At my dorm they’re a fire hazard. That makes so much more sense tbh.

[ The mug is cupped gently in one hand   and she holds an ornament in the other. ]

fostisenedras

"Jesus…" Eirene muttered and abruptly stopped, catching Sherlock’s eye from his spot next to her on the couch. He raised a questioning brow, and she glared at him, even as she carded ever-gentle fingers through her son’s dark locks. She had yet to decide if she wanted to cut his hair so very short or not.

"How many times have I told you that you cannot promise, imply, say ‘maybe,’ or speak hypothetically around a three-year-old?" She hissed. "Or any child for that matter. Christ, you’re worse than ‘is da."

Just like that, her accent slipped, and she stopped again, thoroughly annoyed that Sherlock was looking at her, knowingly and not the least bit perturbed by her scolding. She could feel Brendan’s tears through her trouser leg, and that, coupled with his father’s memory, was enough to bring her to tears.

"Billy," she murmured to her son, and she could hear Sherlock sigh. They had already had this argument. If she was going to name her child one name, then she had better stick with that one and avoid middle names, nicknames, and the like. William Brendan James O’Neill was simply too much for one little boy to remember.

Still, at the sound of Liam’s name for him, Brendan turned in Eirene’s lap so that he was facing her, and Eirene wiped away his tears. “We can’t stay here, darlin’,” she murmured. “No’ forever. We have ta get a home of our own. But we can come visit, mo chroí. I promise. Jus’ like we promised Da we’d visit him. You’ll see.”

Sherlock watched Eirene parry her boy's outburst, lips a thin line across his face. He hadn't meant to imply anything, he'd simply told Brendan -- the name he very expressly preferred -- that New York was lovely at Christmas time and it was a shame he and his mother wouldn't be staying. How was he to know the three-year-old would twist that into an invitation?

Not that there wasn't an invitation.

Toddler tears running dry but Eirene noticeably shaken, Sherlock stood, hooked his arm around Brendan's waist, scooped the boy off of his mother's lap and flipped him into a fireman's hold all in one fluid motion. "Le's ge' ya ta bed, aye?" he barked in near-perfect imitation of the boy's father. Eirene would surely scold him for it -- He's confused enough without all the bloody father figures in his life mimicking each other! -- but the peal of laughter he received made it more than worth it...

THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER OH MY GOSH. Responding to the child anon in my inbox now btw. ;)

fostisenedras: ♗ {Now let me stop before I overstep}

nonsexual acts of intimacy meme

♝: reading a book together♗: your muse falling asleep with their head in my muse’s lap

Sherlock didn’t understand the draw of paternity, not entirely. Mentorship, sure. Partnership, indeed. Friendship, more or less, slightly more since Eirene had re-entered his life. But the merits of parenthood evaded him, and the mechanics of it moreso, insofar as to leave him entirely averse to the practice. The world was full enough with depravity, why add to it? Why plant more in a garden those tending it already had enough trouble weeding?

So, when Eirene requested he take a look at the myriad books, magazines, and manuals she’d purchased on parenting, Sherlock, of course, scoffed. No, she couldn’t escape parenthood, it was far too late for that, but surely she could let him keep out of it. Surely she could see how uncomfortable her pregnancy and prospective child made him, how clinically he treated every question, comment, or concern regarding it and allow him a wide berth.

But, then again, this was Eirene. This was the woman — the friend — he still felt he owed.

And the one from whom he still felt he had plenty to learn, or at least to glean.

So, when she beckoned to him from the couch, he obeyed. Though begrudgingly. The cheap couch protested as he sat, enough to draw a glare from Eirene and a scolding tap of her fingers to the side of Sherlock’s jaw. He lifted a brow at her and she shook her head, amusement clear beneath the glare — and the dark circles shadowing her eyes. Sherlock frowned. He knew the pregnancy had been hard on her, knew Joan had said something to him several days prior about her concern with regards to Eirene’s sleeping and eating habits, but he’d been too enthralled in a case — one which had just ended (perhaps lending itself to his amenable mood) — to really look at his friend and see the physical effects.

A look she noticed and promptly dismissed. "Look here," she said.

text message meme

» fostisenedras

fostisenedras:

For a moment,

         j u s t    a   m o m e n t ,

She cannot breathe.

Eirene stands in the doorway of Sherlock’s dorm room and forces her eyes open, forces herself to see.  Little white pills are scattered from her feet to his — mere strides away — and she cannot move.

But that is just a moment, and then she is across the dorm room and kneeling beside Sherlock, her fingers fumbling for his pulse.

"No.  No.  You do not get to do this.  Do you hear me?  Not after all the hell we’ve put each other through — you arrogant, self-centered bastard.”

She slaps his cheek, her eyes watching his slowly moving chest as panic rises in her own.  She whimpers unconsciously and scrambles for her phone, dialing 999 and tearing a hand through her dark brown locks before grasping Sherlock’s bony wrist.  Her next words are an unintelligible rush of syllables, but she has to get them out, has to say them.

"I’m trying not to panic, Sherlock.  Mind over matter, yeah?  But you have to wake up.  You are my matter.  You are.”

Without you, I don’t know what I’d do.

Sherlock Holmes is  f a l l i n g.

           ——No, he’s  d r o w n i n g.

                       ——Or perhaps he’s some  c o m b i n a t i o n  of the two.

Maybe he’s just been in free fall and this is the few seconds after splash down, after his return to Earth from the upper reaches of the atmosphere. He feels simultaneously weightless and like there’s a great mass crushing and constricting him from all sides. There’s a roaring in his ears and a burning in his nose and throat, like the water has berated his senses and lit its paradoxical flame inside of him. There’s adrenaline leaking from all places and leaving him numb, unfeeling. His lungs ache, his stomach’s a single solid lump in his abdomen, and his blood — his blood — is thick, sludge in his veins.

                    -         Why are you here for her?