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If I said it hadn’t crossed my mind, then, oh baby, I’d be lying
It just got complicated, I don’t know what to do
And I know it’s not real, but the way that I feel
I just need to know
It’s time you started listening, don’t think you can hear me
Cause if you really wanna go right round
Time is ticking, we gotta leave now
Can I get it like that, that, that?
Let me know
You say you love me, say you’ll never leave my dreams
In my dreams
-Dreams by Dua Lipa
...Baby, just....
“Where’s the crime?”
Sherlock Holmes is a professional at having cheekbones. Right now, they look sharp enough to cut through the morning frost, glittering everywhere like silver sequins in the tinted November sunshine. It’s early enough that the air still has that fresh taste to it, before the London traffic pollutes every last inch, and you take a deep inhale that scorches your lungs. The puff out reminds you of a dragon’s.
Sherlock opens his mouth. You’re not ready to cut your fun short just yet.
“I swear I ain’t done it, Sargent. Whoever said I did it, they got grudges against me, wanna get me back. I swear. Was it Welly Watson? I swear he just don’t like me-”
“Shut up before I actually decide to have Lestrade arrest you,” Sherlock says, rolling his eyes. There’s a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes, though. You give up the pretence and smile back at him, watching the way the amusement deepens into reluctant affection, crinkles in the corners of his eyes.
Those two years away had been the making of Sherlock Holmes, in a way. He was a new and improved version, with Marginally Less Areseholeness than before. You’d spent one Friday night amusing yourself by creating a Youtube-style advert for him, complete with voiceover, terrible cartoons, and an absurd list of bulletpoints that you had voiced very seriously, looking into the grainy camera of your laptop; editing it afterwards to have a swishy paparazzi video of Sherlock walking down the street while your face was in the top right corner.
It would’ve been fun to show it to a few of your mutual friends, except for the bits where you’d got carried away and started talking about Sherlock’s cheekbones, his eyes, and the magnetic compulsion of his blue scarf. People already seemed to SuspectTM. You’d be damned (though weren’t you, already?) before you poured fuel on the rumours.
Then again, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
“Greg won’t arrest me,” you say. “He likes me. I think - I’m not sure, I could be wrong - but I think it’s because I know his name. Knowing the other letters of someone’s name apart from their initial can really go a long way to building a relationship, y’know?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes again. You scan him quickly from head to toe. Gloves, coat, scarf, hair perfectly styled. He doesn’t seem to be in a manic rush to find a criminal serial killer in your flat, so now you’re wondering what he wants.
He is giving you a reciprocal scan. A fresh wave of adrenaline washes through you. The frost, obviously. It’s about minus 1C out here. Speaking of which, these old houses are a fortune to heat, and since you live on the ground floor, all the heat you generate just seeps up through the floorboards and warms the ungrateful old man who lives above you and yells abuse at his TV when he’s watching football.
“Good,” Sherlock pronounces.
“What’s good? The day? Life? The world? The fact that I have a pack of unopened Pringles?”
“You’re already dressed.”
That’s when you know you are, statistically, pretty fucked.
You back up into your flat, hands held up as if he’s pointing a gun at you. (Or your Pringles.) He takes advantage of this to step over the threshold and push the door shut.
“No, no, no.”
“Y/N-”
“Absolutely not.”
“If you would-”
“I do not care what excuse you’ve got for me this time. Don’t care. I don’t care if John is hanging upside down from a trapeze. No wait, that’s more Mary’s thing. Or if Molly’s currently giving birth to twins. Or whatever. If you need a companion, ask - ask literally anyone else. Anyone. What about Anderson? You’re besties now, right? Or Mycroft. Yeah, ask Mycroft. Active gymwork, market it like that. But not me. For God’s sake, Sherlock-” You put your hands together pleadingly. “Not me.”
“Are you done.”
You shake your head, still backing up. Sherlock follows you into the main space, an open kitchen with a table and two chairs. “I thought you were done asking me to go on cases. I have made it clear, Sherlock.” Now you lift your hand, ticking off boons on your fingers. “I will watch crap TV with you and make you dinner when you need some company. I will give you dating advice - if you ever need it. But maybe don’t ask me, because I’m crap at dating. Anyway. I will stand around and look gorgeous while you trial violin serenades on me. I will go to your funeral. I will even play Cluedo with you. But go on a case with you after what happened last time? No.”
“How can you still be upset about that? The fact that the killer used your shampoo was-”
“The final straw.” You cross your arms, your soft almost-Christmassy jumper bunching at the front, and glare at him. “The eyeballs in a smoothie was bad enough, and the fact that you made me go undercover in a man’s underwear shop was even worse, but the last victim being poisoned/drowned to death by my favourite shampoo brand? It was the same bottle I had in my bathroom. I’d washed my hair that day.” You fling out your arms dramatically. “I still have PTSD!”
“And yet,” Sherlock says dryly, “you used the shampoo yesterday.”
You hesitate. He stares at you, arching an eyebrow.
