A/N: HERE'S ANOTHER ONE!

Chapter Thirty-Eight

John realised later that evening, as he sat in the conservatory with Wanda ironing and humming along to the radio and the rain making quite a cacophony on the roof above them, that he hadn't yet e-mailed Dr. Moriarty; he cursed quietly to himself, not just at the fact that he'd forgotten but that he had to do it at all. It was with some reluctance that he pulled his phone from his pocket.

"Wanda?"

"Mm?" She paused in her humming, looking over at him with a smile. "Yes, dear?"

"Do you have WiFi here?"

"Oh, of course – Tim knows the code, Tim? TIM?"

Mr. Holmes ambled into the room, holding a newspaper and wearing a pair of glasses that were so odd to see on the face of a man that looked so much like his son that for a moment John could only stare; christ, he looked so much like Sherlock. In glasses. "Did you burn one of my shirts again?"

She glared at him. "That was ten years ago, Tim!"

He smiled gently, sending a wink down in John's direction. "She's a menace with an iron. Don't let her touch anything of yours."

John grinned back, almost embarrassingly thrilled to be a part of their banter again. "Noted."

"Take no notice of him, John, he's the one you should never trust with an iron – not that he knows how to use one," she added, pursing her lips and dragging said iron over a shirt that John now feared for. "John was just asking for the WiFi password."

"Oh, right." Mr. Holmes wandered out into the dining room, leaning down over something and clearing his throat. "Well, predictably it's labelled 'HolmesWiFi' – the passcode is -"

John quickly typed in the code and felt a small measure of satisfaction as it successfully connected. "Cheers for that."

"Not at all," Tim said, walking over to the conservatory armchair opposite John and settling himself down with a small huff of air, ruffling the pages of the local paper and turning to the back pages. "It's a wonderful little contraption, that wireless router. No faffing about with the phone line anymore."

John tried not to smile; Sherlock's parents were so bloody endearing. "We'd all be lost without it now, I think."

"Yes, yes, quite... blimey, have you seen this, Wanda? Goring United have picked up Benjamin Greyson for the next season!"

Wanda rolled her eyes and sent a look of exasperation down to John who was still trying to suppress his grin, without much luck. "One day he'll realise I have no idea what he's talking about."

"He's only twenty, he'll be a damned good defensive player if Mendley can get his head out of his ar-"

"Tim! Language, John's here!"

Mr. Holmes peeped from behind his newspaper, eyes sparkling. "Sorry, John."

"Don't worry," John said with a small laugh as he opened up his e-mails and set out to compose a new message, "you should hear some of the things I hear out of Greg's mouth."

Tim chuckled good-naturedly behind his paper. "He's a good lad."

Wanda did not seem quite so amused. "Don't you let that boy be a bad influence on you, John, your mother would never forgive us. Now stop distracting me, you two, I've got at least half an hour's worth of ironing to get through!"

John allowed himself one last grin as he begrudgingly began entering Jim's e-mail address, tapping down to the main body of the e-mail and forcing himself to focus on the task at hand despite knowing as he did that he had no idea what he was supposed to say. A gentle calm settled over the three of them, Wanda humming again and Tim occasionally murmuring to himself about whatever he was reading about Goring United; John closed his eyes momentarily to let the contentment of the moment settle over him, not for the first time wondering how he would ever be able to go back to his ordinary life after having experienced such quiet happiness in this wonderful family home. He hadn't had a single moment to himself to let his depression start to edge its way in, and he could quite easily say that he would allow himself to never have a single moment of privacy again if it meant he could stay here and be eternally distracted by Wanda's insistent care-giving and Tim's gentle-mannered humour.

He sighed quietly, opening his eyes and staring at the blank face of the unwritten e-mail.

It had to be done.

Jim,

I arrived at my destination yesterday evening. So far things seem to be fine. I suppose I should say that it wasn't a family emergency, rather a friend in a bad situation who needed me to be here. He's all right, though things are strained between us at the moment. I don't want to go into details. It's a complicated situation and I don't really want to go into it unless I absolutely have to.

