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The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected
After a nearly disastrous case, Sherlock and John share a tense taxi ride back to Baker Street. With emotions running high, they finally arrive back at 221B, and then…
“AHA!” Sherlock yelled in triumph as he leapt from the vehicle almost before it stopped, obviously thinking he was some cloak-swirling, coke-fuelled hypermanic git nipping from a hansom cab into a foggy London night instead of some coat-twirling, caffeine-fuelled hypermanic git tripping from a black cab into weak London sunshine.
“Frigging nutjob,” muttered the driver.
John, left to pay, agreed. But no one asked him.
“Oh, finally deigned to show up, I see,” Sherlock sneered at the tall grey-haired male figure which turned from the 221 doorstep. “Too busy to turn up at the stakeout, even though I knew that opening of the Kardashians’ London store would be the location a religious maniac would stage an end-of-the-world coup and there’d be chaos and gunshots and –”
There usually were, thought John. Even when there was no Spandex-swaddled lunatic proclaiming the apocalypse was nigh. Unless you counted the ‘designer’ herself. Most people thought her mere (Spandex-swaddled) existence did actually herald just that. And, huh, chaos and gunshots, yeah. Usually caused by –
“And because of your, what, evening off, that utter cretin Dimmock – aptly named – was sent in your stead! You know I won’t work with that blockhead, that –”
“Sherlock.” Lestrade’s reproof was mild, but it didn’t defuse the ticking or the spluttering.
Sherlock pointed with an accusatory finger. “And now you’re bringing us coffee in an attempt to appease, to recompense me for the suffering, the ineptitude I had to endure. Caffeine isn’t magic elixir, you know. It can’t compensate for hellish incompetence and mind-numbingly –”
“Finished?” asked Lestrade, holding the paper tray with its two takeout cups in one hand so he could open the door with a key. Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
“Where… Oh. You pickpocketed me in small-minded revenge.” He patted his pocket. “Of course not. John, obviously. And now you’re going to subject us to your petty bourgeois contrition and extremely petty self -justific –”
“No. No I’m not. No need,” Lestrade said.
“You’ve been ages! Thought you’d got lost!” came a female voice from the hall as an arm came out to pull Lestrade in and the woman out…for a kiss.
“MRS HUDSON!” cried Sherlock, his normally baritone voice a cracked squeak.
“Sherlock! John! Didn’t see you boys there!” She came out, took a coffee, set the tray somewhere in the hall and leant against Lestrade, who wrapped an arm around her to squeeze her to his side. “Isn’t it a nice day. Going to be a lovely weekend. Did you have a nice time at the stakeout? Were your sandwiches all right? I put them in bags so you didn’t have to worry about the Tupperware. But then I was wondering all evening if they got squashed! I was so worried about the egg and cress.”
“Not quite all evening. And not worried all the time. I managed to take her mind off it a bit,” Lestrade informed them, making her giggle as she shied away to smack him with the back of her hand. Which made him catch it and hold it to his chest, and grin. It was blinding and just that little bit dirty. John shielded his eyes.
“I thought you’d be at the station, giving your statements for ages yet,” she chided.
“They should be,” said Lestrade, stern, as if miscreants were missing from football practice.
“Dimmock banned us,” said John into the silence. “Yeah. Threatened to shoot us if we went anywhere near the station until the time of the interview appointment he’ll e-mail us.”
“Arrest, surely?” Lestrade queried, frowning.
“No, shoot. He signed out a gun from Firearms Command specially for working with Sherlock and he’s been having lessons at the range.”
“Sherlock, dear?” asked Mrs Hudson, pointing her and Lestrade’s joined hands at him.
He wasn’t talking. Just staring at the couple, at Lestrade in polo shirt and faded jeans, at Mrs Hudson in sundress and cardigan, both with beaming smiles, and sunglasses pushed back on their heads, as they sipped their drinks. He tried, “You, you two, you both…”
“Bloody hell!” commented John. “Something finally shut him up! I could kiss the pair of you.”
“Oi, hands off my lady!” came the stern warning.
The lady in question giggled and murmured, “Oh, Greggy.”
