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On his one and only visit to her flat, Harry fussed over him. Drunkenly, ineptly. Made him undrinkable tea that tasted of rust. He'd had far better tea under fire outside of Babaji. Harry shoved the garish green and orange flowered mug at him, holding it up to his lips like he was an infant. Then she gathered him in her bony arms and cried, for him, for herself, tears dripping into his hair, weeping about the hell that was their lives. He'd known his sister was a drunk. He hadn't realized she'd become an idiot.
Ella wanted so badly to fix him. Her smooth face didn't betray much of her concern, but her voice tightened, and her hands clenched and unclenched the pen she used for her notetaking, every time he fended off one of her suggestions for improvement, or her inquiries as to how he was really feeling. He left each of their mandated sessions feeling more handicapped than when he walked in. It was only in the dreams, nightmares or not, that he felt normal. No one in his dreams asked him how he was feeling.
When he'd still been in uniform, strangers in pubs insisted on buying him a pint for his service. “What got you, mate?” they'd ask. “Bomb, bullet?” The barista at the Criterion insisted on turning his order for a grande into a venti, but only charging him for what he'd asked for. No matter that he paid for what she gave him, she pressed too much change back into his hand. After she turned to the next customer, he put it all into the tip jar.
The physiotherapist, grey-haired, avuncular, gently pulled and prodded and told him, “First-rate job you're doing, Dr. Watson!” John knew better.
Sherlock was not kind. At all. His utter lack of sympathy blew away the cloying, patronizing pats on the back that might as well have been pats on his head for being such a good boy such a poor boy, blew them away like the freezing night winds of the mountains. Full of the promise of death, full of the possibility of life.