Fic: One More Miracle (4/11)
Title: One More Miracle (4/11)
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Characters: Sherlock/John, Mummy Holmes, Harry Watson, Greg Lestrade, OFC
Warning: None
Rating: R
Summary: Six weeks ago, Sherlock went to finish off Mrs Moriarty - leaving John and their daughter behind. Again. This time, though, John's the one with the secret, and John's getting tired of waiting for Sherlock Holmes. Part Three of the Heart ‘Verse.
Chapter One ~ Two ~ Three
Chapter Four
The day had not started auspiciously.
Or rather, it had, with Sherlock waking to find John still in bed. John had always been an early riser; he told Sherlock it had been worse after Emily was born, because it was in the hour or so before Emily woke in the morning that John was able to prepare for the day, to shower and dress and put together lunches without a toddler clinging to his leg.
After the accident - and for John, that was how life seemed to be delineated, either before or after the accident, meaning his own accident and Sherlock’s subsequent return - John still woke early, though he didn’t shower or dress. He still made Emily’s lunches, but the rest waited until later in the morning, when he could take his time with them, move as slowly as he needed without worrying that he held anyone up.
Sherlock had offered to do it before. “I can,” he told John, and John had smiled, not realizing how patronizing it was, and said, “I know, but it’s easier if I do it myself.”
This particular day, however, Sherlock woke and John was still in the bed. He smiled to himself, and rolled over, to press himself against John’s back, wrap a careful arm around John’s stomach. John wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t entirely awake, and Sherlock felt John press back against him; willing, in his dozy state, to be held.
Sherlock held his breath, and let the warmth from John’s skin - 37 degrees, bit warm but not feverish, breathing even and steady, limbs relaxed - seep into his own. Sherlock pressed his nose against the skin on John’s neck, the old bondbite barely visible where John’s neck turned into shoulder. Sherlock nosed the bite and breathed against it.
“Morning,” said John, his voice rough with sleep.
“Yes,” said Sherlock, and John chuckled.
“Big day today.”
“Is it now?”
John twisted under Sherlock’s arm until he was on his back, and Sherlock took advantage of John’s change in position to nuzzle his jawline, rough with stubble.
“You haven’t shaved in a week,” said Sherlock against John’s throat, and he felt John shudder beneath him.
“Wanted to make sure I could today, you know it’s slow to grow in enough to make a proper job of it,” said John, trying to sound light and failing miserably. His breath caught. “Sherlock.”
Sherlock reached up and caught John’s mouth in a kiss. John pushed up into him, responding with warmth and fervor, and a soft sound in the back of his throat. Sherlock heard the sound - too much like a moan, too much like John was in pain, and pulled up, his weight on his arms. He opened his eyes and stared down at John, his heart pounding with worry and lust in equal amounts.
John looked back up at him, pupils wide but not quite blown. His lips were already a darker shade of red from the intensity of Sherlock’s kisses.
“Sherlock, I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” said John firmly, and reached up to pull Sherlock down again.
No sooner had Sherlock’s lips touched John’s, however, the creaking of the door stopped them both in their tracks.
“Daddy?”
Sherlock closed his eyes and sighed. He shifted off John and landed, face-down, on the mattress beside him. Emily, in the doorway, awake.
“Emily,” said John, and Sherlock felt the mattress tip as Emily climbed up on it, and John shifted to make room for her. Sherlock tried to think about anything horrible to ease the pressure in his groin. Mycroft. Mycroft taking a bath. Mycroft taking a bath with Mrs Hudson. Egad.
“Daddy take me to school today?” demanded Emily.
“Daddy, will you take me to school today?” said Sherlock into the mattress.
“Not today, poppet,” said John. “You should ask Papa.”
“Only if she says it correctly.”
“No,” said Emily, and pressed her foot into his stomach.
Sherlock turned his head and saw his daughter snuggled comfortably in John’s lap, his arms around her protectively. “You’re being deliberately contrary, Emily.”
Emily blew a raspberry at him, clearly not phased by the insult. Then she turned to John, and pressed her face against his bare chest. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and hugged him close, and Sherlock half thought he understood why.
“Come on, let’s sit on the potty and have some breakfast,” said John. “Big day today.”
Sherlock waited until they were gone, and rolled back over onto his back. He listened to the pair of them clatter about in the loo, and then in the kitchen, faffing about with toast and jam and milk. Sherlock could hear Emily, dashing this way and that, constantly on the move, with John just able to keep up behind her.
John had reached up to Sherlock, pulled him down for another kiss. Six weeks since he’d woken up in hospital. Two weeks off most of the medications. One week out of physical therapy.
Sherlock let out a long breath. And Emily would be going to school today.
He swung his legs out of the bed and reached for the pajamas that John insisted stay close. Sherlock preferred to sleep naked, but though John had once preferred it too, he wore clothes every night now. Sherlock could almost see the point - easier, wearing clothing, if Emily should need them in the middle of the night, as she almost always did.
Sherlock couldn’t sleep in clothes. That he rarely slept even when out of them was hardly the point.
If Emily was in school…
John and Emily sat at the table in the sitting room, giggling and eating their toast with jam - Emily with a mug of milk, John with his mug of tea. Sherlock found his own mug waiting on the kitchen counter, already prepped with sugar and a teabag, just waiting for the water.
“Ah, you are awake,” said John. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“Of course I’m awake,” said Sherlock, feigning insult quite easily. “Today is a big day, as you’ve been saying. Wouldn’t do to sleep through it.”
“I almost thought you might,” said John dryly. “Emily, stop dunking your toast in your milk.”
“I like it better,” said Emily.
“Doesn’t matter, it’s disgusting. Sherlock, there’s bread in the toaster if you want toast.”
“I don’t want toast,” said Sherlock, and he walked behind John, and brushed the back of his neck with his fingertips as he went.
Emily frowned and glared at him, and dunked her toast in her milk again, defiantly.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her, and leaned in to kiss John’s temple, before moving on to his chair.
“Macaroni cheese for tea,” said Emily, and John, who missed everything, said, “All right.”
*
Emily left for school with Mrs Hudson, who had shopping to do that morning, and John went to shower shortly after. All of these were activities that had Sherlock’s approval: Emily in school, where she couldn’t glare at him for staking a claim on John; Mrs Hudson out doing the shopping, leaving them the freedom of being quite as loud as they wished; John taking a shower, which Sherlock was tempted to interrupt, except the stall was quite small enough and the last thing Sherlock wanted was to have either of them slipping on the water and needing casts, necessitating additional time for recovery. Sherlock had had enough of recovery times, thankyouverymuch.
To occupy the time, Sherlock stretched out on the sofa, and tried to catalogue all the lovely things he intended to do to John once John was out of the shower. Kissing, that was an absolute must. Followed by touching, followed by tasting, incorporating both licking and sucking. Standing to start, lying down after a short time, because John was only just cleared for normal activities; it would be a shame if John grew tired before Sherlock was done….
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock heard John, but in the distant way one hears traffic on the street, or a door opening and closing. Background noise, perhaps important, but not quite pertinent to the moment at hand. John would of course be naked, so there would not be any bother about clothing. And Sherlock’s pajamas were easily shucked - perhaps he ought to disrobe now, simply to save time. There were, after all, only six hours in Emily’s school day, and Mrs Hudson might return after lunch…
“Sherlock.”
Vaguely more insistent; John would lose his temper in exactly 26 seconds. They could start in the sitting room, of course, though the curtains weren’t drawn. Someone across the road might see. Ah well, perhaps they’d learn a thing or two…
“Oh for - Sherlock Bloody Holmes.”
Sherlock opened his eyes. “Yes, John?”
“I’m off,” said John, and Sherlock frowned, glancing at his bondmate. John was dressed.
Dressed. Sherlock frowned. Dressing on any other occasion was not noteworthy in itself. He had insisted on dressing every day for the last four weeks, even if it was only a shirt and trousers. But today, instead of wearing considerably less clothing, John had included socks, shoes, and a tie, of all things. What’s more, he was wearing his black leather coat and hat, and was in the process of tying a scarf around his throat.
“Off where?”
John sighed. “To the clinic. My first day back.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been six weeks since the accident,” said John in a tone that sounded patient to everyone but Sherlock, who recognized it as exasperated. “I’ve been cleared to return to most normal activities, which includes work on a part-time basis. You do know this. I’ve been telling you this all weekend.”
