Nature and Nurture (8/?)
May. 15th, 2013 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea68Title - Nature and Nurture (8/?)
Author -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - The British Government accidentally clones Sherlock Holmes. Which brings a baby to 221B Baker Street.
Author's Notes - Thank you for being so patient. My sister got married this past weekend, and I was the maid of honor, so last week disintegrated into wedding stuff.
Thank you to hobbitts for permission to use the art in the icon, and to everyone on Twitter who helped name the baby, and to everyone on Tumblr was who was supportive and encouraging while I was going crazy over this, and to arctacuda, who's been reading this over for me and making sure it works and I'm not going crazy.
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven
John’s head was aching by the time he got back to Baker Street. There was Harry to worry about, because there was always Harry to worry about and he always worried about her most fresh after seeing her. And there was Oliver to worry about, because now he had a baby to worry about. And there was Sherlock to worry about, because he was in love with Sherlock, and maybe it was possible Sherlock felt something for him in return, and it was maybe also possible that he wanted to have sex with Sherlock but he wasn’t gay and Sherlock didn’t have sex with people unless he didn’t have sex with people because he also wanted to have sex with John and—
John’s phone buzzed with a text and he was relieved to have a distraction from the inside of his head.
It was Harry. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you. Would love to meet Oliver. xxxxx
John frowned and considered how to respond. He wasn’t sure he could handle another interaction with his sister like the one he’d just had for a while. And he definitely didn’t want to have to cope with it in front of Oliver.
As he was still debating how to respond, another text came in. John at first thought it must be his sister, apologizing more effusively and begging to see Oliver. But it wasn’t. It was Greg Lestrade. Haven’t heard from you in a while and Sherlock’s been ignoring my texts. Everything okay?
John stared at the text uncomprehendingly. It was true that he hadn’t spoken to Greg in a while, that he had never gone so long without speaking to Greg because normally this long without a case would have sent him groveling to Greg to find something to occupy Sherlock’s fevered mind. But John had no idea what Greg was talking about when he said that Sherlock was ignoring his texts.
As he was right outside of 221B, John pocketed his mobile, deciding to leave both texts for another day. The second one especially merited a conversation with Sherlock.
Oliver was sitting on the floor in the middle of the sitting room, and all around him were scattered the most random objects. Some of them were baby toys but more of them were household objects, like the tea towels from the kitchen and a bar of soap from the bathroom and an entire pile of John’s jumpers.
“What are you doing?” John asked, instead of saying anything more normal like “hello.”
Sherlock looked up from where he was holding up a bright blue mug, apparently for Oliver’s perusal. “Oliver is telling me what colors he likes,” said Sherlock. He was also seated on the floor with Oliver, cross-legged, his laptop resting open on his lap. As John watched, he made a couple of notations on it.
“Oh,” said John. “And what’s the verdict so far?”
“He hates green,” Sherlock replied, definitively, holding up something else, a scrap of navy blue cloth.
John blinked at it, then realized, “Hang on, are those my pants?”
Sherlock shrugged. “I needed something this shade of blue.”
“So you went through my things until you found a pair of pants that suited you?”
“No, I knew you had a pair of pants that would suit before I started going through your things.”
“And how did you know that?”
“John.” Sherlock gave him a brief but withering look. “As if this was the first time that I went through your things.”
John decided there was really no point in having a discussion about boundaries. They’d had that discussion multiple times before, and Sherlock never listened, and John never followed through on any consequences for not listening, so it was just a waste of breath, basically. Plus, they were apparently dating without shagging, or something, so John supposed he couldn’t be too angry because he wasn’t entirely sure where the boundaries even were anymore.
“Why have you been ignoring Lestrade’s texts?” John asked, instead.
He had been hoping that this would surprise Sherlock but Sherlock merely said, as he dangled a banana in front of Oliver and took more notes, “So he’s texting you now. Interesting. It’s not as if this murder is so difficult he shouldn’t be able to solve it on his own. It’s laughably simple. It’s possible I’ve been spoiling him.”
“So you’re ignoring his texts.”
“I told you, the murder is boring.”
“You haven’t had a case in weeks. Not a client, not a crime scene, nothing.”
