My first foray into the Sherlock fandom, so bear with me.
I own nothing.
Sherlock knows before she ever says a word, but John remains obstinately oblivious about all of it—he wonders why she bounces around the flat, humming or singing some off-key happy tune, why she is more attached to the cell phone in her hand than she ever was to any of her books, why she blushes and smiles a small, shy smile when they ask her how is school is going, why she replies with a quiet, "Fine" and nothing else—until one day he mentions it to his husband, and Sherlock grants him a tired look and asks if he really has to spell the whole thing out for him.
Their daughter has met a boy.
They had been watching the telly, the three of them, when a phone starts to vibrate insistently. John looks first to Sherlock—who shrugs, because for once it isn't his—and then to his daughter. A gleeful sort of enthusiasm takes over her when she sees whoevers name has popped up on the screen, and she lets out an excited squeal as she rushes off to her bedroom without a word to either of them.
"What was that about?" John asks aloud once he hears the door to Elizabeth's bedroom slam shut.
Sherlock says nothing, continuing to watch as though nothing peculiar had just happened. John settles back into the couch and tries to focus on the program as well, but his mind is reeling with curiosity.
"It was certainly…odd," he says, pondering aloud.
Sherlock hums in answer, his hands pressed together under his chin as though in prayer.
"Come to think of it," John continues, "she's been acting a bit odd for a while. Well," he amends, "odder than usual."
"She's acting perfectly normal," Sherlock finally answers. "I assume this is how most teenaged girls act when they start their first relationship."
John appears absolutely bewildered. "What?"
"Oh, John, don't be thick," Sherlock admonishes affectionately, granting his partner a weary look. He grabs John's hand in his own. "The signs have been there for months."
"Has she talked to you about it?" John asks, feeling foolish. How had he missed something so huge happening in his daughter's life?
"No," Sherlock answers simply, stroking John's hand with his thumb.
"Well," John says. "We can't push her on it, can we?"
"Best not."
"So what do we do, then?"
Sherlock smiles knowingly, granting John a quick peck on the lips. "We wait."
. . .
It continues on for weeks, and John feels as though he's about to burst at the seams. He begins to watch their daughter more carefully, finally making sense of the happy tunes and the small smiles and the evasive answers. John has no idea how to broach the subject, so he doesn't, following Sherlock's advice and allowing his daughter to keep her secrets. He had known the day would eventually come that she would leave him feeling completely lost and uncertain, but he hadn't realized it would come so soon.
He wishes half-heartedly for the first time in years that Mary was here for her daughter, so Elizabeth had another woman to talk to about these sorts of things. Elizabeth deserved to know her mother, but Mary never gave her the chance to. When he allows himself to think of Mary at all, it still angers him, the way she left the two of them so abruptly, leaving John with their daughter and no explanations. But now he is infinitely more thankful for Sherlock; if it wasn't for Sherlock picking up the pieces of a broken man, John would still be completely lost.
Finally, one day, when John is fixing breakfast and Sherlock is doing God-knows-what on his laptop, Elizabeth comes into the kitchen looking exceptionally nervous. Neither of them looks up when she walks in. "Guys?"
John looks up from the eggs he's been fixing for the three of them, sunny-side up. "Yes, Lizzie?"
She fidgets with the hem of her shirt, which catches Sherlock's attention. "Um, I have a, um, well, a friend who I would like to, um, would really like to bring to dinner tonight. If that's alright with the two of you," she finishes quickly.
She's not looking either one of them in the eye. Sherlock smiles a small, knowing smile that their daughter doesn't catch as he returns his attention to his laptop. John looks at his daughter in astonishment for a moment, until he smells burning eggs and scrambles them instead. "Yeah, yeah," he says. "That'd be fine. Sherlock?"
John looks to Sherlock and sees the other man's shoulders shaking. "Oh, yes," his husband says. "Marvelous."
Lizzie breaks into a wide smile and runs over and pecks them both on the cheek. "Thanks, guys." She grabs a piece of toast off the plate and hurries out of the kitchen.
"What about your breakfast?" John calls after her.
Elizabeth pops her head back in and smiles, her blonde hair falling around her in waves. "Can't, Dad, gonna be late." She hurries out the door, calling "Love you!" as she slams it shut.
Once she'd gone, Sherlock bursts into quiet laughter. "What's so funny?" John asks as he sets a plate in front of him.
Sherlock looks up at him, mirth in his eyes. "That poor boy."