Big day. Return to normal activities.
Sherlock took a breath and tried to keep his tone even. John hadn’t meant…
Bugger.
“I meant why you are returning at all.”
John sighed. “We’ve been over this. Someone has to earn a paycheck.”
“I have a trust fund.”
“It’s for Emily’s education.”
“It’s a very large trust fund.”
“And we’re not touching it,” said John shortly. “Besides, I like working. You might enjoy spending your days thinking and attempting to blow up the refrigerator, but I want to be a little more productive with my time.”
“I need you here for when Lestrade calls with a case.”
John didn’t say anything for a few moments. Sherlock heard him sigh heavily.
“Sherlock,” said John gently, “Greg’s not going to call you. Remember, he told you - the public might have forgiven you, but his commissioner hasn’t.”
“Fools, the lot of them.”
“Which is exactly what you made them look like. They’re not entirely willing to trust you again.”
And you, John? Do you trust me?
Sherlock shoved the thought away and swung his legs off the sofa. “He’ll call. It’s a matter of time, that’s all.”
“Right,” said John softly, and he leaned forward, placed his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. He seemed to hesitate a moment before dropping a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek. “I won’t be gone very long, Sarah’s only got me covering the lunch rush today. Nice easy start back into working again.”
“Mmm.” Sherlock’s leg was jittery, bouncing up and down. He knew John saw it, wondered about it, worried about what it might mean. But Sherlock didn’t stop it from bouncing; didn’t care what John interpreted from it, because John would have it all wrong anyway.
“Back soon,” said John, and was gone before Sherlock could grab his wrist, to pull him back onto the sofa and kiss him goodbye properly.
Sherlock listened to John ease his way down the stairs, where once he would jog. The door opened and closed, and Sherlock went to look out the window, watched John try to flag down a passing taxi, where once he would have walked confidently to the Tube. All evidence of John’s still lingering recovery, the aches and pains he ignored during the day, but which flared up at night once Emily had gone to bed.
Sherlock watched until the taxi had disappeared from view before turning away from the window and reaching for his mobile. The text was written and sent within minutes, and he sat on the sofa, his feet bouncing on the ground, while he waited for the reply.
Do you have anything? SH
No. GL
I need a case. SH
I can’t give you what I don’t have, Sherlock. GL
Sherlock threw the mobile across the room, where it landed neatly on his chair, bouncing a little before falling to the ground. He jumped off the sofa and went to shower, and imagined that he heard the mobile ring three separate times.
Normal activities. Sherlock wondered what constituted normal anymore. There wasn’t anything normal, as far as Sherlock could tell. Normal was waking up with John, perhaps seeing him off to work some days, but being called in by Lestrade on most of them, taking in clients and chasing down culprits and giggling in alleyways and staying up until all hours and having Chinese out of paper boxes at 2 a.m.
Normal wasn’t sending Emily off to school with a packed lunch, and John wearing a tie and stethoscope, off to the clinic to try his hand at doctoring for a few hours, while Sherlock waited on the sofa for the world to come to their senses and realize he was right.
The morning passed slowly. Sherlock sulked on the couch for ninety minutes before he gave up, having concluded that sulking without an audience was boring, and reminded him entirely too much of the previous three years without anyone. Sherlock didn’t like the additional reminder; bad enough seeing Emily, a person in her own right who hadn’t existed before he left, and the changes she’d wrought in John’s definition of “normal”. He pulled out the latest box of test tubes and set them on the kitchen table.
Mrs Hudson returned sometime during lunch; Sherlock heard the door to 221 open and close, with no sound on the steps. Quite a lot of shopping, if the sound of her scurrying back and forth between the front door and her own flat was any indication.
John returned near two in the afternoon. A taxi outside, a bit of chat floating up on the air. The door to 221 opening and closing with a soft click, and then finally, steps on the stairs coming up, slowly, as if John were too tired to handle anything more than one step at a time.
If he was tired from a few hours of sitting and listening to others complain about their own aches and pains…Sherlock didn’t hold out much hope for the hour before Emily returned home from school.
John entered the flat with a sigh, and collapsed on the sofa near the door. Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, assessing. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair slightly mussed. Skin a bit paler, thin bit of sweat at his brow. No tremor in his hand or his legs, however, and after a moment, John sat up and reached to untie his shoes.
“How did it go?” asked Sherlock into the silence, and John paused as he pulled one shoe off his foot.
“All right,” he said finally. “Glad I was only there for a half shift, though. Bit of ‘flu going around. Sarah let me bring home jabs for you and Emily.”
“I’m all right.”
“Doctor’s orders,” said John mildly. “I had mine in hospital.”
Sherlock blinked into his microscope, and thought of John with the flu, Emily with the flu…
“I can take it now,” he said, and pulled away from the microscope, and started to roll up his sleeve.
John’s mouth dropped open, and then he shrugged and reached for his coat. “That was a bit easier than I expected. And take off your shirt, I need to put it in your bicep, not your elbow, idiot.”
“Unless you think I should allow Emily to observe, so she doesn’t cry.”
“No, she’s good with shots. Thinks they’re fascinating, usually wants to do it herself.” John frowned as he pulled out the wrapped syringe and the small glass jar of fluid. “Bit too like you, sometimes.”
Sherlock pulled the chair over from the table to sit in front of John. He unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off one shoulder, and turned just enough to give John access.
John’s hand was cool on Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock watched John’s face as he gave him the injection, the concentration in his eyes, the way he held his lips together. Close up, the sweat on John’s brow wasn’t anything more than dampness accumulated while wearing his hat; the paleness of his skin wasn’t being ill but simply being tired.
Sherlock felt the needle slide under his skin, the faint burn of the immunization as John pressed the plunger, and the ripping sound of the plaster as John removed it from its wrapping.
“There,” said John softly. “Done.”
Sherlock waited until John had turned the syringe in on itself, and then reached forward and kissed him. John, under his lips and his hands, was compliant, soft, almost sleepy in his responses. Sherlock cradled his head between his hands and didn’t press forward, didn’t try to take more than he thought John was willing to give. He didn’t let John lead - but he knew enough not to go where John didn’t want to follow.
It was a lazy kiss; Sherlock pressed his lips onto John’s in a series of careful questions, opening his lips only when John turned his face up to his. He tasted bitter and milky, like tea that had gone cold with sitting, the flavor not improved with the addition of milk after the fact. Sherlock could feel, rather than hear, the thrum in John’s throat, the soft sighs and moans as he ran his tongue along John’s, moved his fingers across John’s skin to touch the soft, fine hairs at the nape of his neck.
When Sherlock felt John’s hands on his arms, his fingers wrap around him to hold him near - something in him shifted. The bond, a tight knot under his heart, which was normally so tense and solid, seemed to relax, to open, as if it was reaching out for John just as his arms reached for him. Sherlock moved toward him, as if he was responding to the bond instead of any actual thought process of his own.
John didn’t seem to mind. Sherlock half thought he could feel John’s mouth form a smile, felt him reach up into his mouth eagerly. And for once, there wouldn’t be any interruption - no Emily to burst in, Mrs Hudson asleep watching telly downstairs, no unexpected client, no call from Lestrade…
Buzz.
Sherlock paused only long enough to register the noise.
Buggering fuck.
Part of him wanted to answer. The other part of him, the bond and everything it controlled (which was quite a bit of his lower regions), wanted to concentrate on John.
Buzz buzz.
“Sherlock,” said John, and Sherlock opened his eyes to see John looking up at him. “Your mobile.”
“Busy,” said Sherlock, and he tried, desperately, not to look at the flashing screen. It didn’t matter who was ringing him. He had John and he had an hour and he had every intention of enjoying the first in the time frame of the second.
He didn’t care who it was. Even if it was Lestrade, if there was a case, a nice murder to set the world to right.
Buzz buzz buzz.
“Go on and look,” said John.
Sherlock gave one last, half-longing look into John’s face, and lunged for the mobile just as it let out another series of buzzes.
“Lestrade,” he gasped, and had a whole new reason to loathe the man. He answered the mobile. “Tell me someone is dead.”
