Day 114 [locked to John Watson]

[highfunctioning]

Sherlock was back in the lab.  Granted, he was accomplishing basically nothing, but staying in his room was garnering too much unwanted attention.  So he decided a return to form was the only remedy, however mechanical.  Currently he was running tests on a blood sample Mystique had been kind enough to furnish him with, and it served a double purpose; he'd been genuinely curious about her mutation, and she had been one of the over-interested parties who had demanded he "stop sulking."  She had even been so bold as to suggest he "do something, anything", and far be it for him to deny her if she'd prefer to be stuck with needles.  She had, however, made a funny "joke" about hunting him down if he allowed it to change ownership.  

Mycroft would be pleased to note that he was not, in fact, high.  His brother, rather unintentionally, had put Sherlock totally off the idea for the time being.  It was no good transcending the mundane if Mycroft was lurking around the corner, watching him.  Moreover, his brain had been so pathetically stagnant since Venice that he could hardly justify wasting the tiny phial on what currently passed for his life.  But he made sure it was on hand at all times, in a pocket even as he slept.  For security, though not entirely security from the threat of Mycroft finding and disposing of it.  He would reach out and touch it intermittently, and he found the option implied by its proximity comforting.  

The door opened, but he didn't bother looking up.  The last thing he needed was to be drawn into a conversation with any of the other "scientists" on board.  The only one he respected he had no designs on speaking to again, though his reasons were less than logical.  

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[sharpshooting]

John had thought he was too tired for violence, but the note of eager anticipation in Sherlock's voice proved him wrong. He whirled, his fist landing high up on one sharp cheekbone (hard not to think of Irene then, I'd avoid your nose and teeth too, as he had for months, wondering if she knew, if she cared that he was gone) fiercely satisfied that he'd managed to surprise Sherlock into shutting up.

"I'm not doing this," he said quietly, rubbing his knuckles with the other thumb. "I'm not reliving this, this horror for you so you can treat it like just another case. It's not just another case. I know you've never given a damn for the victims' families, tact or sympathy or sentiment or whatever. But this time you'd better find it in you to care, because the victim was you, and the family was me, and I can't, Sherlock. I can't."

He didn't turn, didn't try to keep leaving. He just stood there, his hands clasped, looking at Sherlock with a wordless warning.