Child's Play (Sherlock/John)
6:49pm, 14.4.2011:
Need you at the flat. Now.
SH
--
6:52pm, 14.4.2011:
Need to diagnose another runny nose. Give me another hour.
J
--
6:53pm, 14.4.2011:
Another hour and you’ll have to deal with acute food poisoning.
SH
--
7:00pm, 14.4.2011:
Fine. On my way. Only because I wouldn’t put it past you to use me as a guinea pig for the effects of food poisoning or some rubbish like that.
J
--
7:01pm, 14.4.2011:
And yes, I actually am walking out the door right now. You can call off the kids you hired to throw rocks at my window.
J
--
7:45pm.
The door to the flat was unlocked and ajar. John hesitated on the doormat, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Sherlock? SHERLOCK?” His voice echoed familiarly about the staircase. Silence greeted his calls. Never a good sign, that.
“Sherlock, what’s going on?” he tried again. Nothing. Except-what was clattering upstairs?
John took the stairs two at a time, fumbled with his keys, his heart beginning to race. He could hear something going on inside, something urgent and clumsy. Burglars? John didn’t put it past the circumstances.
At last the door swung open.
“Sherlock? Sherlock, what--oh!” he stopped in his tracks, surprised. The flat! It was… absolutely clean. Spotless, actually. John blinked in the alarming amount of sunlight that was streaming through the open windows onto a tidied sitting room. John tried to remember if he had ever even realized that they had hardwood flooring. And had the couches really been that shade of green? Good God, maybe it was better that Sherlock had always covered that up with all of his books and other rubbish.
His eyes absorbed the shocking interior design, cataloguing the flat as if it were an entirely new home. Even the skull had been propped up on the mantelpiece. And there was Sherlock, sitting there reading the bloody paper with his bare feet propped up on the coffee table. His hair was - combed? Brushed? Blow-dried? Something. And he was wearing his favorite suit, sans tie. And a familiar smirk. After all of those months of living with Sherlock, that smirk still drove him up a wall. It was that stupid, frustrating sign that Sherlock knew something that he didn’t. Or that he was up to something. And given the state of the flat, Sherlock was definitely up to something. And knew something he didn’t know. God, if only Sherlock didn’t make everything so interesting. God, if only Sherlock wasn’t… Sherlock.
He swallowed, and as he did he recognized the smell of chicken broth floating about the room.
“Ah, there you are, John,” Sherlock said at last, lowering his paper and setting it down on the coffee table. “I was worried you’d ignored my text.” His voice was pure nonchalance (it was impossible for Sherlock to be worried, John reminded himself) as rose from the couch to tend to the food in the kitchen.
“Y-yeah, I got your text. So, uh, here I am,” he added lamely. There was a moment’s pause in which he stared at his trainers and listened to Sherlock stirring something in a pot.
“Oh and uh, Ander-“
“Anderson is not important,” Sherlock said firmly over the clatter of pots and metal. He had his back to John, clearly prioritizing whatever was in the pot over making eye contact.
“Yeah, well, I know you always think so, but if Lestrade finds out you’ve been ignoring him again, it’s gonna be hell to pay-“
“I mean,” Sherlock cut across him again, impatient now, “that there is something more important right now to which you should be focusing your attention.”
John stared at Sherlock’s back. His suit was still impeccably smoothed out and fit Sherlock comfortably despite the excessive use of elbows that stirring a pot required. John found himself admiring the contours of Sherlock’s shoulders. He’d been doing that a lot, lately.
But then Sherlock dropped the ladle on the counter with a clatter, bringing John back to his senses. He approached the stove with caution. He could see a beige object bobbing up and down in broth.
“What…is that…?” he asked, peering from behind Sherlock.
“Specifically, that’s chicken broth with legumes, carrots, potatoes and two large matzah balls cooked at boiling point for 30 minutes,” Sherlock said, still with his back to John, now adding pepper. John took a deep breath and held it in, counting the seconds in his head. It’s like Sherlock was trying to piss him off unnecessarily by still not making eye contact with him.
“Yeah, right, I’m sorry. Okay, what’s all this about?” he said as he exhaled loudly.
“And you say I don’t pay attention to the obvious things in life,” Sherlock said in a steady voice. He dusted pepper off his hands over the pot and spun around to face John at last. John instinctively backed away, but perhaps only half a step. He could still see that gleam in Sherlock’s eyes.
