Sherlock gazed morosely at the soft-boiled egg in its cup. He and John had lived together for six nearly perfect weeks. Straightening John's files had taken no time at all. Now his days were spent roaming London when the weather was fair, learning her every street and every building as well as he had known every corridor or piece of art at Carleton Hall. He didn't know why he wanted to learn this, only that he felt alive when he walked successfully through streets he had mapped in his mind.
If the weather was unpleasant he read, either in front of the fire in the sitting room, or in one of London's many specialized libraries. Some were open, others he charmed his way into, until he was known by many of the librarians by name. Booksellers too, knew him and put aside titles that they thought would be of interest. And everything interested him. Everything seemed important and connected. He had been let loose in a garden he had previously only glimpsed through a barred gate.
And then there was life with John. There was so much to be discovered about John. How he took his tea differently at different times of the day. How certain stories in the papers might make him cheer, while others would make him grumble. How he was with patients and how they behaved with him.
And other things. How John liked to be touched. How to move inside him so that he sobbed into the pillows, crying, "Yes, there, just like that. Oh, God." The smell of his sweat before sex and the smell after. How licking the shell of his ear, no matter when or where, could make him so weak in the knees that Sherlock would have to catch him before he fell. There seemed to be no end to learning those things either. Like the day that John managed to have both their trousers down and Sherlock bent over the examination table before the last patient could possibly have reached the end of the street.
"You, bending over, all day, when you know what the thought of your arse does to me."
"John, it's not my—AH!—fault that all the files you needed today were in the bottom drawers," Sherlock had exclaimed, before John's fingers, slick with Vaseline, had made all other conversation unnecessary if not impossible.
There was only one thing that disturbed this bliss.
He poked unhappily at the egg, chipping away its shell. It was underdone. Nearly raw. John made a perfectly passable chop and could boil vegetables, as could Sherlock. With time and determination they could both make a decent English breakfast. Just not always perfectly. One grows tired of one kind of meat-and-two-veg. even if one never grows tired of the other.
Sherlock was used to dining in a fine house with an excellent cook. Although the staff did not eat so well as upstairs, there were often leftovers and the servant's meals were made from the finest ingredients. Mrs. Norris had been an excellent pastry chef as well. Sherlock and John dined out occasionally at one of John's clubs: the Naval & Military Club, otherwise known as the old In & Out, or the United Empire Club, but the fare at the latter was quite bland. Social reformers apparently felt that fine food was unnecessary to the coming revolution.
For his birthday John had taken him to Claridge's and he had realized that despite the fact he often skipped meals, he did miss the availability of fine food when he wanted it.
"John, this egg is underdone."
"Hmm? Oh, have mine."
"But what will you have?"
"I'm fine with toast."
"John, we need a cook."
John put down the letter he was reading. "We've been over this. I don't approve of having servants do what I am perfectly capable of doing myself."
"We needn't hire a servant. She or he would be…an employee. You have a char!"
"And she doesn't live in. Nor am I capable of doing all of the washing for a medical practice. We can both cook."
Sherlock made a face that suggested that cooking was perhaps too ambitious a term. "A cook needn't live in. We could have her come in for breakfast and stay through tea then fend for ourselves for supper. Plus neither of us bake."
John looked at the table and ran his finger over a ridge in the cloth. "With someone else in the house, we couldn't…be as free as we are now." He was thinking of the adventure on the examination table as well. "Unless, you're tired of…"
Sherlock reached out to catch John's hand with his own. "Of course not! We'd just be careful. Perhaps not on the ground floor anymore, but the first floor is still ours and she wouldn't be here overnight."
Several more days of this and John finally agreed to let Sherlock post an advertisement. But despite the fact that it was his idea, Sherlock found fault with all of the candidates.
"Drunkard."
"Opium addict."
"Thief."
"Liar."
"Dyes her hair."
"Dyes her hair!" exclaimed John. "That's your objection?"
"It shows that she's too fond of men."
"Oh, for heaven's sake."
John grew tired of the parade of applicants and issued an ultimatum, "One more week of looking, Sherlock, and then we give the whole thing up as a bad idea."
Mrs. Hudson had an arthritic hip and excellent references, but the others had all had references too. The Victoria sponge cake that she brought in a tin as credentials was definitely one of the best they'd sampled. Generally when they interviewed cooks, John would sit in one armchair facing the applicant in the other. Sherlock would sit in one of the cane-backed chairs to one side and be introduced as John's assistant and lodger. He spoke little, but John had learned to read his silent signals regarding the candidates.
After the usual questions had been covered, Mrs. Hudson looked between Sherlock and John a few times then said, quite calmly, apropos of apparently nothing, "My son has a small farm in Yorkshire."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at John. Was the woman a bit batty?
"A small farm," Mrs. Hudson continued, "with his friend Patrick. His dear friend Patrick."
Sherlock stared at her in amazement for a moment, and then threw his head back and laughed. "Mrs. Hudson," he exclaimed, "You have cut right to the heart of things."
She smiled, but then rushed on, "Not that I want to be a party to it! Wouldn't want to with a normal couple either. I worked for a pair of newlyweds once; you couldn't turn a corner without stumbling on them, as oblivious as anything."
John blushed and stammered, "Of course, Mrs. Hudson."
She looked at each of them in turn for a moment. "It was hard for a mother, at first. Didn't seem right. But then I saw the way he took care of my Stephen. Well, that's what you want, isn't it? For your child to be loved and cared for. I can see that in you two."
With that apparently settled she pulled some paper from her handbag. "Now then, I expect every Thursday afternoon off, as well as Sundays. I'll start at seven and end at six unless you have guests, and I'll leave you a cold supper. I expect a list of meals you want for the coming week on Monday morning. You'll eat in the dining room as I can't be climbing these stairs with heavy trays, not with my hip. I'll leave the kitchen in a better state than I found it, but I'm not your housekeeper and I'm not your maid-of-all-work, and I'll thank you not to make a mess if you use my kitchen when I'm not here."
John started to say something about it not being her kitchen, but thought better of it.
"I can start next Monday, but I'll just pop down to the kitchen now to see what I'll need you to purchase before I begin."
John opened and shut his mouth a few times. Sherlock chuckled, and that was how Mrs. Hudson came to Baker Street.