A Fit of Pique: The Story of Vexation, Umbrage, and Discontent
They are little girls, all three. And each can fill a room. They are Holmes-Watsons. Of course they can.
All are the same age, which is eight. Eight, as it turns out, is old enough to be entirely smarter than necessary, and still young enough that you don't quite know what to do with all those brains.
Eight is old enough to be good, too young yet to be great.
Eight is more than enough to show the world that you are so like your papa as to be a warm, brave, chip off his sandy-haired block.
It is also old enough to manifest the quirks of your dark-haired daddy, eccentricities you sometimes seem to wear like a badge.
And finally, eight is old enough to display characteristics so profoundly out of left field that both of your parents will look at each other some days and shrug, saying "It wasn't me who taught her that," and they'll each be right.
Which is to say, Vexation, Umbrage, and Discontent are their fathers' children—and they are entirely their own people.
Vex with her beloved spiders and giggles and lisp, Um with her birthday cards and sweet coffee and crucifixes, Dis with her sneezes and skull and strongly held convictions.
They are the children of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, these three, and already they are greater than the sum of their parts.
…
The girls.
They started as a joke between John and Sherlock one morning, a tease, a taunt, a fit of pique while they argued about empathy and erections. But over the years the girls grew, like children always do.
Sherlock yelled across the flat for John last week—the good doctor has never much cared for that, especially at six bloody a.m.—and John hollered back that that is exactly where Vexation learned the awful, awful habit.
Mrs. Hudson took the skull again around Christmas, and when Sherlock complained, John explained that Rory was just upstairs because Discontent wanted to read to her.
John stubbed his toe on "another damned piece of that stupid experiment!" and Sherlock tamed his bad temper with a packet of Maltesers unearthed from somewhere in the flat, claiming he'd actually stolen them from under Umbrage's bed.
So yes, over the years, one silly jest at a time, John and Sherlock have invented the children they will probably never have.
Sherlock, being a completist, has even provided the science behind their small brood. Because seriously, in what universe can two men have babies together? In the universe where gene splicing is well advanced, of course.
Vex, Um, and Dis are fraternal triplets, Sherlock says. Each is blessed with twenty-two chromosomes from John, their papa, and twenty-two chromosomes from Sherlock, their daddy. And the final two X-chromosomes?
Though they didn't technically need an outside donor, let's just say Mycroft found a suitable one to help broaden the girls' gene pool. She is either a Rhodes scholar, Nobel laureate, or recipient of the Macarthur Genius Grant. Perhaps all three. Big brother gives no further details.
I love comments possibly more than air. I'd be as happier than a giddy gay unicorn (wait. what?) if you felt inclined to leave a comment after each of the girls' chapter. Please?
P.S. The girls first appeared in Empathy. People liked them so I thought we might learn more about each. Now please allow me to begin the introductions.