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John doesn’t know how it happened. Somewhere between becoming a couple and taking the two hour trip north to let Sherlock’s parents know that Sherlock is in fact not going to die sad and alone (Sherlock’s own words, mimicked in Mummy’s voice, though John is fairly sure that Marjorie has never said anything of the sort), they’ve been roped into nearly bi-weekly visits. John doesn’t mind, as Marjorie really is a fantastic cook and conversational partner, and Tom always has a new whisky to sample. They’re both fantastic people, even Sherlock thinks so, though he makes it a point to object highly when it is insinuated that he does care for his parents.
It’s a Sunday and there’s no case on – something that Sherlock has managed to accept with surprising restraint – there’s a fire in the hearth and the scent of meat cooking in the oven, and so when they arrive, John is set to have a relaxing afternoon, get a slight buzz on, and indulge in food that will most certainly break the low-sodium diet he’s put himself and Sherlock on.
Many of their Sundays have gone thusly, which is why he’s surprised when they push through the entryway into the living room only to find two toddlers plopped in the center of the floor, carefully stacking wooden blocks.
“Oh,” he says in surprise, glancing around the room to assure there are no adults present. “Well, hello there.”
Both children look at him with wide eyes and then scramble to hide themselves behind the squashy sofa, the timidity of the young coupled with stranger danger.
John chuckles and Sherlock just stares a moment, paces through the living room and ducks low behind the couch. “Jacob and Elena. You’re very nearly adults, how you’ve grown!” and he ruffles each of their hair before he pops up and disappears through the kitchen, leaving a gobsmacked John Watson in his wake.
It’s not that he’s surprised that Sherlock has treated the children with kindness, but that he’s being overtly familiar with them and John has no idea who in the world they are. He shakes off the sense of confusion and shoulders through into the kitchen.
He sets their bag of provisions – cheese, a baguette, and two bottles of very fine bordeaux – on the table before stepping forth to kiss Marjorie’s cheek.
“Met Jacob and Elena, have you John?” She asks, turning her attention from John to the pot she’s stirring.
“Hm, not quite, though Sherlock – he’s gone already? Christ, where the hell’d he go? – uhm Sherlock seems to know them rather…” He doesn’t know the word for it; can you know children terribly well, especially at that age?
Marjorie laughs, holds a spoon out to John to taste. “Go on then, does it need more salt?” John shakes his head, steps back and begins unloading the bag. “Yes, those are Christa and Christine’s children–marrying someone with a name so like your own, can’t imagine–they had to dash off to Christa’s parents’. Her father’s suddenly ill; they don’t want the wee ones seeing Grandpop like that. And you know me, always wanting...”
She trails off; John knows what she was going to say. She’s never made a point of mentioning it, but John knows she’s rather keen on young children. Marjorie does storytime at the library and volunteers at the village center-cum-daycare in the mornings; it’s no secret.
“I suppose it’s the commotion, truly. I miss it. Myc and Will used to knock about constantly, you know. Hand me that bowl of onions dear, would you?”
John does, and as he reaches across, the recalls the look on Sherlock’s face as he dipped down to speak to the children. “So, Christa and Christine?”
“Christine grew up just down the lane, Sherlock’s age. His first kiss, actually. We like to joke that they put one another off of it all for good, until Christine went off to do her Master’s program in Germany and came back engaged. And, well… now Sherlock has you. But they used to be inseparable. From the time…” She scrunches up her brow, thinks. “Tom!” she calls, “When were Sherlock and Christine-”
“They were eight, dear!” he shouts from upstairs and John smiles. Finishing one another’s sentences. He’d thought that was fictitious and cheesy until he’d seen it between Thomas and Marjorie, and had shared it with Sherlock.
Sherlock whirls back into the room, coat gone, a bundle of firewood in his arms. “Aren’t you a help,” Marjorie says and spins to pinch his cheek as he walks by.
“Mummy!” he demands with a huff, but flushes nonetheless. When he returns, he washes his sooty hands in the sink and falls back into the worn and rather ostentatious chair by the hutch, his favorite place to sit, if John had to guess, from the countless times Sherlock has demanded Mycroft out of it. John settles into a wooden chair across from him, reaches over to squeeze his knee and then retreats.
