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"Sherloooock!"
John only heard a muffled sound, but he had the mad man’s attention which was good enough.
John dropped his head into his hand, "What exactly is that in our fridge?"
"A severed foot. For a medical doctor, this should be fairly obvious, John."
Right. It was on him he had asked the wrong question, "Right. Why is it in our fridge?"
"Research. Obviously."
John was done, he grabbed the bag with the foot and walked into the living room. "This is it.” He dropped the foot on the detective’s chest. “Sherlock, you're getting a new fridge for your ‘research’. I will not cook vegetables that sat next to a severed foot of a - hopefully dead - person. I am- No. Tomorrow we are going to IKEA."
Sherlock sat up abruptly, when he heard that. "IKEA?! That Finnish blue-yellow furniture shop?!”
“Exactly that one, well it is Swedish.”
“I will NOT go there."
"It's either that or I am going to talk to Molly to never give you body parts again.”
Sherlock stared at him in horror. “Fine,” he plummeted back onto the couch.
“We are leaving tomorrow at 10 AM.”
Sherlock whimpered at that. He didn’t argue though.
Somehow Sherlock had managed to procrastinate leaving for their IKEA visit until 3 PM. So now John was grumpy but so was Sherlock.
They walked through the fake living rooms. Sherlock complained the whole time about the quality of the shelves, about every piece of furniture really. They got to the desk chairs and John started to try a few – just to test them. But then Sherlock joined (still complaining about most of them) but also getting into it and soon they were giggling and John crashed into Sherlock with so much speed that Sherlock almost fell over. They still giggled when John helped him out of it and an employee stared at them with irritation.
Next there were the couches and suddenly Sherlock couldn’t stop talking about getting a new couch, “I am too long for our current one, John!” He almost laid down on all of them and at some point, they laid on one for a good five minutes. It was a corner sofa and their heads met in the assemblage. John was laying on the short end Sherlock on the longer.
“This one is nice,” John thought aloud.
“I agree.”
“Shame we got no room for it.”
Sherlock sighed and stretched, his arm briefly touching John’s top of the head. “Let’s try the next one.”
John agreed. They spent the next hour like this.
When they finally reached the refrigerators, it was past 6 PM.
“No, I don’t like that one,” Sherlock said.
John sighed, “And why… for the love of god, is that?” They were looking at the 13th fridge and John was getting impatient.
“It doesn’t fit my requirements.”
“Your requirements? Until today you didn’t even have requirements! You kept your severed body parts next to our leftovers, did you forget?”
A man, who was walking by them with his two daughters looked at him disconcertingly.
“Well, now that we actually buy a refrigerator, it might as well meet my needs.”
John eyed the family. “Your- ugh. Fine. As long as we find one.”
John kinda trailed after Sherlock who inspected all fridges that could be meeting his ‘requirements’, when there sounded an announcement through the speakers, “Dear customers. We will be closing in 30 minutes. Please pick up your purchases at the self-service shelves and pay. Thank you!”
Sherlock turned at John quickly. “They are closing.”
“You gotta choose one quickly then.”
“I don’t know yet!”
“It’s alright, you got another 30 minutes it will be okay.”
Sherlock suddenly was very stressed and rushed from one refrigerator to another. Until an employee came to them. He smiled friendlyly and reminded them to get ready to leave in 15 minutes.
Suddenly Sherlock’s face brightened up. He thanked the employee, took John by the hand and led him to the self-service shelves.
He went to one in the middle and… got on all fours.
“What-“ John lowered his voice to an urgent whisper, “What are you doing Sherlock?!”
“Hiding! Come!”
“What no, I will not-“
“Quickly, one of the employees is gonna turn around the corner any minute now!”
John threw his head back, wondered what the fuck he was doing, but then got down on his knees, too and crawled to Sherlock.
“What. Are we doing, you utterly ridiculous man?” John asked.
“Shh!” Sherlock hushed him, just as an employee walked by them, swayed to the right, yawned and turned around to go down the aisle again.
“We are hiding. We are staying here tonight,” Sherlock stated quietly.
“Wha- Sherlock, we can’t just stay at an IKEA for a night!”
“They haven’t found us yet. Yes, we can.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“It will be fun.”
“I hate you.”
Sherlock smirked.
They stayed in their hiding spot until the lights were turned off. They were stuck in an IKEA in central London. John had to laugh at his absurd situation.
“You convince me of the craziest things, Holmes,” John whispered.