John grants Sherlock a look of reproach as he sits across from at the table with his own food. "What?" Sherlock asks innocently.
"You know what," John says. "This is a big step for her. We can't screw this up."
Sherlock looks as though John had taken away his favorite toy. "But—"
"No buts," John says, pointing his fork at Sherlock. "You will behave tonight, understand?"
Sherlock sulks as he takes a bite of his scrambled eggs. "I will if you do," he mutters just loud enough for John to hear.
John can't hide the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth. Sherlock looks up at him, making a sad attempt to look as innocent as he can under the mass of curly hair, and they both burst out laughing. John knows that Sherlock wouldn't do anything purposefully to hurt Elizabeth—he loves her as much as John does, helped raise her for Christ's sake—but it's what he doesn't know he's doing that John worries about.
Oh, well, John thinks as he digs into his plate of food. What was the worst that could happen?
. . .
It would have been a perfectly normal dinner. John had talked Mrs. Hudson into fixing a marvelous roast for the five of them (Mrs. Hudson included), he had talked Sherlock down from terrorizing the poor boy, and he had even resisted the urge to put on the most hideous jumper he owned. He wants Elizabeth to feel perfectly comfortable to bring whatever friends, boy or girl, she wants over to the flat to meet the two of them. He doesn't want his daughter to feel as though she had to hide any part of herself from either him or Sherlock. Tonight was going to go swimmingly. It had to.
And then Mycroft stopped by.
The smell of Mrs. Hudson's roast wafts through the flat as it cooks in the oven and she fusses around the kitchen. John's reading the evening paper in his chair and Sherlock is on the laptop. Elizabeth had disappeared into her room as soon as she had gotten home from school—saying nothing to the two of them except, "They're coming at 6,"—and had yet to come out.
Out of nowhere, the bell rings, and John and Sherlock both look up. It's far too early for Elizabeth's "friend" to have arrived, and they're not expecting any other company. "Oh! Not a client!" Mrs. Hudson chirps from the kitchen. She comes out wiping her hands on a towel. "That'll ruin everything!"
John and Sherlock look at each other, both of their brows furrowed. Sherlock stands up to open the door to their flat.
"Hello, baby brother," a voice says. John turns in his seat to see a familiar figure in the doorway, holding an umbrella and looking as haughty as usual.
"Ah, Mycroft," Sherlock responds, blocking his brother access to the room. "What a…surprise."
Mycroft sneers at Sherlock and pushes his way into the room. "Hello, John," he says curtly. John nods in Mycroft's general direction, returning to his paper again.
Mrs. Hudson is beside herself. "No! You have to leave!" she says, attempting to shoo Mycroft out the door.
"I shan't be long," Mycroft says imperiously. He turns to Sherlock, who is watching Mycroft curiously, and pulls out a file from his coat. "I have a case for you, of the upmost importance."
John folds his paper in half and watches the two of them, feeling that perhaps Mrs. Hudson was right to try to shoo Mycroft away. He sees the glint in Sherlock's eye, sees the way he greedily takes the file and pours over it, pacing back to his chair as he reads it. Sherlock hasn't had a case in weeks, and though he is trying to hide his enthusiasm of the prospect from his brother, John sees the signs of an eager Sherlock fairly quickly.
"Sherlock—"he says warningly.
"John, this is perfect!" he exclaims, not looking up from the file. His brow furrows as he reads further, flipping pages in the file as Mycroft looks on smugly. Mrs. Hudson stands, watching the three of them nervously, tittering on about something or another, but John's focus is on Sherlock. It's been months since he's seen him this excited about a case, and John is in turn happy that Sherlock has found something and weary about the consequences.
"I need your gun." Sherlock suddenly says, looking at John with a determined expression that John has learned to be cautious of.
"Why in the world—"John begins to ask.
"John! Your gun!" Sherlock shouts. Too stunned to reply, John retreats quickly to the bedroom to grab his gun out of his bedside table drawer. The bell rings again before John returns to the living room, and he hears Elizabeth shout, "I'll get it!"
When he enters the room again, gun in hand, Elizabeth has just opened the door for yet another new arrival. This one is considerably younger, a boy of about 16, if he had to wager a guess, wearing a nice button up shirt and pressed slacks. The boy keeps pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, breaking into a smile as soon as he lays eyes on Elizabeth.
"Hi," the boy says.
"Hi, yourself," Elizabeth replies.
