(no subject)
Title: A Miscalculated Storm (Part 1/2)
Word Count: 2, 182 (for this part :'D)
Spoilers: ----
Rating: PG/PG13 for swears
Summary: John and Sherlock fight and things don't end the way Sherlock expects it to.
Disclaimer: Sherlock is ACD's & Sherlock BBC is the lovechild of Godtiss & The Moff.
Author's Notes: This is vands88 's fic for her donation in help_japan . Thank you, bb, for bidding & I sincerely hope you enjoy this. :) Part 2 will be up by next week (hopefully!). As always, thanks also to Tish.
Part II
"It was for an experiment!"
Sherlock rarely shouted. He relied on his sharp tongue and people's stupidity to win arguments. However, whenever John raised his voice, he ended up matching him in kind.
(And it was his cadaver, for god's sake! His carefully carved cadaver with the heart, brain and lungs skillfully removed and contained in trays of baking sheet. The body, perfectly divided into head, limbs and chest, took another two trays. And John had bloody thrown them away! He said that it had been because there was no space in the fridge for the food, but Sherlock knew it was only because he had thrown away the food to make room for his cadaver.)
"And I suppose I am to forget our basic needs in the name of science?" John shot back, arms crossed over his chest. His left hand in particular was gripping his elbow quite firmly. Sherlock briefly wondered how much better John would have felt if he had been using that fist to punch him instead.
"Glad you can keep up, John. Give it another ten years, and maybe you'll be half as decent as me."
"Oh, bloody hell!" John threw his hands up in the air. "Not this again! Oh no, if only the world was just a tad bit smarter! Then we'd have every bleeding right to be obnoxious as you!"
Outside, a rather booming thunderclap brought them both to silence. Rain pattered against their windows; a reflection of their moods. Below, they heard Mrs. Hudson tapping on her ceiling to remind them to keep it down. The volume of the television being turned up.
Sherlock leaned forward in his seat; clamped onto the edge of the kitchen table. He realized he was desperately preventing himself from punching John. He frowned at his knuckles, white from gripping too hard.
"We weren't even arguing about that. Do keep your mind from getting sidetracked."
John barked out harsh laughter.
"Jesus, do you really want to go back to my point? Hasn't your massive intellect wrapped around it twice?" He removed himself from his place against the doorframe connected to the hallway and leaned across the other end of the table, close enough that Sherlock could cock his hand back and punch him under the chin.
"I am, in case you can't tell, mad," John began in a low, dangerous voice.
Sherlock snorted. Oh god, how dull! The rest of the conversation would thus follow: John would enumerate why, Sherlock would proceed to rebuke his reasons, and John would shake his head in defeat and walk out. Except it was raining hard, so John would end up going to his room. Sherlock, on the other hand, would go sulk on the couch. In the morning, they'd have a calm talk about this and Sherlock would vaguely assure John he'd try to avoid the situation. Why go through all that when he could just skip to the end?
Sherlock sighed and moved to stand, but it seemed John wasn't through with him. He grabbed Sherlock roughly by his chin and forced him to look back. Sherlock shifted his eyes away in rebellion, but John kept tugging him until he complied.
"I'm mad," he began again. "No, scratch that, I am fucking livid because our food-- food that I bought with my money-- money that I worked hard to earn-- and I have to because god forbid you accept payment every now and then-- has been chucked. Who chucked them? You! Because your precious experiment would have rotted if you hadn't kept it in the fridge! Tell me, Sherlock, had you planned for us to devour human meat for the next couple of weeks? Because I don’t think I received that memo." John released his hold, and Sherlock rubbed his hand over his chin.
"Or," John continued. "Maybe next time, you'll remember when I tell you that our fridge is for our food, and not your experiments, yeah?"
Normally, Sherlock would have pointed out John's obvious flaws. Argued calmly, rationally, until John accepted his facts. Tonight, though, John's angry words spilled over him and seeped into his calm.
"No. I don't see why I have to sit here and have you berate me as though I am child. I have as much right as you to do as I please with the fridge. You are even stupider than I thought you were,” Sherlock said harshly. “I might have thrown out the food, but for good reason. You threw out my experiment just to bully me. "
Sherlock stood to his full height and used that to loom over John.
