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“Daddy, ma’nifyin’lens!”
Sherlock crouched down in front of his daughter, who immediately reached for the lapels of his coat and latched on.
“Magnifying lens, Annabelle. Mah-guh.” Sherlock plucked the lens from his pocket and handed it to the grabby-handed toddler who was digging into his coat. Her little fingers grasped it and tugged gently. He narrowed his eyes, lips turning up softly, and waited for her to repeat him.
“Magunifying lens,” she responded confidently. Her clear blue eyes sparkled with the challenge.
“Close enough.” He let go of the magnifying lens and watched her run off back to the bright flowers that had caught her interest, clutching the lens in both hands. She was barely two meters away, but her little feet pattered across the path as if she was running a great distance. He stood straight, brushing off invisible detritus out of habit, and admired the halo of golden ringlets that bounced with every step she took.
They were in Regent’s Park on a rare, sunny afternoon. It was a case-free Tuesday; Annabelle had awakened at first light and demanded to go outside. Her father, who had barely slept in the preceding 72 hours, somehow convinced her to tuck up next to him for another two hours. His sleep was restless while the three-year-old colored in a coloring book that was propped up against his side, but it had been enough. As expected, he eventually opened his eyes again and found that his sheets and torso had been scribbled on.
Now, she was looking closely at a yellow rose with intense focus and curiosity.
It was when she looked like this--far too serious for a three-year-old, biting her tongue between her lips with her tiny baby teeth, studying flora and fauna the way Sherlock studied corpses--that he most saw himself in her.
Most people assumed she was his niece. Of course they did--he was a single parent. No one assumed an unbound Omega would have a child. It was a perk afforded to him purely because of his status as the Little Brother of Mycroft Holmes. He was loath to admit it, but his brother’s position as the British government did come with certain benefits.
Like Annabelle. Alphaless Anabelle.
“Careful of bees, Annabelle,” Sherlock called as she took a few steps further into the space between two rose bushes. He hadn’t seen or heard any bees so far that morning, but he knew she got anxious around them. He wasn’t keen to find out if she was allergic just yet, and he was making an effort to keep her fearless. The longer she stayed curious about the world and open to new experiences, the better.
This whole thing was a new experience for Sherlock, even years later. At the end of the day, Annabelle was a fascinating and frustrating experiment that seemed blessedly unending. There was always something new for him to learn--not to mention the fact that she was always learning. And growing. When she’d been a newborn, he was certain there were times when he put her to bed only to find that she didn’t fit in her clothes the next morning. He sat an entire night once, just watching her, measuring her intermittently as she snored her tiny baby snores and keeping notes. It was hard now to imagine not being captivated by the very act of her breathing. He’d never wanted this, before. If asked again, he wasn’t even sure he’d say he wanted it now.
Though perhaps there’d be a bit more hesitation.
Everything changes, Sherlock thought. Because everything changed.
He’d simply woken up one morning at 28 years old to find that the Organization for Population Regulation had issued a mandate: Due to a dangerously low birthrate in the U.K., Omegas of childbearing ability would be required to birth at least one child by their thirtieth birthday.
Sherlock, being both unbound and uninterested, had been intent to ignore the Mandate and risk being caught out, until Mycroft had intervened.
More than not wanting to be a parent, Sherlock didn’t want to be tied down to an Alpha. He’d never wanted to be anyone’s Omega--he enjoyed his life, and he greatly preferred to live under the radar of other Alphas and Omegas. If he had an Alpha, he wouldn’t be able to take the suppressants he relied on to keep his cycle in check. An Alpha would expect regular mating and all that other business that went along with a bond. An Alpha would expect him to stay home, bored and pregnant, popping out children every nine months the way the government wanted him to.
None of which interested Sherlock Holmes.
But Annabelle--Annabelle was more interesting than he ever could’ve dreamed.
“What are you looking at?” Sherlock got down on his knees and leaned in close to the roses. “Can you see the veins in the petals, just here?”
Her piercing focus shifted at his words and she followed his finger as he pointed to the faint lines in the flowers.
“Can we take them home and put them under your tel’scope?”
“Microscope,” he corrected. “And we shouldn’t take a whole flower, but--” Sherlock reached out and carefully plucked a single petal from one of the roses. “Just one petal won’t hurt.” He tucked the petal into his coat pocket, taking care to keep it from crumbling. He’d put it between glass for her and she’d spend hours enraptured by the details. “Shall we?”
He pushed himself to standing and held out his hand for hers.
Annabelle’s soft fingers wrapped around one of his as she fell into step beside him.
“Can I keep the magunifying lens until we get home? In case there are more flowers I wan’to see?”
“Just don’t drop it--we wouldn’t want it to scratch would... we...” Sherlock trailed off, pausing and looking around. There was a change in the wind, and a scent he couldn’t quite place. It smelled like... Annabelle.
He looked down at her as she pulled on his finger. “Wha’s wrong?” she asked. But the scent wasn’t coming from her--it was on the air, coming from... where?
Sherlock scooped her up in one arm effortlessly, pressing his face into her curls. The suppressants he took to minimise his cycles dulled her natural scent just slightly, but it was still there. But Annabelle smelled like him, like Baker Street and tea, and a bit like the earth she’d been sitting on. Yet there was an underlying touch of the Alpha who fathered her--warm cedar and cinnamon. The notes he was catching in the air were stronger, more developed.
More Alpha.
Sherlock looked around at the people passing them in the park, and Annabelle’s curious eyes followed his, ever the observer. He remembered his sense of smell in his early pregnancy, so strong that even the smell of his favorite tea had crippled him with nausea. Suddenly he wished he could go back to that level of awareness. There was an Alpha walking around Regent’s Park, within sniffing distance of Sherlock and Annabelle Holmes, who likely had no idea that if he followed his own nose, it would lead him right to his daughter.
And for Sherlock Holmes, that was simply unacceptable.
Because Annabelle’s father was supposed to be dead.
* * *
“It’s simply not possible, brother-mine.”
“Are you implying that my olfactory receptors are anything less than impeccable? I know what I--”
“Sherlock, you know as well as I that it isn’t possible for someone to come back from the dead.”
“Check your records, Mycroft. There was an error. I’m sure of it. Annabelle’s Alpha is walking around London right now, and I fully expect you and your people to take care of it.”
Sherlock ended the call and tossed the phone across the room. It was completely possible that he was overreacting. Maybe the Alpha had a sibling with a similar scent signature. Maybe Annabelle’s scent had caught on the wind as it changed direction, and he was particularly sensitive to it because of his cycle.
But he knew it wasn’t time. He was weeks away from his next scheduled heat. He hadn’t missed a pill. There was no reasonable explanation unless the Alpha had practically been close enough to touch.
And he had no idea who the man was.
He spent several long minutes pacing back and forth, trying to remember every face in the park, every stranger who walked by. A woman with a small dog pulling on its lead; a man in a long coat with a paper tucked under his arm; a female Alpha and Omega couple pushing a pram. No one had caught his attention, even in his mind palace. No Alphas looking predatory, not a single person paying them any mind. Whoever the man was, he was just as ignorant to Sherlock and Annabelle as Sherlock was to him.
The phone rang.
Sherlock was tempted to let it ring, but Annabelle was napping in his bed just down the hall, and he didn’t want to risk waking her. She was just as terrible at sleeping as he was.
He didn’t even greet his brother before the three words he didn’t want to hear came over the line: “You were right.”
* * *
His name was John Watson.
The file Sherlock received a few days later was detailed, but none of the information it contained gave Sherlock any sense of peace. There was no photo; Mycroft was still working on that. What Sherlock knew so far was that the man was 36, a former army doctor, and he’d been invalided home from the war after a gunshot wound to the shoulder nearly four years ago. He’d contributed sperm as part of the Population Regulation Program when he’d enlisted. It was a rather sick contract, in all actuality--the government could use his sample in the event of his untimely demise.
It didn’t take a detective to see that Sherlock’s insemination date had overlapped with John Watson’s injury. Of course, at the time, the Alpha had somehow been listed as deceased in the system, so his swimmers had been called to action for Queen and country.
Sherlock closed the folder and flung it across the room like a frisbee, but took no pleasure in the flsk-tsch of the papers spilling out mid-air. Somewhere outside the safe walls of Baker Street was a man he’d never met, a man who, by all accounts, had more rights to Annabelle than Sherlock did. Everyone knew that the courts sided with Alphas who pursued custody of their children. It had barely been two generations since Omegas had been considered property of their Alphas--how was Sherlock, a single parent who barely had a stable and safe job, supposed to compete against a war hero?
