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holmesticeTitle: The Scientific Method of Biological Clocks
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koshartu
Author:billiethepoet
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Harry/OFC
Word Count: 9700ish
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Family planning decisions
Summary: Sometimes you have to see something to know that you want it.
Author’s Note: koshartu, I went a little off your prompt and instead of parentlock I gave you some ups and downs about how Sherlock Holmes comes to want to be a parent. I hope you enjoy it anyway!
“Why would I care about that? It has nothing to do with me.” The deep V between Sherlock’s eyebrows has only grown over the years he’s known John, and he can feel it etch into his brow now. John remains the only person with the capacity to confuse and intrigue him on a daily basis. If John did not consistently smile and kiss that divot between his eyes, Sherlock’s vanity would protest against the expression.
John’s not exactly smiling now. He’s not exactly frowning either. His face is somewhere between ‘bit not good’ and ‘amused’. “My sister and her partner asked me to help them have a baby. That certainly does concern you.”
“It’s not like they’ve asked for my genetic contribution.”
John scoffs at that but Sherlock takes no offense. “Well, if they had, I would want a say in whether or not my husband agreed.”
The word, that title, isn’t new. It’s been just shy of two years since they stood in front of family and friends and said words that Sherlock worked hard on perfecting and still feels as if he fell flat. How could he have adequately expressed what John means to him, how his heart beats simply because John Watson exists, in mere words? John calls Sherlock his husband more than Sherlock uses the word, like he’s still impressed with its newness, but each time Sherlock smiles to himself and runs his thumb across his wedding ring. He does that now, enjoying the scratch of a callous against the warm titanium, while John waits silently.
He lets John wait. John’s hands are braced against the back of a kitchen chair, his elbows turned out and shoulder muscles bunched tight. Sherlock could leave him in this limbo and focus on his irritated face for hours. Sherlock’s learned to be kind in the past few years though, and puts John out of his misery .
“Fine,” he says with an exaggerated eye roll. “I support you donating sperm so that your sister and her partner can have a child. It will continue the improvement of your relationship with Harry and having a child genetically similar to herself may increase her dedication to recovery. Grace is stable, and deserving of motherhood. And she’s not getting any younger so any attempt to have biological children needs to be soon.”
John’s expression has moved from irritated to bemused. “So it’s logical then?”
“Absolutely. Now go away and let me get back to work.” Sherlock turns back to his microscope with a small smile and the conversation is soon forgotten.
***************
Sherlock barely registers the occasional trips John makes to the fertility clinic. He simply nods and hums at John’s little progress reports and updates.
“Well, that’s me done then. No more wanking into a cup.”
Sherlock can’t deny that his ears perk up at ‘wanking’ but his nose wrinkles in distaste as soon as he fully processes the context.
“What?”
“Grace is pregnant.”
There’s a faint flicker of concern behind Sherlock’s sternum. “That doesn’t mean your services are rendered. At Grace’s age, there’s a significant chance of a miscarriage-”
“It’s early days so let’s not go jinxing it, yeah?”
Sherlock shrugs and goes back to his manuscript, quickly pulled back into the description of new blood splatter analysis techniques gaining popularity in American forensics. He feels John brush a quick kiss across the curls on top of his head.
“I mean it, no more wanking in cups. Fucking awful,” John calls out on his way to the loo.
Sherlock doesn’t delete Grace’s pregnancy, not exactly. He just pushes it so far to the back of his mind that it might as well be deleted.
***************
From: Sherlock Holmes
Where are you?
From: Sherlock Holmes
Your shift ended nearly two hours ago. I’m bored.
From: Sherlock Holmes
JOHN
From: Sherlock Holmes
This is unacceptable.
From: John Watson
I went with Harry and Grace for a scan. There’s a note on your desk.
From: Sherlock Holmes
A note? Really? And for a scan of what?
From: John Watson
Of the baby, you berk.
It’s still light outside when John returns to 221b, but Sherlock is curled tightly against the back of the sofa. He’s somewhere between deep thought and deep sleep and only stirs when John sits in the bend of his knees.
“Why was there a scan of the baby?”
John slides his hand along Sherlock’s calf. It’s warm and soft and suggestive. “Because that’s what doctors and new parents do.”
“And which are you?”
“Neither.” The hand squeezes just below Sherlock’s knee. “Just went for some moral support. It is my niece or nephew in there.”
The momentary petulance at John being pulled toward someone else, that his emotions could be entangled with anyone other than Sherlock Holmes, fades at the scientific curiosity for the process. “They don’t know yet? What was the point of the scan at all then.”
“It’s too early to tell the sex. Grace is only eight weeks but they wanted to take a look early, just in case.”
Sherlock hums, caring much less about the words and much more about the slide of John’s hand higher on his thigh. He flexes his toes against the sofa cushions, pushing the curve of his arse back against John’s knee. He’s just starting to relax again, to fall back into that easy, dark space between awake and asleep, when John ceases the rhythmic caress on his leg. Instead, John pats his thigh, twice, like a brother would but not like his brother, before rising from the sofa.
“What do you want for tea?”
“You.”
“Sorry, not on offer. Pick something else.”
Sherlock resolutely refuses to respond.
“It’s yours too, you realize.”
The complete change of conversation throws Sherlock. He looks up from the sofa. “What?”
“It’s your niece or nephew too. You could show a little interest.”
Oh, that. Sherlock presses his face back into the sofa cushions. “Dull.”
“At least we’ll be able to stop calling it ‘it’ by the next scan.”
“You’re going again?” He wants to spin around and scowl at John, but years of being in a romantic relationship with this man have tempered him. He’s grown as a person. A bit. Maybe.
The clinking of mugs and the sound of a filling kettle overlap with John’s voice. “If they ask. And if you don’t have me elbows deep in a crime scene.”
“Obviously.” It should be obvious but Sherlock’s glad for the reassurance that John is still putting him first. He wonders if he can arrange for Lestrade to call them during Grace’s next scan. He’s deep in thought again before John brings him his tea, thinking of crimes he could arrange to keep John out of the obstetrician’s office.
***************
Grace’s stomach has definitely grown. Not much, and the cut of her shirt is hiding most of it. Sherlock wants to get a tape measure and start marking her progress. Stupid! He should have started that before she was pregnant so there would be a reliable base line to benchmark further progress and eventual recovery against. Stupid.
But John’s already nudged him in the ribs twice for staring, so maybe it’s better that he doesn’t have the tape measure.
The slight curve is low, between her hips, and Sherlock keeps stealing glances at it despite John’s elbow digging into his flesh. He wouldn’t even have come to the gala Grace organized if John hadn’t insisted. It’s a book signing or a store opening or something. Sherlock hasn’t been paying attention. All he can see is Grace’s growing roundness.
“You’re seeing things. She looks exactly the same.” John’s voice is more entertained than annoyed, which is what Sherlock was expecting considering how abruptly he’d dragged John out of the gala and into a cab.
“No. Her lower abdomen is at least three centimeters-”
“Three centimeters? That could be a second helping at dinner or some of the fancy nibbles at Grace’s party.”
“It’s not.” Sherlock huffs and turns to the window. If John refuses to listen to reason, he’ll just ignore him.
John lets the conversation drop for the rest of the ride back to Baker Street. Sherlock pushes the gentle swell of Grace’s stomach to the back of his mind. She’s got plenty of time to keep growing and next time even John will be able to notice. He can wait.
Sherlock is halfway up the stairs when John calls out. “You can’t spend the next 6 months staring at her, you know.”
He stops on the 10th step. “Why not?”
John giggles and lands a playful slap across his arse. “It’s good you were never interested in women.”
Sherlock tries to be offended, but it doesn’t last long when John has him pinned to the bed and is sucking his apology into Sherlock’s collar bone.
***************
The next time they see Harry and Grace, the slight rounding of her stomach is obvious even to John. Well, it must be obvious to John. He’s an idiot but he’s also a doctor and he’s gone to another scan. Sherlock wonders what it must be like, to see that tiny bit of black space on the monitor. He’s done a bit of research in the lull between cases and calculated that it should be easy to hear the baby’s heartbeat by now. He wonders if John has heard it. If Grace can feel the faint flutters of movement deep in her gut or if that’s a few weeks away yet.
Sherlock keeps all of this to himself. He’s reluctant to tell John about his research or about how curious he is regarding Grace’s gestation. Based on John’s reaction to Sherlock’s completely subtle and reasonable examination of Grace’s growth at the gala, John may not be pleased to hear it.
This time, in the intimacy of 221b, Sherlock can’t tear his eyes away.
John’s serving tea, Harry’s smiling, and Sherlock is fully focused on the increased bump beneath Grace’s rib cage. She’s sitting in John’s chair and the compression of her torso only makes the expansion more obvious.
“You all right, Sherlock?” Grace’s voice pulls his eyes away from her stomach and up to her face. Truth be told, he much prefers Grace to Harry, even a sober Harry. She’s much less stupid than Harry, more focused, and more accomplished. And she generally doesn’t insist on pointless small talk.
Sherlock manages a small smile. “Fine. And how are you…” he waves a hand in her direction, “…progressing?”
“As expected.”
“That’s why we came by, actually,” Harry cuts in as she hands Grace a cup of tea. “We found out what we’re having.”
Sherlock’s mind goes blank for a starling fraction of a second. He blinks. “A baby?”
“The sex, you nob.” Harry’s laughing and he really does like Grace more.
John comes in from the kitchen with two more mugs and a warm, genuine smile. “Well?”
Harry stretches out the pause for greater effect and Sherlock strains with the urge to snap at her. Finally, with a deep breath, she gives in and cracks their good news over the sitting room. “It’s a boy!”
John gives a short cheer and hugs Harry, careful not to spill the tea down her back. John passes one cup to Sherlock before sitting on the sofa next to him. He takes it automatically, his brain still spinning ‘It’s a boy!’ through his internal processors.
Statistically, the child was likely to have a clearly delineated sex at birth and Sherlock even knew that it was likely the sex would be determined by a preliminary scan. But he’d never really considered it before. Never thought about something as defining, something as human, as a sex when it came to Harry and Grace’s child.
Now he was suddenly faced with the image of a boy, a boy in John’s image really, but maybe with Grace’s darker eyes and hair. It would be better if the child subtly looked like John, rather than overtly. Just the squareness of his hands or the cut of his jaw. He would be like a wolf in sheep’s clothing then. Constantly underestimated but too much like John to be anything other than extraordinary.
The safety of Sherlock’s carefully constructed tower of facts about pregnancy crumbles in the stark reality of an actual baby. A baby that they now know is a boy and they can start calling ‘he’ and ‘him’ instead of ‘it’. Panic seats itself in Sherlock’s chest like a burning coal.
The conversation has gone on around him. John, Harry, and Grace are talking about names.
“Hamish,” Sherlock croaks. Everyone turns to him and John looks murderous. “If you considering baby names.”
Harry laughs like she’s still in the bottle. “No way. Not ever.” She’s still laughing when she looks to John. “Thanks for the Y chromosome, Johnny, but we’ll leave it at that, yeah?”
“Thank Christ. Sherlock is just resurrecting a very old, and not very funny, joke.” John’s glare is a warning but Sherlock wasn’t joking. Not really.
He doesn’t tell John that.
***************
“Wait, you’re here. Why are you here?”
“Oh, nice to see you too, Sherlock. How was the surgery today John? Oh, just fine, thanks for asking.” John’s brusque tone indicates a rough day at the surgery. The splatter on his shoes tells Sherlock at least two patients vomited on or near him. For a doctor, he has a shocking low tolerance for vomit.
John’s mood is as quickly dismissed as it was deduced. Sherlock has larger concerns. “Grace had an appointment today.”
“So? Grace has a lot of appointments these days.”
“Yes, but why aren’t you there?”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Sherlock ruffles his hair in frustration. “No. But I expected you to go to the midwife with her.”