“We’ve been busy, John.” Sherlock indicated Oliver, who was now reaching for the banana.
“It appears he likes yellow,” remarked John, and walked into the kitchen. Which looked like a war zone. John turned around and walked back out. “What happened in the kitchen?”
“Experiment,” answered Sherlock, carelessly, not looking up from his close scrutiny of Oliver’s reaction to the sofa cushion Sherlock was now displaying.
“In?”
“Turns out baby spoons do have a purpose,” Sherlock sniffed, primly.
John laughed, then turned his attention to Oliver, leaning down to sweep him into his arms, because he suddenly felt like he needed him solidly there, reminding him why he was doing all of this. He pressed his nose into the baby-soft down of his curls and said, “Hello, love. Did you have a good day with Daddy?”
“Other things that turn out to have a purpose,” Sherlock continued, setting aside everything on his lap. “Clothing that snaps.”
John smiled and kissed Oliver’s temple.
Sherlock picked himself up with that lightness that he had never lost, and John thought how, when he had first met Sherlock, he had thought that, as he aged, he would stop being so ridiculously nimble, start sitting the right way in chairs and things of that sort. That had never really happened.
“How was coffee with Harry?” Sherlock asked, full of studied nonchalance.
John lifted his eyebrows at him. “Can’t you deduce?” he asked, mildly.
Sherlock looked him over, then said, “Baby socks, however, do not appear to have a purpose. Oliver hates them.”
Changing the subject for him, and John loved him so much that it practically hurt, loved him so much that he did something he’d never done before, which was to take the step to close the short distance that separated them and rest his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder. This strange relationship with Sherlock wasn’t just lacking in sex, it was lacking, for the most part, in all physical contact, and John recognized how starved he was for it, how he’d been ignoring the value in having someone there to hold you when you needed it.
Sherlock seemed shocked by what he was doing, which wasn’t surprising, since John himself was shocked. Sherlock awkwardly picked up an arm and draped it over John’s shoulders, pulling John closer up against him, and John jostled Oliver a bit to allow for it and breathed in Sherlock. John had never before thought how familiar he was with Sherlock’s smell, but he was. It washed over him now, and Harry seemed a million miles away. What did it matter, what they called any of this? It worked for John.
“Alright?” Sherlock asked, uncertainly.
“Yes,” answered John, and meant it.
***
Oliver was terrible at routine. John didn’t find that surprising, because Sherlock was terrible at routine. John tried to institute things like naptimes and bedtimes and meal times, and both Oliver and Sherlock looked at him as if he were mad, and then at each other fondly, as if to say, Isn’t he so amusing? That’s why we keep him around.
Hand-in-hand with his lack of routine was that Oliver had taken to sleeping less and less. John thought that, in some weird way, being around Sherlock seemed to be activating Oliver’s Sherlockian genes. The baby who had napped so frequently in the early days that Sherlock had been despairing had, by this time, transformed into a baby who slept in typical Sherlock snatches. He often fell asleep with no warning, fighting it as long as he could and growing cranky as a result. But there were things that helped with putting a stubborn baby to sleep, chief among them Sherlock’s violin. So, that night, John sprawled on the sofa and looked at the mess Sherlock and Oliver had made of the sitting room and listened to Sherlock’s violin coming from Sherlock’s bedroom.
Eventually Sherlock emerged from the bedroom and re-entered the sitting room.
“Is he sleeping?” asked John.
“Yes. He apparently was tired.” Sherlock still thought Oliver slept too much. “You’re taking up too much of this sofa.” Sherlock nudged at John’s legs.
“You normally take up all of this sofa,” John pointed out, even as he shifted to make some room for Sherlock.
“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. “What are you doing on the sofa at all?”
John glanced over at Sherlock. He had curled up in the opposite corner of the sofa. Their legs were a hopeless tangle in between them. Normal flatmates, John thought, did not sit on sofas together like this. Which just underlined everything Harry had said.
“I had a long day,” said John.
“The next time you have coffee with your sister, I’m going with you.”
John snorted. “You think that will help, will you?”
“Obviously,” said Sherlock, sounding irritated that John doubted that his presence would help all things in all ways.
“She wants to meet Oliver.”
