This is just a random little thing that's been sitting in my documents for a while. Never really done anything so short, sweet and simple before, but I thought I may as well publish it. ^_^
Disclaimer: Don't own BBC's Sherlock or any of its characters.
"ACHOO!"
The third sneeze of that morning echoed around the flat like a gunshot, irritating an already tightly wound consulting detective. The petri dish in his hand nearly fell on to the table for the second time that morning.
The fourth ear-shattering sneeze was the one that finally made Sherlock snap like a tight guitar string and spin around in his chair.
"John, what are you doing?" He spat.
The other tried to answer forcefully, but failed completely.
"Putting up tin... tin... t-ACHOOO!"
Sherlock twitched.
"I assume you mean tinsel, John."
"That's the one." The ex-army doctor replied, clapping his hands to get rid of the loose silvery strands of material that had become stuck to his palms. The little buggers were everywhere.
"Why would you put up something that irritates you so much?" Sherlock asked, tone genuinely confused. John tried his hardest not to glare as he put down the tinsel and made his way over to the kettle. The tea had been beckoning him for the past hour.
"Because it's Christmas, Sherlock." He deadpanned, flicking on the kettle and grabbing a teaspoon.
Still sat at the kitchen table, the detective seemed to process this information for a moment, deciding whether or not the holiday was worth any interest at all.
"Christmas? Dull."
Apparently not.
His statement was met with a roll of John's eyes and the continued clattering of a metal spoon against John's preferred mug. The sound resonated throughout the room, feeling unusually commonplace in the voiceless silence.
"Just because it doesn't matter to a highly functioning 'sociopath'," John began, his use of the word 'sociopath' so exaggerated that Sherlock didn't even try to hold back a scoff, "Doesn't mean it doesn't matter to other people. Like me."
"Why should I care about other people?" The age-old argument rose its ugly head again, and John thought about backtracking immediately; last time 'the argument' had happened, it'd resulted in John leaving for a night and coming back to see Sherlock's experiments all over the living room floor. He was pretty sure the human tongues had still been moving at the time. Mrs Hudson had nearly had a heart attack.
John's hands were working automatically now, dropping the teabag in to the bin and grabbing his mug as he turned back to Sherlock, reply ready on his tongue.
"You don't have to care about my opinions," he said, ignoring the way Sherlock didn't even look up to register the doctor's words, "Just respect them. Or at least pretend to respect them. You're good at acting, aren't you? Put it to use."
With some ounce of finality, John pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table, morning paper in hand, the front page some awful dreck about Peter Andre's third wife or something. John paid it no heed, and instead turned to the Sports section, eyes flicking through the contents in their usual routine.
"...I do care about your opinions."
The amount of sincerity in those words nearly made John rip his paper in half from surprise, very nearly tearing a picture of Wayne Rooney in to pieces. It was tough for John to suppress a snort of laughter.
"Good acting, Sherlock." He commented with a raise of his eyebrows and taking a sip from his tea, not bothering to look up, "Nice to see you're trying already."
"Not acting."
The words were said with such finality that John let the subject drop - there was no point in provoking Sherlock in to a pointless argument that would just result in frustration on both sides.
But as John worked his way through an article on the new Manchester United manager, he couldn't help but wonder...
Maybe Sherlock really did care.
Hidden underneath his paper, John smiled. It was a small smile, just a slight quirk of the lips, a minuscule crinkle around the eyes. But it still meant something - a hopeful something too.
Perhaps Christmas wouldn't be so bad this year after all.
Don't forget to R&R! It would be much loved ^_^