They share the comfort of the warm kitchen, until the swinging door creaks open and then closed. It seems as though no one has entered until Elena peeks around from a table leg and scampers underneath, around John, and crawls in between Sherlock’s feet.
She’s got painted on whiskers and a pair of cat ears atop her hair. Sherlock smiles down, “And what are you today, Elena?”
“Vulpes vulpes!” she squeaks in glee and stands, hands out wide to Sherlock.
“Ah, a crafty red fox.” Sherlock scoops her into his laugh and pulls a face which she mimics and then she dissolves into a fit of giggles. Sherlock has always had a fine rapport with kids, but to the outside world, he’s made a show of making it seem as though he hates children. Even to John, it’s a little odd watching the interaction.
“And this man here,” he turns her in his lap so that she’s straddling his right leg. “Is John. Would you be terribly put out if I asked you to say hello to John?”
She wriggles back into Sherlock, trying to disappear; John doesn’t take it personally, it’s just how children are. He decides now, to take the initiative, “Hi there Elena, I’m John. Are you Sherlock’s friend?”
She glances up at Sherlock, who nods. She mimics him.
“I’m Sherlock’s friend too,” John says and Sherlock gives him a stern look.
“John is my partner, like your mom and mama are partners,” Sherlock explains, withering gaze still affixed to John’s face.
“Oh,” she says with no emotion at all, and then she’s wriggling out of Sherlock’s hands and down onto the floor, to stand in front of John. She peers up at him for a moment, as though sizing him up and then squeaks, “Hi John!” and dashes away again, giggling all the while.
John meets Sherlock’s gaze and Sherlock quirks a brow, as though challenging John to say something. But John just smiles, presses his palms to his knees and stands, drops a kiss on Sherlock’s brow and sets to opening the wine.
---
They’re on their way home, the hum of the engine the only sound between them, when John brings it up. “You’re… surprisingly good with children.”
Sherlock doesn’t pause to think over John’s insinuation. “Children generally have no ulterior motive. It’s quite easy to understand their reasoning; they’re not complex creatures.”
“Yeah,” John agrees, “But you get on with them. They like you. They love you, really.”
Sherlock takes his eyes off of the road briefly; his mouth tips up just so at the corners. “Surprised?”
“A bit, yeah,” John says, and then they’re quiet for the rest of the drive.
---
“Hm.”
John glances up from the paper and turns his attention to Sherlock, who is seated at the table by the windows, fingers steepled in front of his mouth. John lets the moment hang a beat and then Sherlock repeats, “Hm?”
John knows this is a gentle invitation to pry into something Sherlock doesn’t want to simply come out with. He waits another beat before asking, “What?”
Sherlock drops his hands to the keys and types for a brief moment. “Cynthia Westin.”
John wracks his brain a bit before he places the name, “What about her?” He can’t help it if his voice is a bit bitter, she’d been a former colleague of Mary’s and if there’s anyone he doesn’t want to ever think about again...
“Not her; Archie. He’s been asking her to go to the Body World exhibit.” Sherlock doesn’t remove his gaze from the screen.
“And?”
Sherlock purses his lips and twists his mouth, “She wants to know if I’d be interested in taking him, as she,” Sherlock makes airquotes with his fingers, even as he rolls his eyes. “‘Doesn’t go in for that sort of thing.’”
A short chortle bursts out of John before he can help it. “S’an odd request. Don’t be a dick when you tell her no.” John returns his attention to the sports section, straightening the paper with a flick of his wrists.
There’s a silence that stretches out; there’s no typing, and Sherlock’s made no movement, and John looks up, feeling himself being watched.
When their eyes finally meet, Sherlock is staring at him. “You assume I’ll say no.”
“Won’t you?”
Sherlock blinks. “I’ve not been to see the exhibit yet.”
John’s eyes shift from looking at Sherlock, to the hearth and back. “Right.”