“Oh, come on! A night at IKEA can hardly be more exciting than Afghanistan!” Sherlock responded in his normal voice pitch.
“Less murders, I’d hope,” John whispered back.
Sherlock grinned at him. At least John thought he was, because he suddenly saw a white flash in the darkness. Then the tall man ducked and crawled out of their hiding spot. “There is no need to whisper, John. We are alone in this gigantic möbelaffär.” He stood there at his full height, his hands at his hips, as if he was a pirate about to conquer a lonely island full of treasures. John couldn’t help himself: he shook his head, but he smiled, nonetheless. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Furniture store. It is Swedish.”
“Why does it sound like you’re having an affair with furniture?”
“I do not know. Shall we check out the beds?”
“Unbelievable!”
John was laying on the 26th couch today, he thought. He kinda felt like he was in heaven. He screwed open one of his eyes and glanced at Sherlock, who was holding up a book.
“They don’t even have real books here!”
“Sherlock, it is a cheap furniture store, why would they spend money on decorations like real books?”
“Books are not decoration, John!” Sherlock shot a strict look at John, but the doctor didn’t care as he was still laying on his couch with his eyes closed, smiling. “Books are for culture! For education! For imagination!”
“I agree, Sherlock. Doesn’t change the fact that we are at an IKEA. Hell, they faked the piano in that room over there!”
Sherlock grumbled something John didn’t understand and didn’t really care about. He thought back about their day, reminiscing. They had fought in the morning, finally left, then they got here, and it seemed like during their desk chair game a switch had turned and Sherlock had enjoyed IKEA. Even convinced John to stay here wit him overnight. All of a sudden John opened his eyes. He quickly sat up.
“Sherlock,” John said with a smirk. “Let’s go have some fun.”
“Okay, so the finish line is at the height of that table with the blue desk lamp. Got it?” John asked his friend.
Sherlock nodded. “Got it. Ready, set,…”
“GO!” both screamed at the top of their lungs as they rushed down the aisle. Each man on a desk chair with wheels. John was kneeling on it; Sherlock was still running after his chair. In the end, John won. He stretched his arms into the air and yelled, “And once again, Watson wins the run. He is the greatest and most successful desk chair racer in all England.”
Sherlock frowned at him. But then his face lit up and he laughed. “Rematch! I want that one!” Sherlock pointed at a speedy looking, small blue chair.
“What! No, that was supposed to be my next ride.”
“First one gets it!”
“Oh, you little-“
They ran and John grabbed Sherlock’s arm to pull him back. The taller man however made a pirouette and kept running, losing John. The smaller man had now gained on distance and tempo. He was almost there- when Sherlock crashed into him from behind. They laid like that for a second – Sherlock laying half on top of John’s back, both stretching their arms towards the object of desire. The chair rolled on, a good two metres away from them. Then the detective got up and practically flew into the chair, which then rolled another few metres. John was running behind. “I won,” Sherlock smirked.
John had now caught up on Sherlock. He leaned on the arms of the chair. Crowding into Sherlock’s space. “That wasn’t the match yet. Go back to the starting line, coward.”
Sherlock gasped in forged outrage. “Me! A coward! How am I a coward!?”
“You practically throwing your body on me. I call that cowardice.”
“I was trying to win!”
“You’re not winning this time.” John said into his face, still hovering above him. Then pushed him, so Sherlock was spinning. The detective stopped himself, felt a little disoriented for a moment.
John didn’t care, he had grabbed the next best chair and waited in the wings. “Ready? Set, Go!”
“I wasn’t- Ugh!” Sherlock hurried up. He ran as fast as he could and then jumped onto his chair to roll down the aisle. John was next to him just as fast. But then John’s chair slowed down and Sherlock won on ground. He reached the finish line first. He whooped and spun around to laugh at John. But the doctor was already picking the next chair.
The two men played until both of them were out of breath. “That was fun,” Sherlock remarked, leaning back on a big gaming stool.
Next to him, John – in the same gaming stool but a different colour – grinned at him from the side. “Knew you would like it.”
Sherlock closed his eyes and smiled. A second later he opened them. “We still haven’t checked out the beds!”
John laughed. He got up and offered a hand to Sherlock. “Let’s go do it then!”
Sherlock took the offered hand and stood up – way closer to John than necessary. “Lead the way, my dear Watson.” And for a second, he let himself imagine John was leading him to a bed of their own. He shook off that idea and followed John.