I've been feeling fine. There's been so much to do and so many distractions that I haven't had a chance to feel much of anything, depression-wise. I don't know how long I'll be here for. I actually quite like it here so I can't say I'm bothered by not having a clear time-scale.

Don't know what more I'm supposed to say, so I'll leave it there.

John.

That would have to do. As he'd specified, he didn't want to go into details and as far as he was concerned it was none of Jim Moriarty's business what was going on – of course, he was well aware that this was the wrong outlook to have when he was supposed to be opening himself up to the willing counsellor, but that was a problem for another day. If Jim had an issue with what he'd said he'd no doubt tell him so.

Stretching his arms out so hard his back gave a worrying 'crack', John let a blissful yawn escape his lips as he leaned partially forward to make the most of the moment; he let himself flop back down with a sigh of genuinely contentment, his eyes drifting to gaze out at the rain and finding himself completely entranced by the sheer velocity at which the water droplets crashed to the glass. He'd always loved the rain. He couldn't really explain it, particularly when people were obsessed with heat and sun and summer – ugh, summer – but there was something infinitely calming about the skies opening. Better yet would have been a storm. He loved a good storm.

"John?"

Brought out of his little stupor by Wanda's gentle, hesitant voice, he turned towards her with a willing smile. "Yeah?"

She put the iron down and turned to him, looking every inch like a mother who was about to ask a very, very awkward question - and John would know. His own mother was full of them. "I hope you don't think I'm interfering, and don't hesitate to tell me to leave you alone and go back to my ironing, but..."

Tim did not look away from his paper. "Leave the boy be, Wanda."

John shook his head, apprehension buzzing through his body but not wanting to deny the kind woman anything. "No, it's fine, go ahead."

"Well..." She gazed at him for a moment, unsure; for the first time since he had arrived he noticed that her eyes were the exact shape and colour of her youngest son's, once again alarming him to see something so infinitely Sherlock within the parents who couldn't be more unlike him if they tried – it was odd to see them rounded in concern, warmth emitting from them like a hot water bottle. Sherlock had looked at him with a lot of different expressions over their time together, but never quite like this. "Tell me to be quiet if I'm being too pushy -"

"Be quiet," Tim murmured from behind the shield of his paper; Wanda ignored him.

" - but is everything all right between you and Sherlock?"

John's mouth dropped open slightly, a twist of panic working its way through his stomach and freezing him in his place. "Uh..."

"Wanda, come on," Tim insisted quietly, letting the paper fall to his lap as he focused his own misty brown gaze on his wife, "leave him alone."

Wanda's eyes snapped away from John's. "They've barely spoken since he got here, Tim, it's obvious that something's not right." She shook her head, raising her hand as she picked up the iron once more. "I know it's none of my business and I could just be reading the situation wrong but – genuinely, John, I speak only out of concern for my son. And you, don't think I'm not thinking of you."

That she would even consider him right now made his heart tug uncomfortably in his chest. "You don't need to – no, Mrs. Holm- Wanda. Wanda. Everything's fine."

She rattled the ironing board a little. "I'm not so sure."

"Wanda -" Tim's tone was a little less soft, a little more intent, "- it's none of our business, let it go."

"I just think -"

"Tim, Wanda, please..." John did not want this to be happening. It was just too bloody awkward. "Look, all right, things are a bit... strained. We had an... argument. Before Sherlock came home."

Both Holmes' parents were staring at him. Tim was the first to speak. "Like I said, John, it's none of our business..."

"It's fine," he insisted, shaking his head, "I don't want you to be worrying about it when I can just tell you. Yes, we had an argument and things are a bit complicated at the moment. But I'm here for a reason, I'm here because I don't want us to be in a bad place. He really is my... my best friend -" the words didn't even do it justice anymore, "- I genuinely care about him and I want to work through it."

