Chapter Text
Harry had wanted to sell it.
When John said he wanted to re-open it and run it, Harry said, “Jesus, John, are you mad? It’s some prime London real estate; let’s sell it and get rid of it and take the money.”
And spend it on alcohol, John had thought, watching Harry throw back wine like it was a shot. He didn’t think being flush was something that Harry needed at the moment; he thought it possible expendable income would be her enemy.
“It’s all we’ve got left of Mum and Dad,” John said, instead of saying anything about the alcohol, because no one would ever say that John Watson wasn’t a coward of the highest order, at least when it came to emotional confrontations with his sister.
Harry snorted and poured herself more wine. “It’s a dingy little tea shop, John. It’s not exactly a fine estate that they’ve left us. And I’ve hung onto it for two years, waiting for you to get back, just so you could say your proper good-bye. So go and say your proper good-bye and let’s be done with it, yeah?”
John bristled at her tone. “Charming,” he said. “Very respectful of their legacy.”
Harry rolled her eyes. “It’s not a legacy, John. It’s a money pit that they used to waste the rest of our inheritance. You’ve always been too sentimental for your own good. Isn’t it enough that I kept it for two years without doing anything with it, all because you asked?”
“You could have run it,” John pointed out sourly.
“I don’t want to run a tea shop, John! Christ, I never wanted to run their stupid tea shop.”
“Well, I’m going to run it,” John announced calmly.
Harry stared at him over a slightly sloshing wine glass. “Why?”
Because he’d come home from war with a limp and an intermittent tremor in his hand, and he was never going to be a surgeon again. Which he wasn’t about to say out loud—he’d avoided saying it out loud so far because he wasn’t sure he could say it out loud without sounding petulant and self-pitying, and he was not. Instead he tried not to glare daggers at Harry and wondered why she couldn’t see that he needed something to do and that the tea shop was the only good idea he’d had.
He said, simply, “I want to.”
“Well, I don’t want anything to do with it,” she said after a moment. “I hate that place, you know that.”
“Yes, I believe you’ve made that clear,” replied John drily. “I’ll buy you out.”
“With what money?” asked Harry bitterly into her glass of wine.
“I’ll make it profitable.”
Harry made a skeptical noise. “I’d like to see you try, given that there’s a competing tea shop two doors down now.”
***
There was a competing tea shop two doors down. Its name was Deduction Teas. It was an interesting name, and John didn’t quite know what to make of it.
The place looked smart, sleek and modern, all glass and steel and uncomfortable chairs that said you can sit but please not for too long, this is a business after all. John stood in front of his parents’ tea shop watching the door of Deduction Teas and tried not to look too much like he was spying on the competition, but, well, he was. Business wasn’t bustling, but there was steady foot traffic back and forth. Everyone looked very grim. John had forgotten about how consciously busy everyone in London always acted.
He took a deep breath, turned away from Deduction Teas, and slid his key in the door of Watson’s Tea Room, as the cheerful hand-painted sign read in curling letters that John’s mother had always thought were reminiscent of steam rising from a teacup (although no one else had ever seen that). He turned the alarm off, relieved when it was the same code it had been before he’d gone away. Harry hadn’t mentioned the alarm. Harry had probably forgotten all about it. John wondered at Harry paying to keep it turned on and decided she must not have noticed. He didn’t think Harry was especially sharp these days.
He looked around the shop. There was two years of dust settled over everything, but even without that it all seemed threadbare and desperate. Who was he kidding? He thought of Deduction Teas two doors down, glowing with congratulatory profitability. Harry was right: He was being an idiot.
But John spent several hours cleaning, and it was the first afternoon he’d spent since being shot when he didn’t have to fight the impulse to just let himself be depressed, the first afternoon when living felt easier than not living, and he’d made a small dent in the mess and thought, sod it, he had to do this. He had no other options.
***
John spent money he didn’t have to spruce up the tea shop. Even if Deduction Teas hadn’t been so close, he would have ordered the plush, comfy armchairs for the seating, but he liked the idea of being the exact opposite of Deduction Teas. He was never going to beat them at their own game by copying them, so surely it was better to set up as a conscious juxtaposition.
