Rolling in the Deep (3/?)
Rolling in the Deep
Title: Rolling in the DeepSeries: Still Waters (Run Deep) (Part III of IV)
Author:
melody_in_time
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through S1 only
Disclaimer: I wish they were mine, but they aren't. Nor am I creative enough to have written the song that gave this instalment its title. That belongs to Adele, and whomever else had IP rights along side her.
Author's Notes: Evening all! Welcome to Chapter 3. It's a little lighter than the last one. Ben's home!!! If anyone wants to refresh themselves on what the Brown Room that became the Nursery used to look like before it's renovation, I strongly advise you go and have a look at the pictures in the background material. Again, I'm still finding typos so let me know if you see more I've missed.
Warnings: None that I can think of
If you've wondered here by mistake, you may wish to start at Part I of the series, Rarest of the Rare: Chapter 1.
Chapter 1: Introduction - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10
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Anticipation usually runs in three stages. First is the stress: heart pounding as everything is organised, planned and inevitably runs late or doesn’t run at all. Second is the glee: heart fluttering with adrenaline and giddiness. Last is the worry: when every beat of the heart sings its chorus of panic, alarm, doom.
The length of each stage is well known to depend on circumstance, and people often move in between, stage two fluttering while stressing about arrangements, or stage three worry slowly but surely carving its way in in chunks.
By the time Greg made it home he was mired in a heady mix of stages 1 and 2. Within five minutes of Mycroft’s projected arrival, he had slipped fully into stage three.
He’d never been good at waiting. Stakeouts were the bane of Greg’s life, sitting, watching, waiting for someone to do something. They weren’t like the shows, where every minute was charged with adrenaline. More like the bits they cut out because the audience doesn’t want to see how long that short sequence took to shoot.
For someone who got so bored so quickly, Sherlock Holmes was shockingly good at stakeouts.
Greg wasn’t, and spent the thirty seven minutes and four seconds it took Mycroft to arrive after he himself got home running up and down the stairs, triple checking the nursery, and My’s room, and the nursery, and his hair, and the nursery, but unable to leave the front door alone for long.
He was three quarters of the way back down when the door opened and Mycroft finally stepped through. Anthea followed him, dropping a bag to the side, then disappearing. Greg assumed she was organising suitcases. He didn’t care.
Mycroft’s scent had dulled after the birth, fading away with the heightened pheromone levels, though sensitised by exposure to the unique combination of scents he defined as Mycroft Greg could still detect it slowly beginning to permeate the room in slow, leaking tendrils.
Mycroft looked tired, threadbare scent reinforcing the impression of fatigue, but healthier than when Greg had last seen him. The hollows under his cheeks had filled out even as his waist line had shrunk on whatever crash diet he’d employed to shift the weight. His hair was perfectly in place, fastidiously so, but the neatness of his appearance didn’t conceal the bags under his eyes or the fact it took him a couple of long seconds to realise Greg was there.
“You’re home.” Mycroft blinked, confirming his fatigue.
A rested and aware Mycroft would never state the obvious unless it served a purpose.
“Of course, I’m here.” Greg snorted, bounding down the stairs. “As if I’d be - hey Ben! Oh how are you?”
Nestled in Mycroft’s arms the little bundle waved a little fist in the air and stuck his little fingers in his little mouth. Large eyes, still of some indeterminate light colour, blinked at Greg as a response was gurgled.
“He can’t recognise you yet.” Mycroft cautioned as Greg gushed over the baby. “Not really. His field of vision is only about twenty centimetres, thirty at best.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know me, does it Benny-boy?” Greg commandeered their son as My winced, potentially at Greg’s diabetes inducing tone, possibly at the butchering of their son’s name. “Cause you remember your Daddy’s scent, don’t you munchkin?”
Ben blew a bubble in his saliva.
“He’s so much bigger.” Greg whispered, eyes firmly locked on the baby in his arms. “He has hair now, proper hair.”
“It’s barely more fuzz than he had before.” Mycroft rolled his eyes.
“He’s beautiful.” Greg ignored Mycroft, kissing the dark fuzz.
Ben’s fist reflexively closed around his Sire’s offered thumb and Greg cooed lightly.
“You are so sentimental.” Mycroft scolded.
Greg opened his mouth to scold back, but there was a gentle smile curling one corner of Mycroft’s mouth and his eyes were kind, so Greg ignored his lover’s reflexive disdain for anything caring, and Mycroft repaid him with a ghost like hand trailing across Greg’s lower back.
“We should take him up stairs.” Mycroft murmured.
Greg nodded, instantly conflicted as Mycroft moved towards the bag Anthea had left. By rights he should carry it, especially as Mycroft was still healing from the birth, but that meant handing Ben back to Mycroft and letting go of him was an equally distasteful proposition.
He could try to carry both, but if he stumbled that posed an unacceptable risk to Ben’s safety.
Mycroft, tired as he was, was clearly not oblivious to the obvious tension suddenly on his Alpha’s face.
“We can get the bag later.” He offered, starting up the stairs without waiting for a response.
Greg sighed in relief. The first steps were nerve racking, filled with automatic terror that he’d screw up, but when he didn’t immediately stumble and Ben didn’t start crying the tension drained out of his muscles and he was free to move quickly up the stairs behind Mycroft without his instincts grabbing him.
