* If pressed, John will say he doesn't begrudge Sherlock a single one of his abilities. John Watson is a liar. Blame his ten thumbs. Because, so help him, the good doctor can't touch type to save his own life, and even staring myopically at the keys he'll eek out no more than twenty words a minute. But the great detective? Oh, he flies along at a blazing 103 words (Sherlock: never not up for testing something to precise quantification). So anyway, it takes John hours to complete a blog post and Sherlock mere minutes to leave a blistering 500 word critique in the comments.

* Actually, Sherlock loves John's slow typing. First, it makes him a more meticulous writer (though he doeshave an annoying habit of focusing on irrelevant detail). Second, his slow hunt-and-peck, sustained over several hours, produces a meditative white noise Sherlock finds conducive to deep thought or light dozing. Third, and most of all, Sherlock loves the way John uses his tongue—shoved out the side of his mouth and wiggling—to aid him through the tough bits (locating Z, 6 and the sign, usually).

* For John, hope springs eternal that he'll find a cuisine Sherlock will love. He's dragged the man to Islington for Vietnamese, Canary Wharf to a fish place, and South Kensington for Caribbean fare. And that was just last week. However the only place Sherlock asks to return is a tiny French patisserie in Hampstead Heath that makes chocolate ganache tarts so rich just one can put a rugby ruffian into a sugar coma. Yet, after a case recently, John watched in horrified fascination as Sherlock ate four. The good doctor had sympathetic stomach pains the entire rest of the day.

* At any one time Sherlock's body has at least a dozen nicks, cuts, or burns in various stages of healing. Though meticulous with actual experiments, he's fairly blasé about the toll of those experiments on his body. As a matter of fact, his indifference to his own personal safety has led to singed hair (including part of an eyebrow once), slicing a thumbnail down to the bloody quick, and once even spraining his wrist doing something with a riding crop, a small boat anchor, and saltpeter (John never did understand the details of that one).

* Speaking of riding crops and sex—*CoughWereWe?*—John will maintain he's not a fan. Here, too, John Watson is a liar. As a matter of fact, so acute did his interested become in this item (and Sherlock's profound reaction to it) that he sort of put himself through a personal little boot camp to learn how to wield it with grace, skill, and uh, very good results. But don't say anything to John because he'll lie about it right to your face and really, frankly, it's nobody else's business. Except a certain detective.

* Sherlock Holmes was a problem child. "Why?" was his favorite word from the age of three to eight. "How?" had a starring role in his vocabulary from ages nine to twelve. "No," was about all you got from him from thirteen to fifteen, and silence from sixteen to eighteen. By the time Sherlock was nineteen just about everyone stopped trying to communicate with him. He grimly returned the favor.

* John was not a problem child—except in one small way. He ran around like any kid, climbed trees like any kid, skinned his knees like any kid. But he didn't cry like any kid. Since before he could remember John Watson's kept his mouth shut when he's in physical pain. There are tears, to be sure, but he's always wept in silence, a habit that's carried into adult life and he has no idea why.

* Sherlock has never bought flowers for anyone in his life. Or a card. Or candy. Or whatever else boring people do to boringly state their love. Instead Sherlock leaves John voicemail when he knows John can't answer his phone. The messages are never long, are sometimes oddly sweet ("I love you more than jam."), often graphically sexual (who should do what to whom, for how long, using what sex aid), or frequently take the form of a promise ("I really will learn where the tea cups get put away. And the jam.")

* John loves all of Sherlock's voicemail messages, he really does, but honestly his favorite has no words. That message (which he will never delete; ever) is short but potent, consisting of nothing more than Sherlock breathing, then sighing, then moaning—his voice getting progressively deeper, rougher, and faster until it sounds for all the world as if he comes. Hard. John has made a point of never asking him if he did because the not knowing? Good lord the not knowing is the best part.

* Sherlock often treats eating as an inconvenient duty, done solely to provide fuel for the transport. Sweets, however, do focus his attention. John's watched the man devote thirty long seconds to eating one tiny Jaffa cake—nibbling first the chocolate, then licking the orange filling, finally eating the sponge. He does the same thing with jammie dodgers, custard cremes, and French Fancies. John once accused him of making love to his food; Sherlock told him to shut up, then proceeded to slowly tongue the whipped cream off John's frou-frou coffee drink.

* John's traveled the world, first as a student, then for a long while with the army. Travel agrees with him, suits his temperament. So a few months after he and Sherlock became a couple, he expected to enjoy a quick tip to Seville for a medical conference. Instead he was so powerfully homesick he couldn't, wouldn't concentrate. During the four days he was away he texted Sherlock one hundred and fifty six times, called him twelve, and emailed him three one-thousand word missives. (And with his typing skills you know how long that took.) No more conferences. No. Just…no.

* Sherlock's never had reason to miss anyone. So the first time he and John were separated for a few days he didn't understand what was happening to him: The stomach pain; the tightness in his chest; the unrelenting tedium of the days despite an interesting case. He honestly thought he was coming down with some dramatic malady and started popping far too many of the vitamins John's always trying to get into him. It wasn't until his lover returned that Sherlock realized he'd experienced homesickness for the first time. John…John is his home now.


We're now up to 134 of 312. Thank you DaysOfStorm for suggesting I talk about John and Sherlock typing skills. And am I the only one noticing this batch had a lot to do with sweets and sex? Hm. Curious. (Also, for anyone reading Skullduggery, I'm continuing that story as soon as I return in a few days from a holiday in London. As in, you know—*flailing*—LONDON!)