“Of course she does. Didn’t you think she would?”
“I thought…” John considered, then exhaled a puff of breath. “I don’t know what I thought.”
Sherlock said nothing.
John nudged at him with his toes. Another thing a simple flatmate probably wouldn’t have done, because a simple flatmate wouldn’t have had his toes tucked up against his flatmate. “Aren’t you going to tell me what I was thinking?”
“You left me alone with Oliver today,” said Sherlock, instead of answering. “You didn’t even hesitate.”
John was surprised. “Of course I didn’t. Sherlock, you must know that I don’t worry you’d ever do anything to harm the baby.”
“Knowingly,” said Sherlock.
“What?”
“I’d never knowingly do anything to harm him.”
“That’s the most I can hope for,” said John, firmly. “It’s the most anyone can hope for.”
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. “I didn’t text Lestrade back because I couldn’t. If I knew anymore—any more details—anything that might make the murder more interesting…”
John finished Sherlock’s sentence for him. He would have gone to the crime scene. He would have taken Oliver with him. John considered Sherlock, eyes still squeezed shut, looking desperately unhappy. Unhappy with himself, John knew.
“We didn’t ask for a baby,” John began, carefully.
Sherlock opened his eyes immediately, met John’s. “I’m not giving him up,” he said, fiercely.
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” John soothed him. “I was just going to say that we weren’t planning on a baby. Even people who accidentally get pregnant have nine months to get ready. We had a baby dropped on our doorstep, out of the blue. There’ll be adjustment time, Sherlock. We have to find the way to make our life work, all of us together.”
“I don’t want him to feel, not even for a moment, that he isn’t wanted,” said Sherlock, frowning into middle distance, and John wished Sherlock would talk about his childhood, wished he knew more about the mistakes that Sherlock must be trying to correct with Oliver. “The first eighteen months of a child’s life—”
“Sherlock,” John interrupted him, shifting to sit up, to lean closer to him in his conviction. “He’s you. He doesn’t just see, he observes. Do you really think he’s going to observe anything other than us wanting him and loving him?”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, turning his attention fully on him. “He’s going to observe that I spent the entire afternoon distracted because Lestrade had sent me a text about a murder. He’s definitely going to observe that.”
“But he’s you. So he’s probably just going to be miffed that you wasted the afternoon teaching him colors when you could have been solving a crime.”
For a moment, Sherlock continued to look at him, and then he looked away, and it felt a little bit like a victory.
“You should text Lestrade back,” John suggested, into Sherlock’s silence. “Tell him we’ll drop by the crime scene tomorrow. We’ll bring Oliver and introduce him.”
“What if Oliver doesn’t like it?” asked Sherlock, a trace of very faint anxiety evident in his voice. Something no one but John would ever have heard.
John really had no idea if an affinity for crime scenes was encoded in Sherlock’s DNA or if Sherlock had developed it in reaction to something that had happened in his childhood. What he did know was that it was obvious to him that Oliver worshipped Sherlock. If Sherlock liked crime scenes, Oliver would like crime scenes as well, of that John was certain.
But John didn’t want to point out how much Oliver clearly loved Sherlock, because he didn’t want to panic Sherlock any more than he actually was. So he said, “He’s you, Sherlock.” One of Sherlock’s curls was falling over his face. John had the sudden impulse to reach out and tuck it behind Sherlock’s ear. Which was ridiculous and not something a flatmate would do, thought John.
Sherlock saved him from his preoccupation with his hair by saying, “I’m not sure we like the same colors. That’s odd, isn’t it?”
John snorted, looking away from Sherlock to break himself of the spell. “He’s being contrary. That’s not odd at all.”
Sherlock paused. “Are you implying I’m contrary?” He sounded genuinely astonished by this.
“Idiot,” John said, fondly, and closed his eyes.
“I’m not… contrary,” Sherlock sputtered, offended. “What I am is right. All the time.”
“You weren’t right about my sister being a brother,” John pointed out, mildly.
“Well, that was a trick. Her name was a trick.”
“I had no idea that we started calling Harriet ‘Harry’ just so we could trick Sherlock Holmes, once I actually met him.”
“I’m not contrary,” grumbled Sherlock, and John felt him settle into the sofa a bit more comfortably.
