Sadie: That’s a very good point. John would fight tooth and nail to keep that ‘tough guy’ exterior up around Mycroft…his is not a baby, should anyone need to be reminded. But, Sherlock *does* look awfully content to sit in his older brother’s lap. And Mycroft, while still being his normal stuffy, proper self, doesn’t sound as nearly condescending as he usually does. And John is starting to feel a bit left out.
“No!” John stomped his foot for emphasis. “G’een in mines! Gimme it!” John made to grab the crayon but found himself being lifted and plopped on his bottom.
“Jawn has enough green crayons. If he needs the one that Sherlock is using, he can trade one of his other green crayons for it.” Mycroft said, hoping to head off a wobbler. Years of diplomatic work was no match for dealing with two whingy toddlers.
“Nonononono!” John’s heels thumping on the floor. “Is my g’een c’ayons!”
“What are you going to draw, Jawn?” Mycroft sat on the sofa and pulled a sheet of paper from the stack.
“A Hulk.” John sulked.
“My co’ders?” Sherlock nudged the crayon tub closer to his older brother, but keeping his green crayon cradled to his chest.
“We can put your pit’cher on our f’idge, too.” John kept his green crayons in his lap, fiddling with them, but his attention had turned back to the film, the final fight sequence playing on the screen.
“Perhaps. What should I draw?”
Sadie:
“Gol’fish,” Sherlock said, wrinkling his nose the same way he had earlier.
“That was cute exactly once,” Mycroft replied (although he could possibly be coerced into saying it was cute this time, too) and reached out to pinch the little detective’s cheek, making him squeal and fall to the side. “Besides, I thought that’s what you were drawing.”
“Uh-huh!” Sherlock sat up and dug into the pile of crayons again, swishing his hands around to make them rattle and clack against one another.
“That’s a bit unnecessary, lad.” Mycroft took his little brother’s wrist and held it still after noticing the annoyed look John had shot them. Seems that someone was still a mite touchy about missing a green crayon. “So, how do they calm the Hulk down after a fight? Does he stay green forever?” he asked, and picked out a brown crayon for himself, then a red one.
“Singin’” John mumbled, his eyes fixed on the screen.
“Music can be very soothing.” Mycroft began to sketch out his drawing. “Do they say what song?”
“No, jus a lullaby.”
Sherlock tugged on his brothers sleeve. “My’coff! This one is g’een! Hulk fish! Look, My’coff!” Sherlock wiggled in place, immensely pleased by the scribbled green fish on his paper.
“That’s lovely. Can you draw some more fish? They like to live in big groups called schools.”
“Sc’oo’s.” Sherlock nodded seriously as he began to draw more fish in neon orange.
“Do you know lots of songs?”
“Quite a few. Mummy doesn’t have much of a singing voice, but she loved to sing when we were small.”
“Ouch! My ears!” Sherlock giggled over his own joke, ignoring the pointed look Mycroft sent him.
“I only know a few. I keep trying to learn more a’cause it helps Sherlock sleep.
Sadie:
Mycroft smiled to himself. “It always did. I mostly hum, myself…Sherlock’s awfully lucky he has someone who can carry a tune now.”
John blushed and looked down at his page, where he’d barely done a few lines of colour, but it was obvious he was a very proud little man at that point. “Not that good,” he muttered, trying to pass it off as no big deal.
“Uh-HUH!” Sherlock protested. “I y’ike it when Jawn sing!”
“Well, if Sherlock said it, it must be true.” Mycroft finished the darker outline of his big, chocolate cake and started shading in the frosting, saving the big cherries on top for last; he knew both boys would get a kick out of it and would make cake-jokes for ages after, but he found that he didn’t mind the thought.
“Jawn sing now?”
John looked up, surprised, and saw Sherlock watching him from across the table with those big, bright eyes of his, orange crayon still poised above his picture. John glanced at Mycroft out of the corner of his eye and quickly shook his head; “No, not now.”
Sherlock’s face fell into one of genuine disappointment. “P’ease?! Jawn sing?!”
“Uh-uh.”
Sherlock’s bottom lip stuck out, and just when Mycroft thought he was in for another squall of a tantrum, his little brother surprised both of them by putting his green crayon on the table and pushing it over to John. “…P’ease?”
