The First Time...Mrs. Hudson Caught Them At It
Knocking on doors has always been a formality for Liz Hudson.
As delicate as she looks, as refined as that soft voice makes her sound, Mrs. Hudson is not a stereotype. She's as much a fine jumble of mismatched traits as any person living and one thing Liz does—along with crosswords, marrying poorly, and reflexively tidying up after people—is to walk in unannounced.
She's known since she was eleven and caught her parents sixty-nining each other that this is a tendency it was best to curb, but it doesn't matter how many Januarys she makes the resolution, walking in on people is one thing Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson has done her entire life and at this stage she sees no end in sight.
Which brings us to the ends she does see. And they have been legion.
There was, of course, the slightly fleshy ends of her parents, something Lizzie observed for a solid twenty seconds before realising they did not know she was there, she didn't want them to know she was there, and she had no desire to know what they were doing. Maybe.
The next most memorable end she was never meant to witness came at twenty-two, when she walked in on her fussy flatmate just as the naked girl was climbing off her latest beaux and giving them the boot.
And so it went.
Through her long life Lizzie's walked in on first kisses, last rights, strangers on the toilet, and friends on a bender. She's heard secrets and swearing and soliloquies, and each and every time she's suddenly appeared in a place she wasn't expected, Liz Hudson's given a nod, paused briefly in case she was needed, then gone about her business.
That business might be putting a bit of shopping on your kitchen table and returning to her own flat. It could be finally fetching back that book you borrowed two months ago. Sometimes it's collecting the rent, reminding you she's off to Brighton for the weekend, or usually, most often, it's just checking in.
So yes, in her eventful life Elizabeth Hudson's seen much that wasn't meant for her eyes, but being as she's generally discreet and almost always there when you need her, most people on whom she's got the goods—so to speak—find they're more comforted than cross with this, her most unpredictable tendency.
Which naturally brings us to the first time Mrs. Hudson caught John and Sherlock having sex.
...
It was only a few weeks after they first became lovers and it all started with caring, something Sherlock was still conflicted on doing, even as he watched himself do it.
Because caring involved emotion, which made you human, which led to vulnerability, and long ago Sherlock had learned that it was easier to survive if you just didn't care.
And then John Hamish Watson stood in a badly-lighted lab, looking for a flatmate, and then four months later—that would be today—he stood listing to the left in their kitchen doorway, staring across the sitting room, tea dribbling from his mug as he kind of slept on his feet.
The night before had involved eighteen hours of pouring over every book the London Library had on the history and course of the Thames in the hope they could date a vital bit of evidence alluded to by the victim and, frankly, John was knackered.
When the warm splash of tea woke him, and lifted Sherlock's head from case notes, both looked at the other a long second and though John wasn't thinking anything much beyond I think I'm too tired to swallow, Sherlock's brain was buzzing along several tracks:
* The victim's note had said, The statue's hidden where York Watergate's touched by tides—but how was that possible when the Thames hadn't flowed near that gate for over a century?
* When would Bazalgette call with the results of the tox screening?
* Did the carbamide culture need more ammonia?
* Why did he want to pull John against his chest and stroke his soft, soft hair?
Before Sherlock could answer any of these John sighed, put his now-tepid tea onto the kitchen table, then scuffed over to the sofa. There he sat down heavy a couple feet from Sherlock and was prepared to stare into space for the next little bit of forever when he felt a gentle tug at his dressing gown sleeve.
Without words the good doctor tipped sideways, head in Sherlock's lap, and passed out.
And Sherlock then pretended he wasn't there.
Because Sherlock didn't yet know how to gracefully acknowledge how much he cared about John, how much John's well-being mattered, or how much better he felt when John was doing nothing more than sitting beside him.
Sherlock would figure it all out eventually, but first he'd figure out where the statuette was hidden and it turned out to be as easy as initial caps. Remembering the victim was a persnickety professor of English and had a holiday home in Brighton, Sherlock realised that she referred not to York watergate, but to her seaside croft named York Watergate.
On something of a small roll, and with a lap full of softly-breathing John, Sherlock just went right ahead and figured out how much ammonia the carbamide culture could tolerate, how best to hide the burn marks on the underside of the kitchen table, when to tell Lestrade he accidentally dropped his pilfered mobile into the toilet, and why he had an erection (Sherlock, not Lestrade).
This last puzzle was the easiest to solve, and certainly the one that most caught Sherlock's attention.
Head pillowed on Sherlock's thighs, John huffed warm, steady breaths over a part of Sherlock just barely covered by a thin dressing gown. That part showed its appreciation by growing slowly until eventually it peeked from between dark blue silk.
So early in their relationship Sherlock was still happily cataloguing everything to do with sex: The sensations, their causes, his and John's responses. He was already pretty certain this study would never grow boring because, like figuring out who-done-it, there was such pleasure in the learning that it created its own addictive feedback loop.
So for quite awhile Sherlock would have contentedly sat on the sofa and watched John breathe against him, he'd have watched himself wax and wane, but then John did one simple thing.
He opened his mouth, but not his eyes.
At first Sherlock did nothing.
Then John flicked out his tongue, the tip swiping against Sherlock's pulled-tight testicles.
Then Sherlock did a couple somethings.
He began waxing mightily. Then he wriggled up a little while John wriggled down a bit. Finally he took hold of his penis and placed its slick tip near John's open mouth.
With a questing head bob and another flick of tongue, the purblind doctor at last located his prize.
As warm mouth slid down warm cock, Sherlock's head fell back, his eyes closed, and he began to a little bit stroke.
