Author's Notes: Written for Beth as a little thank you for sending me all the Sherlock Holmes stories and being a fangirl with me. Thanks goes to C. for the beta and Brit!picking.
It isn't until two days later (two days, seventeen hours, and thirty-seven minutes) that John Watson arrives at Baker Street with boxes, six boring, brown boxes he heaves from the boot of a taxi curbside, with a bit of assistance from the cabbie. From above, long fingers holding the sheer curtains aside, Sherlock Holmes can't help but smirk at John's body language, still clearly dwelling on the case already behind them.
"I'm surprised more of us don't branch out."
Silly, really. The statistical likelihood that the cabbie helping John with his boxes is, in fact, a serial killer - or possesses the traits of a killer - and is willing to commit a crime in the middle of London on a Friday, when people are heading home after work, is unlikely. Improbable. Sherlock isn't willing to dismiss the fact entirely - the cabbie has been convicted of crimes in the past, a bit of robbery, even - oh! - assault, possibly? Yes, well, he won't be harming John outside Baker Street.
Below, John smiles and shakes the cabbie's hand, money tucked discreetly in his own and glances around as the driver tips his head and leaves, sliding seamlessly into City traffic. Left alone, John now looks at the boxes, hands on his hips, and leaves all his belongings on the curb as he pounds on the front door - Sherlock shifts, turns around, and sighs.
"Mrs. Hudson!" he shouts, hands in his pockets. Really, he can't be expected to actually go answer the door, can he? While he's had flatmates before - a few times, none long-lived - the lodgings were decidedly less than desirable, and no one held onto things in those types of places. Anything of value was kept on your person, the rest easily abandoned.
But John picked up his key two days ago - the spare on Mrs. Hudson's keyring - and he tries unlocking the door only to find it open. He mutters something - Sherlock knows most people lock their doors, especially so near the City, but values laziness over safety; he can handle himself, and most know not to bother Sherlock Holmes.
"Sherlock?" John calls up the stairs.
Oh, bother. He sighs, tipping his face to the sky in a prayer to something he doesn't believe in, and moves to be seen through the living room door.
"Yes?"
"Want to help me a bit?"
"Want to? No, not particularly. I moved in by myself quite easily."
"Right."
That's the end of it. John pushes the door open all the way, letting a gust of chilly winter air up the stairwell and into the living room, and it brushes over collected papers on the table between the windows; Sherlock watches, eyes narrowed - the ordering of those pages is specific. Not even in the flat and he's already disrupting Sherlock's life.
Why did he agree to such a pedestrian idea in the first place?
The silence is, once again, interrupted by heavy footfalls - boots, above the ankles, comfortable, well-worn; Sherlock would venture they're army issue, scared by a few years of service in the desert, broken-in enough to mold to the unique shape of John's feet. Yes, they're on the landing, now, and John's head peeks around the doorway, a box held in his hands - he's leaning back just a bit, the box resting against his chest - smart, John! - fingers a bit red from the cold.
"Could you possibly find it in your busy schedule to help a bloke out?" he asks. Eyebrows raised. Open yet already disappointed by the most probable answer.
So Sherlock doesn't give him one. Instead, he drops, gracefully, onto the couch and props a foot on the arm.
John shakes his head and continues up the stairs to the second bedroom.
By the sixth box, Sherlock's found an interesting paper on the inefficiently of modern antibiotics due to benzine ring degradation and barely hears John's heavy breathing as he trudges, slower, now, up to the third floor. Hears, but doesn't record the information to his hard drive. The article is interesting enough, except Sherlock figured out the spring mechanism could be prematurely opened by, of all things, calcium. Obviously. There isn't anything new, just re-researched to apply modern, drug-resistant strains of old foes, and he quickly tires of the idea and tosses the magazine aside.
He notes, then, the lack of footsteps or sounds or chilly air. Stands, frowns, and wanders to the staircase. Looks down, notes the closed door. Multiple tracks of mud and slush on the stairs. A jacket hanging inside the alcove beside the door, fabric on the shoulders a few shades darker from melted snow. Sounds, from above, of walking, shifting, and the snap of breaking packing tape.
What kind of man is John Watson, he wonders? What treasured belongings are important enough to package into those six medium-sized boxes, transported from the bedsit he's been living in since returning to England?