"Does it hurt, to fail at taking care of someone?" Yes, exactly, a voice inside him seemed to say. Mention Harriet, strike the right nerve. "You've failed to take care of your sister; failed to take care of your father. When you were in Afghanistan, how many people did you really manage to save, hm?"
He was dizzy from the non-sequitor turn of the fight, but the blood pumping in his veins urged him on. John's face paled and crumpled. A part of him backed off at the change in John's stance, the way he started leaning his weight on his good leg. He wasn't through yet, though. No, he still had some bite he hadn't yet lashed out.
"A doctor of such caliber, yet you can't even take care of a man your own age." His own voice had gone low. "Tell me, can you really do it, this caring lark?"
Gone was John's anger, only to be replaced by this pale, wide-eyed man who looked like a lost little boy. John seemed to shrink even further until Sherlock was sure he could crush him with his thumb. Sherlock smirked and left to lie on the sofa.
He closed his eyes and arched his back as he stretched to relax his muscles. The expected sound of John's footsteps storming up to his room clashed with the rain desperate to get into their flat.
Good. Then in the morning, we can work this all out.
What Sherlock didn't expect was John's footsteps pounding downwards instead, all the way to the ground floor.
He sat up. No, he wouldn't. Rain's too heavy. Too late to call Sarah. Harriet's too far away. Sherlock rushed to the landing, peered down at John's retreating figure.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. John didn't answer, just finished putting on his coat and opened the door.
"John!" he yelled, not that either of them heard it. The rain, already a noisy bugger from the inside, was even noisier with the door open. Wind howled and raindrops slapped the concrete. John stepped outside and slammed the door shut without so much as a backward glance.
"Boys, do you realize what time it is?"
Out stepped Mrs. Hudson, wrapped in her own dressing gown. She stood at the bottom of the stairwell, giving Sherlock a half-meant glare. Sherlock ignored her and chose to crumple on the top step; anger, fire, hurt-- they'd all vanished the moment John had flung himself out the door. Now, he felt drained.
It would be a lie to say he couldn't remember what they had been arguing about. But, whose fault had this fight been? Sherlock bitterly blamed John for starting it, but that crushed look made him hate himself for finishing it. Should I run after him?
"Oh, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson climbed up to kneel beside him, careful of her hip, and enveloped him in her arms. She tucked her chin on his head, one hand stroking his arm soothingly. Despite not needing it, Sherlock found himself wrapping his own arms around her waist.
"Oh dear. That must have been quite a row if the doctor's taking his chance with the rain. I hope he managed to bring an umbrella," she commented. Sherlock snorted; didn't bother to tell her that John only had his coat with him.
"You two shouldn't be fighting," she said with a tut. "Not over the silly things. Will used to do that and you know what happened to him, don't you?" Sherlock pulled back.
"Yes, I was there during his execution." He paused, tried to read her thoughts. She was looking back in the past, possibly reliving the memory. He wondered-- did she ever regret asking for his help? Would she have rather lived through years of abuse and manipulation, as long as it meant being with her husband?
Then, she came back and smiled at him; patted his head and placed a kiss on his forehead. "Don't worry, love. I love Will, that's never going to change."
She stood up and beckoned him to follow her. "I’ll admit though, he was a bad man, and bad men deserve to be punished," she continued as they climbed down the stairs. "But neither you nor John are bad men. You shouldn't punish each other."
She motioned to the umbrella stack by the door, as well as to his coat, hanging from the rack.
"You should find him; I hear the rain's going to get stronger."
--
What would compel a man to dive willingly into a storm? The answers varied; too many factors that caused them to branch out into subcategories. While there were motives that could be grouped into general headings, there were still small twists or rounded details that made them each unique. Almost like fingerprints or retinas or DNA; except dull.
Mrs. Hudson seemed to think he'd brave the rain to fetch John. Fight against the wind to envelop John in comfort, the way she had with him. She expected apologies, forgiveness, some romantic cliché involving kissing and rain, and perhaps even make-up sex (one day, they were going to have to sit her down and have a thorough chat with her).
Wrong, wrong, wrong! on all accounts. He was not in a mood to talk to John. He was not a man who offered comfort. Except--
Didn't matter.
She was right about the weather, though; the rain could only get stronger.
