Behind Closed Doors

1.1 - The Birthday Party

This is part one of my Parentlock. Part two is written, and will be posted in due course. :)

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The door was flung open, and a wildly happy Hamish threw himself at Sherlock, working at his chemical table. He grinned, faintly embracing his son, and balanced him cautiously on his lap. He was happy to see him, but busy.

‘Look Dad! Alex invited me to his party!’

Sherlock did his best to keep smiling as the piece of card was shoved at him.

‘Hamish!’ John said firmly. He was stood in the doorway, arms crossed, casting a disapproving look in the direction of his son. The boy looked up, undeniable guilt in his eyes. ‘Go back downstairs, please. I want your coat on your peg and your shoes neatly on the rack.’

Hamish scowled, and slid to the floor from his father’s lap. He sloped past John, and stomped his way back downstairs from the flat.

‘He’s not going,’ Sherlock said, waving the cast-aside party invite in John’s direction.

‘What?’ John said, looking at the card. ‘But he’s so excited! Come on, Sherlock. What possible reason can you have for spoiling what’s just a bit of fun for him?’

‘You know how I feel about parties.’

John grimaced. He did. Sherlock was undeniable hell at almost all social occasions. He still cringed when he thought back to their first Christmas party, and how Sherlock had humiliated Molly. ‘Yes,’ he reasoned, ‘but this isn’t a party for you. It’s for Hamish. It’s kids.’

‘Children’s parties are even worse. They grab at your clothes when they’re all sticky, and they cry and get snot all over you, and they have tantrums. And those indoor playground centre things… what are they beyond breeding grounds for infections? I am not having a child with a gastrointestinal illness within firing distance of me again.’

‘It was me who did the bloody cleaning up!’ John protested, failing to notice Hamish’s reappearing figure.

‘Daddy said a bad word!’ he crowed. John sighed. Sherlock smirked.

John took a deep breath in, and counted to five. ‘I’m sorry Hamish, that was the wrong thing to do,’ he said, casting a look of daggers at Sherlock. ‘We were just talking about you and Alex’s party.’

‘And you’re not going,’ Sherlock said, looking down into his microscope. Of course, John thought. There was never going to be any beating about the bush from him.

Hamish’s face crumbled. It was Friday. The end of a week of school was prime meltdown time for a six-year-old. John clenched his fists, trying not to imagine them flying into Sherlock’s face as he saw Hamish’s cheeks reddening and his eyes screwing up in the way that meant a storm was coming.

‘Hey,’ he said, both gentle and assertive, crouching down to his son’s level, and placing a hand firmly on each shoulder. ‘Calm down, little man. Dad’s being silly. I’m sure you can go.’

Some of the crimson in Hamish’s face dispersed immediately. The quivering lip stilled. ‘Really?’

John took half a step back, and, as subtly as he could, ground his heel against Sherlock’s toes. He didn’t see him wince.

‘Really,’ he promised, inwardly sighing with relief. The peace wouldn’t last though. He needed a distraction technique. ‘Right,’ he said, holding out a hand to Hamish. ‘Seeing as it’s Friday, I think we deserve a treat.’ He smiled.

Hamish’s face lit up. ‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Treat! Treat!’

‘Chocolate milk?’

The boy nodded his head eagerly, and bounded forward, pulling his father towards the kitchen.

John leaned in on Sherlock as they passed. As he had suspected, there was no slide under the microscope. Sherlock looking into nothing with his microscope was, John had discovered, the equivalent to Hamish (or any other child) pulling the trick of yelling ‘La-la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you!’

‘Keep sulking,’ he whispered. ‘It won’t make the slightest bit of difference.’