Now, of course, he could admit that he was overreacting. Annabelle was asleep in her bedroom upstairs, safe and warm. She’d wake up and demand to go outside to play in the rain, and he’d gather her boots and coat and bundle her up for an afternoon of puddle-jumping. No Alpha was going to break down the door and try to claim her, or Sherlock for that matter. There was no precedent that Sherlock could think of--as Mycroft had said, people simply didn’t come back from the dead. This whole thing was just an unfortunate oversight.
And Mycroft’s people could take care of it.
Not kill the man, maybe, but they could certainly ship him off to America or somewhere on a special assignment. Anything to get him away from London. If he was wandering through Regent’s Park on a Tuesday, his life unknowingly orbited that of his daughter.
All it would take was a change on the wind for him to find them.
* * *
Sherlock was at Bart’s when he caught the scent again.
Thankfully, Annabelle was with Mrs. Hudson while he harassed Molly for the toes of a corpse that had washed up along the Thames. They had to be significant--the left foot’s appendages had been completely removed. If Sherlock could find something interesting on the right toes, he could solve the case in time for dinner.
That, and he was curious how long it would take the little toe to explode in the microwave.
He figured he only needed between two and four to solve the murder. May as well have some fun with the leftovers.
So there he was, standing in the hall with a small cooler in hand, when the Alpha was once again in his proximity. His sense of smell was more in tune with his surroundings since he’d made the decision to skip his suppressant dosage every other day since the incident. It would change the timing of his cycle only a little bit, but it was worth it for the added awareness for peace of mind.
He was determined to find the Alpha, and they’d unknowingly stumbled into each other’s circles once more.
Sherlock followed the scent down the hall, maintaining a safe distance as he inspected each passerby with a subtle sniff. The scent was strongest at the end of a hallway--and he knew, without a doubt, that the Alpha was around the corner from where he stood.
“I imagine I’ll only be in town another month or two,” a man was saying. “Damn near impossible to get by on locum work. Rent’s nearly triple what it was when I got back from the war.” Ah, so that was the Alpha. What were the odds there was another former soldier wandering about in these halls at the same time? His voice was pleasant to Sherlock’s ears in a way he couldn’t describe. He certainly sounded friendly, but there was something else there.
“What about a flatshare?” Sherlock recognized the second voice as Mike Stamford. Mike was a Beta Sherlock had interacted with semi-regularly over the years. He was reasonably certain that Mike harbored no ill will toward him, even though Sherlock was never exactly friendly with the man. But then, who was Sherlock friendly with?
“Look at me, Mike. An unbonded, aging Alpha with a limp. Who’d want me for a flatmate?”
Yes, definitely him.
Sherlock rounded the corner, purposely barreling right into the man. The cooler went skidding across the floor, where it tumbled a bit but didn’t spill its contents. A small blessing; Sherlock hadn’t completely thought that move through.
“Oi,” the Alpha said, stabilizing himself and Sherlock at the same time. “Maybe watch where you’re going there, mate--”
Sherlock could see the exact second that the Alpha caught his scent--just a fraction of a change in the lines of his face, and a quick lick of his lips. The hands that had caught his upper arms relaxed, but the Alpha didn’t immediately release him.
Objectively, Sherlock knew people occasionally found him attractive, but his stomach did something strange and flippity as the deduction flitted through his mind. This wasn’t just another Alpha who would inevitably ask him to dinner and then realize he’d made a terrible miscalculation once Sherlock showed off his intellect and deductive skills. The eyes that locked on Sherlock’s were Annabelle’s, the silver-streaked hair on the man’s head had once been light and golden. And Sherlock, in a surprising twist of fate, found that he wanted to run his hands through it to see if it was as soft as his daughter’s.
Their daughter’s.
It was infinitely more complicated than any other first meetings happening in a Bart’s corridor, that was for certain.
He stepped back, out of John Watson’s grasp, and the man cleared his throat, straightening out to bring himself to full height. He was already posturing for Sherlock’s attention, even just standing next to a Beta as boring as Mike Stamford.
“Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock asked, even though he knew the answer.
Mike chuckled, and John licked his lips again, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Yeah, he’s always like that,” Mike replied to John’s questioning gaze. “Sherlock Holmes, John Watson. John Watson, Sherlock Holmes.”
John offered his hand without waiting for Sherlock to extend his, which was uncommon in Alphas. They typically preferred for the Omega to initiate the first physical contact--one of the first symptoms of submission, even in those who weren’t preparing to be bound to each other. There was simply no way John Watson had missed the fact that Sherlock was an Omega, so this was an interesting twist in cultural norms.
“Your therapist is correct about your limp, I’m afraid,” Sherlock said, nodding down to John’s stable legs as they shook hands.
“Sorry, what?” John replied. His hand stilled, but he didn’t let go; their hands stayed motionless between them, simply resting together. Sherlock rather found he liked it.
“You were telling Mike about your limp as I came around the corner--I ran into you and you were instantly able to stabilize the pair of us, even though I’m significantly taller. And you’ve been standing since without the assistance of your walking stick.” He inclined his head toward where the walking stick was abandoned on the tiled floor. “You’re not favoring one leg over the other right now--even if you were posturing to show Alpha strength, I’d be able to see through it--so you’re simply not aggravated by pain. Ergo, a psychosomatic limp.” Sherlock released John’s hand with something resembling reluctance rumbling around in his gut and bent to retrieve said walking stick. The cooler containing the toes was just a few steps away, so he retrieved that as well, and when he stood back up and offered the stick to the doctor, the man was smiling. Beaming, even.
That was surprising.
“That’s brilliant.”
“That’s not what people usually say.”
“What do people usually say?”
“‘Piss off.’” Sherlock gave the other man a genuine smile, feeling something tremulous and warm stretch between them for a short moment as John chuckled. He suddenly found himself without the deeply harboured hope that John would be shipped off by Mycroft’s men to America or Australia or some remote island. In fact, he wanted him to be closer than the few steps that separated them. Objectively, he knew it was because of their very biology--their respective ages would’ve made simply passing in the street feel like it was causing a biological imperative. There was something beyond that, though. Something that made Sherlock feel safe in a situation where he should’ve felt threatened.
Curious.
Dangerous.
And rather than running in the other direction, Sherlock found himself doing something that with any other Alpha would’ve been an extreme faux pas. But John Watson was different, wasn’t he? Sherlock had been in his physical presence for less than three minutes, and he could already tell.
“I was planning to get a takeaway before taking this specimen home.” Sherlock gestured with the cooler. “But I could be persuaded into dinner.”
The Alpha’s eyes sparkled, and he looked at Mike first, as if he wasn’t completely sure Sherlock was real and needed verification. Mike shrugged; he was used to Sherlock’s behavior after all these years. And when John’s eyes--Annabelle’s eyes, really, he couldn’t get over the exactness of the steel blue gaze--slid back to his own a second later, the man licked his lips.
“That’s funny,” John said with a smile, and for the briefest of seconds, Sherlock thought he was going to be ridiculed for being an Omega who had the gall to invite an Alpha to share a meal. But there was a growing fondness in those familiar eyes, and John didn’t leave Sherlock anticipating the end of that sentence for long: “Because I think I could be persuaded into a takeaway.”
* * *
Come home with me.
In the end, there hadn’t been much persuasion at all. They’d barely touched their food before John had suggested a change in location.
Sherlock had fired off a text to Mrs. Hudson to let her know he was delayed while simultaneously hailing a cab.
Sherlock Holmes felt drawn to John Watson like a moth to a flame, and while it was concerning from the soles of his feet to the curls atop his head, he found he was unable to deny himself this man. This man who had died and come back and casually walked through Regent’s Park on a Tuesday afternoon to throw a spanner into Sherlock’s entire life plan.
You can get this out of your system, just this once, Sherlock thought as John worked his agile surgeon’s fingers through the buttons on his shirt. You’re not in heat, there’s no risk. Just a one-night stand between the odd unbound Alpha and Omega who had a chance meeting. You’ll be home in an hour, you’ll put Annabelle to bed, and you’ll burn the file on John Watson as an anomaly.
John’s tongue traced a path down the skin of Sherlock’s chest as it was bared to him. He groaned at the cool slickness where the air touched his skin in John’s wake, carded his fingers through John’s hair in encouragement, and amended his plan: You’ll be home in... two hours at the most.
There was an odd pause in John’s ministrations after he undid the final buttons, and Sherlock came crashing down from the short-lived high of the potential fling thanks to the reminder of his Caesarean scar. John’s finger ran along the vertical line that started at his navel and trailed down, the remnant of emergency surgery that stemmed from Annabelle’s placement in the birth canal. No one outside of his daughter and his doctors had ever seen the scar before, but here it was being looked at curiously, traced reverently with a gentle hand.