“Glad to know you’re still your cheery, optimistic self,” said Greg on the other end of the line. “Yes, someone’s dead. Two someones. Murder-suicide.”
“If it were murder-suicide you wouldn’t have called me.”
“Murder weapon’s not here.”
“Then it’s murder-murder, isn’t it?”
“I’ve got a visual,” said Lestrade grimly. “Check your incoming photos.”
Sherlock did, and chortled with glee.
“Only you,” said Lestrade grimly. “I’m sending you the address.”
“We’ll be there in half an hour,” said Sherlock. “Er. Forty minutes.”
He snapped the phone shut and turned to John. “Where were we?”
“More to the point,” said John, fending him off, “is where do you think we’re going?”
“I was hoping for the bedroom, but as we only have twenty minutes, the sofa will have to do.”
“Sherlock,” said John, in a pointed and serious tone that Sherlock dimly recalled as being one that did not lend itself to love-making. “I meant where Lestrade wants you to go.”
Sherlock paused, his hand already stretched out for John. Sherlock didn’t want to deduce John just then. He didn’t want to look at him, and see the tenseness in his shoulders (annoyance), the shadows under his eyes (weariness), the way he held his jaw - not clenched, but not entirely loose, as if he expected to argue (resigned fear - as if he knew this would happen eventually). “Us, John. Both of us.”
“Emily is coming home in less than an hour. I can’t go rushing off to solve a murder.”
Sherlock waved his hand. “Mrs Hudson can watch her.”
“All night?” John shook his head.
“This will hardly take all night, John.”
John shook his head. “It’s a murder-suicide that isn’t a murder-suicide, Sherlock, you don’t know how long it’ll take. With you, it’s either twenty minutes or twenty hours.”
“Mrs Hudson has watched Emily for that long before, it wasn’t a problem,” said Sherlock.
“I was in hospital, that was different.”
“So someone’s still in hospital, it’s just not either of us,” said Sherlock, and John stared at up him, incredulous.
“The fact that I have to explain the difference between being in hospital and being in the morgue to you is so completely outside the realm of ridiculous that it doesn’t even bear discussion,” said John finally. “Emily is coming home in forty-five minutes. I’m not leaving this flat.”
“Well,” said Sherlock, crossing his arms and glaring at John as he sat down with the thump on the chair. “I’m not leaving it without you.”
“So you’ll just let Lestrade solve the murder without you?”
“He thinks it’s a murder-suicide without a weapon. He’s hardly going to solve the murder without me, John.”
“Really.” John crossed his arms. “So you’ll let the real killer run free while you sit here and sulk?”
Sherlock glared at him, and wondered how the hell the conversation had gone so wrong.
“I’d catch him if you came with me.”
“I can’t.”
“I don’t see why not. Mrs Hudson wouldn’t mind.”
“It’s not whether or not she would mind, Sherlock, it’s the precedent we’d be setting. You keep forgetting, we’re parents now, we have a responsibility toward Emily and that means being here for her when she needs us. I can’t go rushing off to crime scenes and leaving her to fend for herself just because you want me there to bounce ideas off.”
A tightening in his chest - the bond, slowly closing back up, drawing in on itself again. It took everything Sherlock had not to rub at his chest. “Is that all you think I need you for?”
“Isn’t it?”
Sherlock shook his head. “You used to need it, John. The adrenaline and the rush and the thrill. All I had to say was ‘dangerous’ and you were off.”
“That was before,” said John, but Sherlock saw the flicker in his eyes. The flicker that said I remember.
Sherlock swallowed. “John.”
“Go,” said John.
The moment where Sherlock was kissing John, drawing him in, reaching out to hold him close - it was gone, finished, forgotten. Sherlock looked at his bondmate and he might have been someone else entirely, no one he knew in any sense of the word, no one he’d linked to for life. With the one word, Sherlock felt as though anything that had lain between them had been irrevocably severed.
It hurt. Sherlock felt as if he were falling, that John was drawing further away, and he hated it.
“You need this,” said John. “You’ve been waiting for Lestrade to call, you need to be out there solving the murders and keeping your brain from getting bored. Christ, I’m surprised you’re even still here, that you weren’t out the door in a flash without a backwards glance. I’m telling you, it’s all right. I’ll stay here for Emily, and I’ll be here when you get back, and you can tell me all about it. This isn’t the first time you’ve had to solve something without me.”
“No,” said Sherlock. “I suppose not.”
“Go,” insisted John, and he smiled, just a small one - encouraging and almost loving.
“Is that what you want?”
John nodded, without speaking, and Sherlock saw his throat contract as he swallowed. John didn’t speak. Sherlock half thought he didn’t dare.
Sherlock nodded, the deductions already forming in the back of his mind about what John did not actually say. He ignored them, and listened to what John was telling him.
“I’ll just…go, then.”
He rose from the chair and went for his coat and his scarf. Sherlock could act, he was very good at it, he knew, but acting as if he actually wanted to go to the crime scene, alone, was perhaps more than he was capable of doing. Still, he turned to smile gamely at John, and found the other man standing behind him, ready to straighten his scarf around his neck.
“Pick up Chinese when you’re done, and you can tell me all about it,” said John.
“Right,” said Sherlock, and left.
*
It was wrong, it was all wrong, and Sherlock felt the wrongness brush up against him with every move he made. Every deduction fell flat (even though they were correct), every twist in the story was banal (even though they kept him on his toes), every chase was boring (even though one led through the backstage area of the Old Vic).
Sherlock knew it would be wrong from the first moment when Lestrade turned to him and said, “Oi, where’s John?”
Sherlock had nearly wanted to punch him. Lestrade, of all people.
“Hoping he’d see the light and find his way to you?” snapped Sherlock, and strode away before he actually did punch the other alpha. Sherlock wasn’t sure what annoyed him more: Lestrade’s interest in John, or the fact that when faced with it, he’d only been able to scrape up such a boring retort.
And that was it, wasn’t it? It was boring, all of it was boring. The case was boring, Lestrade was boring, the murderer was boring, the fate of the weapon was boring. And that John was right, that was the most boring of all, because while the case didn’t take twenty hours to solve, it didn’t take twenty minutes either, and Sherlock glared and spat and sulked his way through the eight hours it did take to finally run the murderer down to earth, and he stood in front of the Chinese restaurant for ten minutes, hands shoved angrily in his pockets, and thought, hard.
The facts, as Sherlock saw them: He was Sherlock Holmes. He was the world’s only consulting detective. He was mated to John Watson, the world’s other only consulting detective.
Sherlock Holmes solved crimes when the police were in over their heads, which was nearly always. John Watson was always there, and when he wasn’t there…the crimes weren’t nearly as interesting.
Sherlock only wanted to solve the interesting murders. Murders were never interesting without John. Ergo, Sherlock needed John Watson.
This was very simple logic. The only problem was how to make it happen, because John was clearly not about to leave Emily alone, and murders did not always conveniently occur between the hours of nine and three.
The door to the restaurant opened, and a group of young people came out, chattering away. They passed Sherlock, heading into the night, brushing up against him, and that seemed to shake the memory loose.
Aha.
Sherlock pulled the mobile out of his pocket and quickly sent the text. Once done, he went into the restaurant to place his order.
The response came as he was carrying the bags of food home, some twenty minutes later.
Bit domestic, isn’t it, bringing home the fruits of your labor for your mate? In your case, spring rolls.
Sherlock frowned at the message, but noted the document Mycroft had attached.
Names, addresses, contact information, and even brief summaries of their abilities. Enough information that there was very little chance he’d found them all in the span of twenty minutes.
Sherlock’s mouth quirked. He pocketed the mobile again, and turned onto Baker Street.
John was asleep on the sofa; Sherlock knew the moment he opened the door to the flat and saw the lamp still lit. By the time Sherlock had set down the food on the table, however, John was already blinking awake, sitting up and yawning.
“How’d it go, then?”
“Boring,” said Sherlock, and he handed John the package of spring rolls. “The restaurant has changed ownership.”
“The old couple retired, it’s the grandchildren running it now,” said John. He took the package of spring rolls.
“They’ve completely destroyed their menu. We’ll go somewhere else after the next case.”
“Went well, then?” And then John frowned, as the terminology sunk in. “We?”
“Of course, ‘we’. You’ll be able to join me by then.”