John, his eyes still closed, let himself sink into the warmth of contentment.
***
John woke to the baby crying. Not a cry of distress so much as a cry of irritation. John was well-acquainted with Sherlockian irritation. He was well-acquainted with ignoring most Sherlockian irritation. And the baby was with Sherlock, John could hear Sherlock’s voice talking to him, so John decided he could let Sherlock deal with, well, himself. No doubt Sherlock was the source of Oliver’s irritation in the first place.
John closed his eyes and snuggled deeper into the sofa. He was not surprised to find he’d spent the night there. He’d been exhausted, and it was not quite unusual for him to drop off on the sofa and for Sherlock to leave him there rather than wake him. John did the same when it was Sherlock who fell asleep on the sofa. All in all, their sofa was much slept-in.
His mobile buzzed on the coffee table, and John opened his eyes and looked at it and debated whether he wanted to read the text. He thought he most definitely did not want to read the text, but that he probably ought to, so he snaked out a hand from underneath his blanket and snagged his phone to pull over to him.
It was a text from Lestrade.
Seriously, I’m going to send people by to check on you.
John answered it. No need. Things have been more unusual than usual. Will stop by today to explain.
He had just finished composing the text when Sherlock’s bedroom door opened. Sherlock marched into the sitting room, Oliver squirming in his arms and still making discontented noises.
John hit send on his text and said, “Good—”
Sherlock practically dropped the baby on John’s chest. John scrambled to sit up to hold him properly. “He is being stubborn,” Sherlock informed John, sounding personally offended by that.
“Where could he possibly get that from?” asked John, dryly, as Oliver’s thunderous frown turned to unmistakable delight. He cooed a greeting at John, and John kissed the tip of his nose, and Oliver actually giggled.
“Traitor,” mumbled Sherlock, and collapsed into his chair.
John tried to hide his smile but wasn’t sure he succeeded. “You must have done something to upset him,” John told him, as he stood up off the couch with Oliver in his hands.
“His moods are capricious and illogical. They follow no reasonable pattern,” Sherlock sulked, getting up just so he could deposit himself in his preferred sulk spot of the sofa.
“Again,” remarked John, walking into the kitchen with the baby, “can’t imagine where he gets that from.”
“Mycroft’s cloning was clearly wrong,” Sherlock shouted from the sitting room.
The baby babbled loudly in Sherlock’s direction and waved his fists and feet frantically, determined not to lose ground in whatever fight the two of them were having.
John ignored both of them, making breast milk and tea automatically now. He could barely remember anymore the days when breast milk hadn’t been part of his morning routine.
“We have to go see Lestrade today,” John called into the sitting room as he tested the bottle.
“I told you: the case is dull,” replied Sherlock.
“We’re not going to see him because of the case.” John walked back into the sitting room and held out Oliver and the bottle to Sherlock. “Here. Feed him while I make us tea.”
Sherlock sat up enough to take Oliver and settle him with the bottle. Oliver gave him a look that said, I’m going to eat because I’m hungry but this doesn’t mean our prior altercation is forgiven or forgotten. Sherlock gave him a look that said, You’re cute but you’re wrong and I’m right.
John continued, “We’re going to see Lestrade because of Oliver.”
“What does Oliver have to do with Lestrade?” Sherlock asked John, as John went into the kitchen to finish with the tea.
“Oliver is our baby and Lestrade is our friend. That is what they have to do with each other.”
“Lestrade is our friend?”
“Stop being a…prat,” John said.
“A prat?” echoed Sherlock. “Censoring your vocabulary in front of the baby, are you?”
John marched into the kitchen with the teas and put them down firmly. “He threatened to send someone over to check in on us. We owe it to him to tell him we’ve got a baby now, and to do it face-to-face.”
Oliver made a displeased noise. John glanced at him. His eyes had cut over to where John was standing. When John looked up from Oliver, Sherlock was giving him a similarly displeased look. The two clones were clearly standing united once more.
“That’s enough out of both of you,” John said. “Drink up, and then we’re all getting dressed and going on a family outing.”
Oliver and Sherlock exchanged one of their long-suffering looks.
