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John grinned to himself as he opened the door to 221 Baker Street to the scent of fresh-baked goodness. In order to accomplish his holiday shopping, he had left Rosie in the company of Mrs. Hudson. Martha had decided to dedicate the day to baking all the cookies the entire neighborhood could possibly need for every holiday until the end of time. Rosie had been so very excited about the possibility of decorating sugar cookies shaped like snowmen and angels, and even more about building a gingerbread house.
However, there was no answer to his knock at 221A. And the knob remained immobile, locked, when he tried to open the door.
“What the…?” John muttered before giving up and trudging up the stairs. He could at least drop off his things before embarking on the Adventure of the Missing Toddler.
But as he passed the creaky fifth step, he heard laughter: a high, tinkling giggle paired with a deep baritone rumble. On the twelfth stair, he heard the squeal Rosie made only when she was very pleased...or when she was being tickled mercilessly.
Happily curious, he popped his head through the kitchen door and saw Rosie and Sherlock, their heads together (both with a slight dusting of powdered sugar) over a rather elaborate cookie-based construction. He cleared his throat and the two of them snapped to attention, looking quite too guilty for his taste.
“What’s going on here...and where is Mrs. Hudson?”
Sherlock wiped his hands on a damp dishcloth before making a move toward Rosie’s face. The mess there was terrible: layers of frosting, crumbs, and sprinkles drying into a flaky mess. But the toddler ducked and squealed so much that Sherlock gave it up as a loss.
“Martha went out for more supplies.” He glanced at Rosie, who clapped two sticky hands together with glee. “Seems she needed that green plastic wrap that I... appropriated to help crack the case of the murderous photographer and his color gels.”
John rolled his eyes, but couldn’t quite hide his smile. That had been a good case, and Sherlock had been brilliant to solve it. He leaned down to kiss Rosie, then licked stray blue sprinkles off his lips, “Mmmmmm, our girl is soooo sweet.”
But as his tongue moved over his lips, he got a closer look at the cookie display that had been captivating his flatmate and daughter. The gingerbread house was lacking a roof, and there was a decapitated gingerbread man lying inside, with red icing splattered so as to suggest blood.
“Sherlock…” John couldn’t tear his eyes from the gory scene. “What is this?”
Sherlock suddenly took an intense interest in a bowl of fudge batter. He dipped a finger in the mixture and placed it in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to answer John.
“Is this…” John glanced between the two of them, his mouth gone a bit slack. “Is this a cookie crime scene?”
Rosie clapped and said, “Murder!” as Sherlock’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.
John shook his head and grabbed Sherlock, placing one hand on his hip, the other going to the wrist attached to the finger in his mouth. It came out with a pop and Rosie giggled.
“But John!” Sherlock’s voice took on a whiny quality. “To me, a good murder makes it feel like Christmas.”
And as Rosie clapped and the street door banged open with a resounding “Yoohoo!” from Mrs. Hudson, John decided that Christmas glee was Christmas glee and family was family. So he ruffled Sherlock’s sugar-dusted curls before pulling the man down into a good old-fashioned Christmas snog.
*~*~*~*
Sherlock Holmes knew it was going to be one of those evenings as a parent as soon as he opened the door to 221B. He sighed and let his hands fall to his sides in defeat at the sound of a rather epic fit being thrown upstairs in Rosie’s room. He couldn’t quite make out the calming shushings John was sure to be supplying, but Sherlock knew they were there.
He shuffled into the kitchen and placed the celebratory bottle of wine on the worktop. There would be time enough to pop a cork and drink to the newly imprisoned criminal they had been pursuing for the past week. He shrugged out of his coat and scarf, taking the time to don a dressing gown before mounting the stairs to confront the situation.
The door stood open a crack, and through the small space Sherlock glanced a scene that warmed his heart even as his teeth gritted at Rosie’s wails. John was sitting on the rose-colored bedspread with their daughter in his lap, her (presumably) tear-covered face buried in his jumper. John rubbed her back in slow circles and murmured into her hair. When he heard the door open fully, he looked up and smiled a tiny bit.
“We’re not so happy with the Nativity play casting,” John informed before placing his lips back to Rosie’s locks.
Sherlock grinned back, reassured with the knowledge that no one had succumbed to physical harm or bullying. He wrapped his robe tie a bit tighter around his middle and sat down next to his husband.
“It this true, Watson?” John grinned widely at the name Sherlock persisted in calling their daughter despite the fact that he had adopted her nearly a year earlier.
Rosie turned slightly and nodded. Her face was wet and pink, her small eyes red, the saddest expression Sherlock had ever seen gracing her features.
“And what part did you get?” Sherlock kept his eyes on her face.
She gulped and managed to say, voice froggy and thick with tears, “Wise man.”
Sherlock glanced up at his husband. “And that’s...an undesirable role?”
John shrugged, but Rosie nodded emphatically.
“And what part did you want?”
“The grazing mule!!” Rosie wailed, turning her face back to John’s chest as her tears started anew.
“Is the mule highly significant in the nativity?” Sherlock wrinkled his forehead as he tried his best to remember. This particular segment of Christianity rarely figured in crimes, so he’d let his detailed knowledge atrophy, but he didn’t seem to recall the animals of the Christmas story doing much more than standing around, watching.