“It could be valuable. I’ve seen necrotized tissue but never maneuvered to mimic how the body might look in action,” Sherlock reasons with himself.
“Okay,” John agrees, the notion that Sherlock might actually be interested in going with a child to a museum dawning on him.
Sherlock sniffs, “Archie isn’t boring.”
“He’s certainly not,” John hides his smile behind the paper.
“I think I’ll say yes,” Sherlock says decisively, and the sound of keys clacking fills the space between them.
---
John is already in bed when Sherlock comes in from the outing at the museum.
“I brought take away, thought you might not have eaten!” Sherlock calls up, though it’s ten in the evening. John doesn’t shout back, instead waits for Sherlock to come through the flat to find him. “Ah, early night?”
“Was thinking so. Knackered after this week. How was the museum? You’re out late, especially if you had an eight year old with you.”
“Ah,” Sherlock sits on the bed, begins taking off his shoes. “Well, I took him to lunch and then went to see Molly-”
“You took him to the morgue?” John squeaks, sitting up rather quickly.
“Yes, John, but he didn’t see anything untoward. Just…”
“Just what?”
Sherlock’s head is ducked towards the floor when he mumbles, “I cross-sectioned an eyeball for him.”
“Jesus christ!”
“He said he wants to be an optometrist!” Sherlock looks so earnestly genuine that John’s feeling of horror abates rather quickly.
“And?”
“And?”
“What did Archie think of the eyeball?”
Sherlock pauses, glances back at John with a gaze that’s filled with surprised wonder. “Oh, he said it was ‘the coolest thing’ he’s ever seen.” Sherlock’s chest puffs a little proudly at that.
“Ah,” John says with a smile, snuggling back under the blankets. “Not scarred for life, then.”
Sherlock stands, grabs his dressing gown and stoops to drop a kiss on John’s forehead. “Not a bit.”
---
Two children. Dana and Ginny are recovered from the boiler room of a warehouse just outside of London.
The case began as a typical kidnapping for ransom and escalated into potential murder as the suspect was apprehended but refused to say where the children were being held. All it took was Sherlock “accidentally” breaking the man’s femur to get him to talk.
Sherlock had been silently unhinged the entire squad car ride to the location and he’d not heeded Lestrade’s warnings, instead barging into the warehouse full force, sprinting through until they’d located the boiler room.
Both children had been unconscious, starved for days, clinging to life.
Sherlock had scooped up the girl – carefully, gently – after checking for injury, and John hadn’t even had a second thought before he’d done the same with the boy. Sherlock had cradled the girl’s face in his neck, walking determinedly until they’d gotten to the ambulance, where Sherlock had handed her off without a word and had watched John do the same.
Now, leaning against the boot of Lestrade’s squad car, Sherlock says nothing. John simply rests next to him, close enough to provide comfort, but far enough away in the case that prying eyes are watching. John wants to say something, doesn’t know what, so he remains silent, wanting desperately to reach out and take Sherlock in his arms.
He’s never seen Sherlock quite like this: enraged and utterly still.
Lestrade finds them there, twenty minutes later. “Would say nice job but, could have done without the broken bones.”
John flinches in surprise as Sherlock stands up straight, puts his face right up to Lestrade’s and says – so calmly he might be describing a model of tetrahydride – ”Inspector, you’re indeed very lucky you don’t have a dead body on your hands.”
Lestrade flinches back. Sherlock tucks himself into his coat, “Who would do that to a child?”
John takes his cue, putting a hand to Sherlock’s lower back and telling Lestrade that they’re going home. There are no arguments.
When they return to the flat, Sherlock retreats to the bedroom immediately and lies down with all of his clothing and his shoes still on. John follows him, as always, but hangs in the doorway. He understands if Sherlock needs time, and certainly doesn’t want to pressure him into talking about the past few days.
Sherlock turns his head to look at John and there’s a sheen of tears there, the saline picking up the low light in the room, causing Sherlock to have a glint in his eyes. “Who would do that to a child?” he repeats, and it’s all John needs to hear before he’s toeing off his shoes and climbing into the bed.
“We saw the worst of humanity, today,” John says gently and gathers Sherlock up.
