Raw
part sevenSherlock was gone by the third week of October. Lestrade had a case and Sherlock still owned their Baker Street rooms as his functional London address. He made sure Analise was enrolled at a child care facility, packed a small bag, then left with less than a day between phone call and absence. It hadn't come as much of a surprise. He was bored, sentenced to their home's confines to watch his season's work discolor and die. He'd exhausted most indoor activities and John had found Sherlock on more than one occasion lying on the sofa with Analise on his chest watching television shows not really suited for the under fourteen. Whether she innocently assumed the people were covered in jam or not, it spoke volumes for the extreme stagnation tearing through Sherlock's brain for the thought of suitable entertainment not to even occur to him. So he left, smile big, kiss to Analise's head and a nod to John as they dropped him off at the train station. If it weren't for work, John would have liked to have gone with him. Mrs. Hudson might even still be spry enough to keep up with an energetic toddler. But Sherlock went by himself, John's gun insisted upon his person as he gleefully returned to the city for a foray into his winter hobby.
The house was far too quiet now. Sherlock hadn't been the noisiest of housemates but his presence was loud in stature. John found he missed him most when Analise was put to sleep and there was time left in the day when they'd usually talk about things unrelated to his daughter. They'd given up most serious conversations weeks back but films and books and the science of gardening filled in the hours with the comfort of adult conversation. There was no one to play the violin now when Analise refused to let John leave and dutifully fall asleep past the two hour mark. John found himself slipping slightly, letting Analise sleep with him instead, and tried to give himself the excuse of acclimating his daughter to a big girl bed. It was lonely with only the two of them there, though. He wasn't the only one to notice.
Analise hated day care. She was terrible at sharing and it seemed at some point she learned to bite as her preferred defensive strategy against the other children. John had always figured any child of his would surely give reason for one or two calls home from school but hadn't expected such an early start. He did a lot of apologizing to a lot of parents of children sporting red indentations of Analise's teeth. It was the catch 22 of allowing ones child to socialize, he supposed. She'd learn from the other kids both the good and the bad and he could only hope to take her back home and weed the wicked out. At home, though, she was almost worse. John found the only thing that would placate her was letting her wear Sherlock's yellow hat. She didn't understand why he wasn't there with her anymore or why they no longer spent a lot of time outside or where the flowers had gone. But the hat made her happy and despite his better intentions, it was so much easier to placate than to parent when it was solely up to him.
He wanted to call but didn't dare, hoping Sherlock would do so or text or something to let him know how everything was going. Sherlock might be stalking someone, in the middle of something dangerous, with the last thing he needed being the ringing of a mobile as John took the initiative instead. By day three he was so glued to the news, however, looking for any clue possible as to what Sherlock might be up to, that John thought a simple text surely couldn't hurt. "How's the case?" he sent, and in little more than a minute received: Long. Bored at NSY.
Can you talk?
That'd be fine.
John smiled and pressed his speed dial as he settled into the sofa, feet on the coffee table as Analise colored in a book beside his heels. It rang longer than he had presumed it would with Sherlock expecting his call. He answered though, the voice notably deeper with sleep deprivation though not hushed among the sounds of the Yarders in the least.
"Hello, John," he said, and John could hear the smile in his tone.
"Hey," he replied with no shortage of relief at hearing from him again. Analise looked up at her father oddly, questioning the phone for a second before going back to coloring in the yellow nose on the dog.
Sherlock didn't ask or wait to see if there was a reason why John would want to call. He plowed ahead into his own conversation with the bustle of work in the background. "I want you to know I've had to permanently disable auto-correct on my phone thanks to you. I have asked Yard forensics on no less than five different occasions to update me on their Analise of the fibers I found, if their Analise has concluded and if I could get a copy of their Analise ASAP."
John could hardly stifle the laugh that rumbled in his nose. "Oh, did you," he managed, cheeks pulled straight into his eyes. "Well, I'm sure they haven't teased you. Much. Don't suppose you want to know what your Analysis has been up to?"
Sherlock hummed. "Put me on speaker."
John pulled the phone away and thumbed the button to broadcast his call, lying down on his stomach on the sofa to get closer to where Analise sat on the floor. "Analise, guess who," he said, and held the phone between them.
"Hello, Little Bee."
And her face lit up. She put her hands on her face in a studied mockery of true surprise as she bounced on the floor with a laugh.
"You have to talk; he can't see you." John held the phone closer to her to try and catch every note of her giggle. "You want to tell Sherlock how you bit three kids at the nursery and made daddy leave work early to come talk to your teacher?"
She did not. She grabbed for the phone instead, the loud beep of tones as her fingers depressed numbers making John wince as he pulled it away. She scowled at him, not fully grasping the phone idea. "Mine!" she shouted, and banged her hands on the table.
John sighed, grabbing one of her fists to make her stop. "You have to be nice if you want to say hello. No hitting."
"Hit Lala!"
"I'd like to see you try."
"I think we can be assured she doesn't actually know that word yet." John said as he shook his head, smiling despite himself and the grumpy face his daughter leveled him with, red enough to threaten to cry. "But you see what you left me with?" he asked, trying to placate her with soothing strokes to her head.
