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The door closing on the world at 221B Baker Street was a welcome relief for John Watson. He returned home from a locum afternoon shift at a small surgery that he had never before worked at and would never work at again. There weren't many surgeries that John refused to work at, but this one definitely would be one of them. In a word, it was just horrible. The bloody place was from the dark ages; they still used paper notes. How they had escaped from the NHS digitising everything was a mystery worthy of his mad flatmate.
Trudging up the stairs to the flat, he wondered what he would walk in on. Sherlock was contorted into an impossible shape in his chair, reading a newly delivered chemistry journal when he had left. Now he walked into a silent, empty flat.
"Sherlock?" He called out and got no reply. He hung up his coat, noting the missing Belstaff with a slight nod to himself, yep, empty. Either Sherlock had found a case or some harebrained experiment that he was off doing. Either way, it meant that John would have a bit of peace to unwind from the nightmare shift. He decided that first, he would take a long, hot shower. His shoulder was starting to play up. Nothing major, still, every so often, it would give a twinge, the joys of the colder weather coming into winter. Also, living with Sherlock meant that hot showers were something of a luxury. The selfish git would spend so long showering or insist on baths that the water would be tepid at best by the time John got a chance.
John hastily went upstairs, changed into his dressing gown, grabbed a pair of pyjamas to change into once showered and made his way back to the shower. He locked the door on autopilot and turned on the taps to get the water nice and steamy. He reached for the small shower-proof radio that Harry had bought him many years ago and turned it on, cranking the volume up. There was no Sherlock to deride his choice in music station, another little forbidden luxury.
The hot water was pounding down as John scrubbed shampoo into his hair. He always chuckled to himself at his lone bottle of shower gel and 2 in 1 shampoo nestled in amongst the vast range of products used by Sherlock. If John didn't know any better, he would swear the man had a different shampoo for each day of the week. He didn't dare use one. Not after the epic sulk from Sherlock the last time that he did.
****
John had squeezed his shampoo bottle and got just a tiny drop from the bottle, empty. John growled just his luck; he stank from having to rifle through the large catering rubbish bin behind the restaurant. Sherlock had asked, well demanded, that John go into the bin in search of the evidence needed to convict the maître d.
Now John was stuck in the shower needing to give his hair a good scrubbing with a strong-smelling shampoo to eliminate the rotting food smell permeating his hair and skin. He chucked the empty shampoo bottle out of the shower in disgust. His eyes turned to the large array of shampoo on display which would put an isle of Boots to shame, not that Boots would ever hold these sorts of bottles. Surly, Sherlock wouldn't mind him using one just this once. After all, it was the git's fault that John needed to shower in the first place. He grabbed one of the bottles reading to make sure it was shampoo. Sherlock had too many hair products for that ridiculous mop of curls. The first bottle was a conditioner, and the second was some sort of serum. Third time lucky, yep, Sachajuan curl shampoo, definitely shampoo. John squeezed out a dollop of shampoo and got scrubbing. The bathroom was filled with a strong scent that somehow reminded John of the ocean. The shampoo felt like pure luxury to John. After rinsing off the suds and finishing his shower, John quickly dried off and changed, wrapping his dressing gown around him.
John went into the kitchen to make himself a final cup of tea while reading his novel until bedtime. He shimmied himself past Sherlock, blocking his path to the kettle. Bent over his microscope, studying some old slide of something or other. John grabbed the kettle and went about the motions of making tea. When he turned with the kettle, leaning over to put it back on the base and flicking the switch to boil, Sherlock sniffed the air. John froze; the bloody man was like a bloodhound. He straightens to see Sherlock swivel round and stand towering over him. He gives another audible sniff; there was a moment's pause. John thought rapidly if he should confess or not. However, the thought was taken out of his hands as Sherlock's eyes sharpened on him with laser focus.
"Tell me John has Head and Shoulders or Tescos own brand not been cutting it lately that you had to use my Sachajuan shampoo this evening?" Sherlock cuttingly questioned, arms folding tightly across his chest, making the buttons of his shirt strain even more.
John opened his mouth and closed it, wide-eyed with disbelief at Sherlock's tone. "I just borrowed some Sherlock, as my bottle was empty. I thought you wouldn't mind."
"Borrowed. Tell me, John, how does one borrow shampoo? You use shampoo. Borrowing means that you will give the item back to the person once you are finished." The tone used was petulant, his eyes narrowing in annoyance.
"Alright, fine!" John sighed, rubbing his brow, all this, over a dollop of shampoo, "I used your shampoo, but considering I smelt like a skip because of you demanding I go dumpster diving, I think you can forgive this momentous crime."