John was a doctor. An Alpha doctor, at that. He knew exactly what that scar was from.
“John, I--” Sherlock started as he pushed himself up onto his elbows, ready to explain. John slid his hand up Sherlock’s chest to keep him from rising all the way, but he sat back himself, resting on his calves.
“I should’ve assumed, I’m sorry--I didn’t ask.” He was shaking his head as he withdrew his hand, but rather than moving to get up from the bed, he reached for the bottom of his jumper. He pulled it over his head and tossed it to the floor before starting on the button-up he wore beneath it while Sherlock watched, rapt. “The Mandate. I just assumed since you were unbound, you somehow... got around it.”
“Well, I... got around the bonding part,” Sherlock said sheepishly, letting his eyes linger on John’s skin.
John smirked. “Obviously.”
“I don’t--this isn’t something I do often. I obviously didn’t forget I have a child,” he said, sounding defensive and a mite petulant to his own ears, but: “I haven’t done this since long before the Mandate--I’ve never had to--”
John was smiling openly now. “Sherlock, it’s all fine. I should’ve asked.” He moved forward, climbing a bit to settle himself straddling Sherlock’s hips. “We don’t have to talk about it right now.” His shirt joined his jumper on the floor, and Sherlock’s eyes were immediately drawn to the scar on his left shoulder, the one that was the reason for everything. The reason he was invalided home, which meant it was part of the reason Sherlock was currently in his bed. It was the injury that had briefly killed him, a nasty surgery followed by infection and incorrect reporting of facts; the reason for Annabelle.
His fingers itched to touch it, to feel this scar that had changed everything.
But John wasn’t pressing about Sherlock’s scar--it was only fair that he return the courtesy.
And the man had to have questions. He was a doctor. Even without being a specialist in Omega obstetrics, he had to know that the odds of having a successful pregnancy outside of a bonded pair were negligible. It was obvious from Sherlock’s scent that he had never been bound--which would’ve been why John assumed Sherlock had found a way to get around the Mandate rather than jumping to the conclusion that he was a single parent.
Instead, John had sat himself astride Sherlock’s hips and was looking down at him with an air of confidence radiating about him. He looked delectable and the scent in the room had amplified into a mixture of their natural pheromones. It had been nearly eight years since Sherlock had last let himself have this.
John was right--they didn’t need to talk about Annabelle right that minute. There was enough to be getting on with.
Sherlock reached for the Alpha, drawing him down.
Perhaps he wasn’t the only one giving in.
* * *
“Am I to understand that your wish is for John Watson to remain in London?”
“For the time being,” Sherlock reinforced. “Keep your enemies close, et cetera.”
“If you’re sure. You’ll let me know if the situation changes?”
“I’m sure one of your minions will report back before I can spare the time.”
Sherlock rang off before his brother could respond again, as was his wont, tossing his phone onto the table. For someone who had never in his life wanted to have an Alpha or a bond, he certainly found himself enjoying John Watson’s company.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t yet willing to take the risk of introducing him to Annabelle. And it was a given that the longer he waited, the more delicate the situation would become. Even if Sherlock could pretend he hadn’t known just whose semen had been used in his fertilization, he’d now spent a not-insignificant amount of time with his mouth on John’s skin, with his nose pressed into the man’s hair, wrapped in his amorous embrace. The scent was clear--even if he hadn’t noticed it the first time, there was no way he could pretend that their mingled pheromones didn’t remind him of the daughter he left behind for his tryst.
Standing from the table, Sherlock went to the door and listened to the upstairs bedroom. Annabelle was taking her afternoon nap, and she typically had a terrible sleep schedule. She’d been sleeping better in the last few days. He had come to the logical conclusion that it was because she fell asleep curled against him--and he couldn’t seem to completely rid himself of the scent of John Watson.
The longer he let this go on, the harder it would be on all of them.
Behind him, his phone chimed.
Dinner?
It had been less than 48 hours since their last meeting--and barely a fortnight since their chance encounter at Bart’s. Perhaps a dinner invitation was all Sherlock needed to extricate himself from the budding relationship--best to nip it now, in person, so he could gauge the man’s reaction. If he took it well, if he was understanding, then Sherlock could move on with his life without having to look over his shoulder.
If John didn’t react well, then... Sherlock would simply have to call in a favor, loath as he was to involve his brother.
Angelo’s at 7, if convenient. - SH
If inconvenient, come anyway. - SH
* * *
The table had a candle.
Sherlock arrived a few minutes after John and found him tucked into a table by the window, already perusing the menu. When he approached, the Alpha moved to stand, but Sherlock waved him down, pulling off his scarf and shrugging off his coat.
“Your friend was quite enthusiastic about going to get us a bottle of wine, so I imagine he’ll be back to accost you in a moment,” John said, his eyes smiling in the dim lighting.
“Angelo would be in prison on a rather long sentence if it weren’t for me,” Sherlock replied, settling into his seat opposite John. He shook off the tale of Angelo’s unfortunate robbery as it prepared itself on his tongue. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear about more of my cases--”
“I love to hear about your cases,” John interjected. “They’re brilliant.”
A flush crept up the back of Sherlock’s neck. Brilliant. Fantastic. No one had ever used those words to describe Sherlock and his eccentricities before.
Focus, he reminded himself. This was a breakup, not a courtship.
Not a breakup, Sherlock amended. This isn’t a relationship. You can’t lose someone you never had.
Sherlock met John’s eyes over the candlelight and empty wine glasses, and a warmth spread through his stomach, reminding him of schoolboy crushes before he’d ever completely understood the dynamics at play with Alphas and Omegas, before he’d presented and come to resent romance entirely.
This felt... simple.
“I was thinking,” John said, and he punctuated the sentence by letting his tongue peek out between his lips. “I thought I might write up one or two of the cases you’ve told me about. Just--a quick thing, on my blog. Sort of a writing experiment.” He looked pleased with himself for using the word “experiment” in relation to Sherlock.
Sherlock’s brows knit together. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Bit of fun.” John shrugged. “Maybe if enough people read it, they’d come seek out the great Sherlock Holmes to solve their mysteries.”
It took a moment for Sherlock to realize that John was being completely sincere--he wasn’t being sarcastic, or putting down what most people tended to look at as a morbid hobby. He was genuinely interested in Sherlock’s work. Genuinely interested in Sherlock.
“Could I read them before you post them?”
John raised an eyebrow, but smirked. “You don’t trust my ability to write complete sentences?”
“I suppose I want to make sure you don’t romanticize my deductions. It’s science, not poetry.”
The look on John’s face could’ve moved to offended territory, but instead he looked--the only word Sherlock could think of for it was “smitten.” Which was a problem, all things considered.
“You can read them before I do anything with them.”
Angelo came back with a bottle of wine, made an unreasonable amount of fuss pouring them each a taste, and then bustled off with their orders. Sherlock wasn’t particularly hungry, but he knew Annabelle would appreciate his leftovers tomorrow at lunchtime. While she wasn’t the most adventurous of eaters, she knew she liked to play with spaghetti, and he indulged her.
John’s ankle touched his under the table, and he remembered that he’d been indulging himself.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” John said, reaching across the table to rest his hand on Sherlock’s. The intimacy of it, this small, public gesture, made Sherlock feel like he really was in a relationship with this man. Anyone who looked at them could have passing thoughts on how long they’d been together, if they had children, what a handsome pair they were, if this was a special occasion. But Sherlock’s stomach was sinking, because he’d kept their conversations light--well, as light as descriptions of murders and kidnappings could be. They focused on work, on hobbies, experiments.
John’s nerves told Sherlock he was about to ask about Annabelle, about her improbable existence.
“You don’t have to answer me right away--I’ve got no expectations,” John added, “but I can tell your scent is changing and I, well. With your heat coming, I suppose I wanted to... offer to share it with you. If you wanted the company.”
This gave Sherlock pause. He took a moment to replay the words.
“You want to share my heat with me,” Sherlock repeated, for the sake of clarity. He despised people who did that, but he was thrown; that was not the question he’d been expecting.
Would John Watson ever stop surprising him?
John smiled. “If you like.”
You’re supposed to be ending this, not planning a shagfest weeks in advance, Sherlock chided himself. Tell him no.
There was always a but. In this case, it was: But I want to say yes.
Sherlock Holmes, who had birthed a child purely due to a mandate from the British Government, had never had a partner to get him through his heat. It had never seemed like the benefits outweighed the risks. The promise of brief pleasure from a knot did nothing to assuage the fear that an unbound Alpha would bite him in the heat of the moment, and then where would he be? Stuck at home with a brood of children and a mate who had taken advantage of his biology when he was at his most vulnerable.
