Fic for truly_bohemian: Bees

[holmesticemods]

Title: Bees
Recipient: truly_bohemian
Author: literatewench
Characters/Pairings: Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock/John
Rating: K
Warnings: Major Character Death
Summary: A couple decades after the fall and the return, Sherlock and John finally decide to get out of London. Step 1: Find a house. With thanks to beta swissmiss.



***********


Bees



John is getting coffee. The vending machine wants him to swipe his palmprint, but his palms are all callous, gnarled as hard as tree roots from decades of gripping things like scalpels and fire escape railings and ancient Malaysian stone figurines. And the machine keeps beeping and saying it can’t understand, and there doesn’t look to be any place to swipe his credit stick, and really hospital coffee might be better than it was decades ago but it’s not worth this sort of hassle and he smacks the machine. It beeps at him one last time in a chiding manner and he flips it off just as a guard comes around the corner. John glares at the machine, then at the guard, and stumps away.

It takes ten extra minutes to get the coffee from the cafe outside the hospital entrance. So when he gets back and sees Sherlock is sitting beside Mrs Hudson’s bed, holding her hand, John stops in the doorway for a second. Just to catch his breath.

Sherlock’s salt and pepper hair is tumbled down in curls that women still, even today, envy. His head is bent low over the frail woman with the papery skin in the bed. He’s holding her hand, his voice a low murmur John can only catch bits and pieces of. She’s smiling up at him. Her eyes are the blue of clouds, surrounded by the pink edging of age, the lace of capillaries tracing themselves on the lids. Her hands are the delicate bones of birds covered in skin as thin as bleached, dried leaves; she touches his cheek gently. He tips his head to rest against her touch, and she smiles.

John steps back outside and sits on the bench by the nurse’s station.

Sherlock comes out about ten minutes later. Sits beside him on the bench. His face is drawn and thoughtful. Time has lent his nose more dignity than it once had, and his jawline is not quite as firm as when they were young; there are the faintest hints of jowls, and deep lines bracket his mouth. John hands him a cup of coffee. It is still, thanks to the cup, hot enough to be worthwhile. Sherlock simply holds it.

John stands. His turn now.

He doesn’t spend as long as Sherlock. Less to say, really. He just smiles at her, and she smiles at him and holds his hands and closes her eyes and falls asleep. He watches her breathe a bit. They’ve long since said everything, John and Mrs Hudson. They were never as bad at talking as Sherlock was. Never as bad at admitting the future.

When he comes out Sherlock is gone. He’s not actually surprised. He heads for the roof; it’s where the man always goes in distress, like a cat. Aim for the high ground. The fire alarm on the roof door has been disabled with a disposable credit stick, a bit of blu-tac and what looks like an earring. John stumps out over the roof, sniffing along the trail of smoke; there, looking out over the city. It no longer bothers John, the height. Too many years past for that. He stands next to Sherlock, who is holding the cigarette while it burns. John looks at it. The filter end isn’t damp; he lit it but hasn’t sucked on it. It’s one of the real ones, too, the paper brittle and yellow; Sherlock stashed away a good couple cartons, when the full ban finally went into effect.

Burning a memorial, then, John thinks. She’s not dead yet but oh, they both know it’s coming. John looks out over the city and stands so his shoulder is pushed against Sherlock. And if Sherlock dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it with his foot and then stuck his hand in a pocket, and if that pocket was John’s instead of his own and they twined their fingers together inside the cramped space and held hands, well. It was dark, and the roof was empty, and there was no one to notice the tears.


*** *** ***


It’s three months before there’s a funeral. Remember, remember, John thinks, as the fireworks go off all over the country that night, and he stands by the window and sobs, his solid body thicker and harder now than it was in days past, with a little gut to remember tea and scones and roasts on Sunday. Sherlock plays something unbearable on the violin, his gaze on John. His eyes are dry now but the notes drip like rain from the eaves, from the leaves in the park onto the carpet. They collect there and in John’s throat, in his chest. He plays for hours, long after John’s sat down and closed his eyes. In the end his arms tremble and fail him, and he nearly drops the violin. He comes to sit beside John. John tells stories, then, things Sherlock never knew about Mrs Hudson. Sherlock tells him about Florida.

