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“First. FIRST!” Sherlock shouted angrily as threw down the newspaper that held the evening's headlines. “Damn that man!” He we beyond furious with Lestrade and John knew better than to reason with the man. He was on the far side that possibility of action. So, he just sat in his chair as he watched his partner rant and rave, usually over dramatically with flailing hand motions that screamed of the size of his ego.
“John, how can you sit down at a time like this though? How could Lestrade be so stupid to really think that?” He demanded angrily with a sigh. He threw something else, more paper from the looks and sounds of it.
“Greg is hardly stupid,” John replied, much to the annoyance of the consulting detective. He simply leaned forward to pick up the paper and glanced at it. He had learned not to put too much stock in whatever the paper's said. They were almost always wrong. Almost anyway.
“That is the only thing he could be if he truly thinks that this body they found was the first. Hardly,” the man used the word his partner used though it held so much distaste for him it was like he spat it out after leaving an awful taste on his sharp tongue. “He's killed before her and he'll kill again and again.”
Watson glanced up from the paper, looking at the picture they had used for Sherlock on some aging case in the back of the pages. It was a flattering one since he was back in their good graces again.“Sorry,” he muttered because of his lack of attention. “How do you know it's a him and not a her?”
“Oh, John! Isn't it obvious?”
“Obviously not,” the doctor rolled his eyes. His best friend didn't realize that not everyone's brain worked the way his did. Or at least John's brain didn't. Perhaps it was because he thought the best of John, thought better of him than anyone else in the world. It was a strange honored place to have. No one had been in it's place before. It was a new experience for both of the men.
“Look at the victims themselves. What, six of them in all so far? All the same. He uses a gun. Women don't like guns, they don't like the mess. Nor do they like knives either. Too close contact. Poison is more a woman's style. And a woman is far more likely to kill a man and usually for a good reason in their minds. Affairs and the like. Men kill for the pleasure of it, the power it gives them. This is obviously about having power over someone. Look at the women, just look at them. All under a certain weight and height. All blond with blue eyes. All wearing black. Pretty and young. I'm guessing that this is about his mother.”
“His mother? How could you possibly know that?”
“Oh, mother, grandmother, sister. Someone, most likely family, who raised him and abused him. Possibly sexually but doubtful. He doesn't take that out on them before their deaths. But, it's painful. He slices them so not to kill but to hurt. Abused for years then. Then after hours and hours, he shoots them in the face as if he no longer wishes to see it anymore. Like he's ashamed and can't bear it. If I were a betting man I'd say that his first victim was his mother.”
John just looked at his friend for a long time after his monologue, blinking slowly. He couldn't imagine how his brain worked so that he came up with these things, these ideas, these horrible little factoids that he happily shared with anyone that would sit still long enough to listen.
“Sometimes, Sherlock, you frighten me,” John told him truthfully. Of course he had been at war and seen it's horrors but this man in front of him relished death as a riddle for him to solve. A game, a sick game.
Holmes was not looking directly at John, not that he could see anyway. Instead his eyes were focused on the mirror that hung above the mantel. To anyone who wasn't really looking it would have appeared he was looking at his own reflection or nothingness. But no, his eyes were on Watson. He who had been aged by battle and the sun. He looked so sad for his friend, worried even. It twisted Sherlock's heart.
“I'm sorry,” he said in a quiet, reflective, tone. He was sincerely sorry that he could not be a better, more normal person sometimes. If not for himself, but for John, who deserved only the best of all that Sherlock had to give. He would have given his whole self to give that to John. He was entirely sure that the doctor did not know that and he didn't have the ability to say, so that's all that he said in response.
“S'alright,” John muttered from his chair before standing up. His back was turned away from the other man who continued to gaze at him in the mirror. There was a moment of tension before everything moved on like it always did. “It just surprises me sometimes. Anyway, would you care for some tea?”