Author's Note: Hello everyone, chapter two has finally arrived. It took me a bit to get this chapter out because of the raging biphobia. I have heard all of these things from a friend about a mutual bisexual friend. I had never heard such vile things come her mouth. So if you want to skip that part jump from when Molly and Mrs Hudson brings Rosie home from the zoo to John taking Rosie from Sherlock to put her down for a nap.
Also, with heavy heart, I have decided that this is the last story I am putting on this website. I am currently over at AO3 under the same user name. I got a vile review from someone that I can't reply to and I can't remove and it really hurt. I won't leave you hanging with this story, but if you want to read the Mystrade sequel (which apparently the review hates), you can read there instead of here.
To say Sherlock was surprised to see John walk into their flat with grocery bags would be an understatement. Not that he didn't think John was up to the task of handling Mycroft, it was more that he thought Mycroft would have put up more of a fight.
"I should have known Mycroft's version of the 'break his heart and I'll break your legs' speech protective parents and siblings give the world over would be marooning said person in the most war-torn country imaginable," John said
"He's annoying like that," Sherlock agreed, as he rushed to John's side and grabbed some of the bags John was carrying.
They worked together to put away the groceries. After they were done, John let out a shuddering breath and leaned against the work top, covering his face with his hands.
Sherlock stopped and looked at him carefully. "Are you all right?"
John crossed his ankles, folded his arms and lifted his head. "Yeah, I'm fine. Your brother certainly isn't, though."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"He nearly collapsed twice," John said, deadpan.
Both Sherlock's eyebrows shot up. "And he let you see that?"
John pursed his lips. "Anthea even helped me bully him into an exam."
"How long has he got to live?" Sherlock asked, deathly serious.
John chuckled. "He's not that bad. Yet. But if he doesn't take some time off and learn to better manage a work/life balance, I wouldn't be surprised if a heart attack is just around the corner."
Sherlock sat down at one of the kitchen chairs, hard. "I didn't realize it had gotten that bad."
John came over and cradled Sherlock's head into his chest. "He'll be all right. I put him on medical leave for a month. I hope that will give him the much-needed rest and shift of life goals."
Sherlock nodded and let John hold him for a while as he took in the news that he could have lost his brother if John hadn't intervened. He moved to stand up, and John stepped back.
Sherlock cleared his throat. "Were you planning on keeping your pub night with Greg and Mike tonight?"
John usually went every Wednesday to the Wainwright and Crow with the two men to get some needed time away from his daughter. It was hard being a single parent even with Mrs Hudson and Sherlock helping him by watching her often, and this was his one night a week to just shoot the shit with the guys.
He sighed. Part of him wanted to cuddle up with Sherlock and Rosie and just bond as a family. But on the other hand, it would be a good way to come out to people he trusted to get a feeling about what the general reaction to his bisexuality would be.
"I don't know," John said, rubbing the back of his neck. "What do you think I should do?"
"I think Greg should be informed about Mycroft's health in person," Sherlock caged. "He'd want to know."
John nodded absently, before his brain caught up. "Are-are you trying to set your brother up with Greg?"
Sherlock batted his eyelashes innocently and went to the sitting room.
John followed him out and leaned against the door frame. "Sherlock..." he said.
"It's hardly my fault Greg is so far into the closet that he's leaning on a lamppost." Sherlock picked up the paper and began to skim through it.
"Wait, is that two pop culture references in one?" John asked, walking into the sitting room.
"My parents are musical fans, and I did have a childhood," Sherlock said with disdain. "I loved the Chronicles of Narnia. Well...most of the them."
John sat on the arm of Sherlock's chair. "Which ones didn't you like?"
"Mainly 'The Last Battle', though I thought 'The Silver Chair' bordered on the ridiculous," he replied.
"Why the last one?" John asked. He was going to pump his new boyfriend for as much information as he could. He loved Sherlock, but he was still reserved after all these years.
Sherlock pursed his lips. "I didn't like how Susan was treated and the destruction of Narnia cut me to core. I believe that kind of loss is hard on any child reading those books and hoping for a way to escape their rough existence."
John ruffled Sherlock's hair and kissed the top of his head. "I completely understand, love. As for going tonight, I'll see how I feel later."
Sherlock nodded.
Just then the front door swung open and the sounds of two very frazzled women wrangling a cranky toddler came in a wave through the open sitting room door.
"Looks like her Highness is home," John murmured.
