It's Not A Game Anymore

Chapter three

The first thing John registers upon waking is the feel of his t-shirt sticking to the flushed skin of his back. And though it's June, their flat should not nearly be this warm; not with the breeze floating in through the cracked windows, ruffling the basic curtains Mrs. Hudson had managed to hang when Sherlock wasn't looking.

Years of nightmares have made him used to being disoriented upon waking, and he squints a bleary eye open and catalogues all that's a bit... off: the mattress that dips on the wrong side and the sheets that have a higher thread count than his own. But perhaps the most telling piece of evidence: the consulting detective whose shoulder his face is currently mashed against.

John leans back and can't help but smile at Sherlock's sleep-rumpled attire. He looks so young like this: hair a wild mess of curls on the pillow and expression smoothed out by the kind of tranquility only good dreams can bring. He slowly pulls his arm back from where it was draped across Sherlock's stomach and attempts to untangle their legs, wondering how on earth he became such a clingy sleeper. With Mary, he barely moved from his back, yet now, they've become a jumbled mess of limbs in the middle of the bed. He eventually extricates himself. Sherlock barely stirs.

He spots the baby monitor on the nightstand and immediately the events of yesterday slam back into his psyche. Undercover. Rings. Baby. Connor.

He pulls his dressing gown on quickly and tiptoes across the room, avoiding the creaky floorboard by the door as he exits into the hallway. The flat is too quiet and it's too late in the morning for the child not to be awake. Panic immediately seizes him and he takes the stairs two at a time to the third floor, pushing the door to his former bedroom open, only to be greeted by the baby happily banging two plastic blocks together in his crib. His blue eyes immediately latch onto John and he holds up the toys as if to say See? Blocks.

"You're a quiet one, aren't you," John murmurs, chuckling lowly, aware of the still active monitor next to the crib whose twin, which sits on the bedside table next to Sherlock's head one floor below. "Come on, up we go." He lifts the baby with ease and settles him on his hip, a move both natural and foreign, and he takes a moment to catalogue it. To remember that this is what it feels like to have a child in his arms. He ignores the tightening in his chest.

"Breakfast?" he asks and Connor nods gravely as if breakfast is the most serious of businesses, blonde curls dancing across his forehead. And John places a kiss against the warm skin, pausing slightly to register the action. It was done like a habit, quick and without thought, as if he'd been doing it his whole life.

John makes eggs, not too runny, and settles Connor in the highchair that Mycroft dropped off for them, fiddling with the straps until he's 99.9% sure the baby is secure. Connor glares at him as if to say Really? and it's so Sherlockian that John has to pause for a moment.

"Yoo hoo," Mrs. Hudson croons before immediately ignoring John and swooping down to the child with yolk all over his face. "Did you have a good sleep?"

"He did actually," John says, automatically grabbing another mug from the cabinet for his landlady. "No fuss."

"That's because he's got you two looking after him," Mrs. Hudson says with a smile and John wishes he had her confidence. "You did remove the body parts, though, didn't you?"

He laughs as he pours the tea and nods. "Mycroft did. Much to Sherlock's dismay."

"He'll live," she coos, wiping Connor's hands and face and lifting him from the chair.

John's glad Mrs. Hudson doesn't seem to mind the sudden appearance of a toddler in the flat, though he's worried that she hasn't actually grasped the fact that Connor is not a permanent addition. Her reaction to the plan was... volatile at best.