Mycroft's house is more of a mansion, John decides on arrival. They enter through a huge oak door that swings inward to display a butler that John thinks looks like he comes straight out of Downton Abbey. John hears laugher and, nodding an apology to Mycroft, he and Mary rush down the hall to see their children. Mycroft gazes tolerantly after them.
"I hope they have the decency not to sit on the furniture in their current state," he murmurs. Sherlock snorts and heads for the stairs.
"Last room on the right, brother mine,"
"I know which room is mine, Mycroft. Sandwich and tea." Sherlock says as he manages to sweep up the stairs despite his arm.
They all take their time with their ablutions. John and Mary shower together, gently cleaning and stroking, reassuring each other that all is well. They come out to find that sandwiches and tea have been left on the table in their room. A maid pokes her head in the room and informed them that their children are with Sherlock.
John is happy about that. Shirley and Miyah seem to soothe Sherlock. And if they are still with him, he wishes for their company. John cannot find it in him to begrudge Sherlock that comfort.
Mary gazes around the room as she eats, taking in the dark, shining woodwork, the marble fireplace, the plush, ornate rug and the enormous bed.
"So this is how the other half lives," she comments. John nods. "It's beautiful, but I much prefer our place," she says, and John sighs with relief.
"Me too. Sherlock too. You know, it's funny. When he decided I was going to be his flatmate, I thought it was because he couldn't afford to live in London alone. I was dead wrong. Interesting that he prefers the Baker Street ambience to this. This seems more in line with his personality. I imagine his mind palace looks like this."
Mary nods. "Think about it though," she says, "Inside, Sherlock is like this place, but he surrounds himself with comforting things. You for instance. You're like Baker Street. Warm and safe and inviting and grounded. No amount of damage done will change that. It's no wonder people like me and Sherlock are drawn to you. You're everything we're not."
John reaches for her across the small table, caressing her arm. "I doubt very much our children would agree with that assessment, Mary. You're a wonderful mother. We both have the luxury of being two people at once. Sherlock..." John lets the sentence drift.
"Did you see his face, John?" Mary asks quietly. "Did you see how he looked at you when he realised what I was saying yesterday?"
John nods, then tugs on her hands, pulling her towards him, settling her in his lap, her legs sideways across his thighs. "Mary, I will never leave you. I will choose you and choose you over and over again, no matter how many times I have to. I love you from the bottom of my heart, and you should never, not ever feel threatened in any way."
Mary hums and hugs him to her and he strokes her back and feathers kisses down her neck. The events of the day recede and everything softens as she sighs against him.
"I would never make you choose, my love," she murmurs. "No matter what, you will never have to choose. Sherlock has been a part of you since I've known you. I have come to love him myself and I know he's at least fond of me. If you find that things should progress further-well I suppose, as trite as it sounds, you have my permission."
John almost stops breathing.
"Mary, I'm positive Sherlock does not think of me in that way," he says, as good as admitting that he's had the occasional thought.
She hums noncommittally.
"But you-" he says, feeling his throat close up. Finding that he can't continue, he pulls her closer, nuzzling her neck and sliding his hands along her back, trying through his touch to tell her how much he loves and appreciates her, how grateful he is for her, to try to suffuse her with the same feeling she imparts to him.
"John, if you keep on like that you won't get the chance to pop Sherlock's shoulder back into place," she says breathlessly. John murmurs something against her chest, running his fingers along the edge of her dressing gown, sliding it off one shoulder. She sighs against him and strokes his hair, running her hands down the back of his neck, relishing how warm his skin is, kneading his shoulders lightly. Then, with an almost Herculean effort, she gently disengages from his caress, trailing her fingers across the back of his neck as she moves away from him.
"Much as it pains me to say it, he needs you and you should fix him. Then come to bed and snuggle in with me and our daughters."
John takes a deep breath.
"Don't suppose I should take the time for a cold shower-" he says, huffily, getting to his feet and adjusting himself so that at least he isn't quite as obvious.
He's wearing a pair of silk trousers, rolled up at his waist because they were a bit too long, and a matching robe. He adjusted the robe, then twitches his chin up with a smile.