Sherlock put away the newspaper, and both men stood to greet Mrs Hudson and Molly as they came through the door.
Molly was bouncing Rosie while Mrs Hudson struggled with the toddler's kit.
John quickly took Rosie from Molly and immediately felt the problem.
"Uh oh," John cooed. "Looks like the little miss filled her nappy."
"I changed it before we left the zoo," Molly snapped. "I'll swear."
Sherlock took the car seat and bag from Mrs Hudson. "We aren't doubting your abilities, Molly," Sherlock said. "I'm sure Watson just filled her nappy on the way home."
"Absolutely," John agreed, taking the bag from Sherlock to change her. "She's just a little stinker. Aren't you?" he added, addressing Rosie.
He changed her nappy. "How was she at the zoo? Not too terrible, I hope."
"She loved watching the otters swimming around," Mrs Hudson hedged.
Molly nodded. "I think she would have stayed there for hours if we had let her."
"Oh!" Mrs Hudson cried out. She dug around her coat and pulled out a small, stuffed animal in the shape of an otter. "We got her this. She named him Water."
"Water the Otter?" Sherlock asked, coming out of the kitchen.
"Yep!" Molly said proudly. "We were amazed ourselves."
Sherlock reached out to John for Rosie. "I've got a treat set up for her in her high chair."
John handed her over. "Thanks, love."
He turned back to see Molly glaring at him and Mrs Hudson looking like she's won the lottery.
"Was it something I said?" he asked, looking back and forth between them.
"You called Sherlock 'love'," Molly said gruffly.
"Oh!" John hadn't even realized. It had just come out so naturally, like he had always done so. "Right. I guess you'll be the first to know outside of Mycroft. But Sherlock and I are a couple now." He couldn't keep the smile off his face.
"A couple of what?" Molly asked.
Mrs Hudson bumped her with her hip. "Oh you know!" She gave John a kiss. "I figured it out this morning, but I'm so happy for you both."
"Wait," Molly frowned. "You're gay?"
John rolled his eyes. "No more than you are," he bit out.
"I'm not attracted to women!" Molly protested.
"I'm bisexual, or pansexual whatever you want to call it these days," John explained. He could feel his defenses rise.
"Bisexuality is just a phase," she huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"If it is, it's one I've been going through for the last thirty years," he said, furrowing his brow and shoving his hands into his trousers pockets. There was a warm feeling building under his collar, and he fought to keep it down.
"Bi now, gay later," Molly insisted.
"I'm not straight if I'm with a woman any more than I'm gay when I'm with a man," John growled.
But Molly went on as if she hadn't heard a word he said. "I can't help feel sorry for all those women you've deceived."
John felt his jaw go slack, and Mrs Hudson let out a gasp.
"Excuse me?" he hissed.
"Well, if you're into men, then you were just stringing those poor women along," Molly insisted. "No wonder Mary felt the need to keep you on a short leash–"
"Enough!" Sherlock shouted from the entryway into kitchen.
Molly squeaked in surprise, and then ducked her head as Sherlock glared at her.
He bounced a now-fed Rosie on his hip, trying to keep her from wailing at the all the tension in the room.
"That was low blow, Molly, and you know it," Sherlock said firmly.
"I'd keep an eye on him if I were you, Sherlock," Molly said, lifting her chin up. "Everyone knows that bisexual is shorthand for promiscuous."
"Molly!" Mrs Hudson cried out.
"Get out of my flat," John snarled.
"I've seen you at your worst, John," Molly muttered. "The things I could tell."
"Molly Hooper, you will apologize this instant!" Sherlock shouted.
Molly finally snapped out of her fog of rage and looked around at her friends. Their expressions ranged from fury, to shock, to disappointment. The disappointment, though, that one hurt the most.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, looking down at her feet. "I was wrong to say what I did."
John's face darkened further. "Sorry, not sorry, is that it? Sorry I said the quiet part out loud? Sorry it upset everyone, but I'm still right?"
Molly glared at him and John glared right back.
Mrs Hudson stepped between them. "Molly, I know you're in love with Sherlock, but you have to know by now that he was never going to return those feelings even if he had been straight."
Molly's head snapped back as though she had been slapped. "What?"
"Every boyfriend you've had since you met Sherlock was either a mass murderer or a Sherlock look-alike. It's not healthy. And for you to take it out on John is unacceptable. Just because he is compatible with Sherlock and you're not is no reason to be cruel. Sherlock loved John from almost day one and no one was going to take his place."