If asked, it is curiosity that leads him up the stairs, that, and the fact that his current experiment is curing in the kitchen and won't be ready for the next stage of observations and tests for at least a half-hour; there's a lack of crime to be solved, with London still reeling from the recent murders and it's been ages since he's had a client (do they even read his website, or just the introduction and decide to call?).
He hasn't been up here, past giving the room a cursory glance when he first looked at the flat. Recall matches the reality - roughly square, door set at the end of one wall, beside a small closet with sliding doors that run off worm tracks if opened without care. A bed jutting out from the wall to the left. Nightstand. Dresser. Small desk. The furniture is bland, nondescript and worn from former lodgers that left everything when they ran off on the rent, taken as payment from people never seen again.
John sits on the floor, hands digging into a box of clothing - jumpers, mostly, in the most boring colours. The other boxes are on the floor, a stack of two near the end of the bed. Sherlock narrows his eyes - the one on the bottom is the interesting one based on position - it is the furthest from where John is sitting and the only one with something on top of it, as if to forcefully keep it closed. Naturally, he strides in the room and sits on the end of the bed, trying to read what's been written on the box in messy, black marker.
"Is that something you learn in University?" he asks.
John pauses, turning to look over his shoulder. "What?"
"Illegible handwriting."
Returning to unloading jumpers, John chuckles. "Curse of the left-handed," he remarks.
"That much is obvious," sighs Sherlock. John laughs, just a bit, and finishes unloading the box before standing and crossing to the dresser. He opens a drawer and looks inside before deeming it clean enough for his jumpers. Most of the world, when under the scrutiny of Sherlock's observing gaze, are uncomfortable, their actions almost a stop-animation of normal movements, as if awareness of each gesture being seen and catalogued. John moves normally, the edge of each gesture a sharp, purposeful corner, the trim movements of a solider. His back is straight, his chin raised, feet set for optimal balance. Self-assured.
While mentally counting down the time until his experiment again requires his attention, Sherlock observes as John unpacks clothing and books, a few notebooks mixed in that go into the bottom drawer of the desk. Paperwork and boxes that go into the desk and top shelf of the wardrobe, respectively. Boring, boring, dull. It is John that is interesting. He moves easily, used to his body obeying his commands, that grace that comes from living fully in one's limbs. There are a few stutters, here and there, but they come when John reaches above his head - his left shoulder, obviously, doesn't rotate as well as his right, limiting how high he can reach. He compensates and finishes two minutes before the cultures are ready in the kitchen, except for the one box.
Aware of Sherlock in the room, he kicks it to the wall, wedged behind the bed, and stands in front of his new flatmate.
"So?" he asks, crossing his arms.
"So..." Sherlock repeats, drawing out the vowel.
"You've obviously been watching me for some reason. What have you figured out about me based on my belongings?"
This catches Sherlock's complete attention. Never has anyone asked for his deductions; most, if not all, shy away from the truths their actions reveal about them. He ponders this for a few seconds, wondering if this means he can be blatantly honest since he's been asked, or if this is just another of those delicacies of social etiquette he always unintentionally mucks up.
"What's in that box?" Sherlock points at the last one, an edge still visible. "You've unloaded clothing, as well as books, papers - probably bills or the normal paperwork people collect through their lives that is exceedingly dull - items for the bathroom and a few for the kitchen on the end of the dresser, there.
"The clothing isn't new but is still in good condition; you're getting used to choosing your own outfits again and have fallen back on what worked when you were younger - jeans and button-downs - clearly a nod to a clean appearance in light of losing the uniform - and jumpers, as you are still acclimated to higher temperatures and humidity. Left over from before your last deployment with a few items posted to you by your sister...no, your ex-sister in law, yes.
"A few pairs of shoes, but most military home from the Middle East still wear their boots, having broken them in. It's for both comfort and practicality, though you have collected a pair of trainers and nicer shoes - pre-enlistment, I might add, without a scuff on them. Rarely worn."
He pauses to stand, taking a deeper look. John takes a few steps to move out of his way, expression comfortable yet guarded - trust issues, perhaps? Something more - Sherlock can't quite put his finger on it, but endeavors towork it out.
