Work Text:
“Sherlock pretty pleaseeeee, if you do, I'll be Bilbo with you.” John pleaded, leaning over to The boy, and letting his head hit his shoulder. Sherlock just ignored him and continued eating his cafeteria made chicken nuggets. Which somehow tasted burnt but felt undercooked. “Don’t ignore me I know you love to talk Sherlock.”
John was in the middle of convincing Sherlock to dress up with him for Halloween, preferably as Dr.Strange. Sherlock however, as he always was, was annoyingly stubborn. He refused to, and John was 95% sure even if halfway through he had somehow magically convinced the dark haired boy to dress up and spend his October 31st with him, he wouldn’t have admitted it. Again, annoying, and stubborn.
“We are both far too old to be dressing up for Halloween, John.” Sherlock said sternly, peering over to the blonde, who was now full-on attempting puppy dog eyes now. It was sort of working, at least it was until both of their gazes were broken when Molly and Greg walked up to them.
“Oooh, are you two dressing up for Halloween as well?” Molly chimed in. Sherlock immediately rolled his eyes and went back to eating his lunch. It was one of the days John had convinced him to actually show up and buy some sustenance with the lunch money his parents gave him. Sometimes he wondered how Sherlock ate anything without John to force him to.
“I am, Sherlock here is blatantly refusing to.” He gave Sherlock an open glare, Sherlock returned it rather quickly, though there was no real malice behind either of them. “His loss I'm going over to his house so, I’ll be in hobbit attire while he is in a boring button up."
“Whatever, you’re missing out.” She sat down beside John, drawing his attention away from Sherlock. “Me and Greg here are going as a trio along with my boyfriend.” She smiled, John only hoped that it wasn’t the new boyfriend Sherlock had deduced was falling out of love with her a few days ago. He looked at Sherlock again, but he was having an in-depth conversation about whatever detective novel they were both reading and whether it was worth reading, so he turned back around.
“Cool, who are you going as? I mean as the trio.”
“Oh! We’re going as Luigi, Mario, and Princess Peach.” She pulled out her phone and swiped to the camera app. “Here, I'll show you a photo. We took mirror selfies when we tried them on, or at least I took photos and they kind of just posed.”
She propped her phone up against his water bottle and started to point out which version she did or almost picked. She looked cute, and happy. A bit of jealousy bubbled up in John’s stomach.
“Can I show Sherlock real quick?” He gestured to the phone.
“Oh, yeah sure go ahead.”
He nodded and grabbed the phone from its position. “Hey, sherlock look look look.” The boy reluctantly turned his head. “This could literally be us dude, this would be us if only you’d try on costumes with me, and wear them, and pumpkin carve with them.”
“If I do that, you’re no doubt going to make me buy it, you will go 'oh, Sherlock but look it fits so well you just have to buy it!’ I am not falling down that rabbit hole.”
“Come on Sherlock, you should dress up!” Greg chimed in, Sherlock’s head whipped back to the blonde with a look of betrayal on his face. “It’s the right time to buy one, if you’re gonna you better before the good ones run out.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side.” Sherlock scowled.
“I’ll be on your side when you start calling me by my actual name.”
“I do use your actual name.”
“What’s my name?”
“...Graham.”
“Point proven, you should get a costume.” Sherlock sighed and took the final bite of his lunch before getting up and putting his tray back. Greg and Molly must’ve noticed the time because they said their goodbyes and headed off to their fourth period.
When Sherlock came back, John used the best puppy eyes he could muster, resuming their little staring contest from before the two others had shown up.
“Fine. But you cannot tell the other two and you can not take photos.”
“YES. THANK YOU” John hopped up and grabbed his bag. “Now, I do have to get to my next class it is like ten miles away across the building, but you will take my bus home today and we are going to pick you a Halloween costume!” A small smile tugged at Sherlock’s lips, he knew he could convince him eventually, the fact Sherlock seemed not too opposed to it just made him a little happier about it.
He already knew what costume he’d be looking for on the bus.
~
When the last bell rang, Sherlock was the first out of his class. John had told him to take his bus after school, their houses were forever apart. That meant they would hang out at John’s house after school, right? He hoped so.
Mycroft might be a little annoyed if Sherlock asked him to pick him up, not that he cared. Mycroft could use a little time out of his office every once in a while. The only other downside to John’s house was that he had a cat that didn’t like Sherlock. It did like to lie in his coat though, so he took it as a win.
He wondered if they would discuss in the living room, or in the kitchen sitting next to each other, or maybe in John’s room. He concluded he would like that the most when John came running up behind him.
“My bus is 118, it’s usually in the back over there.” John pointed to the end of their bus loop. Internally Sherlock was not paying attention. He knew what bus John took, he had already looked over all of them already and noted it wasn’t there yet. “Oh, must be late today.”
They waited pretty much in silence, Sherlock found a place near the wall to lean on and John followed behind, squatting beside him. He stood waiting for the bus while John was fiddling around on his phone doing God know what. Probably texting his mother or harry to tell them he was coming over.