"Let's tend to the wounded, then," he says, crooking his arm at her. She laughingly takes it and they stroll down the cavernous hall towards Sherlock's room.
The sound of Miyah's laughter echoes down the hall and they step forward more eagerly.
Sherlock is on his bed kneeling with the covers tented over him making him a miniature mountain. In one hand, he holds a somewhat poorly taxidermied mongoose. The mongoose is stalking over the mountain's shoulder as he narrates, and the girls sit on the floor, staring at him in rapt attention. John and Mary pause outside the door, watching.
"The mongoose is omnivorous," he explains. "It will eat insects, and plants, and birds, and other rodents," he punctuates each prey animal with a pouncing movement from the mongoose that delights the girls, who squeal softly with every pounce.
"But his favourite pastime is stalking through the grasses hunting for snakes!" Sherlock says, and out of the corner of the bedspread slinks the head of a stuffed viper.
John makes a move to intercede-the viper looks scary even to him as Sherlock weaves it through the sheets-but Mary grabs his arm. He notices that his children are not recoiling in fright, but leaning in to watch the drama of the hunt unfolding as the mongoose tracks the snake across a duvet the colour of the savannah.
"The snake is poisonous," Sherlock continues, "but the mongoose knows just...where...to...bite!" he shouts, and the mongoose leaps forward, muzzle connecting with the back of the snake's head. The girls squeal, and it's then that John notices the difference in their personalities.
Shirley's smile is positively feral, but Miyah looks towards the snake, and he thinks he sees regret burgeoning in her eyes.
It's an old soul look and he finds himself compelled to come forward and encircle his child in his arms, while Mary claps her hands with Shirley. Miyah is immediately distracted by the presence of her father, and she gurgles and points at the quaking mountain plainly relating the whole story.
Sherlock's head pops out from the covers, and his hair is everywhere. The girls coo and stretch out towards him, and he jumps from his knees to his feet on mattress only to plunk himself straight down on the edge of the bed, bouncing slightly.
His trousers are identical to John's but they fit him. He is bare-chested, and holding his left arm straight down against his side. John briefly wonders if he is manipulating the snake with his foot. John also realises Sherlock probably could not lift it enough to put a robe on and experiences a shaft of guilt for not having come sooner. Mary is marshalling the children into her arms and saying something about the jungle book to Sherlock.
"It was one of my favourite stories as a child. I had a stuffed mongoose that guarded my door at night," he is telling Mary. She smiles so gently at him and he looks down, wondering why in hell he'd told her that.
John is impressed. Mary has a way of gleaning interesting titbits of information from Sherlock that he never shares with John. Each one is like a gift, given at cost and received with gratitude.
"Now, Sherlock," Mary admonishes. "Follow your doctors orders! You need looked after!" And she sweeps out the door with her children, nudging it closed behind her.
Sherlock groans and pitches himself backwards against the mattress, immediately grunting again in pain.
"Yeah, not such a good idea, huh?" John says, his lips quirking. "Sit up and let me take a look at the shoulder that you wounded in your valiant attempt to save me from an impotent gunman."
Sherlock actually chuckles as he sits up.
"I had no idea about the blanks. Your wife is a marvel, John." Sherlock says, and John taken aback by the unabashed praise. He motions Sherlock closer to the edge of the bed and snorts.
"You never say that stuff about me, your faithful blogger," he says, prodding the muscle around the shoulder and feeling down the arm for breaks.
"You never do anything so bloody brilliant," Sherlock says, grunting in annoyance as John probed a particularly sore area.
"You're making it easier and easier for me remorselessly yank this dislocated limb of yours back into place." John says, and glares mockingly at Sherlock. "I'm going to have to, you know and the sooner the better. I ought to have come here directly-"
Sherlock shakes his head quickly. "No, that would have meant I would not have had a chance to imbibe half a bottle of wine and eight ibuprofen. I assure you, I'll be quite able to bear it." He got to his feet at John's beckoning. "Bed post or doorway?" he asks.