Here we go, John thought.
“Obviously, it’s the Jewish holiday of Passover, or Pesach as it is called in Hebrew,” Sherlock said, explaining in his usual way that made it sound like he was reciting the encyclopedia (or rather, like he wrote the encyclopedia). He was still quite close to John. “It’s customarily celebrated by hosting a meal on the first night of the holiday with various ceremonial objects, including matzah--an unleavened bread--and dishes based around this unleavened bread, including matzah ball soup.”
“But Sherlock,” John said, half-laughing now and laughing at the ceiling, as Sherlock, entirely nonplussed by John’s confusion, continued to stare at him. “You’re not Jewish.”
“No,” Sherlock said, perhaps a little more coldly. “But the search for the afikomen is a child’s play variation of scientific deduction.” And there was that smirk again.
John let the phrase sit in his head for a while. He knew that the afikomen was a piece of hidden matzah that children usually looked for throughout the house after the dinner - he’d been to Harry’s ex-wife’s seders before - that’s not what was bothering him.
“Do you… are you bored?” He had to ask. Sherlock rolled his eyes at him, giving him a small push on the shoulders as he did so. John obeyed the gesture and stood back a pace.
“You’d rather I shot holes in the wall again?” he asked as he picked up the ladle to serve dinner.
“No! No! It’s just--“ John hesitated, “not what I would expect from you.”
Sherlock looked at him. His face was blank, determined not to help John figure out what was going on.
“Would you put the seder plate on the table? It’s just on the counter behind you,” he said.
“What? Oh, right,” John said, turning round and carrying the plate in one hand and his soup in the other. As sat down, he watched Sherlock closely.
Perhaps it was his own confusion and anticipation messing with his head, but Sherlock seemed… anxious? Was that the right word? Perhaps eager? About something. He was clearly uncomfortable, hopping round the kitchen, always holding something in his hands to fidget with.
When he carried his bowl of soup over to the table, John watched his face. Sherlock seemed to be looking at him but without really seeing him. For the first time since the time he’d forced Sherlock to go that dinner party where they’d both gotten so horribly drunk that even Sherlock couldn’t guide himself home John felt Sherlock wasn’t taking in any information from his surroundings. (That had to have been, what? Two months ago? Probably, because that was the night he’d slipped up a bit. He’d massaged Sherlock’s shoulders in the height of their drunkenness and given himself an extra shot of vodka in the hopes of a massive hangover to suffer the consequences of that mistake). Now he felt like he had touched a nerve, and he didn’t like it.
What was going on in that thick head of his? He knew to push Sherlock, to weasel the information out of him, he’d just have to be silent.
He let the silence roll on and on as they each sipped their soups. Sherlock was still in his vacant state, off somewhere John couldn’t follow. John made sure to look Sherlock straight in the eye. At last, Sherlock caught on and scrutinized John.
John tilted his head slightly-a gesture that he would let Sherlock decode.
“I figured this would be a productive way for me to simultaneously examine firsthand a different culture from one with which I am most familiar,” Sherlock said. John gave a noncommittal shrug and stirred his matzah.
“--whilst adopting games and practices that help to promote deduction and logic as well as morals and customs that are generally accepted by the Western world population and to examine the reasons for which these practices are”-“ he was speaking a lot faster now.
“Sherlock,” John said again, setting down his spoon.
“---performed and celebrated within these cultures---“
“Sherlock! It’s all right. You don’t have to have a logical reason for everything. I was just… interested.”
Sherlock bit his lip and looked firmly back at John. He seemed to be x-raying him, challenging him to lie. To belittle him and his silly games. Go on, I dare you.
John couldn’t help but chuckle. Typical, Sherlock.
He checked on his flatmate’s emotional state again and was surprised to see that Sherlock’s eyes were dilated now. Apparently he’d done something right.
“Right,” Sherlock said after he finished his soup. He pulled out an old, ragged-looking book from inside his suit jacket. The book was bound so that it opened from right to left. “Let’s begin.” He snapped open the book, scanning the table of contents.
“These symbols are a bit archaic,” Sherlock said, flipping through the pages now. Hebrew letters flew across John’s field of vision. He thought he saw some songs in there too and was grateful that Sherlock’s interest seemed to be quickly waning.