...
It was about then that Elizabeth Hudson walked up the seventeen steps to 221B.
She did not sneak, slink, or sidle up those stairs. She walked up steady as she always did, but her tread was not a heavy one. Slight and light as a young girl, Liz Hudson chatters as much as she does because so often she simply goes unnoticed otherwise.
Today wasn't one of the chattery days, but as has been mentioned, neither was she stealthy.
So when she gained the summit and stood in her tenants' doorway she was just a little bit surprised they'd not heard her, but then really not so much—clearly they had other distractions.
Liz, at this juncture, had not one.
Look, it's like this: When you've spent a lifetime walking in on things, you get used to expecting unexpected things. So finding her tenants engaged in a sexual act with their door wide open didn't startle her. She didn't giggle nervously, flutter her hands, or murmur an apology. No, Elizabeth Hudson for long seconds looked.
Before John moved in Sherlock often left the flat door open and Liz had caught him in every possible state of undress. After John moved in nothing changed really and pretty much everyone acknowledged—without saying one word about it—that if you metaphorically do a strip show in front of your open window, sometimes others will see you doing it—and then watch.
This by way of explaining a certain woman's lack of contrition as she gazed on what she would later describe to her best friend as, "One of the sweetest, naughtiest hummers I've ever seen."
And Liz Hudson would forever be the only one who saw that sweet thing. Because while he masturbated himself, clutching his cock down low, Sherlock kept his eyes tightly closed. And as he sucked at, teethed, and tongued the head of Sherlock's cock John did not open his eyes, not once.
So Liz saw it all for both of them and Liz had a few thoughts.
She thought she should probably tip-toe off about now, it really was the polite thing to do. And she would, very soon, as soon as she was done having the rest of her thoughts.
The next in that particular queue was well that's a lovely relief. Because Liz was a little bit amazed and a lot pleased that these two fine men had fit themselves together so well and so quickly.
Elizabeth Hudson's third thought was a familiar one: Why did I come up here again?
The answer to that was briefly, annoyingly elusive and she actually expended a good five second thinking about it, then realised it could wait.
Liz might have continued thinking a whole series of thoughts, effectively immobilising herself right where she was, but Sherlock's chest started rising and falling fast and he started huffing and puffing like a baritone freight train, and really that might not have been enough to get her legs going but then John started moaning in response, and Liz quite quickly had her final, suddenly motivating thought: It is absolutely well past time I invite Mr. Chatterjee up for tea.
Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson had no way of knowing right then that she had again selected a beau that would not in the long run be much good for her, but until that unpleasant discovery she would soon be enjoying many late-night liaisons with the attentive, too-charming shopkeeper she's had her eye on for well over a year.
...
Both John and Sherlock had vague awareness of noises that were not their own, but like a burp that's escaped you in a silent room, there's just not a whole lot you can do about some things after the fact. So though they sensed back in their reptile brain that another creature had come and gone, neither stopped what he was doing.
No, Sherlock continued to jerk down low, while John continued to suck up high, and each continued to communicate with the other through a series of soft sighs and grunts.
Only six and a half weeks into their romantic relationship they're still learning one another's ways, but one thing is already set in stone: They will not hurry. Because you try falling in love for the first time in your thirties and see how hungry you are for everything, for all of it. And because wise men know that hunger is best satiated by lingering, each of these wise men…played with his food.
Which is the indelicate way of saying that John slid his mouth slowly off Sherlock's erection until his head was pillowed somewhere around the middle of his lover's thighs, and the head of Sherlock's cock was pressed lightly against his lips.
Looking down at John, Sherlock saw his lover's eyes were still closed but that he was grinning, mouth open and waiting.
So, resting the slightly shaky fingers of one hand on John's cheek, Sherlock used the other to continue a careful wank.
It was not quite as easy as it sounds, staying fairly still, keeping the head of his cock close to John's questing mouth. But Sherlock is motivated by puzzles and had, six weeks previous, learned to his great surprise that this included sexual challenges.
So, with a further cant of his hips the tip of Sherlock's cock maintained contact with John's lips and tongue and the good detective proceeded to carefully masturbate himself to orgasm, watching his come splash into John's mouth, watching John open wider and slide just a little nearer to be sure he caught it all.
...
Twenty-five minutes after she'd returned to her own flat, Elizabeth Hudson had a few more thoughts.
The first was: The teapot, that's what I went up there for. John had borrowed hers yesterday when he'd been unsure if the brown sludge in theirs was just unnervingly thick tea or a biohazard. No matter, Liz would fetch her pot later and in the meantime she'd just use her lack as a nice reason to get her morning cuppa from Speedy's.
Liz's second thought was along the lines of Mr. Chatterjee's lines. He had the kind of build she'd always favoured in a man: spare and sinewy, with a delicacy of gesture she found captivating.
The next thought Mrs. Hudson had—and the final one for the purposes of this missive—came when Liz heard Sherlock's low shout. Smoothing her dress, picking up her purse, Liz finally headed toward the cafe, and thought, well I hope Mr. Chatterjee has even half that staying power.
As Liz would learn nearly two years later—when she learned of the wife in Doncaster, and the one in Coventry—Mr. Chatterjee did, he so very much did.
Some prompt requests are perennial, and for me people asking when Mrs. Hudson first came upon the boys having sex has been one. So Imdrowninginfootwear was one inspiration for my finally writing this (thank you!), and so was a sleepy little ginger dog I know who sensed the ice cream held by her nose and who, never opening her eyes, simply flicked out a tongue and started licking it.