He made a compromise:
Slipped on his coat, disregarding the fact that he was only wearing an undershirt and his pajama bottoms underneath. The umbrella, he took with him. The rain greeted him by drenching every dry spot he had, until his clothes felt thrice as heavy and he had to push back his hair, just to see. The streets were empty, save for the small flood of rain. His footsteps were drowned, feet slick with murky water. There was no need for the umbrella; he had brought it for John, after all.
Took him time (a minute and a half) to figure out where John would be. John would have first tried Ming's restaurant; only a block from home and it closed late. Of course, Ming would have kept her restaurant open for John; she had a soft spot for him, because he reminded her of her own son (still enlisted in the army, although John had never met him).
Yes, he was correct. Ming had closed down for the night (How could she not? The weather prevented almost everyone from going out.), and Sherlock would have walked on if he hadn't spotted the booth closest to the counter; their usual seat.
The lamp hanging above it was still lit, splashing warm light onto the table, John's hands (his face was hidden in the shadow) and Ming. They were having a cup of tea. Oolong, because that was Ming's specialty and John wouldn't have had the heart to say no (he despised oolong). By the looks of it, Ming had lent John a shirt.
Sherlock rapped his knuckles against the window. Again, though they could not hear him. He persisted, and when they finally noticed, they were both startled. Ming in particular had a hand over her heart. John, he couldn't see; lighting too dark, glass too foggy, barely room for sufficient observations.
No time for deductions. He wasn't a welcomed presence. Instead, he raised his hand clutching the umbrella, set it against the window and headed back home.
Thankfully, Mrs. Hudson did not ambush him when he returned. He sped up to the flat, careful not to trip over the stairs. Shrugged off his coat and flopped on the sofa.
Tried not think of how he spent the rest of his waking moments trying to distinguish John's footsteps from the pounding rain.
When he woke up, he was still alone. There was no off-key singing coming from the bathroom. The soft padding of footsteps that came from the floor above wasn’t there. No rustling of papers, no boiling tea.
However, there was a blanket draped over him. His shirt had been changed. On further exploration, there was a mug on the kitchen table. The smell of tea rose from it; was still warm when he cupped his hands around it. In the bathroom, his shirt and his coat hung limp next to John's. Downstairs, the umbrella had been left opened to dry.
John came back and, Sherlock supposed, that was the point.
Word Count: 2, 182 (for this part :'D)
Spoilers: ----
Rating: PG/PG13 for swears
Summary: John and Sherlock fight and things don't end the way Sherlock expects it to.
Disclaimer: Sherlock is ACD's & Sherlock BBC is the lovechild of Godtiss & The Moff.
Author's Notes: This is vands88 's fic for her donation in help_japan . Thank you, bb, for bidding & I sincerely hope you enjoy this. :) Part 2 will be up by next week (hopefully!). As always, thanks also to Tish.
Part II
"It was for an experiment!"
Sherlock rarely shouted. He relied on his sharp tongue and people's stupidity to win arguments. However, whenever John raised his voice, he ended up matching him in kind.
(And it was his cadaver, for god's sake! His carefully carved cadaver with the heart, brain and lungs skillfully removed and contained in trays of baking sheet. The body, perfectly divided into head, limbs and chest, took another two trays. And John had bloody thrown them away! He said that it had been because there was no space in the fridge for the food, but Sherlock knew it was only because he had thrown away the food to make room for his cadaver.)
"And I suppose I am to forget our basic needs in the name of science?" John shot back, arms crossed over his chest. His left hand in particular was gripping his elbow quite firmly. Sherlock briefly wondered how much better John would have felt if he had been using that fist to punch him instead.
"Glad you can keep up, John. Give it another ten years, and maybe you'll be half as decent as me."
"Oh, bloody hell!" John threw his hands up in the air. "Not this again! Oh no, if only the world was just a tad bit smarter! Then we'd have every bleeding right to be obnoxious as you!"
Outside, a rather booming thunderclap brought them both to silence. Rain pattered against their windows; a reflection of their moods. Below, they heard Mrs. Hudson tapping on her ceiling to remind them to keep it down. The volume of the television being turned up.
Sherlock leaned forward in his seat; clamped onto the edge of the kitchen table. He realized he was desperately preventing himself from punching John. He frowned at his knuckles, white from gripping too hard.
"We weren't even arguing about that. Do keep your mind from getting sidetracked."
John barked out harsh laughter.