They decide to leave London the next month.


***



0700

"It's snowing," John says, trying to find a tone of voice which will convey his eminent rationality. His patience. His bloody horror at the concept of going out, right now, in a rented vehicle on which the maintenance schedule has been dubiously kept, over twisting, narrow, unlit back roads in a countryside neither of them is terribly familiar with. Roads possibly already occupied by sheep, which will match the snow in color but which have vastly more solidity when you hit them.

Sherlock is winding his scarf around his neck. He grins at John with delight. John stares back, baffled, and Sherlock sniffs imperiously as the grin vanishes. "Of course it is," he replies, in the tone which conveys precisely how long-suffering he's being. John scowls, Sherlock rolls his eyes. "It's obvious. How else are we going to know the disadvantages of a house unless we see it during the worst possible conditions? Do you know how rarely it properly snows, this far south?" Sherlock frowns. "I had to do a significant amount of research to choose the most suitable week for this expedition. Weather systems are highly fluid and quite volatile; it took ages." He looks smug at his success.

"You mean you predicted this snow three weeks out, and scheduled not to avoid it but to be here right in the middle of it?" John is stuck somewhere between sceptical, admiring, and horrified. Sherlock sniffs, then picks up the present he bought for John last year, a very thick sheepskin jacket that could keep him warm for weeks in a Siberian winter, and throws it at John. It lands in John's lap. The light dawns.

"You've been planning this. For over a year," John says in shock, and Sherlock's lips purse. "The jacket, the boots, the lectures on why I need to learn to drive, the sudden interest in watching Midsomer Murders?" Sherlock is looking quite smug. Again. Twice in one conversation. John stares in something very much like, but not quite, amazement. Then another light dawns, and John's expression changes.

Sherlock's gaze immediately starts to look a bit wary, and he sidles towards the door. John pops to a stand like a jack-in-the-box and tugs on the jacket. He's already wearing his boots - the floor was cold - and he stomps his feet hard into them to settle them properly. And to see how Sherlock reacts. There's nothing so obvious as a guilty glance, but the tightening of the muscles around his eyes is a tell.

"The boots," John says significantly, and Sherlock vanishes into the hallway of the bed and breakfast they're staying at. John sighs and grabs for his hat and gloves. It's not like Sherlock can go anywhere, really; there's noplace to go. And John is a patient, patient man.


***


0800

Sherlock drives. John has never quite gotten used to the absolute change in Sherlock's affect when he gets behind the wheel of a vehicle. Gone is the devil-may-care, in a hurry madman; gone are the jittering hands and rapid changes in attention. He becomes focused, cautious, attentive; his eyes flick between mirrors and John can stare at his profile as much as he wants without fear of notice. Sherlock will barely do more than smirk in his direction. It's no good trying to have a conversation, either; Sherlock won't pull his attention from the road, no matter what they discuss. It's almost like talking to a normal person.

After the first time John experienced Sherlock’s driving on the way up to Baskerville, John asked about it. They sat at the table in the cozy in with tea and sandwiches. The sandwiches were a good thing in John’s estimation; Sherlock's response on common causes of death (non-homicide) and human perception of risk took nearly two hours, and included sketches on napkins, the salt shakers and glasses being used as place markers, and John nearly getting stabbed in the eye with a wildly waving pen. John looked up the statistics later; Sherlock was, of course, right. Not that he needed to check, really. He'd done his stint in the ER.

He finds it soothing to be a passenger while Sherlock drove. No one else in the world, with the possible exception of rally car drivers, puts such focused attention into the simple act of driving. John would bet that he was safer seated in the passenger seat of a vehicle Sherlock controlled than he was in his own living room. (Not much of a stretch, really, considering the things their living room had been host to over the years.)