“She didn’t ask me and I’m sure Harry’s with her. Christ, you do know this isn’t actually my baby, right? It’s Harry and Grace’s. “ John’s lashing out because of his foul mood. Sherlock knows that. Knows it has nothing to do with Harry or Grace or their son but he feels the need to downplay how concerned about that child he actually is. He reaches back, pulls out John’s previous words to use against him.
“But it is your nephew in there. Our nephew. Isn’t that why you wanted me to be concerned in the first place?”
“Bit late for you to start showing an interest. And how do you know Grace even has an appointment today?”
Sherlock knows pointing out that gaining access to a Gmail calendar is ridiculously easy is the wrong move in John’s current mood. He opts for avoidance instead by stomping into the kitchen.
John doesn’t follow. He also didn’t start the kettle immediately after entering Baker Street. The combination of wanting to neither continue an argument nor relax with a cuppa means John’s day must have been catastrophic. Sherlock ups his estimate of how many patients vomited on John’s shoes over the course of his shift.
It takes a few minutes but Sherlock presses a warm mug, no sugar this time, against John’s elbow. It’s their accepted shorthand for small apologies. John takes it with a small smile and lets his fingers trail across the back of Sherlock’s hand for far longer than necessary. Apology accepted.
***************
Sherlock hasn’t seen Grace in ages. Well, 19 days. Which pre-pregnancy wouldn't have been anything remarkable. Even with Harry and John’s carefully orchestrated and painstakingly worked at reunion, it’s not like the siblings and their partners were close. Close enough to father children apparently, but not close enough to come to tea, Sherock thought bitterly.
He’s not entirely sure why he’s noticed Harry and Grace’s absence. Cases have been coming at a brisk pace, both from the Yard and private clients. That keeps John in a good mood, both because of the adventure present in their everyday lives and the increase in their bank accounts. Dull.
Grace is slightly over half way through her gestation, assuming a normal term length. Sherlock finds himself fascinated by all the variables at play. They can monitor and predict any number of outcomes but ultimately Harry and Grace’s son will be born when he likes and as who he likes. The interplay between biological predisposition and environmental factors would be an endless observational experiment with ever shifting parameters. Ordinally, Sherlock would find such a prospect frustration, unscientific at its core. But now he thinks about how much of this child will be John and how much of Harry is really from the same source as John and how will he ever tell the difference? Strenuous work that may never pay off. He can’t wait to see it in action.
Which he may never get to do unless he sees Grace again. How can he monitor the progress of prenatal growth if he cannot observe? John hasn’t been to another appointment or scan so not even second hand data is available.
Sherlock can be patient. Even the most exciting of cases sometimes involves self-restraint.
***************
He can only wait two more days. Sherlock’s never been known for his restraint and that’s fine with him.
He tries a friendly, socially acceptable approach first.
“John, maybe we should invite Harry and Grace out to dinner.”
John stops dead on his way to the bedroom. He turns around slowly, rocking back and rotating on his heels. “Why would we do that? What have you done?”
Sherlock should have known that approach wouldn’t work. He pastes on his best innocent face. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Yet.”
“What?”
“You haven’t done anything yet.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
Sherlock is losing control of this conversation fast. “How?”
“By opening your mouth.” John crosses his arms tight against his chest and leans on the back of his chair. “Now tell me why you want to go out to dinner with my sister and her partner?”
He doesn’t have room to retreat from his current plan. He knows John doesn’t believe the innocent facade, hasn’t fallen for it in years in fact, but he can’t very well say I’d very much like to measure the circumference of Grace’s advancing ‘baby bump’. Short of stealing the midwife’s monthly appointment records to measure Grace’s increasing weight against a normal curve, it’s the best he can do.
So Sherlock maintains the face he uses to dupe elderly matrons and naive children into illegal activity on a shockingly regular basis. “I thought it would be...nice.”
John laughs himself nearly sick and Sherlock refuses to come to bed that night.
***************
Thankfully, Sherlock only has to wait another week before Harry calls. He was reaching a level of desperation leaning toward forging a text message from John to get Harry and Grace to stop by 221b. Instead, Harry suggests brunch.
Sherlock’s hatred of the concept of brunch only momentarily dims his enthusiasm. John’s careful surveillance of his response extinguishes his joy entirely.
“You must be desperate if you’ve coerced Harry into suggesting brunch.” John’s lips twitch in a suppressed smile.
Sherlock’s eyes roll without his conscious command. “I did nothing of the sort.”
“Ah, right.” John leans over Sherlock’s supine body stretched out along the sofa, supporting himself with both hands braced against the armrest. His forehead bumps against Sherlock’s. “Because you have never pushed someone into having their own spontaneous idea that just happens to lead to exactly what you want, huh?”
Just the memory of those successful manipulations, makes Sherlock smile. John’s breath playing suggestively against his cheek doesn’t hurt either. The combination of his past brilliance and John’s love and admiration is a slowly spiralling warmth in his gut. He turns his lips to brush against John’s.
“Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for this turn of events.” He presses upward, dragging his lips to the corner of John’s mouth then across John’s cheek.
John lets Sherlock’s slow caress slide across his cheek and then back to his lips before bringing one arm down and firmly grasping Sherlock’s chin. Sherlock knew John’s patience would only last so long for such careful affection. John tugs Sherlock’s head to the side and straddles his hips. John’s natural sexual aggression can always be counted on to rise to the forefront. Cream to the top and all that. Sherlock rolls his hips to bump against John’s backside.
“I don’t know what you’re up to,” John growls in his ear, “but tread lightly.”
“I’m not up to anything.” Sherlock keeps his voice level until John nips at a tendon in his throat. His gasp is covered by John’s deep chuckle.
“Yes you are. Let’s see if I can distract you from it for awhile, hm?”
All thought so of Harry, Grace, their soon to be born nephew fade into blackness as John crawls his way down Sherlock’s body. He’s not up to anything. Not really.
***************
Brunch goes as terribly as Sherlock expects any brunch to go. Harry passes on ordering a Bloody Mary but only just. She’s pale and her mouth is tight with tension. As everyone orders, Harry’s fingers to the end of her hair and then down to thumb across the sobriety token she wears on a chain around her neck. Even John can’t miss this.
Sherlock shoots him a glance and quickly takes in the white of his knuckles clenched around his water glass and the steely set of his jaw. Of course he noticed.
Grace maintains a flow of happy conversation, trying to direct away from Harry’s obvious struggle. She does a good job of lightening the mood and ordinarily Sherlock would not be moved to help her, but lately he’s felt more… appreciative of her.
“So, everything is going well?” Sherlock spreads is ‘politely interested’ smile across his face.
Harry nearly drops her fork, but at least she’s thinking about something other than all the alcohol she’s not drinking right now.
Grace looks less startled but still apprehensive at Sherlock’s out of character small talk. “Yeah, we’re alright. Some ups and downs but that’s everyone.”
Sherlock is ready to nod and hum politely, to chalk Grace’s last comment up to Harry’s increasingly difficult dedication to sobriety, but before he can play out the end of this pedestrian scene, Grace rubs a hand across the bulge just under her ribs.
His mind goes frightenly blank for a moment, just a split second of nothing, before the baby, there’s something wrong with the baby floods that empty space.
He recovers well. Keeps his voice cool when he says, “There’s been a complication.”
Harry does drop her fork this time and curses at him.
John smacks him in the arm. “Sherlock! You can’t just say something like that.” Sherlock doesn’t look at him. He keeps his gaze on Grace. He needs to be able to assess physical clues to tell if she’s lying or underplaying the damage.
Grace looks a bit confused at first but her face smooths out to its normal tranquility fairly quickly. “No. Not that kind of complication.” She takes a deep breath and looks to Harry, who’s still glaring at Sherlock. He doesn't have to look at her to know that. “It’s good news. My company is sending me to America for a few months.”
“A few months? Can you even travel? John, she can’t fly can she?” Sherlock is shocked. This was not at all part of the numerous contingencies he’d been playing out in his mind for the past few weeks.
John snorts at him. “Of course she can fly. She’s pregnant. Not at death’s door.” John redirects away from Sherlock’s open mouthed stare to Grace with a large smile. “That’s wonderful. Where are they sending you?”
“The west coast. Near San Francisco.”
John and Grace and even Harry talk about their plans. Sherlock is struck dumb by it all. He barely listens, raises his cup to his lips until the tea is gone and then does it again and again.
It’s Harry’s rough voice that finally catches his attention. “It’s temporary, for right now. We’ll be back for a couple weeks before the baby’s due and stay through Grace’s maternity leave. But after that…”
Grace picks up seamlessly where Harry leaves off. “...if my trial period at our west coast office goes well, it could be a permanent post.” She’s smiling and Harry’s smiling and John smiles right back at them. Sherlock could be sick. All he can imagine is Harry and Grace raising their child, a child that could be so much like John, far away from him.
“Good. Good. It sounds like a good opportunity for a fresh start, for both of you.” John is sincere, and ready to see Harry’s second chance flourish for Grace and the baby. Sherlock knows him well enough to know his boundaries as well as his deep reserves of love.
Sherlock really couldn’t care less about Grace and Harry’s fresh start. He’ll just have to hope that Grace’s trial period goes up in flames large enough to rival the Hindenburg. Maybe he could do something to push that resolution closer into being…
Before he even realizes it, the waitress has cleared their plates, John has paid their check, and Harry is helping Grace from her seat. John just looks at him strangely as he blinks himself back into the present.
They’re on the kerb, watching as John unsuccessfully tries to hail a cab and Harry laughs at him, when Grace sucks in her breath and drops a hand to the side of her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Sherlock sounds more worried than he’d like to let on but at least John hadn’t heard him.
“Nothing’s wrong. He’s just kicking. He must have liked the Sriracha on my eggs.”
Sherlock stares, trying to detect any miniscule movement below the taut pull of Grace’s blouse. He can almost see it. He knows it’s there. If Grace says it’s happening, it’s happening.
The touch of her fingers against the back of his hand pulls his gaze to her face. “Here. You can feel him.”
“No…” His protest is weak, in both volume and commitment. Grace pulls his hand to her stomach, his long fingers cup around the bulge, but there’s no movement under his palm.
“Just wait a moment. He’ll be back. Harry’s already talking about buying him a football jersey.”
“Rugby.”
“What?”
“John played rugby.” And there it is, under his hand and through Grace’s skin, there it is. Stronger than Sherlock would have thought. Less like a flutter and more like firm press against his hand. “Oh.” Sherlock can feel the shock on his own face. It’s astounding.
“Sherlock!” John’s watching him, holding a cab door open, with a look of concern, bewilderment, and maybe a little sadness.
He drops his hand from Grace, quickly as not to linger there. “Thank you.”
“You can tell John it’s his fault for the rugby punts then.” Grace is all smiles but Sherlock is unsettled.
The cab ride home is tense and quiet. He makes it halfway up the seventeen steps before John calls out to him.
“What is wrong with you lately?”
“Nothing.” Sherlock pauses but doesn’t turn around.
John’s voice is closer and Sherlock hears the creak of the third step behind him. “I know this is a scientific curiosity to you, but it’s getting a bit weird now.”
Sherlock rounds on him. John is still a few steps below him and the top of his head only comes to Sherlock’s chest. “It’s not a scientific curiosity.” His voice is venomous. He had been planning to lie when he said that but as soon as it passes Sherlock’s lips, he knows it to be the truth.
John’s hands fly up in mock surrender but his expression is anything but giving. “Well you could have fooled me and I know you pretty damn well.”
“Maybe not as well as you think then.” Sherlock turns and climbs the rest of the stairs to the sitting room. He goes directly to his desk, doesn’t bother to remove his coat before flipping open his laptop. “I have important research to do this afternoon. Do try not to distract me with your petty and incorrect observations.”
John rolls his eyes and flops in his chair. He crinkles the newspaper loudly in Sherlock’s direction. It makes Sherlock’s teeth ache. “Right. Enjoy your pouting then.”
“How’s Harry then?” It’s a low blow but Sherlock can’t help being snide.