John smiles, relenting. "Neither. I'll use the Cunningham technique. It's much gentler. Takes longer, but we're not being chased by an axe murder at the moment. Plus, this way your pansy arse scream won't disturb the girls. How'd you do the snake by the way? You can barely move your arm."
"Foot," Sherlock says.
"Monkey toes," John says. "Come sit down here," he motions to the loveseat in front of the fire. It's just the right height for what they need to do.
Sherlock turns towards the chair and stiffens at John's sudden exclamation. Too late he remembers the scars that he's been so careful to conceal-the legacy of his time in Serbia.
"Fuck," he mutters, looking over his shoulder at John. "Don't overreact," he adds but it's too late.
"Jesus Christ, Sherlock," John breathes. "What happened to you?"
"Would you believe I fell out of a bus?" Sherlock asks.
"Not unless you told me you landed on a bed of blunt knives," John answers, approaching Sherlock and squinting slightly at the cicatrix of scars that weave under Sherlock's skin. He reaches out, and grasps the back of Sherlock's head, facing him forward and tilting his head forward to get a better look at a particularly deep cut that curves up his spine to the base of his neck.
"You realise some of these scars will need surgery," he says, gently probing the stiff tissue. "Have they given you stuff to put on them?"
"Yes," Sherlock says and sighs. "But obviously I haven't been. Even with my monkey arms, I can't reach. Don't nag me, John. It's why I didn't want to tell you."
"Sherlock, I would have found out eventually. You should have told me. There are massage techniques and ointments that can greatly reduce scar tissue formation."
"I'm not worried about how it looks any more than you're worried about how yours looks," Sherlock says petulantly.
"Idiot, it's not your looks I'm concerned with. Left to it's own devices, your skin will heal so hard that it will impede your movement and cause you continuous pain, and that is unacceptable."
"And here I was thinking that you'd yell at me for getting into trouble in the first place. This is much more irritating." Sherlock sighs.
"Oh please, you're Sherlock bloody Holmes." John says, laughing, turning Sherlock around to face him. "If I got mad at you every time you got yourself caught or injured, we wouldn't be having this conversation now." He pauses. "I am angry and not a little hurt that you didn't trust me enough to doctor you up though." John scowls suddenly as he realises suddenly how deeply those feelings go.
"Well after you beat me around when I turned up, I didn't want to tell you for fear you'd feel guilty."
"Guilty? Not a chance. You deserved what you got and more and you know it. But I would have fixed you up afterwards, no matter how angry I was. I am a doctor, you know," John says in exasperation.
"Well, doctor me now, John. My shoulder's killing me," Sherlock says plaintively and the part of John's brain that is fluent in Sherlockian accurately translates this into "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I do trust you implicitly, I didn't want to worry you, but I'm in agony. Please fix it.
John rolls his eyes and gestures to the chair and Sherlock sits down, happy for the proximity to the fire. He regrets the cold and the fact that John has seen his back before he had time to have the recommended surgery. He hates having to admit to himself that he should have told John sooner and this unhappiness makes him less than compliant as John arranges him on the chair to his satisfaction.
"Ok, just uncross your legs and straighten your back, Sherlock. Good. I'm going to kneel down in front of you and I want you to rest your left hand on my right shoulder. That will cut down on rotation of your humerus as we do this." Sherlock does as John asks, his long fingers resting on John's shoulder
"Now relax, Sherlock, which after half a bottle of wine and a full day should not be too difficult even for you." Sherlock sits there looking at John, and John can almost hear him mentally ordering his muscles to relax. It doesn't seem to work.
"Ok...Drop your right shoulder and try to relax your back muscles but don't slump. You can lean forward a little against my shoulder," John says after a minute. Sherlock frowns and tried to mentally force his shoulder to relax. He is only marginally successful. John sighs.
"Seriously, Sherlock, this is going to feel odd as it slips into place, but I promise it won't hurt like the last time. It will be a rather immediate relief."
Sherlock nods, but he is still unconsciously bracing for pain. John tries another tack-distraction. He's often found that if he described things in medical terms during a procedure, the patient would be so busy making sense of his explanation that they wouldn't notice what he is actually doing.
