No trigger warnings needed for this chapter! Just some much needed fluff!

Chapter Four

When Arthur arrived home at Colbert House, just before eleven thirty pm, Mycroft met him in the front hall. Few words were exchanged. Arthur certainly had no desire to relate in any detail the vile things his father had said or done. He simply announced,

'My sisters will be coming to the wedding,' and left it at that.

Mycroft acknowledged this with a nod and took his fiancé into his arms for a much needed loving embrace. They held each other for a long moment then broke apart, and Mycroft led Arthur by the hand up the stairs to the master bedroom, where Andrew, the valet-butler, had already brought Arthur's travel bag and was now in the process of unpacking it, when the couple entered the room.

'Thank you, Andrew,' Mycroft said, 'we'll take care of that. Please, do retire.'

'Of course. Good night, sirs,' Andrew replied and left the room to perform the lockup routine, checking that the house was secure, before retiring to bed himself.

Mycroft went into the dressing room to remove his three-piece suit and hang it up on the wardrobe door, from where it would be collected, the next day, by Andrew, and sent to the cleaners. Arthur sat on the bed and removed his trainers then lay back, with a deep sigh, and closed his eyes. He felt exhausted, though this was an emotional rather than a physical fatigue. He was still in that position when his partner returned to the room, in his dressing gown, en route to the en suite bathroom.

'Arthur,' Mycroft said, shaking the recumbent man's knee, 'don't fall asleep fully clothed, my darling. Come along, get ready for bed.'

Arthur hummed, in reply, but made no move to get up. Mycroft sat on the bed beside him and leant across to smooth the hair back from the younger man's forehead. Arthur opened his eyes to look into the other man's then slipped his hand round to the nape of Mycroft's neck and drew him into a soft, lingering kiss.

'I wasn't planning on falling asleep,' he murmured against his lover's lips and kissed him again, with a desperate intensity. Rolling over, he pushed Mycroft back on the bed and pulled the tied belt of his dressing gown loose, peeling back the front panels of the garment, exposing his fiancé's naked torso, then pressed his lips to the other man's shoulder, banishing all thoughts of sleep.

ooOoo

Several miles away, in Smithfield, Sherlock was walking the oak floor boards of the family's new home, with little Violet nestled against his shoulder, gnawing at her fist and grizzling, miserably. Sherlock cooed soothingly, as he stroked her back and paced through the ground floor of the house.

Violet had been a singularly uncomplicated baby, up to this point. After her precipitous entry into the world, she fed well, grew steadily, didn't suffer from colic and slept through the night from the age of four months. But now, at six and a half months, the dreaded Tooth Fairy had decided to put in an appearance.

The baby's gums were red and sore, she drooled relentlessly, which caused a nasty rash, despite the liberal application of Vaseline around her mouth and chin, and she gnawed at everything that came within range. Unfortunately, this included her mummy's nipples so, to save herself from pain, Molly had taken to expressing her milk, with a breast pump, and bottle feeding the baby, until such times as it was safe to go back in the water.

This was a bonus for Sherlock because now he could get involved with the feeding, which was the one part of parenting he had missed out on, up to that point. He adored the eye-to-eye contact of the nursing situation, when Violet would fix him with her intense gaze and barely blink, as she sucked, rhythmically, at the teat of the bottle. He was almost grateful that Violet had turned out to be a biter.

Molly and the boys were sleeping, peacefully, upstairs. One advantage of a house, over a flat, was that it was possible to accommodate a grizzly baby without waking up the whole household. Sherlock was a night owl, anyway, so it was no hardship for him to do night duty.

Molly was still on Maternity Leave, so she took the day shift, along with the nanny, Marie, who, in her basement flat, was the only other person who might have been inconvenienced by Violet's nocturnal activities, but the sound-proofing between the basement ceilings and the ground floor boards blocked out all but the loudest of sounds and Sherlock made hardly any noise as he trod those boards in his bare feet.

Poor Violet had developed a touch of diarrhoea and a slight fever, along with the pain in her gums, but Sherlock had administered a dose of Calpol a few minutes earlier so the pain relief was beginning to kick in and he could feel her temperature lowering, too.

He strolled into the kitchen and opened the freezer side of their big American fridge freezer, fishing a stiff washcloth from one of the drawers. Soaking clean washcloths in sterile water, and then freezing them, provided a handy source of soothing chews for the infant. Settling her in the crook of his elbow, he presented her with the washcloth which she took in a double palmer grasp, and began chomping at the edge that he pushed between her lips.

'Is that better?' he asked, with an enquiring look. 'Yes, that's much better, isn't it,' he replied to himself. Wandering back into the dining room and then the sitting room, he stood by the front bay window and looked out at the garden, dimly illuminated by the streetlights. He was wondering how Arthur had fared on his trip back to the county of his birth.

His brother's decision to make a permanent commitment to his partner of nearly eighteen months had come as quite a surprise to the Consulting Detective but then Sherlock had never been able to deduce Mycroft the way he could deduce most other people. The Ice Man was exceptionally good at hiding his true feelings. But he approved whole-heartedly of his older sibling's choice of life partner. He liked the young man very much and he had never seen Mycroft happier.

There was just the small matter of announcing their intentions to the world. In days gone by, an admission of homosexuality would be professional suicide in public life, especially for someone in Mycroft's line of work. Even after it was no longer illegal, in Britain, to be gay, it was still seen as a point of vulnerability, a pressure point, that might be exploited by foreign powers to undermine or compromise an individual.

Fortunately, this was no longer the case and Mycroft had never had to hide his sexual orientation. But Arthur had not had such an easy ride. The young man had explained to Sherlock, the last time they met up, that his family were still unaware of his sexuality, that he feared his father especially would find it difficult to come to terms with such a revelation.

But, since he and Mycroft were about to tie the knot, the time had come to bite the bullet, take the bull by the horns and beard the lion in his den. After that overdose of metaphor, which had caused them both to chuckle rather hysterically, Sherlock had wished his future brother-in-law good luck with his personal mission. Standing now by the window, in the darkened sitting room, Sherlock hoped things had gone better than anticipated but, in his experience, this was rarely the case. Leopards do not change their spots – more metaphor – except, perhaps, to go darker.

An even greater surprise, to the younger Holmes, had been his brother's selecting him for the role of Best Man. He found the prospect rather daunting but he intended to be the best Best Man that he could be. With typical Holmesian application, he had set about gathering data. This was his main occupation, at the present time - teaching himself how to be a Best Man. He had done a great deal of research, on line, into the duties of a Best Man and had purchased several books on the subject, too, including one on how to write a Best Man's speech. No one could ever accuse him of taking his responsibilities in this enterprise lightly.

He glanced down at the baby in his arms and saw that she was sleeping, at last. He carried her up the main stairs to the Nursery and laid her, gently, in her cot, removing the now defrosted washcloth from her grip and draping the duvet lightly over her little body. Bending down to drop a gentle kiss on her brow, he then exited the room, pulling the door to, but not closed, behind him.

He crossed the dark landing and entered the master bedroom. In the faint light from the window, he could make out the low mound, in the bed, that was Molly. He discarded his dressing gown, onto the bedroom chair, and slipped under the duvet, moulding his body to that of his wife. She curled into him, without waking, and he wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin, breathing a deep sigh, as he surrendered himself to sleep.

ooOoo

Some calm before the storm, folks. Enjoy it while it lasts!