"Jesus, do you really want to go back to my point? Hasn't your massive intellect wrapped around it twice?" He removed himself from his place against the doorframe connected to the hallway and leaned across the other end of the table, close enough that Sherlock could cock his hand back and punch him under the chin.
"I am, in case you can't tell, mad," John began in a low, dangerous voice.
Sherlock snorted. Oh god, how dull! The rest of the conversation would thus follow: John would enumerate why, Sherlock would proceed to rebuke his reasons, and John would shake his head in defeat and walk out. Except it was raining hard, so John would end up going to his room. Sherlock, on the other hand, would go sulk on the couch. In the morning, they'd have a calm talk about this and Sherlock would vaguely assure John he'd try to avoid the situation. Why go through all that when he could just skip to the end?
Sherlock sighed and moved to stand, but it seemed John wasn't through with him. He grabbed Sherlock roughly by his chin and forced him to look back. Sherlock shifted his eyes away in rebellion, but John kept tugging him until he complied.
"I'm mad," he began again. "No, scratch that, I am fucking livid because our food-- food that I bought with my money-- money that I worked hard to earn-- and I have to because god forbid you accept payment every now and then-- has been chucked. Who chucked them? You! Because your precious experiment would have rotted if you hadn't kept it in the fridge! Tell me, Sherlock, had you planned for us to devour human meat for the next couple of weeks? Because I don’t think I received that memo." John released his hold, and Sherlock rubbed his hand over his chin.
"Or," John continued. "Maybe next time, you'll remember when I tell you that our fridge is for our food, and not your experiments, yeah?"
Normally, Sherlock would have pointed out John's obvious flaws. Argued calmly, rationally, until John accepted his facts. Tonight, though, John's angry words spilled over him and seeped into his calm.
"No. I don't see why I have to sit here and have you berate me as though I am child. I have as much right as you to do as I please with the fridge. You are even stupider than I thought you were,” Sherlock said harshly. “I might have thrown out the food, but for good reason. You threw out my experiment just to bully me. "
Sherlock stood to his full height and used that to loom over John.
"Does it hurt, to fail at taking care of someone?" Yes, exactly, a voice inside him seemed to say. Mention Harriet, strike the right nerve. "You've failed to take care of your sister; failed to take care of your father. When you were in Afghanistan, how many people did you really manage to save, hm?"
He was dizzy from the non-sequitor turn of the fight, but the blood pumping in his veins urged him on. John's face paled and crumpled. A part of him backed off at the change in John's stance, the way he started leaning his weight on his good leg. He wasn't through yet, though. No, he still had some bite he hadn't yet lashed out.
"A doctor of such caliber, yet you can't even take care of a man your own age." His own voice had gone low. "Tell me, can you really do it, this caring lark?"
Gone was John's anger, only to be replaced by this pale, wide-eyed man who looked like a lost little boy. John seemed to shrink even further until Sherlock was sure he could crush him with his thumb. Sherlock smirked and left to lie on the sofa.
He closed his eyes and arched his back as he stretched to relax his muscles. The expected sound of John's footsteps storming up to his room clashed with the rain desperate to get into their flat.
Good. Then in the morning, we can work this all out.
What Sherlock didn't expect was John's footsteps pounding downwards instead, all the way to the ground floor.
He sat up. No, he wouldn't. Rain's too heavy. Too late to call Sarah. Harriet's too far away. Sherlock rushed to the landing, peered down at John's retreating figure.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. John didn't answer, just finished putting on his coat and opened the door.
"John!" he yelled, not that either of them heard it. The rain, already a noisy bugger from the inside, was even noisier with the door open. Wind howled and raindrops slapped the concrete. John stepped outside and slammed the door shut without so much as a backward glance.
"Boys, do you realize what time it is?"
Out stepped Mrs. Hudson, wrapped in her own dressing gown. She stood at the bottom of the stairwell, giving Sherlock a half-meant glare. Sherlock ignored her and chose to crumple on the top step; anger, fire, hurt-- they'd all vanished the moment John had flung himself out the door. Now, he felt drained.
It would be a lie to say he couldn't remember what they had been arguing about. But, whose fault had this fight been? Sherlock bitterly blamed John for starting it, but that crushed look made him hate himself for finishing it. Should I run after him?
