AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, you guys remember that one shot I wrote during lockdown because life was shit and we needed a nice chill little pick-me-up? It was called 'Biscuits' and, well, due to popular demand and life STILL being shit, it's getting another chapter!
(And maybe a few more because oops I got a bit carried away ð )
I literally can't bear to read my own writing, so if I repeat myself, or the continuity is a bit off, I apologise---it has been a while. As always, any requests or suggestions as to where you want this story to go are appreciated :-)
___
Y/N and Sherlock sit in contented silence, Y/N's feet outstretched towards the fire.
It's settled into a sunset sort of amber, the warmth wriggling through her socks and making her toes flush. The empty plate sits between them, and Sherlock dabs at the crumbs with the pad of his finger.
Eventually, he stretches his arms up over his head, the joints in his shoulders clicking like popped bubbles, and his lip twitches as Y/N's face wrinkles into an unsettled grimace. "I've been inside all day, I need some air. Do you want to go out for dinner?"
"Still hungry?" Y/N gives him a teasing nudge as she stands, taking the empty plate to the kitchen.
He has loaded the dishwasher at some point in the day. Sliding the plate into the wrack, Y/N can deduce he had a yoghurt for lunch, and some jam. She doesn't know if the jam was with something, she just knows there is a jam-smeared bowl inside, waiting for the rinse cycle.
Knowing Sherlock, he probably ate it on its own, with a spoon.
Oh yes. There is the spoon.
Unfolding his long legs, said detective follows Y/N to the kitchen, assuming a didactic tone:
"Biscuits and dinner are two very different things."
"Okay, Hesten, where do you want to go?" Y/N takes a step forward---to reach a glass on the shelf---and Sherlock steps with her automatically, as if they're joined at the hip.
"How about Italian?" He offers. "Riccardo's makes great lasagna."
"I remember you mentioning Riccardo's. Isn't it a bit expensive for someone who hasn't worked in a week? What's the occasion?"
"No occasion." He shrugs. "I just thought it would be nice. I could get out my posh jacket, and you could put on that dress you say you never get to wear."
"Which dress?"
"The black one with the straps that sort of go..." he hesitates, a small smile breaking on his lips. He gestures, sort of drawing imaginary lines vaguely down Y/N's sides. "...that go really low on your...on your back."
"You remember that specific dress?" Without warning, she turns to face him and he steps backwards, glancing at her narrowed eyes.
Collecting himself, Sherlock takes the full glass of water from her hand cooly and takes a long sip. "I remember lots of things."
...
In her room, examining herself before a full-length mirror, Y/N gets changed for a second time in half an hour. It takes her a few minutes to find the dress Sherlock had been referring to---but it does indeed exist, draped protectively in a white garment cover. The last time she had worn that must have been---what? A year ago? When she'd accepted an invitation to drinks from the tall, handsome man from the IT department.
Unfortunately, Mark's personality hadn't been as interesting as his face, and their first date had not gone well enough to lead to a second.
Y/N's reflection frowns back at her from the mirror. Has she really not been out with anyone since then?
Well, obviously she's been out. She's been to countless restaurants, cafes and meals with Sherlock---and even celebrated the birthdays and special events of his friends and family---but not romantically.
He's Sherlock. Their conversations are so easy, their senses of humour slotting together so naturally; they lack that excruciating, restless awkwardness of a date.
And besides, her flatmate isn't dating her. As far as Y/N knows, he hasn't dated anyone. Nor has she, since Mark, now that she really digs into her memories and roots around.
No, since Mark, Y/N's black dress has haunted the back of her wardrobe, and she strokes her hands over it now, fondly. The mirror shows her that it fits close to her curves, hugging them as if it has missed her, and she smiles; she'll have to remember to thank Sherlock for the opportunity to feel beautiful again.
He has a habit of making her feel beautiful, whether he means to or not.
He'd bought her a pair of dangly pearl earrings for her last birthday that were just the right size and shape for her ears.
And there's that time he'd bought her an expensive glass vial of perfume, which she sprays delicately onto her neck. The scent is complimentary and sweet and alluring, and Y/N had assumed he'd managed to pick a good one by pure chance---
---but, weeks later, Mycroft had smelt her wearing it and sneered, lamenting the time his little brother had 'wasted' their day-out in Bond Street sniffing every bottle in the shop before finally settling on the one Y/N had unwrapped on Christmas morning.