But here was John Watson, who had taken him apart with his hands and mouth and proved why Mike Stamford had jokingly referred to him as “Three Continents Watson” when he realized Sherlock had gone home with him. John Watson, who had clearly made it this far in life without accidentally bonding himself to some unsuspecting Omega.
John Watson, who seemed to look at Sherlock and see a partner instead of a prize.
“Yes,” Sherlock said, noticing that he’d picked up John’s unconscious habit of licking his lips, “I think that would be... good.”
“Good,” John parroted. He leaned back in his seat, releasing Sherlock’s hand to reach for his wine. “Now tell me what experiments you’re working on at the moment. On Tuesday it was something with rat saliva, wasn’t it?”
* * *
Sitter arranged for A. Monday next through Wednesday. - MH
If symptoms arise sooner, text for a car. Beta driver will fetch you. - MH
I do hope you know what you’re doing. - MH
Bugger off. - SH
* * *
John’s bedsit was far from the ideal place for two full-grown men to share a heat, but John had apparently done what he could to make the space a bit more homey.
The previous times Sherlock had been by, there had almost always been dishes in the sink, and a myriad of forgotten teacups strewn about the place in various stages of emptiness. Now, the room was clean (spotless by Sherlock’s low standards) and he’d set a basket at the end of the bed with freshly laundered linens. Spares, from what Sherlock could tell, so that they’d be able to change the sheets and avoid sleeping in any cooling spots. The teacups had been replaced with sealed bottles of water on the nightstand, even though the sink and all its glasses were practically within spitting distance of the double bed.
Sherlock dropped his small duffel on a worn armchair--thrift store, purchased by John rather than the owner, covered by a plaid Afghan to hide how threadbare it was. He probably would’ve been able to go deeper with the deduction, but his brain always started to run a little slower as his heat came on. As it was, he could tell where John was in the room by scent alone, and it was making him want. It was only a matter of time before he’d be writhing on the sheets.
“I’d give you the grand tour of the new amenities, but I’m sure you’ve already deduced everything you need to know.” John was standing at his side now, and even though Sherlock had never done this before, he knew instinctively that John would likely not move much farther away from him than this in the next few days.
“Do you want to order a takeaway?” John asked. “I’ve stocked the fridge, but--mmf.”
Sherlock cut him off with a kiss, unable to think about Chinese or Thai or Indian or anything else when John Watson smelled like that. They’d been having semi-regular intercourse for more than a month, and he knew the scent of the man in his arms the way he knew the whorls of his fingerprints. But it had never been so strong, so tempting.
John gasped out a breathless “Oh God, yes” before raking his hands through Sherlock’s hair, pulling him closer and opening his mouth to allow them both further exploration. His own hands were quick to slide up the back of John’s jumper, skimming along the skin. The muscles there moved under his fingers, and he pulled John closer, pressing their hips together. He had to make himself a bit shorter to bring their erections into alignment, but it was worth it for the way John responded by sucking on his tongue obscenely.
Sherlock’s hips bucked twice against John, and he felt the warm glow from his hormone-soaked system spreading through him. It wouldn’t be long before his heat consumed him, and he knew that if he was going to change his mind, he should’ve done it long before he entered the flat.
“Sherlock,” John said, drawing back, looking thoroughly debauched even now. His eyelids seemed heavy, and his hair was... everywhere out of place. And his lips. Sherlock wanted to bite them. “Bed.”
“John,” Sherlock responded, smiling and tugging at John’s jumper, “clothes.”
“We can multitask.” John pulled his jumper over his head while kicking off his shoes. When Sherlock reached for the button on John’s jeans, wanting to unwrap him like the gift he was, his hands were swatted away. “You have to get naked too, you menace.”
Sherlock took a few steps back, putting distance between himself and the temptation to fall to his knees as John undid his flies, and sat down when his legs found the bed. He leaned back, unbuttoning his trousers and snaking a hand inside to stroke himself, a small relief compared to the hot flood of desire unleashed by the pretty picture being presented to him.
In the span of what seemed like a blink, John was completely undressed except for his socks, which he shucked with a small hop, and Sherlock had only succeeded in getting his trousers and pants around his thighs before he’d succumbed to the urge to press two fingers inside himself. And this, of course, was the picture he presented back to John Watson in payback for the accidental striptease.
“Christ, you’re gorgeous,” John said, standing a few feet away, stroking himself in time with the long fingers moving in and out of Sherlock’s arse. He released his cock, letting it hang heavily between his legs, the knot at the base just barely swollen. Sherlock’s eyes were drawn to it--that was the source of all his relief for the next few days, and he licked his lips slowly, teasingly, in anticipation.
He had the lock, John had the key.
Knowing how well they fit together outside of heat, Sherlock couldn’t even imagine the ecstasy that awaited them.
John pulled Sherlock’s bottoms the rest of the way off and tossed them to the floor.
“Tell me how that feels,” John said, his voice low and husky. His eyes were trained on the three fingers Sherlock now had moving in and out, shameless. “Filling you up good?”
Sherlock shook his head. “It’s not enough.” It’s never been enough.
“Can I?” John’s hand tenderly wrapped around Sherlock’s wrist, stilling his movement. There was an ache deep within the Omega, a burning pleasure that was waiting to engulf him. He just needed--something. And John wanted to give it to him.
He let John lead the withdrawal of his fingers, but he didn’t expect him to lean forward and suck those fingers between his lips with such relish. It set off a sympathetic resonance both in his cock and deep inside, making him clench around the emptiness, and he moaned in sync with the groan vibrating around his fingers.
Sherlock couldn’t remember a time anyone had ever made him feel like he could come from a sideways glance, not even when he first presented as an Omega, but here was John Watson, sucking on his fingers like they were a delicacy, tracing his fingerprints with his sinful tongue, skidding his teeth over knuckles. Those lips had been wrapped around his cock not even a week ago, and it hadn’t been anywhere near as erotic as watching him close his eyes in pleasure from the sheer taste of Sherlock’s natural lubricant. What had always been a messy inconvenience of his secondary gender was now positively delightful.
John released his fingers, pressing a kiss to the delicate skin at his wrist before setting his hand down. Sherlock immediately curled it against his thigh, resisting the urge to plunge his fingers back inside. There was a cramp roiling around, slowly taking him from mildly uncomfortable to desperately needy.
“Shall we finish getting you undressed, mm?”
How was John still seemingly in his rightful mind?
Sherlock scooted himself back up on the bed, lifting his knees and spreading his thighs in preparation. Surely John wouldn’t postpone their coupling for a shirt.
But the man crawled up Sherlock’s body and let their cocks align for a moment, pressed together and leaking. Sherlock’s was significantly smaller--as was normal with male Omegas--but when the sensitive head rubbed up against the smoldering knot at John’s base, he thought he might die from the anticipation.
“John,” Sherlock whinged, ignoring where John was unbuttoning the top buttons and starting from the bottom himself. Their fingers could meet in the middle and fight over the rest. “Please.”
His hips arched up into the other man, and he spread his legs even further--absolutely, shamelessly wanton--so John could fit better between them. They’d done this nearly a dozen times; it would only take a quick rearrangement down below for John to slide home. It was funny how quickly his heat could overtake him. Mere minutes ago, he’d been deducing the armchair by the door, and now the only deductions he could think of were the calculations of the angles it would take to get John inside him, how thick the knot would be when it fully expanded, and how many times they’d be able to drive each other mad with pleasure before his heat ended.
At least 13, possibly 18. If we start right now.
“Patience, love,” John said, pushing the fabric of Sherlock’s aubergine shirt aside. His hands skittered down the over sensitized skin on his ribs, stopping at the curve of his hips. “I promise it’ll be so much better if we can just wait a few more minutes for your heat to come on completely. I can smell it--it’s almost here. I promise.”
Sherlock swallowed hard as John’s mouth found his throat and he sucked a spot below his ear, all the while rolling their bodies together in a slow tidal promise of what was to come. There was an instinct in him that was warring with another--one that wanted John to turn him over, push inside until he was buried slick and deep, and then dig his teeth into the back of his neck to stake his claim. But the other, more logical part of him wanted to speak up and remind John that this one heat didn’t spell permanence.
“God, it’s going to be so good, Sherlock. You smell divine,” John said, voice close. His teeth pulled at Sherlock’s left ear, tongue tracing the shell. “I knew the minute I caught your scent changing--I knew we’d do this. I knew you’d want this.” He thrust, quick and dirty, just enough to give a tease and Sherlock found himself grabbing at John’s arse to hold him down, gripping and pulling and praying that somehow, somehow he could angle their bodies to get that cock inside him. The slow-burning pleasure building up was becoming more of an itchy heat--amplified only by the anticipation of finally knowing what it was like to be an Omega; to let himself have the most basic tenet of his biology.
