Work Text:
He hadn't thought about his birthday until the doctor's feet slowly shuffled from the lab.
He would have to pay attention to the man's needs, while Watson seemed completely capable he was also recovering from an injury still, he was tanned yes, but he also looked utterly exhausted.
Oh!
He wouldn't have to spend his birthday alone or pretend he was absorbed in his work. He usually didn't remember until the night before, but that was because he had a fond memory of his Nanny tucking him in bed when he was a child, before he was sent away to boarding school. She pulled the covers up to his chin as he liked, and told him it was the day of his birth.
She told him some fantastical story about the night he was born. Until he was five, Sherlock thought of Nanny as Mother. He'd figured out she wasn't at three of course, but mothers in books made their children feel warm and safe and ...whatever that warm feeling was. It was a little like eating a sweet. Nanny did all those things. She held him when he sobbed, wiped his tears, straightened his dresses, kept him as safe as she possibly could.
But enough lollygagging. He needed to prepare for the fact he would have a roommate, someone that would agree to share lodgings with him. Watson wouldn't have to know it was his birthday, in fact Holmes decided it was impolite to say so.