Chapter Text
It was a quiet day.
John was off work, Sherlock had no cases and no other place to be; he wasn’t in Little headspace either, much to John’s disappointment. That would have at least given him something to, you know, ‘do’, other than watch Sherlock look at things under his microscope before tacking away at his laptop about whatever it was that he saw.
John should have been enjoying his day off. He’d tried to read. He’d tried to watch T.V.–the trashiest of the daytime trash that he could find. He’d tried to find something to watch on his laptop. He’d tried wanking, for fuck’sakes, but nothing had managed to catch his attention.
‘Oh God,’ he realized. This time, he was the one who was fucking bored.
John sighed.
Sherlock continued to type whatever boring thing it was that he was typing with one hand while focusing the knob on his microscope with the other.
John frowned and sighed again, louder and with a bit more ‘umph’ than last time.
“I can’t help that you’re bored, John,” Sherlock said at last, without looking up.
“Yes you can.”
“If by that you mean powder your bum and put you down for a nap, then yes, you’re absolutely right.”
“Oh fuck off,” John scoffed; “I don’t tell you that when–”
“That is exactly what you tell me when I say I’m bored,” Sherlock interrupted, finally looking up from his scope. There was a slight, pink ring underneath his left eye from where he’d been pressing against it. “What do you expect me to do about it.”
John turned around in his chair and propped his arm on the back of it. “Talk to me,” he said, resting his chin on his arm.
Sherlock huffed through his nose and rolled his eyes. “I thought that’s what we’re doing right now.”
“Don’t be an arse.”
Sherlock sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you going to be a shithead if I continue to ignore you?” he asked, his eyes closed as he already knew damn well what the answer was–
“Oh, I’ll make your life right miserable, love,” John said, grinning broadly and flashing his teeth.
Sherlock dropped his hands with a sigh; “Wanker. Right, fine. What do you want to talk about?” he asked, opening his eyes and staring at John as though he were still contemplating that earlier bit about the nap.
“I dunno. Anything.”
“Ah, ‘anything, yes, a worthy topic to pull me away from my work.”
“Shud’dup.” John stood, as twisting in his chair that way was starting to make his back and shoulders ache, and walked into the kitchen.
Sherlock kept his gaze on him as he entered the room and sat down at the table, then moved a pile of books and assorted files out of his way. “Don’t play coy; you’ve already got something in mind,” he said.
“Quit reading me.”
“Reading you? You’re shouting it at me.”
“I’m not–!”
“Just go ahead and ask,” Sherlock interrupted. He really would like to get back to the tardigrades he’d been observing. Sometime soon, hopefully, but the look in John’s eyes told him that that would probably be unlikely.
John folded his arms on the table, trying to appear nonchalant. Though that was probably a moot point by now. “…How did you do it?”
“You’ll have to be a little more specific–”
“Before me. Being a Little.”
Sherlock blinked. Well. This was a new one. “I had the profile, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But was there anything else, y’know, to it? Did you ever…I mean, ‘indulge’, by yourself?”
Whatever he’d been expecting out of John’s mouth, it certainly hadn’t been that. “I…” he said, and then paused; “Yes, I did.”
John sat there, chin in hand, waiting for the rest. “And…?” he said, sensing that there was an ‘and’ to begin with.
“And, sometimes not by myself,” Sherlock said, picking his words carefully.
“With…Molly?” John asked slowly.
“…Not just her, no.”
John’s eyebrows went up as he began recalling a long ago conversation. “Oh, you’ve GOT to tell me now,” he said, a slow grin spreading across his face. “And why didn’t you tell me before, you tit?!?”
Sherlock tilted his head and stared at John with a blank expression. “Really?” he asked, his voice flattened into that tone that John knew was reserved for when he was being really, truly stupid. “Really, you’re wondering why I haven’t brought up MY past. Really.”
“But this is different, though!” John exclaimed. “This is, it’s, it’s about the Little thing!”
“Oh, oh of course, so that’s what makes it interesting. The ‘Little’ thing.” Sherlock bent back down over his microscope.
“I’m just curious,” John said, maybe sounding a mite defensive, and slouched back against his chair. “You never talk about this kinda stuff.”
“Mm,” Sherlock hummed, not looking up.
John didn’t want this line of conversation to stop. That much was true; he was genuinely curious about Sherlock’s way of life before they’d met, and most of what he’d gleaned about Sherlock’s life pre-him was what he could dig out of Mycroft or Molly, and a couple of stories from Greg…
Which, just to say, wasn’t all that much.
John leaned forward again and rested his arms back on the table. “So?”
“So?”
“Who were they?”
Sherlock glanced up and stared at John from over the rim of the eyepiece. “…You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
It was John’s turn to stare at Sherlock flatly. “Really. You have to ask me that. Really.”
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him; “It’s not as funny when you do it; you know that, don’t you.” A statement, not a question.
“It’s funnier. Tell me who it was.”
Sherlock snorted through his nose, and once again went back to his eyepiece.
Just as John opened his mouth to keep protesting (and not, as Mrs. Hudson so laughingly put it one night as he was complaining about running out of cabinet space between all of their normal dishes PLUS Sherlock’s and his Little ones, ‘bitching’…he didn’t ‘bitch’, he complained. There was a difference. He didn’t know what that difference was enough to put into words, but it was there), Sherlock spoke ahead of him while still firmly affixed to his scope:
“There was more than one,” he began, and John sat back in his seat.