"I'm going to relieve dynamic obstruction of your dislocated shoulder using a slow massage of your trapezius and deltoids," he says, and begins the slow, gentle massage above Sherlock's shoulder. He continues. "The muscles are spasming because of the trauma and it's not allowing your rotator cuff to return to where it naturally belongs."
He feels the muscle slowly give way to his gentle manipulation. "Now we're moving onto your bicep at the mid humeral level," he continues, and realises that his voice has taken on the semi-singsong tone that reflects his inner monologue when he reads medical texts and journals. It's the same voice that inevitably makes his eyes heavy and makes it impossible not to nap. If it works on him internally it should work on Sherlock externally, he thinks.
Indeed it is working. Sherlock's right shoulder and his back are now totally relaxed. John feels the bicep muscle slowly becoming pliable and transfers his massage back to the deltoid.
"The massage has to be gentle at first, but increasing in pressure as comfort allows. The muscles must reach a certain point of relaxation before we move to overcome the static obstruction of the dislocation by shrugging your shoulders superiorly and anteriorly. We're not quite there yet-" John says, feeling a twinge of resistance in the deltoid. He transfers his hand back down to the bicep and continues the rhythm of the massage.
He notices with approval that Sherlock's eyelids are now drooping, hooding his eyes as his head dips forward slightly and he sighs quietly. His whole upper body is rocking gently to the rhythm of the massage.
Despite the discomfort, the heat of the fire and the sound of John's voice seem to be lulling him into just the right relaxed state. Now if John could just get him to shrug his shoulders without breaking the spell-Sherlock's typical shrug is very nearly the perfect mix of upwards and backwards motion needed to affect the placement of the humeral head.
"By the way, thank you for keeping an eye on Shirley and Miyah earlier," he tries, watching closely. Sure enough, Sherlock shrugs unconsciously in dismissal, and the humeral head slips smoothly back into its place. Sherlock's eyes pop open suddenly and he experimentally lifts his right hand to cover his left shoulder, now rounded again as it should be. His eyes, when they meet John's are wide with surprise.
"That was brilliant, John!" he says. John smiles and pats Sherlock's as he gets to his feet, popping his stiff knee and shaking blood back into his feet. Sherlock surges to his feet, languor forgotten, and prods his shoulder with increasing firmness before he experimentally holds his arm out from his side.
"Seriously, John. That's brilliant. It hurt for ages last time," he says in the same unabashed tone he'd used in recognition of Mary's slight of hand. John feels his face heat up and laughs shortly.
"You know you're doing that out loud," he says, smiling.
Sherlock stops in mid arm-flap and looks at John, a smile twitching on his lips. "Sorry, I'll stop."
"No, it's all right."
They stand there looking at each other for a moment, and John feels unaccountably awkward.
"You'll need an ice pack for that though," he says, breaking eye contact. "I'll go down to the kitchen and see if I can find any ice or frozen peas or something. And a sling. Shouldn't move your arm around too much for a day or so..." he ends lamely, glancing back up.
Sherlock is regarding him with disconcerting intensity. "John, you are a superb doctor." Sherlock says suddenly, definitively. "I do trust you and I should have told you about my back and let you help me as you always help me." He continues holding John's gaze.
"Sherlock, I-"
"No, let me finish. I never tell you these things because, frankly, they are very hard for me to admit to you. I don't know why. It's easier now, because of the wine and the ibuprofen and the fact that earlier, had it not been for your blessed, beautiful wife, a little orange dot on the back of your head would have meant the end of you and I would never have told you how much I love you John." He finishes with a rush, holding John's gaze and clasping his arms across his chest nervously.
As if that admission isn't enough of a shock, John notices two real, glistening tears fall from Sherlock's eyes, sliding over his cheekbones and down his face and neck.
It reminds John of how Shirley cries. She rarely sobs, but when something is wrong or she hurts, tears pour out of her imploring eyes and John feels the same compulsion to hold and comfort that he does now, but he struggles against it.
"You're not...having me on again, are you?" he asks, his head jerking nervously.
Sherlock smiles through his tears and shakes his head. "Not this time, John."
