(no subject)
He finishes writing his observations, all the while staring at the living room, where John's voice is coming from.
"No."
"No meaning, 'Yes, John, I've learned that when you ask me to do that it's because you're going to buy groceries' or 'No, bugger off you tosser, I don't care if I die of starvation'?" John peeks in and immediately wrinkles his nose at all the smoke.
"Open a bloody window, that's not too much to ask, is it?" Sherlock knows he doesn't have to. Sure enough, John enters the kitchen and does it for him. Excellent, now he can check the fridge for them as well.
Except John doesn't and goes back to the living room. Sherlock curses under his breath. He glares at the beakers, as if that will convince them not to blow up (it's not that he doesn't want them to, per se, but he does want to be there when they do), closes the Bunsen burner heating the tea and peels off his gloves. He quickly runs his hands under the kitchen sink and checks the fridge.
Oh. For once, they happened to have milk. Also, some leftovers from two nights ago (he should empty the microwave so John could finish them). This month, he had promised John that he wouldn't use the fridge as storage for body parts so their food supply was relatively more than usual.
As he turns around, he nearly bumps into John, who is giving him a puzzled look.
"We're still overflowing with condiments, so you should think twice about buying that bottle of ketchup. We're out of cold cuts, cheese and the grapes are nearly finished." Sherlock resumes his position by his experiments, pleased that the third one is still bubbling, while the first is turning into a pale shade of red.
"Oh and you might as well buy more jam," he adds as an afterthought. John loves jam, heaven knows why; goes through two bottles every month.
Sherlock lowers himself until he is eye level with the beakers and it is only then when he notices that John hasn't left.
"Yes?"
"You-- you checked the fridge." Sherlock grunts and lowers the heat on the second experiment. If John is going to be dull and state the obvious, he's going to go back to ignoring him.
"Right. I'll just-- I'll see you later," he hears John say. After ten minutes, the flat is finally quiet.
Sherlock allows himself a smile.
---
It's six in the morning but that is irrelevant because someone has tried to pass suicide off as murder. These don't come by often, and Sherlock is very much fascinated when it does; he understands why it's necessary to pass murder off as suicide, but attempting the opposite is just so much more complicated.
Lestrade has given him three minutes more than he is usually allowed, but he is getting nowhere closer to understanding.
"Why? What does she intend to achieve by dying?" Sherlock makes the mistake of asking out loud because, of course, Anderson still hasn't digested that any of his input is unnecessary and simply rubbish.
"You're here to figure out how, aren't you? Be a good dog and do that," Anderson sneers. Sherlock gives an impatient huff and sweeps a hand over the corpse.
"It's not a question of how; all the facts are laid out in front of you. You think she was strangled by someone? The prints on her throat are too--" Wait. Her fingers! Sherlock kneels and brings out his magnifier, grabbing her left wrist gingerly. He takes a sniff and yes! Amidst the mud and grass, he smells a waft of ink. A quick inspection shows that there are, in fact, ink stains on the index finger and thumb.
Someone's talking but it doesn't register in his mind. He's trying to think, what had he seen--? Yes! On her to do list downstairs.
Sherlock bolts out of the room and quickly makes his way downstairs. A quick check on the notepad next to her phone confirms that she did make a trip to the post office yesterday. Sherlock tucks the piece of paper in his pocket and leaves the dead woman's house. On the way out, he passes by Donovan, who seems to be on the verge of stopping him. He shrugs off her attempt and marches on, until he reaches the main road.
Once there, he whips out his phone and starts looking for the nearest post office. When he doesn't hear the sound of tires slowing down, he looks up. No cab. Sherlock frowns. Where's John? He grumbles, but sends a text.
What else is so interesting that it's taking up your time?
SH
Where are you?
Main road. Do hurry up; I want to leave.
SH
John turns up five minutes later, wearing an incredulous expression.
"You didn't leave without me."
"Yes, John, thank you for pointing out something even Anderson's left leg can deduce. If you could please get us a cab, that would be better." John shakes his head at him but hails a cab. Sherlock can't be bothered to know what that implies because he is once again back to tracking down post offices and, if the list had been accurately followed, a hardware store.
Sherlock doesn't bother speaking to John or looking up until they reach Baker Street. Upon arriving, he hands the driver the exact amount and exits swiftly.
"Did you just--" but John is cut off as Sherlock's phone beeps.
"John, hail a cab! I've got the address of the post office," Sherlock orders and from there, the game is on once again.
---
Sherlock counts the cracks on their ceiling. Three have been there prior to his residency, and two may or may not have been due to an experiment. One was definitely experiment-related. Time passes by so slowly when the mind is idle; how people can stand to be in such a state of boredom is beyond him.