"No alarm clock; you're used to waking at a certain time, body programmed to do so, but you've been seeing a therapist for your limp - nice to see you're doing fine, now - which means there was a cause. Probably PTSD, probably nightmares. You're used to your sleep being disturbed and not being able to fall back asleep. So, no alarm clock needed. Since getting your phone, you've been trying to figure it out - you're a doctor, used to absorbing complicated information quickly, so you'd want to know how the phone works - so, clock on the phone."
Sherlock turns to John, amused by the little game they're playing. "How am I doing so far?"
The smile he gets isn't very warm, but isn't cold. "Good. Bloody good."
He takes that as a cue to continue. "You don't have many family shots, but I believe we already covered this. You're not the type to be sentimental, not in such an obvious way. No. The jumpers are gifts from people who assumed the temperature dropped drastically at night in the desert but you haven't needed them until recently. Don't worry about Clara - most people have no idea what the temperature fluctuations are in the desert."
"Yeah, I figured that out myself, first week there," interjects John.
"But you kept the jumpers anyway."
John shrugs. "They're comfortable."
Sherlock narrows his eyes - why, why are they comfortable - OH! "You enjoyed the heat. Miss it, even."
"Have you finished, because I'm starved," comes the reply. Impatient.
"Nearly. So, no photos, no knick-knacks," - he enunciates the word, face clearly full of disdain over the colloquialism - "but you've kept all the gifts you received. Which brings us to the box."
"Alright, now, Sherlock - "
"You're humble, unassuming. You don't like being the center of attention, probably because that would get you killed. Don't like crowds, either, both left over from a few tours. Two - no, three. After you shot the cabbie," - here, John winces, and Sherlock knows he's right - "Yes. It's written all over your face. You don't want to be thanked because you believe anyone would have done it. You're wrong, but that's only because you believe the best in people despite what you've seen. Perhaps in spite of it. There are no obvious signs of your military service even though a man like you would have gotten some recognition for your accomplishments. They do seem to enjoy handing out medals for just about everything, don't they?
"So, the box. Marked as 'Misc.' by you as an afterthought - not really what's in there, but the marking isn't for anyone else. The only box you haven't touched, though I'm sure that's because I'm in the room. So what would you want to hide?"
"I'm not hiding anything," sighs John, exasperated. "I haven't unpacked it - "
"Since returning to England. There is a label from where it went through the post," Sherlock interrupts. "Oh! You didn't pack it, did you? You were injured, your belongings were packed for you and sent along. The other boxes, they're newer - the cardboard is stiffer and, more importantly, none have gone through the mail. But that box; you don't know what's in it at all."
Sherlock's last words hang in the air between them, heavy yet exciting. It takes a considerable amount of self-control to keep him from crossing to the box and ripping off the tape, but he finds the motivation behind it so much more interesting. A mystery is only compelling as long as it remains unknown, and his mind is already whirling with possibilities the truth would only blow away.
"No," John admits softly. "I don't. And I'm not ready to open it."
"Why not? Your limp is gone. You've been back a few months already."
John smiles and pushes off from where he's been leaning against the dresser. "I have an idea of what's inside."
"Naturally. The answer is simple."
"Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy, Sherlock," he explains. "And I don't want to find you in here while I'm asleep opening it up. Or when I'm out."
Sherlock doesn't say anything. He's already thinking of the ways to open it and reseal it without John noticing. It may require a special trip, but he can match the tape and -
"Sherlock," John chides.
"Oh, all right," he concedes.
"Fantastic. I'm famished. Truly starving. Can we possibly get something to eat? I'd love nothing more than to order some take-away and watch horrible telly for the next few hours."
They're moving, now, towards the door, the box already taking up a sliver of space in Sherlock's mind, one of those mysteries he's comfortable to let lie; he already knows what's in there, those bits of metal awarded to his new flatmate. Melted down, they mean nothing - all that's there is cloth and metal and pins that, on their own, are worthless.
But he'll leave it be, for now.
"Indian?" he asks instead. John descends the steps quickly, something he wasn't able to do a few days ago, and Sherlock smiles at his little victory.
"Lovely."
Oh, this could be brilliant, so long as John doesn't object to -
"What's this all over the table?"