A/N: Don't ask me why because honestly I don't even know :P Freakin' plot bunnies are ripping me to shreds and keeping me from writing my longer angstier stuff! :/ Anyway got this idea when I was carving pumpkins with my family for the first time in a couple years and thought it was kind of cute :D I hope you agree. Cyber High Five to anyone who gets the very subtle book reference (seriously you are ninja if you see it).
Reviews: I love, read, and respond to every single review I get. Even if it's only a word or two or completely bashes on me, I still love it. It doesn't matter if I haven't posted in years, you can always bring me back to a fandom or fic with a good review. Prompts and requests for continuations are awesome! And make me do this face ^.^ Now don't you wanna see that face again? By the way, I had a bit of trouble with the last few lines so if you have any recommendations or comments please review. Please. (Desperate face.)
"Look what I bought Sherlock!" John all but screamed as he strode through the doorway of 221B Baker Street while struggling to balance his burden.
"Pumpkins?" Sherlock asked just barely removing his steepled hands from in front of his mouth. He was completely sprawled out in his usual spot on the sofa, one leg on top of the back of the sofa, the other hanging off the edge, with his head over the arm. "You disrupted my reverie to tell me that you bought pumpkins for absolutely no reason."
"Oh, like you were thinking about anything important" John quipped with a maniacal grin. "You haven't moved or changed clothes in days. Now get up and stop being so depressive. We are gonna carve pumpkins."
"Carve pumpkins?" Sherlock looked genuinely perplexed when he swung his legs over the sofa and sat up, elbows on knees, "What does that mean?"
"Come on. I should have known that you would have deleted that. You know, make Jack-O-Lanterns? Get in the Halloween spirit?" Sherlock gave him the most blank and unknowing look John had ever seen from him. "Really you didn't decide to save anything Halloween related in that hard drive of yours? Halloween is tomorrow and I thought it might be fun if we did something- I don't know- Halloween related."
"I didn't even know it was close to Halloween. It never really mattered much to me. We didn't really celebrate it when we were kids." Suddenly Sherlock's feet seemed very interesting to him.
"What? How could you not celebrate Halloween when you were a kid?" Sherlock had a shamed and embarrassed look on his face as he shrugged his shoulders silently. "You made costumes or went trick or treating or egged someone's house? Why?"
"Oh, I don't know." Fire grew behind Sherlock's eyes and he replied with vehemence a look that meant death piercing in to John. "Maybe because I'm a freak."
"Sherlock." John gently sat himself down next to Sherlock and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You know that's not how I meant it."
"I know." Sherlock mumbled. "It's just that Mycroft and I missed out on so much as kids and it's... I'm not sure. I don't even know what I was thinking." John gave him an understanding look trying as hard as possible not to seem sympathetic because truly, he wasn't. Sherlock hated sympathy more than anything and most of the time John agreed. True friends can't feel sorry for you because they are too busy helping to shoulder the pain.
"Come on. It's never too late to start enjoying Halloween." John smiled down at a very despondent Sherlock as he offered him a hand to get up. Sherlock smiled as he accepted the help. Together they walked to the kitchen each holding a pumpkin.
"Um..." Sherlock's small noise of confusion raised John from the pumpkin he was already cutting a circle out of the top of. "Exactly what do you do with this?" John thought for a second how Sherlock could sometimes look like a small and lost child.
"Oh. Sorry. It's pretty simple. First you cut a circle out of the top and then you take out the seeds and stuff, then you draw a face on the front and cut out the face. And then you can eat the seeds if you want to and you put the finished product in the window or outside with a candle in it" Sherlock still looked so young to John with that endearingly confused look on his face.
"And exactly what is the point of this?"
"There really isn't a point. It's just to have fun and be Halloween-y."
"Boring." Sherlock turned away.
"Hey! Try it and if you don't like it we don't have to do it again."
"Fine." Sherlock turned dramatically on his heel and flopped down cross legged next to John. John couldn't help but steal quick glances at Sherlock whose tongue was just slightly protruding from his mouth with concentration. He nearly jumped from his skin when Sherlock leapt up suddenly with a cry of triumph. Part of it was the fact that Sherlock wielding a knife anywhere near John was genuinely frightening but in truth John had also been deeply engrossed in his work after years of being out of practice.
"Look John!" Sherlock screamed. "I did it!" In his hand he held the top of the pumpkin. John really thought Sherlock was like a child now but more of an overexcited one after they made some small feat. The top was horribly cut in something that didn't even vaguely resmebled a circle. It looked like it had been cut with safety scissors and it was all John could do to not laugh. "Now what?" Sherlock's eyes were wide with excitement and sparkled with childlike wonder.
"Now you got to take out the guts. I'll get you a spoon." Sherlock's joy was infectious and John found it hard to wipe the smile from his face. John walked over to the cupboard and began to rifle for a spoon but when he turned back to Sherlock he already had his hands deep in the pumpkin.
"Woah! It feels SO COOL!" John wondered for a second what Sherlock must have been like as a child. "Look at this!" A humongous smile was plastered on his face. "Why have I never done this before!"
John put the spoon back and followed Sherlock's example covering his hands in the sticky innards and his mind in nostalgic memories.
