[Closed] 'cause I can see your house from here now all the leaves have fallen, dear

[could_be_dangerous]

Who: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
What: A guy named Adam tells me this shit is bad, bad news.
When: Forward-dated to day 322. Crazy early but neither life nor scheduling are kind.
Where: A... place. Baldr District house 102 and thereabouts.
Rating: PG-13? CW: mentions of suicide

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't terribly surprising. Sherlock hates that it isn't. The sudden and mostly inexplicable appearance of foliage, of a bloody tree just past the foot of his bed ought to be cause for alarm, or at least mild bemusement. Ought to, but somehow it isn't, and as Sherlock stares at it, propped up on his elbows in bed, he's decided it has ruined his mood utterly.

Falling back and turning onto his side violently, blankets pulled up over his head, does no good -- he can't ignore it. Spite is only sufficient to keep him there for another quarter hour before he slips out of bed, eyeing the thing warily as he approaches it to read the inscription on the trunk, fingers tracing the letters. Ridiculous. Passing flattering if that's meant to say anything about him, but still ridiculous. Doesn't get any less so as he turns and makes his sullen and noisy way out to the kitchen, either, his footsteps noisy, drumming out in code his foul temper. That John is up before him is passingly unusual but easily explained by his fit of pique, which kept him in his room longer than is his wont. That the fellow is passing cheerful on such an awful day, though, is less explicable.

"What'd you get, then," Sherlock asks as he plunks himself down in one of the chairs, glaring balefully around, "the Fruit of Insufferableness?"

He's too tired and irritable to think of anything cleverer than that, not that they aren't all insufferable (and there must be more; there are always more) or that it's John's fault, really. It's just that it's awful, really awful to live in a world in which the impossible is barely even notable anymore. Though he's certainly making it notable by letting it annoy him, which does cheer him somewhat. Small favours.

"Schadenfreude? Enlighten me; apparently I'm in need of a bit of knowledge in my diet."

Comments

[hadbadays]

Good thing that implication goes straight over John's head, then. He hasn't really fully understood the weight of the way Sherlock looks at him or talks about him when he does. Maybe it just seems so out there to imagine...

"That's not what I meant," he says, sighs because English isn't working here, is it? "I meant... You could have asked me, you know. Somehow... Maybe... Asked me if I don't wonder. Because I do. Of course I wonder about you, Sherlock. Every day I wonder about you. And I. I do ask, sometimes, I just don't sit down and. Interrogate you. It would make me sound like a therapist, wouldn't it? 'Tell me about your issues with your brother, Sherlock. Your father left you and Mycroft blames it on you? How does that make you feel?' "

He pauses, shakes his head with a wry laugh at himself, leaning his forehead against his fingers. "Probably not quite like that, but. Same basic idea."

Not even he knows exactly where he's going with this. Something like... personal hang-ups, he supposes.

[could_be_dangerous]

"You only sound like a therapist when you try to diagnose me," Sherlock responds flatly. "I know what they're like, I've had plenty."

Obviously he's had plenty. What parent, presented with a child like him, wouldn't immediately seek out a therapist? None of them were helpful, of course, and nearly all of them were completely wrong about him. Even the ones that weren't were mostly wrong, and Sherlock hadn't helped matters. Had learned, in fact, more from running circles around them than listening to them.

"It's not at all the same. I'm not paying you for it, am I?" There's work and there's interest, and they're not at all the same thing. Occasionally they overlap, and those are the therapists one stops seeing immediately but the acquaintances one keeps, depending upon the motivation behind the asking.

"Pointless to ask you, besides. It wouldn't work, it's not working now, and plenty of it's not... not good, besides." All that nonsense that'd come out in the papers, which Moriarty had leaked, none of that even begins to touch on the contents of Sherlock's head, for which he can only be glad.

"I did tell you: I know. It's easier." Even if it's far from perfect. "Just can't see where you get off on shouting at me as though you've any idea what it was like, that's all." Not to mention trying to smash his face in, but frankly he doesn't mind that nearly as much. That's a form of aggression and tension relief he can understand, and frankly if they were to start it all over again he thinks he'd fight back this time. Better than feeling all wound up inside with nowhere to go and nothing to do about it. But the shouting, the disapproval...

He'd done the best he could with what he was given. If the situation were posed to him abstractly, given distance from the players involved he's fairly certain John wouldn't disapprove in the slightest. It's how they tell it in stories, what everybody expects from a friend when things turn out the way they had: an altruistic sacrifice. This certainly wasn't the first, but it looks that way from the outside, which seems to be enough for most people. Most. It's hypocritical, is the point, this anger. What else would he have done? Given the choices laid out before him, what else was there to do? Being angry at him doesn't help anything, does it? Just makes him wonder what he should've done, where before he was fairly certain. It leaves him floundering more than he'd like to say. Another anchor cut away; Sherlock has always been adrift in this particular sea but he'd thought that at last, at last he'd done something good.