“Because Lestrade isn’t calling you back until Emily’s at uni?” asked John, almost amused.
Sherlock sighed. “Of course not. We are going to hire a nanny.”
John paused while opening the boxes of noodles and beef with broccoli. “I - what?”
“A nanny, John,” said Sherlock, impatient now. “Where are the chopsticks?”
“In the bag,” said John.
“Is there tea?” Sherlock left the food unpacked and went into the kitchen. Suddenly, the world wasn’t boring anymore. It was infinitely interesting again, and they were going to hire a nanny for Emily, and John would be able to come with him on cases.
“Sherlock!”
Sherlock poked his head out of the kitchen and saw John standing next to the food, confused and still more than a little asleep. “Chinese, John. Nannies, John. Chopsticks in the bag, tea in the kitchen. Keep up, John.”
Sherlock ducked back into the kitchen and turned on the kettle, suddenly filled with glee. He heard John curse in the sitting room, and that only filled him with more glee, and Sherlock started opening drawers, where he knew he’d seen a few extra sets of chopsticks.
By the time he’d returned with tea, John had laid out their food for them. Sherlock grinned happily and sat across from him.
“All right,” said John firmly. “Explain.”
“You’re not usually this thick, John,” complained Sherlock. “Is this the amount of brain deterioration I can expect to experience after three years of parenthood? Or is it the vestigial remains of pregnancy brain?”
“Sod off,” said John, but didn’t mean it. “Explain to me how you left to solve a murder nine hours ago and you’re coming home now, talking about nannies.”
Sherlock grinned at him. “The murder was boring.”
“If it’d been boring you would have been home in time for dinner.”
“Murders are always boring when you’re not there,” said Sherlock. “Therefore, you need to accompany me on my cases. However, we must ensure that Emily is cared for while you are with me. Ergo, a nanny.”
John frowned. “We don’t need a nanny.”
“If you mean ‘need’ as in ‘cannot afford’, I assure you that we can. Particularly since I’m working again, and can supplement your income.”
“One case, Sherlock. You had one case with the police, and they don’t pay.”
“The others do, the ones who read your ludicrous excuse of a blog, and you can hardly write entries about my solving cases if you’re not there to witness.”
John threw up his hands. “Where on earth would we find a nanny?”
Sherlock dropped his phone on the table, and took a mouthful of noodles.
John scrutinized the list. “Mycroft.”
“Of course.”
“How long has he been working on this?”
Sherlock shrugged. “Since I returned? He had it to me in twenty minutes.”
John sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know…it’s bad enough that Emily’s in school six hours a day. Can we really leave her in someone else’s care for the rest of it?”
“I had nannies growing up. I turned out well enough.”
John didn’t say anything. When Sherlock looked up from his noodles, he saw the odd look on John’s face. “What?”
“Right,” said John, shaking his head. He dug into his beef with oysters and didn’t look back up. “I just don’t see why-”
Sherlock set down the box of noodles. “John. Did you or did you not want to come with me today?”
John kept digging in his food, as if he expected to find a golden ticket buried underneath.
“John.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said John gruffly. “Needed to be here for Emily, so I stayed here for her.”
“John.”
“All right, fine, I did,” snapped John. He glared up at Sherlock. “Happy?”
Sherlock grinned. “No, and neither were you, because you didn’t come with me. I require that you be happy, John. Therefore, we require a nanny who we can trust to leave with Emily when our schedules do not allow us to remain with her ourselves.”
John frowned. “The way you’re putting it sounds more like an on-call babysitter.”
“If that’s how you’d rather phrase it,” said Sherlock, returning to his noodles. “The semantics are boring.”
John was quiet for a moment. “This isn’t a carte blanche, you know. We can’t go running off every day to solve murders - we’re still parents.”
“Of course, John. Most of the cases are easily solved quickly; I doubt we’d leave Emily in her waking, non-school hours more than once a week or so. She’ll never know we’re gone.”
“I doubt that,” said John.
“Well, she wouldn’t mind, if we hired someone she could love.” Sherlock leaned over and peered at the list on his phone. “This one, John. She’s a beta, speaks seven languages, is a black-belt in karate, and her hobbies include molecular chemistry and scuba diving.”
“She sounds perfect, if Mycroft is hiring new assistants. I was rather thinking it would be nice if the nanny had some actual experience in taking care of small children. Or at least training in first-aid.”
Sherlock pointed at another one. “This one is studying to be a forensic pathologist.”
“Wonderful, she can teach Emily how to perform autopsies.”
“Now you’re catching on,” said Sherlock, pleased. He scrolled through the list of names, glancing quickly at the qualifications that Mycroft had listed with them. John would want to interview them, he suspected. And perhaps Emily would want some sort of face-time with the proposed nanny as well. Housing, housing might be problematic, if there were late nights involved. Sherlock wondered if Mrs Hudson would be averse to finally renting them 221C…
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”
Sherlock paused, and glanced up. “John…”
“No, it’s just…” John laughed, and ran his hand over his hair. “Two months ago, I didn’t expect to be eating Chinese with you at midnight, talking about hiring a nanny for Emily.”
And then John smiled at him. He was tired, yes, and he hadn’t eaten much of the food. But the smile reached his eyes, just a little, and Sherlock remembered leaping from building to building, with this man behind him, and he smiled back.
“This one,” said Sherlock, pointing to a name. “He’s been trained in CPR, had vocal training, and has more than a passing interest in marine biology. Specifically, the mating habits of the American codfish.”
John rolled his eyes and pulled the mobile away from Sherlock. “As scintillating as that sounds, I’d rather eat my dinner without thinking about the mating habits of fish.”
“Whose mating habits would you like to discuss, then?” asked Sherlock, before he could catch himself, and John looked about as startled as he himself felt. For a few moments, the sitting room was quiet, with the faintest hint of a cool breeze accelerating the heat Sherlock felt rising to his cheeks.
“That’s a-” started John, as Sherlock said, “What I mean is-”
“No, go on,” said John, while Sherlock said, “What is it?”
“Too soon for-?” asked John, and just then, the familiar voice:
“Daddy!”
John sighed, and stuck his chopsticks in the box of food. “Right,” he said under his breath. “Right.” John shoved his chair back and stood. “We’ll go over the list tomorrow.”
“Of course,” said Sherlock, and watched him go. He leaned back, having forgotten the noodles already, and pressed his lips together in thought.
There were words for what Emily was. But Sherlock loved her too much to voice them.
Love. That was almost a strange thought in itself; when Sherlock had been racing around the world, trying to eradicate the threat against John, he hadn’t given much thought to Emily. He’d pass glances at children and try to determine their ages, without comparing them to the child he knew existed. He would watch parents discipline (or not) their offspring, wonder if John - or himself, for that matter - was capable of the same stoutness of heart in the face of a screaming child.
It wasn’t until actually meeting Emily, being confronted with the reality of her, that she became real to him. Much the same way that James Moriarty hadn’t been real until he’d met the man at the side of a pool. A shadowy figure, a name without a face or shape.
Emily hadn’t even had the name or the shape. Only the idea.
All Sherlock had really wanted, on his return, was a return to normalcy. Sitting with John, in 221B, reading the paper or pecking at his laptop. Having just returned from a case, triumphant and comfortably full of Chinese. Playing a song on his violin to cheer them against the cold nights, before falling into bed, into each other - if they were lucky, into a comfortable heat that would envelop them against the rest of the world.
They’d probably never sit in companionable silence again - not until Emily was grown, anyway. And John wasn’t well enough to come off the suppressants anytime soon - not that they’d had much chance to enjoy each other without them.
But solving cases together was on the horizon, now, even if the substandard Chinese was growing cold, and there was one thing Sherlock could have immediately.
Sherlock stood on the landing, halfway between his level and hers, and set the violin under his chin.
He plays the violin…
Softly, softly. Not too loud, so as to let Mrs Hudson sleep. Not too softly, so that its intended recipient could hear it. A shuffling from the upper level; Sherlock glanced up to see John open the door to Emily’s room.
He tucks it right under his chin…
John smiled, and ducked back into the dark room. He left the door cracked, just so.
Sherlock smiled, closed his eyes, and played.
