Chapter Text
John thinks that, given the events of the past couple of months, that he’s handled everything pretty well.
He’s adjusting to Sherlock being back quite well, and it feels just like before. Well, until he remembers. Then it hits him like a train at full speed right in the chest.
He misses Mary so much it physically hurts. Sherlock has to trick him into eating food on bad days, which is a strange reversal of roles.
He knows that things never would have worked out with Mary if Sherlock had still been around, and he knows that things with Sherlock wouldn’t be working as well as they were now if Mary were still alive. So, in the end, it’s perfect timing, but still, the pain doesn’t go away.
If he was being honest with himself, and he only is at four in the morning when he can’t sleep and Sherlock is muttering softly downstairs, he’s glad Sherlock came back rather than Mary. John is sure that this makes him a terrible person, but he can’t help it.
If he lived in a twisted world where he was allowed to choose which loved ones came back from the dead, he would have chosen Sherlock. The thought makes him feel vaguely like a cheating husband.
On one of these nights, after being brutally honest with himself and hating himself for it, John makes his way downstairs. He is forced to pause a few times because of the injury in his side.The knife wound was healing, but it wasn’t yet healed.
Sherlock is pacing in his blue dressing gown, it flaps behind him like a cape.
“Bored bored bored bored Bored bored Bored BORED!” he is saying, he word rising to a crescendo and then becoming soft again, and then it rises once more before dropping to a whisper and on and on and on and on and on.
John ignores him, because it’s the easiest thing to do right now, while he’s still furious with himself from his own honesty.
Sherlock flops into his angular functional chair and pulls his dressing gown around his legs.
“I need a case,” he announces.
John sighs and pulls bread out from the cupboard. “I need a vacation from my life,” he mutters. He extracts two pieces of bread from the bag and turns around to search for the toaster. He can’t find it, it’s not in it usual place and it’s not on any of the counters.
“Sherlock?” he asks as his friend comes and stand in the doorway. “Where is the toaster?”
The man points wordlessly to the table.
A jumble of part that John had taken for an Experiment He Didn’t Want to Know About is heaped on the wood.
On closer inspection, John finds that it is, in fact, the toaster in pieces.
He takes a deep breath and counts to twenty. His fists are clenched so tightly that his nails are digging into his palms.
He can’t decide if he wants to throw something or cry. Maybe both.
Sherlock is watching him with his head tilted to one side, and his calculating glare is eventually what breaks him.
He throws the bread in his hand at the wall. It hits with an understated thunk and falls to the ground anticlimactically.
If he wasn’t so angry he would have laughed at the absurdity of it.
“That is completely unsatisfying, John,” Sherlock says. “Try something that breaks.”
John glares at him. The detective looks back innocently.
John stalks over to the cupboard and pulls out a glass cup. He looks over at Sherlock with his eyebrows raised as if asking for permission.
Sherlock nods with authority.
John hurls it at the wall and it shatters, the shards landing on the ground with a sound like delicate music. He winces, placing a hand at his side where the cut is. Sherlock’s eyes follow the movement, not missing a thing.
“Isn’t that better?” Sherlock asks. “Now, go get your gun, that is much more satisfying.”
John scowls at him.
“What?” Sherlock frowns. “Ah, you’re angry with me specifically. On second thought, don’t get your gun.”
John resists the urge to crack a smile, and leans against the counter wearily. He presses a hand against his face so that he can’t see.
His brain is already urging him to get a broom and sweep up the mess, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to leave it there, as a testament to his anger, or more specifically, his lack of it.
“The toaster was a wedding gift from Mary’s parents,” John finally says.
Sherlock looks as if he doesn’t know if he should look disgusted by the sentiment or apologetic for pulling it to pieces. He settles for looking vaguely horrified.
“And I’m not even angry that you destroyed it,” John laughs weakly. “I’m just happy to have experiments in the kitchen again.”
Sherlock looks confused by this, then a corner of his mouth twitches upwards in a satisfied smile.
“I’m going out,” John says, eventually, and leaves the room.