“Yes, Marti?” he replied, turning to her and bending down to give her a kiss. Not a landlady-suitable peck on the cheek either. Oh no. This was a proper kiss, where his bending down met her tiptoed-stretch up, and where a gentle press against the lips became a thorough, slow, liquid, open-mouthed exploration with tongues, and Lestrade’s bigger, hunkier body cradling Martha’s more petite one possessively to his as he ravished her.
“I don’t understand,” gritted out Sherlock between clenched teeth and with eyes clamped closed and a shaking hand over them.
Lestrade finished his leisurely voyage around Mrs Hudson’s mouth and suggested, “Search your mind palace.”
“Think it’s closed for repair. It got blown up, by the look of things,” commented John.
“Am I to understand that….” Sherlock, still pale, eyes still closed, couldn’t finish.
“We’re seeing each other, yes.” Lestrade nodded. “Have been for some time, but didn’t want to say anything until we knew it was serious.”
“In case it was just a fling, dears. You know, just physical. Just animal passion.”
At Mrs Hudson’s words, Lestrade growled, and she squeaked, more so as he crowded her against the door frame and nipped the tip of her nose before rubbing his against it.
“But it’s not just unbridled lust?”
“John, you’re not helping,” Lestrade said to that.
“Not trying to.” John looked as though all his Christmas dinners had come at once. You could smell the chestnut stuffing.
“No, it’s not, for your information. It’s more committed.” Lestrade beamed down at his lady.
“You should be. I should be.” Sherlock looked as if he were a minute from calling his brother and requesting the special recidivist stay at his old rehab clinic.
“Oh for God’s sake.” John was tiring of all this doorstep drama. He wanted a cuppa and a sit down. “Stop being such a prima donna, Sherlock. Don’t you think older people –”
“Oi!” came two voices, one male, one female.
“Other people have a right to…” John waved a hand.
“What?”
John’s, “Well, relationships,” bounced against the, “rumpy pumpy,” and, “nookie,” from the couple at the doorway, and was lost in the giggles, also from the doorway, which followed these.
“I…I…It’s just…”
“What?” John moved closer to Sherlock. He’d never seen the sod look so lost and upset. He looked across to the older couple for help and saw them exchange a look. They led Sherlock in, and John took their cups to place them on the sideboard, against which he perched as Lestrade and Mrs Hudson sat Sherlock on a bottom stair and sat either side of him. A look from the latter had the former clearing his throat.
“Son, older, other people have their needs too, you know. Emotional…”
“Sexual,” chipped in Mrs Hudson.
“Well yeah. You see, your sex organs don’t just rust up or dry up when you hit fifty.” Lestrade looked as though this were a recent discovery.
“Oooh, they do a bit,” corrected Mrs H. “What? I mean it’s like a classic car. Takes longer to get the engine started. but once it’s revved up…” She tittered.
“Martha Ann Hudson!”
“Oh, it’s not just you men!” she assured her beau. “Women have their troubles as well. And we do dry up a bit, Greg, remember? That’s why I had to nip upstairs and get that KY Jelly from the boys’ last night. Oh, and those specialty mags under the sofa came in handy too.”
She winked at John who tried not to blush.
“I need to lie down,” announced Sherlock.
“Oh stop being such a prude. You’re just frigid,” John said.
“Am not.”
“You are a bit,” said Lestrade gently, rubbing Sherlock’s back, and Mrs H murmured agreement and brushed Sherlock’s fringe back from his face for him. She took out her hanky and dabbed at his eyes.
“It’s just…” Sherlock looked from one to the other. “Mrs H, Martha, you’re my m…mesne, my landlady, and Lestrade, Greg, you’re my d...DI, my –”
“Handler?”
“John, you’re still not helping,” hissed Lestrade.
“And, and now” – Sherlock’s chin was wobbling – “if you’re together…Mrs H won’t have time to… make me mince pies and –”
“Oh, dearie, they’re just shop bought! I dust flour on them for a homemade touch!”
“Shhh!” advised Lestrade.