“Sweat is not just salt and water,” he said, folding the book open to the section on parsley dipped in salt water. “And no one uses hard boiled eggs as a customary food for mourning anymore, not since the Babylonians and the fall of the second temple in 586 BCE. Like I said: archaic.”
John picked up the book, letting the pages fall so that the book closed itself.
“Well, that was exciting,” he said sarcastically.
“Eating should not be made into a ritualistic ceremony. Depriving oneself of food only promotes the production of more enzymes and hormones that make the body hungrier. Yet the majority of Western religious customs are based around dining and food based ceremonies.”
“You know, Sherlock,” John said, running his hands down his face in exasperation. “There are many things that I just don’t understand about you.”
“Hm,” Sherlock said. “You’re not the first.”
“That’s not what I mean,” John said. “I get your fascination with things. You let yourself get caught up in the tiniest details. They consume you and you love it. No, I get that. What I don’t get is why you drag me through all this. Or yourself, for that matter. Half the time you already know the answer before you even begin.”
Sherlock was laughing now. Derisively, John noticed. But he wasn’t dodging the question.
“It’s just as interesting to create scenarios as to solve them,” Sherlock said simply.
“Oh, so what am I? Your plaything?”
“No, John, don’t be stupid-“
“Your rat in a maze?”
“No,”
“Well, what am I?! Sherlock?”
“Don’t try any of that John, because I won’t have it,” Sherlock said through gritted teeth. His hands were gripping both sides of the table now. John glanced at his hands long enough to see his knuckles turning white before returning to stare down Sherlock.
“I’m not trying anything, Sherlock.”
“That’s rubbish! You know perfectly well that you enjoy all of this as much as I do. That’s why you go running about London with me. And you’re sitting here trying to write it as though you’re a victim in my stupid little ideas.”
“Because sometimes, Sherlock, that’s what it feels like! Okay? It’s exciting, yeah! I would’ve left ages ago if it was dull. But it’s in times like these where I feel like your stupid little plaything-“
“You are not. A plaything,” Sherlock said. He had lowered his chin and was glowering.
“Then I’ll ask it again, Sherlock. What am I to you?”
Sherlock opened his mouth to retort and then closed it. He turned his head sideways, staring pointedly at his bullet holes in the wall. John let him brew. He knew to wait.
“Just the right person,” Sherlock said at last.
John cocked his head, puzzled and taken aback. Should he do something? Was Sherlock asking for something? Sherlock had lowered his chin again and was looking at him with an expression that John could not read.
“Right! Time for the search for the afikomen,” Sherlock said, jumping up from his chair and striding over to the sitting room. John could not mistake the glee in his voice. Sometimes Sherlock could be such a child.
John scoffed. “Sherlock, I’m not a five year old. I’m not about to go digging about the flat for half a piece of a cardboard cracker.”
“And yet I bet a five year old could find the cardboard cracker faster than a grown man,” Sherlock grinned. “Child-like curiosity and its impact on deductive reasoning: A study in John. I’ve already hidden it. I’ve started the clock.”
John wanted to say that this was foolish, that Sherlock was being an idiot obsessed with his conception of his flatmate and Jewish practices, that Sherlock had read him all wrong and was just making himself look stupid. But that ticking clock was ringing in John’s ears and that smirk on Sherlock’s face was egging him on, tapping into his dormant desire to just for once prove Sherlock wrong. And this time, Sherlock was even giving him the outright chance to do it. Oh, Sherlock knew him too well.
John looked about the cleaned flat, trying to find a sign of something unusual. He knew the matzah would be wrapped in something, so he kept that image at the back of his mind as he got out of his seat and hurried over to the mantelpiece.
He was completely unsystematic and he knew that if Sherlock were keeping score, he’d be losing points for form. The skull, the ship in a bottle, some papers, books (now turned open with pages exposed, hoping to find a matzah bookmark), the poker, ashes and some dust, no matzah, so how about those books, yes, that shelf, no under that rug, how about there, no there! On and on and on, things were falling about him in chaos as he tore through the flat, putting everything back as it was supposed to be: messy and unshelved.
