Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

A Holmes Family Reunion (Part 7)

Y/N is first to wake that morning, fresh, clean daylight leaking through the curtains lighting the backs of her eyelids up pink.

Warmed by the insistent dawn sun, Sherlock had kicked off some of the covers at some point, his lean frame taking up most of the bed.

Y/N had fallen asleep with him holding her close, and he seemed to have kept his word, even when unconscious;

He's still loosely curled around her, one of his arms draped protectively over her middle as if sleepily poised---ready to draw her closer at the snap of a twig or footsteps on the landing. Despite this, his expression is soft when asleep, his t-shirt is rucked up, exposing a slither of his alabaster stomach, dark curls ruffled messily about his head on the pillow.

The bed is so close to the window that the carefully stitched hem of the curtains cloaks the bedframe.

Gently wriggling from the weight of Sherlock's arm, Y/N tugs them open and folds her arms on the sill.

The garden is already awake, each leaf, flower petal and blade of grass turned to bask in the buttery sunlight. Several rabbits nibble the lawn, the fur of their flanks prickly with moisture. They scatter when a door opens downstairs and Mrs Holmes pads through the wet grass to refill a bird table with sunflower seeds. The robins aren't afraid of her and flutter impatiently about her feet, but the bluetits and sparrows are a little timider and eye her cautiously from the safety of the hedgerows.

Relishing the morning sun on her cheeks, Y/N lets her eyes close, the scent of the lavender flowers tickling the inside of her nose.

...

When Sherlock wakes, they don't talk about the fox and the cuddling.

They don't explicitly decide not to, it just doesn't happen.

Sherlock had stirred and turned onto his side. Finding Y/N awake, his face slowly brightens with a sleepy, lopsided grin. "Good morning."

Y/N smiles teasingly. "It's nearly noon."

"How did you sleep?"

"Very well, thank you. You?"

"Better than I have in a long time."

Both blushing slightly awkwardly, Y/N turns back to the open window.

Every time a bird tries to approach the table, one particularly fat robin chases them away, flying at them in a screeching ball of brown and red fury. 

Mrs Holmes keeps flapping at it with her teatowel, chastising it as though it were a greedy, petulant child but, unperturbed, it continues pecking through the seeds until Mrs Holmes whines for her husband.

"What is going on out there?" Sherlock asks, pushing himself up to kneel next to Y/N and peer through squinted lids into the sun. He folds his arms on the window sill, the window's recess too narrow for him to do so without his shoulders pressing up against Y/N's.

The back of Y/N's neck heats below her pyjamas but she's soon distracted as Mr Holmes appears from the back of the house, followed by six white runner ducks.

In a pair of comically long Wellington boots, he waddles over to his wife, a straw-matted garden spade in hand like a confused farmer about to go to war. "What appears to be the problem, my dear?"

"It's that dammed bird again, Charles!" Wendy cries, and Y/N feels Sherlock giggle next to her, her own lips pressed together to repress a smile. 

"Well, what do you want me to do about it, woman? Bash him?" Mr Holmes brandishes his spade threateningly at the quaint little painted bird table, and his ducks all begin quacking uncertainly, flapping around on their big orange feet.