Hey guys I’m taking prompts for my celebratory drabble promptfest! (As you can see, they’re not always exactly drabbles.) Here’s the first product.
The prompt (from Anonymous…professorfangirl, is that you?):
A while ago I saw this on Tumblr, it goes like this: Sherlock and John are so used to each other, one morning John’s leaving for work, he and Sherlock kissed goodbye without even realizing it. A few moments later it hit John. PLEASE! It’ll be so sweet. Love you!
A story like this is weirdly hard to do without a few hundred words of setup. 😀
Ordinary Day
John’s wanted to kiss Sherlock for so long he doesn’t even think about it anymore.
John’s still rubbing sleep from his eyes when he stumbles into the kitchen for his morning cuppa. It takes him a few seconds to realize why the counter looks odd. “Sherlock! Where’s the tea kettle?”
“Look up!”
John does. It’s…hanging on a hook from the ceiling. Okay. John’s reasonably certain, even in this bleary state, that there hadn’t been a hook there yesterday, but some things a man’s better off not knowing at 6:30 in the morning. ”I can’t reach that.”
Almost immediately, there’s a solid warm patch at his back and arms reaching up over his head, because Sherlock can’t be arsed to wait for John to move so he can fetch things down like a civilized person. They come back down in front of John’s face to drop the kettle into his hands, keeping hold till John’s got a sure grip, and then Sherlock slouches back out to the sitting room.
John checks inside—it looks clean—and fills it with water.
After breakfast, John goes into the bathroom. There’s an empty spot on the tray by the sink. He feels dread. “Sherlock? Where’s my toothbrush?”
There’s a moment of silence. “Use mine,” Sherlock calls from the sitting room.
“What?” John pokes his head back out into the hall. “No! That’s disgusting! Where’s mine?!”
“…Unavailable.”
John picks up Sherlock’s toothbrush, weighs his options, and storms out to the sitting room, snatching a flask from the kitchen table on the way.
He slams to a stop in front of the sofa. “Sherlock.”
Sprawled with the laptop on his belly, Sherlock tears his eyes reluctantly from the screen to focus in resentful query on John, looming over him.
John waits for his attention to move warily to the experiment in John’s hand. Then, with a grim nod of confirmation, he drops Sherlock’s toothbrush into the flask of…it smells like formic acid.
“Next time you want to do unspeakable things with a toothbrush, Sherlock, use yours.”
He hands the flask to Sherlock and goes back to the bathroom, feeling good about the outraged spluttering rising behind him.
Despite the morning’s shenanigans, John’s almost ready for work. Except that he’s going to be late if he doesn’t. Find. His damn. Shoes.
John would swear he left them by the door, under the coat rack, but they’re manifestly not there. They’re also not apparent in the sitting room, kitchen, hall, or frankly anywhere at all that he can tell. “Sherlock? Have you seen my shoes?”
Still sprawled on the sofa, surrounded by a laptop, tea, and a flask of formic acid with a toothbrush in, Sherlock looks up, down, and then around. John smiles despite himself, because Sherlock is visibly tracking the sequences of actions John took last night upon getting home, and watching him work really never does get old.
It’s five seconds before Sherlock points backwards over his head. “Table.”
John pulls aside a chair and sure enough. He laughs. “Fantastic.”
Sherlock’s mouth twitches smugly. He sits up a bit, apparently entranced by the sight of John trying not to fall over while he wrestles on his shoes. With a last tug to eliminate a wrinkle in his sock that’s digging into his heel, John straightens and strides for the door. If he doesn’t hurry, he’s going to miss the next train.
He’s grabbing his jacket off the hook when Sherlock clears his throat. John glances over to see him holding up John’s wallet. “You may want this.”
“Ta.” John beams at him, stretches over to take the wallet, and plants a grateful kiss on the fondly smirking lips only a foot from his own. Then he breaks for the door, waving the wallet over his head. “Cheers, mate! Need to run!”
It’s been a good morning, he thinks contentedly as he jogs down the stairs to the street. The warm glow lasts almost all the way to Baker Street station, when he finally works out what’s been niggling at the back of his mind. It’s like being hit with a bomb strike of humiliation.
He kissed Sherlock?!
Jesus Christ, he kissed Sherlock.
He fists one hand in his hair and moans into the other. “Oh god. I can never go home again.”
His phone beeps with an incoming text. John checks it: from Sherlock, of course. He can’t not read it. He braces himself and opens it up.
Definitely don’t forget to pick up new toothbrushes. SH