If Sherlock were a stray at Battersea Dogs Home, John would have a pretty good idea what the little card on the front of his cage would say.

Name: Sherlock Holmes

Age: unknown

Found: 221b Baker Street, surviving on nicotine patches, cups of tea, and his own ego.

Domesticated?: No

Dangerous?: Yes

Notes: Sherlock does not do well with other human beings; any potential owner must be intelligent enough so as to understand at least some of his ramblings, must care as little about self preservation as possible, and have a stomach of iron so as to survive his misplaced science experiments in the kitchen. You have been warned.

If John had been searching for a flatmate in such a manner, he would have glanced over Sherlock's card and promptly left the strange creature with his dark eyes, black hair, white skin and cutting cheekbones for some other hapless fool to share a flat with. He would have wandered on and chosen some flatmate adoptee with a nice, calm temperament, who occasionally cooked and did the washing up when it was their turn, cleaned the bathroom, and didn't play the violin at 4 in the morning or shoot the walls to Swiss cheese. Indeed, John would have certainly chosen a nice flatmate with a 'Yes' next to 'domesticated?' and a 'no' next to 'dangerous?'

Or would he have?

John buried his face in his hands and tried to scrub the exhaustion from his features.

No, he probably wouldn't have chosen the nice, non-sociopathic flat mate. He would have always gone for this lunatic in a long coat with a penchant for eyeballs in the microwave.

And what did that say about John Watson? Nothing good, he decided.

Before he could begin to mull over what may be written on his file as a potential flatmate adoptee, he heard a sharp, cracking bang from the living room. He sighed and stood to his feet, wondering whether he should just buy a muzzle for Sherlock and be done with it.

"What are you doing?" he asked, standing in the living room doorway and cocking an eyebrow at Sherlock.

There was a plume of smoke coming from the Tupperware box on Sherlock's lap, and the front of his dark curls were singed.

"Nothing," Sherlock said, shutting the box and placing it underneath the armchair, "Nice nap?"

John gave him a withering look and went to collapse on the sofa, "Does it look like I had a good nap?"

"Have you told your therapist about your recurring nightmares?" Sherlock enquired nonchalantly, taking out his phone and tapping away at the keys.

"How do you know they're recurring?"

"You make the same noises every night whilst you're having them, I can only assume they are repetitive, and can therefore be easily dubbed as 'recurring'."

"You listen me whilst I sleep?" John cried.

Dear Lord, he thought, closing his eyes. He tried to think back whether he had made any other sounds apart from during his nightmares that Sherlock may have heard through the walls, but decided he may throw himself under a bus if he came to any conclusion other than 'no'.

"Any work coming through?" John asked, wanting to steer the conversation clear away from a) the noises John made at night, for whatever reasons, and b) his rather complicated mental state.

"No. Nothing," Sherlock replied with a curled lip. He stuck his phone back inside the inner pocket of his jacket and ran his hands through his hair. The curls stood to attention on top of his head and tumbled down the nape of his neck.

"You could always clean the kitchen. That would keep you occupied."

It was Sherlock's turn to cast a withering look.

"Hey, you're the one who put exploding eyeballs in the microwave," John reminded him, feeling a shiver pass through him at the memory of opening the microwave and seeing said exploded eyeballs dashed all over the place.

"They weren't exploding eyeballs, they were eyeballs that happened to explode in the microwave. And I got a very interesting set of results after that."

"I'm not your lab technician," John pointed out, "I don't have to clean up after your experiments. And I shouldn't have to get some sort of bacterial infection because that head in the fridge is dripping onto my food. In fact, if I find another piece of a human body that's not tightly sealed in a contained, I'm going to..."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him as John sought desperately for a way to punish Sherlock Holmes for his exploding, leaking, oozing and generally disgusting human body parts, "I'll...I'll hide your phone."

Sherlock barked with laughter, his eyes crinkling at the corners with mirth, "You really think you could pick pocket me and hide away my phone?"

"I could try. What would you do if I managed it?"

"You wouldn't," Sherlock said, the mirth suddenly gone, "Would you?"

