Mar 14, 2014 18:55
High Stakes
“John?”
John looked up from his phone, glaring, then shook his head, smiled apologetically, and accepted the drink Lestrade was offering him.
“Cheers.” He tilted it slightly towards Lestrade before drinking it down in one. “So has she got you . . . picking colors yet?”
“What? Colors?”
Sherlock sighed loudly from the armchair. “And the news readers wonder why crime is on the rise in London.”
Lestrade shrugged, and turned back to John.
“Colors. You know - the dresses, flowers . . .”
“I forgot!” Lestrade looked panicked. “How could I have forgotten?”
“Because-”
“Shut up, Sherlock. He wasn’t asking you. He-” John twitched, and looked at his phone again. He swore under his breath, before shoving it back into his pocket.
Lestrade looked from John’s glower to Sherlock’s half-smirk. “What’s this?”
“Just a friendly bet I had with John. I won, of course.” Sherlock picked up his phone and began typing again.
“Bet?”
John's arms were folded, and he was staring hard at the ceiling. He jumped when his phone buzzed again.
“We had a bet about your personal life, which I always thought was insensitive, but then it was John’s idea, and I bow to his good judgment in that area. He didn’t believe you two would ever get engaged. What did you say, John? She wasn’t nearly-”
“Sherlock!”
Sherlock looked calculatingly at John for a moment, and then shrugged one shoulder as he settled back. “John, as usual, set the stakes too high, and he’s regretting his lack of faith in your fiancée.”
“What did you bet?”
John set his jaw.
“Naming rights to his next child.”
Lestrade looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or to pour John another drink. He opted for the latter, just as John shouted, “Rosfrith?!”
At that moment, Mary walked in. “I see you’re enjoying yourself, Sherlock, but you’ve wound John up enough for today.”
Mary turned to John.
“Not to worry, Husband, Sherlock had already lost a prior bet with me. Our children are safe from your reckless gambling.
“Sherlock promised to be godfather and give me naming rights in perpetuity to our children if I guessed the date and setting of your proposal," she explained to Lestrade. "Isn’t that right?”
Sherlock scowled.
“And I’m sorry if I bet on your love life, but I had to do something to stop my next daughter being named ‘Apple’.”
“No, of course it’s fine, Mary. I-”
“If you say anything like 'winning Molly makes me the ultimate winner', Gerald, I will suggest a cat-themed reception to her, and you won’t feel like a winner anymore.”
“It’s Greg,” Lestrade muttered, and poured himself another drink.
sherlock (bbc),
fan fiction