The earliest memories Hamish holds are one full of content and tranquility. He remembers being a young child, perhaps hardly three years old, sitting on father's lap while daddy read aloud Henny Penny and Thomas the Tank Engine. He can still recall father's strong arms around his waist and papa's soft lips pressed into his hair as daddy read. He remembers having scary dreams-though he does not remember what they were about-and silently slipping into his parents' bed, hoping not to wake them but with no avail. He can still hear their calming words and feel their tender hands, papa's through his hair and daddy's upon his back. "It's okay, Hamish," papa reassured him. "Nothing's wrong," daddy whispered.
And his parents kissed each other every day.
Hamish remembers coming home from school one day late because nobody had shown to pick him up. Molly had offered to drive him home after picking up her own son. Hamish remembers hearing the screaming before he even ascended the stairs. That was the first fight between his parents he had heard in his life.
"And you never show any appreciation, either!" John spat out.
"Am I obligated to?" Sherlock asked, fire slowly rising in his voice.
"Well it'd be nice to know I'm a little more than your waiter once in a while!" John hissed in sarcastic retort.
At that point, John caught Hamish's gaze from the corner of his eye and, feeling ashamed for squabbling in front of a child, covered half his face with one hand. "Jesus," he sighed, and Sherlock snapped his head to stare at Hamish as well.
John slipped past Sherlock nonchalantly, as if pretending nothing had ever happened as he knelt before his son and gripped Hamish's upper arms firmly, but reassuringly. "Hamish, I'm so sorry I forgot to pick you up today. Daddy lost track of time. It won't happen again, I promise," John said, leaning forward to plant a small kiss to Hamish's forehead.
That night, Sherlock ate dinner at the table-which he never did-and talked to Hamish about different types of femur bones. Hamish watched his parents kiss each other right before bed and speak to each other quietly about things that Hamish considered to be boring adult things.
Then the fighting got worse.
Sometimes it would be little lovers' quarrels. "Sherlock, please don't titrate solutions on the coffee table" or "John I can't believe you threw out my pig kidneys!"
Other times these fights would last for days. Sometimes John would sleep on the sofa. Sometimes Sherlock. They still slept together more often than not, but it was a strenuously consistent pattern.
Sherlock began smoking again. Consistently. Which only aggravated John further, which caused more fights, which caused Sherlock to whip out another cigarette. An endless cycle.
"You can't fucking smoke with a kid in the house!"
"You fucking watch me."
Hamish would often be forgotten at school, up to the point where his instructor had invited both Sherlock and John down for an interrogation.
"Are things all right at home?"
"Yes, yes," John assured her. "We've all just been a bit…busy, is all."
"Hamish tells me you two fight constantly."
"He's exaggerating," Sherlock remarked.
John cleared his throat. "We do fight, yes, but hardly ever serious. Every couple has their share of quarrels. It's healthy, after all."
And Hamish's teacher gave them both an awry look, but sent them on their way nonetheless.
Hamish remembers when daddy began throwing things.
"God, you're a real fucking arsehole, you know that?" John snapped, taking a bundled up newspaper and tossing it at Sherlock's face like a baseball. Sherlock hand's curled in defensively in front of his body to shield himself as the rolled up paper came speeding towards him. It didn't hurt, that is, physically.
Over time, things only got worse. John would find new things to throw at his husband. Take away boxes. Pens. Hamish's sippy cups. Toy trucks. The occasional chair.
Sometimes Sherlock would bruise.
Sometimes John would apologize and kiss the bruises as tenderly as possible.
Sometimes he wouldn't.
"It's not good for Hamish to see you two fighting all the time," Molly had warned them.
"We don't fight all the time," John had barked back defensively.
And Molly gave them a skewed look like she didn't believe them, but didn't say another word in the matter.
Hamish remembers the day the slowly overfilling cup of tolerance was tipped over. The day the final strain finally snapped the delicate rubber band of his parents' marriage.
"Daddy, why are you trying to hurt papa?"
John gave his son an apologetic look. "Oh, sweetie. Daddy doesn't mean it. Sometimes daddy just gets angry, that's all. Papa understands."