"I would if I could. Punishment."

"I'm not some errant child," Sherlock scowled.

John pretended not to notice that Sherlock scooted his hand into his inside pocket to make sure his phone was secure when he thought John wasn't looking.

"Well, if you're really bored, you can come supermarket shopping with me."

"How deathly dull," Sherlock moaned, stretching his long lithe body out so that he was barely balanced on the edge of his chair, his legs sticking out for what looked like miles in front of him. John momentarily wondered whether he would diagnose Sherlock as malnourished if he came to him as a patient. Would it matter if he did diagnose him as malnourished? Sherlock seemed to think coffee and nicotine were perfectly fine for him; John doubted he had ever even heard of 'five a day'.

"It's either that or I ring Molly and tell her you're quite finished with the head in the fridge."

Sherlock looked wounded, "I haven't finished my experiment on the changes in hair follicles after death."

"Then come with me and do the shopping."

Sherlock sighed and threw his arms over the side of the chair. John felt that this was what having a teenager must be like, but powered on.

"Come on Sherlock."

"Fine," the detective genius muttered, "But only because I'm bored and there is no work. I am not going to make this a habit."

The Tesco's just around the corner was teeming with evening shoppers, and John could feel the detest at the human world tumbling from every pore of Sherlock's being. Even through the coat and scarf and the space between them, John could sense the tenseness in Sherlock's muscles and the banality of shopping crawling like a rash under the man's pale skin.

John found it all rather satisfying, if he was to be honest.

He dumped the shopping basket into Sherlock's unsuspecting arms and beckoned him to follow.

"Right, what do we need?"

"How should I know?" Sherlock drawled. He narrowed his eyes at a woman leafing through gossip magazines and balancing a small toddler on her hip. Before he could open his mouth to give his deductive account of her life story, John hooked him at the elbow with a determined hand and steered him toward the bakery aisles.

"Bread. We need bread. What do you want: white, brown...some of that stuff with the nuts in it?"

"I have no idea."

"I'll get white then," John said with gritted teeth. They'd only hit one aisle and he was already tempted to walk away and leave Sherlock to his own devices or stuff him into one of the frozen food cabinets.

"Ok, can you go and get milk?"

"Where's milk?"

"I'm sure a deductive genius such as yourself can figure out where the milk is."

Sherlock turned 360 degrees on the spot, and when milk didn't jump out at him he let out a sigh, "Well how much am I getting?"

"Just get one of the big ones."

"What kind?"

"Impress me."

As Sherlock stalked away peering down the aisles for the milk, John realised he was going to regret saying that, but he had no time to correct his potentially heinous mistake.

Instead, he plowed on with the shopping. There was a bit of a jostle at the frozen ready meals freezer, and he got into a bit of an elbow battle with an elderly woman zipped into a velour tracksuit who seemed to want to claim all of the frozen chicken takeaways as her own. He managed to snaffle a few frozen pieces of breaded chicken, two chicken kievs, a frozen garlic bread baguette, two frozen pizzas, and two Indian curries. Well, that was the freezer stocked.

He wandered over to the fruit and vegetable section and ruefully admitted that they probably needed to have something green in the flat, if only to keep the scurvy at bay. He knew what a healthy diet meant, however after being in the army since leaving school he had grown accustomed to someone else organising this healthy diet for him. Even in if Afghanistan, they had the meals set out and cooked for them. Ok, most of them tasted pretty fowl, but they were full of the nutrition that they needed to make sure that they didn't pass out in the desert. But making his own healthy meal was a little beyond him.

Oh well, there was a first for everything.

He bought a few tomatoes, a bag of potatoes and some carrots; he had no idea what Sherlock liked or disliked, but it wasn't even guaranteed that Sherlock would be eating the food they were buying.

John toyed with the idea of buying a Jamie Oliver cook book they had on sale, but instead went for a '100 One Pot recipes' book in paperback. He wasn't even sure they had one pot, but there were a few cupboards he hadn't investigated, so maybe they would yield something.

He was comparing the price of the biggest boxes of tea bags he could find when he felt a tall shadow break over his back.