“Hey, Sherlock look.” He glanced down at the phone John held up to him. On the screen was a decently cheap Dr.Strange outfit, boots and all. It looks to be good quality too- online photos you really can never tell.
“It’s your Halloween outfit! Isn’t it great?” A smile gracefully made its way onto John’s face, he looked so happy with himself.
“We never agreed on that.” Sherlock said sternly, but John’s bus (or their bus today) pulled up and John was off. He followed after, they were in the middle of a huge crowd of teenagers trying to get on a bus. Not exactly Sherlock’s preferred scenario but John was holding onto his backpack so that he didn’t lose him, so it was completely okay.
John sat in the third row by the window, he was pretty lucky to get a seat so close to the front, but he didn’t question it because the blonde was once again shoving his phone over to Sherlock and showing him different Variations of a bilbo costume.
~
Halloween day
John knocked at Sherlock’s door. Or at least he hoped it was, this was the address he was given. What if Sherlock gave him the wrong address, the front lights weren't on, what if he was not home? He took a step back when the door opened to reveal a damp-haired Sherlock.
“Hi.” This was a bit awkward.
“Hi, uh sorry I was dying the sides of my hair grey with temporary dye. Like you told me too.” When he looked closer, Sherlock’s hair wasn’t wet, it was slicked back on purpose. The grey streaks were very visible once he was told about them, there were small bits of curl poking out as well, it was kind of cute. His face got a little red when he realized Sherlock had listened enough to remember that little detail.
“Yeah, you look cute.” He immediately stiffened. “Good. I meant good, your hair. Can I come in?” Nice save there idiot, god you need to stop thinking things like that it’s going to get you in a lot of trouble.
Sherlock didn’t answer for a second, he looked like he was buffering. “Earth to Sherlock? May I come in kind sir?”
“Yeah... come in.” He gave john a look. “And please never call me “kind sir” ever again.” John laughed to himself.
Sherlock shut the door behind him and motioned to the kitchen, which was in view from the doorway. He took off his shoes and headed for the kitchen. It smelt nice, like freshly baked goods. He wondered if Mrs. Hudson had baked, Sherlock mentioned a couple times that she did. He began to take off the bag with his costume when he turned the corner and almost jumped out of his skin.
“AGH GOD... Sherlock what the hell is that.” There was a gigantic realistic spider taped onto his fridge. When he got a closer look, it was clearly fake, but it still freaked the absolute hell out of him anyway. “Why would you put this on your fridge? I almost had a heart attack.”
“It’s Halloween, Mrs. Hudson insists on decorating the house for every holiday.” He walked into the kitchen and pointed to the oven. “Oh, actually speaking of Mrs. Hudson, she made sugar cookies if you would like one. I will not, but the last time I had one they were fairly good.”
“Where are you going?” Sherlock had begun to walk off, most likely to his room.
“You can come with me if you want, I'm just changing into the costume you picked out.” John quickly followed behind. “Great okay, I'll use my bathroom in my room, you can use the main area.”
Sherlock’s room wasn’t too unusual. At least not as unusual as john had originally expected when walking into his room. What he expected was tons of experiments around the room, maybe a skeleton, probably some huge bed considering Sherlock’s house was huge. The reality though, was a bed big enough to fit Sherlock in the corner of the room, one experiment laying on his desk, and... a human skull on the wardrobe.
“Sherlock what is this?” He picked up the skull and looked at it a bit closer. Yeah, definitely real. Okay fun.
“Oh! That’s a friend.” Sherlock picked up the skull in his own hands and looked it up and down. “Well, I say friend... anyway, bathroom is over there my costume’s on the door tell me when you’re done changing and I'll come out.”
~
Sherlock shut the door behind him and looked in the mirror. There were a few hairs sticking out, but the grey looked pretty accurate and the more he looked the more he found he did kind of looked like Dr.Strange.
He slipped out of his own clothing and into the outfit. It didn’t look half bad. Of course, to him it didn’t look too real, but that was simply his observation skills. He doubted John would neither notice nor care.
“John are you ready?” He called through the door. John immediately called back “Yes please I wanna see the getup!” He smiled to himself; John actively wanted to see something he looked good in. It made him feel fuzzy.
He opened the door to a hobbit. It was incredible how much John was spot on with both of their costumes, he looked adorable. His hair was messed up, but clearly on purpose to make his outfit match better. The vest fit him perfectly, and the coat over it looked nice, warm. His pants were cut off under his knees, but Sherlock was internally reminded they did so in the movie as well, so it only made sense. He (thankfully) was wearing socks and did not have big hairy feet prosthetics added on.
He only realized he was staring when I reached John’s dirty makeup and realized that John was also staring. He felt a bit of heat rise to his cheeks, he was sure he saw a bit of pink on John’s as well, but the makeup surely covered most of it, so he couldn’t tell.
“Oh my god, Sherlock...” John was gaping, he closed his mouth when he noticed he was though. “This outfit is so fucking accurate this is amazing.”
He walked up the Sherlock and spun him around slowly, standing in place. He must have analyzed for forever, it seemed like forever anyway. Sherlock cleared his throat.