John lowers the newspaper and glares. “She’s fine. It’s just stress. Pregnancy can do that to a person.”
“She’s not even pregnant!”
“No but she’s still expecting a baby. She and Grace have it under control.” John sinks behind his newspaper again. “Now go back to your pouting.”
“It’s research.”
There’s a hum from behind the newsprint but no response.
John’s wrong. He does have research to do. Not on pregnancy and genetics or gestation and theories on early personality formation in infants. He’s researching parenting now. And not from an abstract, detachedly scientific standpoint. Sherlock craves a more hands on, practical approach.
***************
It’s early morning, several early mornings later really, when Sherlock crawls into bed next to John. He’s been reading and searching and reading some more, all without being as obvious as going out and buying the complete works of Dr. Spock. It was imperative that John not discover what he’s been up to, what he’s been considering. At least until the time is right.
Sherlock’s ready now. He has his arguments plotted out, his facts aligned.
He curls behind John. It’s late enough that blue-grey light pushes through their sheer curtains but still too early for John to wake naturally. This is exactly the sleepy, content state Sherlock calculated would be the best to broach the issue with him. He works an arm under John’s neck and wraps the other around his waist, pulling himself closer.
John snuggles backward, pressing his arse against the cradle of Sherlock’s hips with a sleepy hum. Sherlock trails lazy kisses against John’s neck, his shoulder, and back up to the shell of his ear while John more fully comes awake.
“Oh, so you’re speaking to me again?” John’s voice is rough with sleep but amused.
“Don’t be tedious.”
John chuckles and pushes back more firmly against him. And maybe Sherlock gets distracted for several long minutes. Instead of bringing up his carefully crafted topic of conversation, he indulges in running his fingers along John’s chest and stomach and kissing whatever skin he can easily reach.
Things are sliding into hot and heavy territory when Sherlock remembers his purpose.
“John, I want something.” It’s not as eloquent a beginning as he imagined but pulling his brain back from the taste of John’s skin is harder than he planned.
John grinds back on him. “You can have anything you bloody want.”
“I want us to have a child.”
John goes rigid and holds his breath. Sherlock tightens his arm around John’s chest to keep him from turning around. The last thing Sherlock wants is for John to turn this into some sort of emotional conversation with eye contact. If Sherlock can keep it a simple exchange of pros and cons, he’s sure he can put any of John’s arguments to rest.
John relaxes and laughs a little, though Sherlock can tell his heart isn’t in it. “Piss off.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you bloody are.” John tries to roll over now, to face Sherlock, but he’s ready for it. Sherlock holds him in place and John ends up squirming inefficiently until he gives up in a huff of indignation. “Of course you want to have a child because you only know how to have a childish conversation.”
Sherlock doesn’t rise to that bait. Instead, he launches into his well prepared arguments. “A child raised by parents of above average intelligence, in a stable relationship, who have the means to support and enrich that child-”
“No.”
That is John’s Final No. His I Will Entertain No More Arguments No. And Sherlock hadn’t even fully articulated his first point. Sherlock’s never given up easily though.
“But John, it’s a benefit to society-”
“No.”
Two Final Nos, in Sherlock’s experience, is best met with a tactical retreat. He rolls away from John and flops flat on his back, arms outstretched across the mattress. He hasn’t lost the war but even a temporary set-back at this stage feels like defeat.
John won’t even let him retreat in dignity. He rolls over and props himself up on an elbow next to Sherlock’s head.
“You don’t even like kids.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I like children just fine. They are much less likely to tainted by the stupidity of those around them. They are fresh clay that can be shaped into...someone better.”
“Is this an experiment?” John’s voice is soft, without any hint of finality now. It’s not accusatory, just curious and maybe a bit sad.
Sherlock swallows. He can feel his Adam’s Apple bob. This is probably the hardest question he foresaw coming from John. Saying yes would be easy. It is, in part, an experiment. To see how John’s biological child would grow and develop in an environment created by Sherlock. But saying yes feels like a lie. The opportunity for study is not the real reason he want this. But saying no feels too easy. Too much like John may think he’s lying anyway.Too far out of character to admit so easily.
He admits it anyway. “No. It’s not an experiment.” Sherlock keeps his eyes locked on a bit of a crack in the ceiling plaster.
John stays quiet for a few long seconds and Sherlock knows he’s given too much away already. His only defense is a continued facade of indifference.
John’s fingers trail against Sherlock’s sternum, down and up and back down again, before he speaks. “I think you’ve gotten a little too focused on Grace’s pregnancy-” Sherlock scoffs and tries to roll away but John’s hand flattens against his chest to pin him in place, “-and that’s giving you ideas you wouldn’t normally-”
“No.” Sherlock is sure to use his Final No now. It’s weaker, more vulnerable sounding than John’s drill sergeant inspired tone but he knows John will recognize it for what it is. “It is not.”
“It’s just… you’ve never said anything about this. Not once.”
“I am aware.”
“And you expect me to just run with that and make life changing decisions without further thought?”
Sherlock whips his head around to finally face John. “You make rapid fire decisions with hefty consequences all the time, both personally and professionally, and you usually make the correct decision.”
“Not this time. I’m not deciding here and now if we’re having a baby.”
Sherlock knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. Still, he had hoped. “You don’t have to decided now. I have several arguments laid out and if you’ll listen to my thesis…” Sherlock stops because John is laughing. John has fallen flat on his back and is laughing out loud.
“Sherlock, you can’t persuade me into having a baby with you.”
“Why not? It’s how I get you to do everything else.”
John sits back up, completely serious and making sure Sherlock knows it. “If you want me to consider this I will, but not now. Not while Grace and Harry are expecting. You’ve got to show me that this isn’t some childish response to their baby, alright?”
It’s not all right. Not at all. But Sherlock can’t say that he needs their child and Harry and Grace’s son to be born close together for more accurate comparisons as they grow up or that he needs to hold John Watson’s child in his hands and know that it’s his child too, that he has the right to love it, and that no one will take that away from him. John will not reaction positively to any of that.
Instead, Sherlock huffs out a “fine” and rolls away from John. John gives him no time or space to pout (which if he really wanted to pout he would have left the bed, they both know that anyway) and rolls right over with him. Now it’s John that spoons behind Sherlock, arms wrapped around Sherlock’s chest, and presses a hard kiss to the back of Sherlock’s neck.
“You surprised me. Take some time and we’ll both think about it, okay?”
Sherlock doesn’t respond but he doesn’t leave either. John’s breath evens out as he falls into a light doze and Sherlock pulls John’s hands tighter against his chest.
***************
Sherlock’s next strategy is to keep his mouth shut. He can do that. He can play a long, slow game if necessary.
He starts bringing books about child rearing and parenting techniques home from various libraries around the city. Instead of hiding what he’s reading, he does it in plain view for John to see. He leaves the books on his desk, on the bedside table. He left one rather interesting article about early childhood psychological development and predicted health outcomes on John’s chair.
It was returned to his desk, unread. But Sherlock can tell John is noticing what he’s reading. How better to show John that this is serious? That it’s not a passing fancy He illustrates his dedication with research.
But, both for his continued pre-parental development and the campaign against John Watson’s poor judgment, he needs a more practical approach. He needs a baby. Luckily for him, he knew exactly where to find one.
John looks a little less pleased when he comes home to find Sherlock pacing in front of their makeshift evidence board, details of a cold case pinned to the wall, with a baby strapped to his chest.
John’s face runs through shock, surprise, annoyance, and then a brief flash of acceptance before he cycles back to annoyance. “Did you steal that?”
Sherlock mock covers the dozing infant’s ears. “‘That’ is Emma. Really John. How do you expect to set a good example for children if you’re so rude?” He thought that might pull a chuckle from John, or at least a comment about pots and kettles, but John remains annoyed.
“Who’s baby is that?” John points a finger in Emma’s general direction.
“Billy and...someone’s. I’ve forgotten her name.”
“Billy?”
Sherlock waves a hand in the general vicinity of Billy’s height. “You know, Billy. Runs errands for me. Met him a crack den.”
“Jesus Christ. I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone, much less having a baby.”
“Strictly speaking, I’m not sure he was seeing her.”
John’s come a little closer, but not close enough to see Emma’s face clearly where it is smooshed against Sherlock’s chest. He can feel the moisture from her open mouth seeping through his shirt. It’s strange that he doesn’t mind at all.
“Why do you have her?” John’s voice is softer now. Quieter and less annoyed. And Emma has moved from ‘that’ to ‘her’ which has to be a good sign.
Sherlock intentionally shifts the ridiculous wrap contraption that’s keeping her snug against him so that her face is more in John’s direction. “I offered to babysit.”
“You? Babysititng?” John’s speaking to him but looking at Emma. He’s moved silently closer; now standing within arm’s reach.
Sherlock sways toward John, one large hand cupping the baby’s bottom to rock her a bit. It’s not that Sherlock doesn’t know what he’s doing, just that it can’t hurt to look as natural and competent with a baby as possible in front of John. “Yes, I thought the new parents could use an afternoon off.”
John snorts. “You did not. This is manipulation.” John’s rubbing the tip of his finger against the back of Emma’s hand, so Sherlock chooses not to answer that accusation. He watches as John’s finger plays back and forth across her small fist until John traces the delicate line of her clutched finger all the way to the nearly translucent nail. “She’s very tiny.”
“She’s only six weeks. And I believe she was underweight when she was born. Her mother is a smoker.” Sherlock’s throat feels raw as he watches John’s forehead crease with concern. “Emma is fine.” He feels like he has to soothe John, to reassure.
They stand incredibly close. John’s arms brushes against Sherlock’s hip as he lets it fall away from Emma’s fingers. They stay like that, in silence, for a few moments while John watches Emma and Sherlock watches John.
John looks up to meet his eyes. “You’re really serious about this.” It’s not a question. It’s a realization.
“Yes.” Sherlock tries to give the response the gravity it deserves.
He must succeed because John wraps a hand (the hand that was stroking Emma) around the back of his neck and pulls him down for a hard kiss. Their lips are closed and crushed tightly together and the adrenaline rush of victory races down Sherlock’s spine. He wishes he could turn into John’s arms and pull John tight against his body, but he’d crush Emma. Just one more thing he’ll have to get used to and develop a work around for.
When John pulls back, Sherock is already running through a bullet point list of steps they need to take. “We’ll have to choose a surrogate. I’ve narrowed it down to two reputable agencies. Each takes multiple metrics of intelligence into account and-”
“No.”
Sherlock’s heart plummets to his feet and it’s as if he’s been dunked in a tank of ice water. “What?”
“Not yet.”
“Then when John?” It comes out as a whine and Sherlock throws his hands up in the air, startling Emma awake.
She cries a bit and Sherlock tries to calm her with gentle bouncing and a hand cupped around her head. Her baby fine hairs are so, so soft against his palm. She settles to whimpers and Sherlock keeps bouncing.
John waits until she’s calm enough to be easily heard over without raising his voice. “Not until I’m sure you’re committed to this.”
“But you believe that I’m serious. I know you do.”
“Serious isn't’ the same thing as committed.” John takes a step back. “Just give the idea more time to become real and see if you still want it, yeah?”
Sherlock turns back to his work without responding. He takes a deep breath, then another, before giving his attention back to a fussy Emma. “All right Emma, let’s discuss blood splatter analysis and likely archs created by potential murder weapons.” His voice is quiet and smooth, and he keeps bouncing Emma up and down as he consults with her on the evidence.
Billy and his now girlfriend (Rachel) don’t reappear for their daughter for several hours. Sherlock doesn’t mind and it’s John who’s giving her her last bottle when they arrive.
Sherlock quietly arranged with Billy to watch her one afternoon every other week, and when Billy needs to do work for him and no one else is available. John will likely be at the surgery and unable to witness how committed Sherlock is to caring for a child that isn’t even theirs but that’s fine.
***************
The death blow comes in a phone call from Harry. Sherlock doesn’t listen in. He knows as soon as he realizes who John is speaking to.
