A/N: So my dear friend mattsloved1 gave me three words and a challenge to use them but I could only use 500 words for the whole story – I ended up begging her for 600 by telling her I needed words for snogging:D She reluctantly agreed – lol! Reluctantly!

The words were tetchy, malarkey and troublesome.

I do not own. If I said I did the Mofftiss might become more than tetchy with me;)

John had called him tetchy.

Easily angered or annoyed.

Irritable or peevishly sensitive.

Petulant

Possibly derived from the Old French tecche or tache, a blemish or fault.

Slang.

That was purely ridiculous. He was not nor had he ever been tetchy.

He lay, full length, spread across the couch, as if he owned it.

Well he did. Own it. He had purchased it after moving here. His old couch from Montague Street had gone up in a blaze of fire, mostly to irritate the landlord who had aggravated him first by banning his experiments.

That was beside the point.

He stayed in this position to prove he was not tetchy.

If John were to come through the door that moment, he would assume Sherlock was 'thinking great thoughts', solving complex puzzles. He would not give John the satisfaction of letting him know he was rolling the word 'tetchy' over and over in his mind. Wouldn't let him realize the more he thought about it, the weightier the word became, until it was holding him in place, not allowing him to move on from its implications.

And the implications were growing and stretching and consuming his thoughts until it felt as if he would explode with the desire to prove that he was not thinking about the word tetchy.

He was not petulant.

He was not peevish.

He was definitely not irritable.

Just then the sound of someone cheerful, someone joyful, someone exasperatingly delighted, for God's sakes, bounced into the room.

"Still sulking I see."

"I am not sulking."

"Fine."

"I am thinking."

"Sure."

"Really John, even you with your less than spectacular brain should realize that I would not spend the day in idle petulance when there are cases to be solved."

"Right then."

John walked away but he coughed under his breath.

He coughed a word.

A word that sounded suspiciously like malarkey.

Another slang word.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"No. That was not nothing that was definitely something. Did you say malarkey?"

He looked into a pair of very merry eyes and Sherlock could immediately tell that he was being laughed at.

He crossed his arms and huffed.

John ignored him so he resorted to huffing more loudly.

It was all very troublesome.

John should not get under his skin like that.

John should not make him think these things.

"Sherlock?"

Suddenly there was a much beloved face, mere inches from his own, looking at him with adoration and amused affection.

"I am sorry if I called you tetchy."

A small kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"You are not tetchy. You are brilliant and gifted and amazing and I love you."

Sherlock unpouted.

Another kiss in the other corner.

Sherlock desperately tried not to smile, but then John kissed his lips, heartfelt and soft and it was a lost cause. Warmth spread through him and displaced the snarled thoughts that had tangled in his brain and made him feel all twisted and scrambled. He hated when he was upset with John, but it just seemed to boil over and he couldn't rise above the influx of emotions. John could put him in a foul mood, but he was also the only one to dig him out. Right now John was digging him out with the clever application of his lips and his wicked tongue and quite possibly his hands as well. Oh, God yes, right there. Sherlock kissed back fervently as he gasped. Ingenious John, knowing what he needed.

"John?"

"Yes?"

"I am sorry you called me tetchy as well."

"Sherlock?"

"Yes?"

"You are a git."