John promptly dropped onto one big queen-sized bed. His limps stretched off him. Sherlock followed his example and dropped himself into a king-sized bed. Just a minute later of silently laying, a shoe flew dangerously close over his head. “What-“ he sat up, stared at John.
The blogger still laid there and apparently hadn’t noticed where he had kicked his shoe to. Sherlock laughed and fell back. “This one is nice. Maybe I will get a new mattress as well.”
John puffed, “As if your bed needs a new mattress. It is so soft you-“
Sherlock shot a glance at him. John quickly looked away. “How do you know, how my mattress feels?”
“What, do you think you’re the only one who tests other people’s beds? Don’t deny it, I know you did!”
Sherlock rolled his eyes, “Your bed definitely needs a new mattress.” Sherlock pointed out.
“Isn’t that too big for your bed anyway? You got a Queen at home, right?”
Sherlock couldn’t resist, “I would much prefer a King at home.”
“Uh, hello?” John waved his hand frantically before his own face. “Am I not king enough to-“ the doctor turned red. “Wait, did you-“
“If you’re gonna awkwardly beat around the bush to ask if I meant that in a gay way, let me save your time: Yeah, I did.”
There was silence for a while until John finally spoke up, “Well as once already established, that is fine… with me.”
Sherlock suddenly felt annoyed. “And I tell you again, that I know it is fine. I don’t get what’s the big deal. I like men, you like women. It is not that earth-shattering, if you really-
Sherlock stopped talking, when he heard John mumble something. Had he heard the word ‘love’ in between the mutter? “Pardon?” He asked.
Silence. Sherlock didn’t dare to sit up, didn’t even dare to make a sound. John took a deep breath. Silence. Another deep breath. Sherlock counted his own between those heavy breaths. 17. Just as many as the stairs up to their flat. He missed it, but he liked it here too. There was an air hanging in this möbelaffär that made him feel a tad uneasy, but mostly eager. He was waiting for John’s words with patience but with tension at the same time.
Another deep breath, then with an unsteady voice, “It matters when your flat mate is in love with you.”
The ball had dropped, and Sherlock quickly sat up. He didn’t know what to say.
“Your very male flat mate, if that helps.” John joked at that moment and Sherlock laughed, his voice deep. He still didn’t know what to say, however.
But the laughter had given John courage. He had sat up to and was now looking at Sherlock. “I like women, yes. But I am in love with you, Sherlock. Have been”, John raked a hand through his hair, “for a pretty long time now.”
Finally, Sherlock found his words again. “Me too,” was all that came out of his mouth though.
They were sitting opposite of each other. Each on their own bed. Sherlock’s brain finally unfroze, and he spoke up, “I am sure this bed is big enough for two kings.” He was impressed by his own quip. He wouldn’t have thought this moment – a moment where the love of his life told him he was in love with him too – would have ever come.
John laughed, then leaned forward and hesitantly kissed Sherlock. The detective leaned in and pressed his lips harder against John’s. Two pairs of lips parted and then knotted together. Sherlock gasped as John softly sucked on his lower lip and he leaned even more forward for more.
But his freshly gained lover pulled back. He stood up, looking down on Sherlock, “No worries about the size of the mattress. You’re gonna be my mattress for the next few hours.”
Sherlock felt all his body heat rush southwards when he heard those words.
John woke from a nose snuggling into his neck. He remembered all the things they did yesterday and smiled. He threw his eyes open. They were still at IKEA! Quickly he checked the time on his phone. 6:30! The furniture store was gonna open any moment! “Sherlock!” He turned around to face his flat mate. “Sherlock, we need to get up! We are gonna get busted!”
“I don’t wanna.”
John was already up gathering his clothes and put them on. “Sherlock! Get up now! I will not be caught having had sex for the first time with you at an IKEA!” John threw Sherlock’s clothes at him. “Put these on. Let’s go!”
“No, we would really like to have that specific mattress,” John said.
The employee, a young woman, looked at him in confusion. “Sir, this one is a test sample. A lot of people have laid down on it. Trust me, if you get the new one, it will-“
“No. I need you to trust me, that this mattress,” Sherlock pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, “is of no use for test samples anymore.”
The woman’s eyes widened. She looked between the two men. “Why-“
“Trust me,” Sherlock insisted. He stared at her.
Finally, the employee nodded.
When they had eventually heaved the mattress into their living room, both men were out of breath. Just then John remembered something, “We forgot to get you a fridge!”
Sherlock looked at him with surprise. They both started giggling at the same time. “And so the ‘möbelaffär’ begins!”