“I…okay. I’d run out of the other one. You know, the new one I get now because-”
“You didn’t throw the old one out.”
You flounder. His eyes are like the frost and the sky outside, blue and silver, glinting.
“This is just rude,” you finally huff. “You’re not meant to poke holes in my story. Can’t you let me have my melodrama?”
Sherlock lets out a laugh then. “I have it on good authority that I am a drama queen. John makes a point of telling me, every so often.”
“Don’t make me fight you for the title.”
“Neither of us are drama queens.” Sherlock thought about what he’d said, reviewed it thoroughly, and pulled a face. “Well. John - Welly Watson,” he adds with a grin of acknowledgement, “is a drama queen. So is Mycroft. John’s testosterone levels rose considerably while he was constructing an Ikea coffee table last week, which is highly indicative of-”
You held up a hand. “Know what? I don’t want to know. Why are you here, Sherlock, seriously?”
He goes solemn then, all business, snapping upright like a Buckingham Palace soldier. You make a mental reminder to tell him that later; you can see him in one of the hats.
“Be my girlfriend.”
You gape.
Oh god. You’re not going to faint, are you? Are you light-headed? Are you light-headed because you think you’re light-headed? Do you need to sit down? You sure as hell are not going to be swooning into his arms because he will be insufferable then. Did you hear him right?
“Huh,” Sherlock says, tilting his head. “You’re speechless. Interesting. Very interesting. I must make a note of that; try it on a few other people. Pronoun change where necessary, of course. I quite look forward to Anderson and Lestrade’s reactions.”
You take a deep breath, feeling like you’ve just broken through the surface of a stormy sea. “I don’t understand,” you say weakly. “What’s the date - it’s not even April 1st. Ohmygod.”
“Do you need to sit down?” Sherlock asks sarcastically. “And do hurry up, we don’t have much time left.”
“Ohmygod.”
“The train departs in fifty minutes. It’s very convenient that you’re already suitably dressed - given that it’s only 8am, I had thought you would be in your pyjamas. My parents expect us for brunch.”
“We…It’s a bit fast to do the whole meet the parents thing, isn’t it?” We’ll be married by tomorrow- but the rest of the joke simply dies in your throat, like a paper curling up into smoky, inky ashes.
Sherlock takes a deep breath. You prepare yourself for an onslaught of words.
“My parents feel that given the fact I was away for the last two years - hunting down Moriarty’s network, they make it sound as though I spent twenty-five months sunbathing in the Bahamas, but regardless - they have earned the right to…” His nose wrinkles. “Spent time with me. They do not like coming up to London too often. Too busy. My father is a very rural man and my mother prefers to frequent bohemian places. Or Soho. Mycroft usually has to send a team of operatives out to shadow them when they go shopping in London. If he simply took them to the matinees instead of always scheduling international wars and claiming there’s an emergency, they would not have ended up in that…Anyway.”
“Anyway,” you echo dumbly. “Um.”
“So,” Sherlock spreads his gloved hands. “They invite me down. I have been once. It was tedious. My mother seems to think it is time I…’found a girl, Sherlock.’”
You’re laughing despite yourself, at the way he does bug-eyes and mimics a lipsticked mouth and flourishes quote-marks. He dips his head with a brief, half-proud smirk. Warmth spreads through your chest. At his core, beneath the Belstaff and the theatrics and the brooding James-Bond flair, Sherlock is ridiculous. He is a ridiculous absurd idiot. That’s the part of him that you like the most.
Though the James-Bond flair does help.
Anyway, now you get it.
“You want me to be your fake girlfriend.”
“What?” Sherlock frowns.
“Like - the fake dating AU. For your parents.”
“...What.”
“What?”
“A-U?”
“Alternate Universe. So, like, your parents think we’re dating. But we’re not.” Sherlock has clearly never read a single bit of fanfiction in his life. He’s studying you as if you’ve grown antennae. You surreptitiously pat your head, just to check. Nope, still flat.
“No. It is real.”
(Your heart does a thunderous, traitorous little jump.)
“For today,” he continues. “Will you do it?”
“The train leaves in-”
“Forty-six minutes.”
“And I’m…your last resort?”
Sherlock lets out an annoyed sigh, his mood dropping as he watches your face shift into something you can’t hide, can’t even name. Hurt? Disappointment? Bitter mockery of yourself? “What do you mean?”
“I mean - who did you ask first, that turned you down?” Molly, maybe. Though Greg would punch him. What other single girls does he even know? Apart from Mrs Hudson, who doesn’t really count.
The idea of Sherlock and Mrs Hudson doing a fake-dating AU is amusing, though. You have to suppress a tiny smile. Sherlock’s lips twitch in acknowledgement. He does that, you’ve noticed; you do it too. Mirroring each other’s emotions, like you’re fine-tuned into each other’s heads. It doesn’t seem to be a conscious thing. More like a reflex.
