Who: Sherlock & Joan (featuring guest appearances by Lestrade the goat) What: Tea! Talking! More tea! Emotions! All the tea! Where: Shirly's place. When: Backdated to last night! Why: Because of reasons. Rating: Moderate/low, probably.
Sherlock Holmes was a creature of logic. Very little else was important to him - at least, that was the image he preferred to create for himself. He was, however, still human - and occasionally, there were certain people he found himself gravitating towards. People he wished to keep near, and keep safe. For the most part, they were like background noise, a little hum here and there to let him know all was well, sometimes a rather annoying sound that reminded him why he was so selective about his human companionship, and why he preferred to keep the actual contact with them down, a bit. And, occasionally, he actually needed their presence to be in a physical proximity that was approximately the size of his sitting room.
John was, clearly, not doing particularly well. Sherlock knew anyone who knew the man, even those with fairly limited deductive skills, would have been able to figure that out immediately. Yet there was nothing Sherlock could do - rather this Sherlock. The other, the one John was accustomed to - he could have fixed this, if only he knew how to return from the dead. But not this Sherlock.
It was confusing and rather frustrating to Sherlock that it still grated on him, whenever this issue arose. Why, exactly, should he care? Why, exactly, did John? Sherlock may have occasionally found himself missing his Watson, but he was more than happy with the two he had; why was John different? It didn't make sense.
He had never been particularly good at sharing Watson. Even now, with two of them, it was a weird and bitter jealousy creeping along his edges, and perhaps he was being petty, but it was slightly more upsetting to be replaced by a dead man than it was to be replaced by Mary, who was a living, breathing person, and actually a rather intelligent woman.
But, no. Here, it was remnants of a dead man that pulled John Watson away.
Well, no matter. He had arranged to be updated, should anything change with John's state - he had read the boards, upon his arrival, and he was well aware that John's mental state often veered wildly towards unsafe things, in the earlier days of his loss - and he had reached out to Joan, because whether he wished to admit it or not, a Watson was perhaps the only cure for the frustration that this ridiculous emotion situation tended to drag up. If one caused it, well, surely the other would only help.
The front door was unlocked, and Lestrade was in position by tyhe door to lead her to him. Sherlock rarely cared much for keeping his home "clean" to a certain point - but he was well aware of Joan's appreciation for cleanliness, and, well, washing out a tea cup for her was hardly going to kill him.
Or at least, that was the plan. The sheer amount of water and soap that was managing to find its way across his kitchen counters, however, spoke differently about the situation, running down the cabinets, and pooling on the floor.