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It is dreadful how much a of one’s life can fall apart in an evening.
There is no logic to this feeling, he ought to— he held nothing but hatred for James after his betrayal.
Sherlock is not unfamiliar with grief, in fact he considered himself acquainted enough that he shouldn't be bewildered by its presence. And yet it came to him the night James stormed out and wrung his heart when the movers came the next afternoon to empty out his room.
It is early in the morning, nearing a month since and still the feeling persisted. There is a headache forming at the edges of his temple and he is praying it doesn't grow into a migraine. Light hasn't yet started filtering though the window and he should be thinking about his case or how he needs to find himself a new roommate but instead through his mind flash the same sly smile and the same old twist in the gut he cannot bring himself to explain. Thoughts of James always come to him when his head begins to thrum.
He needs a cup of tea, the same old good English his mother gets him every time she comes to see him in London. It won't help but neither does the medicine he had been prescribed. He just needs to push through the day, tomorrow he will wake up well.
The kettle goes on the fire, he blindly rummages though his cupboards for his tea tin and his mug.
Him and James had opted to only hire a maid that came in during the day, they had needed a greater privacy once, even if Ethel had proven to be of the discrete and understanding sort. He liked the silence still, despite how odd he found it to wake in the morning without the hum of an old Irish ballad coming from down the stairs.
She'd fuss at how he made it when she waltzes at noon with a basket full of groceries. She insists he burns it, to him it is perfectly decent.
He takes a teaspoon out of the drawer and freezes before he could reach for the sugar. It’s not his usual set.
The house had come with some old silverware from the previous tenant and despite his mother's urging they had opted to keep it with the promise they would get a decent one when the time came. Five years since neither had really bothered. It was a mismatched thing, hardly more than five things had once shared a set of their own. James had insisted it held some sort of charm. Sherlock hardly doubted anyone would be bewildered by his silverware if they were not already bewildered by him.
There was a teaspoon, one with a rose and it’s thorns carved into the handle. It was smaller than the rest and James had to reach for the sugar thrice to sweeten his tea to taste, yet it was the only one he seemed to ever reach for.
When Sherlock had pointed it out, James had laughed.
“Perhaps it is. Reminds me of my old friend, Richard. The second or the third I am yet unsure of.”
In the years to come he would claim it as his own rabbit's foot. It is strange he never came back to take it, Sherlock thinks, and then shakes his head. It is just a teaspoon and James hadn't lived in here for too long. He thinks he should give it away, perhaps to an urchin who’d sell it for scrap.
He puts it back in the drawer instead.
When the sun is high and London is wide awake and Sherlock is huddled up on the couch with a pillow over his head when Ethel finally comes. She takes out the forgotten kettle from over the fire and quietly refills it with water.