“You are who I’m asking.” Sherlock shifts impatiently. “Since you seem to be aware of what ‘fake dating’ involves. You are aware there will be…there will be-”
“PDA? Yeah, sure, whatever.” You wave that off. A decision you will come to regret, but in the happy moment of the present, you don’t realise that. “But what if…I’d turned you down? You maybe should’ve asked me sooner, you know. How would you have explained that to your parents?”
“Simple.” Sherlock makes an ushering gesture and you stand up automatically, double-checking that the oven is off and grabbing up your phone. “Girlfriend has unexpected diarrhoea, and I’m staying at home to look after her. I’m almost disappointed you didn’t tell me to piss off.”
“You’re a sneaky one. Dodging the meeting and making yourself look good, all in one.” You’re grinning, suddenly uplifted. You don’t really know why. Sherlock’s hand brushes over your back, a ghosting touch, as you pass him and snag your coat off the hook. It’s a nice coat. It’s warm. Which you’ll need, if you’re going to be shivering on a train platform.
Though you feel warm enough. You stick your arms through the sleeves, button it up and adjust it a bit. Sherlock watches you tug on your shoes.
This is going to be fun. Surprisingly fun. You’re going to meet Sherlock’s parents. John’s told you about them; he met them a couple of days after Sherlock returned. They were, quote-unquote, ‘ordinary’. It’s a beautiful late-November day out there, and the idea of frost crunching underfoot, of watching your and Sherlock’s breaths crystallizing on the air, the gleam of orange sunshine on the old brick-beige chimneys of your local streets; the red of double-decker buses and the winter bustle, thick coats and chafing hands and pedestrians with flushed cheeks; something in all of that makes your heart glow with a happiness. The sheer joy of being alive, maybe.
His parents live out in the countryside. You think of watching the bare hedgerows and the click-click-click of train wheels and the even fresher air and the joy turns to pure delight, the kind of delight where you want to jump up and down and scream for joy.
You pocket your keys and turn to Sherlock. He’s watching you, the hint of a smile pressing up the corner of his lips. You wonder how clearly your thoughts are written across your face. Maybe you come across as pathetic, lonely, way too excited to pretend to be a fake girlfriend. But just a few weeks ago he was coming around every evening because he was lonely, and there was no pity, not even compassion, in that situation. It simply was, and you were friends, and there were no expectations. Just a sort of understanding that comes when two people sit in silence and eat takeaway chips.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” you respond. No questions asked and no expectations. He laid out the deal and you’re taking it. (Crushes be damned. You do not have a crush on Sherlock. Not today. Because today, it’s reciprocated, right? You’re just going to meet his parents.)
“A bit of advice, though,” you say, pausing with your hand on the latch. Sherlock’s standing close behind you, ready to exit; he hums a query and a giddy thrill shoots through you. God, you’re going to end this day by doing zoomies, like a cat, and slipping in the frost and breaking both your kneecaps.
“Next time, if you want an excuse like the diarrhoea one? Tell them your girlfriend is having a really bad period and you’re running out to get her a surprise box of chocolates and you’re going to act like her personal hot water bottle all day and do whatever she wants until she feels better.”
Sherlock gives you a screwed-up confused kind of look.
“Trust me,” you say, reaching your other hand back to pat his arm quickly. “Both your parents will know what you’re talking about, and they’re both - especially your mum - going to think very highly of you for it.”
And then you’re out in the cold and resisting the urge to skip down to the little metal gate.
****
“We have been dating for several weeks. Shortly after my return,” Sherlock says briskly. You’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a quiet train carriage, rattling out to the countryside. “The best lies have a solid basis in truth. I will say that there was-” He waves his hands, sarcasm seeping into his voice. “A mutual…chemistry.”
You laugh. “So we’re still going for our original meetcute?”
He gives you another of those looks, then nods. “Yes.” A moment. “What exactly does that-”
“How we met. Our burgeoning friendship. Etc, etc. And then what? We realised we were in love after you died?”
“Something like that. Details are irrelevant. My parents are unlikely to pry too deeply into that. Focus more on the reunion.” Sherlock gives a lazy wave of his hand. It falls back heavily to his leg, fingers inches away from your knee. “Some tripe about not wanting to waste any more time should do. What do people normally say in these situations?”
You look out the window. The train speeds through a station, pulls back out to the countryside. Your voice is soft.
“People don’t normally get a second chance.”
It’s true. And the lies are based too much on truth, more than Sherlock realises. Two years is a long time. Two years is a long time to cling to echoes. Old texts, reread. New memories, fading into grit, wishing he was there to watch you change incrementally before he came back and found you wholly different. Slamming into him, shaking - not from the cold - and his bloodied nose against your hair, a reunion on the street. Nightmares of dreaming about falling, falling and falling, waking up and wondering where Sherlock was. Crying at the funeral, crying until you couldn’t breathe, wishing he was there.
“Fine then,” Sherlock says. Is his voice also softer? “We were lucky.”
You look at his hand.
It is real. For today.
You reach out and put your hand over his. His skin is warm. His wrist jumps slightly at the contact.