God, he wanted it. But he needed to remind John not to--
“Give me one second, one second and I promise I’ll give you what you need. Just--just let me--” John was wriggling away from Sherlock, which was simply unacceptable, reaching to the other side of the bed and digging under the pillow. His body was stretched out on top of Sherlock, apparently not going anywhere. All that skin for the taking, so Sherlock did. He nipped at John’s left shoulder, just above the scar, and let his tongue trace around the starburst of silver-pink skin.
John had his hand wrapped around something, and he leaned forward to take Sherlock’s mouth once more, his tongue probing deep and dirty. Sherlock was momentarily surprised to taste himself, until he remembered that John had been rather enthusiastic in his worship of Sherlock’s fingers only a few moments ago.
He felt like he’d been waiting years for John Watson to get undressed and get inside him, but he hadn’t even been in the flat for a quarter hour.
It was amazing how quickly things progressed when nature took over.
But also how torturously slow.
John broke away and sat back on his knees, resting on his calves and leaving Sherlock feeling desperately alone. “It’ll be more comfortable the first time if you turn over,” he said, motioning for Sherlock to reposition himself.
When he saw the brief hesitation that Sherlock couldn’t hide at the idea of being in such a vulnerable position, he raised the small case in his hand.
“I’ve got a mouthguard.”
He popped it open and poured the contents into his hand--a specially-designed guard for the rare Alpha who needed to take the temptation out of the equation. Worn in the heat of the moment, for lack of better phrasing, it would ensure an Alpha couldn’t place a bond bite. Of course, it wasn’t fool-proof--an Alpha could always remove it mid-coitus. But it couldn’t be spit out.
And John was offering to wear it without request.
Sherlock’s mind was starting to swim in a chemical bath of heat and hormones and the smell of John, but he couldn’t help thinking that even outside of this moment and this room, he might just love John Watson.
“If anything, it’ll help me from saying anything too embarrassing in the moment,” John explained, holding the bulky mouthpiece up for Sherlock’s hazy inspection. “But I’d be lying if I said my mouth wasn’t watering at the thought of--” He cleared his throat and looked a bit sheepish at the almost-admission. “So I’ll wear it the first time, and we can reevaluate it later once we’ve calmed down a bit.”
Sherlock nodded and watched John press the guard into his mouth before slowly dragging himself up on lazy limbs. His entire world was slowly condensing into this room, and all he consciously wanted was for this man to mount him and give him the sweet release he needed. He leaned down on his elbows, enjoying the muffled gasp that came from behind him as his arse was presented fully, completely on display for his Alpha.
His Alpha.
He groaned at the simple thought and rested his forehead on the pillow in front of him, waiting.
John’s hands settled on the rounds of Sherlock’s arse, gently parting them, and one of his thumbs traced the wet rim, making Sherlock’s entire body flutter and shiver in anticipation. He couldn’t help thinking that if John hadn’t put the guard in already, he’d be running his tongue up and down and in and--ugh, next time.
“For the love of God, John, get on with it,” Sherlock said.
John’s laugh was caught by the guard, and he slid his hands up Sherlock’s back, one coming around to his front and resting on his belly as he situated himself. They’d never had sex in this position--there had been a few rather athletic positions they tried, but somehow this had been reserved, as if they both knew they’d get around to it. It was a typical breeding position for Alphas and Omegas--none had a higher conception rate, probably because this was supposedly the most comfortable position for a knot.
Sherlock arched his back, pushing up onto his elbows and letting John nose at the nape of his neck. It tingled in anticipation--the way the rest of Sherlock’s body seemed to--and it was at that moment that John’s cock aligned with Sherlock’s hole, making them both cry out in relief.
John was torturing him, though; he refused to fully seat himself without a few tentative thrusts, thrusts that made it feel like he had half the length on him that he did. Knowing full well what John and his cock were capable of, Sherlock let himself push back against John’s prompting, begging for the itch to be scratched.
“Sthop’t,” John said, muffled. Stop it.
“You could just fuck me properly,” Sherlock replied. “I know you’re perfectly capable.”
He was rewarded with two sharp thrusts that almost knocked him into the bed with their force, finally getting the depth he needed.
“Please, John,” Sherlock said, falling forward and lifting his arse at the same time. The other man was avoiding stimulation of his knot, probably in a misguided attempt to make it last longer.
Sherlock had lost track of how many times he’d said the word “please,” but he was sure it was bordering on an embarrassing number. John’s hand stroked down Sherlock’s stomach to take his cock in hand, and then John pressed deeper, letting the knot slip inside.
“Oh, that’s it.” Sherlock’s head dropped down to hang between his arms. The thrusts seemed to push all the air out of him, leaving him huffing and puffing against the pillow.
John worked them into a steady rhythm, one that pushed Sherlock’s cock through the ring of his fist with each thrust. He was resting nearly all of his weight on Sherlock’s back, holding him close with his other arm wrapped around the Omega’s chest. This meant that Sherlock could feel every movement--every breath he took, every ripple of muscle beneath his overheated skin. John’s grunts of pleasure as he worked them both to their peak were muffled by the mouthguard.
Sherlock couldn’t pretend he didn’t feel a pang of regret when John let himself nip at Sherlock’s shoulder with the thermoplastic barrier between them.
With a twist of his hips, John hit something inside of Sherlock that sparked a renewed need. He panted through his teeth, nearly there. Just--
Muffled words started to spill from John’s mouth, impeded by the guard and the fact that he was pressing his face into the space between Sherlock’s shoulders. Arching back and raising his head, Sherlock pressed farther, giving John direct access to his neck that he couldn’t reach a moment ago.
As he felt John’s knot begin to swell, slowing his desperate rutting, Sherlock had no doubt in his mind that if John hadn’t had the presence of mind to wear the guard, they’d both have given in. He couldn’t admit that he wanted it--he wanted to feel the blunt pressure of John’s teeth breaking his skin, the flood of adrenaline that would course through him to blend pleasure and pain. Just the thought of it was--
Warmth surged in Sherlock’s stomach and at the base of his spine as the knot inflated completely, filling him and satisfying in a way that nothing ever had before. He tried to gasp out a warning, but it ended up just being a shattered “John” before he was spilling onto the sheets. Distantly, he was aware of John’s fingers clutching at his chest, the wheezing at his back, and the hot flood inside him as the Alpha simultaneously reached his peak.
They stayed like that, breathing and shaking together, until Sherlock’s knees threatened to give out. With John still locked in place, it was up to them both to coordinate down onto the bed.
“That was... good,” Sherlock said. The panting and full-body shivers gave away that this was a massive understatement.
“Mm.” John was laid out across Sherlock’s back, tracing his hands up and down his sides. After a moment, he removed his mouthguard and tossed it to the other side of the bed. “Quite good, I’d say.” John pressed his lips to the side of Sherlock’s neck. When he flexed his hips unexpectedly, both of them groaned at the renewed depth, at the reminder of the connection. “Exceptional.”
* * *
The next hours were a blur of bodies moving together, quiet moments in between, and finding new patterns and positions that worked best for them. For someone who had handled his heats alone for the majority of his life, Sherlock found himself pleasantly surprised by the attentiveness of the Alpha whose bed he shared.
John, always a very giving lover in general, was quick to see to Sherlock’s needs, whether that was another knot to calm the ache, or a bottle of water pressed to his lips to keep him hydrated. It made him regretful that he hadn’t been doing this since he was 15; he felt a sadness for that poor, wanking Omega who would have to wait nearly two decades to know what it felt like to be truly satisfied.
Repeatedly.
Speaking of satisfaction...
He ran his hand along John’s flank, trying to gently rouse him from sleep. Last time he woke the man, he’d had a bit less tactful, and had been told in no uncertain terms that it was a “bit not good” to wake someone by manhandling them into a preferred sexual position, in heat or not.
They’d somehow come to be laying diagonally on the bed, Sherlock spooned up behind the Alpha. They hadn’t bothered with blankets at all--their bodies were working overtime, practically radiating heat like human furnaces. It was nice to be able to just... look at him. All that warm skin, the occasional scar or freckle. His flushed cock, which was soft for now, but Sherlock would soon take care of that.
His fingers settled on John’s hip, and he let his lips tease at the back of his neck. He wondered idly, if their roles were reversed, if he’d be able to avoid sinking his teeth into that delicate skin, tying John to him permanently.
“John?”
“Mmm?” John’s hand came to rest on Sherlock’s, but as far as he could tell, John wasn’t opening his eyes yet.
“I need you again.”
It went without saying--Sherlock was certain John could smell the peaks and valleys of the heat as they came and went. But they’d been having a nice nap, and this new round snuck up on him, rousing him from sleep with a persistent slickness coating his thighs.
