Holmeses come at Y/N from all angles, thrusting out hands to shake and hurling introductions, all elegant and dignified but chaotic; like a gaggle of swans lunging at a slice of bread. The majority of them are tall, Y/N's eyes level with the collars of many button-up shirts poking out of cashmere, cuff links twinkling at her as she struggles to clasp all the hands in turn.
From the rear of the chaos, a woman's voice squarks:
"Move aside, Cecil!" and the waistcoats are elbowed out the way, patterned dresses from various Joule's catalogues taking their place. The handshakes now jangle with the clink of bracelets, rings pressed warm against Y/N's fingers. Soft fingers and thumbs pinch her cheeks, feminine arms dragging her in for hugs, her nose tickling with powdery floral perfumes.
Deciding it's pointless to try to fight it, Y/N lets her body be passed around for welcoming cuddles, necklaces poking her cheeks and dangly pearl earrings bumping her head, until suddenly, amongst the disarray, she feels a hand close around her elbow.
It tugs her right through the centre of the crowd of jostling, cooing Holmeses, until she pops out on the other side.
Blinking, Y/N raises her head to thank her saviour and finds the soft round face of a grey-haired woman, her eyes sea-foam green and sparkling with a familiar light. Beaming instantly with recognition:
"Mrs Holmes!"
They had met once before---when she and her husband had visited London for their eldest son's birthday.
Mycroft had insisted that he be spared of a party, but Mrs Holmes had snuck into his house and thrown one anyway. After struggling to wrangle together enough guests to constitute a 'gathering', she managed to wrangle Sherlock and his flatmate, Y/N, who were then subjected to an evening of Mycroft refusing to wear a party hat.
It had not been all bad, however, because once Mycroft had gone to bed early---claiming to have a headache---the small group were then free to play parlour games like Charades and Pictionary, which Mrs Holmes had spiced up with the addition of brandy.
Very quickly Y/N had fallen in love with Sherlock's parents, their kind nature, quick minds and rather chaotic approach to life that contrasts their children's so strikingly. Over Mrs Holme's shoulder, she cranes her head, searching for Mr Holmes but fails to find his floppy haircut amongst the throng.
Mrs Holmes flaps Y/N's formality away with a Union-Jack-patterned tea towel. "Call me Wendy, dear," she insists, her words softened with a delightful Cornish accent.
Sherlock has already unlaced his shiny black Oxfords and places them on a shoe rack among a dozen pairs of mud-cakes walking boots. "Hello, Mum." He gives Wendy a smile Y/N rarely sees and stoops to kiss her tenderly on the cheek.
Copying him, Y/N politely removes her own shoes and then her jacket, hanging it on one of the coat racks---a pair of deer antlers mounted to the wall.
Below them, next to the shoe rack is what appears to be an ivory umbrella stand---except one of the umbrellas is not an umbrella but a rusty longsword.
Y/N is busy staring at its engraved handle when Mrs Holmes takes her hand.
"Come this way, quickly." With surprising speed, she leads her on silent feet up the stairs in a way that makes Y/N think she has mastered the art of avoiding family members over many years of necessary practice.
...
The gaggle of Holmes's in the foyer don't seem to have noticed the new arrivals have scarpered; as Y/N disappears up the stairs they're still bunched tightly together, the tweed jackets and summer dresses churning as they scramble to locate them.
The first floor of the house is lined with paintings, some browned with age, their gloss peeling, others vibrant finger splotches labelled as recently as 2019. Each picture is hung as if with equal importance in engraved golden frames, a child's Crayola scribble of four multicoloured potato people level with an original oil portrait dated 1864.
The hallway is long but bright, sunlight spilling from the window at one end and onto the trodden rug. The floorboards squeak as Mrs Holmes leads Y/N through the house, Sherlock carrying the bags a little way behind.
"Where's Dad?"
Each door is pocked with woodworm nibbles and painted different colours and Sherlock pokes his head into a sky-blue one as if expecting his father to be inside, hiding.
"He's outside, obsessed with his latest project," Mrs Holmes sighs as if she's very much sick of her husband's 'projects'.
Y/N can't help a smile tugging gently at her lip and throws Sherlock a teasing smirk over her shoulder. "Like father like son."
Apparently not catching the joke, Sherlock asks:
"What is it this time? It's not caterpillars again, is it? He wouldn't let us use the dining room for two weeks."
Mrs Holmes shakes her head. "No, no, it's outside this time, thankfully. Although he does keep asking to bring it inside, but I put my foot down. I say 'Charles, we are NOT having ducks in the house'."
"He has ducks?" Y/N pipes up.
"Yes, dear, white ones with those funny orange feet. He spends all day watching them and documenting what they do in his silly little notebook."
"What do they do?" Sherlock asks, his mother opening a maroon-red door towards the end of the hallway.
"Nothing! They're ducks!" She exclaims, then takes a cleansing breath. "He'll get bored of them eventually, then it'll be something else. Fireworks or tree frogs or The Battle Of Hastings or something. What's your special interest at the moment, dear?"
"I don't really have one at the moment," Sherlock says, his cheeks colouring peculiarly.
Y/N opens her mouth to correct him, but now that she thinks about it he hasn't been obsessed with anything recently.
When she had first moved into the flat, she was used to the seemingly endless periods of focused passion, the days---and nights---he'd spend absorbed in something or another. There had been one month where he had catalogued every known type of tobacco, and then another where he had been so relentlessly interested in parakeets Mrs Hudson had almost considered wavering the 'No Pets' rule of his rental agreement.