The nursery was spotless; as perfectly arranged as any show room in a magazine. At least it was in Greg’s mind, and it had taken hours before his insatiable nesting instinct had been satisfied. He’d always associated nesting with bearers, female or Omega, and hadn’t been quite prepared for the way it hit him.
Technically, the Brown Room hadn’t changed much. Certainly he’d left the colour scheme alone. The strange camel brown and sky blue had grown on him the more nights he’d spent in there trying to relax enough to sleep and at the end of the day he hadn’t wanted a major renovation. The single bed was replaced by the over the top cot and the desk had been removed for a change table. He’d had Anthea’s mystery removalists take the TV away as well. He was firmly of the opinion that children of any age, newborn to teen, had no need for a TV in their rooms and it was going to be hard enough to keep Ben grounded without accustoming him to too many luxuries from Day One.
Mycroft didn’t know it yet (probably), but there were some decidedly non-thousand thread count sheets with rockets and aliens on them in the fancy linen chest in the corner, and Greg would use them.
After his trip to Compton Wynyates Greg had asked Anthea for a rocking chair to be brought in as well. Given the obvious age of the antique, Greg suspected it came straight from Mycroft’s childhood home and had accepted it gratefully, even if it was in a style that clashed with the rest of the room and had set him cleaning it with a dust cloth four times before he broke free of the impulse.
The only place he’d been able to squeeze it was in the corner between the windows Greg had discovered were not original, not unless they’d invented double glazing in whatever century the house had been built in prior to the 21st. It was a bit cramped and he’d almost taken it out again, but the faint look of surprise that had broken through Mycroft’s control with the almost sad fondness right on its heels made him glad he hadn’t, even if it did mean falling over it on his way to the dresser upteen times a night.
He’d left the couch against his better judgement, not because it wouldn’t be useful, but because it was cream. Greg hadn’t wanted to know how much it would cost to replace what was otherwise a perfectly useable couch; he just didn’t think it would survive Ben’s childhood. The shelves up and over the couch, and the brand new bookcase replacing the TV, were full of books and toys ranging in age and difficulty from ABC’s to first year of school. Greg had even given in and bought an antique styled rocking horse, unable to resist its sweet face.
The stuffed rabbit he’d borrowed was now back in the cot.
“You’ve spent a lot of time on this.” Mycroft commented, finger lightly tracing the plaster moulding of an ornate A hung on the wall.
Greg ran that through his internal Holmes-to-Human translator and came up with “This is amazing. I love it.”
“Had to do something.” He replied gruffly, turning Ben so he could see the rocking horse.
“Not really.” Mycroft ambled closer to the cot and leant down to pick up the rabbit.
He didn’t mention that it was saturated with Greg’s scent and stale touches of his own, or point out the obvious conclusion. Instead he gently stroked its ear and replaced it.
“Um, My.” Greg called quietly. Ben was screwing up his face and whining in his arms, slowly beginning to work his way up to what would probably be full blown cries. “What have I done?”
Mycroft strode over and deftly checked Ben’s nappy, dry, and offered him a finger to suck, refused.
“Tired.” He concluded. “Tired and overstimulated. This was naptime at the house. If we put him down he should sleep for an hour or so before he’s due for a feed.”
“Right, yeah.” Greg felt slightly stupid for not realising that himself.
“Come on.” Mycroft lifted Ben out of Greg’s arms, ignoring the little fists waving uselessly in the air as Ben began to really get into it. “Let’s put you in bed, shall we.”
Ben kept fussing as Mycroft lay him in the cot and pulled the blanket over him, crooning in a deep rumbling tone the whole time.
“Is he okay?” Greg took a hesitant step forward as Ben’s fussing kicked up a notch to wailing.
“Just tired. His routine has been run roughshod over today.” Mycroft stroked Ben’s cheek as he spoke, then returned to his melodic wordless hum.
Greg hovered at the wardrobe, not knowing what to do. Eventually Ben’s soul-wrenching wails died away to pitiful whimpers and then restless grumbles as his body gave out before his temper, little face still screwing up in Sherlock-like disgust as he attempted to make his displeasure known even in sleep.
“Did you acquire a baby monitor?” Mycroft murmured quietly, withdrawing from the cot.
“Um, yeah, here.” Greg moved cautiously to the bedside table he’d left next to the cot and puled open the top drawer.
The wood scraped lightly against itself and they both froze, waiting to see if Ben would stir. With a noiseless sigh of relief at the baby’s continued restless slumber Greg reached in and pulled out the two units. One was set on the table next to the old fashioned articulated bear Greg had left positioned in front of the lamp. The other he clutched tight in his hand.
With a last soft whispering touch over Ben’s sleeping fist, Mycroft straightened and backed away, moving gracefully towards the door. Greg knew he should follow, should go before he did something to disturb Ben, but it was so hard to leave, so hard to convince his shuddering heart that he’d still be there when Greg came back.
“Gregory.” Mycroft had paused in the doorway.
“Yeah, yeah. Coming.” Greg whispered back.
His body made no effort to move.
“It will only be for an hour or so. If I don’t feed him then he’ll be up all night.” Mycroft held out a hand. “Gregory, come.”
Slowly Greg managed to move, feet carrying him reluctantly away.
“An hour?” he asked, letting Mycroft pull him out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him.
“If we want any chance of close to a full night’s sleep, even in multiple parts.” Mycroft confirmed.
“You look exhausted.” Greg ran the back of his fingers down Mycroft’s cheek.
