The sleeve of his shirt was damp from where he'd let the water slosh out of an over-filled teakettle - too engaged in watching the neighbor's strange method taking out the trash to realize he'd been standing there with the tap on for a minute and a half.

His feet were cold and clammy no matter how much he tried to hide them under John's warm buttocks - John was actually complaining that he needed to put some socks on, but they were all currently serving important purposes in his sock index, so unless he appropriated a pair of John's, that wasn't going to happen.

The tea in his hand had not been heated to an adequate temperature; the mug wasn't even warm, and too quickly the water was growing cold, no matter how richly deceptive the color of the actual tea.

Even the slice of sourdough toast that John had presented to him was lukewarm, despite its delightfully-promising singed edges that told him John had been too lazy to use the toaster and instead used the open flame on the stove.

So what was he supposed to do but disturb John's reading of the newspaper by tucking himself inside his lover's jumper from behind, stretching it to unusual proportions to which it was unaccustomed but capable of conforming.

He breathed heavily into the place where John's shoulder-blades met, pressing his lips against the cotton button-down that was just so John and inhaling the scents that
the fabric elicited.

"Sherlock, would you get out of my jumper, please?" asked the doctor, but his tone of voice was one that hid a laugh and a blush.

To which the great detective responded by discovering the collar of the sweater would allow his head to squeeze through, and soon his face was rejoined with the cold of the non-jumper atmosphere of the flat, and he could see them in the mirror across the room, a perfect two-headed John hydra creature.

"Okay, you're choking me," said John, pulling the collar with a free hand to allow himself an easier time of breathing. This meant that the back of the collar pressed into the nape of Sherlock's neck with a sharp tug, and his forehead jutted forward and knocked against the back of John's head.

"Ow," they said together, and Sherlock started laughing, John tut-tutting.

"Okay, that's enough," John said, and all of a sudden, like a turtle, he withdrew his arms and head into the jumper, and as he did he also raised the shoulders so that Sherlock's head slipped inside, too.

Tangled up inside, as they were, John twisted around to extricate himself from the clumsy situation, but ended up meeting Sherlock's delighted, laughing eyes.

So they kissed, just a little domestic pat on the lips, in the heat and dim light that was the tent of John's jumper.

And then suddenly John had ducked out of the situation, leaving Sherlock feeling like Charlie Brown at Halloween, peering between the heavy knit threads at John, who was folding the newspaper and getting up to get a new sweater, muttering grumpily despite the smile that was on his face.

"All your expensive cashmeres and yet you persist in stealing away my clothes," said John with good-natured scolding as he returned, sliding on a second jumper. "Why I ever put up with you..."

"I'm sure I don't know why, either," said Sherlock, letting John yank the collar down over his face so that he could see again like a normal person, even if he resisted putting his arms through the sleeves.

"Now look here," said John, wedging himself back into the place between Sherlock's astride legs that he'd occupied before. "There's been an accident up north that looks rather interesting."
"Show me," said Sherlock, putting his arms through the sleeves at long last because he couldn't very well hug John closer to him if his arms were pinned.

And John leaned into the embrace, casually letting his finger point out the story in the paper that interested him.

Sherlock dismissed the interest of the story quickly with three possible theories and took a sip of tea from John's teacup when John shoved it in his face, a laughing effort to make him shut up and take a day off.

"Fine," he replied, "what's your theory?"

"I thought you'd never ask that question, ever, in the history of the universe," John replied thoughtfully, and embarked upon a hideously fanciful narrative that forgot some of the key details, but Sherlock couldn't bring himself to really mind, even when John ended his little spiel with, "You know? Actually leek soup sounds rather good right now."

"Later," purred Sherlock, "later. Don't you dare move."

"Why not? What if the phone rings?"

"If you get up, I'll be cold," replied Sherlock with the petty concern of a three-year old.

To prove his point, he pressed his cold nose against John's neck.

"Okay," said John, resting back against his lover once more. "I'm a bit cold, too."

He leaned forward to grab the television remote from the table, which made Sherlock whine like a puppy for a second, and leaned back again, turning on the droning newscast.

"Happy someday," said John, mostly to himself.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Sherlock, after puzzling over what this could mean for a moment or two.

"Well, a few months ago I was telling myself that someday you'd actually have the patience to sit through a whole foreign film with me."

"And you think that day is today?" asked Sherlock with chagrin, since there really wasn't anything that frustrated him more than John's favorite movies.

"It won't be like Last Year at Marienbad, I promise."

"Fine. But only because it's so cold."

(squeeee!)