Sherlock just shakes his head and burrows into John; he doesn’t sleep.
---
Sherlock takes Archie out again, at the beginning of January.
There’s no ulterior motive that Sherlock gives.
They have hot chocolate and make a fairly sturdy snowwoman out of the scant centimeters of freshly-fallen powder.
Sherlock takes a selfie of the three of them, Archie, himself and the snowwoman, Helga, to show to John.
It makes John’s heart hurt.
---
Their paperwork is easy enough to get. Mycroft doesn’t interfere, which is a blessing in and of itself, and makes Sherlock uncomfortable. If Mycroft isn’t meddling, that truly means he’s given John his stamp of approval.
It’s all very fraught with emotion. Sherlock hates it.
But they have a small gathering at Sherlock’s parents’. A few friends and close family, too much food and wine, it’s nice and simple and John finds himself giving into Marjorie’s request and swapping his simple titanium band with Sherlock so that they can go through the motion of sliding the rings onto one another’s fingers for all to see, even though they’ve already sealed the deal.
It’s incredibly cheesy, but John’s happy that Harry’s gotten a video of it.
Christine and Christa are there, as are Jacob and Elena. John finds that he quite likes talking with both of the adults while Sherlock disappears with the two children. Honestly, John doesn’t even think to look for him until he’s going to fill his wine glass and wants to ask if Sherlock needs a refill as well.
John searches through the house and out the front yard, upstairs and down, and in the barn, but Sherlock is nowhere to be found. It’s only when he hears a delighted squeal that he rounds the house to the side garden and finds Sherlock swinging Jacob around in a circle like a merry go round.
“Me next Sherwowk!” Elena screeches and Jacob giggles when he’s back on his feet, stumbling around dizzy for a moment.
“Alright, little fox, your turn!” Sherlock laughs and does the same with the girl, spinning counterclockwise and back for several moments before letting her stumble around like her brother.
Sherlock’s laughs are puttering out when he turns slightly, catching John out of the corner of his eye. The smile he sends John’s way is enough to melt John’s entire being, and he steps leisurely out of the shadows, attempting to smile back one fraction of what he feels. “Sherlock Holmes, the human merry go round,” John jests and both of the children pop up from where they’d tossed themselves on the ground.
“John! Spin me!” Elena demands, skipping over to tug on John’s hand. John smiles down at her and then to Sherlock and he gives in, taking her by both hands and swinging her carefully around.
The take turns swinging the children this way and that, until John begs them off. “Lady, gent, is it okay if I steal Sherlock back for a bit?”
Elena thinks about it for a moment, mouth twisted in thought. “It’s your wedding, okay,” she decides gravely, and it takes all John has not to laugh at her.
John grabs Sherlock around the waist and pulls him back inside, snogging him in the little hallway before the living room. “Elena and Jacob adore you,” John says in wonder.
“I adore
you
,” Sherlock shoots back and ducks to kiss him again, a sweet, lengthy thing.
“Good thing, too, seeing as,” and he lifts his hand to wriggle his ring finger.
They stay at the party awhile longer before getting a ride from Mycroft’s driver to the little inn in the center of town. They rented out the whole floor, just in case.
It’s hours later, as dawn is peeking pink and expectant on the horizon, when John finally puts voice to the suspicions that have been cropping up. “Sherlock,” he says quietly, shifting over beneath the now-ruined quilt. “Do you want children?”
Sherlock stares at the ceiling, makes no indication that he’s heard John at all, but after a moment, he turns his head to meet John’s gaze. “Look at our lives, John,” he says, a bit thickly, whether from the subject matter they’re discussing at present or what he’d just been doing to John with his mouth and throat John doesn’t know. “What a preposterous notion.”
John thinks for a moment, processes what Sherlock has said, and decides to push it. He doesn’t want Sherlock to settle, not ever; he deserves to be effervescently happy. John had made a very real promise to him, just hours before, that he’d be sure to be the one to make that happen for Sherlock. “Our lives are insane, yes, but you didn’t answer the question, did you?”