Rosie looked up and gulped, nodding so hard that Sherlock swore heard her brain rattle. “It’s in the song!!”
John also seemed puzzled by this. “Which song, sweetie? The First Noel? Joy to the World? I don’t remember a mule in either of those.”
Rosie shook her head miserably, the pain of the casting slight obviously being compounded by the ignorance of her fathers.
She rolled her eyes and huffed. “No! The grazing mule is from Deck the Halls!”
Sherlock could see John humming the melody beneath his breath, still quite puzzled.
“Could you sing it for us, sweetheart?”
Rosie suddenly brightened. She loved to sing, especially Christmas songs. She sat up straight and belted out, “See the grazing mule before us, fa la la la la...la la la la! Strike the harp and join the chorus, fa la…” She trailed off as she realized that both men were struggling not to laugh.
Seeing his daughter’s lower lip begin to wobble, John was quick to wrap her in his arms once again. “Oh, Rosie, we’re sorry. But the words are ‘see the blazing yule before us…’”
Sherlock wrapped both of them in a long-limbed hug, kissing John sweetly on the lips before brushing a smooch on Rosie’s cheek. “But count on our daughter to be distraught over a Mondegreen.”
Rosie sniffed a bit more, and John kissed her hair then looked lovingly at Sherlock before whispering in her ear, “Let Daddy make a call. I’m betting your teacher would be okay with a grazing mule in the Nativity play.”
*~*~*~*
Rosie Watson had the best parents of anyone in her class. She’d spoken with passion on the topic today during their Daily Share Time, when they explained the art they’d drawn for the assignment of “family holiday traditions”.
She told about when she and Sherlock solved The Murder of the Gingerbread Woman, adding in details about how her fathers had met and fallen in love during a murder investigation. Samuel Lambert had groaned and muttered, “Like we haven’t heard this story six million times before.”
But Rosie would not be stopped. It was the holiday season, after all. The end of December was about looking back, thinking about the good things in your life, the people you loved, and the opportunities for more fun, more love, more goodness in the new year...or something. Mrs. Hudson had made a speech sort of like that the other night, over very yummy hot chocolate, but she seemed a little bit tired and spoke the words around the cookies she was busy munching.
She finished her talk with the proud announcement, “And today, my daddy is leaving work early so he can take me to the park to build a snowman!” She counted four children with jealous faces and nodded decisively. Obviously her fathers were the best parents in London.
*~*~*
John stood outside Rosie’s school, shoulders hunched slightly against the cold, chatting with another parent as they awaited dismissal. He had a small satchel containing snowman supplies in one hand and a thermos of Mrs. Hudson’s sinfully good hot chocolate in his other. Apparently, she had made a bit too much the previous night while under the influence of an herbal soother. But according to her, it reheated just fine.
The double doors of the brick building nearly flew off their hinges as the concentrated energy of twenty seven-year-olds poured out of the school. It didn’t take long to locate Rosie. She was sprinting toward him, forgotten mittens trailing behind her on the strings that tethered them to her coat, one hand on her stocking cap to keep it on her head.
“Daddy!” She collided with a kneeling John, who immediately wrapped her in a hug. He pulled back from the embrace to gaze down at his daughter, whose beaming face in that moment reminded him so much of Mary.
He smiled gently and rubbed his cold nose against her warm one. She wrinkled it and squirmed, and John stood, helping her into her mittens and securing her scarf before taking her hand and starting the short walk to Regent’s Park. “Let’s go build that snowman!”
*~*~*
There’s a case.
Impossible. I’m with Lestrade now and there’s nothing new. - SH
Your assistance is needed immediately.
What does that mean? -SH
John, where are you? - SH
Regent’s Park.
Rosie’s with me.
You brought Rosie to a crime scene? I thought you were the responsible parent. - SH
Just hurry up, Sherlock.
It could be dangerous.
That’s my line. - SH
*~*~*
Sherlock walked the last few metres into the park and glanced around, looking for his daughter’s distinctive hot pink coat. He smiled as he caught sight of it and jogged over. John and Rosie both turned, pink-cheeked and huffing a bit, whether from exertion or from their current giggle fit, he couldn’t tell.
“Well, Watson. And Watson.” Sherlock nodded at each of them in turn. “What’s all this about?”
Rosie marched over and slipped her tiny, mitten-covered hand into his, tugging him toward a group of winter-naked trees. “There’s a body, Papa.”
He cast a quick glance at John, who made his face deadly serious and nodded at the two of them. “Yes, DI Watson. It’s time to get this mystery solved.”
Sherlock shook his head and let himself be dragged to the “crime scene”. And when he could finally see the ground in the center of the copse of trees, he began to laugh as well. He bent down to scoop Rosie into his arms as she pointed to the body.
Instead of a traditional, vertically-oriented, snowman, his lovely, deranged family had built a three-dimensional body outline and embellished it with all the signs of death by poisoned cocoa.
Sherlock stood and placed an arm around his husband’s shoulders, pulling him in for a chaste but loving kiss. They stepped apart and watched as Rosie circled the scene, pointing out all the clues.
John leaned his head on Sherlock’s shoulder and said, “I think I’ll call this one ‘The Case of the Frozen Corpse.’”