It was lucky for John that he had been raised with relatively good grammar, as he discovered one day when Sherlock had frustratedly rejected a client with a particularly bad case of cockney slang. "Why'd you do that?" he called from the kitchen, already brewing a pot to soothe the two of them.

"Do what?" Sherlock called back, snatching his violin from its case to pluck at it in agitation.

"Go all grammar-nazi whenever someone... I dunno, uses incorrect tenses?" A warm sizzle from the burner had already set John's associative reflexes to calming.

Sherlock paused with the violin poised at his chin, contemplating the question. "Just how Mummy raised us, I suppose," he admitted, "She had us go through the whole regimen of how the upper-class, educated young Englishman should behave. Etiquette, dance, hosting, grammar and the likes."

"Hold up," John poked his head out of the kitchen, one eyebrow quirked, "Did you say dance?" Sherlock only nodded, his expression grim. "You don't mean ballroom, do you?" Another grudging nod, and John was beaming with the thought of his beloved sociopath, hand-in-hand with the tutor or his brother, or even John himself as they waltzed through a crowd. He knew better than to ask, though, as he was sure Sherlock had probably already deleted such useless knowledge from his hard drive.


This prompt comes from the giveaway that I'm doing on Tumblr. Want some free stickers? Go and prompt me there!

floppybelly . tumblr .com/post/17869655176