The room seems to stand still as the two of them stand in the doorway for a moment, watching each other; Mycroft looks at them and then at Sherlock and John, attempting to deduce what is going on; Mrs. Hudson stands in the archway of the kitchen, a smile on her face and her hands pressed together in front of her. Sherlock doesn't even look up from the file, still reading it intently as he waits for John to bring his gun. John smiles at his daughter, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind where the time has gone.
John clears his throat to capture his daughter's attention, and she seems to shake herself from a reverie. "Right," she says, ushering the boy into the room and shutting the door. "Kyle, this is—"
She turns around then, sees Mycroft standing over Sherlock, who has his nose buried in the file, sees Mrs. Hudson watching her and smiling. And then she sees John with the gun in his hand, standing awkwardly in the hall. She lets out a sigh. "This is…everyone."
She glares at John until he remembers himself. "Oh, right," he says, handing the gun to Sherlock, who takes it without a word. John walks over to the two teens and sticks out his hand to Kyle, smiling a closed lipped smile. "Hello, Kyle. Nice to finally meet you. Lizzie hasn't really said much about you."
Elizabeth grants John with a quelling glare as Kyle takes his hand. "Nice to meet you, too, sir," Kyle says, shaking his hand firmly. If he is upset by the revelation that his girlfriend doesn't talk about him at home, he doesn't show it.
"That's my dad," Elizabeth says, directing Kyle further into the room as John takes his seat back. "That's Mrs. Hudson, the landlady," she says, pointing in Mrs. Hudson's direction.
Kyle shakes Mrs. Hudson's hand as well, who grabs his warmly with both of hers. The woman can't seem to stop smiling, watching the two of them, and it be making Elizabeth squirm.
"This is my uncle, Mycroft," Elizabeth continues. "Who I did not know was going to be here."
"Pleasure," Mycroft says, smiling a cold, tight-lipped smile under Elizabeth's glare.
"And this is—"
"Sherlock Holmes," Kyle finishes, excitement in his voice. John catches Elizabeth's bewildered expression at his pleasure of meeting her Papa. "World's only consulting detective, right?"
Sherlock doesn't deign to respond, and John feels a tightening in his stomach. Oh, no…
"It's such a pleasure to meet you," Kyle says. And he makes to sit in the only chair available beside Sherlock's own.
Elizabeth, Mrs. Hudson, and John all react in the same instant, trying to reach him before he sits down completely, all shouting "Don't!", but it's already too late.
He sits in the client chair.
Sherlock's head whipped up from the file faster than John thought possible, and he stares at the boy sitting beside him as though he had just noticed his existence. John rubs his head, already feeling a headache coming on. "Oh, here we go," he mutters.
Sherlock closes the file and sets it aside, keeping John's gun in his lap. He's watching the boy beside him, who's almost bouncing up and down with excitement.
"Would you like me to deduce you?" Sherlock asks.
Mycroft chokes on a laugh as Lizzie says, exasperated, "Papa, really—"
"Sure!" Kyle says.
"Oh, Sherlock, don't," Mrs. Hudson pleads from the doorway.
"I don't think that's a good idea," John says.
"It's alright, Mr. Watson," Kyle says. "I insist."
Sherlock glares at John. "He insists, John." He turns to the boy sitting in the chair and stares at him. The boy doesn't squirm or fidget, but watches Sherlock watch him with a sort of excitement John had never seen on any other person who has ever sat in that chair.
"You're an only child," Sherlock finally says.
"I am!" Kyle says, looking to Elizabeth in astonishment.
"You work part-time in a Deli."
"Amazing!" Kyle exclaims. John sighs, knowing that Sherlock is just getting started.
"Your mother died when you were very young. You're not very close to your father, though you've tried. Your grades are excellent, though you don't have time for much else, what with working the Deli when you're not studying. You have a cousin currently residing in Amsterdam, studying abroad, and you one day hope to join her. Your favorite band recently broke up, and you enjoy reading Dan Brown novels.
"Elizabeth is your first and thus far only girlfriend, and you were initially only interested in her because of, well, me—"
Suddenly, the fire alarm begins to beep insistently, cutting Sherlock off abruptly. "My roast!" Mrs. Hudson exclaims, before diving back into the kitchen to retrieve it. John follows after her, grabbing the fire extinguisher on the way. Smoke billows out of the oven when she opens it, and she moves quickly out of the way as John muscles in with the extinguisher.
"My roast," she says, near tears, as John takes the smoldering black blob out of the oven.