Wanda had put the iron down again; she was looking at John with the most peculiar look on her face, impossibly to identify. He soon saw where Sherlock got his intensity from, the heat and focus of her gaze so impenetrable that he could not for a single moment look away. When she spoke, her voice was impossibly quiet.

"Are you and my son... involved?"

Oh holy fucking christ.

So that's where Sherlock got at least a hint of his observational skills from.

"Mrs. Holmes -"

"Oh, my." Her hand was raising to her mouth, eyes wide as she stared first at John and then her husband. "Oh... my..."

"It's not like that, we're not -"

"It makes sense now," she said with a slow shake of her head, leaning back on the door-frame as her eyes drifted back to him; he could not read what she was thinking, was nowhere near as good at this as she or her children. "He looked as if he'd had his heart ripped right out, I've never seen him so... so defeated in my whole life..."

"You're exaggerating, Wanda," Tim said sternly, pushing his newspaper to one side and crossing his legs; he didn't seem in the slightest bit concerned by what she was insinuating. "Sherlock's had a rough term and obviously, as John has said, had a bit of a fall-out with him before he came home. He was a little shaken up, nothing more."

"I know my son, Timothy," she moaned, her face flushed, her hands pressed flat to her stomach, "oh, I should've known, he never showed any interest in girls, I should've realised where this was going!"

"Please, Wanda," John was practically begging, at the edge of his seat as he raised his hands to deflect her panic, "Sherlock and I are just friends, best friends, no relationship to speak of."

Her eyes were still wide. "Have you two broken up? Is that why he's in so much pain?"

"Wanda!" Tim stood up, exasperated. "Are you even listening to what the boy's saying? There's nothing to break up, they're just friends! Stop being such a drama queen!" He turned to John. "I'm so sorry, she does like to get ideas in her head -"

"John. John." Wanda was approaching him, her own hands outstretched as if to calm him when it was in fact her who seemed to need a moment. To her credit she at least seemed to be trying to sound as if she had it all under control. "I'm not upset. All right? I'm not. But I need to know. Is there something going on between you and my son?"

This situation had escalated so quickly, like every other situation when a Holmes was involved; her phrasing, too, was different this time, too hard to dodge – he didn't want to lie, not when she was no longer asking about a relationship but rather inferring that something was happening between them.

He wished she would be more specific so he could keep denying it.

Tim tried one last time. "Please, dear, just let the boy handle things in his own way."

She did not even look towards her husband. "John?"

Well, he was screwed now. "I... I don't want to lie to you..."

Wanda's intake of breath was painfully audible.

"Sherlock and I -"

"Are absolutely none of your business, Mummy," Mycroft's voice cut across John as he came into view from the dining room, hands in his pockets and brow curved. John had never been so happy to see the man in his entire life. His palms were sweating. "Really, he's been here barely two days and you're already terrorising him."

Wanda stared at her eldest son like he was a spectre at a feast; it would have been funny if the situation wasn't so bum-clenchingly awkward. "I'm... I'm not terrorising him -"

"Yes, you are. It's terribly rude of you." Mycroft walked calmly over to where John was sitting and allowed himself to settle next to him, crossing his legs and looking up at his mother with a reproachful expression he could have copied and pasted from her own face. "John and Sherlock's business is none of yours, regardless of what may or may not be going on between them."

"Mycroft," Tim chided gently, "you shouldn't talk to your mother like that."

"I'm not meaning to be disrespectful by any count," he assured them all in those well-spoken, silken tones, "quite the contrary. I'm merely trying to respect Sherlock, whilst he's so blatantly unable to defend himself."

"I wasn't accusing him of anything," Wanda blustered, suddenly looking rather lost, "I most certainly wasn't saying it was a bad thing!"

John's eyes shot to her face, surprise evident on his own. "You weren't? I thought..." Everyone turned to look at him. His palms tingled with renewed moisture. "Well. I thought you were upset by the... possibility."

