A/N: Now is the time stuff really starts to happen. A big thank you to my dad and his boyfriend for letting me have full access to the boxes in storage to find the old home movie tapes, personal records, photo albums, old baby books, pretty much everything. Stuff like this actually happened at our house growing up, so enjoy! We were definitely not the 'best behaved' children.

Grounded

"Ryder, it's two in the morning, are you certain you don't want to go to bed?" Mycroft yawned, in his own blue plaid pajama's, sitting on the couch with Ryder snuggled up between him and the largest pillow known to mankind. The boy with the obsidian coloured hair looked up at his uncle, grinning widely. He had so much junk food in his veins there was a high chance that he wasn't going to get to sleep for a couple days.
"No, I'm not tired yet." The boy wasn't concerned with times or dates or any of that nonsense. Mycroft glanced at his watch, grimacing. He was more than happy to let Ryder stay here by himself so he could get some shut eye, but he just couldn't stand to leave the maid alone with him, not after what happened at dinner.

-Earlier that evening.-

"Kayla can you call and ask her to collect some of Ryder's clothes for pickup? It seems he, ah...forgot to pack them." Mycroft asked one of his maids, she nodded in reply, taking out a notepad and scrawling the task on it.
"Yes sir." She said, walking away from her boss. Mycroft had been waiting to see how long it took until something went wrong, he was surprised that it had happened so fast, actually, no he wasn't, the child lived with Sherlock after all, and he had heard from John how horrible of a packer HE was. For their vacation, John had mentioned how the detective tried to get away with packing merely an extra coat in case it got cold. Chuckling, he went upstairs to join Ryder in his designated bedroom, God knows the boy was already unpacked and put away at this point.

"Ryder are you packed up? We have to get going soon." Mycroft entered the room without knocking, which might have been his first mistake.
He was only left unattended for three minutes at the most, and already the bed was stripped of its covers; the pillows strewn around the floor, and the suitcase emptied of all it's contents, which were, like everything else, thrown into chaos around the small room. Mycroft stood there in shock, how could he be so destructive?
"Please tell me there's a method to your madness." The pseudo-uncle asked, wincing internally. Ryder looked up from a pile of colourful children books and a fort of blankets and plastic toys.

"I'm organizing my town." He spoke with all the innocence of a young child. The young mini-detective looked at his uncle curiously, he couldn't find anything wrong with what he was doing, but then again, no child ever did see the problem with unleashing their imagination in a whiplash of mess and disorganization.
"How about...if you organize your town on paper first?" Mycroft's temper didn't rise, he was more stunned at how fast the torrent of mayhem was swept across the room the size of a large bathroom.

"Oh Lord..." Mycroft turned towards the door to see Kayla, his maid, standing there with a bucket of neatly folded linen in her arms.
"Don't look so surprised, Kayla. This boy is a Holmes, with more Sherlock in him then myself." He shook his head lacking hair and smiled.
"If we can clean this up really fast, we can still go see the dinosaur movie." The uncle outstretched his arms, picking up a large ball of expensive duvet's and quilts. Dumping them in a heap onto the bed, he casually tossed the remaining mess into the open suitcase and grabbed hold of Ryder's small hand. As they walked out the door, the government worker handed the maid an extra ten pound note.
"It doesn't have to be spotless, just tidy." He said on his way out.

As they walked down the elegant staircase, Mycroft texted out a new message to his brother.

Does he get his cleaning habits from you?
He destroyed a room in less then three minutes.
You're record is in danger of being broken, little brother.
-MH

-Current Time-

The rest of the evening had gone off without any more hitches. They went into the movie, and Ryder was so enthralled with the giant dinosaurs on the screen, he had forgotten how to make sounds other then suppressed screams of excitement. The movie was not so captivating to Mycroft, who sat there criticizing every action the amateur actors were making. It wasn't too long though, and Ryder enjoyed it, and he loved seeing his son taking an interest in harmless things like dinosaurs. It was harmless because it wasn't as if he could create a personal dinosaur-not at the age of six, anyway.

Right now he slightly regretting shoving the child full of chocolate and other such sweets, as it seemed highly unlikely he would get any sleep tonight, and tomorrow was a fairly big day, meeting up with his Mother for a dinner out at a high end restaurant, and he really wanted to be conscious for that meal. As it stood, that wasn't going to happen in the near future. Just as he thought that though, he heard a small nasal sound escape the primary school boy. The middle aged man looked down in surprise at the kid curled up into a loose ball at his side. He looked like a kitten nestled beside its mother. The awkward position, however, made it impossible for Mycroft to leave the couch without waking the sleeping child. Rolling his eyes in defeat, he flipped open his cellphone, firing off yet another text to his influential brother.