For it’s high, high, high diddle-diddle
And God bless the man and his fiddle…
Chapter Five
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Characters: Sherlock/John, Mummy Holmes, Harry Watson, Greg Lestrade, OFC
Warning: None
Rating: R
Summary: Six weeks ago, Sherlock went to finish off Mrs Moriarty - leaving John and their daughter behind. Again. This time, though, John's the one with the secret, and John's getting tired of waiting for Sherlock Holmes. Part Three of the Heart ‘Verse.
Chapter One ~ Two ~ Three
Chapter Four
The day had not started auspiciously.
Or rather, it had, with Sherlock waking to find John still in bed. John had always been an early riser; he told Sherlock it had been worse after Emily was born, because it was in the hour or so before Emily woke in the morning that John was able to prepare for the day, to shower and dress and put together lunches without a toddler clinging to his leg.
After the accident - and for John, that was how life seemed to be delineated, either before or after the accident, meaning his own accident and Sherlock’s subsequent return - John still woke early, though he didn’t shower or dress. He still made Emily’s lunches, but the rest waited until later in the morning, when he could take his time with them, move as slowly as he needed without worrying that he held anyone up.
Sherlock had offered to do it before. “I can,” he told John, and John had smiled, not realizing how patronizing it was, and said, “I know, but it’s easier if I do it myself.”
This particular day, however, Sherlock woke and John was still in the bed. He smiled to himself, and rolled over, to press himself against John’s back, wrap a careful arm around John’s stomach. John wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t entirely awake, and Sherlock felt John press back against him; willing, in his dozy state, to be held.
Sherlock held his breath, and let the warmth from John’s skin - 37 degrees, bit warm but not feverish, breathing even and steady, limbs relaxed - seep into his own. Sherlock pressed his nose against the skin on John’s neck, the old bondbite barely visible where John’s neck turned into shoulder. Sherlock nosed the bite and breathed against it.
“Morning,” said John, his voice rough with sleep.
“Yes,” said Sherlock, and John chuckled.
“Big day today.”
“Is it now?”
John twisted under Sherlock’s arm until he was on his back, and Sherlock took advantage of John’s change in position to nuzzle his jawline, rough with stubble.
“You haven’t shaved in a week,” said Sherlock against John’s throat, and he felt John shudder beneath him.
“Wanted to make sure I could today, you know it’s slow to grow in enough to make a proper job of it,” said John, trying to sound light and failing miserably. His breath caught. “Sherlock.”
Sherlock reached up and caught John’s mouth in a kiss. John pushed up into him, responding with warmth and fervor, and a soft sound in the back of his throat. Sherlock heard the sound - too much like a moan, too much like John was in pain, and pulled up, his weight on his arms. He opened his eyes and stared down at John, his heart pounding with worry and lust in equal amounts.
John looked back up at him, pupils wide but not quite blown. His lips were already a darker shade of red from the intensity of Sherlock’s kisses.
“Sherlock, I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” said John firmly, and reached up to pull Sherlock down again.
No sooner had Sherlock’s lips touched John’s, however, the creaking of the door stopped them both in their tracks.
“Daddy?”
Sherlock closed his eyes and sighed. He shifted off John and landed, face-down, on the mattress beside him. Emily, in the doorway, awake.
“Emily,” said John, and Sherlock felt the mattress tip as Emily climbed up on it, and John shifted to make room for her. Sherlock tried to think about anything horrible to ease the pressure in his groin. Mycroft. Mycroft taking a bath. Mycroft taking a bath with Mrs Hudson. Egad.
“Daddy take me to school today?” demanded Emily.
“Daddy, will you take me to school today?” said Sherlock into the mattress.
“Not today, poppet,” said John. “You should ask Papa.”
“Only if she says it correctly.”
“No,” said Emily, and pressed her foot into his stomach.
Sherlock turned his head and saw his daughter snuggled comfortably in John’s lap, his arms around her protectively. “You’re being deliberately contrary, Emily.”
Emily blew a raspberry at him, clearly not phased by the insult. Then she turned to John, and pressed her face against his bare chest. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and hugged him close, and Sherlock half thought he understood why.
“Come on, let’s sit on the potty and have some breakfast,” said John. “Big day today.”
Sherlock waited until they were gone, and rolled back over onto his back. He listened to the pair of them clatter about in the loo, and then in the kitchen, faffing about with toast and jam and milk. Sherlock could hear Emily, dashing this way and that, constantly on the move, with John just able to keep up behind her.
John had reached up to Sherlock, pulled him down for another kiss. Six weeks since he’d woken up in hospital. Two weeks off most of the medications. One week out of physical therapy.
Sherlock let out a long breath. And Emily would be going to school today.
He swung his legs out of the bed and reached for the pajamas that John insisted stay close. Sherlock preferred to sleep naked, but though John had once preferred it too, he wore clothes every night now. Sherlock could almost see the point - easier, wearing clothing, if Emily should need them in the middle of the night, as she almost always did.
Sherlock couldn’t sleep in clothes. That he rarely slept even when out of them was hardly the point.
If Emily was in school…
John and Emily sat at the table in the sitting room, giggling and eating their toast with jam - Emily with a mug of milk, John with his mug of tea. Sherlock found his own mug waiting on the kitchen counter, already prepped with sugar and a teabag, just waiting for the water.
“Ah, you are awake,” said John. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“Of course I’m awake,” said Sherlock, feigning insult quite easily. “Today is a big day, as you’ve been saying. Wouldn’t do to sleep through it.”
“I almost thought you might,” said John dryly. “Emily, stop dunking your toast in your milk.”
“I like it better,” said Emily.
“Doesn’t matter, it’s disgusting. Sherlock, there’s bread in the toaster if you want toast.”
“I don’t want toast,” said Sherlock, and he walked behind John, and brushed the back of his neck with his fingertips as he went.
Emily frowned and glared at him, and dunked her toast in her milk again, defiantly.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her, and leaned in to kiss John’s temple, before moving on to his chair.
“Macaroni cheese for tea,” said Emily, and John, who missed everything, said, “All right.”
*
Emily left for school with Mrs Hudson, who had shopping to do that morning, and John went to shower shortly after. All of these were activities that had Sherlock’s approval: Emily in school, where she couldn’t glare at him for staking a claim on John; Mrs Hudson out doing the shopping, leaving them the freedom of being quite as loud as they wished; John taking a shower, which Sherlock was tempted to interrupt, except the stall was quite small enough and the last thing Sherlock wanted was to have either of them slipping on the water and needing casts, necessitating additional time for recovery. Sherlock had had enough of recovery times, thankyouverymuch.
To occupy the time, Sherlock stretched out on the sofa, and tried to catalogue all the lovely things he intended to do to John once John was out of the shower. Kissing, that was an absolute must. Followed by touching, followed by tasting, incorporating both licking and sucking. Standing to start, lying down after a short time, because John was only just cleared for normal activities; it would be a shame if John grew tired before Sherlock was done….
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock heard John, but in the distant way one hears traffic on the street, or a door opening and closing. Background noise, perhaps important, but not quite pertinent to the moment at hand. John would of course be naked, so there would not be any bother about clothing. And Sherlock’s pajamas were easily shucked - perhaps he ought to disrobe now, simply to save time. There were, after all, only six hours in Emily’s school day, and Mrs Hudson might return after lunch…
“Sherlock.”
Vaguely more insistent; John would lose his temper in exactly 26 seconds. They could start in the sitting room, of course, though the curtains weren’t drawn. Someone across the road might see. Ah well, perhaps they’d learn a thing or two…
“Oh for - Sherlock Bloody Holmes.”
Sherlock opened his eyes. “Yes, John?”
“I’m off,” said John, and Sherlock frowned, glancing at his bondmate. John was dressed.
Dressed. Sherlock frowned. Dressing on any other occasion was not noteworthy in itself. He had insisted on dressing every day for the last four weeks, even if it was only a shirt and trousers. But today, instead of wearing considerably less clothing, John had included socks, shoes, and a tie, of all things. What’s more, he was wearing his black leather coat and hat, and was in the process of tying a scarf around his throat.
“Off where?”
John sighed. “To the clinic. My first day back.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been six weeks since the accident,” said John in a tone that sounded patient to everyone but Sherlock, who recognized it as exasperated. “I’ve been cleared to return to most normal activities, which includes work on a part-time basis. You do know this. I’ve been telling you this all weekend.”