There was a beat or two of silence before; Sherlock made a gusty sigh with his nose, "Fine, just make sure you are more organised in buying your personal hygiene supplies in future." He gave a sharp swivel, the swoop of his dressing gown, making it more theatric and plopped himself back in front of the microscope.
John stood with his eyebrows raised in disbelief, blinking owlishly. Was Sherlock really this annoyed over shampoo of all the bloody things on this earth? With the sound of the kettle clicking off, John mentally shook himself and made himself and Sherlock tea. He silently slid the tea onto the table at Sherlock's right side within easy reaching distance, grabbed his own and plopped down on his chair.
John sat with his book open for the next hour but not reading. His mind went over why Sherlock was so angry over him using his shampoo. In university, when he shared with a few mates, it was a given that you could use theirs if you ran out of something like shampoo. It was the same in the army John had done so countless times and had so had the other lads. It all sort of worked itself out, some kind of you scratch my back I'll scratch yours deal. Then there were Sherlock's borrowing habits as well. As far as John could see, Sherlock's attitude to John's stuff was that Sherlock could use it if it was in the flat. John had given up on telling the man off for using his laptop without permission. Obviously, in Sherlock's mind, it was a case of what's yours is mine and what's mine is my own. John shrugged it off as one of those little spats they seemed to always have and went to bed.
John had an early morning shift at the clinic, so he had gone about his morning much like any other morning. He popped two slices of bread in the toaster and made tea for the two of them like always. When Sherlock's bedroom door opened, the detective came out in his pyjamas and camel-coloured dressing gown.
"Morning," John said as he spread honey on some toast. Sherlock didn't reply but made his way towards the sofa. He gracefully swooned down onto it like a victorian maiden.
John rolled his eyes and placed the toast and mug of tea on the coffee table beside him. "What are your plans for today?"
Sherlock just gave a shrug of the shoulders and a sigh. Ah, here it was, the post case sulk. John was almost thankful for the coughs and sneezes of Greater London if it meant that he would not have to witness Sherlock's amateur dramatics this morning.
John hastily ate his breakfast and left the flat, telling Sherlock to let him know if he got any interesting calls.
When John returned late afternoon, it looked like Sherlock hadn't moved off the sofa since this morning. After taking off his jacket and toeing off his shoes, he turned towards the Sherlock bundle on the sofa.
"Sherlock, I brought you one of those pastry things you like from that bakery. You want it with your tea." John called from the kitchen's sliding doors.
After getting no response, John continued placing the cup of steaming tea and a side plate with the pastry on the coffee table. There was a rough grumble from the Sherlock mound. "John, your guilt giving of pastry in the way of an apology is noted. I hope in the future you do not have the compulsion to use my products and upset my calculations of hair products dosage."
John had just taken his seat while Sherlock was delivering his speech. John rubbed his forehead, annoyed it was a long day at the clinic, and he was in no mood for being cast as the villain this evening again. "First off, Sherlock, the pastry is in no way out of guilt."
Sherlock scoffed, unfurling himself with lithe grace to stare at John. "Please, of course, it is. Just look at your face. It's been playing on your mind on and off all day. Relax, I spent a small amount of time today calculating your illicit use and recalculating the dosage amounts of products to ensure I still have an optimal amount of shampoo against conditioner ratio."
John could feel his eyebrows shoot up at the announcement. He raised his chin slightly, lifting his hand and resting his cheek. "Right, so you're telling me you have a calculation for the amount of shampoo you use," John asked in disbelief. Surely Sherlock was pulling his leg, trying to make him feel more guilty or see if John was gullible enough to believe him.
"Of course I do, John;" John noticed the wrinkle appear between Sherlock's eyebrows, an indicator of Sherlock's confusion, "I have measured that for my hair type; I need 11.5 ml of shampoo and 4.3 ml of conditioner. As you didn't snaffle the conditioner, and I am sure you used the very scientific measurement unit of a large dollop of my shampoo, I had to recalculate the number of uses I will have before I put an order in with my stylist." This was delivered at the rapid deduction-giving speed used at crime scenes. "I suggest you do something similar then; you will not run into the problem you had yesterday."
John sighed and waved his hand in Sherlock's direction. "Alright, fine, I will give it some consideration."
John watched as Sherlock's brow cleared. "Given your hairstyle and hair type, the maintenance of which is much more simplistic, I'm sure you can just about manage the correct calculations to avoid such circumstances."
John sucked in a breath. "Right. Thanks, Sherlock, for that. Now, will you eat your pastry?"
"Of course, John," Sherlock replied with a nonchalant air.
A sudden banging on the bathroom door roused John from his memory with a start. The baritone voice through the door was unmistakable. "John! Hurry up in there; Lestrade just texted it's an eight at least!" This was followed by more banging.