Pleased with her appearance, Y/N locks the flat and heads downstairs.
Sherlock is already waiting by the front door, one arm outstretched. He hasn't heard her footsteps, and Y/N stops because he's holding one arm upâdancing?
No.
She smiles, looking down at him over the bannister.
He's holding his phone aloft, using its reflection to adjust his hair. There's one curl he keeps moving from the left, then back to the right. He can't seem to decide which side it looks best on, so Y/N decides for him.
The third step in their staircase is notorious for its squeaks, and she waits until he moves the curl back to the left, and presses the plant of wood with her foot.
In one smooth motion, Sherlock slides his phone into his pocket and turns around. He's smiling automatically when he turns around, but it falls away as he spots her stepping carefully down the stairs in her pointy black shoes.
His mouth opens but no words come out.
Y/N doesn't notice because she's frowning irritably at the hem of her dress. With each step, it rides up her legs by half an inch, and she pinches the silky material between finger and thumb, self-consciously wriggling it back down her thighs. "Is it too short?" she asks, taking the final step down into the foyer. Her eyebrows as rucked up as her dress:
"I don't remember it being this short."
"I remember," Sherlock nods. "That's what makes it nice."
Every single one of these floorboards squeak, and Y/N is grateful Mrs Hudson is at her senior citizen's pilates class so she doesn't have to dodge around coos and questions about where they're going and whether or not this is a date.
Because it isn't, and Y/N doesn't want to have to watch the more than awkward ordeal of her poor flatmate explaining why it isn't.
Well, she's never actually seen him explain why it isn't.
Maybe she wants to.
She's never seen him go on a date with anyone else.
Maybe he doesn't have those kind of emotions?
Or maybe he does, but not for her.
She's glad Mrs Hudson is at her pilates.
Suddenly, Y/N's heel disappears into a crack, and she stumbles with a yelpâ
âit's a quick little yelp because Sherlock catches her under her arms almost immediately, and Y/N giggles in relief.
Shakily extracting her shoe from the crack:
"Mrs Hudson should really replace these," she muses regretfully.
Mrs Hudson really is a spiffing woman and a dear friend, but sometimes when Y/N and Sherlock watch 'Grand Designs' they look around their dingy little flat and privately think it's a little dated. Once, Y/N had said, "If I had a house, I'd have a kitchen fitted like that one in episode three," and Sherlock had said, "I would have one of those baths that get bigger at one end like episode nine" and a game was invented that involved taking turns listing fixtures they'd like in their future properties.
But thenâand Y/N can't remember howâ "I would have" morphed into "We would have", until, they'd dreamed up an entire home, with Sherlock's big bath and Y/N's stylish kitchen, and Sherlock's laboratory in the spare room, and Y/N's funky wallpaper in the hallâ
Sherlock gently sets Y/N on her feet and chuckles affectionately. "She should, but you know she never will. Not until one of us falls through the floor."
"I almost did!" Y/N gestures at the crack. "The people in 221C would have had a bit of a shock if my legs popped through their ceiling."
He shrugs. "Maybe they would have liked it." He gives her a smile, and she doesn't know what it means.
Finally having finished fiddling with her appearance and falling over, she takes a moment to look at her flatmate properly since he'd gotten changed, her eyes sweeping from his hair down to his polished Oxfords.
Sherlock usually wears a suit for workâto trick customers into thinking he is a professional, grown-up, functional human beingâbut this suit is different.
It's not his usual shirt, trousers, and jacket combo that all comes on one hanger. It's bespoke, tailored just for his svelte, willowy body, and comes with a waistcoat done up tight over his middle by a row of shiny black buttons.
Y/N has only seen it on three separate occasions.
Once for his mother's birthday dinner at The Ritz, and twice for Y/N's, when he'd take her to one of their favourite (and more expensive) restaurants by the Thames.
"Well, well, well, don't you scrub up nice?" Of their own accord, her hands reach out and smooth imaginary lint off the breasts of his jacket.
The material is smooth and crisp and puffs up as he straightens his posture proudly.
"Thank you." He's blinking down at her, his pupils all wide in the low light of the hall. "And you look very beautifulâI mean, you always do. But especially now."
Y/N's cheeks tint pinkâbecause of his compliment and because she often does when he looks at her. She lets out a breath she didn't realise she was holding in as he finally turns to unlock the door. Finding her words again:
"Thank you...So, your best suit is making an appearance?"