AND your sleeping habits?
Dear brother, pray tell, what else have you taught him?
At least he doesn't snore.
-MH

-190 miles away-

"Have you gotten any word from Mycroft?" Sherlock asked, hovering over his boyfriend's shoulder. They sat in their king sized bed, their torso's exposed, propped up on a multitude of pillows. it was nearly three in the morning, but they had both been up all night wandering around the small town, around the park over the train tracks and up all the little hills that made up the little community. When they got back to their hotel, it was past midnight, and John insisted on going to bed, but Sherlock had other ideas. It was their first vacation without having to worry about a child, and they were going to enjoy it.
Sure, Mycroft had taken Ryder for the night before due to him being family. But so had , and Molly, and so had Lestrade. But those were all specifically because of cases or Ryder's protection. Otherwise he was always in their capable hands.

Sated in their post-coital bliss, they had turned on the telly at the foot of the bed. It only seemed like a logical thing to do on account of not having to worry about certain noise restrictions, considering the small amount of people that were in the hotel, most of them, as Sherlock had checked; were located on the East side of the building. They occupied the West, leaving only a few occupants. Most were engaging in similar activities, or were tourists out on a bender for the night.
John reached over to check the phone. They had ignored it all day saying that if it was urgent, Mycroft would call, and he never did. John was under specific instructions to ignore any and all texts; however it seemed that curiosity got the better of the detective, as it often had before.

"Yeah, three texts. Oh...oh God. Sherlock..." John put his hand over his mouth, giggling lightly before handing Sherlock the mobile phone.
"I see..." Sherlock glanced over the words, rolling his eyes. "Dramatic as always. Mycroft never changes." He sounded slightly insulted, although John seemed to think it was amusing beyond belief.
"He definitely takes after you." John smiled, pressing a kiss to Sherlock's shoulder. At the same time he took the mobile phone out of the detectives hand, he didn't want the electronic stimulus taking over after being away for only a short time.
"Well I'm glad you find our son's antics so amusing." Sherlock leaned back to slip his arm around John's body, pulling him closer so he was nearly on top of the detective.

"I'm just glad we don't have to worry about him catching us or slipping in on us in the middle of the night." John pressed forward to place his lips over top of Sherlock's, lingering to taste the unique flavour that was partly smoky, partly minty, partly of himself and one hundred percent Sherlock. No more words were exchanged the rest of the night, as they cluing to each other; making the least possible noise, and when it got too much to bear, they buried their faces in the pillows.
Spent, if only briefly, they dozed. Limbs intertwined as if they were afraid to drown in the blankets. Utterly content with not having to be concerned about getting up early enough to take Ryder to school in the morning.

Mycroft woke up on an empty couch. Candy wrappers and half-eaten jelly babies littering the ornate carpet around him. Feeling the lack of pressure on his side, the middle aged man looked around the room in a daze. He glanced at his watch, it was only half nine in the morning, after the late night they had, he hadn't expected Ryder to be awake until midday. This left him eight and a half hours until they had to be at the restaurant to meet up with his mother. She only got to see Ryder once or twice a year, and she was not informed of the younger sibling gaining guardianship of her only grandchild. Luckily they only had to see her for a couple hours, then he had to think of some other plan to keep his son entertained. He wouldn't survive on this habit of staying up all night only getting a minimum amount of sleep.

Figuring Ryder was playing in his room, or being looked after by the maids, Mycroft stretched out on the luxurious couch, trying to get as much sleep as possible before he had to be up and ready.

"Mr. Holmes?"

Mycroft awoke with a start, unaware of what time it was, really unaware of his surroundings. He wasn't so young anymore that he could nap for a only a few hours on a stiff piece of furniture without any consequences. He stretched his back out as best as he could without hurting himself further, feeling the tense stiffness in his back.
"Yes? What is it?" He asked, his voice groggy and lower than normal, he wanted to know what time it was, he still had to get ready for dinner.

"We put Ryder to bed earlier this morning, and we came in to feed him some breakfast but he was gone. We found a note." Kayla cracked a nervous smile, fearing what her boss would say when he found out his son playing nephew wasn't where he was supposed to be. As expected, Mycroft's face dropped the same length his stomach did when the words finally sunk in.

"Note? What note? What does it say?" Mycroft jumped up in a panic, heart pounding and mind racing to a blur. Kayla backed up a bit, slightly frightened by her boss' reaction. Shakily, she pulled the piece of crumpled paper out of her pocket, unfolding it and passing it to the government worker.

'Uncle Mycroft,
You are asleep so I will not wake you up.
I will be back before we see Gramma.
See you soon Uncle.
From:
Ryder Holmes.'

"Where did he go?" Mycroft was enraged, frantically wondering where his nephew could possibly have gone off to. He raced into the foyer to the standing phone to call those higher up to start a low key patrol of the surrounding area, trying to keep everything under the radar from his brother.
And only five hours before they had to meet Mummy Holmes.

-190 miles Away-

Sherlock and John had been enjoying every guilty pleasure they had not been able to indulge in in six years since the arrival of Ryder into their lives. They napped until the sun was high in the sky; they made love often and passionately without any noise boundaries; and they took walks in the middle of the night without worrying about leaving a child home alone or finding a babysitter.

That's why they groaned in unison when the phone rang.