Never turns out that way, though. Not ever. He really ought to've expected it.

[hadbadays]

"I saw you tell me you're a fake and created Moriarty before you jumped off a roof. How else could I have reacted?"

As if there was any time to stop and think, any time to try to be rational, to tell himself that he didn't know the whole picture and how there might be more to it and... As if that even hit him at all.

"Would you have done it that differently? It's not like I got much context."

But he's not sure it would have helped much even if he did, since he apparently didn't know about the snipers and. Whatever.

[could_be_dangerous]

"I'd have wanted to know why." There's enough stubborn certainty in Sherlock's answer to prove that it's honest, and not simply stated to be contrary. "Nobody does anything without a reason."

The assumption of foundational evidence is dangerous; it would be out of character, he'd want to understand. If something had been missed, he'd want to know what it was, and if it hadn't, he'd be all the more suspicious. "I'd want to know what I'd got wrong."

Wouldn't anybody? These things aren't spur of the moment decisions, they're... there are always echoes. Sometimes one sees them in retrospect. Maybe sometimes one imagines them, too. "It's not my fault you had to believe, either."

Not really John's either. Moriarty's, more like, and neither of them have ever had any control over that. John wrote his blog, gave Moriarty the tools he needed to ruin the both of them. Sherlock was born; that seems to've been enough, as he can't imagine even being capable of having chosen to live any other way.

He sets his jaw, and lets his shoulders slump infinitesimally. "Forget it. Forget... all of it, I told you it doesn't matter. I'm not sorry, won't be, still worth it; you can't make me so you may as well stop trying. Don't know why you are in the first place. What would you have done differently? Same question applies."

[hadbadays]

Forget it, Sherlock keeps saying. As if that's something you just do, as if John actually cares to do that. He's not going to, and it's beginning to get on his nerves how Sherlock says to forget things and that it doesn't matter and. Whatever. Tries to deflect it all as unimportant when it isn't.

He frowns, shakes his head.

"I'm not... saying it's your fault, Sherlock. I get it. But I don't have to be happy about it just because of that. I can't be."

It's possible to understand and be unhappy at the same time, so he's going to be.

[could_be_dangerous]

"You don't honestly think that I am?" Sherlock says it with a familiar sort of incredulity, the type which is meant to express the opinion that John is being particularly thick, even for someone who makes a habit of missing the point. But it's halfway fond, even so, because that, at least, is halfway familiar. It shouldn't be acceptable, not when Sherlock hasn't yet managed to figure out whether John is underestimating him or overestimating him at times like this, but familiarity doesn't really breed contempt like people pretend. Not at times like these, anyhow.

The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitches, almost as though something in him wants to smile, and he weighs the likelihood of his getting punched again if he should opt to call John an idiot. He does wonder where it all went wrong, but at the moment he can't see the point of trying to put it to rights anymore. Maybe it's not possible.

"Would've told you if I were. Look; I'd not have done it if it weren't worth it anyhow, and I'm not inclined to let James Moriarty or my git of a brother ruin anything else." Or John, but Sherlock isn't thick enough to think that saying that wouldn't just invite further argument.

[hadbadays]

Oh, damn it.

Sherlock's lips twitch, and while John's annoyed at it, his own do too and he drops his chin almost all the way down to his chest, pressing his fingers to his brow. No, no, he doesn't want to smile, it's not the time for it. Not for laughter either, for that matter.

"We're not getting anywhere," he says, with an exhale in place of a chuckle, and drops his hand with a shake of his head. "We're going around in circles. Look-- I. I'm still cross. But... It's not like I want to die. So." A breath. "Thank you. Even if you're a right idiot."

But that's established already. They both are, or something like that.

[could_be_dangerous]

"We're only going in circles because you're not listening." Sherlock's tone is light, arch; he's being deliberately annoying and the both of them are likely to know it, given the entirely too innocent expression on his face. Not an easy trick to pull off with all the blood; if anything it just makes him look madder than usual.

"If you're quite done trying to make a mess of me, I'm going to wash up. Do let me know; should hate to take the trouble if you're only going to ruin it again." Which he's asking for, quite deliberately, as needling is more familiar and more comfortable than addressing anything outright, as they've just established.

It's certainly easier than acknowledging the thanks in any way, because Sherlock isn't entirely certain he deserves that either. It implies he's done something unexpected, something notable, instead of just something normal. He does suspect it is. Sometimes he suspects that anyone who wouldn't have done the same in his place is a right idiot, to boot.

[hadbadays]

John responds with a blank look to meet Sherlock's innocent one, but doesn't actually answer because deliberate annoyance deserves no answer. And no answer is needed, for that matter.

"Yeah," he says, waves a hand. "I'm done. Since I need to get to work anyway."

Not that he'd punch Sherlock again even if he didn't need that, but.

His lips twitch.

"It's just a bit bloody, right?"