“I may be employing some slight sense of exaggeration when I intimate that he’s sleeping through the night.” Mycroft admitted.
“I can help now. I’m here.”
“Yes.” Mycroft gave a tired, slightly bewildered as though the concept hadn’t previously sunk in, nod. “Yes, you are.”
Ben hadn’t appreciated being woken to feed and had screamed his head off for longer than he’d slept to make sure they knew before finally consenting to drink. He’d certainly developed a fine pair of lungs since Greg had come back to London, and the sneaking suspicion that Ben was going to be a Holmes baby of the Sherlockian variety (demanding, contrary, and insistent upon his own version of the world) was beginning to germinate in the dark recesses of Greg’s mind. Not that he had much experience with babies, no experience with babies, but it seemed that way to him.
Ben was quiet now, sleeping innocently in his cot as if he hadn’t driven one of his parents to exhausted collapse. Greg had finished changing Ben and putting him down under Mrs Potts’s critical eye after Mycroft’s iron control had failed to stop his eyes drooping as he fed Ben or the sway side to side as he stood. The old Housekeeper had immediately fussed him into bed and then returned to give Greg strict instructions on burping, changing and walking to sleep, which Greg was inordinately thankful for.
One weekend with a newborn over two weeks ago did not a competent carer make, and it was very clear quite quickly that valiant attempt or no, Greg was well and truly out of his depth.
He’d apparently been deemed acceptable, if only because it was late for the baby and he knew, just knew, she would be at his elbow giving instructions until he’d passed her competency tests over the weekend.
He could handle that, so long as she didn’t pull out one of those teaching dolls.
It was quiet in the house now. Everyone else was asleep, Mrs Potts installed in the Red Room for the duration, and old as the building was it was well insulated. Greg’s ears strained through the silence for cars or buses, but the nursery was at the rear of the house so nothing broke the weighty stillness in the air. As would be expected at one in the morning.
He should have been in bed getting as much sleep as possible between Ben’s feeds, because he was nowhere near sleeping through the night. Instead Greg stood at the end of the cot, curtain cracked open just enough to let London’s ambient light into the room. In a movie or storybook tale he’d be studying his son’s features by a single arc of graceful moonlight, but this was London and real life, where the cot’s drapery prevented the light shining directly into Ben’s eyes and waking him, and it would be streetlight anyway, not the moon.
In sleep, Ben had curled up tight, still bent limbs pulled in close. His little mouth was just slightly open as he slept and the dark wisps of hair looked even darker in the twilight shadows. As Greg watched, his forehead crinkled into a frown, then relaxed away as his dream moved on, test firing muscles as he slept.
There was nothing special about watching Ben sleep, nothing so fascinating it should be keeping Greg from his own rest. He was in his pyjamas, feet bare against the carpet as he just stood there and watched and watched, with no compulsion to leave even as grey fatigue began to creep in around the edges.
He wasn’t sure where he’d go anyway. When Mrs Potts had ushered Mycroft into bed she’d shut the door behind him, and it had remained firmly closed, a very solid barrier in the way. Greg couldn’t help feeling that it would be incredibly presumptive to assume that he was welcome, expected, in Mycroft’s bed based on the fragile undefined peace between them. It would be clear to both of them he’d been sleeping in there while Mycroft was away, his scent beginning to soak into the fabric just like Mycroft’s had, but with Mycroft home and in there…
If the door had been open he might have gone through anyway, but closed was a different matter, even if it hadn’t been Mycroft who had shut it.
He couldn’t bring himself to return to his own room and cold bed though. Sleeping alone would be equally presumptuous and could easily offend or upset Mycroft if he’d been expecting otherwise (and would never admit it) so sleeping alone would become the immovable status quo.
He hadn’t thought of it as a problem before, until Mycroft gave in to no sleep for too long and Mrs Potts shut the solid, wooden door.
He didn’t mind standing here though, listening to Ben breathe as the world slept, even if it wasn’t what he’d intended first up. It was useful and let Mycroft get some proper rest. Greg had already dealt with one night time session, catching up Ben as he began to screw up his face and carrying him downstairs to the kitchen to feed. He’d noticed during dinner Anthea, or Mrs Potts, had stored bottles for night time feeding in the fridge. He assumed this was Anthea as there were typed instructions on the fridge detailing the step by step process for heating the milk for Ben. Okay, the new nappy might not have looked as perfectly neat as the one Mrs Potts had put on, but it was on, and he’d managed all by himself.
Ben had been staring at Greg’s face whenever it was in what Greg assumed was his visual range. It felt like Ben was trying to remember him from that brief weekend, maybe match the face to the scent he would remember so much more clearly. That was probably giving Ben too much credit even now, certainly was for a two day old. In reality, the mobile muscles of the face were probably just more interesting than the surroundings that weren’t yet in focus.
He was so different now, had changed so much already and it made Greg ache to think about how much he’d missed. He would never get those first weeks back, though he admitted they weren’t much in the scheme of things. It was just hard to remember that when Ben had grown so dramatically now he was freed of the constraints of the womb. His limbs may not have been straightened fully, and he didn’t seem quite aware of them, but the rest of his body had suffered no such delay.
How different would Ben be tomorrow? When would he first smile or deliberately laugh? What would be his first word? His first step, his first friend, his first boy or girlfriend? How would he change in school, at university, with kids? The future stretched out long and endless, but it felt as though he blinked it would be gone in a second, leaving Greg to stare at his son, a fully grown stranger with children of his own and a minor position in the British Government.