Next Chapter
Author -
earlgreytea68Rating - Teen
Characters - Sherlock, John
Spoilers - Through "The Reichenbach Fall"
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on.
Summary - The British Government accidentally clones Sherlock Holmes. Which brings a baby to 221B Baker Street.
Author's Notes - Thank you for being so patient. My sister got married this past weekend, and I was the maid of honor, so last week disintegrated into wedding stuff.
Thank you to hobbitts for permission to use the art in the icon, and to everyone on Twitter who helped name the baby, and to everyone on Tumblr was who was supportive and encouraging while I was going crazy over this, and to arctacuda, who's been reading this over for me and making sure it works and I'm not going crazy.
Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven
John’s head was aching by the time he got back to Baker Street. There was Harry to worry about, because there was always Harry to worry about and he always worried about her most fresh after seeing her. And there was Oliver to worry about, because now he had a baby to worry about. And there was Sherlock to worry about, because he was in love with Sherlock, and maybe it was possible Sherlock felt something for him in return, and it was maybe also possible that he wanted to have sex with Sherlock but he wasn’t gay and Sherlock didn’t have sex with people unless he didn’t have sex with people because he also wanted to have sex with John and—
John’s phone buzzed with a text and he was relieved to have a distraction from the inside of his head.
It was Harry. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you. Would love to meet Oliver. xxxxx
John frowned and considered how to respond. He wasn’t sure he could handle another interaction with his sister like the one he’d just had for a while. And he definitely didn’t want to have to cope with it in front of Oliver.
As he was still debating how to respond, another text came in. John at first thought it must be his sister, apologizing more effusively and begging to see Oliver. But it wasn’t. It was Greg Lestrade. Haven’t heard from you in a while and Sherlock’s been ignoring my texts. Everything okay?
John stared at the text uncomprehendingly. It was true that he hadn’t spoken to Greg in a while, that he had never gone so long without speaking to Greg because normally this long without a case would have sent him groveling to Greg to find something to occupy Sherlock’s fevered mind. But John had no idea what Greg was talking about when he said that Sherlock was ignoring his texts.
As he was right outside of 221B, John pocketed his mobile, deciding to leave both texts for another day. The second one especially merited a conversation with Sherlock.
Oliver was sitting on the floor in the middle of the sitting room, and all around him were scattered the most random objects. Some of them were baby toys but more of them were household objects, like the tea towels from the kitchen and a bar of soap from the bathroom and an entire pile of John’s jumpers.
“What are you doing?” John asked, instead of saying anything more normal like “hello.”
Sherlock looked up from where he was holding up a bright blue mug, apparently for Oliver’s perusal. “Oliver is telling me what colors he likes,” said Sherlock. He was also seated on the floor with Oliver, cross-legged, his laptop resting open on his lap. As John watched, he made a couple of notations on it.
“Oh,” said John. “And what’s the verdict so far?”
“He hates green,” Sherlock replied, definitively, holding up something else, a scrap of navy blue cloth.
John blinked at it, then realized, “Hang on, are those my pants?”
Sherlock shrugged. “I needed something this shade of blue.”
“So you went through my things until you found a pair of pants that suited you?”
“No, I knew you had a pair of pants that would suit before I started going through your things.”
“And how did you know that?”
“John.” Sherlock gave him a brief but withering look. “As if this was the first time that I went through your things.”
John decided there was really no point in having a discussion about boundaries. They’d had that discussion multiple times before, and Sherlock never listened, and John never followed through on any consequences for not listening, so it was just a waste of breath, basically. Plus, they were apparently dating without shagging, or something, so John supposed he couldn’t be too angry because he wasn’t entirely sure where the boundaries even were anymore.
“Why have you been ignoring Lestrade’s texts?” John asked, instead.
He had been hoping that this would surprise Sherlock but Sherlock merely said, as he dangled a banana in front of Oliver and took more notes, “So he’s texting you now. Interesting. It’s not as if this murder is so difficult he shouldn’t be able to solve it on his own. It’s laughably simple. It’s possible I’ve been spoiling him.”
“So you’re ignoring his texts.”
“I told you, the murder is boring.”
“You haven’t had a case in weeks. Not a client, not a crime scene, nothing.”