“I can just... ride you, if you’d like to try to sleep through it.” Sherlock kept his tone light and joking, but he was completely serious. He couldn’t wait another 82 minutes for John’s sleep cycle to complete; he could already feel the heat pooling between his hips, a waiting emptiness. Neither of them had more than three hours of consecutive sleep since this began, so he could understand if John needed... a respite.
John chuckled and rolled onto his back, eyes half-lidded. “Of course I don’t want to sleep through it, you ridiculous madman. But I do like the sound of you climbing on board.” His cock was already thickening and filling out, despite its overuse in the last day and a half, and Sherlock got up on his knees. He watched John reach for the small plastic case that held his mouthguard, and stopped him.
“Leave it out this time,” he said.
“Is that a good idea?”
“All my ideas are good ideas, John. Do keep up.”
He gave John’s cock a few firm strokes. It was amazing how differently it felt in his hand when the knot was essentially activated by his own pheromones. It was hotter, thicker than it was outside of his heat, and he found himself wanting to get a measuring tape to compare.
His arousal began to trickle down the backs of his thighs. Perhaps experimentation could wait.
What had John been asking him? He stroked the man distractedly for a long moment before remembering.
Damned heat, he thought.
Oh! The guard.
“I’ll be in complete control from up here,” Sherlock added, moving up and straddling John’s hips. “There’s no risk. And...” He pressed the cleft of his arse against John’s ready cock, giving him a little wiggle, a tease of what was in store. John groaned unabashed, making Sherlock’s lips turn up in a wicked smile. “I want to hear you.”
John reached down between their bodies to position himself so Sherlock could slide home.
The way his head flopped back onto the pillow, eyes squeezed tight, once Sherlock’s hips settled was a sight Sherlock was sure would feature in his masterbatory fantasies until the end of time.
Now that the initial burning urgency of early heat had come down to a low simmer, Sherlock found he quite enjoyed savoring the feeling of John inside him. The man was different now than he was outside of heat--there was a possessiveness in every touch that Sherlock wanted to bottle and save for later. John’s fingers were on his hips, not squeezing, not even guiding him, just a present reminder that John was with him. Not to mention the thickening knot at the base of his cock, the sole difference between Alpha and Beta men. As Sherlock gave a twist of his hips, he felt it push impossibly deeper, preparing to bind them together for an indeterminate amount of time. The sole purpose of the knot was to ensure conception--but of course their mutual use of contraceptive pills nullified that risk.
It was nice not to have to worry about babies or bonds or anything but the feeling of the man below him. Sherlock rose up a bit on his knees before sliding back down, giving in to his body’s need to be full.
John’s hand came forward to splay across Sherlock’s stomach for a moment, just barely lingering over the scar he found there before trailing down to take his cock in hand.
“I don’t know how you’d think I could sleep through this.” John smirked at the stutter of Sherlock’s hips when he started to stroke in time with his movements. “You’re a goddamn sight, Sherlock. Is this what you needed?” A swipe of his thumb over the head of Sherlock’s cock spread the wet bead of precome that had gathered there, making Sherlock groan and drop his head back on his shoulders.
“You feel brilliant around me, love,” John said, arching his hips to thrust up weakly. He tried again a few more times, barely gaining ground, until he gave up and just let Sherlock set the pace. “Take what you need, Sherlock. I’m yours. Whatever you need.”
He wanted it to last longer, but being halfway through his heat meant that his body’s stamina had gone out the window with his ability to be coy in bed. He began to move shallowly, trying to encourage the knot to swell by teasing the head of John’s cock with his deepest inner walls. It was all he needed, and combined with John’s expert fingers, he was sure to--
“Fuck, Sherlock, fuck.” John had one hand on Sherlock’s left hip, pulling him down without mercy. The air fought its way from John lungs in rasping, wheezing gasps, unimpeded as it had been in previous couplings. “Beautiful.”
“Almost,” Sherlock gasped. “Almost.” He ground himself down as the knot began to swell hotly just inside his hole, providing him with a satisfying, burning stretch.
“Take it. Take it.” The Alpha bit his lip, possibly in pleasure, possibly to keep himself quiet. He seemed torn between thrusting up into the welcoming heat of his lover’s body or letting Sherlock ride out his pleasure on his own. “God, Sherlock, don’t stop.”
Sherlock’s entire body felt as if he were about to be pushed over the edge, but he was just teetering there, waiting for something. He needed--
The hand that wasn’t stroking Sherlock off reached to tangle their fingers together.
“Come for me, love,” John gasped. “Show me how good I make you feel.”
It wasn’t quite as instantaneous as it probably would’ve been if they’d been in some kind of romantic comedy, but it was a near thing. John’s hand moved on Sherlock’s cock with the confidence of a practiced lover--though it was ultimately the knot expanding completely that drove Sherlock over the edge, filling him and providing perfect pressure in all the places he needed it most.
John’s eyes somehow stayed open through the crashing climax, and Sherlock wondered if they were both documenting it for the future. Something to look back on when the nights grew cold and lonely. Or was he simply living in the moment, unabashedly admiring the way his Omega looked in the throes of passion the same way Sherlock was storing the moment away in his mind palace.
Sherlock leaned forward, careful of the knot still keeping them joined together. The aftershocks were still pulsing through him every few moments, and John stroked his back as they breathed together. He unexpectedly desired nothing more than for the knot to keep them joined together indefinitely--if this tenderness was what he could expect during a shared heat, he was certainly in favor of doing this more often.
It took nearly half an hour for the knot to settle, and by the end of it, Sherlock had decided that being on top wasn’t the best position when one hadn’t had much sleep or rest in the beginning of heat. Best to get that one out of the way early on next time so his legs wouldn’t be quite so straining by the time the knot was ready to release him.
Next time, he thought to himself. Might be advisable to get through one heat without breaking each other before moving onto the next.
Sherlock collapsed onto his back after carefully extricating himself. The emptiness was quick to settle in in John’s wake. It would only be a matter of time before his body was ready to demand more.
He closed his eyes for a moment as John moved closer. The warmth of his body was already something Sherlock craved, but that made sense given that their latest position wasn’t one that encouraged the full-body touching of previous sessions. He scooted himself sideways with the little energy he had left in him, letting John take the hint to get closer, to play the role of the Alpha protector, keeping watch.
John was propped up on an elbow, and his free hand splayed on Sherlock’s waist before moving slowly to his belly. He moved it in a small circle with clear suggestion of what he was imagining, but then said, quietly: “Christ, I bet you were beautiful when you were pregnant.”
Sherlock briefly wondered where this line of thought was coming from, but then remembered the flickering moment when John’s fingers had briefly traced the scar on his abdomen. It wasn’t a far leap to connect the dots that in these moments when John was thinking about bonding, he might also be thinking about a desire for children.
And maybe even a desire for children with Sherlock.
A warm swarm of butterflies took off in his stomach at the thought, not completely unwelcome. He could only hope John couldn’t feel them fluttering away beneath his fingers.
“I was roughly the size of a juvenile Orca,” Sherlock said, remembering how distinctly unsexy pregnancy had felt; how he’d constantly been told how he was glowing and radiant. But even when the hormones had induced a certain level of randiness, he’d wanted nothing to do with himself. Of course, he’d been single at the time, so there was no one to be sexy for. Now, he could imagine himself self-consciously tip-toeing around John to keep the man from seeing his oversized-load of a belly, all while simultaneously craving him. But pregnancy was heavy, his balance was thrown, he’d experienced near-constant nausea--“It was miserable.”
“Boy or girl?” John asked.
Sherlock probably should’ve been impressed that he had successfully avoided this conversation until now. But they’d just shared the most intimate act two people could do together, short of bonding, and he couldn’t exactly pretend that he didn’t want John Watson in his life for as long as the other man would have him.
It made sense, in context of the moment, that John would be curious about this part of Sherlock that he’d kept for himself.
“A girl. She’s three.” And yours, have I mentioned?
“I imagine there’s a story there?”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment. He entwined his fingers with John’s, giving him a squeeze, a signal of Yes, but I’m not ready to tell it.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me yet. I just...” John trailed off, withdrawing his hand to run it through his sand-and-silver hair. He wetted his lips, and Sherlock had learned to differentiate between nervous lip licking and the kind he exhibited in the early stages of arousal. This was the former. There was a long moment of contemplation that wrote itself on John’s face before he came out with it: “I feel like I should tell you that, well, I... also have a child.”
“You--”
John held up his hand to stop the interrogation that had been about to pour from Sherlock’s lips, and it was probably for the best. It wasn’t fair for Sherlock to dive into a line of questioning when he wasn’t even willing to tell John Annabelle’s name.