Big day. Return to normal activities.
Sherlock took a breath and tried to keep his tone even. John hadn’t meant…
Bugger.
“I meant why you are returning at all.”
John sighed. “We’ve been over this. Someone has to earn a paycheck.”
“I have a trust fund.”
“It’s for Emily’s education.”
“It’s a very large trust fund.”
“And we’re not touching it,” said John shortly. “Besides, I like working. You might enjoy spending your days thinking and attempting to blow up the refrigerator, but I want to be a little more productive with my time.”
“I need you here for when Lestrade calls with a case.”
John didn’t say anything for a few moments. Sherlock heard him sigh heavily.
“Sherlock,” said John gently, “Greg’s not going to call you. Remember, he told you - the public might have forgiven you, but his commissioner hasn’t.”
“Fools, the lot of them.”
“Which is exactly what you made them look like. They’re not entirely willing to trust you again.”
And you, John? Do you trust me?
Sherlock shoved the thought away and swung his legs off the sofa. “He’ll call. It’s a matter of time, that’s all.”
“Right,” said John softly, and he leaned forward, placed his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. He seemed to hesitate a moment before dropping a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek. “I won’t be gone very long, Sarah’s only got me covering the lunch rush today. Nice easy start back into working again.”
“Mmm.” Sherlock’s leg was jittery, bouncing up and down. He knew John saw it, wondered about it, worried about what it might mean. But Sherlock didn’t stop it from bouncing; didn’t care what John interpreted from it, because John would have it all wrong anyway.
“Back soon,” said John, and was gone before Sherlock could grab his wrist, to pull him back onto the sofa and kiss him goodbye properly.
Sherlock listened to John ease his way down the stairs, where once he would jog. The door opened and closed, and Sherlock went to look out the window, watched John try to flag down a passing taxi, where once he would have walked confidently to the Tube. All evidence of John’s still lingering recovery, the aches and pains he ignored during the day, but which flared up at night once Emily had gone to bed.
Sherlock watched until the taxi had disappeared from view before turning away from the window and reaching for his mobile. The text was written and sent within minutes, and he sat on the sofa, his feet bouncing on the ground, while he waited for the reply.
Do you have anything? SH
No. GL
I need a case. SH
I can’t give you what I don’t have, Sherlock. GL
Sherlock threw the mobile across the room, where it landed neatly on his chair, bouncing a little before falling to the ground. He jumped off the sofa and went to shower, and imagined that he heard the mobile ring three separate times.
Normal activities. Sherlock wondered what constituted normal anymore. There wasn’t anything normal, as far as Sherlock could tell. Normal was waking up with John, perhaps seeing him off to work some days, but being called in by Lestrade on most of them, taking in clients and chasing down culprits and giggling in alleyways and staying up until all hours and having Chinese out of paper boxes at 2 a.m.
Normal wasn’t sending Emily off to school with a packed lunch, and John wearing a tie and stethoscope, off to the clinic to try his hand at doctoring for a few hours, while Sherlock waited on the sofa for the world to come to their senses and realize he was right.
The morning passed slowly. Sherlock sulked on the couch for ninety minutes before he gave up, having concluded that sulking without an audience was boring, and reminded him entirely too much of the previous three years without anyone. Sherlock didn’t like the additional reminder; bad enough seeing Emily, a person in her own right who hadn’t existed before he left, and the changes she’d wrought in John’s definition of “normal”. He pulled out the latest box of test tubes and set them on the kitchen table.
Mrs Hudson returned sometime during lunch; Sherlock heard the door to 221 open and close, with no sound on the steps. Quite a lot of shopping, if the sound of her scurrying back and forth between the front door and her own flat was any indication.
John returned near two in the afternoon. A taxi outside, a bit of chat floating up on the air. The door to 221 opening and closing with a soft click, and then finally, steps on the stairs coming up, slowly, as if John were too tired to handle anything more than one step at a time.
If he was tired from a few hours of sitting and listening to others complain about their own aches and pains…Sherlock didn’t hold out much hope for the hour before Emily returned home from school.
John entered the flat with a sigh, and collapsed on the sofa near the door. Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, assessing. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair slightly mussed. Skin a bit paler, thin bit of sweat at his brow. No tremor in his hand or his legs, however, and after a moment, John sat up and reached to untie his shoes.
“How did it go?” asked Sherlock into the silence, and John paused as he pulled one shoe off his foot.
“All right,” he said finally. “Glad I was only there for a half shift, though. Bit of ‘flu going around. Sarah let me bring home jabs for you and Emily.”
“I’m all right.”
“Doctor’s orders,” said John mildly. “I had mine in hospital.”
Sherlock blinked into his microscope, and thought of John with the flu, Emily with the flu…
“I can take it now,” he said, and pulled away from the microscope, and started to roll up his sleeve.
John’s mouth dropped open, and then he shrugged and reached for his coat. “That was a bit easier than I expected. And take off your shirt, I need to put it in your bicep, not your elbow, idiot.”
“Unless you think I should allow Emily to observe, so she doesn’t cry.”
“No, she’s good with shots. Thinks they’re fascinating, usually wants to do it herself.” John frowned as he pulled out the wrapped syringe and the small glass jar of fluid. “Bit too like you, sometimes.”
Sherlock pulled the chair over from the table to sit in front of John. He unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off one shoulder, and turned just enough to give John access.
John’s hand was cool on Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock watched John’s face as he gave him the injection, the concentration in his eyes, the way he held his lips together. Close up, the sweat on John’s brow wasn’t anything more than dampness accumulated while wearing his hat; the paleness of his skin wasn’t being ill but simply being tired.
Sherlock felt the needle slide under his skin, the faint burn of the immunization as John pressed the plunger, and the ripping sound of the plaster as John removed it from its wrapping.
“There,” said John softly. “Done.”
Sherlock waited until John had turned the syringe in on itself, and then reached forward and kissed him. John, under his lips and his hands, was compliant, soft, almost sleepy in his responses. Sherlock cradled his head between his hands and didn’t press forward, didn’t try to take more than he thought John was willing to give. He didn’t let John lead - but he knew enough not to go where John didn’t want to follow.
It was a lazy kiss; Sherlock pressed his lips onto John’s in a series of careful questions, opening his lips only when John turned his face up to his. He tasted bitter and milky, like tea that had gone cold with sitting, the flavor not improved with the addition of milk after the fact. Sherlock could feel, rather than hear, the thrum in John’s throat, the soft sighs and moans as he ran his tongue along John’s, moved his fingers across John’s skin to touch the soft, fine hairs at the nape of his neck.
When Sherlock felt John’s hands on his arms, his fingers wrap around him to hold him near - something in him shifted. The bond, a tight knot under his heart, which was normally so tense and solid, seemed to relax, to open, as if it was reaching out for John just as his arms reached for him. Sherlock moved toward him, as if he was responding to the bond instead of any actual thought process of his own.
John didn’t seem to mind. Sherlock half thought he could feel John’s mouth form a smile, felt him reach up into his mouth eagerly. And for once, there wouldn’t be any interruption - no Emily to burst in, Mrs Hudson asleep watching telly downstairs, no unexpected client, no call from Lestrade…
Buzz.
Sherlock paused only long enough to register the noise.
Buggering fuck.
Part of him wanted to answer. The other part of him, the bond and everything it controlled (which was quite a bit of his lower regions), wanted to concentrate on John.
Buzz buzz.
“Sherlock,” said John, and Sherlock opened his eyes to see John looking up at him. “Your mobile.”
“Busy,” said Sherlock, and he tried, desperately, not to look at the flashing screen. It didn’t matter who was ringing him. He had John and he had an hour and he had every intention of enjoying the first in the time frame of the second.
He didn’t care who it was. Even if it was Lestrade, if there was a case, a nice murder to set the world to right.
Buzz buzz buzz.
“Go on and look,” said John.
Sherlock gave one last, half-longing look into John’s face, and lunged for the mobile just as it let out another series of buzzes.
“Lestrade,” he gasped, and had a whole new reason to loathe the man. He answered the mobile. “Tell me someone is dead.”
