Okay imagine John and Sherlock are still pining for each other but John is living at 221b again with a child that might or might not be biologically his. He gives his three year old daughter a kiss and she asks “why did you kiss me?” and John says “Because I love you and I wanted to show you” and then she says “Then why don’t you ever kiss Sherlock?”
And John starts sweating as she starts throwing a tantrum that will only end if he kisses Sherlock.
John brushes Rosie’s thin, blonde curls off her forehead and
presses his lips between her eyes. She smiles as he pulls back and tucks another stray curl behind her ears.
“Daddy?” she asks, laying back and allowing him to pull the
covers up to her chin.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Why do you kiss me?”
John chuckles warmly. “Because, my darling, I love you and
want to show you.”
As she settles into her blankets, a crease forms where her eyebrows are furrowed in thought, an expression she no doubt
picked up from Sherlock. John’s heart warms in the way it only ever does when
he sees Sherlock’s traits shining through in his little girl.
“Daddy?”
“Hm?”
“If you kiss me because you love me, then why don’t you ever
kiss Sherlock?”
John’s breath catches in his throat as his insides freeze.
Of all the things he expected to come out of his daughter’s mouth just now,
that was certainly not one of them.
“What-”
“Because you love Sherlock, right?” she stated more than
asked, as if pointing out that the sun rises every morning.
“I … c-certainly l-love -”
“And he loves you too?”
“He … I don’t -”
“Then why don’t you?” she persisted, an irritated whine creeping
into her voice as her bottom lip jutted out.
“Rosie, honey …”
“WHY NOT, DADDY?” she wailed.
“Rosie!” John prepared to raise his voice as well, sensing
one of her world-famous tantrums coming along.
“That’s not fair to him!! How will he know that you love him
too if you never kiss him goodnight?!”
“Rosie, hush right now.”
“NOT FAIR!! And it’s not very nice, Daddy!!”
“I’m going to count to thr -”
“NOT NICE!! WHY WON’T YOU TELL ME!”
John reached out to console his distraught daughter but was
met with the world’s most Sherlock-esque pout and an angry pair of crossed arms.
“Rosie-”
“NO!!”
“Everything alright up here?” came Sherlock’s familiar voice
at the door.
Dear god … John
thought, panic rising and sweat pooling at his temple. He could not have arrived to help at a worse
time.
“She’s fine. She’s just having a -”
“How come Daddy never kisses you?!” Rosie demanded.
And there
it was. John pinched the bridge of his nose. Although his eyes were
tightly shut, he could feel Sherlock’s questioning stare at the back of his
neck. Time seemed frozen in that moment, as neither of them dared move first.
“Why doesn’t he … kiss me?” His breath caught almost unnoticeably
on the ‘k.’
“Ignore her. Rosie you need to go to sleep.”
“But you said you love him!!” I swear to f- “You need to kiss Sherlock goodnight too. It’s only fair,
Daddy.”
John finally looked at his daughter. Rosie had that look in her
eyes that said she would sit there all night with her arms crossed at him until
she got what she wanted. Behind him, he heard
Sherlock awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot in the doorway, likely
regretting he ever came upstairs. John
finally exhaled in exhaustion, not wanting to deal with Rosie’s attitude any
longer.
“You want me to kiss Sherlock goodnight?” She simply cocked
her head in response, her eyebrows still furrowed together. “Fine. Sherlock,
come here.”
His stomach churned and he hoped to god that Sherlock would
bear this with him in good spirit. The last thing he wanted to do was make him uncomfortable. Or worse, damage their only
recently repaired relationship.
He finally turned to look at his flat mate and best friend,
who seemed flushed and frozen to the spot. God, please
Sherlock, just do this for me- for her. John stood and tugged on his sleeve, leading him to the side of Rosie’s bed, where she stared up at them in
expectation.
He gave Rosie a pointed look as if to say ‘happy?’ before turning
to Sherlock. Of all the times he imagined something like this happening, it was
never in this context. His stomach flipped again as he leaned up on
his tip-toes and pecked a quick, chaste kiss to Sherlock’s cheek.