Sherlock sighs and gets up from the bed, padding to the bathroom to clean himself up. John watches from where his head rests on the pillow, giving Sherlock the silence and space to figure out his words. When Sherlock returns to bed, minty fresh and clean of semen, he sits on the bed, one leg dangling over the side, the other tucked up under him.
“It’s not rational,” he says, as though it’s a curse.
“No, s’not, but…”
“Children irrevocably change your life. Everything in it...”
John folds his arms beneath his head and looks up at Sherlock. “They do, yeah.”
Sherlock fixes him with a clear gaze. “You didn’t want to have a child, John. I could see it in your eyes. When I told you-”
“That was the circumstance at the time, Sherlock. I wouldn’t ask you now if I was afraid or not ready to hear what you have to say.”
Sherlock swallows. “I’m Sherlock Holmes.”
“Yeah, and thank god for it,” John jokes, gently.
“Sherlock Holmes…” he tests the words on his tongue. “Should not have a child.”
“Says who?” John responds immediately, fiercely.
Sherlock smiles, a sardonic thing, and hangs his head. A cold, visceral emptiness invades John’s chest cavity, a stark contradiction to the effusive joy he’d felt earlier. “Sherlock. I’m the one person… I… love you most in all the world. And we have to be honest with one another. Or… well. Obviously. Do you want to have a child, Sherlock?”
---
Mycroft doesn’t meddle, but as it turns out, the system does not want to allow Sherlock Holmes (and to a lesser degree, John Watson) to adopt a child. Their lives are too dangerous, they’re all over the papers, everyone knows their private lives.
It’s not ideal for a child, they all say.
Sherlock puts on a brave face that John sees immediately through. The pain, the self-deprecation, the humiliation and the guilt are right there on his face, and only John can see.
Sherlock tries to play it off after their seventh meeting. “As I said. Sherlock Holmes should not have a child,” and he shrugs, like it’s nothing.
Things come to a head in the back of their favorite coffee shop, where John has been nursing a weak latte for a half an hour. “This is… bollocks,” he says quietly and carefully, displaying his own rage in his typical militarily-trained fashion.
“I shouldn’t have-”
“Yes, you should!” John says, voice louder, carrying across the small room; his fist slams down on the table. He reins in his anger, keeps his fist balled and steadies the table. “Yes, Sherlock, you should. This isn’t…”
“What, John? It isn’t what? The end? It is. I don’t want to-”
“I don’t want to put you through this again, either,” John interrupts and then sighs, slams his eyes shut and shakes his head. “We… how long did it take for us to get here? We’ve already-Sherlock, we’ve already committed to this. The cases are… different. The flat is different! Christ, we’re different and I…” John shakes his head again and withers. “I think.” John stops, claps his mouth shut.
“What?” Sherlock asks, hopefully, looking at John from under his eyelids.
“Surrogacy.”
That earns a full-throated laugh from Sherlock. He even tips his head back for effect.
“Really don’t think it’s that far-fetched,” John says, accusingly. “Because we have money.”
Sherlock purses his lips, clearly still thinking that this is an insane idea. “And no,” John presses on. “Thankfully Mycroft didn’t interfere here because, well, I think he knows how much this means to us but. If we asked. Don’t you think…”
“John,” Sherlock says, witheringly, as though John has never suggested anything so idiotic. “Impregnate a stranger with your sperm-”
“With yours. History of alcoholism, diabetes, and alzheimer's, here. Yours. Our child. Your DNA.”
“That is-”
John cuts him off again. “Don’t. Say anything now. This is still fresh. The wound, the uh, rejection. But. Think about it. Because Sherlock, I’m uhm, willing to try just about anything as far as we’re concerned, yeah?”
“John,” he says again, quietly, glancing down into his now-cold coffee.
“Just think about it.”
---
They fight.
“You never wanted children!”
“Why are you bringing this up again? I thought you hated repeating yourself! And now I’ll say what I’ve said every time in the past: I was worried about bringing a child into the world with a woman who was a stand in at best, for you -- for what I couldn’t have with you!” John spits it from his position, standing in the kitchen.
