A/N: Random idea is random, but I hope you like it. :) Reviews are (need I say) highly appreciated, especially because I just like to know what you think. I felt like writing something fluffy because the multi-chapter story I'm working on now is so damn depressing I need something to get over it. :P Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy, and have an awesome Friday! ^-^
"Of course it was the brother-in-law, he was the only one who could have known that the victim was ambidextrous."
"That makes less than no sense." John rolled his eyes and decided that it was time for him to intervene.
"Alright, alright, calm down. Sherlock, you've made your point, now relax." The detective scowled at him, while Lestrade gave him a grateful nod. Sherlock was still busy glowering at John (and John was busy laughing at his expression) when his phone buzzed with a text. He pulled it up, looking momentarily confused, before he rolled his eyes.
"Wrong number," he said by way of explanation. Then he knitted an eyebrow. "What's this on the end of it?" he asked. John pulled the phone around and looked at it. It was a colon and a right-hand parenthesis stuck on the end of the text, making a smiley face.
"Oh, that's an emoticon," he told the other man, remembering the proper term for it. Sherlock looked confused.
"What does it do?" John shrugged.
"People use them at the end of typed messages to convey emotion. Harry uses them all the time, so I learned most of them from her." Sherlock was still looking confused, so John decided to explain further. There was a white board in the corner of Lestrade's office with a marker beneath it. John picked up the marker and drew the :) symbol on it, indicating it to the detective.
"See? This one means 'happiness'."
"Are there any others?" Sherlock asked him. John gave a laugh.
"Oh, there are a lot of others. Like I said, Harry uses them all the time so I know them like the back of my hand." He drew another, :D, on the board and turned back to Sherlock. "This one means 'really happy', and this one means 'just kidding' or something like that." He copied the :P sign onto the board.
"So it's like the colon is the eyes and whatever you put below that is the mouth expression," Lestrade added in. Sherlock nodded slowly.
"What others are there?" John bit his lip and tried to remember as many of the signs as he could. The list just kept getting longer and longer while he explained what they all stood for. Finally, the detective smiled.
"I think I get it now," he said, going up to the board and grabbing the marker from John. He copied the smiley face and a couple of others. "These are all different emotions."
"Exactly," John replied. There was another marker on the tray and he grabbed it, drawing emoticons randomly, just for fun. "And you use them to convey your emotions when you're not speaking." The two men sat there for another ten minutes just drawing symbols on the board, laughing and joking about how you could have an argument with somebody and never speak a word as long as you could use those.
"As much as it amuses me to see you two act like you're five years old, I've got to go home for the night, so clear that off, will you?" Lestrade finally told them. They recapped the markers and wiped the black ink off of the board, replacing them in the tray.
It was a surprisingly light-hearted moment, especially after the grim case they'd just finished wrapping up, and the two men wished that it could have lasted longer. Just before Lestrade closed his door, Sherlock gave a grin and went back over to the board. He seized the marker one last time and uncapped it, before making one last mark on the board:
:)