None of this meant that he is completely sanguine about sitting in that seat while they drive through the snow to look at a house in the middle of the woods in the middle of winter, though.

It doesn’t take them long to get to the first location; the inside of the estate car they’ve rented is barely warmer than the outside air. The sign he reads out the window through the snow in the reflected light from the headlamps does not make the trip seem any more sane. "Really, Sherlock?" he says in dismay. By the dashboard lights, he can see Sherlock's mouth twitch. John exhales noisily, watching as his breath starts to fog in the cold air. He sticks his hands under his armpits and glares. There's no way on earth he'll agree to live in a town named St. John's.


***


0830

The estate agent meets them there. He greets the two potential buyers as Mr Sigerson and Mr Sauer. John prides himself on not reacting to the names. Much. The glare he gives Sherlock behind the agent's back is met with raised eyebrows; although he can clearly see the reference to his gun, the why of it eludes him. He promises himself a full explanation from Sherlock. Later, though. He’s learned never to insist right in front of whoever they’re decieving.

The house is a disaster, anyway. The roof leaks. Sherlock looks smug yet again when they get back out to the vehicle. "Worst possible scenario, John," he says, and it's John's turn to roll his eyes. Three smugs in one day? Surely there are limits. John forgets to ask about the names.


***


0930

The next house involves a completely different estate agent in a place called Burnt Oak, near Piping Wood. She greets them as Mr Johnson and Mr Boswell, and John determines not to forget the issue with the names this time. He likes the house; Sherlock scowls. John pokes his head under the sink and backs out sneezing, face set in dismay. They leave.

"Black mold," John says, when they are driving again. "Which we could have seen at any time of year," he adds, derailing the incipient expression. Instead, he gets a mild pout and sniff.

He forgets the names. Again.


***


1030

The cottage near Beechen Wood is lovely. The very young estate agent greets them as Mr Pendragon and Mr Wyllt, and John loses it. He grabs Sherlock's arm and drags him off to the side.

"Arthur and Merlin, really? What the hell is this all about, anyways?"
"John, we're retiring. We won't be fighting crime anymore."
"Yes, and what on earth has that to do with giving the estate agents false names? And bad ones, at that."
"I thought they were good."
"Sherlock. Mycroft. Sherringford. Gostbridge. Clembourne. Ashpont. Dalbwych."
"All quite venerable names, with a great deal of history.“
“It’s the twenty-first century, Sherlock. Names like those were last seen in the 15th century.”
“Your point being?"
"It's not your fault, but your judgment with regards to inconspicuous psuedonyms is ever so slightly suspect."
"Those are perfectly good names. And it’s not like we need to be Smith and Jones. Who would ever believe me as a Smith? Or a Jones?”
"Fair point, that. Still. They sound like randomly generated fake map references. From one of Mycroft's spy-training scenarios."
"Mmm. He does sometimes use the family registry when designing the incidents."
"That explains rather a lot, actually."

There is a long pause. Several meters away, the estate agent seems torn between impatience and wild curiosity. John blinks and returns his attention to Sherlock.
"You still haven't explained."
"It's obvious!"
"It really isn't."
"We're retiring, John! We're going to get slow and creaky. Slower and creakier. Our reflexes are only going to get worse, and when Milverton or Peter or Woodley get out, they could come looking. With the element of surprise. If we're just in the phone book, where everyone can find us, under our real names, then - "
"Wait, wait, stop. So you've been assuming that retiring means what, assuming different identities?"
"Well, of course."
"…"
"You mean you haven't?"
"No, Sherlock, I haven't."
"Then… what on earth did you think we were going to do when our enemies came after us? We can't really live in a house surrounded by booby traps. It would cause problems with the post. And if either of us began to lose our memory we could conceivably trap ourselves, and not remember how to get out, and starve to death on our own property, and -"
"Sherlock."
"Yes?"
"I mostly planned on shooting them and calling the police."
"But John - "
"They'll be old too, Sherlock."
"…oh."