"She's your daughter."
"Yeah, well, she misses you a lot." She wasn't the only one but it was awkward to put into words and for the most part unnecessary. Sherlock knew. John gave Analise's nose a boop which generally worked to reset her temper. She crossed her eyes and blinked at him sourly before grabbing her crayon and returning to what was still somewhat identifiable as a black outlined dog.
John turned the speaker off and rolled over onto his back, finding a corner of privacy in Analise's artful indifference as he pressed the phone to his ear instead. There were still at least fifty rainbow colored bits of cereal stuck on the ceiling above him from one of Sherlock's more stagnant days, the bits of crusted-on food refusing to fall down. It was good a big case came through, really. Sherlock needed the stimulation. The only place he was likely to find it, though, was London this time of year. There was literally nothing for Sherlock in Sussex with the bees hibernating and his garden much the same. There was just John and Analise, more or less house sitting at this point, while John took minor consolation in the fact Sherlock had only taken with him a small bag.
The Tannoy System in the phone's background gave pause to the conversation as Sherlock waited until the disturbance was over. It certainly sounded as though the case was still in full swing from the sliding of drawers and the ringing of phones. John wondered if anyone else there was as bored as Sherlock seemed. He very much doubted it. "I'll be back once the case wraps up," he said, clearing the sleep from his throat. "No telling how much longer that will be or how long until the next one but it's not an unbearable train ride."
"Has the case been dangerous?"
He could almost hear Sherlock shrug. "Sometimes. Gang activity with a few murders in the ranks. Pretty cut and dry save for an actual apprehension. I'm only sticking around to make sure they don't mess it up," he said as someone in the background started yelling incomprehensibly.
John put his finger into his other ear to try and minimize the background noise on his end, having more than enough to deal with on Sherlock's which seemed to be getting louder. "So you think maybe you'll be back this week?" he asked.
At the same time, though, on the other end, he could hear Lestrade speaking as well. "--got them surrounded by the train yard. Are you riding with me?" Judging by how easily he could be heard, it wasn't hard to figure out whom he was speaking to.
"I won't sit in the back," Sherlock told Lestrade.
John frowned, "Sherlock?"
"Fine. We get these guys, I don't care where you sit."
"Sherlock, if you have to go--"
"Yes." he said with Lestrade's 'is that John?' half heard before the call abruptly ended.
Not even a goodbye. It was pretty much exactly what he'd come to expect. Flinging the phone to the coffee table with a sigh, it certainly didn't seem to have gotten any easier to accept. When Sherlock had a case, the whole world could take a back seat. Nothing and no one competed with casework no matter the seriousness or latency of the crime. John had forgotten how much he hated the feeling. Eight years of being ignored and left behind should not have so easily been pardoned.
Of all the years of their friendship, especially the ones in which they lived together as bachelors, there was never any room for compromise. Sherlock's work always came first. No matter what John did, no matter how useful he had been or how indispensable his marksman skills were on any particular case where defense was paramount, he was a secondary thought. Easily forgotten. Left behind. Ignored. It had been the spark of many arguments back in the day, before he learned to accept his place in Sherlock's life as an accompaniment to his brilliance with no illumination of his own. He could not arrest Sherlock's attention with the same surety of a murder. He could not compete with bloodshed and mayhem with any act of concern or kindness. Sherlock only reacted to the macabre and dangerous and scoffed at the mundane and normal. The first year had undoubtedly been the rockiest of those they'd seen. People didn't normally treat people the way Sherlock did. Sociopath never sounded so right. Psychopath would have worked just as well. Sherlock had been an unfeeling thing of infinite curiosity that John had grabbed on to as he passed out of his own fascination.
His girlfriends had thought they had it rough trying to contend with Sherlock Holmes but he doubted any of them would have done much more than laugh had they taken on the impossible task of competing with corpses.
Analise picked up and slapped in John's face the coloring book she'd been working on, making sure he could get a good look by holding it against his cheek. It was hard to be annoyed by the distant past with the future literally right in front of him. John peeled the book back, looking at the mess of a page that was one entire scribble of yellow.
"It's beautiful," he cooed, and kissed her head as she giggled in pride and ran away with it to hold against the fridge till he came, completely forgetting being mad at him before with only self-satisfaction left to fuel her.
John gave a long groan as he rose back up, scratching at his stomach as he walked to the kitchen to carefully rip the page out for its customary display. Analise picked out the strawberry magnet. They hung it low so she could put it on herself.
"Lala come home?" she asked.
"No. Lala's busy," he said, trying not to frown so perhaps she would let it slide and accept distraction. He picked her up, setting her up on his hip. "Sherlock may be busy a lot. You have daddy, though, yeah? Daddy's cool."
She nodded, hugging his neck as he carried her back to the den to pop in a film about mice with bright colors and pleasant songs. If he was lucky it'd be something they could both fall asleep to. He set Analise on his lap, letting her snuggle close as she rested against his chest.
"Lala see Mama?"
"... No, baby. Sherlock's coming home." He kissed her head and let the film begin to play, keeping her close as much for his comfort as for hers.