“Gregory?” Mycroft’s voice was soft and muddled with sleep. “Why are you here?”
Greg felt his lips curl into smile, but all his attention remained on the small body in the cot. That Mycroft had slept through Ben’s crying when Greg had taken him to be fed had been fairly solid proof in Greg’s mind that Mycroft wasn’t going to be awake or aware of anything that night. He might have been awake, but Greg wasn’t entirely sure about aware.
“You’re in London, Mycroft. I live here.”
“No, I meant…” Mycroft’s voice trailed off in confusion.
Greg longed to turn his head and look at his sleep-muddled love. He’d only been privileged enough to see Mycroft in this state once before, and it had been delightfully adorable until he’d turned green. Greg could picture the mussed locks with the slightest hint of rebellious curl tumbling free of the iron control, the general bewilderment that only broke free when Mycroft was too tired to realise his mask had slipped, the slightest creases on his cheeks from the pillows. He didn’t look though, keeping his eyes on Ben and silently counting his breaths.
Arms wrapped around him from behind. Greg tried not to forget that exhausted half-asleep Mycroft was much more sweet and affectionate than normal Mycroft while memorising the feeling of his slightly taller love’s body wrapped around him. Leaning on him really, as Mycroft’s weight swayed back and forth with his balance.
“Come to bed.” Mycroft whispered. “It’s late.”
“He’ll need a feed soon.” Greg replied.
Half of Greg’s brain was busy running through the heating instructions and working out how long it would be before Ben wanted more. The other half was yelling at the first half for not immediately taking the invitation and luxuriating in sleeping beside Mycroft again.
“We’ll hear him on the monitor.” Mycroft argued, weight pulling backwards out of the room.
“Go back to sleep.” Greg heard himself say. “I’ll stay and take care of him.”
Stunned internal silence as Greg contemplated whether he’d gone insane.
Mycroft pulled gently again.
“It’s alright. You’re tired, go back to bed.” Greg stayed rooted to the spot, still following every rise and fall of the little chest.
“Gregory, look at me.” While soft, there was more will and intelligence behind Mycroft’s words.
Greg’s head stayed forward, gaze on his son.
The arms disappeared around his body and a hand came down to grip his elbow instead.
“He’ll still be there in the morning, Gregory. He won’t disappear.”
‘Won’t he?’ Greg wanted to ask. ‘Can you promise I won’t blink and he’ll be out of my life before I even realise it?’
The words stayed locked in his mouth.
Mycroft’s spare hand traced Greg’s spine, landing gently in the small of his back. “Come to bed.”
“Promise me.” Once the gates were open, the words gushed out in a tumble. “I can’t do that again, I can’t. He’s so different already, in two weeks, and I can’t… Don’t take him away again. Just… don’t. Promise me.” Greg’s gaze swung to Mycroft breaking free of Ben for the first time. “Promise me.”
Mycroft was as delightfully rumpled as Greg could have hoped. His hair was as messy as it was possible for his short hair to be, cowlicks everywhere, and his face was still slightly squashed on one side. His eyes though were bright, proof that Mycroft had pushed the fatigue aside to try and solve the problem in front of him.
‘Promise me.’ Greg’s eyes pleaded. ‘Promise me you won’t take him away from me, before I let myself love him more than I already do.’
“He will be there in the morning,” Mycroft repeated, “and the morning after, and the morning after that, until you’re well and truly sick of him tramping up and down the stairs in muddy shoes and listening to his music at absurd volumes at entirely uncivilised hours.
“Now come to bed.” Mycroft gently pulled on Greg’s arm.
“He’ll be awake soon.” Greg felt obliged to point out.
“Then we’ll be up too, but until then…” Mycroft steered Greg out of the Nursery and into the master bedroom, leaving both doors open.
“Are you-” Greg began, head craning around to the hallway, though it afforded him no better view of Ben than not having moved would have.
“You can’t spend your life by his cot, Gregory.”
Something in Mycroft’s tone caught Greg’s attention, dragging it back so he actually studied Mycroft’s face. Then smiled.
“That come from Anthea or the doc?” He asked.
Mycroft tilted his head dismissively, as if that didn’t confirm Greg’s suspicions.
“I’ll just ask her.” Greg warned playfully, slightly relieved it wasn’t just him experiencing that strange fearful need to see Ben.
“Dr Koen.” Mycroft harrumphed.
“So not that unusual then?”
“Separation anxiety? No, even if we weren’t in slightly unusual circumstances.”
“Right, right.” Greg took a deep breath, letting their combined scents wash over him. “He will be all right though, yeah? We shouldn’t have him in a cot in here for a bit?”
“I don’t believe the recommended therapy for dependency issues is pandering to them.” Mycroft left off that he would rather die than be so visibly affected by something out of his control.
“Yeah, yeah.” Greg took another breath and turned to the bed. “Sleep then?”
“Until we’re awakened; yes, that is the general plan.”
Satisfied Greg was settled, Mycroft had already walked over and climbed back into the bed. Unsure what the rules were, Greg climbed in the other side, carefully making sure not to touch Mycroft. He couldn’t say he wasn’t disappointed when Mycroft’s only reaction was to switch off the light rather than pull him closer. Still, he was there, Mycroft was there, and next door their son was asleep.
A start, he decided sleepily, a start.
