I Get a Kick Out of You.
Two coins spinning on a kitchen table, wedding rings thrown to the ground in a fit of anger, a young girl crying; staining her sleeves, a crack, a snag of an earring and finally a missing mother presumed dead.
It was at times like these John Watson despaired at the world. How a girl's life could have been torn apart so viciously, so early in life was beyond him. Her parents had been having the argument- the "it's over, you can sod your house, and you can keep the bloody lawnmower" episode when suddenly the father lost complete control.
His wife took the brunt of his actions, whilst his daughter was locked in her bedroom too afraid to even look past the hands she was cowering behind. She discovered them missing a short while after and phoned the police. The father was found, not a scratch on him. The mother on the other hand, well it had been one of the worst crime scenes John had ever witnessed.
Sherlock, being his usual genius had claimed it was a boring case, open and shut domestic violence turn murder investigation and had it solved with the whereabouts of the body in under an hour and a half. The look John gave him when he said this in front of the little girl was little more than murderous itself. Sherlock ever so slightly blushed, and quietly apologised to everyone in the immediate vicinity, after the little girl was carted away to someone a bit nicer.
John had been pleasantly surprised in recent months to find that Sherlock had been taking more care when it came to "feelings" or the "weaknesses of others" as he dubbed them. Simple things like saying please and thank you, or even just looking at people when they spoke to him were small steps in the right direction. Calling people by their real names was a help too, as Sherlock's nicknames really were appallingly funny and John often had difficulty containing his giggles at the most awkward of moments.
John had a soft spot for Sherlock that ran deep in him, overpowering his self-restraint, making him crumble and sigh contentedly. One of the best examples of this being when he awoke to find Sherlock lying on the living room floor, in the foetal position and clutching his violin in his arm like a favourite toy. So much for not needing sleep. John had been frozen in mid-step, and resorted to creeping round the flat barely breathing, to avoid waking him up; for Sherlock's benefit and rather selfishly for his own happiness.
His curls after a shower also caused John's heart to lurch painfully in his chest, errantly going their own little ways, each decidedly stubborn just like their owner. Oh and let's not forget when Sherlock spoke to him in French, or Italian or even Latin, he would melt and nod slowly, completely hypnotised by his flatmate's voice dipping into these foreign tongues. It didn't matter that he couldn't understand a word, did it?
John was painfully aware that his flatmate shouldn't have these effects over him. He was straight as a die, Sherlock was a pain in the arse and really that should have been it, but it wasn't. He worried if Sherlock was late back, didn't answer his phone; he smiled a bit too brightly when the annoyance sent him a text, and blushed dark crimson whenever he blundered off into the wrong topic in conversation with Sherlock. He was only too aware of his dark eyes studying him, deciding things about him that he himself had never considered.
The problem was John didn't know what to do, or didn't know if he wanted to know what to do. That night as he sat there in the flat, having his thoughts interrupted by Sherlock's loud outbursts at the information on his computer, John was irritated and he didn't quite know why. He gave up on pretending to be reading his book and excused himself for an early night, which soon turned out to be an uncomfortable and sleepless one.
John was rudely awoken the next morning by the sound of a drill. The sound ricocheted around his tired brain until the thought occurred to him that it was coming from somewhere nearby. Plucking up the courage to open one of his eyes, John squinted around his room, his neck straining at the uncomfortable position he was in. He looked to his left, to the wall which separated his and Sherlock's bedrooms and found a reasonably large hole looking back at him. Opening both his eyes this time in disbelief, he found himself looking back at the hole, which this time had been filled with the eye of his resident consulting detective. The eye was alert, dilated, a sure sign of mischief. God Sherlock was such a child.
"What the hell do you think you are doing?!" John asked sleepily, willing his tone to be full of frustration, whilst trying to hide the fact that weirdly, he was finding this scenario very amusing.
"I needed to tell you something. I tried shouting, but got no reply. This was the only logical solution. Also, I didn't want to wake Mrs Hudson. Trying to be considerate and all that." Sherlock explained, though the glimmer in his eye gave away the fact that he most definitely knew it was not the most logical resolution to his problem.
"A likely story. The reason I didn't respond was because I was having a bloody wonderful sleep, thank you very much." That was a complete lie, but he didn't really care. John groaned, he could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. "And you can shove the good Samaritan routine; Mrs Hudson is going to hit the roof when she sees what you've done!"
Sherlock chuckled. Mrs Hudson couldn't resist his "puppy dog eyes" as John had labelled them. No problem there then.
"Anyway, where the hell did you get a drill from? That bit must have been huge." John enquired.
Sherlock backed away a few paces from the hole and held up the drill so John could just about see its entirety. "I like to keep one under the bed, for security reasons. As for the drill bit, I happen to know some people in heavy industry. They did me a favour."
John knew Sherlock was basically an oddity of life, but really who keeps a drill under their bed? He'd have been more accepting if it had been a sword, truth be told.
"So not only are you a lazy fuck, you're an insane one too". As soon as he said it, John regretted it. Sherlock's face fell. He could feel the pout from where he was sitting. "I didn't mean it like that, I'm just tired. Jesus." There was an awkward moment of silence between them and then a scrabbling from Sherlock's side of the wall where he was putting away the drill.
Trying to break the tension, and deal with the insecure man-child he was unexplainably fond of, John decided to ask the question on everybody's mind.
"Sherlock, what exactly were you going to do with the drill if someone did, erm, bypass security?"
"You would be surprised John. A gun is your weapon of choice, a drill is mine. If you must know, many basic defensive moves become lethal when armed with a drill." The worst part was that he was deadly serious. John coughed to stifle a laugh.
"I'd imagine they would be, yes. Out of interest, what do you do when the battery runs out?" John really was struggling to hold it together now. He could only be having this conversation with Sherlock, it really was crazy.
Sherlock tutted and sighed exaggeratedly. "What do you do when you run out of bullets John?"
Touché. John had so many other questions on the tip of his tongue, but decided to leave it there. There was only so much abnormality he could take first thing in the morning.
"So what was so urgent you needed to do some makeshift DIY to get your point across?"
"Oh, nothing really. Mycroft will be calling sometime soon. I expect tomorrow morning, I thought you might appreciate some forewarning."
With that John grabbed some tissues from the box on his bedside table and scrunched them up into a ball, big enough to fill the new feature in his room. Whatever privacy he once had had vanished at the hands of Sherlock and his Homebase bought weapon.