Sherlock is standing in front of the hearth. “This isn’t something we can just decide to do, John. You’re going to-”
“So help me god , don’t tell me what I’m going to do.” He huffs. “I want to make you happy !”
Sherlock laughs, mirthless. “Oh is that it, then? Get me a child in order to-”
John’s voice is a roar when he speaks. “I want to have a child with you because I love you, you great fucking moron! And you want a child! And I think we’d be…” John putters out a bit at the end there, and it piques Sherlock’s attention.
Sherlock’s eyes narrow and he takes two steps in John’s direction. “What? We’d be what?”
“Honestly,” John says, end of his rope, sounding like he’s put out. “For all of our disastrous shortcomings, I think we’d actually be fairly brilliant dads.”
That gives Sherlock pause. He blinks, three times before narrowing his eyes even further. “Dads.”
“Yeah, or,” John runs a hand up the back of his neck, weaves his fingers through his hair. He waves vaguely at the distance between them with his free hand. “Father, dad, papa, whatever. I think we’d be… good at it. Together.”
John glances at Sherlock and then walks past him, plunks himself down in his chair, and rubs his hands over his eyes. Sherlock stands still a moment longer and then follows John into the sitting room and sitting primly down in his own chair. They’re quiet for a very long time.
Eventually, when the shadows on the floor have shifted from the coffee table to the bookcases, Sherlock speaks, low, sincere. “Did you ever think we’d be here, John?”
John licks his lips, leans his temple against his knuckles and gazes at Sherlock. “No. I certainly did fucking not. But…”
“But?”
“But,” John begins again, sitting up straight, shimmying to the edge of his seat. “I think we can do this. I think… I want to love our child. I want us to have a child. And I think you’re scared that I’m just saying that, and I’m not. I think you’re using that as an excuse because you’re scared too, but… well, won’t know until we try, right? And we uh, at the risk of sounding like a total arsehole, are pretty amazing together. And can make pretty amazing things happen… when we’re together.”
Sherlock stares at John for so long that John just assumes that he’s retreated into his mind palace, so he’s shocked that when he goes to stand to make tea, Sherlock speaks.
“I’ll call Mycroft then, shall I?”
“Yeah,” John says with a smile. “Alright.”
---
There’s a binder with twenty-three women. It’s easily whittled down to nine and then to three and then the final two surrogates.
They meet with both women separately on a Thursday, just as summer is waning into fall. Sasha is petite, born in London and comes from a highly educated and motivated family. She’s polite and quiet and pretty, but she fails Sherlock’s largest test.
“She’s boring, John.”
“Who cares if she’s boring? We only have to put up with her for nine months! And she’s perfectly pleasant! Has a great medical history, has a master’s in-”
“She’s boring.” Sherlock puts the nail in the coffin and rips up her paperwork, tossing it in the air like confetti.
Luckily John cleans it all up before Sheree shows up at the flat. Sheree is also highly-educated with a good medical history, but she’s funny, and she doesn’t sit idlly when Sherlock tries to speak over her. “You need to stop talking over me, Mr. Holmes, okay? Because you invited me here.”
Rather than appearing chastised, Sherlock is delighted, and ends up abandoning his entire checklist in order to chat with Sheree about her architectural business. John’s not sure when Sherlock became so interested in architecture, but he doesn’t question it. After a time he manages to get Sherlock back on track, and after a few hours, have exhausted their entire checklist of questions.
John’s barely shut the front door behind Sheree when Sherlock says, standing on the second landing. “She’s the one.”
“You think so?” John tries to disguise the excitement in his voice, but fails.
“Yes, it’s her.”
John mounts the steps, “Well. Christ. Alright.”
“John, we’re… having a baby.”
John shakes his head in disbelief. “Wow uh, oh my god, yeah we are.”
---
It’s two attempts, three and a half months and ten thousand pounds, but then…
“Congratulations, guys,” she says on the voicemail. “You’re pregnant!”
Sherlock has to sit down; John cries, just a little.
They both feel the world tilt on its axis.