It wasn't until the day John had very nearly grazed his six-year-old son with a glass petri dish intended to hit Sherlock that John finally realized how this was all going to end. This…charade they were playing, pretending to be fine for Hamish's sake, was in actuality hurting the young boy more than ever. They were exposing their child to the very violence they were trying to protect him from.
"Sherlock, we need to talk."
The divorce itself went quietly and cooperatively. Both participants had agreed and signed the papers without incident.
But despite everything, the atmosphere at 221B was chilly and hostile. Neither of Hamish's parents spoke to one another. Sherlock had taken to sleeping on the sofa. When John cooked, he only made enough for him and Hamish. If Sherlock wanted food, he could get his own damn meal. He was an adult, after all.
Hamish's parents never kissed anymore. They never whispered to each other or smiled at one another or gazed into each other's eyes longingly and full of love.
They cried a lot, too. Hamish pretended not to notice, and to this very day he dares not tell his parents he still remembers their tear-stained faces late late at night after they believed he had gone to bed.
"Papa, read to me," Hamish commanded.
And Sherlock smiled a sad sort of smile and said "all right, Hamish," and Hamish crawled up onto his father's lap as Sherlock read aloud When Jessie Came Across the Sea.
But it still wasn't the same without daddy.
John found a nice flat in the quietest side of London. Much more of a suitable place to bring up a young boy.
"Daddy, where are we going?"
"Away," John answered.
"On vacation?"
"No, not really like vacation."
"Oh."
Once their bags were all officially packed, John opened the door. Little Hamish scurried out and, once outside, spun around on his heels to wait for his parents to follow him.
He got extremely suspicious when Sherlock stood there without his shoes or coat on. John swung a scarf around his own neck and buttoned up his overcoat, and that's when Hamish had begun to panic.
"Isn't papa coming with us?"
"No, papa isn't coming. Papa is going to stay here. But don't worry, Hamish, you'll get to see him often," John tried to explain.
But Hamish wouldn't have it. He slipped past John and ran back into the house before anyone could grab a hold of him, latching around Sherlock's knees. "I want papa to come," he said defiantly.
At that point, Sherlock broke down. He knelt before his son and drew him into a tight hug and began to sob less than quietly. The sound of his tears will never leave Hamish's memory.
John let them be for a while. Sherlock gripped his son tight and buried his face against Hamish's small shoulder. "It's all right, Hamish," he tried to say, but his voice had cracked halfway.
And then John cleared this throat. "Hamish, we have to leave now."
"I want papa to come!" the boy cried out, even as Sherlock pried them apart. He reached for his father, but Sherlock held him out at arms length and it wasn't fair that Sherlock was stronger because he was bigger.
"You've got to go now," Sherlock managed to say stoically. "I'll see you later, okay?"
But Hamish still couldn't understand why his family had to be broken apart. "No," he called out. "No," he repeated as John stepped to grab him from behind. "No," he cried out, panicking as he reached his tiny arms out towards Sherlock. "Papa, come with us!"
Sherlock only stood there, his legs straight and his eyebrows deeply furrowed as John took their son away kicking and screaming and wailing.
And oh, Hamish kicked and screamed and cried the entire cab ride.
"I'm sorry," John apologized to the driver. "I've just gotten divorced, and my son…well, I promise to pay you extra for your troubles."
"I hate you," Hamish used to say to his dad with no idea how badly his words hurt John inside.
"You'll come to understand why I did what I did," John tried to defend himself.
"Nice…nice flat," Sherlock complimented the very first time he showed up for his weekend with Hamish. "Very nice."
And so Hamish stayed with John during the week. Every other weekend, Sherlock would drop by to pick him up.
"How is school?" Sherlock would ask.
"Dull," Hamish would respond. And they both laughed.
Growing up, Hamish had many difficulties. Little difficulties, just like any other kid would have. He grew into quite an introverted individual, unable to fully express his concerns because he had no one to talk to. He was still unable to completely forgive John, but at the same time seeing Sherlock once every other weekend meant he knew his father far too little to be comfortable with talking about intimate subjects like, for instance, girls.