“We’ve been busy, John.” Sherlock indicated Oliver, who was now reaching for the banana.
“It appears he likes yellow,” remarked John, and walked into the kitchen. Which looked like a war zone. John turned around and walked back out. “What happened in the kitchen?”
“Experiment,” answered Sherlock, carelessly, not looking up from his close scrutiny of Oliver’s reaction to the sofa cushion Sherlock was now displaying.
“In?”
“Turns out baby spoons do have a purpose,” Sherlock sniffed, primly.
John laughed, then turned his attention to Oliver, leaning down to sweep him into his arms, because he suddenly felt like he needed him solidly there, reminding him why he was doing all of this. He pressed his nose into the baby-soft down of his curls and said, “Hello, love. Did you have a good day with Daddy?”
“Other things that turn out to have a purpose,” Sherlock continued, setting aside everything on his lap. “Clothing that snaps.”
John smiled and kissed Oliver’s temple.
Sherlock picked himself up with that lightness that he had never lost, and John thought how, when he had first met Sherlock, he had thought that, as he aged, he would stop being so ridiculously nimble, start sitting the right way in chairs and things of that sort. That had never really happened.
“How was coffee with Harry?” Sherlock asked, full of studied nonchalance.
John lifted his eyebrows at him. “Can’t you deduce?” he asked, mildly.
Sherlock looked him over, then said, “Baby socks, however, do not appear to have a purpose. Oliver hates them.”
Changing the subject for him, and John loved him so much that it practically hurt, loved him so much that he did something he’d never done before, which was to take the step to close the short distance that separated them and rest his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder. This strange relationship with Sherlock wasn’t just lacking in sex, it was lacking, for the most part, in all physical contact, and John recognized how starved he was for it, how he’d been ignoring the value in having someone there to hold you when you needed it.
Sherlock seemed shocked by what he was doing, which wasn’t surprising, since John himself was shocked. Sherlock awkwardly picked up an arm and draped it over John’s shoulders, pulling John closer up against him, and John jostled Oliver a bit to allow for it and breathed in Sherlock. John had never before thought how familiar he was with Sherlock’s smell, but he was. It washed over him now, and Harry seemed a million miles away. What did it matter, what they called any of this? It worked for John.
“Alright?” Sherlock asked, uncertainly.
“Yes,” answered John, and meant it.
***
Oliver was terrible at routine. John didn’t find that surprising, because Sherlock was terrible at routine. John tried to institute things like naptimes and bedtimes and meal times, and both Oliver and Sherlock looked at him as if he were mad, and then at each other fondly, as if to say, Isn’t he so amusing? That’s why we keep him around.
Hand-in-hand with his lack of routine was that Oliver had taken to sleeping less and less. John thought that, in some weird way, being around Sherlock seemed to be activating Oliver’s Sherlockian genes. The baby who had napped so frequently in the early days that Sherlock had been despairing had, by this time, transformed into a baby who slept in typical Sherlock snatches. He often fell asleep with no warning, fighting it as long as he could and growing cranky as a result. But there were things that helped with putting a stubborn baby to sleep, chief among them Sherlock’s violin. So, that night, John sprawled on the sofa and looked at the mess Sherlock and Oliver had made of the sitting room and listened to Sherlock’s violin coming from Sherlock’s bedroom.
Eventually Sherlock emerged from the bedroom and re-entered the sitting room.
“Is he sleeping?” asked John.
“Yes. He apparently was tired.” Sherlock still thought Oliver slept too much. “You’re taking up too much of this sofa.” Sherlock nudged at John’s legs.
“You normally take up all of this sofa,” John pointed out, even as he shifted to make some room for Sherlock.
“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. “What are you doing on the sofa at all?”
John glanced over at Sherlock. He had curled up in the opposite corner of the sofa. Their legs were a hopeless tangle in between them. Normal flatmates, John thought, did not sit on sofas together like this. Which just underlined everything Harry had said.
“I had a long day,” said John.
“The next time you have coffee with your sister, I’m going with you.”
John snorted. “You think that will help, will you?”
“Obviously,” said Sherlock, sounding irritated that John doubted that his presence would help all things in all ways.
“She wants to meet Oliver.”