“Yes,” you say. For today… “We were.”
****
It’s a nice house, set a few lanes away from the town station. Sherlock leads the way, strides strong and sure. His gait is different. Maybe he just has more room to breathe. He seems like what he is, a man going to his childhood home. You loiter a step behind and watch him, the swirl of his coat and the way his hands are tucked in his pocket; the undeniable…undeniable what? He isn’t a charismatic person. Not when he’s being himself. But he’s magnetic, in a way you can’t explain. Nobody else seems to notice it. Nobody else looks twice at him.
But you can barely look at anyone else.
He stops outside a little gate. It’s the rural version of your own front gate; this one is freshly-painted. Cared for. Nobody gives a damn about your own gate. You live in the ground flat, so maybe it’s your duty to maintain it. But nobody ever told you to, so…
Hand on the gate, Sherlock takes a deep breath. And then another.
“You okay?”
“I’m sorry,” he says gruffly.
“About what?”
“My parents.”
“Sherlock, I know what I signed up for. Unless they’re ninja assassins”
“They’re worse,” he says grimly, and leads you up the garden path.
The door swings open before you’re even at it. Sherlock’s face is fixed into something between a smile and a real life version of The Scream. An old man in plaid slippers is standing on the threshold, and he’s beaming.
“Sherlock, you’re here! You’re just in time. Your mother made a leek soup for this afternoon, and it does smell splendid. And you-” He proffers both hands. “My dear girl.”
You smile at him. You’re suddenly anxious. Why the hell are you anxious. Sherlock isn’t your boyfriend, you remind yourself sternly; this is just - this is the Game-
But his parents don’t know that. They are judging you as a girlfriend, a partner - the other half - to their son. Their beloved son who has been through so much trauma and who is a former addict.
“Hi,” you manage feebly. “Hi. I’m, uh. I’m Y/N Y/L/N.”
Mr Holmes’ hands are warm, almost to the point of boiling. He takes your hand in his for a shake and then lays the other one over and squeezes. “My dear,” he says, with a twinkling smile. “Come in.”
Sherlock’s hand brushes over your back again as you step inside. It’s a firmer touch this time, substantial. His father doesn’t seem to see it, bustling about shutting the door and saying something or other about a fire.
Sherlock takes off his coat. For a moment he seems about to help you out of yours, but then you give him a look, and he desists, instead putting out his hand formally, waiting to take it.
“You look like a teapot,” you whisper, passing it.
He suppresses a snort and hangs up your coat, same hook as his. “Short and stout? I’m not John.”
You grin. “I’m going to make a meme later.”
“We’ll put it on the blog. Mary can hack into it…” Sherlock trails off, his eyes moving past your head. You turn hurriedly and almost trip over an enormous pair of green wellingtons.
Standing in the doorway to a kitchen is Sherlock’s mother. You’re making an assumption, but it has to be. She’s watching you with the same sharp shrewdness that her son does, clad in an apron and with a teaspoon in one hand.
“Mummy,” Sherlock says slowly.
“Sherlock,” she responds, deadpan. Then she gives you a smile, and in that smile, you realise you have been accepted into the Holmes household.
(Something inside you aches a little bit. You wish it was true.)
****
“This is the best hot chocolate I’ve had in years. Literally, ever.” Your fingers are interlaced around a scorchingly hot, rich burgundy mug. Sherlock sits opposite you, his expression distinctly unimpressed. You resist the urge to kick him under the table. His parents are so nice - what’s his problem?
Tedious, you hear him yell. It’s so strong that you half wonder if it’s telepathic. You glance at him, and he’s already looking at you from under his eyelashes.
Oh wow. Maybe he is telepathic.
God, you can’t even imagine the trauma of being woken up every night by him broadcasting his deductions telepathically across half of London.
“Thank you!” Mr Holmes says. “I’ve had a long time to perfect the recipe, you see. A very long time.”
“Decades, even,” Mrs Holmes agreed with a smile. “He used to burn the milk.”
“It was a terrible habit. I could not escape the clutches of it for many years.”
“I once had to threaten to handcuff him to the saucepan.”
Mr Holmes leant forward confidentially. “And she would, too, you know.”
“Sherlock,” his wife says, and he lifts his head. “Do you have a Twitter account?”
You have never before seen a grown man flinch guiltily. “No, of course I - Why would you think - Wait.” Sherlock narrows his eyes. His mother does the same. “Do you have Twitter?”
“Never you mind,” Mrs Holmes says. “I’ve seen all sorts of posts from an account that I should think is definitely yours.”
“Does seem frightfully like you, my boy,” Mr Holmes murmurs agreeably.
“Social media accounts are tiresome trite that-”
“I can ask Mike,” Mrs Holmes says decisively. “He can find out for me.”
“Using the governmental resources for family reasons?” Sherlock pulls a face. “Nah. Dear Mike’s waaay too professional for that.”
(You try not to laugh at the way he drawls that sentence. He could’ve been a stand-up comedian if he wasn’t such a grouchy blister, as his father just dubbed him.)