John looks out towards the living room, mouth open as though he is about to speak. Mycroft and Sherlock both look mildly amused and Kyle's mouth is open in either horror or awe, but it is Elizabeth John looks for. She looks absolutely mortified, her hands buried in her blonde hair, and John feels ashamed. John looks to Sherlock then, and tries to tell him without speaking what they should do. Sherlock seems to understand his meaning, nodding.
Sherlock stands, clearing his throat. He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, pulling out a few notes. He hands them to Elizabeth. "Go get dinner for the two of you, on us," he says.
Elizabeth takes the money, not looking Sherlock in the eye. Without a word to any of them, she grabs her coat and purse and runs out the door, Kyle following sheepishly behind her.
. . .
"It could have been worse," Sherlock says as he and John sit across from each other a few hours later.
John glares at him over the top of his book, saying nothing. It was just the two of them in the flat now; Mycroft had left soon after Elizabeth, giving some excuse or other before hurrying out the door. Mrs. Hudson left the hour after Mycroft, apologizing profusely for the disaster she had taken part in and offering to fix them something else to eat. John had practically had to push her out the door, insisting that he and Sherlock would be perfectly fine on their own.
Elizabeth hasn't returned yet. Her curfew isn't for another hour, but John is beginning to fidget with anticipation. He wants to talk to her, to make sure she is alright after such a fiasco as that. He is stuck between his need to call her and his want to let her be; he had to set his phone in the bedroom so that he wasn't tempted to look at it every five seconds.
Neither of them says anything for a while, both wallowing in silence. Something is bothering John, though, niggling at the back of his brain, but he can't quite put his finger on it. He watches his husband in the chair opposite him as he studies the handle of John's gun as though it is the single most interesting thing in the world. Finally unable to stand it any longer, John sets down his book.
"What I want to know," John says, "is how did you know all that about him?"
Sherlock looks up from the gun, giving John a peculiar look. "You know my methods."
John nods, conceding the point. "I do, but how did you know about the cousin in Amsterdam?"
Sherlock smiles a sly grin. "What?" John demands.
"That one wasn't…deduced."
John eyes Sherlock curiously. "What do you mean, 'wasn't deduced'?"
Sherlock grins sheepishly, and John puts two and two together. "You looked him up, didn't you?"
Sherlock shrugs, trying not to look as pleased with himself as he obviously is. "Lizzie needs to put a better password on her phone."
"That's an invasion of privacy," John cautions him. He picks up his book again. "She'll never forgive you if she finds out. She might not forgive you anyway"
That sobers Sherlock a bit. John looks at him over the top of his book, and feels a pang of pity. The expression on Sherlock's face is one of such dejection that John sets his book down. He walks over to his partner and kisses him on the forehead. "It'll be fine," John says. "She won't stay mad forever."
Sherlock smiles sadly as John goes to the window, moving the curtains so he can peer out to the street. He sees two figures standing under the streetlamp, clasping hands. He recognizes that blonde hair…
"Sherlock! Come here," John calls, beckoning him over. Sherlock comes immediately, watching the scene on the sidewalk play out over John's shoulder.
Elizabeth stands under the streetlamp, hand in hand with Kyle. She laughs at something he says, tilting her head back. Kyle watches her, and when she isn't laughing any more, he takes her head with both of his hands and kisses her.
John makes to move away from the window, but he is caught by Sherlock. He is looking at him as he had the first time he had ever told John that he loved him—cautious, unsure, doubtful—but years have shown John the love behind this look as well. So John follows Kyle's lead, grabs Sherlock's head in both hands, and kisses him tenderly.
They look out the window again, only to find the two teens gone. They hear steps on the stair, and the two of them race to their chairs before Elizabeth can open the door.
John just manages to grab his book just as Elizabeth walks in. He and Sherlock watch her as she closes it behind her, a blissful grin on her face.
"Hey," John ventures. "How was your night?"
She says nothing, instead throwing her purse and coat on the sofa. She walks over to Sherlock and pecks him on the cheek. "Thank you, Papa," she says. Sherlock's face is one of such utter bewilderment that John can't help but smile. She gives John a peck as well, before heading off to her bedroom.
Later, when they are getting ready for bed, Sherlock starts laughing.
"What?" John demands.
"Nothing," Sherlock says, crawling into bed and curling up next to John. John kisses the top of Sherlock's curls as Sherlock says, "I like him."
John smiles, taking one of Sherlock's curls and twirling it with his finger. "Me too."