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Somehow, Sherlock has broken their washer and dryer.
Well. Mariana says “somehow” but she knows exactly how it happened. Sherlock had left a pocket knife in his pants, put them in the laundry hamper, and it had banged up the whole washer, forcing poor Mari to have to go out to the laundromat and get their clothes washed. She’d yelled at him a bit, and he’d looked properly cowed, and she’d said it was fine and she would go out and get them washed herself, grumbling as she pulled on a cardigan over her white T-Shirt and jeans.
Anyhow, that’s how she finds herself coming home with a garbage bag full of clothes slung over her shoulder at 10 pm at night.
She fiddles with the key for a minute, and then lets herself in.
“Yoo-hoo, boys!” she calls upstairs, grinning to herself. Her boys are usually awake until 12:30 in the morning, so she assumes they’re still awake.
There’s no cheerful answer from John or short answer from Sherlock, though, which means she gets to deposit the clothes personally. Maybe they haven’t heard her, but she’s not all that tired, and she doesn’t mind going upstairs to see her boys.
Slowly she makes her way up the stairs, which creak with the weight of the bag of clothing. Mentally she might not be tired, but physically she’s exhausted.
“Oi! Come get your clothes!” she says at the top of the stairs. Still no answer.
She drops the bag near their door and pads through the flat, striped socks still on. There’s the faint sound of snoring.
She knocks on John’s bedroom door, waiting for a response, and then she opens the door, but he’s not in there.
John’s room is predictably messy. Mariana sighs. She’ll have to tell him to clean this mess up later, it isn’t healthy.
His mic and computer are on the bed, open to some editing software Mariana doesn’t really care to know the name of. It’s set halfway through an episode– silly man, she doesn’t understand how he can just leave a project unfinished.
His socks are strewn across the floor, all mismatched and without pairs. She frowns. The poor socks. They must feel so lonely.
She sighs, and closes the door. To Sherlock’s room it is.
Sherlock’s room isn’t much better, but the mess is meticulous. Meticulous mess. She likes the sound of that.
It’s clear that in the slides and bottles of acid, everything has its own place. She might nag John to clean up, but she certainly won’t do the same to Sherlock. He, at least, has everything figured out. Organized chaos. John’s room is just messy because John himself is lazy.
Mariana smiles to herself, and closes the door. Then she inhales sharply. If not in their bedrooms, where are Sherlock and John sleeping??
She sighs. Again. Makes her way into the living room, and–
Ah. That’s where.
Sherlock and John are curled up on the couch, John on top of Sherlock, his head resting on Sherlock’s chest. Their legs are all tangled up, and Sherlock has an arm on top of John. John has on black sweats and a shirt with a football pattern, while Sherlock is wearing one of their stupid merch shirts and some shorts.
They look comfortable. Like two cats curled around each other. Mariana’s chest warms. She loves them both, she really does.
She quickly snaps a picture. Sets it as her wallpaper. Grins.
She goes into the kitchen and makes herself a cup of hot chocolate. She opens the microwave just before it can beep, so as not to wake the two up. She sprinkles a couple of marshmallows in, and thinks maybe she should’ve made tea– they could’ve kept up a tradition! But neither of them are awake, so she’ll let herself get away with it just this once.
She sits on the small couch next to them, and wonders what she ought to do. She can’t just leave the clothes there– well, she could, but she’d be thinking about it for the whole night, and she’d get no sleep.
She could… Well, no, they should do that themselves. But she really wouldn’t mind… and she’d like to watch her boys sleep… That’s not creepy, is it? No, it’s not.
She drags the bag across the floor (she’s not going to haul it over again). Plops herself down on the couch again. Pulls the coffee table close to her. Clears everything off of it.
First, dividing it into two sections: Sherlock’s clothes and John’s clothes, and piling the clothing on each side.
Then diving it again: pants, shirts, shorts, pajamas, jackets. …underclothes.
She will not be touching those.
Then, she pulls out her phone. Puts on the soundtrack for a new anime she’s been watching, not on company time, mind you, and lets it flow through the flat as she gets to work on folding her clothes.
She’ll enjoy watching John and Sherlock have to take the piles of folded clothes from the living room to their bedrooms and back, and she smiles to herself at the thought. Never do anything nice for someone else without making sure you can be mean to them too.
The soft piano is soothing. She hopes it isn’t too loud, she’d hate to wake the boys up from their sleep. It’s a rarity that either of them will go to bed this early, especially Sherlock. That boy loves to stay awake until daylight streams in from the windows, and she’s very glad to see him actually asleep for once.
Her back hurts a bit from hunching over the clothes, but it isn’t awful. She’ll go to bed soon, anyway, she’s just going to finish these up. It won’t take long.
Plus, she gets to watch the way Sherlock and John sleep with each other. She’d like to be part of that cuddle pile, someday. She’ll arrange it somehow. Maybe with a movie night, a Disney movie night! That would be so lovely.
There’s a few more clothes left to fold, but her eyelids feel a bit heavy. It’s just these last few, though. She’ll survive.
But the music is so… nice, and it’d be so easy to fall asleep, and it’s only a few more clothes anyways… she can fold them when she wakes up…
(Mariana wakes up to a full breakfast on a newly clean table, and a note written in John’s messy scrawl that says thank you for doing our laundry mari!! hope you like breakfast <3.
John also has a picture of her fast asleep, now, and it’s on his wallpaper cycle.)