They tramp back over to the estate agent. John smiles the determined smile of someone with an unpleasant job to do.
"I'm really terribly sorry for the thing with the names. You see, he's gotten rather - "
"What thing with the names?"
John gapes for just a moment, torn between annoyance at being interrupted and surprise at the question. "Um. Pendragon and Wyllt?" The estate agent blinks at John. John closes his gaping mouth and blinks back. "Right. Umm, never mind then. Right. Carry on?"
Sherlock looks superior. It’s a bit like smug, John thinks, only with some God complex added.

It ought to have been a decent house; and structurally, it was. A bit close to the town for Sherlock’s tastes, but still, private enough – with one exception. What they hadn't been able to see scouting the area online was the overgrown footpath that lead from the local playing field right past the window. There are beer cans in the shrubbery. Sherlock eyes them as though he wants to fingerprint them; John smiles at the homeowner and estate agent, who are standing side by side in the doorway, and grabs Sherlock's arm to drag him away.

"It would have worked out," Sherlock says.
"No, we are not altering the social structure of the entire neighborhood to suit ourselves before we even move in," John replies.
"But…"
"No fights with footballers, Sherlock," John replies firmly.
Sherlock sulks.


***


1130

They stop for tea in a little place quite full of things with flowers on them, and check their mobiles. Lestrade is complaining about slugs in his roses. Mycroft's pseudonym account is complaining about his live-in nurse’s pseudonym. Molly is off in Moscow lecturing on determining rates of putrefaction in the varied conditions found during spring weather after a particularly long period of cold-weather desiccation. Sherlock hums delightedly at her status post, and John sighs fondly. Some things never change.


***


1230

John peers at the side road as they drive past. "A brick factory," he says, surprised. Sherlock nods.

"There's a dairy up the road," Sherlock says, and there's an odd note in his voice. John peers at him, concerned, then again at the map. He inhales.

"No," he says. He sits, tense, silent after that one word.

Sherlock turns the car around in a nearby lane.

They don't bother calling the homeowner of the cottage in West Wood to cancel.


***


1330

"There are an awful lot of woods here," John comments after a while. After the last, he’s been checking the map more closely.
"Mmmm," Sherlock responds. Midwinter, the sun at this time of day is as high as it’ll get, but the day is still gusty and grey. The snow is still falling; he keeps his eyes on the road.
"Selwyns Wood, Witlands Wood, Oxpasture Wood, Baker's Common Wood… "
"Mmm."
"Badgers, too. Badger's Rest, Little Badger's… We could take up badger watching."
"Mmmmm."
"Go out at night with a thermos and some night vision specs, watch them poke their noses out of their burrows."
"Mmph."
"Guess not then. Oh my. That's a big house. And they have a tennis court."
"Mmmmmm."
"Can we even afford this neighborhood?"
"Mmmm."
"I'll take that as a no."


***


1430

"Three more then," Sherlock says. John can't help but yawn. They've been all day on these little country roads, as twisting as London city streets but with far fewer people crammed in per mile. Although Sherlock's been driving, John's the one who has gotten tired. Sitting around bumping along for hours hasn't exactly been ideal for the arthritis in his left ankle and his right knee. He watches out the window; this road is narrow, but paved. The bracken and ferns under the bare trees are covered in a light layer of snow. They cross a stream, black against the white, and he sees stepping stones a bit off the road, and traces of a path.

They don't quite leave the woods for this one; there's a field out front, but the cottage is under the eaves of the wood. The estate agent's car is there already, black tyre tracks on the ground. She gets out to greet them, a plump older woman with carefully done hair who smells like powder. She holds out a professional hand with manicured fingernails and smiles at them. "Mr. Peel and Mr. Vidocq? Hello!" John smiles tightly and shakes her hand. Sherlock huffs, softly, his breath steaming in the cold. They all turn and stare at the little building they've come to see.

