Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

A Holmes Family Reunion (Part 3)

After a little while of listening to the evening chorus of bird song, Y/N sits up, swinging her legs off the bed. "Could you give me a tour of the house?"

He frowns up at her, his head half-submerged in the down-stuffed pillows, the heavy blankets moulding to his outline, entombing him like grass growing over a paving slab. "Can't we stay here?"

"We've got days to stay here," Y/N protests, "Come on, I want to see where you grew up. And I need to know where everything is."

With some effort, he drags one arm from the grip of the bedspread and points through the wall. "Loo." Pointing downwards to the left, "kitchen," to the right, "living room."

"Sherlock." Before it can succumb to gravity once more, Y/N grabs his hand and tries to pull him towards the door.

"Y/N," he mimics her exasperated whine, his limp hand in her palm suddenly coming alive with strength, and Y/N squeaks in shock as he yanks her back towards the bed. 

She tumbles onto it, having to arrange herself as she falls so as not to land on top of him. Back where she started, the glow-in-the-dark stars twinkle down at her from the ceiling mockingly, and she huffs some tickling strands of hair out of her eyes. "Lazy bastard."

Sherlock hums, his eyes closed, a tiny, triumphant smile twitching one corner of his mouth.

"Five more minutes of this?" Y/N bargains, the layers of soft cotton and sheep's wool already accepting her as one of their own.

"Ten."

"Seven."

"Fine."

...

Eventually---and reluctantly---Sherlock drags himself away from the lazy, comforting embrace of the mattress and he begins his tour at the sunny end of the first-floor hallway where the tall window looks out over the garden and rolling verdant countryside.

"I'll show you downstairs later, when the clamouring throng of my relatives have dispersed," he says, pulling the curtains open a little wider to reveal even more fields and, in the distance, another thicket of woodland. "The village is that way," he points through the thicket of far-away trees, where, if Y/N strains her eyes, can just about make out several cobblestone buildings protruding from the steep ribbon of road like mushrooms. "There are a few farms closer than the shop, though, so we usually buy from them. Mum will no doubt send us to get some milk or something at some point."

Looking out over the patchwork of land, Y/N imagines that---once upon a time---everything surrounding the house had all been one estate, presided over by whichever generation of Holmes happen to occupy it at the time.

From their place on their gently sloping hill, through their bay windows, they could look out at their workers ploughing their fields and tending to their animals. Now, however, the cottage stands alone, its land sold off, but still grand and important in its heart.

Turning back away from the window, Y/N faces the sun-soaked hallway, trying to take in the shapes and colours arranged before her like a scrapbook. 

The wallpaper alternates depending on which wall in particular she is looking at, ranging from funky patterns from the 1970s to classically Victorian; intricate roses crisscrossing in complicated geometric fractals. The rugs vary in thickness, the floor seeming to rise with the  squashy shag and fall with knotty jute, corners overlapping, tassels knotting, and the floorboards talking with muffled squeaks. Every now and again---as someone, somewhere, runs a tap or twists the dial on a radiator---the pipes kick into life like arteries below the paintings and wonky shelves.