Work Text:
Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger - Chinese Proverb
In the cab, Sherlock sat watching the reflections of the street go by outside, fingering the folded paper in his pocket.
There were many things he could deduce from the outside. It was thin, torn from a cheap, commercial pad of paper. Small. Indented with the ghosts of words and short phrases written listwise down the side of the previous page—most likely a grocery list. Inscribed with two short words, written with a biro which only worked seventy percent of the time and a violence that had nearly torn through the paper. It had still not sated the rage of the note-writer, judging by the jagged thirty degree angle by which thing had been torn from the pad, entirely missing the perforated easy-tear line.
John had said many things to Sherlock in anger over the years, and they had for the most part failed to make an impact.
“Is that my bloody jumper?”
“And you find that easy, do you?”
“Seriously, Sherlock, my shoes! Those are my date shoes, you cock!”
“You wanna remember, Sherlock: I was a soldier. I killed people.”
“I liked that one, Sherlock! I was getting somewhere with her!”
“Yeah. I wonder why.”
“I almost ate that! Contaminated meat, Sherlock!”
“She’s dying, you machine!”
“Why am I the only one who thinks that this is wrong—the only one reacting like a human being?!”
“Sherlock, this is not appropriate! Go home!”
“Because Sherlock Holmes needs to pee in a jar!”
“Where were you, you tit?”
“Goddamnit, Sherlock, I need some air!”
John had a temper. He did. When something disrupted his narrow world view, he would throw a tantrum. He would shout and rage and punch and kick things and glare with hurt-filled eyes. It was best not to try to stop him. Best to let him get it all out, and let him storm away and stay away until he’d calmed down and had a chance to think.
And then, after he’d been for a walk—or perhaps a three month stay at his best friend’s house—he settled down again and, in the quiet and the calm, he made things right. The things he said then were so diametrically opposed, it was hard to even credit that he’d been so angry to begin with.
“The best man, and the most human human being…”
“The wisest man that I have ever known…”
“That I love and care about most in the world…”
“’Course you’re my best friend.”
“Over the last few years there are two people who have done that, and the other one is...”
It was hard to tell what would be a flash point for John. He would take the strangest things in his stride—finding a severed head in the fridge, or a body strung from the ceiling, being drugged and deliberately terrified out of his wits, or kidnapped and strapped in a bomb-vest, being pulled from a date he’d insisted was inviolable to play body-jigsaw-puzzle in the rain, being dismissed or publicly insulted, deceived, or dragged along on an ill-advised escape from justice. Any of those things, it could be, would earn Sherlock nothing more than a few of half-heartedly grumpy jokes.
Other things would light him up like a roman candle. Minor destruction of property. Undone dishes. Improper attention to gun safety. Idiot strangers assuming they had a romantic relationship. Drugs. Lack of empathy for the victims of a crime. Saving his life in the only way Sherlock had known how. Inadequate attention paid to the minutiae of his domestic life. Too much attention paid to the minutiae of his domestic life.
But in the end, it didn’t matter. Because the things that made John angry—the words he spoke when he was angry didn’t mean anything; it was only a reaction of the moment. Not reflective of his considered opinion at all—and an unconsidered opinion was hardly worthy of taking into account at all.
John’s considered opinion, up until now, was clear: in the words on his blog; in his solid presence at Baker Street; in his gun by Sherlock’s side; in his constant, unwavering faith in the supernatural perfection of Sherlock’s powers; in the quiet, cherished memory of “It was extraordinary; it was quite extraordinary.”
No one’s considered opinion had ever been so consistently resistant to exposure to Sherlock’s character as John’s was. Mrs Hudson and Grayson Lestrade and even Mary had liked him well enough—but none of them had ever been hurt by him and yet forgiven Sherlock his nature nearly so frequently and freely as John did.
First came the angry rage: the explosion, the withdrawal.
Then came the wait, tiny claws of anxious dread tearing at Sherlock’s chest while he distracted himself with the work.
And then, every time—at least every time so far, no matter what Sherlock had done to provoke John, or to let him down—the relief, when he eventually came around. Came around, with his grudging company and his simple admiration and his tolerant bemusement at Sherlock’s habits.
Which meant that whatever was written on this note was meaningless, because with John, the anger was only the first step. It was not the journey that mattered, but the destination.
And that meant that there was no point in putting off reading it. For all Sherlock knew, it was a request to pick up milk. Perhaps John’s frustration had been primarily for the barely-working pen, and “anyone but you” meant to indicate nothing but his respect for the importance of Sherlock’s keeping his focus on his work.
There was always something.
He unfolded the note and read, several times, considering the two words from every angle possible. The ball of emotion in his chest clenched tighter, fractured crystals cracking and slicing.
PISS OFF
Sherlock pressed his lips together, and looked back out the window of the cab as he refolded the note. He tried not to remember another cab journey, years ago, tried not to rewrite the words John had spoken in his memory, all those years ago. The moment that had made John different.
The note was meaningless.
The reflections of the tree-lined street dappled the windows of the cab as it moved on towards Baker Street.
When John had calmed down, then—and only then—could Sherlock find out the truth: whether this time there would be any chance for Sherlock, for forgiveness.
Whether there would be any chance for him at all.