Also, Mike? You’ll never be able to look at the Iceman again.
“I will not give you a Gingernut. I made a batch,” Mrs Holmes says. “I will not give you a single one if you do not tell me.”
“I can steal them.”
“I have put them in my vault. The code is the answer to the arithmetic problem that, in fifteen years, you have yet to solve.”
“I’ve been away for two years. Perhaps I’ve solved it.”
Mrs Holmes leans forward, beady-eyed. “Have you?”
Sherlock dodges the question. “Or perhaps Y/N is a mathematician to rival even your skills, mother.”
Everyone looks at you.
“Are you?” Mrs Holmes asks.
You’ve seen the books she wrote in her heyday. “…No,” you admit. “I can’t help Sherlock break into the vault to get gingernuts.” There’s something in this hot chocolate. You’d thought it was cinnamon. Maybe it was something stronger.
“But he loves me anyway.”
****
You can’t quite look at Sherlock after that. It’s a relief when Mrs Holmes goes upstairs to ‘get something’ and Mr Holmes goes to use the downstairs bathroom.
You gather the empty mugs automatically, leaving them in the sink. Sherlock is standing close behind you as you pile the last one in, and you have to hold yourself still in case you flinch from the surprise.
“What’s wrong,” he says. It’s quiet, very quiet.
You look around for an escape. There’s mistletoe above the doorway. Calling attention to that is worse. Way worse. That would be social suicide.
“I don’t know,” you confess. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re doing well.”
Your eyes dart up to his. He looks…gentle. Kind. Warm, the way he did when he hugged you on that quiet street, when his eyes were lit with the reflections of orange street-lights and everything was blurry because you were crying.
“They approve of you,” Sherlock continues. “They wouldn’t approve of anyone, you know.”
You manage a smile. “Okay.”
“My mother is an intelligent woman.”
“I know.”
“And,” Sherlock says, with the long-awaited glee of a little boy who has finally managed to be mischievous without anyone realising, “we’ve fooled her.”
You let out a weak little laugh. “Oh, well now I feel awful.”
Sherlock scoffs. And then - perhaps he still sees the uncertainty in your face - you’re an intruder; you had never quite meant to trick these kind good-hearted people, and you’d lied to their face - Sherlock loves me anyway - god what had even been in that hot chocolate? - he pulls you into a hug.
You’re stiff at first, but Sherlock holds on stubbornly. It’s quite a loose hug. Casual. Familiar. He rests his head against your shoulder as though he’s done it thousands of times before.
You exhale and move your chin sideways until you can talk. “Mike?”
“Nickname. Not a childhood one. Mycroft was insufferable as a child. My mother gave him the nickname when he was in his early twenties. It was supposed to cultivate an idea of someone approachable, who might even go to parties. Obviously, Mycroft was more concerned learning the tricks of the trade from our Uncle Rudy.” Sherlock’s voice is a low vibration against you.
“I bet he hates it.”
“Oh, he detests it. Partly why my mother still does it. His face is always priceless.”
“Come to the sitting-room, you two!” Mrs Holmes calls at that moment. You shift your chin and see her, through the doorway, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
When she sees you watching, she throws you a wink and lifts the objects in her arms.
****
“Photo albums,” Sherlock says in horror, stopping short in the lounge doorway.
You edge past him. Mr Holmes pats the space on the sofa next to him with a genial smile, but before you can take another step - anticipating the delicious sensation of your socked feet sinking into the plush rug - Sherlock grabs your hand.
“Absolutely not. I refuse to let anyone see the…the…things inside those pages.”
“Photographs, Sherlock,” his mother says patiently. “He was a terrible child,” she adds to you. “Utterly impossible. But he did love to dress up for Halloween.”
You suppress a laugh, turning it into a bad cough. Mrs Holmes winks again, but this time Sherlock sees it. His hand tightens around you.
“No. You have been pestering me for years to find a ‘nice woman to keep you company, Sherlock!-”
“Sherlock,” Mr Holmes says mildly. “Don’t make fun of your mother.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes, but subsides a bit. “And now you are going to scare her off. It’ll be your fault. I’ll be single by the end of the day.”
“Oh, pffttttttt,” Mrs Holmes begins-
“You won’t be.”
They all look at you.
Shit. Way too sincere. Way, way too sincere.
“Not because of the photos, anyway,” you add, scrambling around for an escape route in your mind. Why are you such an idiot. Why do you keep saying this shit. “I mean, the day’s still young, who knows what you’re gonna do, and how pissed off I might get, but like-”
“Fine,” Sherlock says, saving you. He drops your hand and steps around you. “Is the fire on? Oh good, there’s a nice blaze.”
“If you dare, Sherlock Scott William Holmes-”
He huffs. You go and sit down by his father, who smiles at you as though you’re both in a conspiracy, as you pull your knee up and under you. “The Halloween when Sherlock was twelve was particularly memorable.”
“Budge over.”
