Sadie:
“Sherlock?”
There was no answer.
John looked up from his phone; there were few reasons why Sherlock went completely silent, and as they’d not had a particularly challenging case to keep the detective occupied in quite some time, John tried the other reason-“…did you go Little?”
Sherlock, who was sitting on the floor with his back to John (and had gone totally silent awhile ago, hence John’s question), gave no answer.
John tried again. “…Are you tiny?”
This time, Sherlock turned to look over his shoulder…
…and John saw that he was sucking on his bottom lip.
John put his phone aside and grinned. “Oh God, tell me that you’re tiny.”
A shy, half-crooked smile slowly spread across Sherlock’s face.
John clapped his hands and barked out a laugh. “Ha, yes! I’ve been wait–no, you stay right there, tiny!” He struggled to get out of his chair while trying not to trip over his own feet, and finally succeeded in heaving himself up. “You stay right there!” he said, nearly giddy with excitement as he headed for their bedroom. “Daddy has a surprise for you!”
Oh, did he ever have a surprise. John opened their closet and pulled out the small stepstool (that he begrudgingly used after Sherlock began hiding things up on the top shelf) and found the box that he had hid up there in the back corner a few months ago, just for Sherlock’s next ‘tiny’ day.
…It had been far, far too long since Sherlock’s last ‘tiny’ day.
But, anyway. John hauled the box back down the hall, where the now-tiny detective was still sitting on the floor of the sitting room, sucking his fingers as he craned his neck to look for Daddy. His eyes grew big as he saw the box in John’s arms, and bigger still when the box was placed on the floor directly in front of him.
“That,” John said, beaming from ear to ear, “Is for you.”
Sherlock stared at the box, with it’s brightly colored pictures…namely the one of the smiling infant on it’s belly, laying on a mat.
He placed his hands on top of the box and tilted it towards him, then looked up at John, who was still grinning like an idiot.
“Yeah, you excited?” he said, and knelt down. “Here, let’s get it open!”
“D’ah!” Sherlock agreed as he sat back on his heels and watched John pop the tape that had it sealed, and lifted the lid.
No sooner that he had it open, Sherlock was leaning over with his nose in it, peering at what was inside. John laughed; “You’ve gotta let me get it out of the box first, nosey,” he said, and booped the tip of Sherlock’s nose.
Sherlock giggled and sat back again, rubbing his nose with the flat of his hand. “Nuh-uh!
“Yes-huh.” John reached into the box and came up with a plastic wrapped item that looked like a rolled sleeping bag.
Sherlock put his hand down and cocked his head to the side, staring at it. “D’ah?”
“You’ll see.” Eager to see the reaction to his present, John bit down and tore the plastic away with his teeth, and was delighted with the little gasp of surprise from the tiny detective when he finally unfurled the big play-mat he’d picked out.
A sensory play-mat, the box said. It was decorated like the overhead view of a park, complete with people, benches, a playground, and even a pond that had a clear plastic film over it, with actual water and rubber goldfish that squished around when you pressed it.
“What’dya think?” he asked, as if the open-mouth, wide-eyed epxression on his little one’s face didn’t say it all. “You wan’na play with it, or stare at it?”
Sherlock clapped and bounced on his bottom. “D’AH D’AH!”
John laughed again…chalk this up as a complete success. “Alright, scoot over so we can spread it out!”
The instant John had it laid out on the floor in all of it’s noise-making, squishy glory, Sherlock pounced on it…he crawled around giggling and pressing things, squealing with delight at each surprise he found, like the birds in the tree that chirped, or the man playing frisbee with his dog that barked, or the patch of wildflowers that crinkled and smelled a bit like light perfume when you put your nose to them.
And then, Sherlock found the pond.
“D’ah! D’ah-d’ah-d’ah-d’ah!” he babbled as he squished the fish around under the plastic, trying to catch them. He finally got tired of using his finger and having the rubber buggers slip away each time, and with one last, victorious-sounding “D’ah!”, he squished down on it with both hands…
…and then thing croaked.
Both of them were surprised, even John…neither of them had noticed the big, googly-eyed frog sitting on a log just to one side of the pond until Sherlock had hit the sensor in it. And unlike the frog, it wasn’t a cute little ‘ribbit-ribbit’ sort of croak…it was more like the frog had been hitting the bottle all night and was revisiting his dinner on the outer wall of the pub. A real ugly, belching sort-of croak.
And did he mention that it was loud? And that it repeated three times before shutting off?
Sherlock had startled back and sat up on his knees, his hands in the air, and looked around at the mat as he hadn’t known exactly what he’d touched to make that horrible noise, then looked up at John…and started to cry.
“Oh, oh no!” John said as he watched Sherlock’s little face crumble and reach for him. “No, sweetheart, it’s okay! It was just a noise!”
Well, yes, it was ‘just a noise’, but it had been a ghastly one! And ho knew what other ugly noises were left?! Tears spilled out of Sherlock’s eyes and he kept reaching for John, not wanting to move or press anything else.
John sat down on the coffee table next to him…he knew he shouldn’t laugh, not when Sherlock was upset and in tears, but God…this was too damned cute. The whole thing.”Awww, bumble,” he chuckled, and pulled Sherlock off of the mat and into a hug. “Poor baby,” he said, pressing the baby’s head to his shoulder as he cried, and petting him. “It’s okay, I promise!”
Sherlock sat up and turned back to look at the mat, still snivelling and hitching.
“You want to get back on and try again?”
Sherlock turned and re-attached himself to the crook of John’s neck with a wail;“Noooooooooo!”
Oh, my God…this was too precious! John shouldn’t be enjoying himself this much. “Shhh-sh-sh,” he soothed, patting Sherlock’s back. “What if we fix it, hm?”
‘F-f-fi’ss, fi’ss’i’d?” Sherlock snuffled.
“Yeah…Daddy can take out the bad noise and ask Nana to patch it. Does that sound better?” John kissed the side of his head…well, the part the he could reach.
“B’ah noi’?”
“Yeah, no more bad noise.”
Sherlock sniffled wetly in John’s ear, then sat up and stared down at the mat, while his thumb made it’s way into his mouth. “…’kay,” he said quietly, his thumb slurring his words.
John kissed his wet cheek, then gently brush the tears away with his hand.”Sweet boy. Let’s get you into a nappy, after a scare like that.”
Sherlock nodded. “Na’bby.”
‘So,’ John thought…maybe this hadn’t been a complete success.
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