John's careless slam of the door and quick footsteps on the stairs announced his arrival. Sherlock would have only moments to cover up what he'd been doing. He decided in a split instant that it was better to brazen it out than try to hide. He stayed put in his chair, legs draped over one arm, head lolling over the other, and arranged his features to their finest shade of indifference as John walked in.

'It's just me what...' he stopped short, his sentences colliding with one another, '...are you doing?'

Sherlock only now deigned to roll his head towards the door, his hands pausing in their task. 'Nothing,' he said, tone bland, eyes blank.

John didn't move from the threshold, and he had begun to smile in that particular way that suggested he thought Sherlock was going to be embarrassed about something. No matter how many times Sherlock had tried, patiently, to explain that embarrassment was for simple people, and that any physiological reaction such as an errant blush could be attributed to basic biochemistry, John would insist on smiling this insufferable smile.

'You're knitting,' he said, finally taking a step inside and closing the door behind him.

'Yes.'

John shrugged his coat off, eyes never leaving the spectacle in front of him, his expression suggesting a little wonder and a fair sum of mischievous delight. 'Knitting?' he said again, this time with added inflection. 'Really?'

'Your sentence structure really has gone to the dogs, John. The word knitting, in and of itself, does not constitute a question, and while the word "really" doesn't strictly...'

John cut him off.

'Really knitting?' he asked, still in good humour. He threw his jacket over the back of his chair and sat down on the edge of the seat, leaning forwards as though to more closely inspect the situation.

'Yes.' Sherlock tried to imply with this short word that it was perfectly natural for him to be knitting, and for John to be creating a fuss about it was merely another symptom of his tragically slow mind being incapable of reaching evidence-based conclusions.

'Right.' John sat back, still smirking. 'And when did this start?'

'Yesterday afternoon.' Sherlock turned his head again, directing his gaze to the ceiling, and resumed work with the needles. He didn't need to look down at it any more. It was, after all, a simple matter of manual dexterity. The wool trailed through his fingers, and disappeared somewhere behind the chair.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see John shaking his head.

'Yesterday afternoon,' he repeated. 'I have to say, Sherlock, just when I think you've run out of surprises...' He let the sentence tail off. They sat silently for a few moments, save the clicking of the metal pins.

'Is Mrs Hudson involved in this, at all?'

'She came in as I was gouging out plaster from the walls...'

'Sounds pretty tame, for you,' John interrupted, as he settled back in his seat

This occasioned a brief sideways frown. 'I was going to plant cockroach eggs in the holes. I have a few varieties, I wanted to see if any of them would be strong enough to burrow back out through a thin layer of plaster.'

He was secretly pleased to see the smirk being replaced by a brief grimace.

'I can see why Mrs Hudson might not have been too happy about that.'

'No...' Sherlock drawled. 'She said I needed a hobby.' He pronounced the word as another person may have pronounced the name of some rare and foreign plant species.

'Well, I can't argue with her there.' The smirk began to resurface, though fell away again as a thought occurred. 'What did you do with the cockroach eggs?'

'Oh, they're around here somewhere.'

'What?' John almost started to his feet, and it was Sherlock's turn to smile.

'Of course they're not, what kind of hazardous existence do you think I'm living without you here?' He paused long enough to let John begin to relax. 'They're in the freezer.'

'Oh for God's…' A pause. 'Right. Better there than in the walls.'

'I suppose. If anyone's alibi depends on it they'll have to take up my lack of knowledge with my landlady.' John gave a short huff of laughter.

'So she brought you up all the stuff, then? The needles and everything?'

'Ladies of a certain age do tend to have a stash of knitting supplies, I've never been quite sure why since so few of them seem able to turn out even a simple garment when called upon. She brought a selection of needles and what she rather laughably referred to as "wool".'

John was nonplussed, though this in itself was not a new state of affairs. 'What is it, then? Butcher's string?'

'This, for instance,' Sherlock said, holding his work in progress slightly aloft from his chest, 'is 89% acrylic, 8% polyamide and 3% polyester. Give or take.'

'Give or take,' he heard John mutter, though he chose to ignore it.

'The others are also mainly acrylic, with the odd dash of cotton here and there, though there is some angora and, rather surprisingly among all those mongrel yarns, a ball of 3-ply silk.'

He looked toward the other chair again, realising that he'd been more enthusiastic than he'd originally intended and wanting to gauge the reaction this might bring.

'Silk, eh? Wow.' John's face seemed a little too innocent. 'Can't wait to see what you come up with for that.' He sounded as though he were being both completely truthful and completely facetious.