When Sherlock came to pick Hamish up one day, he asked the new teen how the girlfriend was.
John was positively shocked. "Girlfriend?"
Sherlock cocked his head to the side. "He didn't tell you?" And then he added on rather quickly "well I mean he hasn't told me either, but I've known for the past three months."
And when John snapped his son a questioning look, Hamish groaned and threw his arm across his face in embarrassment.
When Hamish came home after a weekend with Sherlock, John was waiting in the parlor.
"Hamish, come sit down," John suggested, patting the seat next to himself.
Hamish obeyed, albeit cautiously. "What is it, dad?"
John ran a hand through his slowly graying hair and let out a sigh. For a while, he didn't say anything, only stared at his son with an emotion on his face Hamish couldn't quite decipher.
Eventually though, John spoke. He was, after all, not one to beat around the bush. "Do you-and you can be completely honest, I won't be mad-but do you…like Sherlock better than me?"
Hamish, caught off guard by the blunt question, stiffened his back and pressed his lips together tightly. "I don't…understand…"
"How come you never told me about your girlfriend?"
"Well, I didn't tell father either, if that's what you're talking about."
"But it's…different," John tried explaining. He really couldn't, though. He really couldn't explain how hurt he was by Sherlock's immaculate intelligence and how unfair it was that Sherlock could deduce more about Hamish's reclusive life despite being the one who spent the least time with him. How unfair anything became whenever Sherlock was involved.
Hamish frowned and clasped his hands together, his fingers fiddling around with each other indolently. "I…" he began, unsure of how to continue on with the conversation. "I don't really…love him more than you."
John scoffed a bit. "I wouldn't blame you if you did, though."
At that, Hamish stared directly into his dad's eyes as if he was completely dumbfounded.
"You've been quiet about it lately," John went on to explain. "But I know you still…blame me. For the divorce. For everything."
"I don't-,"
"Sssh Hamish, let me finish," John interrupted the boy. "And I suppose it's because you're so young and you don't understand much about the adult world. And it's been really unfair to you, switching between parents and everything. It's not an ideal situation for a child. And you know, I am sorry, and I've been sorry for the past seven years."
Hamish chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip for a while, contemplating the appropriate response to his dad's sudden confession. "Dad…" he hesitated again. "Why?" he furrowed his eyebrows at his father deeply in concentration and legitimate concern. "Why did you and father have to leave each other?"
John let out a deep exhale and once again ran his fingers through his hair. The question was inevitable, he supposed, and he knew he had had seven years to plan out a satisfactory response, but now that the moment had arisen, he was questioning whether his excuse would truly be good enough.
He fidgeted in his chair a while before he spoke to his son. "Hamish, you know how people always say that opposites attract?"
"Yeah?" Hamish quirked his head to the side curiously.
"Well," John explained. "To an extent, I suppose that's pretty accurate. Opposite poles of magnets attract one another and bond the two together. But, you know, every time you drop a magnet it loses a bit of magnetization power. So if you keep dropping the magnets and beating them all up, over time they'll lose their attractive forces and they won't be as attracted to one another as they were in the beginning. It's the same with people, I suppose. Father and I were simply too different. And it was a compilation of a lot of little things. For example, your father started taking cases behind my back."
"I remember that," Hamish cringed at the memory. John had flipped over the coffee table and thrown a porcelain mug at Sherlock that shattered into a million pieces when it hit the ground after bouncing off of Sherlock's temple.
John sighed. "I guess we just sort of…dropped our magnets much too often."
Hamish almost laughed. "That sounds like an analogy father would have made."
"You think?"
"Only he'd still be talking about it fifteen minutes later."
They both laughed at that.
"So…" John began, hesitating to ask his final question. "Do you still hate me?"
Hamish cocked his head to the side as if seriously contemplating his answer. John waited expectantly, and perhaps Hamish withheld his answer for just a bit too long-just to tease his old daddy a bit. "That depends," he finally said. "Can I have ice cream?"
John's face fell into an expression of relief. "Boy, you recover quickly, don't you?"