Who? Sherlock! (Narrative? Open, possibly, to John) What? Angst. ...apparently. Where? His place! When? Tonight. Why? The muse wanted to write prose, apparently. He never does that, I do not even know. Whaaaaaaaaaaat??? No stop Rating: Lowish? Drinking is involved but otherwise meh.
Sherlock had not expected this. Any of this. Perhaps that was why it was so upsetting - he hadn’t seen it coming. Both the actual disappearance, and his own response to it, had been completely unexpected, and that was not something Sherlock liked very much. Of course, one could not predict everything - but he was not often this surprised, and when he was, it was rarely something he did not immediately bounce back from.
Joan’s absence was a strange thing. John was still here, of course, and for that, Sherlock was (theoretically) grateful. But he had grown used to a second Watson, to the specific mannerisms that the female version of his good friend had. Her presence. It was not as if she was there constantly, no, but it was different to know someone was around, simply not here - to to know that they were not anywhere. That if one sought them out, they would not be found.
He would likely be just as displeased if John were to have been taken, of course, and perhaps even more concerned for his friend, given that he was returning to a world where his Sherlock had died, and given the rather distressed way John had reacted to his presence, the illness that had developed as a result of his other-self's death.
But Joan had been the one of the pair who had simply accepted him, had no hangups about it. She had simply been present, and that was not something Sherlock had taken lightly.
Not that he had ever said as much. It was not particularly his way. Even admitting that he was upset, now, was not something he had any intention of doing. John was around, somewhere, worrying. He was worrying loudly enough that Sherlock could feel it from the other room, worrying enough that he was talking about taking the alcohol away, and, well, there was very little more fitting than having a Watson try to doctor at him, honestly, but the appropriateness of it made him even more inclined towards doing the very thing his friend wished him not to do. Because there was an absence - there was Joan’s absence, yes, but there was also his John’s, and this John was brilliant, but he wasn’t the same. His John would have known exactly what Sherlock was not saying. He would not have been surprised to see him drinking heavily, Is something wrong, or is it a day ending in y?.
Right now Sherlock selfishly wished he could have all three of them there, with him. It would be better.
He would be better.
He would never tell any of them.
The intoxicated attempts at building some sort of machine to track the energy from the Seal was spread across the floor in his bedroom. Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson were curled up on the bed, watching him; he had a strange feeling the goat and the cat were both well aware of his current state. He did not feel terribly comfortable under their collective gaze. Another swallow of the greenish liquid in the glass bottle he held, and he glared in their direction briefly, before turning his attention back to his work. He needed to make this work.
Why didn’t it work?
Another ten minutes later, he had abandoned the project for a time, taking up his violin, instead. The sound resonating from the strings alternated wildly between harmonious and violently disjointed, music and noise. There was a thump and the sound of clumping hooves as Lestrade fled, Mrs. Hudson’s tail already disappearing around the door by the time he looked up.
Well, fine. He didn't need an audience. He worked better alone, anyway.