Chapter Text
"Wait, John. Don't bring that upstairs." Sherlock stepped onto the landing outside his flat and gestured at the cardboard box in John's arms. "Just put it here, in the living room." He moved aside to allow John space to pass through the door.
John shifted his hold on the box and frowned down at it. "It's Rosie's toys."
"Yes, I see that." Sherlock flicked his eyes briefly to the word "Toys" that was clearly printed in a child's uneven hand on the side of the box, then returned his gaze to John's face. "No reason to bring it upstairs when it's only a matter of time before everything in it migrates down here anyway. Might as well save yourself the work of carrying it any further."
John let out a long sigh. "There are Legos," he warned, but he brought the box into the flat and dropped it in the corner of the room, next to the small desk and chair that Rosie had been using for class ever since her school had gone remote last month.
Sherlock closed the door, then immediately saw the problem. "She'll want to play with the toys while she's supposed to be paying attention to her schoolwork." He should have realized that sooner; he'd been the one home with her every day while John was at work.
"Yeah. But we've got the weekend to figure it out. I'm done hauling boxes around for now." John walked across the room and dropped into his armchair with another sigh, though this one was clearly one of relief.
Sherlock glanced once more at Rosie's little home-school corner, then turned to examine John, who had closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the chair. Understandable. He had done most of the heavy lifting of the move today. Sherlock had tried to do his fair share, but ended up spending most of the day wrangling Rosie, who was also eager to help but tended to create more chaos with her efforts. Hiring movers would have been the obvious solution, of course, but he and John agreed it was not a feasible option in the midst of a pandemic.
He crossed the room and gave John's shoulder a brief pat. He'd learned the perfect amount of force and contact he was allowed to use in touching him, to maintain the fiction that his feelings were that of friendship and nothing more. "You have done a lot today. Take a break for a while. I'll finish helping Rosie set up her room, and order something for us to eat." It was late for lunch and early for dinner, but he knew he wasn't the only one who'd neglected food today, amid the tumult of the move.
John opened his eyes. "Thought we agreed we weren't going to get takeaway for every meal."
"We won't. This is a special occasion." He stepped back from the chair, unable to keep a smile off his face, knowing that when John got up, it wouldn't be because it was time for him to leave. He lived here now. Again. Finally. It wasn't everything Sherlock had ever wanted—John would still be sleeping upstairs, not next to Sherlock in his bed—but it was still very, very good. Nearly perfect. He exhaled, letting his shoulders sag as a tension that had lived in him for years began to dissolve. "Yes, we're celebrating today. Pizza, I think, so Rosie will eat it without a fuss."
John opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Rosie came flying out of the kitchen, a half-eaten biscuit in her hand. "Pizza!" she exclaimed.
"Whoa, whoa." John twisted around in his chair to look at her. "Back into the kitchen with that. You're getting crumbs everywhere."
"No, I'm not." Rosie stood still at the edge of the rug, one hand cupped beneath her chin as she gnawed at the biscuit, a heart-shaped monstrosity covered in pink icing, though Valentine's Day was still a week away.
"Yes, you are. Just because we live here now doesn't mean you get to make a mess."
"Sherlock lives here and he makes lots of messes!"
"Not food messes," Sherlock said. He strode into the kitchen, plucked a napkin from the pile on the table, then returned to the living room to hand it to Rosie. "And your father always makes me clean up all my messes when I'm done with them." He shot a glance at John to ensure that they would have a united front, even if it meant bending the truth a bit.
John shook his head, biting at his lip in an obvious attempt not to laugh. "Where'd you get that, anyway? We still haven't had any lunch."
"Granny Hudson gave it to me. She said I must be hungry from all the work I'm doing."
"All the work you're doing?" John raised his eyebrows in exaggerated shock. "How many boxes have you carried upstairs?"
"I did lots of unpacking!"
"Hmm." John crossed his arms over his chest, then leaned towards Rosie, face softening into a grin. "I think Sherlock and I deserve biscuits, too. We've all done a lot of work today."
"You can have some, too!" Rosie ran back into the kitchen and returned a moment later, walking slowly with a platter clasped between her two small hands. A pile of heart-shaped biscuits had been artistically arranged on the platter, clearly the work of Mrs. Hudson.
John reached out and took a biscuit from the top of the stack. "Maybe we can save the pizza for later tonight. And then tomorrow we'll start cooking and eating healthier." He looked up at Sherlock as he took a bite of the biscuit.
"Yes." Sherlock nodded, trying not to stare too openly at John's lips and throat as he chewed and swallowed. He cut his gaze to Rosie, instead, who lifted the plate of biscuits towards him.
"Thank you," he told her, and took the plate to set it down on the desk. They looked a bit too sweet for his taste, and that was quite an accomplishment. "Come here, you have icing all over yourself." He knelt down in front of her and used the napkin she'd abandoned earlier to wipe her face clean. "There you go. See? I'm very good at cleaning up messes."
Rosie laughed and threw her arms around his neck; he hoped he'd truly cleaned everything off her face. "I'm not a mess," she said.
"No, you're right. You're not. You're a wonderful little girl who lives in my house now, aren't you?" He hugged her back, then let go and looked over at John, who was watching them, clearly every bit as pleased with the situation as Sherlock himself was.
They stared at each other for a moment, then John smiled and leaned back in his chair, hands spread across the arm rests. "We did it, Rosie. We're moved in." His gaze passed over her and Sherlock again, then he turned away, towards the fireplace. "I'm going to start a fire, so we can be cozy and warm in our new home. How does that sound?"
"Yay! I want to be cozy and warm!" Rosie skipped away from Sherlock's reach, climbing into his chair as John squatted down and began to arrange logs and kindling in the fireplace.
Sherlock stepped back, silently watching the two of them interact. A fire was an excellent idea, but really not necessary, in his opinion. He was already much warmer and cozier than he had been in a long, long time.