NaNo- Sherlock, No! Leave Me Alone!
"What are you grinning about?"
John glanced up. "Mm, signed up for NaNoWriMo."
Sherlock paused with his toast halfway between his lips. "What?"
"NaNo- oh, right you wouldn't know. National November Writing Month." John nodded at the screen. "Starting November 1st, you start writing a novel, or try to, anyway, and log fifty-thousand words by the end of the month."
Sherlock took the bite he'd stopped at. "And that is making you smile for what reason, exactly?"
John shrugged. "I like writing. I'm turning my blog into a casebook. It's probably a little bit on the rebel side, but I'm going to... why are you looking at me like that?"
Sherlock frowned. "You are not turning your horrible blog into a casebook."
Now John frowned, leaning back in the chair. "Why shouldn't I? Our lives sound pretty fictitious, anyway, and I want to publish a casebook, anyway, so I'm using NaNo as a push to get it done. Not that I've started piecing the cases into actual story formats instead of blogs yet, but it can't be too much of a difference... More detail and such." John glanced up. "Okay, you're still looking at me like I've spouted a third eye. What?"
Sherlock shrugged. "Nothing. I just can't believe you're going to do it. Besides, isn't fifty-thousand words a lot, just for a casebook? Our lives aren't that interesting."
John gaped. "Are you serious? Our lives are crazy. I'll be lucky to get it done before the end of the month."
Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned away. Apparently, his attention span had fizzled out on the idea. Or there wasn't enough Marmite on his toast, John thought, as Sherlock licked a dollop from the bread.
"It can't be that hard," Sherlock was saying, as parked himself on the sofa. "Given that you don't have anything else to do, I'm sure you'll have it done in no time."
"You have no idea the sheer volume of fifty-thousand words, Sherlock." John got to his feet, lured by the idea of the leftover sweet and sour chicken in the fridge. "You couldn't do it."
"As much as I'd like to..." Sherlock paused for a long moment... "I just don't have the time. I have better things to do."
"What, like... cleaning this muck up?" John muttered, pushing a beaker of liver digesting in whatever away from his chicken.
"Don't jostle that," Sherlock retorted.
"You can't even see me."
"You're messing with my experiments. Why don't you go write a book or something?"
John rolled his eyes and dislodged the chicken, going to nuke it in the microwave.
"Should we go out for dinner?"
John hummed. "Just bring me something back."
Sherlock stared at the back of John's head. "... What's wrong?"
John looked away from the laptop. "What's wrong where?" He looked around, settling on Sherlock with a frown.
"This is usually the other way. You ask me if I want to eat, I say no, and you bring me something back. Now you're refusing to go out with me," Sherlock said dryly. "So, I asked what's wrong?"
"Oh." John rolled his eyes. "Nothing. I'm on a word count roll, just... bring me back something." He looked back at the laptop and continued typing (in that annoyingly slow tap... tap... tap type of typing that Sherlock hated).
Sherlock's nostrils flared. "Never-mind," he muttered, tossing his coat onto the chair. "I'll order in."
"So, how goes it?"
"'bout seven thousand."
"Only forty-three thousand more to go," Sherlock replied, faux cheerfully.
John rolled his eyes. "Thank you, word counter."
"Welcome."
John drummed his fingers against the table irritably. He didn't mind getting dragged out of the house at ten at night for a crime scene - not anymore, anyway - but he had been busy. He liked to write at night-time. It was easier to put things together when he was up in his bedroom, in the quiet that Sherlock could only disturb by barging in or playing loud music. It was easier to think when he didn't have Sherlock pacing around the flat, so he liked to write at night.
He huffed softly.
Sherlock raised his head. "... John."
John looked down at him. "What? Did you find something?"
"Go home," Sherlock replied bluntly.
John blinked. "What?"
"Go home."
"But we have a case," John protested. "You practically dragged me out of the flat because you said you needed my help!"
"You're annoying me." That same, blunt tone. John should really be used to that by now.
"Well, excuse me," John replied sarcastically, only then noticing that a) his tone was like a six-year old's, and b) he was tapping his fingers. "... Ah."