The cottage before them is small, and brick, and the windows have rippled glass. The drive is gravel and the chimney has smoke coming out of it, scenting the dim winter afternoon air. The door is wood, and solid. The roof tiles are red clay. Beside the door, a massive shrub rattles its remaining brown leaves in the wind.

Sherlock paces off to the left, slowly, circling through the grass, leaving tracks. John stands there for a bit, looking, seeing other seasons; then he walks the opposite way, around the right, studying the walls, the windows. They meet at the back, and stand beside each other just looking, then continue around on their paths and meet at the front again.

"Windows are good," John says mildly.
"Eaves don't seem rotted," Sherlock responds. John nods, stomps his feet to warm them, and steps towards the front door.
"There's a nice solid shed," John adds. "Big, too."
Sherlock nods.
They head inside.

Two bedrooms, one quite small living room, one small kitchen, one bath. There's not even as much room as at Baker Street. No garage. There's very little in the house, just a few things left over from the previous occupants - cleaning supplies, a couple half-packed boxes. There’s rose-coloured carpet on the floor of the kitchen; some bits aren’t particularly clean. John cringes. One end is loose, under the cupboards. He bends, tugs it up a little; the floor underneath is solid, if not pretty. He stands. Fixable, his mind says.

"The previous owner was a pair of pensioners," the estate agent says helpfully. "Lizzy and Maggie, quite lovely ladies. No pets for ages, they'd lived here since the 80’s. Come down from London. They were nurses, worked at the local hospital - the one just down the road - until they retired, oh, decades ago now. I remember when I broke my wrist, Lizzie was the nurse who helped set it." She smiles, professional for her possible buyers, slightly wistful for the memory. "Maggie died back a few years now and we all knew Lizzie wouldn't be far behind, but she held on a bit - wanted to get the house in order, she said. It was just this past summer she broke her hip. They put her in a home, and she just - pined away."

Sherlock has his head stuck through a door in the kitchen. "There's room at the bottom, we could modify the stairs," he says, his voice echoing up oddly; basement then, John thinks. He walks past Sherlock, patting him gently on the back as he goes by. Sherlock pulls his head out, looks at John. "Change the angle of descent; wider treads, some non-slip surfacing, better handrails." He's making a list in his head. John puts two and two together; this was where the unseen Lizzie fell. John snorts. Trust Sherlock. It’s not a crime scene, no one died, but the principle seems the same.

John takes a moment to be profoundly grateful that Sherlock never had the idea to choose a house based on a previous history of gruesome murder. Or if he did, he never followed through. After that silent contemplation in the empty hallway, he moves to check the rest of the place.

He stands in the bedroom. It’s not enormous, but it’ll do. (Standing in Ikea, glaring at the cost of twin beds after his own finally gave up the ghost. Sherlock’s was some bespoke Rennie Mackintosh sleigh-style thing and would outlast the apocalypse, but John had been sleeping on the leftovers from Mrs Hudson’s previous tenant, and it had never been in good nick. Sherlock had been standing there, muttering about the tensile strength of the flexible curtain hanging systems and how he’d have to find different sorts of wall to screw them into to find their load-bearing capacity, and halfway through his monologue he’d said, “Don’t bother, John, we’re moving soon anyways. We can just share mine, it’s more than large enough.” And John had nothing to say.

Later he mentioned privacy, and Sherlock had derisively shot down that notion. They’d known each other far too long, the tall man said, looking down his nose with imperial disdain, for mere mortal notions like the aftereffects of sprouts on an older man’s digestion. John wasn’t sure. That evening Sherlock disassembled John’s bed and threw out the parts. John moved down into Sherlock’s room that night, and they muddled along, feet stuck up next to each other under the blankets because Sherlock slept at an angle and would not change his habits this late in life, John flat on his back and snoring lightly. What with John sleeping less and Sherlock sleeping more, these days they were almost on the same normal human schedule.)

