Chapter Text
Quite naively, two fathers tucked away in their opulent manor believed that their children were getting along rather nicely. There’d been scarcely a peep from upstairs where they had sequestered themselves for some post-lunch playtime, both of a similar age and in a particularly harmonious mood. They’d banished their dads for some quality time together, and the men had gladly taken the opportunity for some couch cuddles.
But with it they forget the age-old adage: when toddlers are quiet, there’s trouble afoot. It takes an embarrassing amount of time for either father to get up and investigate the suspicious silence, and only then on account of a well-needed bathroom break. He sticks his grey hair around the door, prematurely grinning at the low chatter of his sons, when Greg freezes.
Well fuck.
Well fuck is an understatement, in fact. He backs out of the room, aghast, agape, and rushes down the stairs to collect his placid yet bemused husband. Pulling him from the blanket with a silencing finger to his lips, Greg leads Mycroft up the stairs towards the little bedroom. Mycroft seems to be fondly amused by the tip-toeing, thinking behind the door is something extraordinarily adorable.
Extraordinary, yes. Adorable? The antithesis.
“Oh my god.” Mycroft squawks. The words slip out of his mouth, as slippery as the paint covering his baby head to hip. At least the children have had the decency to strip down to their undergarments.
Lock’s nappy is covered in muddy brown paint where multiple colours have mixed poorly. It is full, soaked, and his grin when he turns is beatific. He sees not the mess surrounding him, nor the big brother kneeling at his side, as wet as he but with colour. Jawn’s fox underpants are unrecognisable, globs of paint thick as soup dripping down off his belly onto the cotton, seeping through no doubt.
They have, by some miracle, escaped the worst of it. Jawn, who appears to be the eldest of the two, has lined plain printer paper underneath the wardrobe, but rather than using that to create his artwork he instead has used it as a paint tray to catch the overspill currently sliding slickly off the wardrobe. The wardrobe, once pristine white, is now subject to what seems to be a science experiment on paint splatter (a more PG version of Sherlock’s blood splatter investigations). Not a single inch of surface area has been spared, though if one squints they’d be able to identify several scenes scattered among the babyish scribble by Lock’s hand, who cannot be older than two and loving every second of mischief.
It seems their fathers have been stunned to silence, glancing between their sons, the wardrobe and one another like cats watching tennis. The crime scene has already been cordoned off, the paint staying in a small blast zone around the stoic furniture that has accepted its fate, but even the paper seems to be struggling to hold the sheer amount of sticky wetness glooping onto it, and the floors will not hold up well under an unexpected attack.
Greg jumps into action first, if only to prevent his baby boy from eating the bristles of a paintbrush. Non-toxic is all good and well if one isn’t actively trying to consume the product. Lock makes a noise of indignant fury, swivelling to pout all pleat-browed and squinty-eyed at his daddy, but there is a perfect smudge right along his forehead that gives him a third eyebrow, which kind of ruins the Mob Boss expression he’s going for. Snatching several nappy bags from the changing table, Mycroft passes a couple over then crouches to get to work shovelling paper into the bags like snow on a driveway.
“I help?” Jawn asks sweetly.
Whether he’s wheedling out of trouble or is genuinely oblivious to the trouble he is in Mycroft cannot immediately deduce. He does however seem eager to help, allowing Mycroft the cleaner duty of holding open the bag so he can drop the paint-sodden items into it. The paintbrushes go into another bag to be cleaned, and the paint tubes are dropped back into the box; how on earth Jawn managed to smuggle them upstairs unnoticed is a mystery Mycroft will not get the answer to just yet, if at all.
He glances over to see Lock sucking his thumb, eyes wandering over the joint creation and no sign of Greg. Before he can panic, or fume at the lack of support, Greg returns with a bucket and drops it down between his sons. Inside are two large sponges, ones used to wash the car, and hot, soapy water. He takes Lock’s hand in his own, secures the sponge in that wonderful baby-grip Lock seems to adapt when tiny, and makes large arches with their combined arms. It takes off a layer of paint, though a veritable stream of water rushes towards the floor, tinged pink by a large streak of red. A few old towels wedged under the wardrobe door puts paid to future messes; thankfully the floor is unmarred. Jawn, driven by papa’s raised eyebrow, follows suit, though he is devastated that his fresh design is already being cleaned away without nary a photograph to remember it by.
“Who decided to paint the wardrobe?” Daddy asks, his voice an octave too high to be convincingly casual, though his aim is commendable.
Jawn shrugs, Lock gargles, more fascinated by the texture of the sponge than doing any real work to clean anything. He rocks back and forth, head twisting like a charmed serpent, or perhaps a confused puppy, humming tunelessly to himself as he tries to snatch the sponge. He’s much too young to understand this is meant to be a punishment, has no regard for his own smeared images, and so Greg uses the peace to tug an amenable baby to his feet. The poor boy’s nappy is so full he adopts a sort of waddle, hands flapping as he is lead out of the room and towards the bathroom where he cannot sully his bedroom further.
Jawn, on the other hand, has developed a guilty flush on the back of his neck, a clear sign that he is beginning to gain awareness for what he’s done. Mycroft jumps on it, sitting diplomatically beside him with the other sponge to wash the last of Lock’s work away. Thank goodness it’s still wet. This would be unfathomable to clean if dry.
“Why did you paint the wardrobe?”
“Wanted to.” Jawn says to the sponge.
“You have plenty of paper, and card, and canvases.”
“Yeah but we paint those all the time.” He grumbles, then seems to remember himself, blush a fierce rouge on his cheeks.