He wished he was brave enough to go over there and scope out their menu, but instead he spied from the safety of his own tea shop, clicking over their website closely. It was an odd website, crowded with irrelevancies, trivia about the chemical make-up of the soils that different teas liked best, the minute differences in the stains left behind by each type of tea, and a chilling little aside about which type of tea was best to disguise the taste of cyanide. But smothered by all of this other stuff was the menu. The selection was small, although high-quality, but it wasn’t that diverse. John made notes to be sure to branch from black and the couple of green teas at Deduction Teas into rooibos and some chai. Deduction Teas served coffee, apparently, although the coffee menu was squeezed into a corner of the website that John really had to hunt for. John was rubbish at making fancy coffees with foam, but he thought he could teach himself to handle basic coffee drinks and added that to his menu. And, because Deduction Teas didn’t offer it at all, he added hot chocolate for good measure.
The food menu was more of a challenge. Deduction Teas served nothing but biscuits. A wide variety of biscuits, to be sure, but that was it. John thought it would behoove him to offer sandwiches. Easy sandwiches. Sandwiches he could put together with little effort. And biscuits. But he would have to learn how to bake for that because he couldn’t afford to hire someone to bake for him.
He wondered if Deduction Teas hired someone to bake the biscuits. Or if they had a baker on staff. They probably had staff.
John looked darkly at Deduction Teas’ odd website and hated it. Watson’s didn’t even have one. It was yet another thing he was probably going to have to do, wasn’t it?
There were some days when John had the fleeting thought that Harry was right about the insanity of this venture he’d embarked on. But, truthfully, his days flew by. He fell into bed exhausted and slept free of nightmares, for the most part, and he would put up with anything that gave him that much relief.
***
Opening day for Watson’s. John bought balloons on a whim and tied them outside the door. He arranged all of the biscuits and started the first pots of coffee and made sure that the kettles were set to boiling for tea orders. He wondered if a single person would even walk in the door all day, or if they would just keep going to their regular place by force of habit.
John had brought a book with him, a mystery novel, and he had just settled into an armchair with it when the door opened and a customer poked his head in cautiously.
“Are you open?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes!” John exclaimed, with possibly too much enthusiasm, and jumped up to race behind the counter.
The customer regarded the menu on the wall and said, carefully, “Can I have the jasmine green tea?”
“Absolutely,” John said jovially. “Coming right up.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief at this.
John tried not to look surprised at the reaction. Apparently this man was desperate for his cup of tea.
“I’m cutting back on caffeine,” the man explained, when John handed the tea to him.
“Yeah,” John said with a smile. “I understand.”
“I’ll totally be able to make it through the day without coffee,” the man continued as he gave John the money he was owed.
John tried not to sound quizzical as he said, “I’m sure you will.”
“Thank you so much for this,” the man said earnestly, and then hurried out of the shop.
Odd first customer, John thought, looking after him, but he’d take it anyways.
***
The customers kept coming. John’s first few days were actually…a success. John hated to think of them that way, because he was cautious about jinxing it, but by the end of his first week in business he was running his account books looked promising and was getting better at owning the store. He wasn’t very quick, and sometimes lines built up, and he felt dreadfully slow as he dealt with change, but the customers were all polite to a fault, and John didn’t understand where dealing with the public got such a bad reputation. All of his customers actually behaved as if he was doing them the world’s most enormous favor in handing them a cup of coffee or a tea or a chocolate biscuit. They all keep ooh-ing and aah-ing over being offered choices. John didn’t really know what to make of all of it, but he didn’t quarrel with paying customers.
On Friday afternoon, John was finishing up the cleaning, feeling that satisfied exhaustion that he’d noticed accompanied the end of a day at the tea shop. He liked being that tired at the end of the day, it felt good. The door jangled with a customer, and technically it was past closing, but John hadn’t locked the door yet so he supposed it was his own fault. Anyways, one last customer was simply one last bit of profit.
“Hello,” he said, smiling brightly to the man who walked in. He was dressed in a dramatic wool coat even though it was a decently warm day outside, and he had dramatic, perfectly coiffed dark curls. John, next to him, felt smudged with the day’s exertions. This man looked as if he’d stepped out of a painting entitled Completely Put-Together and Superior to You.