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Previous - Next
Title: Rolling in the DeepSeries: Still Waters (Run Deep) (Part III of IV)
Author:
melody_in_time
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through S1 only
Disclaimer: I wish they were mine, but they aren't. Nor am I creative enough to have written the song that gave this instalment its title. That belongs to Adele, and whomever else had IP rights along side her.
Author's Notes: Evening all! Welcome to Chapter 3. It's a little lighter than the last one. Ben's home!!! If anyone wants to refresh themselves on what the Brown Room that became the Nursery used to look like before it's renovation, I strongly advise you go and have a look at the pictures in the background material. Again, I'm still finding typos so let me know if you see more I've missed.
Warnings: None that I can think of
If you've wondered here by mistake, you may wish to start at Part I of the series, Rarest of the Rare: Chapter 1.
Chapter 1: Introduction - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10
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Anticipation usually runs in three stages. First is the stress: heart pounding as everything is organised, planned and inevitably runs late or doesn’t run at all. Second is the glee: heart fluttering with adrenaline and giddiness. Last is the worry: when every beat of the heart sings its chorus of panic, alarm, doom.
The length of each stage is well known to depend on circumstance, and people often move in between, stage two fluttering while stressing about arrangements, or stage three worry slowly but surely carving its way in in chunks.
By the time Greg made it home he was mired in a heady mix of stages 1 and 2. Within five minutes of Mycroft’s projected arrival, he had slipped fully into stage three.
He’d never been good at waiting. Stakeouts were the bane of Greg’s life, sitting, watching, waiting for someone to do something. They weren’t like the shows, where every minute was charged with adrenaline. More like the bits they cut out because the audience doesn’t want to see how long that short sequence took to shoot.
For someone who got so bored so quickly, Sherlock Holmes was shockingly good at stakeouts.
Greg wasn’t, and spent the thirty seven minutes and four seconds it took Mycroft to arrive after he himself got home running up and down the stairs, triple checking the nursery, and My’s room, and the nursery, and his hair, and the nursery, but unable to leave the front door alone for long.
He was three quarters of the way back down when the door opened and Mycroft finally stepped through. Anthea followed him, dropping a bag to the side, then disappearing. Greg assumed she was organising suitcases. He didn’t care.
Mycroft’s scent had dulled after the birth, fading away with the heightened pheromone levels, though sensitised by exposure to the unique combination of scents he defined as Mycroft Greg could still detect it slowly beginning to permeate the room in slow, leaking tendrils.
Mycroft looked tired, threadbare scent reinforcing the impression of fatigue, but healthier than when Greg had last seen him. The hollows under his cheeks had filled out even as his waist line had shrunk on whatever crash diet he’d employed to shift the weight. His hair was perfectly in place, fastidiously so, but the neatness of his appearance didn’t conceal the bags under his eyes or the fact it took him a couple of long seconds to realise Greg was there.
“You’re home.” Mycroft blinked, confirming his fatigue.
A rested and aware Mycroft would never state the obvious unless it served a purpose.
“Of course, I’m here.” Greg snorted, bounding down the stairs. “As if I’d be - hey Ben! Oh how are you?”
Nestled in Mycroft’s arms the little bundle waved a little fist in the air and stuck his little fingers in his little mouth. Large eyes, still of some indeterminate light colour, blinked at Greg as a response was gurgled.
“He can’t recognise you yet.” Mycroft cautioned as Greg gushed over the baby. “Not really. His field of vision is only about twenty centimetres, thirty at best.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know me, does it Benny-boy?” Greg commandeered their son as My winced, potentially at Greg’s diabetes inducing tone, possibly at the butchering of their son’s name. “Cause you remember your Daddy’s scent, don’t you munchkin?”
Ben blew a bubble in his saliva.
“He’s so much bigger.” Greg whispered, eyes firmly locked on the baby in his arms. “He has hair now, proper hair.”
“It’s barely more fuzz than he had before.” Mycroft rolled his eyes.
“He’s beautiful.” Greg ignored Mycroft, kissing the dark fuzz.
Ben’s fist reflexively closed around his Sire’s offered thumb and Greg cooed lightly.
“You are so sentimental.” Mycroft scolded.
Greg opened his mouth to scold back, but there was a gentle smile curling one corner of Mycroft’s mouth and his eyes were kind, so Greg ignored his lover’s reflexive disdain for anything caring, and Mycroft repaid him with a ghost like hand trailing across Greg’s lower back.
“We should take him up stairs.” Mycroft murmured.
Greg nodded, instantly conflicted as Mycroft moved towards the bag Anthea had left. By rights he should carry it, especially as Mycroft was still healing from the birth, but that meant handing Ben back to Mycroft and letting go of him was an equally distasteful proposition.
He could try to carry both, but if he stumbled that posed an unacceptable risk to Ben’s safety.
Mycroft, tired as he was, was clearly not oblivious to the obvious tension suddenly on his Alpha’s face.
“We can get the bag later.” He offered, starting up the stairs without waiting for a response.
Greg sighed in relief. The first steps were nerve racking, filled with automatic terror that he’d screw up, but when he didn’t immediately stumble and Ben didn’t start crying the tension drained out of his muscles and he was free to move quickly up the stairs behind Mycroft without his instincts grabbing him.