Sherlock rolled his eyes and looked back at the body. "I'll be back shortly. This is amateur."
"Are you sure? I don't-" He did.
"Go."
John muttered a hasty apology and got out of there. Even better than writing at night-time? Writing at night-time when Sherlock was out of the house.
"What's up with him?" Greg asked Sherlock, once John had gotten into a cab.
Sherlock stood up. "He's doing a thing."
Greg raised his eyebrows. "A thing?"
"NaNamo, or whatever. It's a writing thing." He looked around at him. "Your victim was poisoned. Rat poison, if I had to guess. I need to see the basement."
"Uh... alright."
Sherlock sighed.
John was ready to throttle him. "Do you have to do that so loudly?"
"Do what?" Sherlock tilted his head on the armrest.
"Sigh dramatically," John muttered, pecking at the keys on the keyboard.
"I'm sorry that my breathing is irritating you," Sherlock replied in a monotone.
John huffed.
The next time Sherlock huffed a sigh, John was sure he was doing it on purpose.
"Damn it, Sherlock, I'm trying to work here!"
Maybe Sherlock wasn't doing it on purpose, because he jumped. His head came around to look at John again, but there was irritation in his gaze now. "Sorry," he said bitterly, swinging into a sitting position. "You possess the patience of a woman on her menstrual cycle." He stalked into the kitchen and back to his bedroom.
John sighed.
He'd apologise later. It wasn't as though he himself had been subject to Sherlock's violent mood swings, but... he would apologise.
It was just... writer's block.
John was awoken by the fact that something - or someone - was moving nearby. He felt the weight on his chest and stomach move slightly and he made an instinctive grab for the laptop that he'd had sitting there.
Sherlock paused, his fingers falling away from John's laptop. "... I thought you were asleep," he commented, before turning away.
"Oh..." John blinked a few times and then rubbed at his eyes, clapping the laptop shut. "I fell asleep." He deposited his laptop onto the table and sat up slowly. "Ow." His neck and shoulder were killing him. Last time he'd fall asleep on the sofa.
"Is your novel really so boring?" Sherlock asked absently, swathed in his dressing gown, fuzzy hair, and a cup of steaming tea.
John tried to glare, but he was too tired. "No... It's stuck, honestly. Halfway there and I swear my brain is just... so done with it." He rubbed at his shoulder wearily. "This is why I hate NaNo."
"Then, why do it?"
John shrugged. "It's a challenge. It's horrible, but in all the good ways."
Sherlock stared at him tiredly. He must have just woken up not long ago. "I would say that makes no sense, but I actually understand," he said. "Do you want a cup of tea?"
"Please," John said gratefully.
"It's November 23rd."
"Yes, Sherlock, I'm aware."
"Which means you have one week left."
"Uh huh."
"For fifty-thousand words."
"... Yep."
"You've barely hit thirty-thousand."
"Thanks for the reminder."
"Seven days, twenty-thousand words."
"You can shut up now."
"Damn it all to hell..." John muttered, burying his face into his hands. "Ten thousand more words, and I swear I'm never doing this again."
Sherlock glanced up from the book he was reading. "You were so happy when you signed up, too."
"Seriously, shut up," John replied, and he did his best to ignore Sherlock's smirk.
"What the hell!"
Sherlock scrambled backwards, scrabbling to his feet. He was grinning, but it was slightly waylaid by the slight panic in his eyes.
"No, seriously, Sherlock, what in the actual hell? Did you just blow on the back of my neck?" John scrubbed his hand against the back of his neck. "I'm trying to concentrate!"
Sherlock leaned against the doorway, still grinning. "I know. You looked very intense. Almost a sort of constipated look, really."
John was serious. All he heard when Sherlock talked was, literally, punch me in the face, John, I deserve to have a giant black eye.
"You seem on edge," Sherlock commented.
"Okay, look." John crossed his arms. "This," he jabbed at the computer, "is like a case. You know how you get when you have a case?" He pointed at the kitchen table and counter. "That's you. This is me." He pointed back at the laptop. "Okay? Three more days, Sherlock, and then I'll do whatever you want."