The man narrowed his eyes at John, taking him in in one sweeping glance, and John felt unaccountably exposed by this, which was silly.
“Can I help you?” John asked pleasantly.
The man drew to a halt in front of the counter and kept looking. Then he said, “Afghanistan or Iraq?”
John started. “What?”
“Afghanistan or Iraq?” the man repeated impatiently.
John stared at him, wondering if he knew him, how he knew him, why he would suddenly walk into his shop after closing knowing things about him. “I don’t…”
“You’ve clearly just been invalided home from military service, and I’ve narrowed it down to Afghanistan or Iraq. Don’t pretend that I am incorrect. And I will have tea. Green tea.”
“Right,” John said, even though he was disinclined to make this man tea. “Who told you I was just back from military service?” he asked as he made the tea.
“Are these currant scones?” the man inquired, peering into the pastry case.
“Yes,” John confirmed. “End of the day, so you can have it for free, if you want.”
“I despise currant scones,” the man spat out.
“Okay, then you don’t have to have one,” John said, a trifle irritably, and handed the man his green tea.
“Also, green tea disagrees with me,” the man informed him, apparently furious.
John blinked. “You asked for green tea.”
“Don’t you know better than to give customers what they ask for?” the man demanded in disgust and threw a twenty-quid note on the counter.
John blinked at it. “You don’t owe nearly that—”
The door jangled shut, the man having stalked out.
John shook his head a bit and walked over and locked the door and thought that it served him right for not strictly adhering to operating hours.
***
In the second week, John began to feel comfortable enough with people to understand them to be regulars. He learned little bits and pieces about their lives and inquired after them, and the smiles they sent him got broader, and John felt like he settled just that little more.
On Wednesday of the second week, the mysterious man arrived again, after closing again. John really had to get better at closing up on time.
“You overpaid the last time,” John said, and pulled out an envelope and handed it to him. “By a lot.”
The man stared at the envelope. “Did you set that aside for me?”
“Of course.” The man regarded him. He had very disconcerting eyes, an odd color John couldn’t place but, even worse, they were so sharp. John thought of the man asking about Afghanistan or Iraq and felt like, if he looked long enough, he’d be able to uncover everything about John, right down to his hated middle name. So John heard himself saying, defensively, “I won’t take charity.”
The man lifted his eyebrows but pocketed the envelope without comment and said, “Earl Grey, please.”
John didn’t know why he didn’t just say, “We’re closed.” Yes, he would take every sale he could get, but this man made him uncomfortable, creeping under his skin this way, just by standing there and watching like that. “What?” John asked, finally unable to stand the silence any longer, glancing over his shoulder as he scooped tea leaves.
“Your limp is psychosomatic, you know,” said the man.
John bristled, straightened, turned to him. “What,” he said flatly.
The man looked unconcerned. “Isn’t that what your therapist says?”
“My therapist?”
“You’ve got a psychosomatic limp, of course you’ve got a therapist.”
“Have you been talking to her?” John asked, trying to keep his voice even when he was furious.
“Interesting,” the man mused.
“What,” John snapped.
“You don’t trust your therapist. Classic trust issues.” The man wrapped his posh accent around the words, clipping out the hard consonants.
John turned and poured out the Earl Grey tea he had made.
The man made a sound of protest. “I was going to drink that!”
“You think I’m going to serve you after that?” John demanded.
“So I deduced some things about you, they were only the most obvious things. I haven’t got anywhere close to why you would open up a bloody tea shop when you’re clearly inept at it—”
“Inept?” repeated John, and then marched over to the door and yanked it open. “Out, out, out, out, out,” was what he commanded, between his teeth.
But the man just stood by the counter, hands deep in his pockets.
John looked at him. “Out,” he demanded.
“You forgot your cane,” said the man.
John blinked, startled, and realized that he had, that he’d left it behind the counter when he’d marched over to the door. He looked down around him, as if expecting himself to plummet to the floor.
The man swept out the door.
***
John spent all of Thursday out-of-sorts and experimenting with how long he could go without his cane. He made sure to close up exactly on time, although the man didn’t come, so he felt that he needn’t have bothered.
He told himself he was not at all disappointed that the man hadn’t come.