"Oh, Sherlock." Mrs. Hudson climbed up to kneel beside him, careful of her hip, and enveloped him in her arms. She tucked her chin on his head, one hand stroking his arm soothingly. Despite not needing it, Sherlock found himself wrapping his own arms around her waist.
"Oh dear. That must have been quite a row if the doctor's taking his chance with the rain. I hope he managed to bring an umbrella," she commented. Sherlock snorted; didn't bother to tell her that John only had his coat with him.
"You two shouldn't be fighting," she said with a tut. "Not over the silly things. Will used to do that and you know what happened to him, don't you?" Sherlock pulled back.
"Yes, I was there during his execution." He paused, tried to read her thoughts. She was looking back in the past, possibly reliving the memory. He wondered-- did she ever regret asking for his help? Would she have rather lived through years of abuse and manipulation, as long as it meant being with her husband?
Then, she came back and smiled at him; patted his head and placed a kiss on his forehead. "Don't worry, love. I love Will, that's never going to change."
She stood up and beckoned him to follow her. "I’ll admit though, he was a bad man, and bad men deserve to be punished," she continued as they climbed down the stairs. "But neither you nor John are bad men. You shouldn't punish each other."
She motioned to the umbrella stack by the door, as well as to his coat, hanging from the rack.
"You should find him; I hear the rain's going to get stronger."
--
What would compel a man to dive willingly into a storm? The answers varied; too many factors that caused them to branch out into subcategories. While there were motives that could be grouped into general headings, there were still small twists or rounded details that made them each unique. Almost like fingerprints or retinas or DNA; except dull.
Mrs. Hudson seemed to think he'd brave the rain to fetch John. Fight against the wind to envelop John in comfort, the way she had with him. She expected apologies, forgiveness, some romantic cliché involving kissing and rain, and perhaps even make-up sex (one day, they were going to have to sit her down and have a thorough chat with her).
Wrong, wrong, wrong! on all accounts. He was not in a mood to talk to John. He was not a man who offered comfort. Except--
Didn't matter.
She was right about the weather, though; the rain could only get stronger.
He made a compromise:
Slipped on his coat, disregarding the fact that he was only wearing an undershirt and his pajama bottoms underneath. The umbrella, he took with him. The rain greeted him by drenching every dry spot he had, until his clothes felt thrice as heavy and he had to push back his hair, just to see. The streets were empty, save for the small flood of rain. His footsteps were drowned, feet slick with murky water. There was no need for the umbrella; he had brought it for John, after all.
Took him time (a minute and a half) to figure out where John would be. John would have first tried Ming's restaurant; only a block from home and it closed late. Of course, Ming would have kept her restaurant open for John; she had a soft spot for him, because he reminded her of her own son (still enlisted in the army, although John had never met him).
Yes, he was correct. Ming had closed down for the night (How could she not? The weather prevented almost everyone from going out.), and Sherlock would have walked on if he hadn't spotted the booth closest to the counter; their usual seat.
The lamp hanging above it was still lit, splashing warm light onto the table, John's hands (his face was hidden in the shadow) and Ming. They were having a cup of tea. Oolong, because that was Ming's specialty and John wouldn't have had the heart to say no (he despised oolong). By the looks of it, Ming had lent John a shirt.
Sherlock rapped his knuckles against the window. Again, though they could not hear him. He persisted, and when they finally noticed, they were both startled. Ming in particular had a hand over her heart. John, he couldn't see; lighting too dark, glass too foggy, barely room for sufficient observations.
No time for deductions. He wasn't a welcomed presence. Instead, he raised his hand clutching the umbrella, set it against the window and headed back home.
Thankfully, Mrs. Hudson did not ambush him when he returned. He sped up to the flat, careful not to trip over the stairs. Shrugged off his coat and flopped on the sofa.
Tried not think of how he spent the rest of his waking moments trying to distinguish John's footsteps from the pounding rain.
When he woke up, he was still alone. There was no off-key singing coming from the bathroom. The soft padding of footsteps that came from the floor above wasn’t there. No rustling of papers, no boiling tea.
However, there was a blanket draped over him. His shirt had been changed. On further exploration, there was a mug on the kitchen table. The smell of tea rose from it; was still warm when he cupped his hands around it. In the bathroom, his shirt and his coat hung limp next to John's. Downstairs, the umbrella had been left opened to dry.
John came back and, Sherlock supposed, that was the point.