By the time they get to a cafe, John is pretty much starving, and only has to glance at the menu before he figures out what he wants. And it only takes him a glance to figure out that his companion hasn't even looked at the menu. "Aren't you going to eat?" he asks suspiciously, considering what the detective said the night before about sleeping, he can only imagine what the answer is going to be.
"Not hungry." Sherlock says dismissively before he leans back in his chair, carefully removing his scarf and gloves after making cursory glance around the room.
Hating that he even thinks of this or feels that he needs to ask, John leans forward on the table toward the detective for a moment. "When was the last time you ate?" he asks as he watches the younger man carefully.
After making his annoyance known through a sigh and a frustrated look sent John's way, Sherlock considers the question. "Yesterday, I believe. Don't worry, I've got another full day before I'll require any food. No need to be a mother hen, though I know you can't help it, it borders on obsessive."
"Comes with being a doctor." John shoots back, not rattled by Sherlock's attitude. "And you are going to eat something. I don't care if it's a bloody eggy in a basket. You are going to eat something before we leave, or you can bugger off and go to your crime scene by yourself." He challenges, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.
Of course that little ultimatum does not go over well with the detective, who leans forward this time with a rather intense and somewhat dangerous expression on his face, steepling his fingers together. "And you think that your assistance is that important to me? You overestimate yourself, I'm afraid, Doctor." Sherlock says in a cold tone. "I do not need an army doctor to fuss over me and constantly nagging me." He says as he glares slightly at the older man. "Clearly I was managing just fine without you here, I do not need your assistance with Lestrade's case. I doubt you would be of much use anyway, what could you possibly contribute that I don't already know?"
Tightening his hands into fists under his arms, John sets his jaw as he watches Sherlock, having a feeling the other man is just lashing out because he doesn't want to admit weakness or that he might want someone around, but that does not mean it does not make the doctor angry. "Shut up." He finally snaps, watching with some satisfaction as Sherlock's face briefly flickers in surprise. "You invited me to stay here. You invited me along on your bloody case." he says in a low tone, but with a hard edge to his voice. "Stop being a stubborn arse and admit that you might actually want me along. I don't know if I'll be of help or not. But I am very interested in seeing what you do, and you are definitely a showoff." He pauses to let those words sink into the thick head hiding underneath the mass of curls, before he continues. "Now. You can either order something to eat, or I can walk out that door right now." he says as he sees the waitress coming over. Finding that he had leaned forward in order to deliver this little speech, jabbing his finger into the top of the table, the blonde sits back slowly and crosses his arms over his chest.
There seems to be a staring match going on when the waitress gets to their table. "Are you ready to order, or do you need a minute?" She asks as she looks between the two uncertainly.
Sherlock stares at John for a moment longer before he says, "Coffee, black, two sugars." He finally says before he glances at the menu. "Scrambled eggs with toast." he says finally, putting the menu back and adjusting the salt and pepper shakers a little to avoid looking at the doctor.
Trying not to let a grin split his face wide open, John contains it to just a twitch of his lips before he glances at the waitress. "Coffee as well, with milk, no sugar, and the full English." He says before putting his menu back as well and smiling at the waitress, just now noticing that she's actually rather pretty so he doesn't mind putting on a bit of charm. "Thanks." he adds after a moment.
Jotting down the orders, the waitress smiles flirtily at John when she sees the attention. At the very least, flirting a bit generally gets her bigger tips. "I'll be right back with your coffee, love." She says before she turns and heads back to the counter to give in the order.
"Oh, please." Sherlock mutters when he sees this, rolling his eyes a little and frowning in the waitresses direction, not caring how fierce he might look. He cannot abide stupid people, and he also despises casual uses of affectionate names.
"You're worse in person. You are an insufferable git, and you just can't help yourself, can you?" John asks as he looks at him. "Honestly, it's no wonder you don't have any friends, probably no one can deal with your utter lack of courtesy." he says with a little sigh, lifting his hand and pinching the bridge of his nose for a few moments, closing his eyes before lowering it, smiling a little. "Not even 24 hours, and we're already fighting, this isn't a very good start, is it?"
A small snort comes from the brunette, "Boring." He says simply as he watches the man across from him, "On the contrary. The fact that you are even bothering to argue with me, trying to fix me, somehow make me a better man rather than just walking out is rather interesting. I think we are off to a rather excellent start, Dr. Watson." And just like that, in a mercurial change of moods, he goes from angry to seeming rather amused, smiling a little even at the shorter man.
