The Insufferable Sherlock Holmes
John had thought he was bad last night, before the brandy, when he just sat in the living room and complained endlessly about his hands. He'd thought Sherlock was the most annoying man in all of England. But now, now he no longer thought he was the most annoying man in England: he knew he was. In fact, John was starting to think he was the most annoying man in all of Europe. Injured Sherlock didn't have anything on injured, cranky, tired, hungover Sherlock.
He sat at the kitchen table in nothing but his robe tied over his underwear rubbing his temples, carefully, with the fingertips of each hand muttering to himself when John came downstairs.
The first thing he noticed was how badly mangled the bandages on Sherlock's hands were this morning.
Then, he heard Sherlock mumbling. "Piss pot. Oh, my head," he slumped all the way forward, resting his forehead right on the table.
John carefully grabbed one of his hands. "What happened?"
"I burned myself, you idiot," Sherlock said, tugging his hand away.
John rolled his lips in and bit back the frustration. "No, I meant was, what happened to the dressing I put on your hands?"
Sherlock mumbled something inaudible into the table.
"Excuse me?" John asked.
"It got wet!" Sherlock yelled.
"Why?"
"I wanted a shower, but, it hurt." Sherlock sat back up and stared, no, sneered down at his hands with such contempt it actually frightened John for a second.
"So you redid the dressing yourself?"
"Obviously."
"Why didn't you ask me?"
"You were asleep," Sherlock said.
"Yes, but," John rubbed at the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
"John, my head's killing me," Sherlock interrupted him.
"That's 'cause you're hungover," John clarified.
"Thank you for that deduction, Dr. Watson."
John let the sarcasm roll off his back. Then he stomped across the kitchen, opened a cupboard, took out a glass, slammed the cupboard shut, filled the glass with water, slammed it down in front of Sherlock, left the room and returned with two aspirins, which he also smacked down onto the table in front of the detective. "Take these," he ordered. "Drink lots of water. Get rehydrated, you fool. I'll be right back," he said, leaving the room again to fetch his medic bag.
Once he was out of sight, he took several deep breaths to calm his frustrated nerves, found his bag and returned to the kitchen to see that Sherlock had actually listened to him, and now sat with his chin on the table, staring into the empty glass.
John pulled up a chair next to him. "May I?" he asked, taking Sherlock's left hand.
Sherlock didn't say anything, which he took as permission.
John carefully (tenderly) unwrapped the poorly done dressing from Sherlock's hand and then looked at his palm. Angry blisters, reddened flesh, spread across his entire palm (John still wasn't sure exactly what Sherlock had picked up to burn himself so badly). It was a nasty, second-degree burn in the middle of his perfect, white skin. John found himself overcome with the desire to lay a kiss in the middle of that palm when it was healed. He coughed, afraid for a moment that Sherlock might hear his thoughts, and began to gently (lovingly) apply a burn ointment to the injured palm.
Sherlock shifted his head on the table to look over at John, who was focused too intently on his work to notice the change in Sherlock.
John wrapped his hands up snugly, taking his time, being attentive to the wounds, and careful not to accidently cause Sherlock anymore pain.
The throbbing had reduced considerably in Sherlock's head by the time John finished, returning the detective's hands to him, which made it easier for him to think. He stared up at John, his head still on the table and John peered back, neither one speaking for a long moment.
"You know, John, you're quite," he began.
John didn't say anything, just waited for Sherlock to finish his sentence.
But Sherlock was no good at compassion or compliments (or even saying how he felt for that matter), so just like when John offered up his life for Sherlock's at the pool, all Sherlock could muster to say was, "Good." (Instead of being thankful for the doctor, laying his hand out on the line with his life, he'd simply called it 'good.')
He was quite... good? Good as a doctor? As a flat mate? As a friend? Good as what? Of course, after the incident at the pool, John knew this was Sherlock's way of attempting to express an emotion he either didn't know how to express or wouldn't express. Since John was not the type of man to pry so he just said, "Thanks," clapped Sherlock once on the back and got up.
"Where you going?" Sherlock asked as he began to leave the room.
John shrugged. "Out."
"Why won't you stay here?" Sherlock practically gasped. John knew it was a question, but it sounded more like a complaint.
"That's an odd way of asking me to stay in with you," John replied.
"I didn't ask you to stay in with me, I asked why you weren't staying here."
"Look, if you want me to stay here with you, all you have to do is ask."
The muscle beside Sherlock's nose twitched. He was silent.
John shook his head to himself and turned again.
"John, if you stay, I'll tell you about some of the cases I've solved in the past."
And... that was the closest John was going to get to Sherlock asking him to stay. Of course, he knew if he stayed, even if Sherlock did tell him about some of his cases (John wasn't sure he believed he would or not), he would probably be stuck making tea, fixing the detective something to eat later on (getting that man to eat anything, case or not, was near impossible), and, of course, repeatedly fixing up the dressing on his hands.
In spite of all this, John took off his jacket and sat across from Sherlock.