The room is small, but large enough. The bed will fit, and the dresser, and there’s even a door which looks to be a closet. He opens the door and pulls the chain; just a bare bulb. "You're going to need to get rid of some of those clothes," he calls in a mild voice. "The closet's nothing much to speak of." Sherlock, out in the hall peering behind the heating pipes, only flips a hand. John tucks his own hands into his pockets, walks back into the living room. Looks around.

It'll be small. Less to clean, and no body parts to be had out here; no body parts necessary, without murders to solve. He pictures a little telly on one wall near the fireplace, bookshelves on the others covered in the debris of their life and whatever passion Sherlock comes up with to fill his time. Walking down to the local for a pint. A small veggie patch. Finding out where that path through the woods goes. Getting a telescope, maybe, to look at the stars on nights where the clouds have decided to leave them a clear shot.

Sherlock reaches up and grabs the ring that leads to the attic. Pulls, and dust comes down. He eyes the lack of ladder consideringly, then jumps, catching the edge of the opening. John steps forward automatically and grabs his legs, lifting so Sherlock can pull himself up and have a look around. A twitch in one calf and John lets go, steps back. Sherlock drops to the ground; John winces in sympathy. His own knees don't like even the smallest impacts anymore, but Sherlock refuses to accept it just yet. Soon enough for that, John thinks with some satisfaction. They're only in their fifties. Late fifties on his part, but still.

It's a little young to properly retire, really. They both know it. But decades of abusing their bodies - pounding down streets, over roofs, fighting - have left too many scars. Too many aches and pains and broken bones, too many damaged joints and hospital stays. They're fit, it's true, but everything hurts more now. Is slower to heal. The risks have gotten larger, and the physical side more difficult. There are fewer chases, more long evenings in. Lestrade retired two winters ago with thirty years on the force. He said it had nothing to do with the divorce, but Molly began lecturing abroad around the same time, so. The Met just never seemed the same without them.

It’s been a multitude of things, collecting one on top of the other. A hundred large and small changes in London, a hundred greater or lesser changes in themselves. Crime, Sherlock says, has become even more boring as the years go by. Nothing has truly seemed to challenge him for ages; John thinks that’s simply experience, accumulated over the course of their lives, that makes even the bizarre seem common. For his part, medicine’s challenges have long passed. For ages now it’s been the old comfort of making the world a little better that kept him going.

And John, well. He doesn’t need the adrenaline as much, these days. He’s mellowed in his age. The thing is, what exactly will Sherlock be doing? He’s picked up and dropped dozens of hobbies, interests. None have brought that spark to his eyes. He’s bored, restless. Hunting down a house has kept him occupied, but John’s known for ages that finding a place to live would only be a temporary reprieve.

Sherlock is standing there, brushing his hands off, looking thoughtful. John’s expression turns enquiring. Sherlock draws his eyebrows down, looks at John with pale keen eyes, and his lips press together in something like delight.

“There are bees in the attic,” he says in a tone of voice John knows. One that gives him a thrill up his spine even when the topic is an infestation of something venomous. John thinks:
Oh. Well.
Now I know what he’ll be doing with retirement, then.



*** *** ***


Two months pass.

The bed fits into the room quite nicely. John is putting it together when he hears Sherlock cursing.

Sherlock storms into the room. “John!” he roars. He’s holding his favorite jacket, posh enough to wear to the opera. It was a lovely thing; now it’s missing a sleeve and smells vaguely of linseed oil. John blinks up at him, wipes the sweat from his forehead. Smiles with broad, beaming good cheer.

“Ah!” John says brightly. “You found it then.” Sherlock sputters. John grins. “Could be worse,” he says with mocking compassion. “Could have been acid on your absolute favorite boots.” Sherlock comes to a complete halt, his face horrified.

“John, they were ancient. You would have gotten trenchfoot. There was almost no sole left, they leaked on the inside seam of the left toe, they were - “

“My absolute favorite boots, the last proper military pair I had, and quite comfortable indeed. And that jacket didn’t fit you across the shoulders anymore,” John says. His tone brooks no argument.