---
John gets in the habit of bringing Sheree falafel wraps with too much pickled beets on them at lunch, because it’s what she craves. “At least it’s not cheeseburgers,” she says as she gratefully accepts John’s offerings, nearly every other day.
They keep their distance, but remain friendly, and they share a few evenings together, having dinner or watching a film. They touch her stomach when she assures them that she’s felt a kick.
When John feels it for the first time, he stops breathing for an entire minute.
Sherlock likes to lecture her stomach about all sorts of things: chemistry, the current state of the Tube, why the color green really is the best color, and Sheree and John will just have a conversation on top of it all, waiting for Sherlock to exhaust his diatribe for the day.
“It’s going to be the smartest little thing in the entire universe, with you for a dad,” John says one evening, carding his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.
“ Us for dads,” Sherlock says sleepily.
They opt not to find out the sex of the child, and paint John’s old room a light grey. They choose utilitarian pieces of furniture, and Marjorie insists they take the rocking chair that she used with Mycroft and Sherlock. It’s a clean, sparse room that John has no doubt will fill with toys as their child gets older.
And no one seems too surprised when they are told that Sherlock and John are having a child through a surrogate. Or, more likely, they have much more tact than Sherlock and don’t show it.
---
Tristan is born after nine hours of labor and screams bloody murder the second he’s born. Sherlock cries, John nearly faints, and they both cut the cord.
“Jesus christ, this is real, we did it,” John says, monotone. He feels strangely as though he’s drifting above his own body.
“ I did it,” Sheree jokes and squeezes her husband’s hand. They all laugh, though weakly.
“Tristan,” Sherlock says, voice shaky and imprecise, standing over the baby’s small, plexiglass bassinette. “Tristan Watson Holmes. You… are perfect. Just like your father.”
Then, John does cry. “Oh shut up, bastard,” he says, no heat in it, and crosses the room to join Sherlock. “Though, your father is right, Tristan, you’re perfect.”
“Sap,” Sherlock says, raspy.
John elbows him in the side.
They continue to stare.
---
It comes as a shock to absolutely everyone that Sherlock is the overprotective one. There are no experiments in the flat – they’ve rented out 221c for just that purpose – and nothing untoward in the refrigerator. Sherlock calibrates Tristan’s bottles to the same exact temperature every time. He forgoes Baby Einstein, instead choosing to speak to Tristan about the topics that he himself finds relevant.
John fills in the gaps.
They both take to placing the baby on their bare chests while they’re watching the telly, and curl up with Tristan in bed at night before the baby is placed back in his crib. They fuss and dote; they don’t sleep and they snap at one another. They cry out of frustration that Tristan won’t take a bottle, that Tristan won’t stop crying, that Tristan seems to love being held by other people over the two of them.
They both knew they couldn’t possibly anticipate how all of this would change their lives, but over time, they get used to it. Mrs. Hudson watches the baby on some occasion, but on others, they have a nanny. Theresa is getting her degree in English Literature, and generally takes only morning classes and Sherlock and John pay very well.
They take cases intermittently – nines or higher – and can’t wait to get home to the baby at the end of the day.
Sherlock eats, he takes care of himself, he’s not as wild and careless at crime scenes. John learns to manage his temper, and his ability to sleep wherever and whenever comes in handy, when Sherlock finds that his transport needs rest and someone needs to watch the baby.
They love Tristan, wholly and frighteningly. They love Tristan together, and argue whether piano or violin would be best, if rugby is too dangerous, which brand of pureed carrots is the best.
John marvels, daily, at how his life became so full of this . Sherlock marvels too, but in fewer words.
Tristan grows, and they take longer cases; Marjorie loves babysitting and Tom has taken to illustrating picture books for the baby and they’re more than content to be told that Sherlock and John will be up north another day.
It all works, and that’s the most shocking thing, to the both of them.
Somehow, they manage to impress their best traits onto their child, and Tristan grows, excels, keeps them in awe, every day.
And in the dark of night, curled into one another, Sherlock silently thanks John for pushing the subject, all those years ago, and John thanks deities that he doesn’t believe in for bringing this into his life.