Work Text:
Going shopping with his Papa had always been a great adventure, and the little boy immensely enjoyed their little excursions to a nearby Tesco, perhaps even as much as engaging in various important experiments with Daddy. Both of these activities brought him a lot of joy, despite the fact that they couldn't have been more different from one another. The tiniest Watson-Holmes had learnt early in his life that “different” didn't mean “worse” or “better”. It simply meant that the thing or action in question possessed distinct features from the others in a given group. Period. No judgement. It was like with having two fathers – it may have been different than having a mummy and daddy, but Hamish loved his parents very much, so it was all fine. That conclusion satisfied the boy, so he didn't bother with the issue any longer.
Hamish's little hand was hidden safely in John's bigger one as they stood on the pavement, waiting for the light to change to green, which would indicate that it was safe to cross the road. Papa had taught him that ages ago. Honestly, though, the boy gathered that even without the bright red figure telling him to stop he would never ever enter the roadway at the wrong time. That was common sense, really. All the cars swished by very fast and made a lot of spooky noises with their screeching tires and revving engines. Perhaps Hamish would have been scared a bit if it weren't for his Papa, who wasn't afraid of anything. Even of vaccines! The little boy looked up at him and smiled. John reciprocated the sentiment eagerly and squeezed his son's hand.
“Do you remember what we need to buy, Mishy?” he asked casually.
“Uh-huh! Yeah!” The boy nodded so hard that he almost lost his balance. Good thing that Papa held him tightly. “Um... Bananas, yoghurt, orange juice, caramel candies, lollipops...”
John chuckled, watching his son with amusement. “Well done. But what about the stuff you don't like?”
Hamish pondered about the conundrum for a while, but in the end shook his head regretfully.
“I don't remember them. Sorry, Papa,” he replied with a charmingly innocent expression on his face.
John simply had to laugh, ruffling Hamish's messy curls fondly with his free hand. Truly Sherlock's child through and through, above committing potatoes, onions or cabbages to his memory.
The light changed with a bleep and the human river rushed to the other side. The boy toddled obediently by John's thigh, looking up and around curiously at all the people walking next to them. Daddy always urged him to observe everything carefully. Hamish perhaps wasn't as good at that as his father-detective yet, but he was trying his best to make him proud.
He focused on a couple of teenagers, a boy and a girl, right beside him. The girl was a petite creature with green, puffy hair, which caught Hamish's eye instantly and truly fascinated him. It looked a lot like the crown of a tree in spring.
“Your hair is weird but pretty,” he stated with aplomb as he tugged on the fabric of the girl's dress to arrest her attention.
At first she seemed startled, but when her gaze dropped and she noticed a little boy staring at her with honesty, she was genuinely pleased by the rather awkward compliment. “Thank you! Your hair is pretty too!”
Hamish beamed at her. John gave the girl a slightly embarrassed smile, as if to say 'Kids, yeah?'. However, the kid in question hadn't finished his inspection yet. His eyes travelled to the girl's companion – a tall, lanky young man with greasy ginger hair and a lot of spots – and the boy sized him up critically.
“And you're not pretty,” Hamish commented with the painful directness of a child.
The teen's face fell, the girl snorted with undignified laughter, and John prayed for the earth to part and swallow him whole. Fortunately, the couple walked away in the opposite direction. John definitely needed to breach the topic of behaving with propriety with his pride and joy. Right now, preferably.
“Mishy... You can't tell people that they're not pretty,” he started softly, keeping his voice calm, but also serious.
“Why not?” The boy needed to know the reason as always. He couldn't simply accept something at face value without understanding it first.
“Because that's rude.”
“But it was the truth!”
“Maybe, but it's still rude.”
“But Daddy always tells the truth, even if it's rude!”
John sighed inwardly. He needed to have a long chat with his husband. Not only their five-year-old could use a Social Interactions 101.
“That's right, love, but people pay Daddy to tell them the truth. That’s his job. The clients are prepared to receive the answers, even the rude or brutal ones. They pay for the truth and they expect it.” Well, that wasn’t entirely so, really, but John couldn't tell his little boy that his Daddy simply liked to be a douche sometimes. “It's okay to tell nice things to people because that makes them happy. Like with this girl, yeah? She smiled. But if you tell people something bad, they will feel sad. You shouldn't make people sad, Mishy.”
The boy mulled it over for a while, his little face scrunched in concentration. His one hand was occupied by holding his Papa's, but he put the other one under his chin, mimicking Sherlock's gesture of utmost focus. John thought that it was absolutely adorable. Finally, Hamish nodded his assent with the conviction of a newly converted zealot.
“Okay. I'll try to make people happy!”
John smiled at him warmly. The boy had his heart in the right place. “You're already making me and Daddy very happy.”
Hamish gave him a toothy grin, skipping lightly for the rest of their peregrination to Tesco.