All at once her expression changed to one of absolute horror. "No! No, absolutely not! The opposite, the very opposite – oh, dear, I have gone about this quite the wrong way, haven't I?" She carried herself over to him slowly, taking her time to form the words before she let them loose into the air around him; she perched on the arm of the sofa he sat on, gathering her hands in her lap. "I should explain, John, that until now I was quite certain that Sherlock... and Mycroft..." her eyes flickered up to rest apologetically on her sons face, "...well. I thought that perhaps they weren't capable of a... relationship."

"No need to look so abashed, Mother, you're quite right." Mycroft seemed unperturbed by her words, looking as gracefully nonchalant as John wished he could in a situation like this. "I have no desire to form such a bond and certainly no willing participants."

"Which is fine by us," Tim interjected, shrugging lightly, "it's not up to us what you do with your lives after all."

"Quite," Wanda said with a firm nod, reaching over John to pat Mycroft on the hand, "you have enough to be getting on with without the added responsibility of a girlfriend. Or boyfriend."

Mycroft smirked. "My parents, allies to the gay community since 2013."

"Hush," Mrs. Holmes admonished, whacking his arm lightly before resuming her communication with John. "So, John, you must understand that the idea that perhaps Sherlock does have the ability to... form a relationship... well, it doesn't matter to me whether it's with a girl or not. The fact that he's capable is enough of a relief to disregard any sort of bigotry."

"Don't worry about me and my inability to conform to your needs," Mycroft said with a roll of his eyes, "I'm not offended at all."

"Hush," Wanda repeated, a small smile crinkling at the edges of her eyes. "You know your father and I support you regardless of what you choose or don't choose to do. To be honest, Mycroft, we don't feel that we need to worry about you quite as much as we do your brother. He's much more... oh, what's the word..."

"Melodramatic? Needy? Dependant?"

"Sensitive," Tim offered, ignoring Mycroft. John had a feeling that's how they tended to deal with his snarkily edged comments. "He's always been more sensitive than you."

"Redbeard," Mycroft offered to the room with open palms. "Need I say more?"

His parents hummed their agreement, a fond smile curving Wanda's lips. "Yes, he was always a little more affected by things than you were. Which is why I always felt that perhaps he might need the stability of a partner, someone to support him and keep him from sinking into his black moods."

Black moods. It was the perfect way to describe them. "So it really wouldn't bother you?"

She shrugged. "As long as both of my boys are healthy and happy it really doesn't make a difference to me."

"Or me," Tim added, seeming to be perfectly content at the idea of his son being gay, "as long as he's happy."

John did not know what to say. Even having met the two staggeringly lovely people in front of him he would have never considered the possibility of them being so utterly accepting of whatever their sons wanted from their lives; the memory of his mother yelling at his drunken father and blaming him for Harry's homosexuality was still fresh in his mind despite it having been at least three years ago, his sister crying on the front doorstep of their house as her girlfriend of the time attempted to console her... it had been hell for days just to live under the same roof as them. The fact was that he was sure his mother had never quite forgiven Harry for being a lesbian, despite it not really being much a choice; it had been a difficult realisation for John to understand that their parents were simply narrow-minded people – loving, of course, his mother had always been loving – but still incredibly outdated against the times.

It was no surprise, really, that John had never even considered the possibility that his and Sherlock's friendship was something else entirely.

"I'm sorry for leaping down your throat, dear," Wanda interrupted his thoughts softly, reaching out to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I was just a little shocked, that's all."

Tim cleared his throat. "As he's said, dear, there's nothing to be shocked about. They're friends."

Mycroft shot John a quick look as he nodded in agreement. "Well then. We're agreed. This conversation is now entirely unnecessary."

Wanda could not stop herself from looking under her lashes at John. "Mm. If you're sure there's nothing you want to tell us -"

"Wanda!"