“There’s a perfectly fine armchair over there,” Mrs Holmes says, frowning across the coffee table. Sherlock stands over you. Is he pouting?
“Thought you didn’t want me near the fire.”
You’ve scooted over just enough for Sherlock to decide he has enough room. He plops down, the sofa cushions sinking like they’re the lifeboats of the Titanic. Then he wraps his arm around your waist and tugs you back against him. “Besides, we’re still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship. Being physically close to one another is very affirming. Helps us be mutually reassured that we are in a good place.”
You press a hand to your mouth, trying not to laugh.
“Sherlock,” his father says ponderously. “I’m quite sure I read something terribly similar to that in a newspaper article. It was advertising a Relationship For Dummies book. Did you write-”
“No, he did not. He read it, of course,” Mrs Holmes says. “Lean forward a bit, dear-” That’s to you - “and see what my youngest son looked like, the day he was born.”
****
“The next picture is Mike,” Mrs Holmes is saying, fifteen minutes later. “He is in a nappy and shrieking in a paddling pool. The reason I warn you is that most people find this terribly distressing for some reason.”
“It triggers their asthma,” Sherlock explains from behind you, arm still hooked around your waist, acting like a seatbelt whenever you lean too far forward over the sofa’s edge. “Occasionally they have anaphylactic shock and require EpiPens.”
There is an uncanny similarity between Mrs Holmes and Sherlock. Their razor-quickness, sharp enough to bleed on. But you suspect that Sherlock’s quieter side - the side that resembles a cat drugged on curry - is inherited from his father. He seems to be indulging that side now, simply sitting quiet and allowing his mother to show you what seems to be every single picture taken during his childhood.
“You may have realised by now,” Mrs Holmes says, some time later, flicking the page for you, “that Sherlock’s Halloween costumes had a theme.”
“I…noticed, yeah.” You press your lips tight together to suppress a smile.
“Pirates,” Mr Holmes says happily. “Sherlock did always love pirates.”
“He’d play at being a pirate for hours…” Mrs Holmes’ smile falters for a moment. “He had a dog.”
“Redbeard.”
Sherlock’s arm is suddenly vice-tight around your waist. His entire body is stiff.
“No,” he says.
You don’t know what he means. Mrs Holmes looks at him.
“It was for the best, Sherlock-”
“Mother.”
She huffs. “It’s a pity we don’t have any photos of him. We lost them,” she adds as an aside to you.
You want to ask about Redbeard. Or change the subject and defuse the tension building like a faulty gas cooker. But Sherlock suddenly pushes forward, standing. You almost fall, first to the floor and then back against the cushions.
“I’m going to see what you’ve done with the greenhouse,” he announces.
“It’s November,” Mr Holmes protests mildly.
“Excuses,” Sherlock shoots back. “There should be signs of progress from November three years ago.”
You hesitate, watching as he goes into the hall. He has to unhook your coat to get his own.
“I’ll make some tea. It’s terribly nippy out there. He’ll have cold hands,” Mr Holmes says, to no one in particular, and bumbles out to the kitchen. Sherlock follows him in there. A moment later, you hear their back door thudding shut.
Mrs Holmes sighs, looking down at the abandoned photo albums.
“I’m sorry,” you say futilely as she closes them up.
She pauses, looking up at you. “Don’t be silly. Whyever are you sorry, my dear? Sherlock’s mercurial. My children - my boys always have been. They take after me, like that. They may have their father’s name, but they inherited my temperament.” She gives you a faint smile. “It’s a cross for me, but for my poor boys, it’s a curse.”
A photo flutters out of an album as she stacks it, and you lean forward and pick it up. It’s of Sherlock, smiling toothily at the camera, standing with a tiny pirate’s hat and a stick in one muddy hand. He can’t be more than three or four. The picture is strangely narrow, as though half of it has been snipped away.
“You’re excellent parents. It…it can’t have been easy.”
A shadow crosses her face. She doesn’t strike you as an old woman. In that moment, she seems to have lived forever, and seen every tragedy befall the human race.
Then she smiles wearily. “Sherlock will be alright now. He has you. He has friends. I was so glad when Martha Hudson persuaded him to take on a flatmate. But Mycroft…I worry for Mycroft.”
A moment. The fire crackles and snaps. Then she shakes herself out of it and offers you another smile. “You’re an excellent girlfriend, my dear.”
For today. All you can do is smile and hope that you’re better at hiding your pain than she was.
“I’m glad he chose you.”
“I’m glad I chose him,” you say, and it doesn’t matter if you’re too sincere now. You’re honest. You chose Sherlock, and you kept choosing him. Some part of you thinks you will always choose him, until -
Until what? Death do you part? It’s today. Only today.
Mrs Holmes is oblivious. She leans closer over the coffee table.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Y/N. He looks at you the same way his father looks at me. That is an enduring love.” She reaches out and takes the picture from you, and then pats your hand. “Sherlock is less fickle than people think he is.” She gives you one last smile and lets your hand go; sits back and pulls the albums into her lap, arranging them in order.