Recently, however, there's been no Tupperware boxes meticulously labelled and stacked in the fridge. No obscure, specialised books spread over the dining table and stacked on every flat surface, annotated so thoroughly the ink has bled into splotchy blue bruises. He hasn't dragged Y/N to some museum or led her around an archive, heaping research papers in her arms---
Recently, he's let Y/N drag him to places; libraries, walks along the Thames---
Tentatively, he'll knock on her bedroom door and sit with her as she taps away at her computer, or he'll notice she's putting on her shoes and will don his own to accompany her---even for a menial trip to Co Op for milk and biscuits.
Now that she thinks about it, his last obsession was months ago.
Mrs Holmes shakes her head as if her son had told her he feels he's coming down with a cold. "Remember that time when you were eleven and weren't interested in anything? You were so bored and miserable.".
"I'm actually not miserable," he says in a genuine way that sounds like he's really quite content.
...
The bedroom behind the maroon door is mostly taken up by a wide double bed, a bedside table squeezed down each side and swamped by a downy duvet. Weighed down by an unusually thick wedge of mattress and several layers of heavy blankets, the bed frame's carved wooden feet press deep into the shag of the carpet which is bouncy under Y/N's socked toes.
A small bay window looks out over the front garden and infinite patchwork quilt of farmland beyond, a few tendrils of honeysuckle creeping around the pane and casting pattern-like shadows on the bedspread. It's propped open on a metal latch, the air fresh and lively with a slight breeze.
"I gave you Sherlock's old room because it's got its own bathroom," Wendy is saying, her hands planted on her hips as if assessing the space. "Charles and I converted it into a guest bedroom some years ago, but I left the glowy stars up." She gestures at the ceiling where indeed, a small pale plastic galaxy manages to cling to the plaster. "I think there will be enough room for you two in here."
Midway through ducking under the low door jamb, Sherlock falters, his cheeks colouring. "'You two'? Mum, Y/N doesn't want to have to share with me."
Mrs Holmes flaps at him with the Union Jack tea towel as she'd done to Y/N earlier. It seems to be her weapon of choice. "Don't be silly, I'm sure she won't mind for a few nights."
If Y/N didn't know any better she could have sworn the older woman had just slipped her a cheeky wink.
"Anyway, she's not allowed to mind because we don't have the space. Most of the family is staying with us, besides uncle Redser; you know; because of that incident in Sweden."
Deciding not to question what that incident in Sweden involved, Y/N prizes her case from Sherlock's hand and sets it resolutely on the bed. It sinks into a knitted wool throw, the stitching mouthing at the corners. "I don't mind, this will be perfect, thank you, Wendy."
"Bless you, dear." Wendy gives her one of those grateful smiles mothers only seem to give to daughters when they're helping out in ways sons and husbands just don't. "I'll leave you two to get settled, then we'll go out for a constitutional at about six. I hope you packed wellies!"
...
Although this room had been the one he'd grown up in, Sherlock pads through the doorway hesitantly, as if waiting for permission to be there.
Y/N looks at him sideways, mid-way through unzipping her case. "Is the idea of sharing a bed with me really that disturbing?" She quips, and enjoys the shade of pink it brings to the curved shell of his ears.
Despite the glow-in-the-dark stars still Blu Tacked to the ceiling between the heavy wooden beams, the room really has been redecorated from a child's-bedroom to that of guest-bedroom status, so is void of any traces of Sherlock's childhood toys---
---but it's easy to imagine him here as a curly-haired youth watching the birds through binoculars at the window, bent over a microscope on a scuffed writing desk, or experimenting on the small patch of free carpet with jars and beakers he'd stolen from the kitchen.
"It's not disturbing," he insists quickly, but his ears are still flushed like a schoolboy's below his dark curls. "Not for me. I thought for you, though, maybe. I could sleep on the floor if you want. Or the sofa downstairs."
Y/N furrows her brows at him. "Don't be daft, it's fine, I told you. The bed is big enough for two. And even if it wasn't, what would I be afraid of? Sherlock germs?" She throws him a playful grin and a shy smile twitches his mouth.
His shoulders loosening a little, he places his own case down next to Y/N's and begins transferring his folded clothes to the wooden chest of draws opposite the bed.
Y/N is so used to his trademark work attire of starchy button-up shirt and pressed dress trousers, she is surprised to find the clothes he's brought to his family home are knitted sweaters, plain t-shirts and even a pair of jeans.
After a little while, he breaks the comfortable silence with a question Y/N knew he'd been turning over on his tongue:
"So...what do you think of my family?"
Y/N dithers. "Well, I haven't properly met them yet."
He smirks at her. "It's okay to say they're clinically insane."
"I wouldn't say insane...just eccentric," she places the word down proudly, glad she had managed to find one that doesn't sound too insulting.
His case empty, Sherlock falls onto the bed, stretching out to his full length like a lazy cat.
Also glad to tease the aches from her limbs from sitting for the majority of the day, Y/N joins him on top of the patchwork blanket, letting her head fall to face the window.
The floral curtains frame the fields and woodlands outside like a perfect oil painting; the whisps of evening clouds and fluttering leaves like soft brush strokes.
The mattress is indeed wide enough for two but has gotten soft in its old age and Y/N finds herself slightly sinking into the indent Sherlock's body weight is making in the duvet. He doesn't wriggle away from her though, their arms pressed together, the line of his knuckles gracing the back of Y/N's hand.
"Will this be my side of the bed?" She asks absently, turning a loose thread of the duvet between finger and thumb.
"Preferably; I always sleep on the right back home," he states, and Y/N turns over to look at him, her brows furrowed.
"You have an entire double bed to yourself; you can sleep on any side you want."
"And I always want to sleep on the right."
Laughing tiredly, the long journey mentally catching up to her, Y/N drops her head back to gaze out the window. There's a muntjac deer picking its way across the meadow in the distance and she watches it delicately snuffling its round little snout through the grass.
"That's good, I suppose," she says sleepily. "I like to sleep on the left."