A/N: Alternate title: "Pathetically Domestic." XD

Prepare for all the cuteness of this one, you guys. A.K.A., FLUFF AHOY!


06. Shopping and Cooking

It's pathetically domestic of John to take me out shopping.

He has this grand idea that I will eat more often if I shop with him and pick out things I enjoy tasting. However, he soon discovers, not many things suit my taste buds, and the things that do are either out of John's range of cooking skill or are much too unhealthy to bother purchasing. The latter is me being somewhat of a rotten child using psychology; I know he won't buy me sweets, so I ask for them to make him think I would be fat or come down with diabetes if I ate what I wanted.

The truth is, I don't care much for the junk food I'm listing off. I despite putting poison into my body, which is essentially what all these foods are. They would slow down my thinking and ruin my metabolism and soil my pancreas. However, the psychology of asking for it and not receiving it is working, so I consider this a manipulative success. It's payback, after all, for him forcing me out into the public to a supermarket of all places. Revolting.

"Strawberries are on sale," John points out, and much to my chagrin, I immediately look and zone in on them without a conscious thought.

I had long forgotten how wonderful they were, and now that I've had them recently, I wouldn't mind stocking up on them and devouring them for the next week. So I dump about seven little plastic boxes of them into the cart, and John gapes for a moment.

"We're only shopping for this weeks' groceries! Are you honestly going to eat an entire box per day?" John reels just before laughing at me. "Oh, God, you are, aren't you? Your face is completely serious right now."

"Because I am serious," I remark sternly. "I won't eat anything else."

"Except toast and eggs, I hope," John remarks, "Because I am buying both, and making enough for the pair of us whenever I decide to cook it."

"Fine," I agree flatly. I turn on my heel and head for the dairy aisle, grabbing the milk and cream for coffee, as well as a small carton of orange juice for John. When I dispose of it into the cart, John looks at me fondly for a moment before moving on. I frown. "What? I remember the necessities when I have to."

"Oragne juice isn't a necessity," John murmurs, "You just know that I like it with my jam and toast some mornings."

"It's a habit. Even I can recall habits, especially those of my flatmate," I say idly. "It's nothing to grin like an idiot about."

"Oh, Sherlock," he says with a shake of his head. He doesn't elaborate on what I've done this time to earn such a response, and I hate how it confounds me. I try not to let it bother me for the remainder of the outing as we go about collecting other food items. I grab a box of porridge, and John doesn't protest. Instead, he comments half to himself, "You like breakfast foods, don't you?"

"They are the only things you can make that I will eat, yes," I supply offhandedly. I scan the shelves for anything else that suits my fancy, if I have to do this, this domestic shopping with John thing. I'm still trying to recall precisely how he worded it to get me to tag along. I am suffering as we speak, all these drones around us doing their little food errands and it's so dull.

"…Right. Because I can't cook Chinese and Italian, your favorites," John says. He sighs. "I really can't cook much at all. But I can make soups and stews, you know. I can make a mean chicken and vegetable soup, as well as a decent stout beer and beef stew, if you were interested."

Something sparks in me, and I turn and look at examine him for a moment, eyes scanning his frame before it clicks: of course he knows how to make these things. As a med student, and later, as a bachelor, it may be one of the simplest things to prepare and let simmer for hours, and as a doctor, he knows that it is something nutritional that covers all the bases of the meat, vegetable, and starch food groups. Of course. I should have guessed as much and suggested it from the beginning of this horrid escapade.

I nod curtly. "Do it, then. Get the ingredients for both. You do have the recipes memorized, don't you?"

"Yes," John says with a tone that says, 'Do you think me a moront?' And then his face changes to say, 'Wait, don't answer that.' I allow one of my rare, true smiles to show, because Oh, John.

After a long wait in the check-out area (we have too many items for the machines, and reasonably, going to a register is faster; John's typing reflects his disdain for technology like ATMs and the like because, of course, he would have a row with the machine if I let him try using it), we're hauling all of our groceries between us and walking back to the flat together.

I have about five bags in each hand, and John about seven in each. We walk in silence, and the wind is nippy on my face. I try to, without hands, bury my face into my scarf, but it is hanging too low. I grunt from irritation and lag behind John a couple of steps. But I don't rush to catch up; instead, I find my eyes trailing behind him, admiring the part of his profile I can see, and the cut of his hair at the nape of his neck, and the ways his jacket hangs on his body, and the way his jeans fold and wrinkle and stretch with every step.

And this isn't normal, is it? I don't need John to tell me that this isn't normal. But I can't seem to look away.

When we reach the flat, I shift all of my bags to one hand and unlock the doors, waiting for John to enter the premise. I follow behind, locking things back up as I go, and even though I feel too lazy to do the tedious task of unloading and stocking the groceries, I aid John anyhow, to make the process speedier.

We leave out the ingredients for the chicken and vegetable soup, and though I don't know how to make it, John shoves the cutting board and celery and carrots at me, demanding I chop them up. I dice them neatly and quickly, and he compliments me and says I could make a decent chef one day. I blow up with pride at that and offer to chop anything else he needs. He hands me onions and parsley, and I slice those up, too, making the parsley fine and the onions small, but similar in side to the celery wedges.

I dump my newly minced bits to his pot from over his shoulder, and John peers over at me, and there is something unusually soft in his eyes that I have never seen before (check; add another expression to John's list of faces, this one untitled). I blink at him, step back, and let him continue stirring. Then I move away, dusting my hands and wiping them on the sides of my trousers. They smell of onions and greens, as they should, and in the air, I can smell chicken broth and garlic.

There is something so pathetically domestic about all of this, and somehow, I don't find it half as obnoxious as I would were it between any other persons (especially those in a romantic comedy, the sort John likes to watch on occasion because of his girlfriends' recommendations, in which every little domestic action is sickeningly sweet).

But then again, I suppose, John has that effect on people, and I am not excluded. He has childish charm, and a sort of innocent charisma that follows him everywhere. It makes every person he meets automatically fond of him, whether they want to be or not, because before they discover his history – Afghanistan, crime chasing with me, shooting people, healing people, having outbursts, being in fights – as they associate with John is his undeniable appeal.

And much as I have thought myself above it or have resisted it, I think it's working its power on me, because suddenly, I don't mind cooking with John again; not to mention that the idea of eating more regularly because John made the food for me (and himself, naturally) is a less far-fetched concept.