Rated PG, the follow-up to chapters 9 and 10 « What's in a Name » and « A Rose by any Other Name », that initiated a kid!fic about Sherlock and Greg having a young daughter named Miranda. I should have posted the whole thing separately, but eh. This can totally be read on its own, in any case. All you need to know is that Greg and Sherlock have a young daughter whom they (after a few false starts) named Miranda.
The Story of a Story
Once upon a time, Sherlock tried his hand at fairytales.
That was an Experiment, complete with a Control Group (made of one grey-templed senior officer and one not-housekeeper with her ear glued to her oven conduit) and Repeated Trials (three). It was also a Complete Flunk. While Sherlock was pliant enough to suspend disbelief and discuss winged beings within the twenty minutes allotted to Miranda's storytime, he found Grimm and Perrault lacking in precision and overexerted himself to fill the blanks in his child's best interests. By the time he finished cataloguing every curare-modified serum that might produce catatonia in an underage female subject from a prick on the hand, Miranda was not only wide-eyed, but staunchly refusing to close them again.
The Experiment was called to an end, warm milk was carried up from 221A, variants were debated, and Greg, once he had patted three sets of shoulders better, promised to take up where Sherlock and Claude Bernard had left the tale hanging.
Greg, ever a man of his word, tried his solid best to deliver the precious ending. And so he would have, if exhaustion and adrenaline had let him fulfill this last duty of the day. Instead, Detective Inspector Lestrade leapt straight into the woods, led his stallion at a hypercaffeinated pace that would have earned him a word or two with his brethren in Traffic Unit, jogged up the tower stairs, spotted the bed, turned a page, and keeled over snoring on his daughter's pillow.
Prising him loose from the duvet was difficult enough. Telling Miranda that no, princes were not allowed poppers in their milk before they set out on a quest proved even harder.
"Not Helping, dear," was Mrs Hudson's comment to Sherlock on both occasions.
No one was truly surprised when she was nominated as the next contestant. Mary and John had both volunteered, but Mary's schedule as a head nurse was just as problematic as Greg's, and John's idea of storytelling was to read aloud from his blog, a motion vetoed by Greg and Sherlock with equal fervour.
Mrs Hudson, that wisest of women, told Miranda that they should leave fairies aside for an evening or two and concentrate instead on the animal kingdom. "Sweet little beasties," she offered seductively. Miranda's moue clearly said that she still felt cheated out of woodland shenanigans. "Sweet little beasties in a sweet, sweet wood," Mrs Hudson qualifed.
"Boring," Miranda declared after giving the sweet, sweet wood due consideration.
"In the dark," Mrs Hudson added hastily. "With danger a-plenty, but a sweet, sweet happy ending. And gorgeous food."
Miranda agreed that danger and hot food were good enough premises, and the story began.
"Sorry I'm late," Greg whispered later on, rubbing a rain-slippery cheek to his husband's. "You wouldn't believe what I've had to deal with - doctor confessing to killing his wife with a chicken. Stupid sod let ten years go, then went and boasted of it in a pub, thinking himself safe. Guess who reminded him those ten years don't start when the crime is committed, but when it's found out? I - what?" For Sherlock was putting a finger to his lips while using his signature scarf to dry Greg's hair and ruffle it a bit on the sly.
"Shhh. Come and listen to this."
Greg stepped out of his shoes and, together, they padded to Miranda's door. Mrs Hudson's soft, Royal Albert vowel patterns could be heard trickling out of the room.
"And the Badger opened his door. He'd been asleep, of course, as any creature in their sound mind would have been at this time of night, but he got up and went to see who was there. Because he was a bit gruff, but the kindest, most generous soul in the dark heart of the woods."
"What's a badger?" Miranda's sleepy voice replied.
"Why, it's a lovely animal, dear. Very tenacious, very ordered - it's all cleanliness and goodliness with them, they don't put up with cluttered kitchens and mess and if your Papa thinks I've missed that stain on my new…yes. As I said, a lovely, neat species. And such beautiful grey fur. I'm sure Papa will show you one on his computer if you ask him."
"Did he let Ratty and Mole in?"
"Of course he did. The moment he saw the Rat, he knew that here was a poor lost thing in need of food and comfort, and he forgot all about sleep. He cared very much for Rat, you see. They'd known each other for a while, the tale says, and Rat's first instinct in trouble was to go and seek out Badger. And Badger -"
"-never disappointed him," Sherlock murmured.
"- made a big fire, and took care of Mole's wound for him. And he gave them a nice hot meal, too, complete with curry masala, pizza and banana fritters. Which is a terrible diet, my dear, really, but even the best of badgers have their little flaws."
"Oi!" Greg protested feebly.
"What did Ratty say?"
"Oh, a lot. Ratty was always the garrulous type. Mole was a strong-and-silent little creature, a mole of few words, but Ratty was only too given to rattle away about himself and his clever deeds. See? That's how he got his name!"
"Etymologically wrong," Sherlock said, but Greg could make his smile out in the corridor's penumbra.
"And then?" Miranda's voice was thinner, the words slurred together into a soft release of breath.
"Badger listened very patiently. And he never said 'I told you so', or 'when will you listen', or even 'blast!', which he'd have been perfectly entitled to. No, he just sat in his big arm-chair -"
"Like…Daddy's…chair?"
"The very same. With his paws crossed on his chest. And when the food was eaten, and the tale was told" - Mrs Hudson was careful to slow down, lowering her own voice - "the Badger showed Rat and Mole where they could sleep. It was a humble home, but very nice and cosy, and Ratty was so glad and relieved, he - "
Miranda's next interruption was too frayed by sleep to be audible. Not so Mrs Hudson's startled silence.
"Well, I. Oh, my. I'm not quite sure animals shared a bed in those days, dearie. They had plenty of straw, I mean bedding, to keep them warmy-snuggly, and -"
Before Greg could stop him, Sherlock had stepped into the pink-walled room and bent down to the tender round shell of their child's ear.
"Every night," he whispered, while Greg nodded unseen from the door. Sharing the promise and the plea, and the unspoken agreement that in their hard, too-often fairyless routine, there was enough charm to hold the dark woods at bay, night in night out.
A/N : Mrs Hudson's bedtime story was taken from chapter 4 ("Mr Badger") in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. The doctor-and-chicken story is a true tale, told to me by a forensic friend. You might hear more of it some day.