His hand stops mid-way through turning the key and he looks back at her, quite distressed. "Is it too much?"
"Yes!" Y/N gestures to her little black dress, her shoulders barely covered by a scrap of a fluffy wool cardigan. "Next to you in your three-piece suit, I feel positively underdressed."
"Really?" he straightens, one polished shoe already pointing back towards the apartment. "Because I can go changeâ"
Y/N catches his elbow, dragging him back onto the doormat.
He lets her, his limbs going limp like a slightly baffled-looking puppet.
"I was joking. You look great. Very handsome." Still holding onto his arm, she nudges the door open, giving him an over-exaggerated bow. "After you."
She could have sworn his cheeks are pink now.
Maybe because she'd called him handsome.
The cool air bounds up the front step, whisking about Y/N's bare skin, prickling the hairs on her arms. She'd looped her arm with Sherlock's as a joke, but she keeps hold of it, huddling closer seeking his warmth.
If she'd looked up, she would see the corner of his lip ghost with a pleased smile.
...
Y/N is still holding Sherlock's arm as they arrive at Riccardo's, her hand nestled snug in the crook of his elbow.
His hand is on top of hers, keeping it there, subtly guiding her pointy shoes around dips and pits in the cobbled street.
It is widely understood by Londoners that the best places to eat in the city are the places that, from the outside, do not look like places to eat at all. The quality of an establishment's cuisine can be predicted by how out of the way, unadvertised, and unheard of it is.
The good food comes on paper plates from hatches in brick walls.
The best food comes on paper plates from hatches in brick walls that you can't find when you try to go back the next day.
Riccardos is down an alleyway behind an unlabelled door to what appears to just be someone's houseâ
âso the food must be exquisite.
Despite its swat and unassuming exterior, when Sherlock holds the door for Y/N, she finds an entire restaurantâequipped with tables, waitstaff, and doubled doors leading to a lively kitchenâsquashed inside.
Almost immediately, an exuberant older Italian gentleman springs from the kitchen like bursting onto a stage, the double doors swinging on their hinges. Barrel-chested and rosy-cheeked, his eyes and hair shine, the latter slicked back so the streaks of grey all point in the same direction. He sports a thick, boot-polish-black moustache and it turns upwards with a beam as he catches Sherlock's face in the doorway. With surprising energy, he bounces across the small space between them, scooping him up in one arm and exclaiming with what can only be described as genuine joy:
"Ah! Look what the cat dragged in! It is my boy! Sherlock!" He pronounces his name with an extra syllable, the word rolling off his tongue like it's falling down some stairs.
Squashed against his vast chest, Sherlock's cheekbones turn a light shade of fuchsia. "Good evening, Riccardo."
Finally releasing him:
"Any evening is a good evening when I get to see the man who saved my life!" His accent is thick and expressive, his broken sentences rising up and down and back up again like a wave. Moving on from Sherlock, his eyes catch sight of Y/N, his mouth spreading into a delighted grin. "Ah! And you bring your pretty woman!"
Sherlock clears his throat. "Riccardo, this is my Y/N. IâI mean, this is my good friend, Y/N. Obviously." His cheeks had cooled down slightly from Riccardo's tight hug, but they redden again with his floundering.
Y/N eyes him, amused.
Sherlock has a silly habit of trying to appear 'normal' when he is out in public and, ironically, these are the times he appears least normal.
It is very amusing to watch.
Riccardo smiles at Y/N in an adoring, grandfatherly way, and when she holds out her hand to shake, he takes it gently and kisses her knuckles. "My dear, do you know how long I've waited for this boy to bring a woman to my restaurant?" He pauses, and Y/N wonders if she's meant to answer. Then, throwing his arms out, his great chest shudders with a deep joyful laugh. "For too long, that's how long!" He can't reach Sherlock's head for a hair ruffle, so he plants a chubby hand down between his shoulder blades instead, giving an affectionate thump.
Sherlock accepts itâbecause he has little choiceâsmiling like a schoolboy embarrassed by an eccentric family member.
Wriggling between their bodies, Riccardo places a hand on both of their backs. "Come, come, I give you the best table," he insists, already ushering them along. "I get you the most romantic, for your special night."
Y/N peeks amusedly over their host's shiny hair, expecting Sherlock to flusteredly dispute the need for romance and smilesâ
âhe's too embarrassed to even meet her eyes.