In the kitchen, you hear her husband humming, the bubbling of the kettle, clinking of fresh cups and spoons.
Mr Holmes dotes on his wife. You knew it from the moment you first saw them in a room together. He finishes her sentences because he’s so enamoured, so in awe, of the words she’s saying. He gravitates towards her, physically comfortable and compelled, as if she’s his magnet. And when she laughs, he sometimes forgets to join in because he’s simply watching her. There aren’t lovesick stars in his eyes. It’s the quiet look of someone who still can’t believe their luck.
Sherlock doesn’t do any of that with you.
It is real. For today.
You think of his arm, tight across your waist. The stiffness in his muscles, the tension in his voice.
“I might go out and see what he’s doing,” you say tentatively, standing.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, you don’t have to ask,” Mrs Holmes says, ushering you off. “Do poke my husband if he’s turning the teaspoons into a puppet party.”
You grab your coat and carry your shoes through the house. Mr Holmes gives you an understanding nod. The back door is even heavier than the front one, and it thuds shut behind you. There’s three wooden steps down to a lawn; they’re covered in frost, marked by Sherlock’s footprints, and you crunch down them cautiously and walk across the lawn towards a greenhouse.
Once you’re out of the house’s shade, the grass turns from unmelted frost to green blades sparkling with dew. Behind the greenhouse is a canopy of trees, tall yews, and you see a flash of blue; a movement.
You walk around the greenhouse. The windows are tainted green with age and moss. Sherlock is standing in the centre of the trees, facing away, but twigs snap underfoot so he must know you’re coming.
“Took you long enough.”
You don’t say anything until you’re standing just behind him. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”
You shrug. He can’t see it. “I don’t know. You got out of there pretty fast.” He isn’t wearing his gloves. You hesitate for a long moment and then take a single step forward and interlink your fingers through his. His hand is colder than yours, his fingers stiff. And then suddenly, completely unresisting. You take his hand, and squeeze it. “It’s okay to be not okay.”
“I’m aware.”
You stand side by side for a minute, just staring out at nothing. Sherlock takes in a slow breath.
“Redbeard-”
You wait.
“Yes?”
He tugs on your hand. “Let’s walk.”
You let him lead the way, ambling up through the muddy trees and into longer grass on the other side. It’s slightly uphill.
“Redbeard was an Irish Setter,” he begins. “A wonderful dog.”
You stay silent. Saying anything, at this point, would only be platitudes.
“He was my best friend,” Sherlock says in a long rush, and then goes silent.
You wait. And then you look at him. His face is stony.
“I don’t know what to say,” you say softly. “What…what happened to him?”
“He got ill. He was put down.” Sherlock exhales. “He wasn’t very old. Only four. I had had him for almost two years. I was…inconsolable.”
When you still don’t drown the conversation with platitudes and meaningless nonsense, he barrels on, suddenly, fitfully, like the words have got to come out before he chokes.
“He was an excellent dog. My best friend. I’m a Holmes, Y/N; we didn’t have…friends. Mycroft was older. I was…so alone. The other children seemed like newborn babies to me, and the older children ridiculed me, but Redbeard…Redbeard was…”
His speed keeps increasing. You’re huffing out breaths now, your heartbeat picking up until you can’t feel the cold air on your cheeks. “I know,” you say simply.
He looks at you. “What?”
“I’m not going to judge you, Sherlock. What do you expect me to say? Ohmygod, you had a dog as a best friend when you were a kid. Losing that dog made such a mark on your life that you’re still too hurt to talk about it, decades later. Is that what you expect me to say? Then you don’t have a very high opinion of me. That’s stating the obvious and ridiculing you, all at once, and I’ll do my best to never do that. He was your best friend. It doesn’t matter whether he was human or dog or even a bloody elephant. You loved him. He loved you. And you lost each other, but you’re the one who has to keep on living, thinking about it. He never judged you. And then you lost him.” Sherlock stops, tugging you to a halt with your interlinked hands, so you turn and look at him. “Right? Yeah, it pains you, it hurts, you don’t want to just have it tossed around like a casual childhood reminisce. I get that. I do. It’s not - It’s-” You’re struggling to think of a good closure to your impromptu speech. Sherlock’s eyes are very sharp and very blue, fixed on your face.
Mrs Holmes was right. He does look at you like that.
“It’s okay.”
He surges forward, and his cold hands are on your face, and that’s the last thing you know before he kisses you, hot and heavy and somewhat desperate.
You almost recoil from the shock of it, but then you reach up, pulling your arms around his neck. Your entire body is tingling, your heart racing so fast that you’re pretty sure your first kiss with your boyfriend-for-a-day is going to end with him giving you CPR.
And then he pulls back, his hands dropping from your face to your shoulders. His eyes are bright. Is he…are those…tears? But he blinks, and you decide it was a reflection of the frost, the sky, anything.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and leans in, pressing a softer kiss to your lips, gentle. The way a first kiss probably should have been, but when has Sherlock ever done things the right way around?