Sherlock's eyes lit up. John conveniently didn't notice.
"Fine," Sherlock said seriously.
John locked himself in his room. To his credit, Sherlock didn't bother him for the next seven-thousand words.
"Finally!"
Sherlock glanced up as John came thumping down the stairs.
"I've finally got fifty-thousand, words. Seriously, Sherlock, watch this, we're going to validate."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "'We'?"
"Shut up." John flopped onto the sofa next to Sherlock.
It was all to John's delight when the word count was validated and he received the message that he had won. Better yet, his word count bar turned purple and proclaimed for all to see that he was, indeed, a winner, a writer, and someone who had not been bested by a few (many) thousand words.
"... Nice," Sherlock commented. "Would you like me to take a picture?"
"Nah, I'll print out the certificate," John replied giddily.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, but John's smile was enough to make him smile, too. He finally - at long last - had his John back.
"I think we'll go out to dinner," he said out loud. "My treat," he added, "seeing as how you've taxed yourself in this project."
John blinked. "Seriously?"
"We can go out now, correct? You are not connected to the laptop by the cables?"
John smiled wryly. "Yeah, sorry about that. Writing, it does a thing to you. Or I guess maybe it's just NaNo." He shrugged. "Dinner sounds lovely, I'm starving."
Sherlock pressed his lips together to stifle his smile. "I'll get my coat."
"... Sherlock, you know I hate this place."
Sherlock was smiling as he replied, "And you also said that you would do whatever I wanted if I left you alone for your last seven-thousand words. I want to listen to orchestra, and I prefer to have someone I know sitting next to me to avoid morbidly annoying people from interrupting the peace." He leaned back in his chair and looked towards the stage.
John sighed. "I don't even remember saying that. I hate instrumental music." He sank down a little lower in his seat.
"Says the man who played clarinet."
"Because my parents made me!" John retorted. "I think we gathered I'm not the musically inclined one here, it's you."
"You promised," Sherlock replied, never looking away from the stage.
"I definitely don't remember that." John resisted the urge to sigh again. "And we look really weird. I swear those girls in the corner are waiting for us to start making out."
Sherlock tilted his head. "I'm afraid that would interfere with my digestion of the music, sorry."
John shot daggers at the side of the brunette's head. "Don't be smart."
Sherlock's lips twitched. "Well, I wouldn't want to be stupid."
John rolled his eyes. "How many of these things do I have to go with you to? Three?"
"Five."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Fair trade. Five performances for fifty-thousand words," Sherlock replied.
John pursed his lips. "I'm just suffering through everything lately, it seems like. First NaNoWriMo and now this."
"I had to suffer through you," Sherlock replied, looking over at him with a small amount of mirthful affection. "I lived off of biscuits and Mrs Hudson's cooking. You wouldn't even look at that decapitation I had pictures of."
"Okay, so I was a little neglectful, but you are wholly capable of doing things on your own," John retorted.
"Of course I am," Sherlock replied. "Where's the fun in that?"
John rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to win this argument, am I?"
"Think of it this way, John. I value your company."
John couldn't help but scoff. "That means no, doesn't it?"
"It means," Sherlock smirked, "not a chance in the world."
"That's what I thoug-"
"Shh. It's starting." Sherlock leaned forward and pressed his fingertips together, eyes keen on the stage as the lights went down around them.
Well. John didn't like orchestra music, it was too boring for him, but, when he thought of that certificate back home that declared him a winner at NaNoWriMo 2014, he couldn't help but smile, too.
For those who do not know: NaNoWriMo is exactly what John describes. Starting November 1st, you start writing a novel, and by November 30th, hope to have 50,000 words. This is my first year participating; I'm above par where I should be, word count wise, right now, but it's still stressing me out. xD And I don't actually know if you get a certificate at the end... I read that somewhere else. There's a lot of fics with the characters participating, but I wanted to give it my own twist. (How I wish to add these 2500k words to my word count, but alas, I cannot. xD)
I do not own Sherlock or NaNoWriMo, for that matter. Thanks for reading!