(no subject)
John has a box. A nice one. All lacquered wood and shining copper. He’d say it’s his most cherished posession, if not for what is in it.
Sherlock doesn’t know about it. John thought he did, for a few very scary seconds, but as soon as he woke up stark naked next to a sticky and stinky flatmate, he dismissed the notion for what it was and went back to being the little spoon.
It’s a nice box. A very nice box. A family heirloom, that. Managed to yank it out of Harry’s fingers just as she took it from their mother’s nightstand. It is a box in which precious things are to be kept.
Sherlock has a box too, John knows. One in which he keeps memories of a time before John. Small things. Clips, buttons, needle and syringe, photographs and the like. Things that didn’t mean much to John until Sherlock set the box in his lap and told John stories of dark alleyways, vans and those hectic family photos he used to hate.
John often contemplated telling Sherlock about the box. About what he kept inside of it at night, and what he would take out in the morning. But then he’d press his ear to the shiny cherry wood of the lid, and listen to the soft beat beat beat from inside and think he just didn’t have the heart for it.