"I wonder what you taught him this time?" John asked, reaching over his boyfriend to grab the violently vibrating phone on the side table. It was nearly one o'clock in the afternoon on their first full day of vacation, Ryder was trying to keep up to his dad's standard's apparently.
"Hello?" John answered the phone in his tired voice. He really was tired; the two of them really only napped on and off after engaging in such rough sex that would make any hormone driven university student proud.

"Yes I am...yes? Oh dear God." Bolting upright in the bed, John's eyes widened as he jumped up to gather his clothing that was thrown around the room.
"Where is he? Yes? Does it have to be us? Well, he was being watched for-... Alright, we're on our way. Yes, thank you." John gave an exasperated sigh as he slapped the lid of the phone shut and started to put on his jeans. Sherlock hadn't even bothered to sit up, rather leaning back to try to engulf himself in the fluffy pillows that lined the bed, trying in vain to disappear from John's line of sight.

"Sherlock, we have to go, get packed." John snapped, wincing slightly at how he sounded, he wasn't supposed to sound mean to his boyfriend who really, didn't do anything wrong other than be the influential co-parent.
"What, why?" He asked, turning over in the bed so his face was nicely nestled in the white linen marshmallows.
"Your son decided to take a vacation of his own." John threw his suitcase onto his bed. He had only opened it once since they got there, and that was to grab a couple personal items for their carnal rounds of sex. Sherlock felt the large dip in the bed due to the heavy weight of the suitcase. Slightly irritated by it, he shifted until he was physically out of the bed and putting on his clothing.

"How did they catch him?" Sherlock asked, not even thinking about whom 'they' were, or even where his son was, just that he was going to be in very big trouble when they finally got an explanation.
"He was seen wandering around outside of Mycroft's house heading towards the train station. When the cops asked him where he was supposed to be, he said the train station. They finally figured out how to get in touch with us by asking him our phone number. Christ, Sherlock, where the fuck is your brother, and why didn't they contact him?" John was visibly agitated. He couldn't catch a break from this kid, from Sherlock's stupid gene's. Sherlock, who at first was more eager than any mother he had ever seen; was the cause of most of their problems. He taught Ryder the most irritating habits, trying to keep him above the average intellect, and that was the cause of most of their problems.

"You can't say you're surprised." Sherlock said, already packed and waiting for John by the door. John rolled his eyes, scoffing in his direction.
"No, I'm not. I just wish he had waited a day or so before pulling this stunt." John massaged his temples before heading out the door ahead of Sherlock. Before shutting the door to their hardly used hotel room, he pulled out the emergency phone and typed out a small quick message to his brother.

You're going to have to make up for that.
John won't let me forget this.
You're a horrible brother.
Warmest regards,
-SH

"Ryder James Holmes, just what in the bloody blue blazes were you thinking?" John yelled over the phone at his son. They were in Llangollen train station talking on the phone to the security of the train station in Northern London. They had been trying to get a hold of Mycroft, but the security claimed that only the legal guardians of the child were able to pick Ryder up. After a lengthy explanation to the hotel service though, they had been able to put their room on hold until the allotted time was up, then they would be welcome to return. However, as it stood, that looked unlikely as now they had to travel back to London before nightfall. The next train was in twenty minutes, and it only took just over an hour and a half to get there, so that was more than enough time to get there.

"Alright, just...sit there, we have to catch the train, we'll be there in four hours, here, put the nice policeman on the phone. Yes? Hello? Ta, hi. Yes, this is John Watson. Yes...no, I understand, my uhh, my brother in law was supposed to be watching him." John looked helplessly at Sherlock, noticing the detective's eyebrow raise distinctively at the phrase 'brother in law'.
"It'll be about four hours, are you certain it has to be-yes, no, I understand. Alright, yes, that sounds good, we'll pay once we get there. Thank you. Yes, alright, bye." John hung up the phone, his fingers permanently pressed to his temples. He was beyond stressed at that moment. Sherlock, noticing every little tell-tale sign, took one of John's hands and stroked his thumb is a light soothing pattern across John's palm.

"What's going on? Why can't Mycroft pick him up?" Sherlock asked, standing closer to his boyfriend in an attempt to comfort him without physical touch.
"Apparently Ryder didn't even mention him, and legally they can't ask him to pick him up because he's not a registered guardian." John leaned forward until his forehead rested upon Sherlock's flat chest, feeling the slight rise and fall of his breathing. It was a small comfort, very small, but it helped.

"I think the phone's vibrating, check your pocket." Sherlock whispered into his ear, slightly nuzzling the side of John's face. John shifted and reached into his pocket, pulling out the phone. Inside was one missed text message. Flipping the phone up, he looked and smiled up at Sherlock.

Greetings dear brother and John,
Hope you are having fun on your trip.
I lost your son.
Don't get mad.
See you both soon.
-MH

"Your brother's a genius. How about we leave him hanging for awhile?" John smirked, feeling slightly devilish.
"You know this means we have to spend Christmas dinner with my Mother." Sherlock watched John's face fall as he said this, noticing all the telltale signs of torture and suffering.
"Yes, we can definitely leave him hanging."

A/N: Next chapter will be posted before Monday! Hope you're enjoying this.