AN: Fluff, fluff, and more fluff. Enjoy, and please don't forget to tell me what you think in the comments! 3
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Three
Martha Hudson heaves a sigh, and stares up at the ceiling of her living room. Her back is aching something awful along with her infamous hip, and she thinks it would be much bloody easier to enjoy her herbal soother if not for the racket coming from the flat upstairs. Oh, those boys, she thinks, not unkindly. They're always making some kind of racket. If it wasn't gunshots, it was something else. Tonight, it happens to be that absurdly loud television, which is admittedly a step up from gunshots, but the point still stands. Such a small little thing would usually never irk her so badly, but she has a headache, and had gotten into a rather horrible domestic with her very own Mr. Chatterjee earlier in the day; so, frankly, she's irritable. She sighs and wrenches herself to her feet. She stubs out her half-smoked soother in the ashtray on the coffee table, throws her worn pink robe on over her nightie, and makes her way up the stairs to 221B. As a last thought, she lightly spritzes herself with a cheap bottle of perfume just before she exits her flat. Not that Sherlock would ever be fooled by it, but it was likely that John would be if it came down to questions.
She approaches the door of their flat, and the only light coming from under the door is faint and flashing, the noise of the telly even blaringly louder than it had been from downstairs. She knocks on the door. "Boys," she calls at a moderate volume. "Could you turn the telly down a bit? I can't enjoy my soother with all that noise, mind."
She stands with her ear to the door for a moment, but there's no response. She knocks again, a bit louder. "Boys?"
Not a peep. She finds the door unlocked, and eases it cautiously open. She had learned rather early on that one could never anticipate what would be on the other side of the door to 221B. Once when she'd walked in unannounced, a human toe had come flying through the air and hit her smack in the forehead, toetag still dangling from the thing! She peers around the door slyly. What she sees makes her breath catch, and she grips the door for support as her heart melts in her chest. Well, this is a new one.
Oh, my, she thinks. She tiptoes inside and carefully closes the door so the light shining in from the hall doesn't wake them. The flat is dark except for the glare of the movie playing on the telly, which flashes incrementally over their sleeping faces. They're both sprawled out on the sofa, half-empty takeaway containers forgotten on the coffee table in front of them. Oh, bless them, but they're so precious!
John lounges with an arm spread over the back of the sofa, head at an uncomfortable angle and mouth gaping open, snuffling a bit through his nose. There's a bowl of popcorn kernels in his lap, hand loose around it. Sherlock's head is pressed up against John's thigh, curled up fetally as he is over the cushions and breathing heavily, with a tattered dressing gown hugged around himself. Complaints forgotten, Mrs. Hudson unfreezes from her startled position in the middle of the room. She takes the afghan from John's customary chair, and flits over to cover them with it, tucking it in around them gently. She carefully takes the bowl from John's grasp, and coos delightedly when Sherlock clutches the afghan and readjusts his head to settle comfortably onto John's lap. John lets out a puff of breath and his hand falls to rest easily on top of the other man's head of curls, and both of their eyes move rapidly under their eyelids as they settle in more cozily.
She steps back, grinning from ear to ear, and slides her mobile from the pocket of her robe. She knows she really shouldn't invade their privacy, but oh, she just can't help herself. Using the light from the telly instead of risking using flash, she snaps a few pictures of them, and has to restrain herself from jumping with glee at each one. After a few healthy moments of starstruck gazing, she clasps her hands together silently below her chin and shakes her head at them. She locates the remote, turns the volume on the telly down, and sneaks as quietly as a mouse out the door and back down the stairs into her own flat.
She sighs as she sits back on her sofa, contemplating the lonely looking soother resting in the ashtray. It almost seems too quiet now without the sounds from the flat upstairs, so she turns up the volume on the telly and leans back, idly fiddling with the cigarette lighter she finds wedged between the cushions.
Those two, she thinks, not for the first time. Idiots, the both of them. One a doctor, the other a brilliant detective, and yet neither of them could see what was directly in front of their eyes. Herein lies both the blessing and the curse of being the little old landlady; nobody thinks that she observes what goes on around her, and admittedly she plays along with it, but she does notice things. She had helped to run an international drug cartel in her younger years, for goodness' sake! She hadn't lost her touch to that degree. In her "glory years", it had always been very necessary to keep a mental catalogue of things; and that didn't only pertain to expenses, arrest warrants, and getting past the people in customs. There was a certain aspect of Sherlock's beloved observation to it as well; it was vitally important to watch body language, speaking patterns, and general behavior as well, in order to know if you were likely to get scammed, shot at, or worse. Martha had always had a knack for it. So, yes, she is quite sure that she knows good and well the truth of what she sees in those two, even if they don't.