John and Molly turned to Sherlock whose face had gone beet red. John reached out to Sherlock to take his hand.
"Really, love?" he asked, gently.
Sherlock nodded, his lips moving in and out as he tried to keep the tears from flowing. John wrapped his arms around him and Rosie, pulling them close.
Molly watched the scene as she pieced together every moment of their lives since that fateful day at Bart's. And she knew Mrs Hudson was right.
"I'm sorry," she rasped, this time truly meaning it. "I was angry. And angry people are seldom wise. I am sorry, honest, John."
John looked up. "I understand. I just don't think–I mean maybe we should not see–ugh. How to say this without making it sound like we're breaking up?"
That got a laugh out everyone, breaking the tension a bit.
"No, no," Molly assure him. "I got it. We should keep to our own corners of London for a bit to cool down."
John barked out a laugh. "Now we sound like toddlers in time out. I'll take it."
Molly nodded and then walked out, leaving her hurt friends behind.
Mrs Hudson grabbed Sherlock and John's joined hands and wrapped them gently in hers. "I'm sorry you had to experience that. I think she just needs some time. But I want to you two to know that I will go to bat for both of you against any naysayer, all right?"
They both nodded. Mrs Hudson kissed both their cheeks and cooed briefly at Rosie before she took her leave of them.
John silently took Rosie from Sherlock and put her down for her nap. With all the excitement of the day, she went to sleep without much fuss. He slumped to the floor and let out a muffled cry. He began to sob, his body shaking with all the rage and frustration that he had gone through in less than four hours. Soon he was spent and laid his head against Rosie's cot, struggling to make sense of it all.
He didn't know if he had the strength to face Mike and Greg after all this. What if they acted like Mycroft and his brooding disapproval? Or like Molly and her barely disguised disgust? He had been so happy last night. He had been so happy this morning. Where was that happiness now? How much more rejection could he take before he broke, shattered to pieces?
John wasn't sure how long he sat next to his sleeping daughter and cried before Sherlock found him. But his knees weren't impressed.
"Come on, John," Sherlock whispered softly, pulling John to his feet.
They went downstairs and Sherlock got him a glass of whiskey.
John frowned. "I didn't know we even had whiskey in the flat."
Sherlock stared at him a moment before he said, "We don't."
John looked at the tumbler of what was clearly whiskey in his hand and then back up at Sherlock.
The detective raised one eyebrow, daring John to disagree.
"Ah." Due to John's little problem with alcohol, Sherlock was telling him that he had a secret stash that John would never find, and therefore, as far as John was concerned, completely unavailable. "Roger that." He raised the glass in salute and downed the glass in one gulp.
"Christ."
"I have dinner warming up in the microwave," Sherlock said. "Come eat."
John nodded and followed him into the kitchen. He put his glass in the sink and then sat down. Sherlock grabbed the food and sat down across from him. He portioned out the food and began to pick at it.
"I'm worried that I'm going to be oh for three in the coming out reaction department," John muttered to his plate.
Sherlock's head snapped up. "Oh."
John looked up and cocked his head to the side. "Oh?"
"I thought you regretted being with me," Sherlock said softly.
John reached out for his hand and gave it a squeeze. "Not ever. Even if it means I won't have any friends at the end of this. Because if they only like me when I'm straight, they were never my friends to begin with, yeah?"
Sherlock nodded. "I just didn't know what had happened, you were gone for so long."
John nodded. "I know, and I'm sorry. I just wanted everyone to be happy about us, but I guess that was too much to hope for."
Sherlock squeezed John's hand in return. "Mrs Hudson was happy, and Mycroft will be, too, once he sees how happy you make me. Just ignore Molly for now. If she comes around, then she will. If not, we move on. Find another pathologist to harass." He winked.
John barked out a laugh. His mood lifted and suddenly, he was very hungry. He hadn't eaten since Mrs Hudson's scones. After several bites he looked up to see that Sherlock's own appetite had returned, and he, too, was eating his dinner.
After John finished eating, he cleaned up his plate and then looked at his watch, grimacing at the time.
"I should get going," John said. "Unless you wanted to persuade me to stay?"
Sherlock laughed. "Oh, no. Rosie is asleep and probably will be for another half hour or so, and I intend to catch up on my reading."
John chuckled, shaking his head. "Love you." He leaned down to kiss Sherlock's cheek.
He grabbed his coat and keys and walked out to the pavement to hail a cab.