He cranes his neck when he hears footsteps padding down the stairs. He is welcomed by the sight of John, his hair sticking out in all directions as he rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"Time is it?" John asks as he makes his way to the kitchen. Sherlock hears the hum of the microwave; warm milk then.
He takes a peek past the drawn curtains. The sky is still gray but given that it is December...
"I'd wager some time between quarter after four and five," he answers as John comes in, clutching a steaming mug. He sits on the chair across the couch, stretches his legs and curls his toes against the wooden floor. Sherlock allows himself to stare at his flatmate. Despite having lived together for six months (three weeks and one day), Sherlock is still unused to this more... cozy side of John Watson.
John takes a sip of his milk before speaking. "How come you're quiet then?"
"I'm not." There's a thin mustache of milk just above his upper lip. Sherlock is tempted to grab tissue to wipe it off, or graze his knuckles across it.
"Believe me, you are. I've never woken up this early in the morning to a quiet flat unless you're asleep." John leans back against the chair and tilts his head slightly, the way he does when trying to catch up with Sherlock's thought process. "Hang on; this isn't an experiment is it? Or a dream? Will I wake up in a few minutes to the violin being played?" Sherlock rolls his eyes.
"Don't be an idiot," he chides. John chuckles behind the mug. The mug is Sherlock's; an old present from Mycroft, not that anyone has to know. It's plain, except for the illustration of a bulldog pup. He's pleased that John hasn't asked him about it.
"No, I suppose not," John mumbles. "You're really just lying there?"
"Don't be obvious." Sherlock spies the wrinkles by John's eyes and knows he's grinning. Sherlock finds himself returning one as well before they both crack up and start laughing.
"But you have-" John starts once they've stopped. "-been acting-" he waves a hand, catching his breath. "-different lately. Not immensely so, and certainly not bad either. But you're not doing things."
"Such as?"
"Leaving me behind, waking up the neighbors at four am. Ignoring things."
"Ignoring things-- yes, quite helpful, John." Sherlock is a little annoyed, honestly, to be told that he isn't 'ignoring things'. It's a terrible notion, because it implies that John believes that he had used to miss out details on a normal basis.
"You did the groceries yesterday." Oh, those things.
"That was for an experiment."
"Remind me: which of your experiments needed toilet paper and the Quaker Oats?"
Sherlock finds that he has no answer for that, nor does he have an explanation for the rest of the groceries, excluding the packs of rock salt. He turns to gaze at the ceiling again. There is an answer, of course. All things are done with reason. He's not quite sure, however, if he has a proper grasp of this reason.
"I'm being a proper flatmate. It's better than living on my own, and if I want you to stay, I realize I have to compromise some things." That's the logical part. Everything else is confusing and consists too much of an emotional pull.
"Well, don't make him a stranger," John says, although his is a teasing tone. "He seems like a nice person."
Silence blankets the flat, save for the occasional sipping of milk, from John's end. Sherlock closes his eyes, feels the weight of not having slept for two days in a row. He seems like a nice guy. Sherlock knows that John likes both him and his company, otherwise, he would have moved out already. The question then is: If Sherlock was to stop being a 'proper flatmate', would that make John move out eventually? An even bigger question would be: Why does he care? If John decides to move out, it would be no problem finding a new flatmate.
Except it would, not just because of rare it was to find someone willing to tolerate his lifestyle.
Bugger this. Why does he care if John stays or leaves?
The sound of soft snoring answers him. Sherlock sits up to find that John had fallen asleep on his chair. Sherlock winces in sympathy at the way his neck is stretched out. That will definitely result to a crick later.
He stands to retrieve the mug which, thankfully, hasn't fallen from John's grasp. It is nearly empty now, just a tiny sip left so Sherlock finishes it. He stares at John's milk mustache as he wipes his own off. Hmm, not what he thought he'd feel when he contemplated wiping off John's. Sherlock replaces the mug on the kitchen sink and comes back to stand beside John.
"Come on, wake up. Let's move you to the couch," Sherlock murmurs. John complies and yawns as he drops himself onto the couch. Sherlock throws his dressing gown over the other man and smiles in amusement when John buries himself underneath it. He seats himself in John's previous place.
Don't make him a stranger, John had said. Of course, Sherlock could create an experiment out of this; act the opposite of how he is behaving now. He could push John's limits and test how long each of the acts would make him lose his temper. Across him, John wheezes something like a snort and turns his back on Sherlock.
No, Sherlock decides. I suppose I won't.