Chapter Text
Beautiful evening...
Sherlock unlocked the door to 221B, still smiling to himself. It had been far too long since his last 'outing', but tonight had almost made it worth the wait. The only real downside was how long he anticipated it taking to get the blood from under his fingernails. Stepping into the flat, the detective only made it a few steps forward before a shuffling sound at the top of the stairs caught his attention. Looking up warily at the sound of movement, he schooled himself to nonchalance before quickly trying to check his clothing as John came more clearly into view.
John. John who is supposed to be out with Stamford and Sarah; John who should not be home until at least 2am.
"Well, Sarah ended up heading home ill," John said lazily (about to get dressed for bed, only came out because I came home), "I hope your plans for the evening went better than mine did."
"Successful, as it goes. Nothing particularly interesting, though." Sherlock started walking again, shucking off his coat and jacket, leaving them over the back of his chair before making his way to the kitchen to wash his hands. This is just a minor inconvenience. He will go to bed and I can finish cleaning up. He heard John making his way down the stairs, mentally cursing the situation. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock watched John approach, watched as John's eyes narrowed slightly.
"What on earth were you out doing this time?" John asked, sincerity masked with a weary smile. "I certainly hope you didn't sustain more than the one injury."
"Just following a couple of leads," he said fluidly, following John's eyeline with an internal splutter of annoyance at his own incompetence, quickly mentally relaying the events of the evening, coming quickly to the conclusion that he had blood under his jawline.Turning on the water, he washed his hands, cleaning his jawline at the same time.
Hoping beyond hope that there was nothing -else- he'd missed (shouldn't have assumed John would be out, -stupid- Sherlock), he scraped what blood he could from under his fingernails before turning off the water and looking back to his flatmate.
"You look tired. Shouldn't you be in bed?"