With eyebrows creeping upwards as he listening to the velvet voice of the detective, John just shakes his head. "You are a bloody madman." he decides before he chuckles a little. "No wonder I liked you. Well, this will certainly be interesting, I'll have plenty of stories to tell the chaps when I get back. Might keep them to myself though, they don't even understand why I write letters." he says thoughtfully, fiddling with the positioning of the silverware on the table.
"We write letters. Is that such a lost art?" Sherlock asks in surprise, eyebrows going up as he once again leans forward on the table in order to get a better look and to observe everything that he can about this fascinating man, this army doctor who has somehow become his friend.
"Seems to be. Not many others get actual letters. Some do, but they're from wives or girlfriends or fretting mothers, something of that sort. They don't get anything from their friends." John explains as he looks up from his fiddling to look into the blue-green eyes of his friend. "Unless they have a reason to be particularly concerned about you, most people don't want to think about where you are, what you're doing when you've been deployed. It makes them worried or depressed or just gives them an unpleasant feeling. I don't blame them. I was like that when I was a boy, but then the more I thought about it, the more brave I thought those men were. I wanted to help people, of course, that's why I became a doctor, but I also wanted to help defend those that I loved." John tries to explain, smiling a little as he thinks about when he was younger.
"Here you go.. two coffee's." The waitress chooses then to come over and she puts the two cups down, leaving a few little cups of milk, half and half, or cream, depending on what John actually wanted, but the woman wants to cover all her bases. She keeps her body mostly turned toward John and offers him another flirtatious smile. "Your food should be out in a few minutes, is there anything else I can get for you in the meantime?" She asks as she twirls a ring of her brunette hair around one finger.
"I doubt your husband would be pleased to know you're flirting with your customers. Though perhaps that would be good for you, John. You are on leave, she obviously wouldn't want any long term relationships, from the look of her, she's very good in bed." Sherlock says as he looks the waitress over and then looks at John again. He does manage to catch the woman's wrist before he gets slapped. "Not very good etiquette, slapping your customers. I think we'd rather have another waitress, thank you." He says as he pushes her hand back hard enough to make the woman take a half-step back.
Shocked at everything that Sherlock just said, John comes just short of his jaw dropping to the floor as he looks between the two, horrified. "I am so, so sorry.." He says as he looks at the waitress. "Best to ignore him, anything else just encourages him. Still.. if you could send someone else over next..." He tries to smooth it over but the woman still walks off in a huff. Dropping his head, John puts a hand over his face and sighs for a moment, finally looking up at Sherlock. "Unbelievable." he says before he shakes his head. "Excellent reflexes, but.. I cannot believe you said that to her. How did you even know that she was married?" he asks in confusion.
With a small smirk because this gives him an excuse to show off, Sherlock glances over at the waitress. "Tan line on her left index finger means that she normally wears a wedding ring. Indentations and the utterly white color of her skin under it means that she just removed it recently. Could have been today, could have been last week. So, she could have broken up with her husband. She's also wearing earrings, too expensive to buy on a waitress' salary, and too new for them to have been a gift from parents or some other person. Hints of men's cologne on her as well, and evidence of where she has tried to cover up a bruise right beneath her collar, obviously caused during lovemaking. A slight redness along her cheek indicates that whoever she was with was in need of a shave, but the redness is too fresh to have occurred any time before today. So, she either has a serious boyfriend or a husband, statistically a husband is more likely given all the evidence." He says as he looks at John, waiting to see what the doctor says.
"Brilliant." John says in surprise as he looks over at the waitress for a moment and then back at Sherlock, thinking about how fast the detective must have taken all that in and made all those deductions considering he only looked at the woman twice and he barely glanced at her.
Even though he thought John might be different, the exclamation still startles Sherlock and he blinks a few times, not sure how to deal with that. "That's not what people usually say." he finally admits as he continues to watch the man.
"What do they usually say?" John asks with a little bit of amusement, liking the fact that he can occasionally throw off the brilliant man.
With a small smile of his own, because he's thoroughly enjoying the verbal sparring that he and John seem to be able to fall into so easily, Sherlock replies simply. "Piss off."
I am so sorry that I missed posting last week! I had to go to some training for work, and then the rest of the week was crazy. Stupid real life getting in the way of my writing again. Oh well. I was re-watching Sherlock again, so this might have a slightly different tone to it, sorry if it throws anyone off. I really like how John calls Sherlock out on being a jerk, but tolerates him all the same. And I love that I got to work in a line from A Study In Pink. :D I hope you all enjoy it!
Comments/Reviews welcome!
EDIT: Oh my. 401 followers. Wow. Thank you guys so much. I hope that I can still live up to expectations, and you all continue to enjoy this. Just.. wow. :)