Work Text:
One day, during a “vital” experiment that involved Sherlock smashing willow patterned china (inside a pillowcase) with a claw hammer, John asked the big question:
“Remind me again why I’m still sharing a flat with you?”
Sherlock made a hmm-ing noise in the back of his throat and said, “Your endless supply of affection for me?”
“Oh, is that what that is? It’s not an emotion I usually associate with a desire to chuck someone out of a window.”
“The last time I chucked someone out of a window,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly, and John buried his face in his hands to hide his laughter, “It was entirely motivated by the strength of my affection.”
“I know,” John said, from behind his fingers. “But I’m still not supposed to condone it.”
“Your fake disapproval is becoming less and less convincing,” Sherlock said airily, pounding the pillowcase with a series of tinkling crunches.
John laughed out loud and thought, not with hyperbole or forced sentimentality, but with a burst of sudden, bemused clarity: I’ve never been this happy.
Two months later, John found a pillowcase full of smashed china fragments wedged behind the sofa and thought, I wonder what he was trying to prove?
He remembered the sensation of laughing at Sherlock on a Monday afternoon, and the way Sherlock had grinned back.