How? Sherlock wondered. How did I miss this?
There was always something, but it wasn’t usually something so crucial.
“It was an accident. I wasn’t even... involved, actually. Beyond the obvious. There was... a mix-up, when I was...” He gestured to his scar. Sherlock noticed the love bite from earlier directly above it, two very different intentions in the indentations on his skin. He had to drag his eyes back to John’s. “When you sign up as an unbonded Alpha, you have to give them a semen sample. And if you, you know, get into a situation and... die... they’ve got the right to use it as part of the Population Regulation Program.”
John rolled his eyes, and Sherlock tried to keep his breathing even.
There was no reason for John to suspect anything. He just thought he was telling a casual anecdote about an accidental Baby Watson that was out there somewhere, probably getting pushed in a pram or tripping over wobbly feet and skinning knees.
“But when you come out, either by being invalided, like me, or just because your time is up, they’re legally required to give you the sample back so you can dispose of it as you please. Because they can’t... keep it. I had other things on my mind, obviously, so I didn’t even call the office about it until six or seven months ago, but... they told me there had been some kind of computer error. They had me listed as deceased.”
“Your sample had been used.”
John nodded. “Years ago. And I have no way of knowing when, beyond that it was after I got shot. And they won’t tell me, because they have to protect the Omega’s--and the child’s, I guess--confidentiality. Medical records, all that.”
“Have you thought about looking into the system from the surgery?”
John bit his lip, but shook his head. “I mean, of course I’ve thought about it. But I can’t abuse my power like that. I don’t even know what I’d find. The Omega may not have even been able to carry to term. Artificial insemination is tricky.”
“What would you do if you found them?”
Sherlock held his breath.
“Dunno, really,” John replied. “I used to think maybe if it was an unbound Omega, it’d be some kind of meet-cute like in a film. Hi, I’m John Watson, the father of your child, care to ride off into the sunset?” He laughed darkly, shaking his head. “But odds are it was some Alpha-Omega couple with an infertile Alpha. They’re most likely to seek out sperm. It’s almost... better, the not knowing.”
John took a deep breath and moved closer to Sherlock, pulling them together. “Sorry for going all melancholy on you there. I just thought it was something you should know if we’re...” He stopped himself by pressing his face into Sherlock’s neck and taking a deep breath. His eyelashes tickled at the skin below Sherlock’s ear. “Just thought you should know.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Sherlock turned onto his side, letting John take his place as the big spoon.
They probably had another two or three hours before Sherlock’s body would alight again, and while he was sure he should sleep, he imagined he’d be able to think of little else but John Watson and Annabelle Holmes and their golden eyelashes tickling him--and what it would be like to be a proper family.
* * *
“John,” Sherlock said, hefting his duffel bag. He felt uneasy now that it was time to leave. They’d been together regularly literally since the day they’d met, but Sherlock had never spent the night--until suddenly they were living out of each other’s pockets in this tiny bedsit. It felt unnatural to go back out into the real world alone, to return to single parenthood when this man clearly desperately wanted to know the child he had accidentally fathered.
Now that Sherlock could look back at it without the haze of his heat impeding his deductions, he could see the signs: John had been reminded of his unexpected spawn while thinking of Sherlock gone gravid. He clearly wanted children. And even without having to go through pregnancy again, Sherlock had the ability to give him that. He could answer an unanswered question--he could solve John's greatest mystery.
John looked up from where he was collecting the various sheets and pillowcases for cleaning.
“Yeah?”
“Would you--” Sherlock swallowed, pushed through: “Would you like to come by at the weekend? You could--meet Annabelle.”
John smiled at his daughter’s name. “I’d love to.”
* * *
When John arrived on Saturday afternoon, he had just raised his hand to the knocker when Sherlock opened the door.
“Hello, handsome,” John said, tucking the yellow soft toy he’d brought under one arm and reaching for a kiss with the other. Sherlock let himself be drawn in for a chaste peck before pulling away. He stepped past John, closing the door behind him, and turned to face him on the pavement.
John followed him with inquiring his eyes, turning. “Are we not going inside?”
“In a minute.”
“Did you leave your daughter alone in your flat to come down here?”
“Mrs. Hudson is sitting with her. I had... something I needed to tell you, and it was best I did it before you came in.” Sherlock thought that if he had been more of a simpleton, he’d be wringing his hands to release anxious energy. Instead, he held steady, facing John and preparing himself for the worst.
“Sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“Does she not like yellow teddies?” John asked, clearly going for a joke to cut through the tension.
“No, she’ll love it. She’ll... adore you.” Sherlock took a deep breath. He’d vacillated between being blunt and to the point, but John would likely dub that a bit not good. So instead, he started with a disclaimer: “What I’m going to tell you may very well make you walk away and never return, but I ask that you keep in mind that I did what I did out of a sense of protectiveness for both you, and for my daughter.”
John’s face lost the jovial softness and turned curious, the lines growing harsher in concern. “What’s going on, Sherlock?”
“When I was 28 years old, the Mandate required that I have a child--”
“Yes, I’m aware of the Mandate--and the fact that you have a child. Fast-forward, please.”
“My brother’s position within the government had him well-placed to find me an array of potential suitors, but I couldn’t be persuaded. I was determined not to be bound. So he went through some back channels to procure me a donor sample from a deceased serviceman.” The pause was pointed, and Sherlock narrowed his eyes, knowing that John would put the pieces together. He may not have possessed Sherlock’s massive intellect, but he was no imbecile.
John visibly paled, his brows creeping up. “Me.”
“Well, of course you weren’t actually deceased--”
“That’s my child,” John said, jabbing a finger in the air toward Sherlock’s flat. “Upstairs in your flat, with your landlady. You were the Omega who--Sherlock, how--”
How could you keep this from me?
“Understand, John, that I couldn’t just bring you into her life without--”
“Are you sure?”
This gave Sherlock pause. “Sure of what?”
John swallowed, shrugged in something like defeat. “Sure that she’s... mine. If this kind of mix up happened with my sample, it might not’ve been the first time--she could be anyone’s. Are you absolutely certain that she’s--”
“I could tell from your scent the moment I met you--”
“Jesus Christ, Sherlock.”
Sherlock eyed the Alpha, trying to gauge his feelings. He seemed more shocked than anything, and while he was likely frustrated at Sherlock’s secret-keeping, he surely could comprehend that Sherlock couldn’t just... tell him. Right? There were so many risks to factor in--the fact that John could realistically take Annabelle from him just by claiming his parental rights being the biggest.
“I know it’s a lot--”
“No, Sherlock, getting shot is a lot. Being invalided home from a military career is a lot. Finding out the Omega you’ve been sleeping with is secretly raising your child is a bit more than a lot.” John ran his hand through his hair. He turned, took a few steps away, and then returned, pacing: “I thought I was meeting... I thought I was meeting, you know, a potential step-child, I thought maybe you and I--”
Sherlock interrupted him, took one step forward: “I wouldn’t even be introducing you to her if I didn’t think we might--”
“So, what, I passed a test? I got you through your heat satisfactorily, so now you’ll settle--”
“Of course not, John, you know as well as I that we just barely made it through that heat without giving in to a bond!” Sherlock realized their voices were raising incrementally when a woman walking by eyed him, scandalized. He lowered his voice, keeping the intensity: “It’s not a matter of settling. We wanted--we want each other. It was just like in your daydream meet-cute, except this isn’t as clean-cut.”
John stared at him for a long moment, blue eyes unblinking. Sherlock had nothing to compare the situation to; he couldn’t find the emotional clues to piece together what John was going to do next.
“I can’t do this right now. I need--I need to think. I have to go.” He turned away from Sherlock and stopped, just facing Baker Street.
“John, this isn’t her fault--”
John started pacing again for a moment, just a quick back and forth. “I’m not saying I’m never coming back, Sherlock, I just... I can’t to meet her right now, not with my head like this. I need to... I don’t know. Take a walk. Will you be--can I come back later?”
Sherlock nodded, then reached for the teddy. The least he could do was take it inside so John wouldn’t be wandering the streets with a pastel bright bear the size of a small dog. “I’m sure you don’t want to wander through Regent’s Park with that all afternoon, so why don’t I take it inside? I’ll give it to Mrs. Hudson to hold until you come back.”
“I will come back, Sherlock. I need some time to process this. You’ve had... a lot more time than me to wrap your head around this.” He was clenching his fist at his side, but Sherlock wasn’t sure if it was on purpose, or if it was the intermittent tremor making itself known.
“John, just one thing...”
“Mm?”
“You said you came here prepared to meet a potential step-child. You knew where this relationship was heading, even despite the early stages, and you were prepared to raise another Alpha’s child as your own. But she’s not--she’s not another Alpha’s child, John.”