Instead, Sherlock pulls his dressing gown around his ribs and curls into a sulk on the sofa. When John comes to tell him what he already knows, that everything is going very well, that Harry and Grace are staying in the States, that the baby will be born there, that they won’t get to see him or watch him grow, Sherlock barely listens.
Grace texts him her latest ultrasound as an apology. He sets it as his new phone background. But not for the lock screen. He doesn’t want other people to see.
The sulk stretches into a black mood that lasts for days. Would have lasted longer except John crawls on top of the covers with his shoes still on and lies facing Sherlock. John watches him for long moments without speaking and Sherlock is just about to roll his eyes, to roll away, and tell John to bugger off when John speaks up.
“Okay, set up an appointment with whatever surrogacy agency you’d like.”
It takes three, no, four, rapid blinks of Sherlock’s pale eyes before he rolls on top of John and pins him to the bed. It’s slow and long and takes ages before Sherlock lets him up again.
***************
Sherlock scours surrogacy message boards day and night. He seeks referrals from other couples and exchanges messages and even phone calls with prospective birth mothers. He prints a stack of photos and biographies of women willing to bear their child. Sherlock doesn't like any of them. He reads through each one three times before nearly pulling his hair out in frustration.
“Hey, this is going to take time. We don’t have to decide tonight, all right? Be patient.” John places a cup of tea on the coffee table for him and Sherlock wants to kick it to the floor. Instead he just watches it grow cold.
John lets him continue to sulk without interruption for a few blessed minutes. It’s more silence than Sherlock could have hoped for.
“We could look at adoption. Plenty of kids already out there that need a home, you now.”
Sherlock shoots up, limbs flailing, and can only let out a disgusted squawk.
“What? A lot of people adopt. It is an option.”
“No. No, it isn’t.” Sherlock has regained his voice when faced with the need to tell John how fantastically wrong he is. Adopting was never an option for them. Sherlock wants, needs, to have John’s baby as his own child. That was the seed of an obsession that grew into this entire plan.
John pulls his hands up in surrender. “Okay. I’ll let you just go back to beating your head against a stack of surrogates you’ve already decided are unworthy to have your child then.”
“It’s not my fault you’d be happy with any available incubator for your child.”
“You’re an ass and I’m going to try very hard to forget you said that.” John’s fingers roll and flex into fists at his side in his classic warning sign. Sherlock’s pushed him to the edge with this entire process. It’s hard for Sherlock to get John to this point, John has perfected his patience when it comes to Sherlock, but here they are. Now he points a finger in Sherlock’s face. “You know I don’t feel that way. You wanted to do this. You’ve organized the whole thing. Now choose someone!”
John doesn’t quite slam the bedroom door but he closes it hard enough to make the frosted glass in the neighboring bathroom door rattle.
Sherlock leaves three candidates to choose from on the kitchen table for John to find the next morning.
John leaves just one folder on his desk that evening. She has cool, blue eyes and a degree in physics. Perfect.
***************
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and Harry sends a blurry, badly framed shot of Grace holding a very small bundle with a very red face.
John calls her immediately and laughs when he gets sent straight to voicemail.
“Make it possible for your sister and her partner to have a baby and she doesn’t even answer the bloody phone.”
Sherlock is too busy cataloging the details in the too small photograph. He can’t determine an accurate size for the baby, or infer anything about his health, without a reference point in the photo.
“Did even tell us what they decided on for a name. Typical.” John’s still laughing so Sherlock feels no need to mitigate what little annoyance there may be in those words. He keeps to his task of studying the picture. He can learn nothing more, and he knows it, but he keeps looking anyway.
“Hey.” There’s a soft tap on the top of his head as John rests his chin there, leaning over the back of the chair where Sherlock has curled himself to clutch at his phone. “We’ll have that too soon. Promise.”
Sherlock is finally able to pull his eyes away from the phone, to turn in the chair so he can see John’s face leaning over him. Harry and Grace’s son has John’s nose. Sherlock is sure of it.
“I know. Soon.”
It’s Grace that eventually texts the vital information. He’s healthy, with all ten fingers and ten toes. His name is Sam.
***************
It’s an argument, of course it’s an argument, that almost makes Sherlock throw the whole thing out the window. He’s nearly ready to give up when he’s finally so close. Why can’t John just agree with him? At least almost all the time?
“Why me? I already provided my genetic material once. It’s your turn.”
No. This is unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. If this child is not John’s, not biologically John’s, it defeats the entire purpose. Sherlock wants a baby with John’s eyes. With John’s mouth. A girl that would grown up to have John’s crows’ feet. Or a boy that would play both doctor and soldier in the Baker Street sitting room.
“No.” It’s all Sherlock can muster in the face of months of planning, of scheming, of being forced to face his own emotions and come to a very different conclusion than he anticipated when considering parenthood, crumbling before him.
“No? Well, what if I say no too?” John’s teasing. Sherlock can tell he’s teasing by the way he licks his lips but there’s also an edge of challenge to it. Like he wants Sherlock to push him.
And if Sherlock’s good at anything, it’s pushing. “In that case, I will have to decline your kind offer to raise a child with me.” Sherlock adds the best upper class sniff-and-upturn-nose head tilt he can at the end of that unnecessarily stuffy rejection.
John’s seen that gambit plenty of times before and he’s unwilling to let Sherlock get away with it. “Oh no you don’t. You badgered me for months about this. You picked up a regular babysitting gig! I know you and this isn’t a passing fancy that you’ll give up on. You convinced me after months and months. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I thought it was. What is the matter with you?”
Sherlock can feel his resolve breaking away, and John must see it too because his eyes have gone soft with concern. Sherlock lost Sam before he could even meet him and now he’s losing John’s second child before that baby even has a chance to be conceived.
He wants to protest, to tell John there’s nothing the matter with him and that this whole idea was nonsense. To forget having a child of their own all together. But he can’t. Sherlock’s already built a nursery in his mind palace and covered the walls with lullabies he’s yet to put to paper.
“I…” He’s got nothing left but the truth now, and it slips out quietly. “I want to raise your child.”
“What?”
“Your child. I wanted it to be your child. To look like you, and to act like you, and to love like you do.”
There’s nothing but silence from John’s end of the conversation. Sherlock keeps his eyes averted; looking out the window, watching dust float to the floor in the sunshine of Baker Street, noticing a cobweb in the corner near the ceiling. Sherlock thinks he’d rather sink into the floor and disappear forever than sit in John’s presence for one more moment.
Finally, John’s voice shatters the growing void between them. “Is that what this has been about then? Do you even really want to have a child? Because it’s work, Sherlock. It’s a lifetime of hard work and not something to do just because you have a whim to see another little John Watson.”
“No. It’s not a whim-”
“Because you’ve convinced me. I’m invested in this and don't you dare take it away from me now!”
“Then just agree with me!”
“No. Not until you explain why.”
Sherlock scrubs his hands through his hair. How does he explain why? It’s irrational. Based entirely in want and need and Sherlock has never learned a vocabulary for this.
He struggles to find the words, to translate what he knows in marrow of his existence into something John can understand. But, it turns out, he doesn’t need to.
John collapses beside him on the sofa with an exasperated exhale. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”
“What?” Sherlock’s mouth falls open. John couldn’t have surprised him more if he’d announced he was moving to the country to do something boring and sedate, like keep bees. “Explain.”
“It’s what I wanted too. I just kept thinking about a kid with your intelligence and how much we could teach him.”
“Him?”
“Or her.”
“But you said him. Do you think you only posses Y chromosomes?” Truthfully, in his day dreams and quiet moments, Sherlock more often pictures a daughter in the bassinette he’s already set up in their bedroom.
John bumps against his shoulder. “Is there a crack about my masculinity in there somewhere?”
Sherlock snorts. “No. Never that. Only praise.” He leans more firmly against John, wants to tangle their fingers together but doesn’t. “You want our child to have genetic ties to a former drug addict?”
“Yes, if that former drug addict is you, then yes.”
He swoops in and presses an open-mouthed kiss to John’s lips. He’s done too much to shake John’s faith in him before, before they were even a couple, and he won’t do it again. Sherlock pushes John back into the sofa cushions and climbs into his lap. Long minutes full of panting breath leading into deep moans pass before John applies pressure to Sherlock’s shoulders to give himself enough room to speak.
“Fine. I’ll wank off in the stupid cup again.”
“Maybe they’ll let me help.” Sherlock rolls his hips forward against John’s groin and leans forward for another kiss. John holds him back.
“That is definitely not allowed. And before you think of it, I don’t care if someone at the clinic owes you a favor, you are not helping.”
“But John!” Sherlock tries for another kiss but John evades but tipping to the side. Sherlock capitalizes on John’s momentum and rolls on top of him. His lips part in a predatory smile.
From this angle, John can’t avoid being kissed for long. He runs his hands down Sherlock’s chest and splays his fingers over Sherlock’s ribs. “Next time you get to wank in the cup, yeah?”
“But what about the third time?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Sherlock realizes they had better appreciate having sex in the sitting room, in the middle of the day, now since they won’t be able to indulge in it much longer. And there’s no time like the present for fully appreciating something you’re about to lose.
***************
It’s the only time he can remember not hating a hospital. It still doesn’t make him comfortable but at least it’s not the sterile antiseptic smell or chaos of the A&E. The birth centre is calm and much more hopeful feeling than he thought any sort hospital had a right to be.
And, as John carries their son to him for the first time, he can understand why.
“Here. You take him.”
Sherlock’s arms are reaching out even as he says, “I can’t.”
John ignores Sherlock’s doubt, as he’s ignored a lot of protests over the past several months. John eases the baby’s head into one of Sherlock’s large hands and stretches all 49.54 centimetres of him across Sherlock’s folded arm. It’s instinctive, the way Sherlock rolls his forearm to curl his son against his chest.
His legs try to kick against the swaddling blanket and his face scrunches up as if to wail. Sherlock is making quiet shushing noises and rocking him without the conscious command to do so.
“I think he’s already got your personality.” John leans into Sherlock and runs a light finger along the baby’s angry red cheek.
“If we could only be so lucky.”
“Wanker.”
“John, not in front of the baby.” Sherlock is smiling so broadly it feels as if his lips might split, might crack right down the center as he looks at his son.
The baby’s contained flailing has managed to work a fist free. He brings it to his face, not quite getting it directly to his mouth but close enough so his lips and tongue work over tiny fingers.
They watch over him together, something Sherlock sincerely hopes they’ll be doing quite a lot of for many years. His fingertips run idly along the crown of the baby’s head as he and John breath together. He watches his own fingers, large and pale against his son’s hair and then he realizes…
“John!”
“Hm?”
“His hair.” How did he miss this? He was so overcome that he wasn’t paying attention to the details. Stupid.
“Yeah, he’s got a head full of it.”
“No, it’s black! And…” Sherlock waves his free hand over his own disheveled curls. He looks at John in shock. “It was supposed to be like yours.”
John presses his face against Sherlock’s shoulder and hide his laugh. “Shut up. It’ll all fall out anyway. It’ll probably grow back ginger just to spite you.”
Sherlock is horrified. Horrified to find that he doesn’t care at all.
Recipient:
koshartuAuthor:
billiethepoetCharacters/Pairings: Sherlock/John, Harry/OFC
Word Count: 9700ish
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Family planning decisions
Summary: Sometimes you have to see something to know that you want it.
Author’s Note: koshartu, I went a little off your prompt and instead of parentlock I gave you some ups and downs about how Sherlock Holmes comes to want to be a parent. I hope you enjoy it anyway!
“Why would I care about that? It has nothing to do with me.” The deep V between Sherlock’s eyebrows has only grown over the years he’s known John, and he can feel it etch into his brow now. John remains the only person with the capacity to confuse and intrigue him on a daily basis. If John did not consistently smile and kiss that divot between his eyes, Sherlock’s vanity would protest against the expression.
