Date Night
Analise (from Naked, Stripped and Raw), now 14, introduces her first boyfriend to Sherlock and John. Prompt by renadolce.Sherlock pulled the gun from the tuck of John's pants in an easy, almost instinctual way as he walked behind him in their bedroom, the ex-soldier still practicing his game face in front of the mirror and nearly too caught up in his head to notice. Nearly, but not effectively. His eyes tracked Sherlock with a slight scowl at the loss of metal against his back. Sherlock couldn't care less. He opened the sock drawer and deposited the old weapon back into its resting place among tubes of dark cloth without care for approval. This was his veto. Generally they were both allowed at least one, whether it was for a certain tie, a hat, or the one time Sherlock himself had been experimenting with braces.
"I wasn't going to use it," John said, as though Sherlock were truly dumb enough to think his spouse would murder a fourteen year old kid. "It's for intimidation."
"It's insulting," Sherlock clarified with a roll of his eyes as he walked back to the wardrobe to find a suit jacket that would suffice.
John sighed loudly, adjusting his cuffs which had curled under the jumper he'd pulled on, head shaking as his jaw flexed. "It's not insulting," he argued. "I was a fourteen year old boy once. I know what they're like. All it does is send a nice, simple message that if he fucks with our daughter, I will end his life. Besides, the garden could always use some nice compost," he mused, the fantasy of getting away with murder playing out in the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders. There wasn't much inherently intimidating in meeting with the village GP and his gardener husband. The gun helped.
Sherlock watched John with tired fascination. At fourteen, Sherlock had been causing fire damage and explaining chemical burns to his family while John had been developing his mating rituals and relieving his tension to the underwear models in sales catalogues in the absence of anything hardcore. They were of completely different backgrounds and understandings of what drove the thoughts and intentions of young men. Honestly, none of that mattered though. They weren't raising a young man; they were raising a developing woman.
"I didn't say it was insulting to the suitor," Sherlock corrected. "It's insulting to Analise. It says, quite clearly, that you don't trust her. Without any provocation, you are putting it across that despite all reason you have chosen to believe she is completely incapable of basing her interest in the young man on an informed understanding of his character. You remove all personal agency by implying that she is merely a direct object, something to be acted upon, and not the subject of her new relationship. You are not loaning your daughter to a young man for the night; Analise is going on a date. Show her you trust her, that you respect her, and that you believe in her ability to manage her own affairs and she will not only strive to make you proud but instinctually gravitate towards partners who show her those same levels of trust and respect. So unless the gun was to wave at Analise and explain that you will bury her body in the compost heap if she's not a virgin on her wedding day, it stays in the sock drawer."
John looked back at Sherlock in the mirror, some of the tension having drained from his body as his shoulders sank slightly, the tendons in his neck no longer jumping out like tight cords. "Where do you get this stuff?" he asked with his head cocked slightly to the side. "Is it on the inside of tampon boxes or something? Because I've read some of your women's mags and all they ever talk about are fifty ways to please your man, what makes your arse look big, and who's dating who."
"Magazines? Oh, no. Those are for completely different types of research," Sherlock explained, making his way towards the door with a nervous cough. "Actually, I, uh... pose as a fourteen year old girl on a few websites. Very informative. You can learn a lot more through immersion than you can through reflection."
"Jesus Christ, you're going to be arrested."
"Of course I won't. I've no interest whatsoever in attaining naked photographs and asking to meet up would blow my cover. Really, John, I'm not an idiot. And neither is Analise." Sherlock paused at the door, smiling softly at John's defeated posture which said Sherlock had won regardless of how much John wanted to play his part as the terrifying father figure. He was a soft man, now, with grey hair and the threat of jowls. He wanted to go into battle again. But this wasn't his war.
Sherlock left the door and returned instead to wrap his arms around his husband, cheek pressed to cheek over his shoulder as his arms held tight as they encircled his waist. Always the soldier, always the protector. Everything was meant with the best of intentions but tradition had a way of being wrong. Sherlock kissed his cheek as John relaxed into him, his body no longer as lean as it had once been with comfort setting in as softness in John's once rigid form.
"There's wine chilling in the fridge downstairs and after they've left, there will be an empty house to enjoy for a few hours," Sherlock whispered.
John chuckled softly, his arms crossing to hold Sherlock's. "It's pronounced 'arse'," he corrected.
Sherlock rolled his eyes with a smile as he pulled away. "You're terrible."
"I've been in the mindset of a horny, fourteen year old boy all day. There's not exactly a switch to go back to being a mature, romantic grown up." John turned and caught Sherlock by the waist before he could get away, pulling him in close as he smiled up at him. "However, let the record show that Sherlock Holmes, online teenage girl extraordinaire, is the best husband anyone could hope to be raising their own teenager with. I'd have gone crazy by now if not for you."
Sherlock smiled as he looped his arms along John's shoulders. "Well, from what I hear, it gets worse from here on out. Soon you and I become extremely nosy and demonstrate passive aggressive tendencies related to a sense of misguided guardianship that seeks to eliminate all negative experiences by enforcing an ideal at the expense of the individual."
"Do all fourteen year olds talk like that? I mean, I thought Analise just got that from you."
"No, it's basically an extrapolation from several personal accounts I've collated."
John shook his head with a chuckle, leaning up to kiss his lips. "You're out of your mind. And I love you."
"How very fortunate for you, then, that I love you too."
John nodded sagely and kissed him again as Sherlock smiled into their interlocking embrace.