John nodded stiffly, his mouth set in a thin line. And then he turned around and walked away without another word, heading toward Regent’s Park.
The soft teddy in his hands, Sherlock realized, had a yellow and black striped belly--like a bee--and a white bow on its head. Annabelle would love it. As he opened the door, he pressed it to his face, breathing in the scent of the Alpha, which he’d found could calm him down when he was agitated. It’d be good for Annabelle, once John came around, for the soft toy to have his scent. It would help her adjust to his presence in her life, and likely help with the abandonment she could potentially feel from his initial absence.
John just needed to come back.
He left the toy perched at the bottom of the stairs and went back up to the sitting room, where Mrs. Hudson was entertaining his daughter in her lap. The telly was on in the background, playing something with talking ponies, but Annabelle was captivated by a puzzle cube Mycroft had gifted her at her birthday. He could hear the marble inside rolling around as she worked it through the maze.
“Oh, was that not your... friend?” She asked, eyebrows raised in suggestion and concern at the same time.
“He had to leave, but he’ll be back later.” In theory.
Mrs. Hudson was one of the smartest people Sherlock knew, and he assumed that his distress over the whole situation was written on his face. She lifted Annabelle to place her on the couch, depositing her gently with a kiss to her golden curls.
“You occupy yourself with that puzzle for a few minutes, little one. I’m going to get your father a cuppa.”
Annabelle smiled up at her before turning her attention back to the puzzle she held in her small hands. Sherlock watched her rapt concentration as she twisted and turned the cube to get a silver ball from one hole to another. The dress she was wearing--a purple floral pattern with pink and blue flowers covered by a yellow cardigan, all over hot pink tights she’d picked out herself, would’ve been perfect for John’s arrival with the bee teddy. Sherlock could already picture John kneeling down to hand her the toy, the way she’d stare up at him with those big, blue eyes, fascinated by the familiar smell of him even though he was new to her. He wondered if she’d know right away, or if it would take her time to acclimate to him, to trust him.
Something clenched hard in Sherlock’s stomach. Mrs. Hudson grabbed him by the elbow and steered him toward the kitchen, pulling the sliding door partially closed behind her.
“Did the two of you have a little domestic?” she asked. She walked over to the kettle, opening it to check for fingers or charred hair. When she deemed it acceptably clean (honestly, why would he defile his own kettle?) she filled it at the sink before flipping it on. “Is he nervous about meeting her?”
“He wasn’t,” Sherlock responded, then cleared his throat. “I--there was something he needed to know before meeting her.”
“About her Alpha?” Mrs. Hudson gestured for Sherlock to sit, and then started opening cupboards, probably in search of biscuits. Sherlock wasn’t sure they had any in, but he let her look all the same. Sometimes she was magic at making food appear.
“In a sense.”
“Well, if you ask me, he’s lucky you’re letting him into that little girl’s life--and yours. You’ve always been so lonely, Sherlock, I worried--but he’s been good to you, I think?”
“He’s wonderful to me,” Sherlock responded, honest and vulnerable. “I can’t say I’ve been the same to him.”
“Oh, Sherlock, you’re a parent. You’ve got a whole other person to be responsible for. He can’t fault you for wanting to--”
“I kept her from him, Mrs. Hudson.” He was more forceful than he should’ve been to the woman who was currently plying him with tea and biscuits. “And...” Sherlock trailed off as she poured him a cup. “John, the... ‘My gentleman,’” he said, quoting Mrs. Hudson’s own title for him back at her, “he’s not just... mine.”
Mrs. Hudson’s eyes widened, and Sherlock realized how she must’ve interpreted that statement.
“No,” he said, “John isn’t... bound. He’s--as far as I know, I’m the only Omega, and I’d certainly know if there was someone else. I meant that--well. Annabelle is... his.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Hudson clutched the back of the chair she was standing by for a moment, looking back into the sitting room at where Annabelle was flipping over the maze to clear it and start again. “Oh, that sweet dear. But I thought her Alpha was dead?”
“So did I.” Sherlock absentmindedly stirred his tea for something to do. Mrs. Hudson had already added the milk and sugar. He told her the story of catching John’s scent in Regent’s Park, of the file, of the mix-up with John’s sample and getting shot. “I--I met John a few days later, at Bart’s, and I knew it was him, but I needed to suss him out. I couldn’t just bring an Alpha to Baker Street.”
“Of course not, dear. You needed to know him. But you’ve had a rather long courtship, as far as these things go. Are you... sure of him now?” She gave him a sad smile.
“If he comes back.”
“So you told him.”
Sherlock nodded. “He would’ve figured it out as soon as he was in the flat--she smells of him. I needed to tell him before.”
She clicked her tongue at him, giving him a sympathetic glace. “Maybe a bit before that would’ve been more appropriate than when he showed up at your door.”
“Well, yes, but I’ve never claimed to have a strong sense of timing.”
Mrs. Hudson walked around the table and clasped one hand on his shoulder. Her hand clutched him a comforting squeeze as he stared into his teacup. “I think he’ll surprise you.”
“You haven’t even met him. How do you know?”
“You wouldn’t have brought him to meet that sweet girl if he wasn’t a good man, Sherlock Holmes.”
* * *
Sherlock woke to someone stepping on the trick floorboard by the coffee table.
His eyes were open and scanning the flat for danger in an instant--but all that greeted him was John Watson. He blinked away sleep, unsure if he was truly awake or simply having a pleasant dream, but John raised a finger to his lips, motioning to the sleeping toddler on Sherlock’s chest.
“You came back.”
He didn’t know what time it was. Last he remembered, he’d helped Annabelle with her puzzle, fed her dinner, and then settled in to watch some of the mindless telly that was apparently educational for growing minds.
They’d both fallen asleep.
And John had come back.
“Mrs. Hudson let me up,” John said, his voice low. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Annabelle.
Sherlock swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do. Should he wake her? Introduce her to her Alpha? How would he explain who the man was to a three-year-old?
John took a few tentative steps closer, eventually crouching down in the space between the coffee table and the couch. He was holding the bumblebee teddy in one hand, and reached for Annabelle with the other.
“May I?” he asked, his hand lingering just shy of her curly head.
Sherlock nodded.
John’s fingers were gentle, and Annabelle didn’t stir at his touch. A lump rose in Sherlock’s throat at the quiet heaviness of this moment
Of all the words and phrases he knew, he never would’ve expected silence to be the answer.
He carefully began to sit up, knowing that Annabelle probably wouldn’t rouse from her sleep if she was truly down. John dropped the teddy on the coffee table and helped him with her two-and-a-half stone body as she flopped back. Instead of settling her on the couch, Sherlock handed her over to her Alpha, who looked like he’d been knocked over by a lorry when she immediately curled into him, her face pressed to his neck.
John stood, holding her with one hand in her curls and one forearm tucked under her bottom for support. His eyes fell closed as he breathed her in, recognizing the unique combination of their two scents that was strongest at her nape. All Sherlock could do was watch the moment play out.
He looked overwhelmed, but in a good way. Sherlock stood, keeping some space between them so John could continue to revel in the obviously profound moment he was having. There was a bead of moisture at the corner of one eye, and Sherlock, who was typically useless with emotions, was quick to remind himself that John wasn’t sad. There was a quirk at the corner of his mouth, a subtle curve up that told Sherlock he was content, even happy.
One of Annabelle’s little hands came up to clutch at John’s jumper, and both men looked at her closed fist in curious study, as if they could see through his clothes to where the scar was puckered beneath it. There was no way for her to know the significance of the man who held her, nor the scar she’d unconsciously found.
The toddler stirred slightly, mumbling something into John’s neck. Sherlock couldn’t hear it, but he raised an eyebrow when John choked out a laugh. It took John a second to calm himself down, and he was still smiling broadly when their eyes met. Sherlock wasn’t surprised to see that John’s eyes were shining, whether from the emotion or his amusement, he wasn’t sure.
“What did she say?” he asked.
“She said I smell nice.”
Sherlock smiled fondly at the pair of them. Maybe someday he’d tell John and Annabelle the improbable story of a Tuesday afternoon in Regent’s Park when the wind changed. Maybe he could convince John to move in immediately, and they’d become the family Sherlock had never really been sure he wanted, but now craved. Maybe they’d discuss the possibility of more children, of a real bond, of rings and ceremonies and titles.
For all his brain could compute statistics and probability, the most logical outcomes, nothing he knew could help him predict the future, especially when it came to John.
And as he watched John reverently press his lips to Annabelle’s curly blonde head as she slept on in his arms, he decided it might not be so unpleasant to take a step into the unknown if John Watson was by his side.