He attacked the next corner of the room, tearing through bookshelves (just feeling the books for swollen areas this time), upsetting baskets of things, accidentally finding that severed hand for the tenth time that week (“AGH! SHERLOCK!” he’d called out exasperatedly at this point. Sherlock just laughed from his spot on the couch. He had put his feet up and was watching John go), rummaging through newspapers and odds and ends, he still had not found the matzah.
“Is it even in the ruddy flat?” John asked, panting slightly. He was beginning to sweat now, too.
“Who said it had to be in the flat?” Sherlock’s voice said from behind the newspaper.
“Sherlock!”
Sherlock gave a throaty laugh as he turned the page.
He knew he shouldn’t give Sherlock the satisfaction of continuing to dig throughout the flat, but he couldn’t deny that he was having a lot of fun. And with Sherlock’s eyes on him the whole time, John knew that the game was still afoot.
By now he had narrowed his search to the area around the couch.
He walked over to Sherlock, who was still pointedly reading the paper, and stood in front of him, arms crossed.
“Move,” he told Sherlock. Sherlock didn’t budge.
“Do you want a hint?” he asked, having moved on from the crossword to the Sudoku in the paper.
“No I don’t want a sodding hint!” John said. “Just move over, I’ve got to check this seat cushion.”
“I’m not moving. You don’t need me to move to figure it out,” Sherlock said, filling in number 5-across.
John just glared at him. Then tapped his foot. Fine! Then he’d just have to squash Sherlock.
As nimbly as possible, John stuck his right hand between the seat cushion and the side of the couch, his fingers fumbling, feeling dust, grime and nothing that felt anything like matzah. Sherlock had actually lifted his head from his paper now and was watching John’s hand outline the crevice on the side of the couch. He must be on the right track, then. His fingers were scrambling like spider’s legs and as he followed the outline of the back of the couch, John felt himself leaning closer and closer into Sherlock and there went his heart rate, through the roof. As his hand rounded the corner of the couch leading to the back end of the cushion, John had to lean one knee against the couch to steady himself. Sherlock wasn’t doing him any favors either by just sitting there.
John continued tapping and poking, moving slowly and systematically about, inch after inch of worn out fabric. His hand finally reached directly behind Sherlock. John had climbed onto the couch by this point, reaching around Sherlock and struggling to keep his balance on his knees. His hand felt the familiarity of nothingness and slowly drew his fingers out of the cushion, only to be met by Sherlock’s suit. The dramatic change from dirt to the smooth, firm presence of Sherlock’s back startled him, but for some reason, he did not draw away. He was fascinated by the sensation. He was reminded of the feeling he loved as a child of sliding his middle finger along the sleek ivory keys of his mother’s piano. He allowed himself to slowly, methodically, draw his finger up Sherlock’s back, touching but not pressing, hearing the sound of piano keys playing somewhere.
“Well, that’s something,” Sherlock said in a low voice.
John blinked and realized that his hand had come to rest at Sherlock’s face. Sherlock was looking, stony and riveted, anticipating every minute touch of John’s hand. High notes played in an octave as his fingertip slid along like a feather across his cheekbone.
Flummoxed and suddenly self-conscious, John looked down at the floor.
And then, he saw it. The handkerchief in Sherlock’s breast pocket, white and seemingly innocent. But of course, Sherlock had set it up this way. Of course.
“I think I’ve got it, Sherlock,” John said, looking at him squarely in the face.
“Have you really now?” Sherlock asked, his voice trying to be steady. Instead it was alarmingly quiet, subdued.
“Uhm, yes. And hang on, I think your mobile’s ringing. I’ll get it.”
He reached into Sherlock’s breast pocket (John felt Sherlock’s heartbeat for a moment, so familiar and constant) and pulled out the now warm afikomen. Sherlock grinned triumphantly from his seat, the matzah inches from his face. John was leaning over him, his left hand on the couch to support himself.
“Haha!” John said, forgetting the tension from only seconds before in order to wave the cracker in Sherlock’s face. “I’ve got it!”
“Yes, congratulations. The fastest child in London found it in 2 minutes last year. You got it in 120. New record.”
John’s face fell, his triumph shattered slightly, and he got up from the couch.
“Well, no matter. It’s my turn. Get out of the flat,” he said, gesturing for Sherlock to move towards the door.