John stared at Sherlock, wide eyed before gently picking up the crayon and cradling it to his chest. John licked his lips and began. “If I had words to make a day for you…” John paused to glance nervously at Mycroft before going on. “I’d sing you a morning golden and true.”
Sherlock had his head tipped to the side, smiling softly. Mycroft glanced between them before stealthily pulling his phone from his pocket; this was to precious to not try and save.
“I would make this day last for all time, then fill the night deep in moonshine.” John smiled into his lap as Sherlock hummed along as he moved through the verse one more time.
“Again, Jawn. P’ease?” Sherlock begged, slowly opening his eyes that had drifted shut.
“You’ll fall asleep.”
“Not s’eeping, Jawn! Listening!” Sherlock tried to scowl around a yawn, but failed.
Mycroft had secreted his phone back into his pocket, the video hidden inside an encrypted file, just in case tiny hands (very large hands, actually…) found his phone. “That’s a beautiful lullaby, Jawn.” Mycroft picked up his crayon to put the finishing touches on the frosting on his cake.
Sadie:
Sherlock quickly rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand, grumpy that he hadn’t gotten a second song, but that was overridden by John having picked one of his favorites. “What My doing?” he asked, abandoning his school of mostly-orange fish and their one green friend to climb up onto the couch and bulldoze his way into Mycroft’s lap, where he settled and stuck his thumb in his mouth.
“Colouring, like you both asked me to,” Mycroft grunted as he turned his head to avoid getting a mouthful of curly hair.
“What co’doring?” Sherlock asked, tilting his head back to peer up at Mycroft, chewing on his thumb.
“Look and see for yourself, nosy.”
‘Nosy’ Little Sherlock wrinkled his own nose at his brother and looked down at the picture like Mycroft asked. “Cake!” he babbled excitedly, picking it up.
“Well, I wasn’t done with it yet.”
“Y’ook, Jawn! My’coff cake!”
John looked up and grinned; “It looks like a choc’late mountain!”
“Does it? I’ve never seen a three-tiered mountain with cherries on top.”
“You should add’a choc’ate snowman! With a head fer’a cherry!”
“…A head for a cherry?”
John snorted; “You know what I meant, My’coff!”
“You sound like Sherlock.”
John flashed him a toothy grin before going back to his drawing.
“What dat means, My’coff?” Sherlock frowned, gently patting his older brothers cheek.
Mycroft shook his head, not willing to upset the peace they’d found. “Would you like to help me finish coloring my picture?”
“Co’doring My pit’cher?!”
“I wanna help! I can help!” John scrambled up and around the end of the table until he was kneeling opposite Mycroft, green crayon poised for action.
“Yes, Jawn can help me as well.” Mycroft eased the baby off his lap and back onto the floor. “Can you create the snowman with the head cherry?”
John rolled his eyes before picking up a pink crayon to begin painstakingly drawing a cherry.
“I d’aw pish?” Sherlock slurred around his thumb.
“Are there fish on a chocolate mountain?”
“Ye’th!”
“Oh, no.” John whispered. “I’m so sorry, My’coff.” The little doctor sounded near tears.
“What’s wrong, Jawn?”
Jawn leaned away from the table, showing off the part of the picture he’d been working on. The green crayons he’d been holding to his chest had left scribbles on the corner of the paper when he’d been drawing the cherry.
“I broke it.”
Sadie:
“You didn’t break anything. Grass grows around the base of mountains.”
“But that’s the sky!”
“And that’s a chocolate cake for a mountain. We’re not going for realism, lad…we can have a green sky, along with fish, and an army of cherry snowmen.”
Jawn looked as if he wanted ever so much for that to be true, but he still needed to be convinced. “…Really?” he asked, chewing on the end of the pink crayon.
Mycroft moved his hand away;“ Don’t do that, you’ll turn your teeth pink. And yes, really. Finish up the green sky, and Sherlock can add more fish.”
Sherlock perked up at the sound of his name. “Pink tee’f? I see?” he said, reaching for John’s mouth.
Well, that was a disaster waiting to happen. “No, no pink teeth,” Mycroft said, taking him around the waist and sitting him back down on his bottom.
“I see!”
“There’s nothing to see; colour your fish.”
“But I wan’ seeeeeee!” Sherlock whined, and kept sinking down further into the floor.
Mycroft sighed; “Jawn, smile at Sherlock so he can see that you don’t have pink teeth.”
Sadie & Mo's Boutique 