John’s not exactly smiling now. He’s not exactly frowning either. His face is somewhere between ‘bit not good’ and ‘amused’. “My sister and her partner asked me to help them have a baby. That certainly does concern you.”
“It’s not like they’ve asked for my genetic contribution.”
John scoffs at that but Sherlock takes no offense. “Well, if they had, I would want a say in whether or not my husband agreed.”
The word, that title, isn’t new. It’s been just shy of two years since they stood in front of family and friends and said words that Sherlock worked hard on perfecting and still feels as if he fell flat. How could he have adequately expressed what John means to him, how his heart beats simply because John Watson exists, in mere words? John calls Sherlock his husband more than Sherlock uses the word, like he’s still impressed with its newness, but each time Sherlock smiles to himself and runs his thumb across his wedding ring. He does that now, enjoying the scratch of a callous against the warm titanium, while John waits silently.
He lets John wait. John’s hands are braced against the back of a kitchen chair, his elbows turned out and shoulder muscles bunched tight. Sherlock could leave him in this limbo and focus on his irritated face for hours. Sherlock’s learned to be kind in the past few years though, and puts John out of his misery .
“Fine,” he says with an exaggerated eye roll. “I support you donating sperm so that your sister and her partner can have a child. It will continue the improvement of your relationship with Harry and having a child genetically similar to herself may increase her dedication to recovery. Grace is stable, and deserving of motherhood. And she’s not getting any younger so any attempt to have biological children needs to be soon.”
John’s expression has moved from irritated to bemused. “So it’s logical then?”
“Absolutely. Now go away and let me get back to work.” Sherlock turns back to his microscope with a small smile and the conversation is soon forgotten.
Sherlock barely registers the occasional trips John makes to the fertility clinic. He simply nods and hums at John’s little progress reports and updates.
“Well, that’s me done then. No more wanking into a cup.”
Sherlock can’t deny that his ears perk up at ‘wanking’ but his nose wrinkles in distaste as soon as he fully processes the context.
“What?”
“Grace is pregnant.”
There’s a faint flicker of concern behind Sherlock’s sternum. “That doesn’t mean your services are rendered. At Grace’s age, there’s a significant chance of a miscarriage-”
“It’s early days so let’s not go jinxing it, yeah?”
Sherlock shrugs and goes back to his manuscript, quickly pulled back into the description of new blood splatter analysis techniques gaining popularity in American forensics. He feels John brush a quick kiss across the curls on top of his head.
“I mean it, no more wanking in cups. Fucking awful,” John calls out on his way to the loo.
Sherlock doesn’t delete Grace’s pregnancy, not exactly. He just pushes it so far to the back of his mind that it might as well be deleted.
From: Sherlock Holmes
Where are you?
From: Sherlock Holmes
Your shift ended nearly two hours ago. I’m bored.
From: Sherlock Holmes
JOHN
From: Sherlock Holmes
This is unacceptable.
From: John Watson
I went with Harry and Grace for a scan. There’s a note on your desk.
From: Sherlock Holmes
A note? Really? And for a scan of what?
From: John Watson
Of the baby, you berk.
It’s still light outside when John returns to 221b, but Sherlock is curled tightly against the back of the sofa. He’s somewhere between deep thought and deep sleep and only stirs when John sits in the bend of his knees.
“Why was there a scan of the baby?”
John slides his hand along Sherlock’s calf. It’s warm and soft and suggestive. “Because that’s what doctors and new parents do.”
“And which are you?”
“Neither.” The hand squeezes just below Sherlock’s knee. “Just went for some moral support. It is my niece or nephew in there.”
The momentary petulance at John being pulled toward someone else, that his emotions could be entangled with anyone other than Sherlock Holmes, fades at the scientific curiosity for the process. “They don’t know yet? What was the point of the scan at all then.”
“It’s too early to tell the sex. Grace is only eight weeks but they wanted to take a look early, just in case.”
Sherlock hums, caring much less about the words and much more about the slide of John’s hand higher on his thigh. He flexes his toes against the sofa cushions, pushing the curve of his arse back against John’s knee. He’s just starting to relax again, to fall back into that easy, dark space between awake and asleep, when John ceases the rhythmic caress on his leg. Instead, John pats his thigh, twice, like a brother would but not like his brother, before rising from the sofa.
“What do you want for tea?”
“You.”
“Sorry, not on offer. Pick something else.”
Sherlock resolutely refuses to respond.
“It’s yours too, you realize.”
The complete change of conversation throws Sherlock. He looks up from the sofa. “What?”
“It’s your niece or nephew too. You could show a little interest.”
Oh, that. Sherlock presses his face back into the sofa cushions. “Dull.”
“At least we’ll be able to stop calling it ‘it’ by the next scan.”
“You’re going again?” He wants to spin around and scowl at John, but years of being in a romantic relationship with this man have tempered him. He’s grown as a person. A bit. Maybe.
The clinking of mugs and the sound of a filling kettle overlap with John’s voice. “If they ask. And if you don’t have me elbows deep in a crime scene.”
“Obviously.” It should be obvious but Sherlock’s glad for the reassurance that John is still putting him first. He wonders if he can arrange for Lestrade to call them during Grace’s next scan. He’s deep in thought again before John brings him his tea, thinking of crimes he could arrange to keep John out of the obstetrician’s office.
Grace’s stomach has definitely grown. Not much, and the cut of her shirt is hiding most of it. Sherlock wants to get a tape measure and start marking her progress. Stupid! He should have started that before she was pregnant so there would be a reliable base line to benchmark further progress and eventual recovery against. Stupid.
But John’s already nudged him in the ribs twice for staring, so maybe it’s better that he doesn’t have the tape measure.
The slight curve is low, between her hips, and Sherlock keeps stealing glances at it despite John’s elbow digging into his flesh. He wouldn’t even have come to the gala Grace organized if John hadn’t insisted. It’s a book signing or a store opening or something. Sherlock hasn’t been paying attention. All he can see is Grace’s growing roundness.
“You’re seeing things. She looks exactly the same.” John’s voice is more entertained than annoyed, which is what Sherlock was expecting considering how abruptly he’d dragged John out of the gala and into a cab.
“No. Her lower abdomen is at least three centimeters-”
“Three centimeters? That could be a second helping at dinner or some of the fancy nibbles at Grace’s party.”
“It’s not.” Sherlock huffs and turns to the window. If John refuses to listen to reason, he’ll just ignore him.
John lets the conversation drop for the rest of the ride back to Baker Street. Sherlock pushes the gentle swell of Grace’s stomach to the back of his mind. She’s got plenty of time to keep growing and next time even John will be able to notice. He can wait.
Sherlock is halfway up the stairs when John calls out. “You can’t spend the next 6 months staring at her, you know.”
He stops on the 10th step. “Why not?”
John giggles and lands a playful slap across his arse. “It’s good you were never interested in women.”
Sherlock tries to be offended, but it doesn’t last long when John has him pinned to the bed and is sucking his apology into Sherlock’s collar bone.
The next time they see Harry and Grace, the slight rounding of her stomach is obvious even to John. Well, it must be obvious to John. He’s an idiot but he’s also a doctor and he’s gone to another scan. Sherlock wonders what it must be like, to see that tiny bit of black space on the monitor. He’s done a bit of research in the lull between cases and calculated that it should be easy to hear the baby’s heartbeat by now. He wonders if John has heard it. If Grace can feel the faint flutters of movement deep in her gut or if that’s a few weeks away yet.
Sherlock keeps all of this to himself. He’s reluctant to tell John about his research or about how curious he is regarding Grace’s gestation. Based on John’s reaction to Sherlock’s completely subtle and reasonable examination of Grace’s growth at the gala, John may not be pleased to hear it.
This time, in the intimacy of 221b, Sherlock can’t tear his eyes away.
John’s serving tea, Harry’s smiling, and Sherlock is fully focused on the increased bump beneath Grace’s rib cage. She’s sitting in John’s chair and the compression of her torso only makes the expansion more obvious.
“You all right, Sherlock?” Grace’s voice pulls his eyes away from her stomach and up to her face. Truth be told, he much prefers Grace to Harry, even a sober Harry. She’s much less stupid than Harry, more focused, and more accomplished. And she generally doesn’t insist on pointless small talk.
Sherlock manages a small smile. “Fine. And how are you…” he waves a hand in her direction, “…progressing?”
“As expected.”
“That’s why we came by, actually,” Harry cuts in as she hands Grace a cup of tea. “We found out what we’re having.”
Sherlock’s mind goes blank for a starling fraction of a second. He blinks. “A baby?”
“The sex, you nob.” Harry’s laughing and he really does like Grace more.
John comes in from the kitchen with two more mugs and a warm, genuine smile. “Well?”
Harry stretches out the pause for greater effect and Sherlock strains with the urge to snap at her. Finally, with a deep breath, she gives in and cracks their good news over the sitting room. “It’s a boy!”
John gives a short cheer and hugs Harry, careful not to spill the tea down her back. John passes one cup to Sherlock before sitting on the sofa next to him. He takes it automatically, his brain still spinning ‘It’s a boy!’ through his internal processors.
Statistically, the child was likely to have a clearly delineated sex at birth and Sherlock even knew that it was likely the sex would be determined by a preliminary scan. But he’d never really considered it before. Never thought about something as defining, something as human, as a sex when it came to Harry and Grace’s child.
Now he was suddenly faced with the image of a boy, a boy in John’s image really, but maybe with Grace’s darker eyes and hair. It would be better if the child subtly looked like John, rather than overtly. Just the squareness of his hands or the cut of his jaw. He would be like a wolf in sheep’s clothing then. Constantly underestimated but too much like John to be anything other than extraordinary.
The safety of Sherlock’s carefully constructed tower of facts about pregnancy crumbles in the stark reality of an actual baby. A baby that they now know is a boy and they can start calling ‘he’ and ‘him’ instead of ‘it’. Panic seats itself in Sherlock’s chest like a burning coal.
The conversation has gone on around him. John, Harry, and Grace are talking about names.
“Hamish,” Sherlock croaks. Everyone turns to him and John looks murderous. “If you considering baby names.”
Harry laughs like she’s still in the bottle. “No way. Not ever.” She’s still laughing when she looks to John. “Thanks for the Y chromosome, Johnny, but we’ll leave it at that, yeah?”
“Thank Christ. Sherlock is just resurrecting a very old, and not very funny, joke.” John’s glare is a warning but Sherlock wasn’t joking. Not really.
He doesn’t tell John that.
“Wait, you’re here. Why are you here?”
“Oh, nice to see you too, Sherlock. How was the surgery today John? Oh, just fine, thanks for asking.” John’s brusque tone indicates a rough day at the surgery. The splatter on his shoes tells Sherlock at least two patients vomited on or near him. For a doctor, he has a shocking low tolerance for vomit.
John’s mood is as quickly dismissed as it was deduced. Sherlock has larger concerns. “Grace had an appointment today.”
“So? Grace has a lot of appointments these days.”
“Yes, but why aren’t you there?”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Sherlock ruffles his hair in frustration. “No. But I expected you to go to the midwife with her.”
“She didn’t ask me and I’m sure Harry’s with her. Christ, you do know this isn’t actually my baby, right? It’s Harry and Grace’s. “ John’s lashing out because of his foul mood. Sherlock knows that. Knows it has nothing to do with Harry or Grace or their son but he feels the need to downplay how concerned about that child he actually is. He reaches back, pulls out John’s previous words to use against him.
“But it is your nephew in there. Our nephew. Isn’t that why you wanted me to be concerned in the first place?”
“Bit late for you to start showing an interest. And how do you know Grace even has an appointment today?”
Sherlock knows pointing out that gaining access to a Gmail calendar is ridiculously easy is the wrong move in John’s current mood. He opts for avoidance instead by stomping into the kitchen.
John doesn’t follow. He also didn’t start the kettle immediately after entering Baker Street. The combination of wanting to neither continue an argument nor relax with a cuppa means John’s day must have been catastrophic. Sherlock ups his estimate of how many patients vomited on John’s shoes over the course of his shift.
