#whatever thoughts I've had of a very old au about a marine biologist and an astronaut is for me to suddenly ponder again | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vateacancameos · 7 years ago

Text

I've Never Met Anybody Who Wasn't Important

I’m watching Doctor Who’s A Christmas Carol, and it reminded me that I wrote this thing. So I’m reposting it. :)

Based on the following prompt: Couples receive “parent points”, which they can use to purchase their children. Most parents wait for a few thousand, but you chose to buy the cheaper, 100 point child.

John didn’t intentionally set out to be a parent. As a middle-class, white, supposedly heterosexual man, he had vaguely expected that someday he’d find a woman to marry and have children with, but then war had happened, and then Sherlock after that, and so vague imaginings of a white picket fence, a spouse, and 2.5 children go out the window. But before those events, John had done the young, male, middle-class thing and taken the parenting courses at university in order to start earning points. No decent man came to a marriage empty-handed. It just wasn’t on.

Between war fighting and crime fighting, those points languish. John thinks of them occasionally, but more in a “Oh, look at how my life has changed,” self-deprecating way, and less of a “my life means nothing without children” way.

He isn’t sure what Sherlock’s thoughts on children are. He always puts on the airs of someone who doesn’t care for them and doesn’t know what to do with them, but he actually gets on with them quite well on an individual basis. He knows how to talk to them. John might know the doctorly, comforting thing to say to a child, but Sherlock can hold a conversation with them and show an interest in their interests.

So it isn’t terribly shocking when Jenny—the six-year-old only witness to a robbery—and Sherlock have a ten-minute conversation after they interview her. Everyone had discounted her as a witness, since she is just a 100-point child, and so young at that. But Sherlock knows a good source when he sees one and had nagged Greg until they could schedule an interview with the young girl.

What is shocking is how the young girl stays in Sherlock’s mind after the case is solved. The first few times Sherlock brings her up are natural enough, mentions of how her testimony had saved an innocent man’s life and implicated a guilty one’s. Even a fifteen-minute rant on how the nurseries had wrongly placed her in a 100-point nursery, given her intelligence and insight (she is terribly shy and rarely speaks, so her placement isn’t all that surprising), and the subsequent twenty-minute rant on the nursery system in general aren’t out of the norm for Sherlock.

It’s the little mentions after that that start to raise red flags.

After John makes hot cocoa one wintery evening: “Did you know Jenny’s greatest wish is to try hot cocoa?” “Oh, that’s…good to know.”

During a case involving smuggled octopi at the aquarium: “Jenny wants to be a marine biologist some day. She doesn’t know they’re called that, because those idiots at the nursery won’t give her access to anything useful, but she said she wants to be a fish doctor when she grows up.” “I hope she gets to realize her dreams?” “Quite.”

While watching a documentary on bees. “I think Jenny would enjoy apiology. Very different from marine biology, I know, but bees are terribly fascinating. I think the subject would suit her better.” “Umm, Sherlock. Maybe—” “Hush, John, they’re going into social dynamics.” “Right.”

While doing the washing up after dinner. “Do you think Jenny likes peas? I think she’d like this thing with the peas. Thank you, John, it was delicious.” “Sherlock, we need to—” Beep. “Oh, good. Lestrade is finally deigning to bring us on for the Smythe murders. Come along, John!” Sigh. “Coming.”

On Christmas night: “D’you know that in nine hundred years of time and space, I've never met anybody who wasn't important before?”

Something in John knows exactly where Sherlock’s mind goes as the Doctor says these words during the Christmas special, he knows exactly whose face comes to his best friend’s mind. He pauses the program and turns to Sherlock, ready to barrel through with a “we need to talk,” no matter how Sherlock tries to change the subject. But before a word falls from his lips, he sees Sherlock’s face, and all thoughts of helping his friend get rid of his current fixation leave John’s mind.

This is not just a phase or obsession. Something about Jenny latched onto Sherlock, and John doesn’t know that the little girl will ever really leave Sherlock’s mind.

Without really thinking about the words, but knowing this is the right decision, John finds himself saying, “I earned a few points in my uni days. Not much, but she is a 100-pointer, so I think we can manage.”

The look of hope and love and happiness on Sherlock’s face is enough for John to know he’s said the right thing. Of course, heaven forfend Sherlock show positive feelings or sentiment, so his reply of “When was the last time you checked your points? I’m a well-off detective and you’re a former army doctor. Between the two of us, we could have hundreds of children if we wanted.”

John laughs. “I think just the one will do for now.”

Sherlock gives him a small, almost shy smile. “For now.”

They re-watch the episode once Jenny is part of the household. Sherlock had rolled his eyes and sighed when John had suggested it, but John knows he’s secretly pleased. Even when Jenny is fascinated by the flying fish and seems not to give two figs when Sherlock suggests bees as a superior subject.

John didn’t intentionally set out to be a parent, but there’s no denying that he’s happy now that he is one.

---

The Doctor Who episode they’re watching is “A Christmas Carol” from 2010, which is my favorite DW Christmas episode and the one I’m watching now. :) That means this could technically take place just under a year after J&S have met. But you can pretend their universe’s DW got a later start than ours did, and so this could take place at some later time.

#sherlock #christmas #doctor who #parentlock #ficlet #meagan writes

5 notes · View notes