“More than one, what? Mummies?…Daddies?” John asked, trying to ignore the small, niggling flash of jealousy. This was before they’d ever met, he kept telling himself. Just shut up, and listen.
“Mummies. It was easier to find a Mummy that had no interest in sex than a Daddy.” Sherlock sat up and turned to the laptop again, and began to type.
So, that kinda matched what Molly had said, at least from what John could remember. That had been a…a day. Lots of stuff had been said.
“Okay,” John said, not wanting to tip Sherlock’s proverbial scale and make him clam up. “Any, I dunno, special ones?”
“Special?”
Christ, he made it worse than pulling teeth, though. “Yeah, any that were fun? Worth mentioning?”
Sherlock paused and stared at the keyboard, long enough for John to think that fuck, he wasn’t going to get any more out of him today, or maybe ever, and–
“Yes,” he said; “the last one.”
John frowned. “But, I thought Molly was the last one?”
Sherlock finally looked up at him, just as puzzled as John was. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Didn’t Molly say you shut down your account after you two…?” John trailed off.
Frankly, Molly hadn’t said all that much, now that he thought about it. Or, if she had, he just couldn’t remember.
“Um, no,” Sherlock shook his head with a dry laugh, and turned back to the laptop. “Yeah, no. I didn’t shut it down, I blocked her so she’d stop filling my inbox with her weepy apologies and sad emoji’s.”
John leaned back, his mouth open slightly. Oh. Now that, was interesting. “So, it’s still open?”
“Christ, John, if you want me to keep talking about it then you have to listen,” Sherlock snapped…the constant questions were beginning to test his nerves. “I never said it was still open. I just didn’t close it then.”
“Oh. Okay, I get it, yeah.”
“I closed it after the last one. The one after Molly,” Sherlock said, preempting John’s next question:
“What made that one so special?”
“She knew what she was doing,” Sherlock said without hesitation.
“She…ohhhh, was she a professional?!?”
“Good boy, now I know you’re listening.” Sherlock leaned back and stretched, raising both arms over his head and cracking his knuckles. “Yes, she was.”
John was, well, kinda speechless.
Okay, not quite, but you know what he meant. “I never took you for one to, um, to pay–”
“Pay for perfectly valid, reputable, professional services from someone who had more experience than just sticking their partner in shitty adult nappies from the pharmacy and making them stand in the tub for a wee because they leaked every single time? Absolutely.”
“That’s…oddly specific.”
‘Well, you asked,” Sherlock sighed, and then stood up. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” he asked, going to the refrigerator and opening the door to peer inside.
“Well, Irene makes more sense now,” John said dryly. “What was her name?”
“…Cora. Miss Cora.”
“Real name?”
“No, online name.” Sherlock mumbled, shutting the fridge door with a huff. “We have nothing to eat.”
“There’s plenty of food in there. Would you just sit down and–”
“Nothing that I want to eat, I should have clarified.”
John closed his eyes, clenched his hands, counted to ten, and waited until the urge to strangle his boyfriend faded. “If I order you chips, will you sit your arse down and tell me about her?!?”
Sherlock glanced at John out of the corner of his eye; “…You really want to know?”
John threw his hands up; “I’VE ONLY BEEN ASKING–!” He stopped, and took a deep breath. He hadn’t meant to shout. “I’ve only been asking for the past hour,” he said. “Yeah, I want to know about he, and what you guys did together.”
“But it was well over ten years ago, John!” Sherlock said, finally letting on that he was exasperated, as well. “What does it matter?!”
“Because,” John said, meeting his gaze and not letting it go; “It’s about you, and your baby-side, and I love them both. So I want to know, just to know.”
Sherlock stood there, arms folded over his chest, and worried his bottom lip with his teeth for a good two minutes before he went back to his chair, and sat down. “…I want extra chips,” he said.
John pulled his phone out and pulled up the number for delivery, then showed the screen to Sherlock. “I’m ordering,” he said. “You start talking.”
Sherlock’s shoulders relaxed, and it wasn’t until then that John noticed just how tensely he’d been holding himself. “Okay,” Sherlock said, focusing his gaze on the faux-wood pattern on the table. “She had her own little place outside of the city. Full nursery, private backyard, everything. Specifically for…babysitting sessions.”
John looked at Sherlock over his phone. Sherlock wouldn’t look back at him. “And you would book these…sessions?”
Sherlock nodded, then finally looked up and met John’s gaze–
“Regularly."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sherlock Holmes stood in front of the moderately-sized cottage, waiting. The door that he had just knocked on had been painted recently…instead of the faded, old-world brown wood with pits and pockmarks that he’d come to memorize, it had been sanded down and painted a soft grey, with pink trim.
He liked it. It made him feel…more at home.
He raised his fist, hesitated, and then cautiously knocked again. It usually only took one knock. He wasn’t late.
…He wasn’t that late.
…He wasn’t that late, by his standards.
He was shuffling from foot to foot, trying to quell the little flutters of nervous butterflies in his stomach when the door was briskly opened, startling him, and was met by a tall, obviously displeased woman close to his age. She stared at him.
Sherlock tried very hard not to wither under her gaze. “…Hi, Miss-”
She tilted her head down and stared at him harshly over the rim of her glasses…
“Sherlock Holmes. You. Are. Late.”