It takes a few minutes but Sherlock presses a warm mug, no sugar this time, against John’s elbow. It’s their accepted shorthand for small apologies. John takes it with a small smile and lets his fingers trail across the back of Sherlock’s hand for far longer than necessary. Apology accepted.
Sherlock hasn’t seen Grace in ages. Well, 19 days. Which pre-pregnancy wouldn't have been anything remarkable. Even with Harry and John’s carefully orchestrated and painstakingly worked at reunion, it’s not like the siblings and their partners were close. Close enough to father children apparently, but not close enough to come to tea, Sherock thought bitterly.
He’s not entirely sure why he’s noticed Harry and Grace’s absence. Cases have been coming at a brisk pace, both from the Yard and private clients. That keeps John in a good mood, both because of the adventure present in their everyday lives and the increase in their bank accounts. Dull.
Grace is slightly over half way through her gestation, assuming a normal term length. Sherlock finds himself fascinated by all the variables at play. They can monitor and predict any number of outcomes but ultimately Harry and Grace’s son will be born when he likes and as who he likes. The interplay between biological predisposition and environmental factors would be an endless observational experiment with ever shifting parameters. Ordinally, Sherlock would find such a prospect frustration, unscientific at its core. But now he thinks about how much of this child will be John and how much of Harry is really from the same source as John and how will he ever tell the difference? Strenuous work that may never pay off. He can’t wait to see it in action.
Which he may never get to do unless he sees Grace again. How can he monitor the progress of prenatal growth if he cannot observe? John hasn’t been to another appointment or scan so not even second hand data is available.
Sherlock can be patient. Even the most exciting of cases sometimes involves self-restraint.
He can only wait two more days. Sherlock’s never been known for his restraint and that’s fine with him.
He tries a friendly, socially acceptable approach first.
“John, maybe we should invite Harry and Grace out to dinner.”
John stops dead on his way to the bedroom. He turns around slowly, rocking back and rotating on his heels. “Why would we do that? What have you done?”
Sherlock should have known that approach wouldn’t work. He pastes on his best innocent face. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Yet.”
“What?”
“You haven’t done anything yet.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
Sherlock is losing control of this conversation fast. “How?”
“By opening your mouth.” John crosses his arms tight against his chest and leans on the back of his chair. “Now tell me why you want to go out to dinner with my sister and her partner?”
He doesn’t have room to retreat from his current plan. He knows John doesn’t believe the innocent facade, hasn’t fallen for it in years in fact, but he can’t very well say I’d very much like to measure the circumference of Grace’s advancing ‘baby bump’. Short of stealing the midwife’s monthly appointment records to measure Grace’s increasing weight against a normal curve, it’s the best he can do.
So Sherlock maintains the face he uses to dupe elderly matrons and naive children into illegal activity on a shockingly regular basis. “I thought it would be...nice.”
John laughs himself nearly sick and Sherlock refuses to come to bed that night.
Thankfully, Sherlock only has to wait another week before Harry calls. He was reaching a level of desperation leaning toward forging a text message from John to get Harry and Grace to stop by 221b. Instead, Harry suggests brunch.
Sherlock’s hatred of the concept of brunch only momentarily dims his enthusiasm. John’s careful surveillance of his response extinguishes his joy entirely.
“You must be desperate if you’ve coerced Harry into suggesting brunch.” John’s lips twitch in a suppressed smile.
Sherlock’s eyes roll without his conscious command. “I did nothing of the sort.”
“Ah, right.” John leans over Sherlock’s supine body stretched out along the sofa, supporting himself with both hands braced against the armrest. His forehead bumps against Sherlock’s. “Because you have never pushed someone into having their own spontaneous idea that just happens to lead to exactly what you want, huh?”
Just the memory of those successful manipulations, makes Sherlock smile. John’s breath playing suggestively against his cheek doesn’t hurt either. The combination of his past brilliance and John’s love and admiration is a slowly spiralling warmth in his gut. He turns his lips to brush against John’s.
“Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for this turn of events.” He presses upward, dragging his lips to the corner of John’s mouth then across John’s cheek.
John lets Sherlock’s slow caress slide across his cheek and then back to his lips before bringing one arm down and firmly grasping Sherlock’s chin. Sherlock knew John’s patience would only last so long for such careful affection. John tugs Sherlock’s head to the side and straddles his hips. John’s natural sexual aggression can always be counted on to rise to the forefront. Cream to the top and all that. Sherlock rolls his hips to bump against John’s backside.
“I don’t know what you’re up to,” John growls in his ear, “but tread lightly.”
“I’m not up to anything.” Sherlock keeps his voice level until John nips at a tendon in his throat. His gasp is covered by John’s deep chuckle.
“Yes you are. Let’s see if I can distract you from it for awhile, hm?”
All thought so of Harry, Grace, their soon to be born nephew fade into blackness as John crawls his way down Sherlock’s body. He’s not up to anything. Not really.
Brunch goes as terribly as Sherlock expects any brunch to go. Harry passes on ordering a Bloody Mary but only just. She’s pale and her mouth is tight with tension. As everyone orders, Harry’s fingers to the end of her hair and then down to thumb across the sobriety token she wears on a chain around her neck. Even John can’t miss this.
Sherlock shoots him a glance and quickly takes in the white of his knuckles clenched around his water glass and the steely set of his jaw. Of course he noticed.
Grace maintains a flow of happy conversation, trying to direct away from Harry’s obvious struggle. She does a good job of lightening the mood and ordinarily Sherlock would not be moved to help her, but lately he’s felt more… appreciative of her.
“So, everything is going well?” Sherlock spreads is ‘politely interested’ smile across his face.
Harry nearly drops her fork, but at least she’s thinking about something other than all the alcohol she’s not drinking right now.
Grace looks less startled but still apprehensive at Sherlock’s out of character small talk. “Yeah, we’re alright. Some ups and downs but that’s everyone.”
Sherlock is ready to nod and hum politely, to chalk Grace’s last comment up to Harry’s increasingly difficult dedication to sobriety, but before he can play out the end of this pedestrian scene, Grace rubs a hand across the bulge just under her ribs.
His mind goes frightenly blank for a moment, just a split second of nothing, before the baby, there’s something wrong with the baby floods that empty space.
He recovers well. Keeps his voice cool when he says, “There’s been a complication.”
Harry does drop her fork this time and curses at him.
John smacks him in the arm. “Sherlock! You can’t just say something like that.” Sherlock doesn’t look at him. He keeps his gaze on Grace. He needs to be able to assess physical clues to tell if she’s lying or underplaying the damage.
Grace looks a bit confused at first but her face smooths out to its normal tranquility fairly quickly. “No. Not that kind of complication.” She takes a deep breath and looks to Harry, who’s still glaring at Sherlock. He doesn't have to look at her to know that. “It’s good news. My company is sending me to America for a few months.”
“A few months? Can you even travel? John, she can’t fly can she?” Sherlock is shocked. This was not at all part of the numerous contingencies he’d been playing out in his mind for the past few weeks.
John snorts at him. “Of course she can fly. She’s pregnant. Not at death’s door.” John redirects away from Sherlock’s open mouthed stare to Grace with a large smile. “That’s wonderful. Where are they sending you?”
“The west coast. Near San Francisco.”
John and Grace and even Harry talk about their plans. Sherlock is struck dumb by it all. He barely listens, raises his cup to his lips until the tea is gone and then does it again and again.
It’s Harry’s rough voice that finally catches his attention. “It’s temporary, for right now. We’ll be back for a couple weeks before the baby’s due and stay through Grace’s maternity leave. But after that…”
Grace picks up seamlessly where Harry leaves off. “...if my trial period at our west coast office goes well, it could be a permanent post.” She’s smiling and Harry’s smiling and John smiles right back at them. Sherlock could be sick. All he can imagine is Harry and Grace raising their child, a child that could be so much like John, far away from him.
“Good. Good. It sounds like a good opportunity for a fresh start, for both of you.” John is sincere, and ready to see Harry’s second chance flourish for Grace and the baby. Sherlock knows him well enough to know his boundaries as well as his deep reserves of love.
Sherlock really couldn’t care less about Grace and Harry’s fresh start. He’ll just have to hope that Grace’s trial period goes up in flames large enough to rival the Hindenburg. Maybe he could do something to push that resolution closer into being…
Before he even realizes it, the waitress has cleared their plates, John has paid their check, and Harry is helping Grace from her seat. John just looks at him strangely as he blinks himself back into the present.
They’re on the kerb, watching as John unsuccessfully tries to hail a cab and Harry laughs at him, when Grace sucks in her breath and drops a hand to the side of her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Sherlock sounds more worried than he’d like to let on but at least John hadn’t heard him.
“Nothing’s wrong. He’s just kicking. He must have liked the Sriracha on my eggs.”
Sherlock stares, trying to detect any miniscule movement below the taut pull of Grace’s blouse. He can almost see it. He knows it’s there. If Grace says it’s happening, it’s happening.
The touch of her fingers against the back of his hand pulls his gaze to her face. “Here. You can feel him.”
“No…” His protest is weak, in both volume and commitment. Grace pulls his hand to her stomach, his long fingers cup around the bulge, but there’s no movement under his palm.
“Just wait a moment. He’ll be back. Harry’s already talking about buying him a football jersey.”
“Rugby.”
“What?”
“John played rugby.” And there it is, under his hand and through Grace’s skin, there it is. Stronger than Sherlock would have thought. Less like a flutter and more like firm press against his hand. “Oh.” Sherlock can feel the shock on his own face. It’s astounding.
“Sherlock!” John’s watching him, holding a cab door open, with a look of concern, bewilderment, and maybe a little sadness.
He drops his hand from Grace, quickly as not to linger there. “Thank you.”
“You can tell John it’s his fault for the rugby punts then.” Grace is all smiles but Sherlock is unsettled.
The cab ride home is tense and quiet. He makes it halfway up the seventeen steps before John calls out to him.
“What is wrong with you lately?”
“Nothing.” Sherlock pauses but doesn’t turn around.
John’s voice is closer and Sherlock hears the creak of the third step behind him. “I know this is a scientific curiosity to you, but it’s getting a bit weird now.”
Sherlock rounds on him. John is still a few steps below him and the top of his head only comes to Sherlock’s chest. “It’s not a scientific curiosity.” His voice is venomous. He had been planning to lie when he said that but as soon as it passes Sherlock’s lips, he knows it to be the truth.
John’s hands fly up in mock surrender but his expression is anything but giving. “Well you could have fooled me and I know you pretty damn well.”
“Maybe not as well as you think then.” Sherlock turns and climbs the rest of the stairs to the sitting room. He goes directly to his desk, doesn’t bother to remove his coat before flipping open his laptop. “I have important research to do this afternoon. Do try not to distract me with your petty and incorrect observations.”
John rolls his eyes and flops in his chair. He crinkles the newspaper loudly in Sherlock’s direction. It makes Sherlock’s teeth ache. “Right. Enjoy your pouting then.”
“How’s Harry then?” It’s a low blow but Sherlock can’t help being snide.
John lowers the newspaper and glares. “She’s fine. It’s just stress. Pregnancy can do that to a person.”
“She’s not even pregnant!”
“No but she’s still expecting a baby. She and Grace have it under control.” John sinks behind his newspaper again. “Now go back to your pouting.”
“It’s research.”
There’s a hum from behind the newsprint but no response.
John’s wrong. He does have research to do. Not on pregnancy and genetics or gestation and theories on early personality formation in infants. He’s researching parenting now. And not from an abstract, detachedly scientific standpoint. Sherlock craves a more hands on, practical approach.
It’s early morning, several early mornings later really, when Sherlock crawls into bed next to John. He’s been reading and searching and reading some more, all without being as obvious as going out and buying the complete works of Dr. Spock. It was imperative that John not discover what he’s been up to, what he’s been considering. At least until the time is right.
Sherlock’s ready now. He has his arguments plotted out, his facts aligned.