"'Cause after the underground bomb thing, you know-" John says, trying to scowl as Sherlock shakes his head slowly, his eyes wide with denial. And then he sniffles and it's that small sound that breaks John's resolve.
He steps quickly forward and throws his arms around Sherlock's waist, pulling him close. Sherlock doesn't unlock his arms from around his chest, but he moves closer, bending forward and resting his forehead on John's shoulder, leaning into him.
"Sherlock, it's ok. Truly. I've always known you care for me-you wouldn't have tolerated my presence if you didn't. But it's- It's good to hear you say it. Finally."
Sherlock slowly pulls back and brushes away tears with his right hand drawing his fingers away and smoothing the salty liquid over them, not seeming to comprehend that he is actually crying. John backs off a bit, lightly gripping his shoulders and Sherlock regards his hands with a puzzled expression.
"This ok?" John asks, stiffening, suddenly unsure of himself, doubting his intuition. Sherlock nods and scrubs as this face again, but doesn't pull away.
"I am better now, I think. I'm, uh, sorry for soaking your robe." Sherlock sniffs. John squeezes his right shoulder lightly to indicate that everything is fine without saying anything that would embarrass Sherlock further, but he doesn't remove his hands.
"We should talk about this, Sherlock," he says gently, but shakes his head when Sherlock stiffens. "Not tonight. Maybe not till all this is over. But we should. It would be such a huge mistake not to."
Sherlock blinks at him and nods. "Mary-" Sherlock says guiltily.
"Mary set me on this path, Sherlock," John says slowly.
Sherlock's eyes widen. "John, given that we're apparently dead set on blowing every other social norm out the fucking window, can I tell you that I love your wife without the risk of having my neck broken?" he asks seriously.
John is sorely tempted to drag out his answer, but he can't bring himself to do that to Sherlock. Even after the underground bomb incident.
"Mary will be delighted to hear you tell her yourself," he says. "She already knows that you're fond of her. Tell her, though. It will make her so happy," John answers.
Sherlock nods, looking somewhat stunned. All of a sudden, John feels recent events sweep around the corner and club him in the back of the head. He is suddenly so tired he feels weak and he presses his eyes shut and sways slightly.
"John." There is much of normal Sherlock in that tone, and John looks up into his smile. "You're wrecked. Go to bed."
"Ice," John answers.
"Yes, I'll get one of Mycroft's minions to get me some. That's what the pull on the side of the bed is for, by the way. It's a summoner of minions."
"Just like Downton Abbey," John says, feeling stupid with fatigue. He is suddenly and swiftly hugged to Sherlock's chest and listens to the rumble of Sherlock's sudden laughter as he is pushed toward the door.
"John, you are such a pillock," Sherlock says, shoving John out into the dimly lit hallway. "Good night," says warmly, still laughing, and softly closes the door as John turns away smiling.
In a daze, John wanders down to the other end and realises with subdued panic that he can't remember which of the five doors at the end of the hallway is his and Mary's. He had just turned in a second circle when the door to his right cracked open enough to reveal an unruly mop of light blond hair.
"Mary, thanks," he says, and she reaches out and grabs his hand, hauling him inside. He leans against her, out on his feet, and she guides him over to their bed sitting him down on his edge and silently guiding his hand to where their daughters nestled in the centre so that he could avoid disturbing them.
They slide under the sheets, bracketing the children between them and John reaches over their heads to slide his hand between Mary's cheek and the pillow. She nuzzles into his palm and he feels an almost incandescent lightness spread through his body. He drifts off, and the last thing he senses is the softness of her breath on his wrist before he is pulled under.
Sherlock remains awake for some time, staring into the dying flames in the fireplace, trying to categorise his emotional responses to one John Watson and failing to find a box the right shape to fit them in.
He is surprised that his inability to organise his thoughts fails to upset him, shocked that he is able to let go of the problem instead of worrying it constantly.
He takes comfort by the realisation that no matter what form their affections take, he and John will always be fine, and better than fine. He drifts off, and his last thoughts are of how John's hands felt, so gentle and steady and strong, just like the man himself.
