Sherlock X Reader One Shots || 𝐹𝐿𝑈𝐹𝐹 + 𝑆𝑀𝑈𝑇

A Holmes Family Reunion (Part 3)

The house is full of people but their chatter is made quiet, the libraries and studies converted to make-shift bedrooms, muffled with thick carpets and velvet curtains. Some are maroon, others a mossy green, some chopped short like a bad haircut and others draped to the ground like a ball gown. 

All of the furniture appears to have been rummaged from antique stores, received as heirlooms, or lovingly restored by Mrs Holme's fondness for upholstery. Over-stuffed armchairs, throw-pillow rich chaise lounges, and stained coffee tables slot together to make the most of every inch of space; bookshelves cut to fill any leftover gaps.

Carrying on down the hall, they stop at a door painted bright orange---like the warning-coloured skin of a poisonous frog---but Sherlock doesn't open this one and says seriously, as if pressing the words onto Y/N's memory:

"My great-grandfather is staying in this room. He was in several wars so if you have to go past his room at night creep quietly or he might shoot you."

Y/N opens her mouth to ask if he's joking but he's already stalked away on the tips of his toes in a way that makes her think he really isn't.

The door opposite is painted a grainy, soft sort of pitch black, and Sherlock does open this one, his voice softening with fondness. "When Mycroft and I were little, this was our playroom."

Peering inside, curious to find out what young Mycroft would have 'played' with (a rock tumbler? A tandem electrostatic accelerator? Alevel maths papers?) Y/N is disappointed to find another cushy bedroom, messy with the belongings of a guest who has made herself quite at home.

Presumably Sherlock's aunt Mildred, given the amount of jewellery heaped on the dresser like a dragon's hoard, chaotic, half-finished chalk-paintings in the making taped to the wallpaper, and several plastic tubs labelled 'crickets' stacked in the corner---hopefully for the sake of her pet lizard.

Y/N is so distracted by their chirping she barely realises Sherlock is saying guiltily:

"I was given a bunsen burner for my seventh birthday and..." he runs a finger along the wood of the door and, when he holds it up, it's black with what Y/N realises to not be paint, but charcoal.

...

They come across only one other room that looks as though its caught fire; a craft room several doors back with a circular scorch mark burnt into the ceiling. Sherlock had given little explanation for this except:

"Father used to be very interested in rockets."

Deceptively large, the cottage must continue some way into the woodlands because most of the bedrooms are wide enough to boast cramped ensuites cut into the thick stone walls. The sunlight fades into shadow as they near the cooler side of the cottage, the rooms becoming shaded by trees.

The window at the front is mirrored by an identical window at the back, this one not looking out over farmland, but into the woods, the thick branch of an oak tapping its leafy fingers against the pane. A cold breeze seeps between the window frame, carrying in the earthy smell of tree sap and fallen leaves.

"A cat from down the road visits sometimes, so we leave this window open," Sherlock explains, gesturing to a hand-made clay dish being used to wedge the window ajar.

It's painted with splotchy paw prints, fresh water making the glaze shiny.

"What's the cat's name?" Y/N asks, unable to decipher the bowl's lettering.

"We call her Eggs."

"Why?"

"She likes eggs."

Through the window, Y/N scans the foliage for an egg-loving cat's piercing round eyes hopefully, but nothing but a cooing wood pigeon gazes back at her. Turning back to the hallway she notices something.

In the shadow of the forest, a door they hadn't visited is squashed so close to the stairs one may be in danger of tumbling down them should they need to visit the loo in the night.

Y/N hadn't noticed it as they'd passed because it's the only one stripped of lively, eccentric paint and returned to its naked, woody brown. She isn't surprised when Sherlock answers her unvoiced question:

"Oh, that's Mycroft's room."

"Did we forget it? Or can't we go in?"

"We can. It's just boring so I left it out."

When Y/N insists she still wants to see it, Sherlock sighs but knocks on the door all the same. He hadn't done this to the other rooms, just strode straight inside, but he waits a good few seconds before slowly edging it open.

Sherlock's bedroom may have been converted into a guest bedroom, but Mycroft was apparently less compliant; peeking round the door jamb, Y/N finds herself transported back to a home office from the eighties.

There is a bed, a single, thin mattress (the rest of the room given up to accommodate an expansive oak desk), the crease-free duvet and pillow a dignified, formal grey. They match the uniform paint on the walls, the bed made so tightly it's a wonder anyone can get back into it at nightfall.

On evenly spaced shelves, numerous books stand like soldiers in alphabetical order, every pencil on the desk sharpened to a point and assigned to a specific pot according to its line weight. The posters, so straight they must have been measured with a spirit level, are not of films or singers he admired as a youth, but his own passions: the flags of every country, prints of paintings by old men who only ever painted in the colour brown, and dizzyingly detailed---now outdated---maps of London; the city he apparently planned to make his home since childhood.

Everything smells heavily of lemon Pledge.

From the ceiling hangs the only sign that a child might have resided within; several Airfix model aeroplanes dangling from fishing wire, their paint so tidy it could have been brushed on by a machine.

Y/N points to a filing cabinet, Mycroft's computer-like, no-nonsense handwriting labelling the first draw 'A--F' and the last 'V--Z'. Nudging Sherlock with her elbow:

"I dare you to move something from 'M' and put it in 'G'." 

He looks at Y/N very seriously, and the smile disappears from her face. "He'd have an aneurysm."

"Since when does that bother you?"

"Since Mother said no fighting in the house."

"Surely he wouldn't notice if just one moved?" She catches his unchanging expression and sighs. "Yeah, he definitely would."

Softly, as if the very air might blow a sheet of ruled A4 on the immaculate desk askew, they shut the door.