arena.

[docwithablog]

Scheduled stopover in Madrid, four hour wait for his connecting flight to Heathrow.

John finds the nearest bar, any bar, really (this one’s called Arena, it’ll do), and takes a seat with a view of the shopping area. Lots of people, life. Ordering Scotch on the rocks, he watches the bartender drying off a glass, remembering suddenly -- or perhaps not so suddenly, the pubs his dad would frequent when John was still a kid. Dirty glasses cleaned up in the quarter of a minute.

He remembers having his service papers stamped veteran (status: invalided), leaving the base with a limp and a newly acquired hospital cane, two sentries saluting him like that would make any bloody difference.

The Scotch is a fine vintage, good quality, certainly beats the Jack Daniel’s he’s been drinking lukewarm in Sana’a. He sips his drink and doesn’t catch a single eye, not even the pretty brunette’s as she throws a long look in his general direction. Right now, he’s really nothing but the poster boy for a very effective anti-drinking campaign, he knows. Why pretend otherwise, why the hell bother?

It was sheer, dumb luck that prevented him from getting a patient killed while down there, that’s the lesson, right? Except, he failed anyway, let’s be real -- Dana reaped no actual benefits of him being clean and sober, did she? And, thinking about it, John has a hunch that neither did he, so clean and sober has to wait a few hours while he finishes this very good Scotch and perhaps orders a glass, if not two more, waiting for British Airways to get their act together.

Once he gets back to Baker Street, he’ll -- figure out a way to deal with this, all of this. Knowing Sherlock, he’s going to deduce him into the bloody ground upon the first visual and that’s good, that’s fine, he needs a little incentive to sort himself out as Voclain said, yes?

And Sherlock’s always been more than incentive enough.

Once the ice cubes have melted, John does an inelegant reenactment of bottoms up, emptying his glass before nodding at the bartender for a refill. Sherlock will be his incentive, sure, lovely, but Sherlock isn’t here right now, is he?

This Scotch and this bar and this quite tedious airport will have to act as stand-ins for the time being.