The nursery was spotless; as perfectly arranged as any show room in a magazine. At least it was in Greg’s mind, and it had taken hours before his insatiable nesting instinct had been satisfied. He’d always associated nesting with bearers, female or Omega, and hadn’t been quite prepared for the way it hit him.
Technically, the Brown Room hadn’t changed much. Certainly he’d left the colour scheme alone. The strange camel brown and sky blue had grown on him the more nights he’d spent in there trying to relax enough to sleep and at the end of the day he hadn’t wanted a major renovation. The single bed was replaced by the over the top cot and the desk had been removed for a change table. He’d had Anthea’s mystery removalists take the TV away as well. He was firmly of the opinion that children of any age, newborn to teen, had no need for a TV in their rooms and it was going to be hard enough to keep Ben grounded without accustoming him to too many luxuries from Day One.
Mycroft didn’t know it yet (probably), but there were some decidedly non-thousand thread count sheets with rockets and aliens on them in the fancy linen chest in the corner, and Greg would use them.
After his trip to Compton Wynyates Greg had asked Anthea for a rocking chair to be brought in as well. Given the obvious age of the antique, Greg suspected it came straight from Mycroft’s childhood home and had accepted it gratefully, even if it was in a style that clashed with the rest of the room and had set him cleaning it with a dust cloth four times before he broke free of the impulse.
The only place he’d been able to squeeze it was in the corner between the windows Greg had discovered were not original, not unless they’d invented double glazing in whatever century the house had been built in prior to the 21st. It was a bit cramped and he’d almost taken it out again, but the faint look of surprise that had broken through Mycroft’s control with the almost sad fondness right on its heels made him glad he hadn’t, even if it did mean falling over it on his way to the dresser upteen times a night.
He’d left the couch against his better judgement, not because it wouldn’t be useful, but because it was cream. Greg hadn’t wanted to know how much it would cost to replace what was otherwise a perfectly useable couch; he just didn’t think it would survive Ben’s childhood. The shelves up and over the couch, and the brand new bookcase replacing the TV, were full of books and toys ranging in age and difficulty from ABC’s to first year of school. Greg had even given in and bought an antique styled rocking horse, unable to resist its sweet face.
The stuffed rabbit he’d borrowed was now back in the cot.
“You’ve spent a lot of time on this.” Mycroft commented, finger lightly tracing the plaster moulding of an ornate A hung on the wall.
Greg ran that through his internal Holmes-to-Human translator and came up with “This is amazing. I love it.”
“Had to do something.” He replied gruffly, turning Ben so he could see the rocking horse.
“Not really.” Mycroft ambled closer to the cot and leant down to pick up the rabbit.
He didn’t mention that it was saturated with Greg’s scent and stale touches of his own, or point out the obvious conclusion. Instead he gently stroked its ear and replaced it.
“Um, My.” Greg called quietly. Ben was screwing up his face and whining in his arms, slowly beginning to work his way up to what would probably be full blown cries. “What have I done?”
Mycroft strode over and deftly checked Ben’s nappy, dry, and offered him a finger to suck, refused.
“Tired.” He concluded. “Tired and overstimulated. This was naptime at the house. If we put him down he should sleep for an hour or so before he’s due for a feed.”
“Right, yeah.” Greg felt slightly stupid for not realising that himself.
“Come on.” Mycroft lifted Ben out of Greg’s arms, ignoring the little fists waving uselessly in the air as Ben began to really get into it. “Let’s put you in bed, shall we.”
Ben kept fussing as Mycroft lay him in the cot and pulled the blanket over him, crooning in a deep rumbling tone the whole time.
“Is he okay?” Greg took a hesitant step forward as Ben’s fussing kicked up a notch to wailing.
“Just tired. His routine has been run roughshod over today.” Mycroft stroked Ben’s cheek as he spoke, then returned to his melodic wordless hum.
Greg hovered at the wardrobe, not knowing what to do. Eventually Ben’s soul-wrenching wails died away to pitiful whimpers and then restless grumbles as his body gave out before his temper, little face still screwing up in Sherlock-like disgust as he attempted to make his displeasure known even in sleep.
“Did you acquire a baby monitor?” Mycroft murmured quietly, withdrawing from the cot.
“Um, yeah, here.” Greg moved cautiously to the bedside table he’d left next to the cot and puled open the top drawer.
The wood scraped lightly against itself and they both froze, waiting to see if Ben would stir. With a noiseless sigh of relief at the baby’s continued restless slumber Greg reached in and pulled out the two units. One was set on the table next to the old fashioned articulated bear Greg had left positioned in front of the lamp. The other he clutched tight in his hand.
With a last soft whispering touch over Ben’s sleeping fist, Mycroft straightened and backed away, moving gracefully towards the door. Greg knew he should follow, should go before he did something to disturb Ben, but it was so hard to leave, so hard to convince his shuddering heart that he’d still be there when Greg came back.
“Gregory.” Mycroft had paused in the doorway.
“Yeah, yeah. Coming.” Greg whispered back.
His body made no effort to move.
“It will only be for an hour or so. If I don’t feed him then he’ll be up all night.” Mycroft held out a hand. “Gregory, come.”
Slowly Greg managed to move, feet carrying him reluctantly away.
“An hour?” he asked, letting Mycroft pull him out of the room and shut the door quietly behind him.
“If we want any chance of close to a full night’s sleep, even in multiple parts.” Mycroft confirmed.
“You look exhausted.” Greg ran the back of his fingers down Mycroft’s cheek.