He curls behind John. It’s late enough that blue-grey light pushes through their sheer curtains but still too early for John to wake naturally. This is exactly the sleepy, content state Sherlock calculated would be the best to broach the issue with him. He works an arm under John’s neck and wraps the other around his waist, pulling himself closer.
John snuggles backward, pressing his arse against the cradle of Sherlock’s hips with a sleepy hum. Sherlock trails lazy kisses against John’s neck, his shoulder, and back up to the shell of his ear while John more fully comes awake.
“Oh, so you’re speaking to me again?” John’s voice is rough with sleep but amused.
“Don’t be tedious.”
John chuckles and pushes back more firmly against him. And maybe Sherlock gets distracted for several long minutes. Instead of bringing up his carefully crafted topic of conversation, he indulges in running his fingers along John’s chest and stomach and kissing whatever skin he can easily reach.
Things are sliding into hot and heavy territory when Sherlock remembers his purpose.
“John, I want something.” It’s not as eloquent a beginning as he imagined but pulling his brain back from the taste of John’s skin is harder than he planned.
John grinds back on him. “You can have anything you bloody want.”
“I want us to have a child.”
John goes rigid and holds his breath. Sherlock tightens his arm around John’s chest to keep him from turning around. The last thing Sherlock wants is for John to turn this into some sort of emotional conversation with eye contact. If Sherlock can keep it a simple exchange of pros and cons, he’s sure he can put any of John’s arguments to rest.
John relaxes and laughs a little, though Sherlock can tell his heart isn’t in it. “Piss off.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you bloody are.” John tries to roll over now, to face Sherlock, but he’s ready for it. Sherlock holds him in place and John ends up squirming inefficiently until he gives up in a huff of indignation. “Of course you want to have a child because you only know how to have a childish conversation.”
Sherlock doesn’t rise to that bait. Instead, he launches into his well prepared arguments. “A child raised by parents of above average intelligence, in a stable relationship, who have the means to support and enrich that child-”
“No.”
That is John’s Final No. His I Will Entertain No More Arguments No. And Sherlock hadn’t even fully articulated his first point. Sherlock’s never given up easily though.
“But John, it’s a benefit to society-”
“No.”
Two Final Nos, in Sherlock’s experience, is best met with a tactical retreat. He rolls away from John and flops flat on his back, arms outstretched across the mattress. He hasn’t lost the war but even a temporary set-back at this stage feels like defeat.
John won’t even let him retreat in dignity. He rolls over and props himself up on an elbow next to Sherlock’s head.
“You don’t even like kids.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I like children just fine. They are much less likely to tainted by the stupidity of those around them. They are fresh clay that can be shaped into...someone better.”
“Is this an experiment?” John’s voice is soft, without any hint of finality now. It’s not accusatory, just curious and maybe a bit sad.
Sherlock swallows. He can feel his Adam’s Apple bob. This is probably the hardest question he foresaw coming from John. Saying yes would be easy. It is, in part, an experiment. To see how John’s biological child would grow and develop in an environment created by Sherlock. But saying yes feels like a lie. The opportunity for study is not the real reason he want this. But saying no feels too easy. Too much like John may think he’s lying anyway.Too far out of character to admit so easily.
He admits it anyway. “No. It’s not an experiment.” Sherlock keeps his eyes locked on a bit of a crack in the ceiling plaster.
John stays quiet for a few long seconds and Sherlock knows he’s given too much away already. His only defense is a continued facade of indifference.
John’s fingers trail against Sherlock’s sternum, down and up and back down again, before he speaks. “I think you’ve gotten a little too focused on Grace’s pregnancy-” Sherlock scoffs and tries to roll away but John’s hand flattens against his chest to pin him in place, “-and that’s giving you ideas you wouldn’t normally-”
“No.” Sherlock is sure to use his Final No now. It’s weaker, more vulnerable sounding than John’s drill sergeant inspired tone but he knows John will recognize it for what it is. “It is not.”
“It’s just… you’ve never said anything about this. Not once.”
“I am aware.”
“And you expect me to just run with that and make life changing decisions without further thought?”
Sherlock whips his head around to finally face John. “You make rapid fire decisions with hefty consequences all the time, both personally and professionally, and you usually make the correct decision.”
“Not this time. I’m not deciding here and now if we’re having a baby.”
Sherlock knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. Still, he had hoped. “You don’t have to decided now. I have several arguments laid out and if you’ll listen to my thesis…” Sherlock stops because John is laughing. John has fallen flat on his back and is laughing out loud.
“Sherlock, you can’t persuade me into having a baby with you.”
“Why not? It’s how I get you to do everything else.”
John sits back up, completely serious and making sure Sherlock knows it. “If you want me to consider this I will, but not now. Not while Grace and Harry are expecting. You’ve got to show me that this isn’t some childish response to their baby, alright?”
It’s not all right. Not at all. But Sherlock can’t say that he needs their child and Harry and Grace’s son to be born close together for more accurate comparisons as they grow up or that he needs to hold John Watson’s child in his hands and know that it’s his child too, that he has the right to love it, and that no one will take that away from him. John will not reaction positively to any of that.
Instead, Sherlock huffs out a “fine” and rolls away from John. John gives him no time or space to pout (which if he really wanted to pout he would have left the bed, they both know that anyway) and rolls right over with him. Now it’s John that spoons behind Sherlock, arms wrapped around Sherlock’s chest, and presses a hard kiss to the back of Sherlock’s neck.
“You surprised me. Take some time and we’ll both think about it, okay?”
Sherlock doesn’t respond but he doesn’t leave either. John’s breath evens out as he falls into a light doze and Sherlock pulls John’s hands tighter against his chest.
Sherlock’s next strategy is to keep his mouth shut. He can do that. He can play a long, slow game if necessary.
He starts bringing books about child rearing and parenting techniques home from various libraries around the city. Instead of hiding what he’s reading, he does it in plain view for John to see. He leaves the books on his desk, on the bedside table. He left one rather interesting article about early childhood psychological development and predicted health outcomes on John’s chair.
It was returned to his desk, unread. But Sherlock can tell John is noticing what he’s reading. How better to show John that this is serious? That it’s not a passing fancy He illustrates his dedication with research.
But, both for his continued pre-parental development and the campaign against John Watson’s poor judgment, he needs a more practical approach. He needs a baby. Luckily for him, he knew exactly where to find one.
John looks a little less pleased when he comes home to find Sherlock pacing in front of their makeshift evidence board, details of a cold case pinned to the wall, with a baby strapped to his chest.
John’s face runs through shock, surprise, annoyance, and then a brief flash of acceptance before he cycles back to annoyance. “Did you steal that?”
Sherlock mock covers the dozing infant’s ears. “‘That’ is Emma. Really John. How do you expect to set a good example for children if you’re so rude?” He thought that might pull a chuckle from John, or at least a comment about pots and kettles, but John remains annoyed.
“Who’s baby is that?” John points a finger in Emma’s general direction.
“Billy and...someone’s. I’ve forgotten her name.”
“Billy?”
Sherlock waves a hand in the general vicinity of Billy’s height. “You know, Billy. Runs errands for me. Met him a crack den.”
“Jesus Christ. I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone, much less having a baby.”
“Strictly speaking, I’m not sure he was seeing her.”
John’s come a little closer, but not close enough to see Emma’s face clearly where it is smooshed against Sherlock’s chest. He can feel the moisture from her open mouth seeping through his shirt. It’s strange that he doesn’t mind at all.
“Why do you have her?” John’s voice is softer now. Quieter and less annoyed. And Emma has moved from ‘that’ to ‘her’ which has to be a good sign.
Sherlock intentionally shifts the ridiculous wrap contraption that’s keeping her snug against him so that her face is more in John’s direction. “I offered to babysit.”
“You? Babysititng?” John’s speaking to him but looking at Emma. He’s moved silently closer; now standing within arm’s reach.
Sherlock sways toward John, one large hand cupping the baby’s bottom to rock her a bit. It’s not that Sherlock doesn’t know what he’s doing, just that it can’t hurt to look as natural and competent with a baby as possible in front of John. “Yes, I thought the new parents could use an afternoon off.”
John snorts. “You did not. This is manipulation.” John’s rubbing the tip of his finger against the back of Emma’s hand, so Sherlock chooses not to answer that accusation. He watches as John’s finger plays back and forth across her small fist until John traces the delicate line of her clutched finger all the way to the nearly translucent nail. “She’s very tiny.”
“She’s only six weeks. And I believe she was underweight when she was born. Her mother is a smoker.” Sherlock’s throat feels raw as he watches John’s forehead crease with concern. “Emma is fine.” He feels like he has to soothe John, to reassure.
They stand incredibly close. John’s arms brushes against Sherlock’s hip as he lets it fall away from Emma’s fingers. They stay like that, in silence, for a few moments while John watches Emma and Sherlock watches John.
John looks up to meet his eyes. “You’re really serious about this.” It’s not a question. It’s a realization.
“Yes.” Sherlock tries to give the response the gravity it deserves.
He must succeed because John wraps a hand (the hand that was stroking Emma) around the back of his neck and pulls him down for a hard kiss. Their lips are closed and crushed tightly together and the adrenaline rush of victory races down Sherlock’s spine. He wishes he could turn into John’s arms and pull John tight against his body, but he’d crush Emma. Just one more thing he’ll have to get used to and develop a work around for.
When John pulls back, Sherock is already running through a bullet point list of steps they need to take. “We’ll have to choose a surrogate. I’ve narrowed it down to two reputable agencies. Each takes multiple metrics of intelligence into account and-”
“No.”
Sherlock’s heart plummets to his feet and it’s as if he’s been dunked in a tank of ice water. “What?”
“Not yet.”
“Then when John?” It comes out as a whine and Sherlock throws his hands up in the air, startling Emma awake.
She cries a bit and Sherlock tries to calm her with gentle bouncing and a hand cupped around her head. Her baby fine hairs are so, so soft against his palm. She settles to whimpers and Sherlock keeps bouncing.
John waits until she’s calm enough to be easily heard over without raising his voice. “Not until I’m sure you’re committed to this.”
“But you believe that I’m serious. I know you do.”
“Serious isn't’ the same thing as committed.” John takes a step back. “Just give the idea more time to become real and see if you still want it, yeah?”
Sherlock turns back to his work without responding. He takes a deep breath, then another, before giving his attention back to a fussy Emma. “All right Emma, let’s discuss blood splatter analysis and likely archs created by potential murder weapons.” His voice is quiet and smooth, and he keeps bouncing Emma up and down as he consults with her on the evidence.
Billy and his now girlfriend (Rachel) don’t reappear for their daughter for several hours. Sherlock doesn’t mind and it’s John who’s giving her her last bottle when they arrive.
Sherlock quietly arranged with Billy to watch her one afternoon every other week, and when Billy needs to do work for him and no one else is available. John will likely be at the surgery and unable to witness how committed Sherlock is to caring for a child that isn’t even theirs but that’s fine.
The death blow comes in a phone call from Harry. Sherlock doesn’t listen in. He knows as soon as he realizes who John is speaking to.
Instead, Sherlock pulls his dressing gown around his ribs and curls into a sulk on the sofa. When John comes to tell him what he already knows, that everything is going very well, that Harry and Grace are staying in the States, that the baby will be born there, that they won’t get to see him or watch him grow, Sherlock barely listens.
Grace texts him her latest ultrasound as an apology. He sets it as his new phone background. But not for the lock screen. He doesn’t want other people to see.
The sulk stretches into a black mood that lasts for days. Would have lasted longer except John crawls on top of the covers with his shoes still on and lies facing Sherlock. John watches him for long moments without speaking and Sherlock is just about to roll his eyes, to roll away, and tell John to bugger off when John speaks up.
“Okay, set up an appointment with whatever surrogacy agency you’d like.”
It takes three, no, four, rapid blinks of Sherlock’s pale eyes before he rolls on top of John and pins him to the bed. It’s slow and long and takes ages before Sherlock lets him up again.