Sherlock retreats.

The epic sulk is over by dinner, which involves scrambled eggs and toast, as they have nothing else in the house. They eat with ravenous appetites whilst sitting on the floor in front of some boxes, the telly propped in a corner and the London news seeming incredibly distant to their new world.

John sits back against the edge of the couch. The cushions are covered in books, rendering it unusable at the moment. He stares up at the ceiling. It's damp outside, and chill, but spring will come soon enough.

“Bees,” he says, and Sherlock leans his own head back, his posture considerably more sprawling.

“Bees,” Sherlock replies, and there’s a look of anticipation on his face that John has always loved.

It’s not retirement, he decides. He’s just changed careers is all.

He wonders if he can blog about the bees.



***********

Comments

[yaycoffee.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely! I love this look at a very realisticly older Sherlock and John. So very well done--quiet and funny and sweet. And their reactions to Mrs Hudson's passing was so heartfelt and heartbreaking. I just really liked this story a whole lot.

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

Lovely and adorable! I love how completely in concert they are while checking out the houses and how they've hit that stage where conversations don't need to have as many words in them as they used to. I'm glad to find out what the problem with the boots was! Sherlock's argument against booby-trapping the house made me giggle, as did John's response. And, of course, bees.

[bk7brokemybrain.livejournal.com]

Love it. So funny how Sherlock is way overthinking the retirement psuedonym thing, while John was merely expecting to have to shoot any revenge-seeking intruders, lol. I also love Sherlock, the almost normal human being when he drives. It's all good. :)

[cathedralcarver.livejournal.com]

Very lyrical and lovely. I'm a total sucker for beautiful Old Man fic and this one certainly fits the bill. So well done.

[woldy]

Very nice, from the house hunting (oh god, I can see Sherlock doing this) to the stair modification and bees.

[chapbook.livejournal.com]

Excellent work. I love how you structured this and the little details like the changes in technology, Mrs. Hudson's appearance, Sherlock's approach to driving, and the names Sherlock came up with. The scene in which Sherlock and John mourn Mrs. Hudson's passing is particularly wonderful (that image of Sherlock's violin doing the weeping for the two of them!).

[mildred-bobbin.livejournal.com]

Oh lovely, very fun. I particularly loved all the little details about their increasing age and their friends too.

[(Anonymous)]

I want to hug the author. This is so fucking adorable I can't even stand it.

[venturous1.livejournal.com]

Watching These two extraordinary men grappling with the mundane, yet poignant, search for retirement destination is a delight.

[goddessdster.livejournal.com]

How much do I love a good retirement fic? A lot, that's how much. Thank you for writing such a lovely piece that has all the trappings: Sherlock and John growing older, accepting change, moving forward together. Their characters were artfully accurate. I can see this as canon.
Wonderful!

[poetic-self.livejournal.com]

Oh this is what I'd want for them. How great a story and how finely written, as well :) Thank you for sharing!

[saki101.livejournal.com]

There is no doubt in my mind that John can blog about the bees, and a bit about home refurbishment and the path in the woods and possibly a solved mystery or two, even if they aren't murders.

This was beautiful and reflective and I loved the part about the estate agent not catching the names at all. I also loved the part about their staying in London until Mrs Hudson died and 221B couldn't be what it had been for so long. The scene by the hospital bed was so tender and John's issues with automation a good counterpoint.

Lovely story.

[opaljade.livejournal.com]

Wonderful story! So very well portrayed and written. I could see the entire fic clearly in my mind. Thanks for sharing!

[sra-danvers.livejournal.com]

"and if that pocket was John’s instead of his own and they twined their fingers together inside the cramped space and held hands, well. It was dark, and the roof was empty, and there was no one to notice the tears." Aw, that broke my heart. So sweet and sad. I loved them older, so IC ^^