“Of course she does. Didn’t you think she would?”
“I thought…” John considered, then exhaled a puff of breath. “I don’t know what I thought.”
Sherlock said nothing.
John nudged at him with his toes. Another thing a simple flatmate probably wouldn’t have done, because a simple flatmate wouldn’t have had his toes tucked up against his flatmate. “Aren’t you going to tell me what I was thinking?”
“You left me alone with Oliver today,” said Sherlock, instead of answering. “You didn’t even hesitate.”
John was surprised. “Of course I didn’t. Sherlock, you must know that I don’t worry you’d ever do anything to harm the baby.”
“Knowingly,” said Sherlock.
“What?”
“I’d never knowingly do anything to harm him.”
“That’s the most I can hope for,” said John, firmly. “It’s the most anyone can hope for.”
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. “I didn’t text Lestrade back because I couldn’t. If I knew anymore—any more details—anything that might make the murder more interesting…”
John finished Sherlock’s sentence for him. He would have gone to the crime scene. He would have taken Oliver with him. John considered Sherlock, eyes still squeezed shut, looking desperately unhappy. Unhappy with himself, John knew.
“We didn’t ask for a baby,” John began, carefully.
Sherlock opened his eyes immediately, met John’s. “I’m not giving him up,” he said, fiercely.
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” John soothed him. “I was just going to say that we weren’t planning on a baby. Even people who accidentally get pregnant have nine months to get ready. We had a baby dropped on our doorstep, out of the blue. There’ll be adjustment time, Sherlock. We have to find the way to make our life work, all of us together.”
“I don’t want him to feel, not even for a moment, that he isn’t wanted,” said Sherlock, frowning into middle distance, and John wished Sherlock would talk about his childhood, wished he knew more about the mistakes that Sherlock must be trying to correct with Oliver. “The first eighteen months of a child’s life—”
“Sherlock,” John interrupted him, shifting to sit up, to lean closer to him in his conviction. “He’s you. He doesn’t just see, he observes. Do you really think he’s going to observe anything other than us wanting him and loving him?”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, turning his attention fully on him. “He’s going to observe that I spent the entire afternoon distracted because Lestrade had sent me a text about a murder. He’s definitely going to observe that.”
“But he’s you. So he’s probably just going to be miffed that you wasted the afternoon teaching him colors when you could have been solving a crime.”
For a moment, Sherlock continued to look at him, and then he looked away, and it felt a little bit like a victory.
“You should text Lestrade back,” John suggested, into Sherlock’s silence. “Tell him we’ll drop by the crime scene tomorrow. We’ll bring Oliver and introduce him.”
“What if Oliver doesn’t like it?” asked Sherlock, a trace of very faint anxiety evident in his voice. Something no one but John would ever have heard.
John really had no idea if an affinity for crime scenes was encoded in Sherlock’s DNA or if Sherlock had developed it in reaction to something that had happened in his childhood. What he did know was that it was obvious to him that Oliver worshipped Sherlock. If Sherlock liked crime scenes, Oliver would like crime scenes as well, of that John was certain.
But John didn’t want to point out how much Oliver clearly loved Sherlock, because he didn’t want to panic Sherlock any more than he actually was. So he said, “He’s you, Sherlock.” One of Sherlock’s curls was falling over his face. John had the sudden impulse to reach out and tuck it behind Sherlock’s ear. Which was ridiculous and not something a flatmate would do, thought John.
Sherlock saved him from his preoccupation with his hair by saying, “I’m not sure we like the same colors. That’s odd, isn’t it?”
John snorted, looking away from Sherlock to break himself of the spell. “He’s being contrary. That’s not odd at all.”
Sherlock paused. “Are you implying I’m contrary?” He sounded genuinely astonished by this.
“Idiot,” John said, fondly, and closed his eyes.
“I’m not… contrary,” Sherlock sputtered, offended. “What I am is right. All the time.”
“You weren’t right about my sister being a brother,” John pointed out, mildly.
“Well, that was a trick. Her name was a trick.”
“I had no idea that we started calling Harriet ‘Harry’ just so we could trick Sherlock Holmes, once I actually met him.”