“And you’ll be too busy with Martha for me.” Sherlock grabbed at the hanky and tried to hide behind it. “Too busy to give me cases and –”
“Hey hey hey!” Lestrade grappled Sherlock into a one-armed hug. “Too busy for my consulting detective? Never! As if. Think of it this way. Martha’s getting on a bit –”
“Ahem.”
“With things, which means she needs extra help with you two. Her two boys.” Lestrade executed a brilliant save. He ignored John’s muttered, “Leave me out of this.” “So now, with me around more, you’ve got double the m….mesne and double the d…DI. Round the clock, if things work out and I mo –”
“Shh, Greg,” whispered Martha. She gestured to Sherlock. “Too soon.”
“Double…” Sherlock looked from one to the other again.
“Exactly! Oh except for this weekend. We’re off away. SAGA Girly Getaway Spa Break at the Royal Windsor Hotel! Recommended by Dame Helen Mirren. She shouted at a group of musicians there.”
“The SAGA app said so.” Mrs H nodded.
“I follow SAGA on Twitter,” Lestrade said.
“Girly Getaway Spa Break?” John asked.
Lestrade grinned, low down and dirtier than ever. “I’m a plus one! Can’t wait to try the couples’ massage!”
“Chocolate and champagne body silk glistener,” added Mrs H in hushed tones. “And three canapés per person before dinner, signature cocktail, award-winning breakfast and no washing up.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Lestrade pulled himself back together. “But first, Sherlock, something serious before we have to leave. Martha said you were doing some sort of experiment up there yesterday, heating up potassium chlorate.”
“Swiped all my cleaning products to get it!”
“And dropping your brother’s gummy bears – which you nicked from him – in one by one to watch them disintegrate and explode?”
“And filming it and live streaming it to him,” muttered John.
“And it left a big wet red stain all over the wall, which gave Martha a funny turn? Now, I’m coming up to inspect, so it’d better be all clean and tidy in that kitchen when I get there, ’cause if not…”
“No mince pies or cheese straws?” breathed Sherlock, wide-eyed.
“And no cases for a week!”
“NO!”
“Oh yes.” Stern Lestrade folded his arms. “Got a weird one come in as well. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law found dead in a locked room in a Travelodge in Oldham, near Manchester, no visible cause, only thing to go on is a slight cut on their left palms.” He pursed his lips and nodded.
“Doors lock in Travelodges?”
“John, you’re still still not helping,” tutted Mrs H.
“They were there for the grandson’s grad-u-a-tion,” tempted Lestrade in a singsong voice.
“Ohh! What subject was he studying? What clubs or societies did he belong to? Did he have any tattoos?” Sherlock burst out in one breath.
“Ah ah ah.” Lestrade wagged his finger, then pointed it upstairs. “You’ve got five minutes.”
“Come on, John!” Hurricane Sherlock scampered upstairs, calling, “Did the daughter-in-law wear contact lenses?” over his shoulder as he shot upwards.
John tried to avert his eyes from the groping going on behind him, but it was...oddly compelling. The DI pressing the landlady back against the recently hoovered stairs, one firm hand threaded through her newly shampooed-and-set on Thursday OAP-half-price-day hair and the other closing over a Per Una-covered breast to stroke a firm thumb over a soon-stiffening nipple. His muscular thigh wedged between hers made her cotton dress ride up and reveal her American Tan hosiery was…stockings.
“JOHN!” came again from up above, and he quickened his pace.
“Oh, Greg,” sighed Martha against his lips as he took her mouth again. Her brown eyes were shining as brightly as his as she asked, “Should we tell them Marie Turner’s coming with us?”
He considered. “Nah. Best not, We don’t want to shock them. Kids today are so prim and proper.”
“Yes. So straitlaced.”
“Talking of, might you…be wearing your corset at any point over the weekend?” He made puppy-dog eyes and walked his fingers up the front buttons of Mrs Hudson’s floral dress.
“I see. Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out, isn’t it, Inspector,” she twinkled at him.
“Oh, like that, is it?” The answering gleam in his eye said he hoped so, and he damned well would. He wasn’t one of the Yard’s finest for nothing. His Marti didn’t stand a chance against him. And, he believed, she didn’t want to.