When John gets home and struggles to balance three shopping bags long enough to open the door it is to find Sherlock curled up on the sofa in his dressing gown with his back to the room.
Oh, God, he thinks. He's sulking.
"I'm back, Sherlock," he announces as he drags the plastic bags into the kitchen and puts away as much as he can. It is difficult, because the cupboard that used to contain packets of pasta appears to have been taken over by Sherlock's books in his absence. Sometimes he would swear the stuff moved on its own.
Leaving the remainder of the food in the carrier bags and shoving them onto the table (which he didn't like to call the dining table because he could only recall actually dining on it three times - no, two, the third time Sherlock had got a call about a murder case), he wanders back into the living room, curious to know what Sherlock is sulking about. If he can talk him out of it, this evening will be a lot less stressful.
"Sherlock?" he calls gently as he approaches. Sherlock does not stir. John lays a hand on his shoulder and leans over him. What he sees makes a bubble of laughter rise up through his chest; Sherlock is asleep, his eyes closed, his expression calm. A smile tugs at John's lips and he shakes his head in wonderment. He has seen Sherlock sleep before, but usually it is slumped over a pile of notes at the table or sprawled semi-elegantly over a chair.
John turns away from the slumbering Sherlock Holmes and sits down with the newspaper he has bought, shaking it out with a satisfied sigh. He hasn't read a recent newspaper in weeks; Sherlock tended to appropriate them and hide them away somewhere.
"If you find anything unusual, tell me," comes Sherlock's voice, and John jumps, his heart pounding with the shock.
"I thought you were asleep! Why didn't you answer me?"
"Pointless," his flatmate responds shortly.
Rolling his eyes, John goes back to his paper. Stupid genius, he thinks irritably, but with more than a modicum of fondness too. With a rustle of dressing gown, said genius stands up and comes to stand behind John's chair, leaning over his shoulder to read the paper.
"Homicides? Missing jewels? Anything?" There is a note of desperation in his voice that John recognises all too well. He calculates he has about an hour of winding him up before Sherlock starts shooting the walls with boredom. There isn't a predictable time scale to Sherlock's behaviour, per se, but John has spent enough time watching him to know at which stage in the 'boredom-ometer' - as he dubs it self-consciously in his head - Sherlock is.
1. Complaining
2. Lying around the house practically cross-eyed while staring at the ceiling or questioning John relentlessly
3. Desperately searching through newspapers or old case files
4. Distraction techniques - dangerous experiments or shooting the wall
There is also a tentative:
5. Drugs
Although he has never caught Sherlock, he is quite sure by now that number five is correct.
"Sorry, Sherlock, I think London's being well behaved today."
"Yesterday," Sherlock says absently, reading an article about a woman who had filed a harassment charge against her boss.
"What?"
"Newspapers don't predict what is going to happen today, they tell you what happened yesterday. One cannot report a crime without data, and there is no data unless the crime has already been committed." There is a moment of quiet in which John vaguely wishes he hadn't bothered opening his mouth and that Sherlock would not go on too long. "Unless, of course, it is that particular brand of crime which is made up of several component parts, in which case someone like myself would be able to predict the latter parts with considerable accuracy."
"I get the idea," John interrupts hastily, before Sherlock can really get into his stride.
Sherlock makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, and they keep reading. "You read so slowly," he complains after a minute.
"Shut up, Sherlock." The tone is mild, but Sherlock does so anyway.
They share a comfortable few minutes of silence, Sherlock still leaning over John's shoulder to read.
Cat survives after 7-floor fall
The best way to save your money!
Afghanistan: sinfully short of supplies?
This last headline catches John's attention with a jerk to the stomach as though it had caught him with a hook. He sits up straighter and brings the newspaper closer to his eyes to read it better.
Halfway down the article, he feels something on his ear - he jerks away and stumbles to his feet in surprise, the newspaper falling apart and floating to the floor.
"Sherlock, did you just lick my ear?" John asks, bewildered.
"Yes," Sherlock replies matter-of-factly, watching him intently.
"But - but - what - just - what?" he stutters.
"It was an experiment," his flatmate says coolly.
"An experiment?" John repeats flatly.
"Yes."
"I'm going to regret asking this," John begins, quite certain of this fact, "but what were you experimenting?"
Sherlock's face scrunches up distastefully. "There are all these unwritten rules about personal space," he waves a hand as though they are insignificant, "I wanted to see what happened if I broke one. And it is apparently that the subject leaps away and stammers ineloquently."
John blinks at him. "Right…"
Oh, God, it was that bloody article about the woman and her boss, it's put him straight into number four. But then, licking my ear isn't exactly dangerous. Maybe I need another category.
Suddenly something occurs to him. "Sherlock, you're not going to do this to anyone else, are you?" he asks in a worried voice.
Sherlock smirks, and it lights up his eyes with amusement. "Jealous?"
"Worried for your safety, actually, and I seem to be the only one. You can't go around licking people's ears."
"Why?"
Sherlock seems genuinely curious, and John fights the urge to roll his eyes. "Come on Sherlock, don't be an idiot."
"I'm not an idiot!" Sherlock retorts, scowling. "Obviously I know that licking strangers' ears is liable to lead to bodily harm to myself, but the point of the experiment is to ascertain how different people react. Is it worse for a stranger or an acquaintance?" he asks rhetorically.
"An acquaintance," John says at once. "Because they'll be worried that they have to see you again."
"I see…" Sherlock replies, looking thoughtful. "So would that be better or worse than your reaction?"
"Probably worse, since I pretty much expect you to be unexpected by now."
Sherlock grins, and it seems to spread through his entire body, radiant and all-encompassing. "And isn't it so much more fun?" he says.
"Oh, God, yes."
-:-
First Sherlock fic! Probably the only one, too. This is just my take on their friendship: mutual fascination with the other.