When Sherlock and John move out to Sussex, they are too young to retire, strictly speaking, but neither of them has been really working for years anyway, and they are both feeling restless and watched and tense in the city they once so loved. They both have this strange and sudden longing for space and stillness. Well, perhaps it is not so strange and sudden. The consummation of their romantic relationship catapulted their modest fame ever higher and they simply can't take the scrutiny anymore.

If John so much as leaves the flat for a pint or to pop down to the shops without Sherlock, the tabloids decide that it's the end of an era, that the chapter of Sherlock and John, consulting detective and doctor-blogger, is coming to a close. Noisy reporters heckle them, insist that one or the other is cheating, or bored of the other, and the pair have simply had enough. Bible thumpers scream that they're setting a bad example for children and that they will go to hell, to which Sherlock sometimes replies dryly, "Color me surprised," or "Tell me something I don't know." Where Sherlock once enjoyed being nasty to people who deserved it, he now finds it simply exhausting. Reporters of the worst sort even hinder their work, getting underfoot at crime scenes and being all too conspicuous, shouting questions like, "What's the doctor like in bed! We hear he's kinky!" or "So John, what about Sherlock and Molly Hooper? They seemed pretty cozy together walking into the Regent Hotel last night! What are you going to do about it? He's cheating on you! Molly Hooper is carrying his child!"

It's absurd of course, all of it. John and Sherlock love each other, and always have (even if it took them a while to get around to admitting it) and always will. The idea of Sherlock cheating on John with Molly is ludicrous, not least because Molly is head over heels in love with her new husband, Fred, who truly seems to be a normal bloke this time. As to John being kinky, that's none of the world's business, thank you very much. They are tired of fielding questions about John's "ugly" jumpers turning Sherlock off and Sherlock's "return" to his drug habit. It's all patently untrue and completely unfounded and whether they answer or not doesn't seem to matter, as they will always be misquoted. In fact misquoted is a gross understatement. The quotes attributed to them in the gossip columns are utterly and completely fabricated. A particularly nasty article suggesting that John abuses Sherlock, complete with photoshopped pictures of a battered Sherlock, is the last straw.

It doesn't take long for them to whirlwind-pack their belongings and house hunt in Sussex, but then, they are highly motivated to get as far away from the tabloids as humanly possible.

Mycroft wants to pay to keep Baker Street open as a second home for them, but John insists that it's unnecessary and a little bit overbearing. (Mycroft goes ahead and does it anyway, but John doesn't need to know that.) They find a perfect little white house, unfurnished, a short walk from the sea, with a large front porch and goodly amount of land for John's garden and Sherlock's bees. There is a pear tree out front that is happily bearing fruit and there is a blackberry bramble just down the dirt road that reminds Sherlock of picking berries as a child. He's sure there's a picture of him somewhere, seven years old, sunburnt and grinning, face and hands stained purple, covered head to toe in painful red welts from heedlessly plunging into the thorny thicket, a picture that John would love, that would make his eyes and mouth go soft the way they do when Sherlock says, "I love you more than crime scenes," the way they do before he kisses Sherlock. He'll have to find that picture for John sometime. Sherlock likes kisses more than he ever imagined he could.

Sherlock wants to buy furniture for the new house from a man in London who hand-makes priceless unique beautiful pieces. "I got his father out of prison and he owes me," says Sherlock, "But it would be highway robbery for us to take anything from him gratis, considering the craftsmanship and time that goes into every piece. It would be cruel to ask for more than a 15% discount."

The furniture store has been in the Moser family for years, and it is the young Ezekiel Moser who greets them warmly in the showroom. John must admit that the pieces are beautiful, all dark, warm, shining carved wood, with just enough detail to avoid being either overly plain or overly fussy. But John is wary of any store that doesn't have price tags, so he reserves his judgment.

Sherlock and John return to Baker Street, where their belongings are packed up in boxes, catalogue in hand. John makes a cup of tea. Sherlock is chatting amiably about the different dining tables. Who would have thought it, the world's only consulting detective applying his detail-oriented mind to the subject of furniture for christ's sake. It's ludicrous. John listens with half an ear, until he opens the catalogue, and then he isn't listening at all, instead he's shouting, "CHRIST, THAT TABLE IS £8000." He throws the catalogue away from him as though it were made of fire and puts a little slug of whiskey in his tea.

Sherlock is, as usual, nonplussed. He says, "Well, consider the man hours that go into making it, John, and the materials. It's perfectly reasonable. And there will be a discount."

John ignores him. "Right. Off to the Ikea then," says he in a tone that brooks no argument. "We don't need to spend all that money."

Later, John curses over the furniture he chose, wrestling with a 32 kg box that will become a bureau. "Would it kill you to help, Sherlock?"

Sherlock ignores him. He swans about on the couch in the living room (the only part of their new home that is furnished) and drones about the delivery and assembly service that would have been included in the fee at Moser's Fine Furniture. It's lucky John loves him, because his smugness would otherwise be intolerable.

John frowns over the diagrams. He remembers Ikea furniture being easy to assemble. He had a girlfriend once who seemed to only be dating John in order to use him as a furniture mover. He was still pretty young at that time and had happily built tables for Jessica's parents, her sister, her friends, and even once for her ex-girlfriend before he finally realized she had no affection for him whatsoever and was making a profit off of him by hiring him out to her friends like some kind of furniture gigolo.

"Sherlock," he calls into the next room. "Would you come look at this? I can't quite get the screw right."

Sherlock sweeps in, but only to snicker and make jokes about John's "screwing" abilities like a twelve year old.

When John then chooses to ignore Sherlock and continue frowning over the diagram (the man in the diagram is so happy. Why is he so happy?), Sherlock changes tack, draping himself over John and making innuendos about John's "screwing" abilities like a horny nineteen year old, all while nibbling at John's ear lobe.

Needless to say, John gets distracted from the furniture. After all, Sherlock is wearing that dressing gown he loves so much. The furniture will get built later.

When John wakes up the next day wrapped up in two odd meters of consulting detective, he is shocked to discover, first and foremost, that they are lying in a plush king sized bed with a gorgeous wood frame when before they had been sleeping on the couch, and second, that the entire house has been furnished, seemingly overnight, and that the Ikea boxes have mysteriously gone missing.

He scowls, but in the end, his heart isn't in it because he's actually fairly relieved that he doesn't have to build anything anymore.

End.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think! This is unbeta'd and unbritpicked, so any errors are mine and mine alone.

This little one-shot was originally written on Tumblr. We just got a bunch of Ikea furniture for my apartment that I've been assembling, and the whole time all I could think about was John cursing quietly while Sherlock snickered and made puerile jokes about screwing, and so this little ficlet was born! I'm in the midst of writing a lot of sad things, so I thought a bit of domestic fluff was in order. This is also posted on tumblr and AO3 under the same handle (thefloatingpoem).