Work Text:
“John, put your coat on, we need to go shopping.”
John looks up from his laptop, his mouth falling open in confusion. “We? We need to go shopping? As in, you’re coming as well?”
Sherlock wraps his scarf around his neck with a flourish and picks up his coat from the back of the chair. “Not food shopping, John. Boring. It’s Mycroft’s birthday soon, and you need to get him a present.”
John looks at Sherlock in amusement as he shuts down his laptop. “No. I don’t think I do, Sherlock, seeing as I don’t particularly like the man.” He stands, taking his mug to the kitchen and rinsing it under the tap.“I do think you could get him something, though.” He raises his eyebrows at Sherlock and smiles patiently. “Any ideas?”
Sherlock buttons up his coat and raises one eyebrow in that infuriating manner of his, and John tries not to punch him for the third time since breakfast. It’s only eleven in the morning.
“Oh I don’t know, John. He likes books, I think. He used to read to me when we were children.”
Sherlock has told him this before, but John still struggles to create a mental image of the Holmes siblings as anything other than the pompous arses they are today, and he shakes his head at the notion.
“Right. Well that’s a start, I suppose,” he says, heading out of the door and down the stairs. Under his breath he mutters, “normal people use amazon, you know,” and he grins as he hears Sherlock snort out a laugh behind him.
Sherlock throws himself down onto one of the impossibly comfortable sofas in the Waterstones coffee shop with a petulant noise that John is by now able to translate as the desire to leave before books start being thrown across the shop. He places a black coffee in front of Sherlock and settles in the chair across from him, balancing his tea and a slice of carrot cake.
Sherlock eyes the cake jealously and John ignores him, fully aware that Sherlock ate only the day before. He takes a huge bite and Sherlock naturally chooses that precise moment to ask him a question.
“This isn’t going well, is it?”
John rolls his eyes as he chews. “Mno,” he manages around his mouthful. “Well I did try to explain to you that we were in the gardening section. Mycroft’s not much of a gardener, is he?”
Sherlock chuckles, and a warmth coils in John’s stomach. Steepling his hands in thought, Sherlock smiles. “When we were very small he tried to plant the Christmas tree in the middle of the lawn. Mummy had to go out for a very long walk with the dogs that day, and Father stopped his pocket money for a week.” His eyes dance at the memory, and for a fleeting moment John is afforded a mental image of a slightly chubby but solemn looking Mycroft and a slender, unkempt Sherlock sucking on a finger and egging him on as he digs at the lawn with a beach spade, the discarded tree lying limp and brown and bare beside them.
They finish their drinks in companionable silence (or at least, Sherlock’s coffee goes cold on the table while he watches John finish his tea, fidgeting the whole time) and then John shrugs on his jacket.
“Come on,” he says, “let’s go. I have an idea.”
Sherlock looks up at him in surprise but doesn’t question, only picks up his coat and follows John out into the street.
The antiquarian bookshop is quiet and peaceful and gloomy and Sherlock visibly relaxes as they enter. Dust motes swirl and flash in the odd shafts of sunlight that penetrate the sooty windows, and Sherlock dances from one shelf to another in excitement.
“How do you know about this place?” he asks John warmly, and if the look on John’s face reminds him of a pupil who’s answered a particularly difficult question and impressed their favourite teacher, Sherlock does an excellent job of hiding it.
“My dad likes old books,” John explains, picking up a faded copy of The Hobbit and putting it down again hastily as the elderly bearded man behind the counter tuts at him. “And I happen to know they have a first edition of Swallows and Amazons; look, it’s in the glass case over by the counter, with all the other collectables. It has the map on the dust jacket and everything. It’s a bit pricey, but I’m guessing you owe Mycroft for a few birthdays.”
Sherlock turns from a shelf on flora and fauna in Britain and faces him, his eyes piercing John’s in a way that makes him look away. “Mycroft used to read me that at bedtime!” Sherlock exclaims in delight. “It was one of his favourite books; he used to do all the different voices to make me laugh.”
John stares up at him, a soft smile reaching his eyes and crinkling their corners.
“I know that Sherlock. You told me once before.”
“That was at least eighteen months ago, John.” Sherlock places his hands on John’s shoulders and looks at him as if he's a particularly intriguing case.
John clears his throat and is unable to look away. “I listen to you, Sherlock. Especially when you talk about yourself. It’s the only way I have to know you.”
Sherlock’s face is unreadable as he takes John by the wrist and leads him gently to the back of the shop where it’s quite dark and undisturbed, and presses him gently against a huge bookcase. Sherlock rests a hand on John’s cheek and lowers his head to place a kiss on the corner of his mouth. John turns his head only a fraction and his mouth finds Sherlock's with a sigh. The hard edges of the bookcase are digging into the small of his back and he's sure they shouldn't be doing this for the first time here, but it really doesn't matter because he can taste Sherlock on his tongue and it tastes like coffee and cinnamon and home.
And John realises that he has never really known Sherlock at all, until this moment.