“I may be employing some slight sense of exaggeration when I intimate that he’s sleeping through the night.” Mycroft admitted.
“I can help now. I’m here.”
“Yes.” Mycroft gave a tired, slightly bewildered as though the concept hadn’t previously sunk in, nod. “Yes, you are.”
Ben hadn’t appreciated being woken to feed and had screamed his head off for longer than he’d slept to make sure they knew before finally consenting to drink. He’d certainly developed a fine pair of lungs since Greg had come back to London, and the sneaking suspicion that Ben was going to be a Holmes baby of the Sherlockian variety (demanding, contrary, and insistent upon his own version of the world) was beginning to germinate in the dark recesses of Greg’s mind. Not that he had much experience with babies, no experience with babies, but it seemed that way to him.
Ben was quiet now, sleeping innocently in his cot as if he hadn’t driven one of his parents to exhausted collapse. Greg had finished changing Ben and putting him down under Mrs Potts’s critical eye after Mycroft’s iron control had failed to stop his eyes drooping as he fed Ben or the sway side to side as he stood. The old Housekeeper had immediately fussed him into bed and then returned to give Greg strict instructions on burping, changing and walking to sleep, which Greg was inordinately thankful for.
One weekend with a newborn over two weeks ago did not a competent carer make, and it was very clear quite quickly that valiant attempt or no, Greg was well and truly out of his depth.
He’d apparently been deemed acceptable, if only because it was late for the baby and he knew, just knew, she would be at his elbow giving instructions until he’d passed her competency tests over the weekend.
He could handle that, so long as she didn’t pull out one of those teaching dolls.
It was quiet in the house now. Everyone else was asleep, Mrs Potts installed in the Red Room for the duration, and old as the building was it was well insulated. Greg’s ears strained through the silence for cars or buses, but the nursery was at the rear of the house so nothing broke the weighty stillness in the air. As would be expected at one in the morning.
He should have been in bed getting as much sleep as possible between Ben’s feeds, because he was nowhere near sleeping through the night. Instead Greg stood at the end of the cot, curtain cracked open just enough to let London’s ambient light into the room. In a movie or storybook tale he’d be studying his son’s features by a single arc of graceful moonlight, but this was London and real life, where the cot’s drapery prevented the light shining directly into Ben’s eyes and waking him, and it would be streetlight anyway, not the moon.
In sleep, Ben had curled up tight, still bent limbs pulled in close. His little mouth was just slightly open as he slept and the dark wisps of hair looked even darker in the twilight shadows. As Greg watched, his forehead crinkled into a frown, then relaxed away as his dream moved on, test firing muscles as he slept.
There was nothing special about watching Ben sleep, nothing so fascinating it should be keeping Greg from his own rest. He was in his pyjamas, feet bare against the carpet as he just stood there and watched and watched, with no compulsion to leave even as grey fatigue began to creep in around the edges.
He wasn’t sure where he’d go anyway. When Mrs Potts had ushered Mycroft into bed she’d shut the door behind him, and it had remained firmly closed, a very solid barrier in the way. Greg couldn’t help feeling that it would be incredibly presumptive to assume that he was welcome, expected, in Mycroft’s bed based on the fragile undefined peace between them. It would be clear to both of them he’d been sleeping in there while Mycroft was away, his scent beginning to soak into the fabric just like Mycroft’s had, but with Mycroft home and in there…
If the door had been open he might have gone through anyway, but closed was a different matter, even if it hadn’t been Mycroft who had shut it.
He couldn’t bring himself to return to his own room and cold bed though. Sleeping alone would be equally presumptuous and could easily offend or upset Mycroft if he’d been expecting otherwise (and would never admit it) so sleeping alone would become the immovable status quo.
He hadn’t thought of it as a problem before, until Mycroft gave in to no sleep for too long and Mrs Potts shut the solid, wooden door.
He didn’t mind standing here though, listening to Ben breathe as the world slept, even if it wasn’t what he’d intended first up. It was useful and let Mycroft get some proper rest. Greg had already dealt with one night time session, catching up Ben as he began to screw up his face and carrying him downstairs to the kitchen to feed. He’d noticed during dinner Anthea, or Mrs Potts, had stored bottles for night time feeding in the fridge. He assumed this was Anthea as there were typed instructions on the fridge detailing the step by step process for heating the milk for Ben. Okay, the new nappy might not have looked as perfectly neat as the one Mrs Potts had put on, but it was on, and he’d managed all by himself.
Ben had been staring at Greg’s face whenever it was in what Greg assumed was his visual range. It felt like Ben was trying to remember him from that brief weekend, maybe match the face to the scent he would remember so much more clearly. That was probably giving Ben too much credit even now, certainly was for a two day old. In reality, the mobile muscles of the face were probably just more interesting than the surroundings that weren’t yet in focus.
He was so different now, had changed so much already and it made Greg ache to think about how much he’d missed. He would never get those first weeks back, though he admitted they weren’t much in the scheme of things. It was just hard to remember that when Ben had grown so dramatically now he was freed of the constraints of the womb. His limbs may not have been straightened fully, and he didn’t seem quite aware of them, but the rest of his body had suffered no such delay.
How different would Ben be tomorrow? When would he first smile or deliberately laugh? What would be his first word? His first step, his first friend, his first boy or girlfriend? How would he change in school, at university, with kids? The future stretched out long and endless, but it felt as though he blinked it would be gone in a second, leaving Greg to stare at his son, a fully grown stranger with children of his own and a minor position in the British Government.