Immediately, he felt his face heat up to an alarming
temperature, butterflies swarming in his stomach. Glancing up, he saw
that Sherlock seemed to be malfunctioning. He hadn’t moved an inch aside from his wildly fluttering eyelashes.
John relaxed and grinned. “Happy?” he said to
Rosie. She uncrossed her arms, but the line of confusion remained fixed on her
forehead. He pulled the sheets back up around her, congratulating himself on his
handling of the situation. It went much smoother than he thought. As soon as
Sherlock came to his senses, all would be back to normal. Now if he could just
tuck Rosie in …
“But Daddy …” Oh
Christ, what now. “That’s not how
you kiss me goodnight.” Dread settled again in the pit of John’s stomach.
“John,” came Sherlock’s voice, sounding small and vulnerable.
“It’s alright.” John released another exhausted breath and stood again. The
nervousness he felt last time wasn’t there anymore. This time there was an
entirely new tension present as he approached Sherlock.
He slowly reached up and cupped the back of Sherlock’s neck,
pulling him down. Sherlock’s eyes never left his as he pushed a dark curl out
of the way and tenderly pressed his lips to his forehead. An electric charge seemed to buzz through him at the contact. He lingered just a
bit too long, feeling Sherlock tremble slightly beneath the touch. When he pulled away, Sherlock’s eyes bore
into him with new understanding. The corner of John’s lip twitched up in
response.
They stayed like that, noses inches from touching, John’s fingers
threading into his nape curls until Rosie spoke up.
“There. Now Sherlock knows you love him too. Daddy, can you
turn the lamp off please?” John could hear the satisfied smile in her voice before
looking. She closed her eyes and nestled into the mattress as he turned the
lamp off, leaving only her ballerina nightlight to illuminate the room. As he retreated, he gently took Sherlock’s hand and led him out, closing the door behind
them.
They stood outside looking at their feet for what seemed
like several minutes. Finally, John chuckled and ran his hand through his hair.
“Look Sherlock, sorry about-” he started, but was cut off by
Sherlock leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to his hairline.
“I love you too, John” his voice rumbled just between them,
a playful twinkle in his watering eyes.
His grin stretching wide and his heart swelling, John tugged
his pajama shirt back down to press their lips together. After a moment of shock
adjustment Sherlock stepped in closer and timidly gripped his biceps. John returned
his hand to its previous place in his nape curls and placed the other one on
his cheek. Their kiss deepened, and hands roamed cautiously, not wanting to
break whatever spell had overcome them both. They kissed until a sleepy mumble
from Rosie through the door caused them to break apart. Foreheads pressed together, they basked
momentarily in what had just happened.
John Wojtowicz famously robbed a bank to pay for Liz’s sex reassignment surgery, which inspired the film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). Wojtowicz was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but served six. Using the money from the film, Liz was able to pay for her sex change.
I’ve seen his mugshot a thousand times but never this
i have this headcanon that by the time all of her grandchildren were born molly weasley was knitting more christmas sweaters than she ever thought possible but still she kept knitting
and one day fleur is looking over the christmas photos from last year and notices that every single person is wearing a weasley christmas sweater… except molly
so that year molly opens her christmas presents from bill, fleur and the kids and there’s a hand-crocheted sweater with an “M” on it from her daughter-in-law don’t fucking look at me
There’s this fic on AO3 that, according to my history page, I have visited 176 times. Which means I alone am responsible for 176 hits on that fic. I commented on some of the chapters, but only a few, because I feel like a stalker when I comment every week. I gave it kudos, but I can only give it one, even though it’s one of my favorites.
So just remember, when you’re looking at that hit count and wondering why you don’t have that same number of kudos (divided by the number of chapters, because each one of those also counts as a hit), it might be because some people out there love your fic. They read it when they’re feeling down. They open it in the waiting room at the doctors office, or in the lonesome dark of night. They turn to it in celebration when they did something right. They open it over and over so they can send the link to their friends, or just to revisit the characters that they love. They checked it ten times in one day, hoping that you had updated.
A disparity between hits and kudos does not mean that your readers didn’t like your fic, or that they were too lazy to hit the kudos button. It means that some of them came back, and there’s nothing that makes me happier about my writing than that.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 