“Oh, right sorry.” He backed away from the dark-haired boy. “Did you get the pumpkins?”
“Yeah, they’re downstairs I'll show you where.” They made their way downstairs, john was right behind him, so much so that his voice seemed way closer than it actually was. Or maybe that was just him freaking out internally after John had purposefully gotten so close to him just seconds before. “Right over there.” He pointed over to the living room, where the pumpkins sat nicely on their glass coffee table.
When they separated to get different supplies, Sherlock was a bit sad. Even though he knew John was literally just a room away, and they’d be together again in seconds, he liked the close contact he got from John analyzing his costume. He walked to the kitchen and set up some stools for the two to sit on, as well as two steak knives for doing the actual carving. Just as he was placing them nicely on the table, John came around and plopped both big orange fruits down onto the counter.
“These are good, very round where did you buy them?”
“I have no clue Mummy went out looking for them.” He grimaced thinking of how she had bombarded him with questions of his 'new buddy.' “She was very enthusiastic, I had to convince her not to go super hard and buy more than what we needed.”
“Well, I am glad she likes me. Where are the nearest pair of gloves?” John took his gaze away from the pumpkins and back onto Sherlock. He was confused.
“Gloves?”
“Yes, unless you want to gut this pumpkin with your bare hands.” The blonde made gripping motions with his hands and jumped at Sherlock. He grinned and laughed when Sherlock immediately shut the idea down, maybe he should have said yes. Would that have made John happy? He decided against pondering on it.
~
Once they were done gutting their pumpkins of their inner-organs and had their reference ready to carve, they started just that- carving. Sherlock started out slowly, while John started out stabbing a gaping hole into his poor pumpkin's head for an eye. Sherlock thought it kind of looked like a biblically accurate angel but when John did not get what he meant he dropped the insult.
“See I don’t get how you’re so good at this.” John pouted and looked both his own and Sherlock’s pumpkin over. “You say you’ve never done this, so how?”
Sherlock giggled at John. “I think you should just get good.”
“Oh yeah? Well, why don’t you show me how, oh great one.”
“Yeah? I think I will. Here.” Sherlock left his pumpkin, no piece of artwork to the side and wrapped his hands around John’s. He dragged them left and right, mapping out where John should and should not cut, and where he should put more pressure on separate areas.
“Like this, god un-stiffen your hands John, you’ll get no work done this way.” His smile was practically bursting off of his face, he could hear his own grin while he talked. The situation made them unbearably giggly.
He dragged the knife against the pumpkin, making a nice little outline for John to copy. It looked almost identical to his reference, save the demented looking thing on the back from when John had tried without Sherlock’s help.
“There. Cut that out.” He removed his hands from around John’s and sat back in his chair. Then he realized what the hell he had just done.
Putting his hands around John’s? Practically whispering into John’s ear, he got all up close. Maybe John would be upset, or uncomfortable, he hoped not. He looked over at John, who seemed to be happily cutting away at his pumpkin. Okay maybe I'm overthinking it, I think I am actually.
~
Sherlock held my hand, Sherlock held my hand, Sherlock held my hand oh my god, what was that. When he told Sherlock to teach him how to carve a pumpkin, he had not expected him to literally grab his hands and show him the motions. That entire time had been spent admiring Sherlock’s hands. The way they were again, wrapped around mine.
Did Sherlock like him? Was he also freaking out because of what he just did? He didn't look to be freaking out, he just looked like he normally did. He was just fidgeting around with his nails, that was normal. John’s head was spinning, he wanted more contact with Sherlock.
The moment was swiftly ruined when they heard Sherlock’s doorbell go off. John silently cursed himself for not making some sort of move back. The other boy got up to check the door. He wasn’t fully paying attention, but John was 90% sure he heard a “Oh my god doctor strange!” He chuckled to himself.
By the time Sherlock had come back he was pretty much done with his little face. His face twisted into a small grin. His pumpkin looked a lot like the other, but he had somehow made one of the eyes unbearably larger than the other, even with Sherlock’s guidelines.
“We should put them outside now don’t you thi-mmph!” He wasn’t able to finish his sentence as he felt a pair of cold lips meet his own. It took him a minute to recognize what just happened- what was happening right now, but once he did, he began to kiss back.
Sherlock’s lips were soft, welcoming. Kind of ironic considering he often drove people away with the insults coming from his mouth. They separated all too quickly, leaving John with an empty feeling. They stood there for several moments simply taking information in and admiring each other. The first person to break the silence was Sherlock.
“I think you’re right. Let’s bring the pumpkins out before more kids arrive.” He passed John and grabbed his pumpkin off the counter and walked off to the door. The blonde quickly followed soon after, still in shock, and a bit numb.
They placed their pumpkins directly next to each other and stood back to take in the view. Sherlock’s porch was decorated a bit, but the two spooky faces just added to it, and now that John’s wasn’t an accidental jumpscare he felt quite proud of both of them.
Halloween carving- definitely something to repeat next year.