“Glad to know you’re still your cheery, optimistic self,” said Greg on the other end of the line. “Yes, someone’s dead. Two someones. Murder-suicide.”
“If it were murder-suicide you wouldn’t have called me.”
“Murder weapon’s not here.”
“Then it’s murder-murder, isn’t it?”
“I’ve got a visual,” said Lestrade grimly. “Check your incoming photos.”
Sherlock did, and chortled with glee.
“Only you,” said Lestrade grimly. “I’m sending you the address.”
“We’ll be there in half an hour,” said Sherlock. “Er. Forty minutes.”
He snapped the phone shut and turned to John. “Where were we?”
“More to the point,” said John, fending him off, “is where do you think we’re going?”
“I was hoping for the bedroom, but as we only have twenty minutes, the sofa will have to do.”
“Sherlock,” said John, in a pointed and serious tone that Sherlock dimly recalled as being one that did not lend itself to love-making. “I meant where Lestrade wants you to go.”
Sherlock paused, his hand already stretched out for John. Sherlock didn’t want to deduce John just then. He didn’t want to look at him, and see the tenseness in his shoulders (annoyance), the shadows under his eyes (weariness), the way he held his jaw - not clenched, but not entirely loose, as if he expected to argue (resigned fear - as if he knew this would happen eventually). “Us, John. Both of us.”
“Emily is coming home in less than an hour. I can’t go rushing off to solve a murder.”
Sherlock waved his hand. “Mrs Hudson can watch her.”
“All night?” John shook his head.
“This will hardly take all night, John.”
John shook his head. “It’s a murder-suicide that isn’t a murder-suicide, Sherlock, you don’t know how long it’ll take. With you, it’s either twenty minutes or twenty hours.”
“Mrs Hudson has watched Emily for that long before, it wasn’t a problem,” said Sherlock.
“I was in hospital, that was different.”
“So someone’s still in hospital, it’s just not either of us,” said Sherlock, and John stared at up him, incredulous.
“The fact that I have to explain the difference between being in hospital and being in the morgue to you is so completely outside the realm of ridiculous that it doesn’t even bear discussion,” said John finally. “Emily is coming home in forty-five minutes. I’m not leaving this flat.”
“Well,” said Sherlock, crossing his arms and glaring at John as he sat down with the thump on the chair. “I’m not leaving it without you.”
“So you’ll just let Lestrade solve the murder without you?”
“He thinks it’s a murder-suicide without a weapon. He’s hardly going to solve the murder without me, John.”
“Really.” John crossed his arms. “So you’ll let the real killer run free while you sit here and sulk?”
Sherlock glared at him, and wondered how the hell the conversation had gone so wrong.
“I’d catch him if you came with me.”
“I can’t.”
“I don’t see why not. Mrs Hudson wouldn’t mind.”
“It’s not whether or not she would mind, Sherlock, it’s the precedent we’d be setting. You keep forgetting, we’re parents now, we have a responsibility toward Emily and that means being here for her when she needs us. I can’t go rushing off to crime scenes and leaving her to fend for herself just because you want me there to bounce ideas off.”
A tightening in his chest - the bond, slowly closing back up, drawing in on itself again. It took everything Sherlock had not to rub at his chest. “Is that all you think I need you for?”
“Isn’t it?”
Sherlock shook his head. “You used to need it, John. The adrenaline and the rush and the thrill. All I had to say was ‘dangerous’ and you were off.”
“That was before,” said John, but Sherlock saw the flicker in his eyes. The flicker that said I remember.
Sherlock swallowed. “John.”
“Go,” said John.
The moment where Sherlock was kissing John, drawing him in, reaching out to hold him close - it was gone, finished, forgotten. Sherlock looked at his bondmate and he might have been someone else entirely, no one he knew in any sense of the word, no one he’d linked to for life. With the one word, Sherlock felt as though anything that had lain between them had been irrevocably severed.
It hurt. Sherlock felt as if he were falling, that John was drawing further away, and he hated it.
“You need this,” said John. “You’ve been waiting for Lestrade to call, you need to be out there solving the murders and keeping your brain from getting bored. Christ, I’m surprised you’re even still here, that you weren’t out the door in a flash without a backwards glance. I’m telling you, it’s all right. I’ll stay here for Emily, and I’ll be here when you get back, and you can tell me all about it. This isn’t the first time you’ve had to solve something without me.”
“No,” said Sherlock. “I suppose not.”
“Go,” insisted John, and he smiled, just a small one - encouraging and almost loving.
“Is that what you want?”
John nodded, without speaking, and Sherlock saw his throat contract as he swallowed. John didn’t speak. Sherlock half thought he didn’t dare.
Sherlock nodded, the deductions already forming in the back of his mind about what John did not actually say. He ignored them, and listened to what John was telling him.
“I’ll just…go, then.”
He rose from the chair and went for his coat and his scarf. Sherlock could act, he was very good at it, he knew, but acting as if he actually wanted to go to the crime scene, alone, was perhaps more than he was capable of doing. Still, he turned to smile gamely at John, and found the other man standing behind him, ready to straighten his scarf around his neck.
“Pick up Chinese when you’re done, and you can tell me all about it,” said John.
“Right,” said Sherlock, and left.
*
It was wrong, it was all wrong, and Sherlock felt the wrongness brush up against him with every move he made. Every deduction fell flat (even though they were correct), every twist in the story was banal (even though they kept him on his toes), every chase was boring (even though one led through the backstage area of the Old Vic).
Sherlock knew it would be wrong from the first moment when Lestrade turned to him and said, “Oi, where’s John?”
Sherlock had nearly wanted to punch him. Lestrade, of all people.
“Hoping he’d see the light and find his way to you?” snapped Sherlock, and strode away before he actually did punch the other alpha. Sherlock wasn’t sure what annoyed him more: Lestrade’s interest in John, or the fact that when faced with it, he’d only been able to scrape up such a boring retort.
And that was it, wasn’t it? It was boring, all of it was boring. The case was boring, Lestrade was boring, the murderer was boring, the fate of the weapon was boring. And that John was right, that was the most boring of all, because while the case didn’t take twenty hours to solve, it didn’t take twenty minutes either, and Sherlock glared and spat and sulked his way through the eight hours it did take to finally run the murderer down to earth, and he stood in front of the Chinese restaurant for ten minutes, hands shoved angrily in his pockets, and thought, hard.
The facts, as Sherlock saw them: He was Sherlock Holmes. He was the world’s only consulting detective. He was mated to John Watson, the world’s other only consulting detective.
Sherlock Holmes solved crimes when the police were in over their heads, which was nearly always. John Watson was always there, and when he wasn’t there…the crimes weren’t nearly as interesting.
Sherlock only wanted to solve the interesting murders. Murders were never interesting without John. Ergo, Sherlock needed John Watson.
This was very simple logic. The only problem was how to make it happen, because John was clearly not about to leave Emily alone, and murders did not always conveniently occur between the hours of nine and three.
The door to the restaurant opened, and a group of young people came out, chattering away. They passed Sherlock, heading into the night, brushing up against him, and that seemed to shake the memory loose.
Aha.
Sherlock pulled the mobile out of his pocket and quickly sent the text. Once done, he went into the restaurant to place his order.
The response came as he was carrying the bags of food home, some twenty minutes later.
Bit domestic, isn’t it, bringing home the fruits of your labor for your mate? In your case, spring rolls.
Sherlock frowned at the message, but noted the document Mycroft had attached.
Names, addresses, contact information, and even brief summaries of their abilities. Enough information that there was very little chance he’d found them all in the span of twenty minutes.
Sherlock’s mouth quirked. He pocketed the mobile again, and turned onto Baker Street.
John was asleep on the sofa; Sherlock knew the moment he opened the door to the flat and saw the lamp still lit. By the time Sherlock had set down the food on the table, however, John was already blinking awake, sitting up and yawning.
“How’d it go, then?”
“Boring,” said Sherlock, and he handed John the package of spring rolls. “The restaurant has changed ownership.”
“The old couple retired, it’s the grandchildren running it now,” said John. He took the package of spring rolls.
“They’ve completely destroyed their menu. We’ll go somewhere else after the next case.”
“Went well, then?” And then John frowned, as the terminology sunk in. “We?”
“Of course, ‘we’. You’ll be able to join me by then.”