“You wanted a new medium?” Jawn shrugs, too ashamed to admit he doesn’t understand that word. He looks steadfastly at the wardrobe, not even glancing at his papa, terrified of drawing more attention to himself. “Do you think it’s okay to paint the furniture?”
“Daddy painted the chairs.” He recalls sans snark.
“He did, but that was with proper paint. Did you ask if you could paint the wardrobe?”
“No. But Lock didn’t either.”
“Lock wasn’t big enough to ask, was he?” The question is more of a statement, but Jawn agrees anyway. He’s really dobbed himself in it, literally too.
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, we’ll get it all cleaned up, won’t we?”
Jawn takes a shaky breath, one hand fisted at his side as the other swathes over the paint. “I don’t like the wardrobe.”
“How come?”
“Too plain. Boring.”
“We could add some posters, or stickers?”
“They’re not special. Not just for us.” Watson frowns.
“You want something unique.” Papa says. Jawn sighs, relieved that he is being understood, and nods. “Alright, I understand that. Your bedroom is very special, isn’t it?”
“My favourite room ever!” Jawn beams, finally looking towards papa. A stone lodged in his chest comes loose at the lack of fury on papa’s face, and he has to remind himself where he is.
“You’re safe, little one. Nobody is going to hurt you.” Mycroft’s chest pangs. He wants nothing more than to throttle the man that made Jawn believe anger can only be solved with pain, that mistakes cannot be mitigated without a belt.
“You’re mad at me.” Jawn retorts.
Papa smiles sadly. “I’m mad and disappointed, yes, but I would never hurt you.”
“Not even a spanking?”
“Not even a single smack. What kind of papa would I be?” He tries to keep the horror from his voice, wanting desperately to pull his son to his chest and bar the world from ever looking at him again.
“Okay,” Jawn’s entire body deflates. “I’m really sorry papa.”
“I know you are darling. The faster we get this done, the faster you can get in the bath.”
“Bubbles?”
“Not today.”
“‘Cause I was naughty.” Jawn puffs out a breath.
“That’s right.” Mycroft nods, once, then chuckles. “You seemed to have painted your hair too. Were you going for a self portrait?”
Jawn’s cheeks are aflame. “Locky did it. He tried to paint himself too.”
“I can imagine. Look at that, we’re almost done.” Their absent scrubbing paired with the conversation has removed most of the paint, the last few stubborn bits needing to be pressed with the warm sponge to loosen it. It hasn’t taken long at all, and within minutes Jawn is being marched to the bathroom.
Daddy is just pulling Lock out of the bath when they enter, and he stops to smile at his boys. “He somehow got paint on his downstairs below bits.”
“Told you he tried to paint himself,” Jawn says, looking up through his lashes at papa. He does look utterly adorable standing in his underoos with painted swatched all over him.
“Are we going to do something like that again?” Daddy asks, drawing the attention back to himself. Lock is stepping into a fresh nappy, because he has decided they’ll be doing this standing up or not at all. His hair is a wild nest, and he shakes it like a dog to rid of the dripping water tickling his neck.
“No daddy. ‘M sorry.”
“If you want the wardrobe painted we can do it properly. We could design it together, couldn’t we?”
“Could we paint it together too?”
“Sure, why not? But your little brother will have to be a bit bigger to join in.” Lock coos and caws, pulling his sleeves over his hands to flap them hard. He then presses the fabric to his face, sniffs at it with hooded eyes. “And a nap.” Daddy adds with a soft huff.
The bedroom is too effluvient with fumes, and Greg will need to go over the surface with some white vinegar, so he tucks Lock into the master bed for a short nap. The baby is tuckered out and sinks easily into the mattress with a soft sigh, asleep before he can even be offered a dummy. Jawn is subjected to a shower, unwilling to bathe in the ugly, purplish-brown paint water but too cold to stand around and wait for another bath to be drawn. Papa helps him get clean, scrubbing off the hard-to-reach areas and washing his hair with gentle hands and a kind smile that causes burning tears to well up in the boy’s eyes. He is meek, reserved under the towel, the tears frantically blinked away, feeling very sorry when he smells the strong stench of white vinegar in the other room.
Mycroft has a very clingy boy indeed, one not young enough to require a nap but who needs some careful consideration so he doesn’t crumble under the weight of his own guilt. They sit together on the couch, Mycroft’s tablet tilted for them both to see as they search up some inspiration for a proper wardrobe mural. Without Lock they cannot make an executive decision, but there are plenty of ideas to choose from, and Mycroft, with the artful flair he keeps tucked away behind three piece suits, has a go at drawing a jungle themed piece that would stretch along the entire set. Long branches from lustrous trees, fauna and flora come together in unity. In the depths are a pair of cat eyes, watching, lurking, but Mycroft removes it, for it is bound to scare one of his boys in the dead of night — even he would be unnerved by it. Instead he sticks to friendly creatures, a gecko climbing some bark, a tiger cub frolicking in the leaves, a monkey swinging up above. Granted, his knowledge on jungle animals is limited to what Jawn tells him to add, but he seems pretty proud of himself to have avoided a single tear or tantrum, with the baby napping and the mess cleaned up, no less.
“I want your one papa.”
“Daddy will be able to help us with it.”
“We’ll get some supplies in and go to town! Nicely, this time.” Greg waggles a finger at his boy. “If I had a quid for every time you boys had snuck off and painted something you shouldn’t, I’d have two quid, which isn’t much, but it could buy me a whippy from the ice cream van.”
“Ice cream is good.”
“I’m inclined to agree.” Mycroft adds.