He remembered a time when he and Harry were happy, when things where so simple. Him and his sister could stay up past bedtime and watch scary movies on Halloween and tell ghost stories. Life was so much... easier. All it took to make a friend was a simple hello and you played nice and shared or you were sent to time out. You lived by the golden rule: treat others how you want to be treated.
But then they grew up and Harry became distant after a string of abusive male lovers. John became a doctor and tried to run away form his dysfunctional family by joining the army. Now Harry was an alcoholic and John was scarred by the horrors of war. He made his living by working with a so called "high functioning sociopath" which, in and of itself was a lie. Both of them depending on people being vile and harming others to pay the rent. John wondered how the principles that everyone was raised on suddenly disappeared in adulthood.
A sullen silence fell over the room as both men scooped the seeds out of the pumpkin and placed them into a bowl that John couldn't remember grabbing. Time passed and the actions became mechanical as they worked each caught up in their own thoughts.
"You know." Sherlock began after a tense pause. "My parents weren't really fond of much of anything." His words were slow and deliberate as he chose them with great care. "Mycroft and I included. They were very cold and distant people and as a child all I had was my brother to raise me. We used to be super close. you know. Sometimes, I wonder how we could have been pushed so far apart. It was no surprise we didn't get Halloween or really any holiday besides Christmas and New Year's. If they were mad at us or distracted by their ever so important lives then we might not even get that. I used to get made fun of all the time at school for it. And- I don't know- maybe it hurt me a bit more deeply than I ever admitted to myself. I guess that's why I reacted the way I did earlier. So, sorry for that. It was just that on top of my parents hating me and then you get one very messed up adult. They never thought I was worth anything. I was of no importance to them just someone to carry on the family name... And I didn't even do that. Sometimes I think they were right-"
"Sherlock." John said firmly stopping Sherlock's destructive thinking. "Look at me." Head still bowed Sherlock moved his eyes from his pumpkin up to John, his line of vision obscured by the black curls that drooped in correspondence with his attitude. John grabbed both of Sherlock's pumpkin covered wrists "It doesn't matter what your parents thought of you. They were wrong. You are worth something, you save people's lives every day and you are the best and wisest man whom I have ever known. Who cares about them anyway? Me and you are gonna make up for all the time you lost celebrating holidays as a child and make this the best Halloween ever." Sherlock raised his head so John could see his eyes. John noticed they were watery.
"You and I." He muttered.
"What?" asked John.
"You and I. You and I are gonna make up for all the time you lost celebrating holidays as a child and make this the best Halloween." A smile crept on both of their faces as John recognized Sherlock's odd way of saying thanks.
"So." John said, wiping of his slimy hands on his jeans. "What kinda face are you gonna do?"
"Wait. There aren't predetermined faces? I actually have to think of one?"
"Yeah! Of course you have to think of one! That's the funnest part!"
"Never mind. I'll just go back to the sofa."
"Oh come one." John pleaded, "You could do a happy face-"
"Boring."
"Or an angry face-"
"Dull."
"Or a scared face-"
"Idiotic."
"Fine!" John exclaimed throwing his hands in the air. "You think of one Mr. World's Only Consulting Detective Genius." Sherlock's eyes roved the room, his brow furrowed in deep thought.
"I've got it." Sherlock turned and began to furiously draw on his pumpkin in Sharpie. John tried to look around to see what had Sherlock in a frenzy but Sherlock put his arm around the pumpkin protectively.
"Oh. This is war." John had known exactly what he was gonna do since he had been in the grocery store and his Sharpie flitted away on the surface of the pumpkin.
It was almost an hour later when Sherlock surveyed his work and said, "Done." With a sense of finality.
"Oh thank God. Took you long enough." That maniacal smile crept back on to John's face.
"Ha ha ha." Sherlock retorted sarcastically, "But I bet you'll love what I made." Sherlock turned his pumpkin around for John to observe.
"What is that?" John happily wailed doubling over in laughter. "It looks like," he took a heaving breath, trying to control his heavy laughter. "It looks like... I don't even know what looks like!" John was rolling on the floor laughing. Sherlock gave a frown to his Jack-O-Lantern. It had to circles for eyes that were obviously uneven in size and looked like they had been made with a shaky hand. The mouth looked like the letter "D" with the flat side facing up and two buck teeth. The nose looked like something dirty that made John laugh even harder. John was rolling on the floor clutching his sides, completely disregarding the pumpkin guts.
"It was supposed to be you." Sherlock muttered.
John looked up, stopping mid-chuckle with his hands still grasping at his stomach. "Really?" He asked.
"Yes. But since you think it's so horrible..." Sherlock was doing the same shameful look as earlier.
"Oh. Then I think you'll like mine too." John turned the pumpkin around to reveal a Jack-O-Lantern with narrow eye, angry eyebrows, a narrow nose, and a wide mouth. Written in Sharpie in a word bubble next to the mouth was "Shut up Anderson! You're lowering the IQ of everyone in a ten block radius!"
"Is that me?" Sherlock giggled.
"Yes." said John slowly, gauging the other man's reaction. His fears were dissipated the second Sherlock completely fell over with laughter. John's laughter was rekindled to and it was a long time before they were able to wipe away their tears and place candles in their pumpkins.
Night had long since fallen by the time the pumpkins of the detective and the doctor shined in the window of 221B Baker Street. Amiably, they sat next to each other pouring their light out to the streets below, a testament to true friendship.