and squirming in their wake.
There was some possibility that made him weird. So be it.
"I don't understand," Mrs. Parks, the thoroughly-rattled homeowner, told no one in particular. She had woken that morning to find her newly-planted marigolds scattered about her small, otherwise tidy garden. She'd assumed, she told them when first questioned, that the neighbour's Jack Russell had been the culprit. On closer inspection, however, she'd discovered the flowers had been replaced by a row of ten poorly-manicured and partially-rotten digits pointing skyward. Even without the help of Scotland Yard's best and brightest, she had concluded that Toby probably wasn't responsible, after all.
"Why would someone do this to me? I don't - I mean - I haven't." Defeated by her own inability to articulate what she didn't and hadn't, she simply gave up trying.
"Sherlock?" Lestrade asked. "Got anything?"
Sherlock stood motionless, silently staring at the neat row of nine digits planted in the damp patch of earth. The rest - John, Lestrade, the Yarders, even Mrs. Parks - stood motionless, silently staring at Sherlock, all of them waiting for him to work his magic, to pull that elusive rabbit from his hat.
"Nothing," Sherlock finally said, his voice as dry as talc. He stalked off toward the road before anyone could object. Or stop him. Or sneer.
Lestrade shot John a questioning look. John stripped off his gloves, tossed them in the hazardous waste bag, and tried to formulate an acceptable explanation or excuse or even muster an apology. He found that all he could do in the end was shake his head no: no, he didn't know what was wrong, no, he didn't know how to fix it, no, he didn't want to discuss it, and no, just - just no.
Five weeks of this, John thought as he hurried to catch up. Five weeks of Sherlock utterly failing to be smug or arrogant or haughty or cruel; five weeks without impromptu violin recitals or mad expeditions through sewers or even the smallest household explosion; five full weeks without interminable lectures on why John's taste in everything from reading material to clothing to toothpaste was sub-par.
Five weeks, essentially, of Sherlock not being Sherlock.
"This happens," Mycroft had explained to John a few days earlier. "Sherlock's mind works, as I am sure you are aware, at formidable pace, one that obviously can't continue indefinitely. His hard-drive, as he calls it, occasionally needs time to - what's that phrase? 'Defrag?' I assure you, John, there's no cause for concern on your part." But as always, John found Mycroft's assurances less than reassuring.
There was something fundamentally wrong with him, John concluded. He had the flatmate he'd thought he wanted, now. And he hated it. He absolutely hated it.
They stood on the kerb, waiting for their cab. The wind picked up suddenly, showering them in cherry blossoms. John brushed the delicate white petals from shoulders, watched them fall, ruined, to the ground, and hoped the worst would soon be over.