Fluff. Because it makes the world go round.
Disclaimer: Sherlock not mine. Knitting fails all mine.
Everyone Can Knit Except Sherlock
John Watson considered himself an enormously patient man, even when it came to his roommate at 221b. But there were some days...
Let us put it to the reader thus; He had completed service in Afghanistan, he had seen bloodshed and violence firsthand. That did not prepare him for living with Sherlock Holmes. It could have been heads in the fridge, fingers in the breadbox, milk cartons strategically placed around the house that were seven months past their expiry date, and on one particularly memorable occasion, the vivisectioned frog.
But... Sherlock learning how to knit.
Yeah.
Imagine if you will, someone with the temperament of an overgrown and irritable cat getting his hands on a ball of yarn and knitting needles. Imagine that the someone in question is very clever most of the time but just cannot get the hang of something as simple as making a scarf.
Imagine how John, this someone's roommate, would feel after ten minutes of the ensuing struggle. Poor Mrs Hudson was coming in every few moments and quietly asking if Sherlock wanted any help, only to scurry away when she was met by a furious 'no'. Sherlock had unravelled half the skein in his effort to figure out the casting on process. He was knitting from the skein. That was how hopeless he was.
So John did the only thing he could do.
He took out the sweater he had promised to make Harry for Christmas and started working the sleeve.
"What are you doing?" Sherlock asked from the mess on his sofa.
"Knitting," he responded.
"Huh."
Silence followed, very nice silence indeed. John looked up a couple of times and saw that Sherlock was staring at him, but he was rather unperturbed; the man tended to stare at nothing when he was thinking very hard, and given the amount of time he devoted to thinking, it was an unescapable certainty that sooner or later he would end up staring at John.
When he next looked up, however, Sherlock was standing over him, still staring. John sat down the sweater slowly, Sherlock's gaze followed it.
"Why did you stop?"
"Because you're unnerving me, Sherlock. If you need a couple of pointers, just ask for them."
"Your wool is in a ball."
"And yours is in a skein. That's wrong, by the way. You're supposed to wind it into a ball like this one before you start. Otherwise you get a knotty mess."
Sherlock's gaze darkened considerably.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you Mrs Hudson tried to tell you and you snapped at her quite rudely," John said, not without some relish. "I don't feel like being snapped at."
"I do not snap at you. When do I snap?"
John didn't think it prudent to bring up the Case of the Cardboard Box, where the detective was snapping at him at a pretty constant and vociferous rate, or the time when they had to attend a lecture on Old English phonology for the Adventure of the Beowulf Code, or the last time John had failed to bring non-chocolate-flavoured milk back from the Tesco, and Sherlock had to go without his customary milky tea. Instead John sighed and told Sherlock to bring his yarn over.
"Why do you want to learn to knit anyhow? Have the little old ladies you love so much invited you to their knitting circles?" he asked with a chuckle.
"It's not for a case. That much you have right," Sherlock said. "In fact, it is for the overlong moments in my life where I have no case. Mummy suggested that I find something to do with my hands."
John didn't try to inform Sherlock of the unfortunate phrasing of that last sentence; they'd both had their fill of the unintentional innuendo during the phonology lecture.
"Well, a scarf is a good beginner's project anyhow," John said with some relief. "Pity about the colour of this yarn, though."
"It's blue! I like blue."
"Is it blue? Really?"
"Well, greyish-blue."
"It's hideous. There is no reason for such a hue to exist," John said. Though he had probably meant to be helpful, Sherlock misconstrued the comment as an attack on his taste, and huffed off in a fluster. When he returned, John had cast on and was knitting a couple of rows for him.
"What are you doing? You were going to show me how!"
"Was I?"
"Yes."
"Well, you flounced off quite suddenly. I can't show you if you're not here to see. Sit down and watch what I do."
After two hours, Sherlock had finally figured out the garter stitch and how to go from one row to another. He'd also been taught what to do in the case of dropping a stitch, but judging by the egregious laddering which plagued his scarf so far, John wasn't sure the lesson had sunk in.
"Come here. You're buggering up your scarf again."
And so John's new project started. He looked with some regret at the sweater he had set down in order to teach Sherlock Holmes how to knit. Instinctively he knew that it would not be done for Christmas.
But if that meant there would be quiet between now and Christmas, then he was perfectly all right with neglecting the garment.