Hearth and Home
AN - Set between 'Study In Pink' and 'Blind Banker' and before 'Colleague'
John had always travelled light. Even before he'd joined the Army, he hadn't really been one for collecting things. He had simple taste in clothes, he loved his books but could leave them behind if he had to, and gadgets were made to be broken as far as he was concerned. That was what on-line storage is for.
Therefore it didn't take him long to pack up the MOD assigned flat and move into Baker Street. Mrs Hudson seemed to think that his lack of belongings made him something to be pitied. John hadn't paid her much mind - after all, Sherlock had more than enough in the flat already to make it seem lived in, even if half the things up there were related somehow to his experiments and work. John wasn't sure how he fitted into that work yet, but he was not averse to playing the long game when he had to.
The boxes all went straight to the top floor. There was a bookcase up there, and his few boxes of books would fit into that easily. The rest of his belongings into the cupboard and drawers neatly, so that he could find them in the dark or an emergency - and that was a hold-over from his army days - the gun stored away securely in its lock-box. John stared down at it for a moment and then made a mental bet with himself how long it would take Sherlock to find and break into the lock-box.
Shrugging, John tossed the empty and flattened boxes into the box room opposite and then headed back downstairs.
Sherlock was also unpacking. He was cramming books into the bookcase and being a generally inefficient whirlwind of activity. He was also talking to the skull, asking if it remembered when they'd seen this, found that, solved the other. John grinned and went into the kitchen to make tea, making a second cup on autopilot and putting it next to the box Sherlock was unpacking.
He took a seat with a book that he'd found and started flipping through it while Sherlock hopped around and generally made a mess.
"Oh, tea!" Sherlock cried four minutes later and drank it off in one quaff. John didn't even bother to look up as the thin hurricane whirled past with another load of books, which were dropped when Sherlock's phone went off.
Three minutes later, the flat was still. Sherlock had whirled out with a shout about being back later and John hadn't bothered to look up, shouting a goodbye as feet clattered down the stairs. Once the front door slammed shut he looked up and winced.
He may not have been one for collecting lots of possessions, but the one rule he did have was that things should at least be organised. The chaos in the flat made no sense to his experienced eye - and he'd seen some systems of organisation that belonged in a nut house. John shook his head and looked carefully at what few things Sherlock had put away. He was not up to Sherlock's standards of deduction, but he was more than capable of following a thread or pattern to its conclusion, given enough time.
It wasn't hard to patch Sherlock's system together. John hadn't known the other man long, but he knew enough to realise that if he wanted to live in anything better than the current state of affairs it would be down to him to sort it. Abandoning the book he'd been reading he got up and made a start.
It was interesting, in a way, to see the things that Sherlock had collected. There was a telly in all the mess - to John's surprise - which he mounted in a corner and the books weren't hard to sort and store. Mrs Hudson came up at one point and clucked sympathetically, helping him sort out the table near the windows so that they could actually use the thing as a desk if needed before tootling off to watch her evening soaps. It was eight when he finished and shoved the empty boxes in Sherlock's room - for a lark as much as anything else - before heading out to the Chinese they'd visited after the case with the cabbie.
He ate at the restaurant for a change of air before heading back to Baker Street. While eating, he'd come up with a way to explain the case he'd gone on with Sherlock in such a way as to avoid incriminating himself and alarming Harry. He even knew what he'd call it.
Walking up the seventeen steps to the flat was already familiar, and John hung his coat on the peg that he'd come to think of as 'his'. He turned into the kitchen and made another cup of tea - already a habit and he'd only been here two days - then returned to his chair and took up the book he'd borrowed once more.
Downstairs the door banged and Sherlock bounced up the staircase, almost three at a time by the sounds of it. John didn't bother to look up as the younger man whirled into the room, hung up his coat and scarf, did a double take at the state of the place and then bounded towards his bedroom.
The lack of thanks was more than made up for by the bout of swearing as his unsuspecting flatmate tripped over the boxes John had stashed in his bedroom.
END
Disclaimer - characters and setting as depicted in BBC series are not mine. No money being made. Plot is mine.