Title: In the Age of COVID

Author: Pompey

Universe: BBC Sherlock

Rating: PG

Warnings: plot? What plot?

Word count: 853

Summary: COVID harms the residents of 221 Baker Street in different ways.

Prompt: July 24 - pandemic

With the start of lockdown, Rosie Watson's world dwindled down to the apartments at 221 Baker Street. She still saw her teacher and classmates, but only Daddy's laptop. They couldn't play together and it was hard to pay attention sometimes. Daddy was almost never around and when he was, he was either sleeping or he was tired. He never wanted to play for very long. And he wouldn't let her go to the playground or go on any outings. He barely let her leave the building unless it was to go into the tiny garden out back. Mrs. Hudson was still there and was still very nice but she wasn't able to run around and play with Rosie the way Rosie wanted. And Sherlock – he was different. Every day he looked like he wanted to run around and play but couldn't too. He didn't shout, not really, but he got impatient more easily. All in all, Rosie decided that "Cuvvid" was the worst thing that could have ever, ever, ever existed.

Mrs. Hudson's world also had dwindled. John had put the fear of God, or at least of the new virus, into her and she now limited her excursions outside 221 only what was absolutely necessary. Sherlock had tried showing her how to use her phone to order groceries for home delivery but that technology made her even more nervous than COVID-19 did. She did the shopping wearing the professional-grade masks John had given her as well as the nitrile gloves from John's medical supply stash. She still spoke to her friends over the phone but missed the face-to-face interactions with them. Mrs. Hudson still saw Sherlock and Rosie on a daily basis, but a bored Sherlock Holmes was a holy terror and while Rosie was a sweet little girl, she was still a little girl with far too much energy for a woman north of sixty-five to keep up with. Mrs. Hudson would be a thankful woman when all this dreadful COVID business had blown over.

Sherlock Holmes had reached a new level of boredom, one he never thought possible. With John deciding it was his duty to volunteer his physician services at St. Bart's, the brunt of the childcare duties had fallen to Sherlock's shoulders. The inanity of a child's entertainment plus the tedium of grade school education wore on him like sandpaper on cloth. He could not even lose himself in work as crime rates across the country dropped (rates for interesting crimes anyway; domestic abuse had risen but Sherlock had and always would stay far away from that subject.) He went so far as to beg Lestrade for files from their cold cases just to keep his brain occupied. There was no one he could have a decent, adult conversation with anymore: John was either working, asleep, or in a mental state approaching that of a barely-sentient potato; Mycroft was too busy trying to keep the whole of the U.K. from descending into utter chaos; and neither Lestrade nor Molly had the time or will to deal with an unbearably cranky consulting detective trying his best to parent a very young girl. COVID-19 succeeded in showing Sherlock what his own personal hell looked like.

John Watson would never be able to fully remember 2020 with any degree of clarity after March 16. When the travel restrictions were enforced, he knew hospitals would be full to the gills with COVID patients on top of all the other hospital patients. He had a quick brush-up on intubation and presented himself to St. Bart's – and quickly found himself working a standard 12 hour shift plus 4 to 6 additional hours on the regular, always clad in double mask and full PPE garb, including booties and caps. At the end of every shift, he returned to the hallway outside of 221B as a mass of sweaty exhaustion, stripped naked outside the door, and donned the dressing gown and slippers he always left outside the door when he left for work. Then he entered the flat, tumbled his worn scrubs into the washing machine, and immediately ducked into the bath to shower with hot water. Only then could John allow himself to greet his small and increasingly cabin-fevered family. If he was lucky, it was morning and Rosie was up. If he was unlucky, she was already in bed and he'd gone the whole day without seeing her. John drank lukewarm tea and chewed dry toast with his brain feeling like a mass of bruised gelatin, nodding (and nodding off) while Sherlock rambled. He'd placed an unfair burden on them by taking on an unfair amount of labor, John knew, and yet scores dying in front of him every day. If, God forbid, anyone from 221 Baker Street were to end up in hospital, he'd want his loved ones getting as much care as was possible to provide. That was why he continued. But it was also why every day John got a little closer to snapping at Sherlock that in the age of COVID, he wished he had the luxury of being bored.