Sherlock sighed. 'Look, I don't know why this seems to be such a shock.' He held his project out to one side and opened his hand, somewhat dramatically, dropping yarn and needles to the carpet with a muffled thud. Then, with a sudden move, he swept his legs round and sat upright in the chair, drumming his fingers on the armrests. He met John's eye defiantly. 'You know I like to learn new skills.'

'No...' said John, almost thoughtfully. 'No, you don't. You like to use the skills you already have, preferably to make other people look stupid.'

'It's not my fault if other people look stupid, that's usually because they are stupid. And what about the napkins?'

'What napkins?'

'At your wedding, John, a day I'm sure you must recall as it was "the biggest and most important day of your life".' Nobody could pronounce quote marks quite like Sherlock Holmes. Frustratingly, John had to admit that he had a point.

'Alright,' he conceded, 'you did learn the Sydney Opera House thing. Mary loved them. I did too, of course.' He moved on hastily. 'Since when did you do anything Mrs Hudson tells you to?'

Sherlock looked down for a second. 'I might have been paraphrasing her actual words,' he began.

'Go on.'

'She might have said that if I didn't get a decent, normal hobby and stop playing merry hell with her walls she'd tell Mycroft what I put in his tea last time he was round.'

'And what was that?'

'Nothing. An experiment. Anyway, I told her I already had plenty to occupy my time, but then she sat down and started talking to me about knitting, and grossly misusing the word 'wool'. In the end I had to say I'd learn just to get her out of your chair.'

'Still my chair, then, is it?' John's voice was casual, but neither met the other's eye.

'Out of your chair, out of my hair… I meant one of those things.' Sherlock hoisted himself nimbly into a crouch on his seat, then turned and leaned precariously off over one side. 'Never mind that, I've got something for you.' He rummaged for a moment among the permanent debris, and came back up with a woollen (or, at least, knitted) garment, which he threw carelessly across the space between them. John caught it one handed.

It was a tiny crew neck sweater, complete with cabling. He looked at it for a long moment, any trace of mockery draining from his face.

'I don't think it'll fit me,' he tried, eventually, not sure what to say.

Sherlock only smiled, that peculiarly soft smile that he never used to wear.

'It's… I mean, it's really great. You made this?' John was still floundering.

'I thought little Sherlock might like it.'

'We're not calling her Sherlock.' John was glad of the by-now familiar joke. It was a way to leave the serious words unspoken. He looked again at the sweater, feeling the softness in his hands, taking in all the detail. It was beautiful.

'Thank you,' he said, finally. That should have been his automatic response, of course, but he'd been taken so completely by surprise that he'd lost his grip of social convention. That so often happened around Sherlock. He wasn't a man who dealt much in convention.

'Thanks,' he said again, finally returning Sherlock's smile. 'It's great. Mary will love it. I… Yeah. I… It's ...'

Sherlock nodded. 'Great. You said.' His tone held no reproach. John cleared his throat, feeling dazed by the unexpected thoughtfulness. The silence held for a beat longer than was comfortable, before Sherlock spoke again.

'Wouldn't do to have the little one lacking in her father's sartorial sensibilities.' Ah, the relief of familiar territory.

'Oh, excuse me if I don't want to dress my baby in a deerstalker and trenchcoat.'

'Not until she can solve crimes, at least.'

'No. Mind you, if she starts in at that business we can't have her wearing this.' John held up the little jumper.

Sherlock squinted a little, trying to figure out where this was going.

'Wouldn't want anyone trying to pull the wool over her eyes, would we?'

'John. That is truly awful. I should have you arrested.'

'Arrested?'

Yes. Or at the very least taken into purl-ice custody.'

John hadn't seen this one coming, but only because he'd been busying himself trying to think of another wool joke. He'd got one.

'Ah, but you wouldn't do that.'

'No?'

'It'd be a complete stitch-up.'

They both laughed ruefully. Puns may be a lower form of wit than either of them usually condoned, but they were preferable to talking about how life would be once the baby was here. As their laughter tailed off, John carefully folded the sweater and tucked it into one of his jacket's many pockets.

With the gift now out of sight, and further expressions of affection successfully avoided, they took up a more normal avenue of conversation. Sherlock had solved a case this week without, as he put it, the benefit of John's lack of expertise, and they lost themselves in the minutiae of the details. As he listened to the oddly comforting flow of words, John privately resolved not to tell anyone about the knitting. Originally he'd been gleeful at the idea of breaking the news to Greg, just to see the look on his face but, on reflection, it might be a bit unkind.

Besides, it was good for Sherlock to have a new hobby. He'd need something to keep him out of mischief when John wasn't there.