State to State - 2.3

Back to Emily

Emily hadn’t made it home in time.

She had been gone for an entire day, leaving Sherlock alone to deal with his daily issues. Yes, she knew that he was a grown adult and should have been able to manage to survive for one day, but she wasn’t home by dinner or bed time. And then she hadn’t been home by breakfast.

And now she was barely going to be home for dinner today.

“Emily, I honestly didn’t know that it was going to take that long. How could we have known about that guy and that you’d have to gut him, and all of that shit?”
“I just feel guilty about not being home for him.”
“He’s a grown man. Why would he need you being a helicopter parent?”
“Because as you said, he’s not very with it.”

They pulled off to the side of the driveway, spotting the familiar truck that had picked Sherlock up before. It was a ‘friend’ and even though it made her nervous for someone to be so involved in his life, he did need a ride to work when she couldn’t manage. Maybe if someone was monitoring him, they would have made sure he ate dinner.

“You know, we need to shower after that job. Do I still have a change of clothes here?”
“Yeah, I put it in the closet in one of my grandfather’s old suitcases.”

Joe came around to pull her door open, the one that had been sticking since the werewolf charged the squad car just a few weeks ago. He would have gotten it fixed but that meant “reporting the damage to main office”, a frowned upon action.

“Joe, when are you going to get the door fixed?”
“When they approve me for a new car. And then when I go to trade in this beat up Crown Vic, I can reveal all of its issues.”
“Well then. Let’s just go in the front door so your clothes can be tossed straight into the basement.”
“Only if you’re the one to take them off.”

All she could manage was a glare. The pain in her back was more pressing than kicking Joe’s ass for whatever side comment while they were on duty. She pulled out the key to the front door, greeted with the familiar struggle of the lock being an asshole. Once the door swung open, she heard the familiar music of Dragnet’s theme, accompanied by, “Please fuck me.”

Not a phrase usually heard on a Dragnet re-run at 5 in the afternoon.

If the parlor door had been locked, Emily would have torn the handle off with her bare hands and then set them against the throat of whoever was with Sherlock. For now, she would have to be satisfied with angrily slamming it into the doorstop. Her eyes slowly moved across the scene until making contact with a familiar face.

“John Mason? Are fucking kidding me? First you screw my brother and now you’re screwing my best friend?”

Sherlock slowly turned back to meet her gaze, looking between the two of them to say, “Oh, so you guys already know each other? I wasn’t expecting that.”

Emily pulled Sherlock into the hall, trying to ignore the particular details of his boxer shorts and grabbed a sheet from the nearby wash basket. It hung over him like a loose cape and he pulled it tighter, thinking she wouldn’t see the marks on his skin. The marks and scars and bruises that they both always pretended to ignore.

“Sherlock, what the fuck are you doing? You let that guy take you out on a date and then when I get home you two are naked on the couch.”
“To be fair, we were only half naked.”

Sherlock looked down at the floor, steadying his thoughts and Emily could read the struggle of trying to maintain eye contact.

“You say it like I was planning on having sex on the couch.”
“Were you?”
“Yes, Emily. I was planning on having sex on the couch. Is that what you want to hear?”

Is that what you want to hear?

Like she really wanted to hear about his sex life.

Like she really wanted to catch Jack’s ex-boyfriend about to stick in her best friend.

All Emily really wanted to do when she got home was shower and eat breakfast and lay in bed with Joe. That was all she wanted to do.

“You know when I came home from work today, I wasn’t planning on giving you the birds and bees talk.”

She heard the tone in her voice, quickly trying to fix it by bringing Sherlock into an embrace and sitting him down on one of the love seats. These preventive methods didn’t happen soon enough for the slight sniffling sounds pushing into her chest. After a moment, it cleared away but Sherlock still didn’t make eye contact with her.

"Emily, I'm a scientist. I know what happens between two fertile people if one has a vagina and one has a penis. If you haven't noticed, my partner and I are both cisgender men."
"Yes, but the bondage and condoms and lubrication situation has changed a bit since the 1890s. Unless Lefair gave you a comprehensive sex education when he had you chained to a wall and beating you with a pipe."

Mentioning Lefair was a cheap shot and Emily knew it, but he needed to face the past. The lack of eye contact continued and extended by Sherlock moving back in his sheet to create a distance between them.

"He wasn't that bad, all in all."
"He fucking tried to kill you, that bastard wood elf."
“Yeah, he was that bad. That’s why you killed him.”

Emily just couldn’t feel guilt for that and instead of answering him said, “Let’s get you some clothes and then I’ll cook dinner for the four of us.”