“I’m not contrary,” grumbled Sherlock, and John felt him settle into the sofa a bit more comfortably.
John, his eyes still closed, let himself sink into the warmth of contentment.
***
John woke to the baby crying. Not a cry of distress so much as a cry of irritation. John was well-acquainted with Sherlockian irritation. He was well-acquainted with ignoring most Sherlockian irritation. And the baby was with Sherlock, John could hear Sherlock’s voice talking to him, so John decided he could let Sherlock deal with, well, himself. No doubt Sherlock was the source of Oliver’s irritation in the first place.
John closed his eyes and snuggled deeper into the sofa. He was not surprised to find he’d spent the night there. He’d been exhausted, and it was not quite unusual for him to drop off on the sofa and for Sherlock to leave him there rather than wake him. John did the same when it was Sherlock who fell asleep on the sofa. All in all, their sofa was much slept-in.
His mobile buzzed on the coffee table, and John opened his eyes and looked at it and debated whether he wanted to read the text. He thought he most definitely did not want to read the text, but that he probably ought to, so he snaked out a hand from underneath his blanket and snagged his phone to pull over to him.
It was a text from Lestrade.
Seriously, I’m going to send people by to check on you.
John answered it. No need. Things have been more unusual than usual. Will stop by today to explain.
He had just finished composing the text when Sherlock’s bedroom door opened. Sherlock marched into the sitting room, Oliver squirming in his arms and still making discontented noises.
John hit send on his text and said, “Good—”
Sherlock practically dropped the baby on John’s chest. John scrambled to sit up to hold him properly. “He is being stubborn,” Sherlock informed John, sounding personally offended by that.
“Where could he possibly get that from?” asked John, dryly, as Oliver’s thunderous frown turned to unmistakable delight. He cooed a greeting at John, and John kissed the tip of his nose, and Oliver actually giggled.
“Traitor,” mumbled Sherlock, and collapsed into his chair.
John tried to hide his smile but wasn’t sure he succeeded. “You must have done something to upset him,” John told him, as he stood up off the couch with Oliver in his hands.
“His moods are capricious and illogical. They follow no reasonable pattern,” Sherlock sulked, getting up just so he could deposit himself in his preferred sulk spot of the sofa.
“Again,” remarked John, walking into the kitchen with the baby, “can’t imagine where he gets that from.”
“Mycroft’s cloning was clearly wrong,” Sherlock shouted from the sitting room.
The baby babbled loudly in Sherlock’s direction and waved his fists and feet frantically, determined not to lose ground in whatever fight the two of them were having.
John ignored both of them, making breast milk and tea automatically now. He could barely remember anymore the days when breast milk hadn’t been part of his morning routine.
“We have to go see Lestrade today,” John called into the sitting room as he tested the bottle.
“I told you: the case is dull,” replied Sherlock.
“We’re not going to see him because of the case.” John walked back into the sitting room and held out Oliver and the bottle to Sherlock. “Here. Feed him while I make us tea.”
Sherlock sat up enough to take Oliver and settle him with the bottle. Oliver gave him a look that said, I’m going to eat because I’m hungry but this doesn’t mean our prior altercation is forgiven or forgotten. Sherlock gave him a look that said, You’re cute but you’re wrong and I’m right.
John continued, “We’re going to see Lestrade because of Oliver.”
“What does Oliver have to do with Lestrade?” Sherlock asked John, as John went into the kitchen to finish with the tea.
“Oliver is our baby and Lestrade is our friend. That is what they have to do with each other.”
“Lestrade is our friend?”
“Stop being a…prat,” John said.
“A prat?” echoed Sherlock. “Censoring your vocabulary in front of the baby, are you?”
John marched into the kitchen with the teas and put them down firmly. “He threatened to send someone over to check in on us. We owe it to him to tell him we’ve got a baby now, and to do it face-to-face.”
Oliver made a displeased noise. John glanced at him. His eyes had cut over to where John was standing. When John looked up from Oliver, Sherlock was giving him a similarly displeased look. The two clones were clearly standing united once more.
“That’s enough out of both of you,” John said. “Drink up, and then we’re all getting dressed and going on a family outing.”
Oliver and Sherlock exchanged one of their long-suffering looks.
Next Chapter