“Because Lestrade isn’t calling you back until Emily’s at uni?” asked John, almost amused.
Sherlock sighed. “Of course not. We are going to hire a nanny.”
John paused while opening the boxes of noodles and beef with broccoli. “I - what?”
“A nanny, John,” said Sherlock, impatient now. “Where are the chopsticks?”
“In the bag,” said John.
“Is there tea?” Sherlock left the food unpacked and went into the kitchen. Suddenly, the world wasn’t boring anymore. It was infinitely interesting again, and they were going to hire a nanny for Emily, and John would be able to come with him on cases.
“Sherlock!”
Sherlock poked his head out of the kitchen and saw John standing next to the food, confused and still more than a little asleep. “Chinese, John. Nannies, John. Chopsticks in the bag, tea in the kitchen. Keep up, John.”
Sherlock ducked back into the kitchen and turned on the kettle, suddenly filled with glee. He heard John curse in the sitting room, and that only filled him with more glee, and Sherlock started opening drawers, where he knew he’d seen a few extra sets of chopsticks.
By the time he’d returned with tea, John had laid out their food for them. Sherlock grinned happily and sat across from him.
“All right,” said John firmly. “Explain.”
“You’re not usually this thick, John,” complained Sherlock. “Is this the amount of brain deterioration I can expect to experience after three years of parenthood? Or is it the vestigial remains of pregnancy brain?”
“Sod off,” said John, but didn’t mean it. “Explain to me how you left to solve a murder nine hours ago and you’re coming home now, talking about nannies.”
Sherlock grinned at him. “The murder was boring.”
“If it’d been boring you would have been home in time for dinner.”
“Murders are always boring when you’re not there,” said Sherlock. “Therefore, you need to accompany me on my cases. However, we must ensure that Emily is cared for while you are with me. Ergo, a nanny.”
John frowned. “We don’t need a nanny.”
“If you mean ‘need’ as in ‘cannot afford’, I assure you that we can. Particularly since I’m working again, and can supplement your income.”
“One case, Sherlock. You had one case with the police, and they don’t pay.”
“The others do, the ones who read your ludicrous excuse of a blog, and you can hardly write entries about my solving cases if you’re not there to witness.”
John threw up his hands. “Where on earth would we find a nanny?”
Sherlock dropped his phone on the table, and took a mouthful of noodles.
John scrutinized the list. “Mycroft.”
“Of course.”
“How long has he been working on this?”
Sherlock shrugged. “Since I returned? He had it to me in twenty minutes.”
John sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know…it’s bad enough that Emily’s in school six hours a day. Can we really leave her in someone else’s care for the rest of it?”
“I had nannies growing up. I turned out well enough.”
John didn’t say anything. When Sherlock looked up from his noodles, he saw the odd look on John’s face. “What?”
“Right,” said John, shaking his head. He dug into his beef with oysters and didn’t look back up. “I just don’t see why-”
Sherlock set down the box of noodles. “John. Did you or did you not want to come with me today?”
John kept digging in his food, as if he expected to find a golden ticket buried underneath.
“John.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said John gruffly. “Needed to be here for Emily, so I stayed here for her.”
“John.”
“All right, fine, I did,” snapped John. He glared up at Sherlock. “Happy?”
Sherlock grinned. “No, and neither were you, because you didn’t come with me. I require that you be happy, John. Therefore, we require a nanny who we can trust to leave with Emily when our schedules do not allow us to remain with her ourselves.”
John frowned. “The way you’re putting it sounds more like an on-call babysitter.”
“If that’s how you’d rather phrase it,” said Sherlock, returning to his noodles. “The semantics are boring.”
John was quiet for a moment. “This isn’t a carte blanche, you know. We can’t go running off every day to solve murders - we’re still parents.”
“Of course, John. Most of the cases are easily solved quickly; I doubt we’d leave Emily in her waking, non-school hours more than once a week or so. She’ll never know we’re gone.”
“I doubt that,” said John.
“Well, she wouldn’t mind, if we hired someone she could love.” Sherlock leaned over and peered at the list on his phone. “This one, John. She’s a beta, speaks seven languages, is a black-belt in karate, and her hobbies include molecular chemistry and scuba diving.”
“She sounds perfect, if Mycroft is hiring new assistants. I was rather thinking it would be nice if the nanny had some actual experience in taking care of small children. Or at least training in first-aid.”
Sherlock pointed at another one. “This one is studying to be a forensic pathologist.”
“Wonderful, she can teach Emily how to perform autopsies.”
“Now you’re catching on,” said Sherlock, pleased. He scrolled through the list of names, glancing quickly at the qualifications that Mycroft had listed with them. John would want to interview them, he suspected. And perhaps Emily would want some sort of face-time with the proposed nanny as well. Housing, housing might be problematic, if there were late nights involved. Sherlock wondered if Mrs Hudson would be averse to finally renting them 221C…
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”
Sherlock paused, and glanced up. “John…”
“No, it’s just…” John laughed, and ran his hand over his hair. “Two months ago, I didn’t expect to be eating Chinese with you at midnight, talking about hiring a nanny for Emily.”
And then John smiled at him. He was tired, yes, and he hadn’t eaten much of the food. But the smile reached his eyes, just a little, and Sherlock remembered leaping from building to building, with this man behind him, and he smiled back.
“This one,” said Sherlock, pointing to a name. “He’s been trained in CPR, had vocal training, and has more than a passing interest in marine biology. Specifically, the mating habits of the American codfish.”
John rolled his eyes and pulled the mobile away from Sherlock. “As scintillating as that sounds, I’d rather eat my dinner without thinking about the mating habits of fish.”
“Whose mating habits would you like to discuss, then?” asked Sherlock, before he could catch himself, and John looked about as startled as he himself felt. For a few moments, the sitting room was quiet, with the faintest hint of a cool breeze accelerating the heat Sherlock felt rising to his cheeks.
“That’s a-” started John, as Sherlock said, “What I mean is-”
“No, go on,” said John, while Sherlock said, “What is it?”
“Too soon for-?” asked John, and just then, the familiar voice:
“Daddy!”
John sighed, and stuck his chopsticks in the box of food. “Right,” he said under his breath. “Right.” John shoved his chair back and stood. “We’ll go over the list tomorrow.”
“Of course,” said Sherlock, and watched him go. He leaned back, having forgotten the noodles already, and pressed his lips together in thought.
There were words for what Emily was. But Sherlock loved her too much to voice them.
Love. That was almost a strange thought in itself; when Sherlock had been racing around the world, trying to eradicate the threat against John, he hadn’t given much thought to Emily. He’d pass glances at children and try to determine their ages, without comparing them to the child he knew existed. He would watch parents discipline (or not) their offspring, wonder if John - or himself, for that matter - was capable of the same stoutness of heart in the face of a screaming child.
It wasn’t until actually meeting Emily, being confronted with the reality of her, that she became real to him. Much the same way that James Moriarty hadn’t been real until he’d met the man at the side of a pool. A shadowy figure, a name without a face or shape.
Emily hadn’t even had the name or the shape. Only the idea.
All Sherlock had really wanted, on his return, was a return to normalcy. Sitting with John, in 221B, reading the paper or pecking at his laptop. Having just returned from a case, triumphant and comfortably full of Chinese. Playing a song on his violin to cheer them against the cold nights, before falling into bed, into each other - if they were lucky, into a comfortable heat that would envelop them against the rest of the world.
They’d probably never sit in companionable silence again - not until Emily was grown, anyway. And John wasn’t well enough to come off the suppressants anytime soon - not that they’d had much chance to enjoy each other without them.
But solving cases together was on the horizon, now, even if the substandard Chinese was growing cold, and there was one thing Sherlock could have immediately.
Sherlock stood on the landing, halfway between his level and hers, and set the violin under his chin.
He plays the violin…
Softly, softly. Not too loud, so as to let Mrs Hudson sleep. Not too softly, so that its intended recipient could hear it. A shuffling from the upper level; Sherlock glanced up to see John open the door to Emily’s room.
He tucks it right under his chin…
John smiled, and ducked back into the dark room. He left the door cracked, just so.
Sherlock smiled, closed his eyes, and played.
For it’s high, high, high diddle-diddle
And God bless the man and his fiddle…
Chapter Five