"Get the milk?"

"What's the difference between the green and red top?" Sherlock asked, brandishing two 4 litre bottles of milk, one green top and one red.

"One is semi-skimmed and one is skimmed."

"Right. Which one do you want?"

"Do you have a preference?"

"I didn't even know what they meant, how would I have a preference?"

"Well I don't mind, which do you usually buy?"

"Green."

"Oh, really? Why's that?"

"I like green."

John took the bottle and squeezed it into the basket.

"Right, we just need more coffee. Do you want to get that whilst I grab a bag of pasta?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes dramatically and disappeared to find the coffee, "Meet you at the check out!" he called to Sherlock's retreating back. Holmes raised a hand and vanished around the corner.

John chose a big value pack of bog standard penne, then to cheer himself up he got some fancy ravioli with green stuff inside it, and marched off to find the check out. He hung around in front of the desks, not bothering to crane on his tip toes to look for Sherlock; the man usually stuck out for more reasons than one.

Ten minutes later, and Sherlock still hadn't appeared. John whipped out his mobile and sent a gruff, one handed text: At chckout, where r u? J

He dumped his overflowing basket between his feet and crossed his arms, waiting for the rush of black and dark blue to come around the corner any minute with a packet of the wrong sort of coffee.

Another ten minutes later, and John heaved his basket back into his arms and set off to retrieve Sherlock. He would have simply paid and left, but he needed Sherlock's credit card and pin number to pay for everything.

John wandered up and down the aisles, trying desperately to catch some sign of the mop of dark hair or the sound of the arrogant voice somewhere in the melee of people.

"Sherlock," he hissed, not wanting to shout for his flatmate. He wasn't Sherlock's mother.

"Sherlock!"

John trooped back to the check out and checked up and down the various queues of people, but not one of them was Sherlock. It was when he spotted flailing arms and a security guard jabbing a finger around that he knew where to look next.

He skidded up to the three man arguing over the bargain bin: a security man was lecturing Sherlock, who had his eyes trained despairingly at the ceiling. A third man stood just to the right, arms crossed.

"What's going on here?"

"I was simply telling this gentleman here about the different parts of the human cow they use to make things like tinned sausages. They take wooden shavings and bits of chicken, like the claws and the anal-"

"We get it," the security guard said, with apparent exasperation, "But the man has a right to choose whatever he wants from the Tesco's shelf, and I can assure you there is nothing dangerous or unsavery in this shop."

"Well I wouldn't say that-"

Sherlock started, but John interrupted with a loud cough, "Uh, is that it? Can we go now?"

"No, Sir, he was also found with this in his pocket."

The security guard held up a packet of coffee beans.

"I was going to give them to him," Sherlock scoffed, pointing at John and his basket, "I wasn't going to steal them."

"Well it certainly look like you were going to."

"Why did you get coffee beans?" John groaned, "We don't have a grinder, Sherlock. We need instant coffee, the already ground stuff."

"Does it make a difference?"

John felt a headache coming on.

"What are you going to do about him?" the man who had been trying to buy tinned sausages asked, pointing at Sherlock, "He can't go around saying things like that to people."

"It's the truth," Sherlock enthused, "I read it in a book."

"I don't care," the security guard snapped, holding up both hands.

"Is it really that much of a crime?" John insisted, seeing Sherlock build himself up for a debate that no-one but Sherlock was going to win.

"No, Sir, it isn't, but the potential shoplift of an item from a shop. That plus he opened the screw tops on a number of bottles of milk in our dairy produce aisle."

John turned with an open mouth to Sherlock, "You did what?"

"I wanted to see the difference," Sherlock said, as though it were a perfectly reasonable thing to have done.

"Ok, on his behalf, I'd like to apologise for him doing that," John pleaded with the security guard, "But did it really do any damage?"

"We've had to throw them away, once a bottle top is opened before sale it's technically spoiled goods."

"Well then we'll pay for them, he can pay for them, let me give you our address and you can send the bill to us there, Ok?"

The security guard looked placated, and let John scrawl down the address for 221b Baker Street on the back of a receipt he found trapped in the grill of his shopping basket.

