whatofthewarts | (no subject)

"Get out of my house."

He tells him, icily. For a few seconds, things are very, very still.

A bee pops into existence a few inches in front of his face, blatantly out of nowhere.

Holmes has no intention of leaving, of course. And the fact he's getting a rise is all the more reason to stay.

But then there's a bee, and his eyebrows go up, and he reaches carefully for an empty jar to catch it in.

"Your visitor has arrived."

"Keep it in there, I need to see if it dies. There's a lid with air holes-"

Pointing.

"I see it."

Speaking carefully, since he's stalking the bee. He manages the catch it without incident, and he holds it up to the light, as Sherlock had done with the diamond.

It buzzes contentedly, bumbling about in the jar, and Sherlock leans back in his seat, finally permitting himself a smug grin.

"Hand me that magnifying lens."

Hand out for it. He does this to Watson all the time, with the same result each time: a snide remark.

Sherlock isn't even dignifying that with a glance. He's off in his own world in his papers, reading new pages of theory, scrawling experiment results and observations about the bee intently.

So Holmes gets it himself, examines the bee, hums to himself.

And then throws the magnifying glass like a knife onto those papers.

"It has returned missing certain aspects."

"Don't break that."

It's his only one. So he protests with a snap, looking up at him.

"You obviously have no interest in me or my problems or anything other than your dead prostitute, so get out of my house and stop bothering my things."

"And you have no interest in utilizing the resources around you, apart from the obvious. You lack the environmental conditioning to note all the necessary small details, and you are headed for disaster."

He rattles this off, rapid but calm, noting the arrogance in his counterpart. The sense of superiority Sherlock must feel, because he's from a more advanced point in time. He won't listen to a word Holmes says, not really.

So he grabs him by the throat, locks his ankle behind Sherlock's, and throws him over his hip.

"And she was not a prostitute."

"You're blinded by sentimentality. Feeling. She beat you because you care."

He accuses, on the way down, delivering a powerful kick and not quite managing to catch himself well, but keeping rolling.

Holmes manages to deflect with a vicious forearm block. He skids it along Sherlock's shin, to make it sting, make his toes go momentarily numb.

"You speak as one who doesn't feel. But you and I know better. If you are going to pretend to be superior, you shouldn't wear your own heart out on your sleeve."

He gasps, and scrambles up, albeit unsteady on that foot, now. He knows how to fight- just not this well.

"And yet I've never lost."

"You don't seem to be winning in one regard here."

He waits for Sherlock to move, because Holmes may be more guided by emotion than his modern self, but he's not a brute. And he's not angry enough to turn this into a street fight.

"Yes, congratulations, you're an ape. How remarkable, how worthwhile."

Sneering, now with his hands up between them. Been years since he boxed.

"You truly are mediocre."

"And yet it isn't my reputation that was destroyed by Moriarty. My Watson is in no danger, because I was able to eliminate the threat. You, meanwhile, skulk around pretending to be dead so no one will shoot off his head. You failed in the only way that matters, and you can't even admit it."

His hands drop, suddenly, body going still. His heart feels like it isn't beating, and there are a few seconds of rushing hysteria so loud in his ears he thinks he'll scream, and then-

Nothing. Burnt out, exhausted, nothing.

"You're right. Now please, go."

Holmes has experienced exhaustion like that. When his own Watson had been caught in an explosion, specifically. He crouches on one knee beside Sherlock, like he's checking for clues.

"You're a disgrace. If Watson is still alive, and all you do is lie here, he is better off dead."

He does stop breathing, now, looking his age, for once, and afraid, and homesick. Or like he wants to be, for a moment, but that it burns through him too fast again, leaves his mouth full of ashes.

Go limp and they stop hitting you eventually, he learned in school.

"Get up."

Disgusted. Worried. Holmes would normally dismiss a person in Sherlock's state, but he can't. Not when it's himself.

There is a sickening twist to seeing vulnerability on your own face.

He pulls himself up to sitting, and then stands. The kicked foot gives badly when he tries to put weight on it, so he moves quickly towards the chair.

"I had a nasty childhood, as well. You know how the children can be; they're no different in this time."

He's not going to give up on these testy subjects.

"Why didn't you learn to stop them."

"Oh, please, I had hoped we were pre-Freudian. Psychoanalysis is so boring."

Sitting back down at his notes.

"Are you quite through yet? Every breath I waste on you keeps me from him."

"It's not me keeping you from him. It's Moriarty and your own inadequacies."

He picks up a slim wooden stirrer.

"And it wasn't psychoanalysis, I know everything about your mental faculties that I need. It was a legitimate question. Why didn't you stop them?"

"To whom are you referring?"

He ignores the fiddling, picks up a pen. Starts to jot down, in a spidery scrawl, what bodyparts on the bee are missing, how to better stabilize the process next time.