They share a palpable kind of passion unlike any Martha has ever seen; one stronger than even she and her husband had ever experienced together, and though she'd ended up hating him in the end, their marriage had had no shortage of arduous fixation. Well, at least she and Frank had kept it confined to the bedroom, she thinks. Her tenants, though unaware of the fact, spread their feelings on their sleeves for the whole world to see. Mrs. Hudson uses the lighter in her hand to relight her soother, and holds the fragrant smoke in her lungs for a long moment before letting it back out.
She has a veritable montage of recollections regarding Sherlock and John, so it's difficult to single just one out; she probably has a story for every single day since they had moved in upstairs that would raise the eyebrows of anyone with common sense. Good God, she thinks, rolling her eyes to herself. She recalls an incident from just a few weeks ago, watching with a hand pressed to her cheek as Sherlock tossed things about and destroyed the flat in typical unruly fashion after going too long without a proper murder to solve. She knows Sherlock is generally an absurd young man, but he graduates to a whole new level of intensity when he becomes too bored, somewhat like a hurricane set loose on an ocean. By the time he'd started throwing things out of the window, she had offered him a cuppa three times over and was growing weary of the whole thing. John, for his part, was doing a splendid job of pretending to be unbothered, sitting at the desk with his laptop and a cup of the soothing lavender infused tea Mrs. Hudson had bought for him at the market.
"Sherlock," John had sighed. "There's nothing in either of our inboxes. Unless you want to go and track down all the lost dogs in London, I don't know what to tell you."
Sherlock had yelled then, pulled at his hair frustratedly, and then he was on John. He had leaned over him, an arm on either side of the chair, and brought his face not a hairsbreadth from his flatmate's. Mrs. Hudson had expected him to scream again, but his words came out on a fierce hiss. "I need a case!"
She stood frozen in the kitchen, watching. John was staring into Sherlock's eyes, looking—for lack of a better word—starstruck. Both of their chests had moved up and down rapidly, brushing up against each other with every labored breath. They were silent for a long while. John's eyes had moved back and forth over Sherlock's face, like he was searching for something, and had lingered quite blatantly on the other man's lips. He'd taken a deep breath, then said, breathily, "Sherlock?"
"Yes, John?" Sherlock had rumbled, and Mrs. Hudson almost jumped at the unexpected range of emotions laced clearly through his voice. She watched the back of his head as it tilted slightly forward, like a cat contemplating its prey. Mrs. Hudson had held her breath, waiting with rapt attention and clutching her tea towel between her hands.
"You've spilled my bloody tea!" John suddenly hollered. Mrs. Hudson's eyes then darted to the cup on the edge of the table, tipped over where Sherlock had knocked into it with his elbow. The Calming Blend had spilled all over the carpet that she'd just cleaned, and the smell of warm lavender wafted through the flat.
"Oh, dear," she had gasped, and scurried over to clean it up. Then Sherlock was back across the room throwing himself onto the sofa, John was storming red-faced from the apartment, and another incident had passed them by in the blink of an eye. And that hadn't been the first time she had witnessed an encounter so heated between them. Not even close.
She thinks it just ridiculous the frequency of occurences like this, and finds herself growing tired of watching them dance around each other on eggshells in this worn out game of theirs. There has got to be something else she can do to force them to get on with it already, some new tactic she can try. In the morning, she decides, she'll go next door and ask Mrs. Turner her thoughts.
In the present, Mrs. Hudson takes another long pull off of her soother, and gives it a contemplative look as she breathes out a puff of smoke. Maybe next time she ought to lace John's tea with something a little stronger than lavender, she thinks. She bursts out giggling at the thought, which leads into a coughing fit. She has to haul herself into the kitchen and pour a cold glass of water to remedy herself. She glances at the time on the stove and is startled to see how late it is. Maybe she'll sleep in tomorrow as well, let the boys make their own breakfast. She strolls back out to the living room, stores her soother away in her hiding spot, and heads into her bedroom to get settled. She's still giggling under her breath when her head hits the pillow.