You stand there for the longest ten seconds of your life, gripping onto him, your faces inches apart. Strangely, there is peace. Outside of this moment, there will be rioting and screaming and your internal organs will do their best to puke themselves with the force of emotions you’re feeling; but right now, with a minus-degrees breeze blowing Sherlock’s curls against your forehead, there is only peace.
He steps back and offers his hand. “The tea will have steeped by now. Come on.”
All the way back to the cottage, the only thing you can think is that you can never go back now.
****
It gets dark so early in November. It isn’t even late, but Mrs Hudson has put a lamp on in the lounge of 221b Baker Street anyway. You aren’t quite sure how you’ve wound up here. Sherlock had summoned a cab, with his usual magical prowess, as you left Victoria Station, and when he slid in after you he had given you a questioning look. You’d known what he’d meant, and he’d nodded, and said “221b Baker Street, please.”
Now he’s coming steadily up the stairs after you, taking his scarf off and balling it up. You step aside to let him through the door. He shuts it, and then leans back against it with a heavy, exhausted exhale. Inhale, and then a slow deep breath out, like he’s gasping for breath in slow motion.
“Family,” he says in explanation, when he sees your concern.
“They’re not too bad.”
“No. They were less insufferable today.” Sherlock shrugs. “You were there.”
You fiddle with your sleeves and look away. Maybe you should light a fire. 221b is cosy, but it feels so…empty, without John here. Judging by the quietude, Mrs Hudson is currently out.
And you can’t stop thinking about…well, about all of it. But especially the kiss. Kisses, plural. When you’d agreed to PDA, you hadn’t thought of this, of how it might affect you. It will be unfair on Sherlock if you have to keep your distance from him now. He hasn’t done anything wrong.
But then, he doesn’t deserve to have your feelings foisted on him. You drop your head with a forlorn sigh, staring at the dark wood floorboards.
“What are you thinking?” Sherlock asks quietly. You glance up briefly. He’s still vertically starfished against the door, studying you. “They liked you,” he adds. “Loved you, even. They hugged you. My mother is quite choosy about who she hugs. Much like me.”
“You’re similar.” You give him a faint smile. “I’m just tired.”
“No,” he says. “That’s not it. You did this earlier, in the kitchen. What is it?” He sways off the door and takes a step closer. Your heart starts to race again.
“We - we lied to them,” you blurt out. Anything to stop him coming closer. The floorboards stop creaking.
“Ye-es?”
“I - I feel bad. I mean, they’re so nice, such nice people, and they…literally think I’m your girlfriend.”
“That…was the…point, yes.”
“So now what? Do I come to every social gathering as your girlfriend? Christmases? What happens when our friends find out? Do we tell them we’re dating, too?” You drop your head into your hands. “God, I should’ve thought this through more. Spontaneity is horrible. It’s so horrible. And I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“Wait. Wait, wait.” Sherlock sounds helpless, coming closer. You cringe into your palms. “We can break up,” he offers, like it’s any kind of suggestion.
“I said I wouldn’t,” you reply, like that’s any kind of an answer.
He takes your wrists, carefully, in his grasp, and pulls your hands off your face. “Oh good, you’re not crying.” His relief sounds heartless. For whatever reason, it makes you sniff a laugh.
“I’m sorry,” you say gracelessly. “I shouldn’t have agreed. It was irresponsible of me to - to - I guess I should’ve realised I couldn’t fake-”
“It wasn’t fake.”
You look up at him. He’s almost as close as he was in the trees earlier. But now the air is still and warm, fragranced with old furniture and scientific chemicals and the distinctive scent of a bachelor’s flat.
“It was real,” he says. “For today.”
You laugh again. Now you’re really at risk of crying. “Like there’s a difference?”
“Yes,” he says impatiently. “There is. A fake-dating AU would suggest that we do not have feelings for each other and that we are merely pretending to have a relationship for convenience. What we have done is trial a hypothetical relationship, where both parties are mutually interested, to see whether a more permanent arrangement would be sustainable and agreeable.”
You stare at him. He stares back at you, slightly irritated, slightly confused, and slightly hopeful.
There are a lot of things you could say. A hell of a lot of questions to ask.
What comes out of your mouth is-
“You really, really don’t know what a fake-dating AU is, do you?”
He brushes it off, which means that he doesn’t. “Y/N. Focus.”
“I’m…I’m trying?”
He gives you another moment, your noses brushing.
“Yes?” he says, quietly.
You let out a slightly stunned laugh. “Yes.” Then, “Yes.” And this time, it’s you that kisses him.
****
Six months later, Mrs Holmes announces that she was never fooled by either of you.
Mr Holmes chimes in with the final two words, reaching over to pat your knee. You’re sitting in what is your spot, the centre of the sofa, and Sherlock has wrapped his arm around your waist, in his customary way, head down while he tweets with his free hand. He’s pretending he isn’t listening. But all three of you see the way he smiles quickly to himself.
...say yes.