Title: How Not to Care for Books
Characters: Sherlock & John
Pairing: Sherlock/John (non-explicit)
Word Count: 221
Rating: PG
Warnings: Suggestion of foreplay and descriptions of the abuse of books
Spoilers: None
Summary: Sherlock and John treat books differently
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John likes to keep his things nice. Take his books, for instance. He tries to treat them well. His grandfather had very old medical texts and Bibles in Greek and Latin and he taught John to value and care for books. John didn't even like to highlight his school books, doing so reluctantly and with carefully ruled fluorescent lines.
Sherlock is as careless with his books as he is with everything else that he owns, except perhaps his violin, greatcoat and skull (the one on the mantel, not the one at the top of his spinal column). Despite owning some very rare and exotic books on poisons and ancient methods of murder, he will callously fling them aside onto the floor or towers of other books, leaves flapping feebly. Every abuse that can be heaped on a book will be done from dog-earing and spine snapping to annotations ranging from 'WRONG' scrawled across an entire page, to tightly packed notes in red ink in the margins. He has even been known to tear out whole pages.
The only time that John and Sherlock agree on how to treat a book is when Sherlock appears in the doorway of John's room and says, "John…" in that lush, low voice. When that happens, John can't throw the book fast enough from the bed.