Sherlock scours surrogacy message boards day and night. He seeks referrals from other couples and exchanges messages and even phone calls with prospective birth mothers. He prints a stack of photos and biographies of women willing to bear their child. Sherlock doesn't like any of them. He reads through each one three times before nearly pulling his hair out in frustration.
“Hey, this is going to take time. We don’t have to decide tonight, all right? Be patient.” John places a cup of tea on the coffee table for him and Sherlock wants to kick it to the floor. Instead he just watches it grow cold.
John lets him continue to sulk without interruption for a few blessed minutes. It’s more silence than Sherlock could have hoped for.
“We could look at adoption. Plenty of kids already out there that need a home, you now.”
Sherlock shoots up, limbs flailing, and can only let out a disgusted squawk.
“What? A lot of people adopt. It is an option.”
“No. No, it isn’t.” Sherlock has regained his voice when faced with the need to tell John how fantastically wrong he is. Adopting was never an option for them. Sherlock wants, needs, to have John’s baby as his own child. That was the seed of an obsession that grew into this entire plan.
John pulls his hands up in surrender. “Okay. I’ll let you just go back to beating your head against a stack of surrogates you’ve already decided are unworthy to have your child then.”
“It’s not my fault you’d be happy with any available incubator for your child.”
“You’re an ass and I’m going to try very hard to forget you said that.” John’s fingers roll and flex into fists at his side in his classic warning sign. Sherlock’s pushed him to the edge with this entire process. It’s hard for Sherlock to get John to this point, John has perfected his patience when it comes to Sherlock, but here they are. Now he points a finger in Sherlock’s face. “You know I don’t feel that way. You wanted to do this. You’ve organized the whole thing. Now choose someone!”
John doesn’t quite slam the bedroom door but he closes it hard enough to make the frosted glass in the neighboring bathroom door rattle.
Sherlock leaves three candidates to choose from on the kitchen table for John to find the next morning.
John leaves just one folder on his desk that evening. She has cool, blue eyes and a degree in physics. Perfect.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and Harry sends a blurry, badly framed shot of Grace holding a very small bundle with a very red face.
John calls her immediately and laughs when he gets sent straight to voicemail.
“Make it possible for your sister and her partner to have a baby and she doesn’t even answer the bloody phone.”
Sherlock is too busy cataloging the details in the too small photograph. He can’t determine an accurate size for the baby, or infer anything about his health, without a reference point in the photo.
“Did even tell us what they decided on for a name. Typical.” John’s still laughing so Sherlock feels no need to mitigate what little annoyance there may be in those words. He keeps to his task of studying the picture. He can learn nothing more, and he knows it, but he keeps looking anyway.
“Hey.” There’s a soft tap on the top of his head as John rests his chin there, leaning over the back of the chair where Sherlock has curled himself to clutch at his phone. “We’ll have that too soon. Promise.”
Sherlock is finally able to pull his eyes away from the phone, to turn in the chair so he can see John’s face leaning over him. Harry and Grace’s son has John’s nose. Sherlock is sure of it.
“I know. Soon.”
It’s Grace that eventually texts the vital information. He’s healthy, with all ten fingers and ten toes. His name is Sam.
It’s an argument, of course it’s an argument, that almost makes Sherlock throw the whole thing out the window. He’s nearly ready to give up when he’s finally so close. Why can’t John just agree with him? At least almost all the time?
“Why me? I already provided my genetic material once. It’s your turn.”
No. This is unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. If this child is not John’s, not biologically John’s, it defeats the entire purpose. Sherlock wants a baby with John’s eyes. With John’s mouth. A girl that would grown up to have John’s crows’ feet. Or a boy that would play both doctor and soldier in the Baker Street sitting room.
“No.” It’s all Sherlock can muster in the face of months of planning, of scheming, of being forced to face his own emotions and come to a very different conclusion than he anticipated when considering parenthood, crumbling before him.
“No? Well, what if I say no too?” John’s teasing. Sherlock can tell he’s teasing by the way he licks his lips but there’s also an edge of challenge to it. Like he wants Sherlock to push him.
And if Sherlock’s good at anything, it’s pushing. “In that case, I will have to decline your kind offer to raise a child with me.” Sherlock adds the best upper class sniff-and-upturn-nose head tilt he can at the end of that unnecessarily stuffy rejection.
John’s seen that gambit plenty of times before and he’s unwilling to let Sherlock get away with it. “Oh no you don’t. You badgered me for months about this. You picked up a regular babysitting gig! I know you and this isn’t a passing fancy that you’ll give up on. You convinced me after months and months. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I thought it was. What is the matter with you?”
Sherlock can feel his resolve breaking away, and John must see it too because his eyes have gone soft with concern. Sherlock lost Sam before he could even meet him and now he’s losing John’s second child before that baby even has a chance to be conceived.
He wants to protest, to tell John there’s nothing the matter with him and that this whole idea was nonsense. To forget having a child of their own all together. But he can’t. Sherlock’s already built a nursery in his mind palace and covered the walls with lullabies he’s yet to put to paper.
“I…” He’s got nothing left but the truth now, and it slips out quietly. “I want to raise your child.”
“What?”
“Your child. I wanted it to be your child. To look like you, and to act like you, and to love like you do.”
There’s nothing but silence from John’s end of the conversation. Sherlock keeps his eyes averted; looking out the window, watching dust float to the floor in the sunshine of Baker Street, noticing a cobweb in the corner near the ceiling. Sherlock thinks he’d rather sink into the floor and disappear forever than sit in John’s presence for one more moment.
Finally, John’s voice shatters the growing void between them. “Is that what this has been about then? Do you even really want to have a child? Because it’s work, Sherlock. It’s a lifetime of hard work and not something to do just because you have a whim to see another little John Watson.”
“No. It’s not a whim-”
“Because you’ve convinced me. I’m invested in this and don't you dare take it away from me now!”
“Then just agree with me!”
“No. Not until you explain why.”
Sherlock scrubs his hands through his hair. How does he explain why? It’s irrational. Based entirely in want and need and Sherlock has never learned a vocabulary for this.
He struggles to find the words, to translate what he knows in marrow of his existence into something John can understand. But, it turns out, he doesn’t need to.
John collapses beside him on the sofa with an exasperated exhale. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”
“What?” Sherlock’s mouth falls open. John couldn’t have surprised him more if he’d announced he was moving to the country to do something boring and sedate, like keep bees. “Explain.”
“It’s what I wanted too. I just kept thinking about a kid with your intelligence and how much we could teach him.”
“Him?”
“Or her.”
“But you said him. Do you think you only posses Y chromosomes?” Truthfully, in his day dreams and quiet moments, Sherlock more often pictures a daughter in the bassinette he’s already set up in their bedroom.
John bumps against his shoulder. “Is there a crack about my masculinity in there somewhere?”
Sherlock snorts. “No. Never that. Only praise.” He leans more firmly against John, wants to tangle their fingers together but doesn’t. “You want our child to have genetic ties to a former drug addict?”
“Yes, if that former drug addict is you, then yes.”
He swoops in and presses an open-mouthed kiss to John’s lips. He’s done too much to shake John’s faith in him before, before they were even a couple, and he won’t do it again. Sherlock pushes John back into the sofa cushions and climbs into his lap. Long minutes full of panting breath leading into deep moans pass before John applies pressure to Sherlock’s shoulders to give himself enough room to speak.
“Fine. I’ll wank off in the stupid cup again.”
“Maybe they’ll let me help.” Sherlock rolls his hips forward against John’s groin and leans forward for another kiss. John holds him back.
“That is definitely not allowed. And before you think of it, I don’t care if someone at the clinic owes you a favor, you are not helping.”
“But John!” Sherlock tries for another kiss but John evades but tipping to the side. Sherlock capitalizes on John’s momentum and rolls on top of him. His lips part in a predatory smile.
From this angle, John can’t avoid being kissed for long. He runs his hands down Sherlock’s chest and splays his fingers over Sherlock’s ribs. “Next time you get to wank in the cup, yeah?”
“But what about the third time?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Sherlock realizes they had better appreciate having sex in the sitting room, in the middle of the day, now since they won’t be able to indulge in it much longer. And there’s no time like the present for fully appreciating something you’re about to lose.
It’s the only time he can remember not hating a hospital. It still doesn’t make him comfortable but at least it’s not the sterile antiseptic smell or chaos of the A&E. The birth centre is calm and much more hopeful feeling than he thought any sort hospital had a right to be.
And, as John carries their son to him for the first time, he can understand why.
“Here. You take him.”
Sherlock’s arms are reaching out even as he says, “I can’t.”
John ignores Sherlock’s doubt, as he’s ignored a lot of protests over the past several months. John eases the baby’s head into one of Sherlock’s large hands and stretches all 49.54 centimetres of him across Sherlock’s folded arm. It’s instinctive, the way Sherlock rolls his forearm to curl his son against his chest.
His legs try to kick against the swaddling blanket and his face scrunches up as if to wail. Sherlock is making quiet shushing noises and rocking him without the conscious command to do so.
“I think he’s already got your personality.” John leans into Sherlock and runs a light finger along the baby’s angry red cheek.
“If we could only be so lucky.”
“Wanker.”
“John, not in front of the baby.” Sherlock is smiling so broadly it feels as if his lips might split, might crack right down the center as he looks at his son.
The baby’s contained flailing has managed to work a fist free. He brings it to his face, not quite getting it directly to his mouth but close enough so his lips and tongue work over tiny fingers.
They watch over him together, something Sherlock sincerely hopes they’ll be doing quite a lot of for many years. His fingertips run idly along the crown of the baby’s head as he and John breath together. He watches his own fingers, large and pale against his son’s hair and then he realizes…
“John!”
“Hm?”
“His hair.” How did he miss this? He was so overcome that he wasn’t paying attention to the details. Stupid.
“Yeah, he’s got a head full of it.”
“No, it’s black! And…” Sherlock waves his free hand over his own disheveled curls. He looks at John in shock. “It was supposed to be like yours.”
John presses his face against Sherlock’s shoulder and hide his laugh. “Shut up. It’ll all fall out anyway. It’ll probably grow back ginger just to spite you.”
Sherlock is horrified. Horrified to find that he doesn’t care at all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2014-06-14 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-06-14 08:46 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-06-14 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-02 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-15 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-02 03:13 am (UTC)Still, better that Harry and Grace got the hell out of there.
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Date: 2014-06-15 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-02 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-15 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-02 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-16 04:24 am (UTC)This is a great description.
But Sherlock can’t say that he needs their child and Harry and Grace’s son to be born close together for more accurate comparisons as they grow up or that he needs to hold John Watson’s child in his hands and know that it’s his child too, that he has the right to love it, and that no one will take that away from him.
Gorgeous.
She has cool, blue eyes and a degree in physics. Perfect.
I love this little detail, that John chooses the one most like Sherlock.
This whole thing is so beautifully done. I love the slow, very believable build of Sherlock's desire to have a child with John, and his difficulty in articulating why. I also love that the end leaves the possibility open of Sherlock fathering a child too, since John wanted the same thing he did. This is one of the best Parentlock fics I've read. The characterization is spot-on and insightful, and you have a lovely delicate touch with the all the treacherous emotions involved. Bravo!
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Date: 2014-07-02 03:42 am (UTC)I wanted it to be a slow progression from scientific curiosity to emotional investment so I'm very glad that came across.
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Date: 2014-06-16 04:31 am (UTC)(Also also, I agree with saki101. Thank god Grace & Harry moved away. For their child's sake. And for John's sanity).
Thank you, again, for this lovely, lovely story!
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Date: 2014-07-02 03:45 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked my take on parentlock. I got a little nervous after I wrote it.
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Date: 2014-07-02 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-17 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-02 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-17 05:14 am (UTC)“Why not? It’s how I get you to do everything else.”
Sherlock convinced me. Watching his growing emotional investment and John's gradual understanding was lovely and believable.
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Date: 2014-07-02 03:46 am (UTC)