"There, that's our address, send the bill and it'll get paid back, I promise you."

"Yes, thank you," the security guard gruffed.

"Do I get anything for him being rude about my sausages?" the other guy piped up, obviously feeling left out. John gave the man an exasperated looking before nudging Sherlock.

"Apologise, Sherlock."

"What?"

"Say sorry."

"What on earth should I say sorry for?"

Yep, John had a headache, in fact it was slowly becoming a full blown migraine, "The man doesn't want to know what animal's arse hole is in his sausages, he just wants to eat them, Ok? Can you just apologise so we can leave."

"I'm not apologising."

"Well I'm not leaving until I get an apology."

"Ok!" John snapped, "He's sorry, Ok, he's sorry, he apologies profusely. He didn't mean to tell you that your tinned sausages are made out of chicken arseholes, ok? There, apology accepted? Thanks, now let's go, Sherlock."

"I think it'd be best for everyone if you just took that for an apology and went on your way sir," the security guard soothed, gesturing for the man to continue with his shopping. The guy grumped back to his trolley and pushed his way back up the aisle.

"Look, I am really sorry," John said in a stage whisper to the security guard as Sherlock started to wander off in the direction of the check outs, "We just need to pay and then we're leaving. We'll pay for the damages and I promise we'll pay for the coffee."

"It's alright Sir," the security guard said, with an understanding smile, "I understand. My sister's boy is a bit...well, you know, special, too."

John paused. He glanced over at Sherlock who was gesturing at him to hurry up.

"Yep," was all he said, cheerfully. He gave the security guard a parting nod and jogged with his heavy basket to catch Sherlock up.

Not being able to face the self service machines, John took their shopping to a manned check out and stood in silence whilst he packed, fearful he was going to start shouting at Sherlock in a crowded place. Thankfully for John, Sherlock decided now was the best time to lecture him on how a chip and pin machine worked, and John could pack in relative silence.

The check out girl gave him a big smile as she told him the price, and let the smile linger when he gave her his best one back.

"Oh, Sherlock, can I have the card?"

"What card?"

"Your card. Your credit card."

"I don't have my credit card."

"What? I told you to bring it with you!"

"You did no such thing," Sherlock rebutted, looking offended that John thought he would forget something like that. John yanked his wallet from his back pocket and searched with a heavy heart for some form of cash. Nothing. He put his hands on the edge of the check out and counted to ten with deep, calming breaths.

"Can we go now, John?"

"All that time. All that trouble. And we come away with no food!"

"We could always go back if you want," Sherlock suggested, as they climbed empty handed up the staircase to the flat.

"No, god no."

John traipsed into his room, and heard the distinctive sound of Sherlock flopping onto the sofa.

"I'll go and get some food tomorrow," John called, shutting his bedroom door behind him and stripping off his stifling clothes. He wanted nothing more than to get into his jogging trousers and an old jumper and eat some crappy food.

He pulled something out of his jeans pocket and smirked as he slid it into his drawer where he locked his gun away safe. They hadn't come with any food for the flat, but John had at least achieved something whilst Sherlock had been so distracted lecturing him on the ancient traffic systems of London that he nearly got hit by a taxi.

"Can you order a takeaway, Sherlock?" John called out to the living room.

Sherlock accepted with himself that obviously John had found him a burden at the shop , so he accepted this was probably what he owed John. He stuck his hand into his jacket pocket to pull out his phone and order from that nice Indian takeaway who's owner owed him a favour.

Nothing

He blanched, digging his hand all the way down to the bottom of the jacket pocket. No phone. He patted down all of his pockets, even checking the ones in his coat, all to no avail.

Realisation dawned on him with a cold sweep of dread.

"John? Where have you hidden my phone?"

Just a little drabble thing. I have so many more Sherlock (BBC verse) fanfics written and I am sure they'll all come on here soon enough! I love Sherlock/John, so they will be more along those lines. You could squint very very hard and see some slash in here, I suppose, guess it depends on your preferences!

Hope you enjoyed it.