“Gregory?” Mycroft’s voice was soft and muddled with sleep. “Why are you here?”
Greg felt his lips curl into smile, but all his attention remained on the small body in the cot. That Mycroft had slept through Ben’s crying when Greg had taken him to be fed had been fairly solid proof in Greg’s mind that Mycroft wasn’t going to be awake or aware of anything that night. He might have been awake, but Greg wasn’t entirely sure about aware.
“You’re in London, Mycroft. I live here.”
“No, I meant…” Mycroft’s voice trailed off in confusion.
Greg longed to turn his head and look at his sleep-muddled love. He’d only been privileged enough to see Mycroft in this state once before, and it had been delightfully adorable until he’d turned green. Greg could picture the mussed locks with the slightest hint of rebellious curl tumbling free of the iron control, the general bewilderment that only broke free when Mycroft was too tired to realise his mask had slipped, the slightest creases on his cheeks from the pillows. He didn’t look though, keeping his eyes on Ben and silently counting his breaths.
Arms wrapped around him from behind. Greg tried not to forget that exhausted half-asleep Mycroft was much more sweet and affectionate than normal Mycroft while memorising the feeling of his slightly taller love’s body wrapped around him. Leaning on him really, as Mycroft’s weight swayed back and forth with his balance.
“Come to bed.” Mycroft whispered. “It’s late.”
“He’ll need a feed soon.” Greg replied.
Half of Greg’s brain was busy running through the heating instructions and working out how long it would be before Ben wanted more. The other half was yelling at the first half for not immediately taking the invitation and luxuriating in sleeping beside Mycroft again.
“We’ll hear him on the monitor.” Mycroft argued, weight pulling backwards out of the room.
“Go back to sleep.” Greg heard himself say. “I’ll stay and take care of him.”
Stunned internal silence as Greg contemplated whether he’d gone insane.
Mycroft pulled gently again.
“It’s alright. You’re tired, go back to bed.” Greg stayed rooted to the spot, still following every rise and fall of the little chest.
“Gregory, look at me.” While soft, there was more will and intelligence behind Mycroft’s words.
Greg’s head stayed forward, gaze on his son.
The arms disappeared around his body and a hand came down to grip his elbow instead.
“He’ll still be there in the morning, Gregory. He won’t disappear.”
‘Won’t he?’ Greg wanted to ask. ‘Can you promise I won’t blink and he’ll be out of my life before I even realise it?’
The words stayed locked in his mouth.
Mycroft’s spare hand traced Greg’s spine, landing gently in the small of his back. “Come to bed.”
“Promise me.” Once the gates were open, the words gushed out in a tumble. “I can’t do that again, I can’t. He’s so different already, in two weeks, and I can’t… Don’t take him away again. Just… don’t. Promise me.” Greg’s gaze swung to Mycroft breaking free of Ben for the first time. “Promise me.”
Mycroft was as delightfully rumpled as Greg could have hoped. His hair was as messy as it was possible for his short hair to be, cowlicks everywhere, and his face was still slightly squashed on one side. His eyes though were bright, proof that Mycroft had pushed the fatigue aside to try and solve the problem in front of him.
‘Promise me.’ Greg’s eyes pleaded. ‘Promise me you won’t take him away from me, before I let myself love him more than I already do.’
“He will be there in the morning,” Mycroft repeated, “and the morning after, and the morning after that, until you’re well and truly sick of him tramping up and down the stairs in muddy shoes and listening to his music at absurd volumes at entirely uncivilised hours.
“Now come to bed.” Mycroft gently pulled on Greg’s arm.
“He’ll be awake soon.” Greg felt obliged to point out.
“Then we’ll be up too, but until then…” Mycroft steered Greg out of the Nursery and into the master bedroom, leaving both doors open.
“Are you-” Greg began, head craning around to the hallway, though it afforded him no better view of Ben than not having moved would have.
“You can’t spend your life by his cot, Gregory.”
Something in Mycroft’s tone caught Greg’s attention, dragging it back so he actually studied Mycroft’s face. Then smiled.
“That come from Anthea or the doc?” He asked.
Mycroft tilted his head dismissively, as if that didn’t confirm Greg’s suspicions.
“I’ll just ask her.” Greg warned playfully, slightly relieved it wasn’t just him experiencing that strange fearful need to see Ben.
“Dr Koen.” Mycroft harrumphed.
“So not that unusual then?”
“Separation anxiety? No, even if we weren’t in slightly unusual circumstances.”
“Right, right.” Greg took a deep breath, letting their combined scents wash over him. “He will be all right though, yeah? We shouldn’t have him in a cot in here for a bit?”
“I don’t believe the recommended therapy for dependency issues is pandering to them.” Mycroft left off that he would rather die than be so visibly affected by something out of his control.
“Yeah, yeah.” Greg took another breath and turned to the bed. “Sleep then?”
“Until we’re awakened; yes, that is the general plan.”
Satisfied Greg was settled, Mycroft had already walked over and climbed back into the bed. Unsure what the rules were, Greg climbed in the other side, carefully making sure not to touch Mycroft. He couldn’t say he wasn’t disappointed when Mycroft’s only reaction was to switch off the light rather than pull him closer. Still, he was there, Mycroft was there, and next door their son was asleep.
A start, he decided sleepily, a start.
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