* * *
Despite John's inherent distrust towards Tesco's chip and PIN machines, the supermarket was the biggest and the cheapest shop nearby, so they visited it quite frequently, preferring to pay at the register afterwards. Hamish always liked to push the cart, even if he basically had to stand on his tiptoes and crane his neck to do so. John had to help discreetly with steering the wobbly vessel, making sure that the boy didn't injure himself or someone else. Having a head-on collision with the goods piled all around them would be very not good as well.
With equal eagerness Hamish put the stuff into the cart and arranged it according to his own obscure system. The fact that Papa had to lift him up first didn't seem to discourage him. If anything, it made the whole process even more fun. At least, he had grown out of the phase of taking random items from the shelves and hurling everything inside. In the past John used to end up with a package of tampons, several pairs of stockings, and more bandages that he could use in a lifetime, even around Sherlock. Now Hamish always asked John first what they needed, and then, after Papa consulted the list, he helped with the search of the thing. Having Sherlock as his father, and wanting to impress him, made the boy quite perceptive, which proved to be useful, especially while looking for products on the lower shelves.
From time to time Hamish asked John to purchase some sweets or other food he considered “yum,” like chocolate milk. Papa usually relented as long as the boy wasn’t overly greedy. John also agreed to buy him a book of his choosing, provided it wasn't too expensive. After some browsing in the appropriate section of the supermarket, the delighted boy noticed a colourful publication about volcanoes and decided that this was the one and only book for him. The doctor was quite surprised, actually. Sherlock would most likely deem knowledge about magma and pumice quite useless and frankly a waste of time, but John was glad that their son appeared to be curious about the world around him and pursued his own interests, even if they were incompatible with his parents'. The book landed on top of two cartons of juice, and they moved along to collect everything they needed.
By the time they reached the checkouts and took their place in the queue, the cart was practically overflowing with goods. No way they could carry all that stuff home on their own. Taking a cab seemed like the most sensible solution, albeit a pricey one. Oh well, they could afford a bit of luxury.
When the queue finally moved and they walked to a free till, John started to put the stuff from his cart onto the conveyor belt. In the meantime, Hamish watched the cashier intently. It was a woman in her thirties with bleached blond hair, and rather tacky make-up.
John didn't pay too much attention to either of them, as he had to empty the cart, which contained approximately one third of the shop's stock, until the boy said to the woman, “You have pretty eyes!”
That definitely surprised the cashier, but she smiled at Hamish. He grinned back at her, feeling that he had done good. Being really proud of himself, he certainly had to make Papa aware of that fact.
“I made the lady happy,” he stated in a theatrical whisper, not exactly controlling his voice in his obvious excitement. Probably even people in the parking lot could hear him if they paid attention.
“Yes, you did. Well done, Hamish,” John praised, struggling with bottles of milk.
And in the same not-so-hushed tone, the boy added, “And I haven't told her that her lipstick doesn't match her clothes and is ugly because that would be rude!”
“Ehrm, yeah...”
When John was paying for their shopping, he looked everywhere but the cashier's face, and yet the woman's glare seemed to burn right through his skin.
* * *
Carrying all the bags to the taxi rank, John felt like a camel, nearly bending in half under the weight of the shopping. Hamish toddled near him, clutching the rim of Papa's jacket, so he wouldn't get lost. They quickly took a ride to Baker Street. The boy was perfectly content with a candy in his mouth and his new book in his hands.
The moment John opened the door to 221B, Hamish dashed upstairs, leaving Papa behind with all the stuff to haul on his own. Truly Sherlock's child, John thought, rolling his eyes.
“Daddy!”
Sherlock, who was sitting in his chair with a cold case file that Lestrade had brought earlier, lifted his head just in time to see the little boy colliding with his knees affectionately, and then climbing unceremoniously onto his lap. The detective dropped the file to the floor and hugged his son. Work could wait.
“I see you convinced Papa to buy you a book,” he noted.
“Yeah!” Hamish wriggled with enthusiasm, showing Sherlock the cover joyously. He patted the picture of an erupting volcano, and just in case his Daddy hadn't figured it out yet, he explained, “It's about vol-canoes!”
“You should read it to Hamish, Sherlock. Perhaps you both can learn something,” John said half-jokingly, carrying the bags into the kitchen. He put them on the table with a loud 'thud' and a sigh of relief.
The detective glowered at his husband briefly, but Hamish prodded him on the shoulder to get his attention again. “Daddy, you know, I've been nice to people today!” he boasted, puffing out his chest like a peacock's fledgling.
“You have?”
“Yeah!”
“See? There's truly a lot you can learn from our son,” John chimed in with a chuckle.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Do keep quiet, John, if you don't have anything intelligent to say.”
“That was rude, Daddy!” Hamish cried out in indignation, and pressed his sticky finger to Sherlock's mouth, shushing him effectively. “You can't be rude to Papa! He didn't pay you!”
Sherlock was truly baffled by this conclusion, failing to see any connection between the statements. His brain was threatening to short-circuit.
“You have quite a lot of explaining to do, John,” he decided, trying to ignore his husband's roaring laughter in the background.