“Yes, yes, all right,” Sherlock said, and John gleefully watched him leave, bare feet and all. Once John had heard Sherlock hit the bottom of the stairs, he began to think. He examined the room, which was decidedly messier than before. John noted that he’d probably be the one who had to clean it up this time.
But no matter, there was a grander issue at hand.
John knew he should be unexpected in his hiding place. But then again, Sherlock would know that he would want to be unexpected, so being unexpected would actually be quite expected. So, he should be simple and typical, since that would be what is unexpected because he was trying to be clever, motivated by revenge. But Sherlock would already know John’s character and recognize that he’d want to pull a double negative to throw him off track, so he would know to expect basically anything. But especially something typical and obvious, because for what was typical and obvious for Sherlock was unexpected and unobvious to John. And what was obvious to John was staring Sherlock in the face like a target screaming “I’M HERE! I’M HERE! LOOK AT ME!” while wearing bright red and dancing the can-can and shooting off fireworks. So, he should be unexpected.
But what did that mean?
John had the sinking feeling that Sherlock had beat him before he had even begun.
Unless…
“All right, Sherlock, you can come in now!” he called down the stairs. As he heard Sherlock ascend, he took a seat in his favorite chair, crossed his legs and hoped the look on his face would not give away his secret.
Sherlock strolled into the room, his hands on his hips, his eyes scanning. He followed every detail of the room, every item that had been upturned, everything that had been changed. John thought he could hear the observations being turned into data in his brain. He did not move at all, other than his eyes and head in order to absorb the whole room. John felt him scan the couch and all about him and he tried not to betray himself.
“Well it’s certainly not anywhere in that part of the room,” Sherlock said, gesturing to the corner with the high bookshelves.
“And why couldn’t it be there?” John said, biting back indignation.
“Oh, come off it John, you’re only 5’9”.”
John scowled. Sherlock could only grin and spin about the room, continuing to observe and deduct, looking, noticing, occasionally touching something here or there, but mostly just watching.
At last, Sherlock strode purposefully to the coffee table and looked underneath it. He stood up again and lifted one seat cushion, setting it back down again. Sherlock wanted him to think he was genuinely looking, but he knew better. Still, best not to give up just in case.
“You haven’t tried the kitchen yet,” John suggested.
“I would have smelled it if you’d put it there, John,” Sherlock said, now striding to the mantelpiece to check his hypothesis.
“You wouldn’t,” John said in a sing-song voice.
Sherlock spun around. “I would.”
John had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. God, Sherlock took everything so seriously.
He watched on, still trying not to laugh, as Sherlock now walked pointedly towards him, skirting round the coffee table without even looking down.
He drew closer still, slowly and surely, his left hand dropping to let it trail about the top of the seatback of the couch, slowly and purposefully circling John’s seat on the couch. His long, bony index finger was trailing, dragging itself along the fabric, always taking in information, always feeling and understanding.
At last, he stopped, having come full circle, in front of John and looked into his face. John felt his ears flushing again and tried not to look down at his striped jumper (which he realized now probably had given him away from the very beginning).
“I know where the afikomen is,” Sherlock said, still looking directly into John’s eyes. They flickered slightly to look down at John’s jumper, which was covered in matzah crumbs.
“Oh?” John said, trying to shrug nonchalantly, his head tilting slightly to the side.
“Yes,” Sherlock said, putting his hands behind his back and leaning forward. John could see the palette of colors in Sherlock’s eyes. They were wide with happiness and satisfaction. John could vaguely guess how Sherlock was going to reveal the truth and somehow, he’d hoped for it from the beginning.
“Where is it then?” John asked softly, slightly giving up the pretense of innocence.
Sherlock didn’t answer with reason or deduction. He didn’t need to say anything. After all, he had to show him that he’d found it.
“Right,” Sherlock said, letting his right knee rest on the couch, “here,” and his left knee found its place on John’s other side.
And before John could even start to stammer, Sherlock’s hands were on his collar, pulling him up towards him as Sherlock let his weight fall up against John. There was a mingling of soft, light piano and violin notes, of chicken broth and matzah in John’s mind and the overpowering sensation of Sherlock’s hands now clasping either side of his neck, journeying into his hair and his fingertips pressing gently and harshly and gently again everywhere as their lips met, pushing and pressing to tell each other, I found the afikomen, I finally found it.