After a little while of listening to the evening chorus of bird song, Y/N sits up, swinging her legs off the bed. "Could you give me a tour of the house?"
He frowns up at her, his head half-submerged in the down-stuffed pillows, the heavy blankets moulding to his outline, entombing him like grass growing over a paving slab. "Can't we stay here?"
"We've got days to stay here," Y/N protests, "Come on, I want to see where you grew up. And I need to know where everything is."
With some effort, he drags one arm from the grip of the bedspread and points through the wall. "Loo." Pointing downwards to the left, "kitchen," to the right, "living room."
"Sherlock." Before it can succumb to gravity once more, Y/N grabs his hand and tries to pull him towards the door.
"Y/N," he mimics her exasperated whine, his limp hand in her palm suddenly coming alive with strength, and Y/N squeaks in shock as he yanks her back towards the bed.
She tumbles onto it, having to arrange herself as she falls so as not to land on top of him. Back where she started, the glow-in-the-dark stars twinkle down at her from the ceiling mockingly, and she huffs some tickling strands of hair out of her eyes. "Lazy bastard."
Sherlock hums, his eyes closed, a tiny, triumphant smile twitching one corner of his mouth.
"Five more minutes of this?" Y/N bargains, the layers of soft cotton and sheep's wool already accepting her as one of their own.
"Ten."
"Seven."
"Fine."
...
Eventually---and reluctantly---Sherlock drags himself away from the lazy, comforting embrace of the mattress and he begins his tour at the sunny end of the first-floor hallway where the tall window looks out over the garden and rolling verdant countryside.
"I'll show you downstairs later, when the clamouring throng of my relatives have dispersed," he says, pulling the curtains open a little wider to reveal even more fields and, in the distance, another thicket of woodland. "The village is that way," he points through the thicket of far-away trees, where, if Y/N strains her eyes, can just about make out several cobblestone buildings protruding from the steep ribbon of road like mushrooms. "There are a few farms closer than the shop, though, so we usually buy from them. Mum will no doubt send us to get some milk or something at some point."
Looking out over the patchwork of land, Y/N imagines that---once upon a time---everything surrounding the house had all been one estate, presided over by whichever generation of Holmes happen to occupy it at the time.
From their place on their gently sloping hill, through their bay windows, they could look out at their workers ploughing their fields and tending to their animals. Now, however, the cottage stands alone, its land sold off, but still grand and important in its heart.
Turning back away from the window, Y/N faces the sun-soaked hallway, trying to take in the shapes and colours arranged before her like a scrapbook.
The wallpaper alternates depending on which wall in particular she is looking at, ranging from funky patterns from the 1970s to classically Victorian; intricate roses crisscrossing in complicated geometric fractals. The rugs vary in thickness, the floor seeming to rise with the squashy shag and fall with knotty jute, corners overlapping, tassels knotting, and the floorboards talking with muffled squeaks. Every now and again---as someone, somewhere, runs a tap or twists the dial on a radiator---the pipes kick into life like arteries below the paintings and wonky shelves.
Beside her, Sherlock is opening a sea-blue door flanked by a plaster bust of an important-looking gentleman, whom someone has adorned with a rather silly woman's hat. "This is the master bathroom." He takes a pace to the left, allowing Y/N to peer inside at what is indeed the most masterly of bathrooms she has ever seen.
Taking up much more than its fair share of real estate, the floor is carpeted and expansive, the ceiling so tall it must continue into the attic. A stand-alone porcelain bathtub lounges regally before a panoramic window, an open, unlit fireplace cut neatly from a slab of marble sunk into the opposite wall.
Y/N would think she's stepped into a set from Downton Abbey, had there not been a plastic shower rack nailed into the wallpaper, a bath mat shaped like a whale spread on the floor, and every surface stacked with Mrs Holme's bath salts, lavender shampoos and flowery towels.
"When you pull the chain," Sherlock is saying, gesturing to one of those long Victorian water closets dangling with a gold chain pull handle. "You've got to hold it for eight seconds exactly to make it flush. And the lock on the door was fitted upside down so 'Occupied' means 'vacant'. And if you get water on the floor it's fine, unless it's this specific spot," he prods a discoloured patch of carpet with the toe of his socks, "because it'll drip straight into the room below."
"What's in the room below?"
"A zebra skin rug."
Beside the master bathroom is a study that smells of yellowed paper, moleskin, and ink that comes in round glass pots. "We keep this curtain closed so the sun doesn't bleach this painting of my great uncle," Sherlock explains, giving the curtains an affectionate tug.
It extinguishes a narrow bar of light splitting a friendly-looking old man's face in two.
"But," he points to the next window that has no curtain at all, the rings dangling, empty, "we keep this one open so it does bleach this painting of my great-great aunt Dorothy."
"What did Dorothy do?"
He shrugs as if it's not really important. "Apparently something bad enough to abuse her portrait but not bad enough to take it down."
"What are these things?" Y/N points to a shelf heavy with trinkets; little carved wooden people, clay pots, feathers, and jars full of pebbles or sand.
"Things brought back from various travels." Plucking a glass vial stoppered with a cork from the back of one particularly burdened shelf, he holds it out for Y/N to take. "Look at this."
She turns it upside down, watching the greyish-yellow rocks trickle along the glass.
"It's uranium ore."
...
Apart from the master bathroom, none of the subsequent bedrooms Sherlock shows Y/N are particularly grand, but there is a definite air of class about the carved crown mouldings, original paintings, and the occasional remaining four-poster bed that the old cottage doesn't seem to be able to shake.
Sombre-looking family portraits eye her as she passes from the walls, the cracks in the glaze etched into the pale faces like wrinkles. There are more busts, some plaster, others bronze, fine Holmes' features cut into the metal to form high cheekbones, angular noses and proud heads of curly hair.
The grandeur of the decor would all feel uncomfortably upper class, had some of the portraits not been vandalised with a bushy ink moustache, the rooms messy with knick-nacks, and each inch of space apparently not following any theme or colour scheme.
The house is full of people but their chatter is made quiet, the libraries and studies converted to make-shift bedrooms, muffled with thick carpets and velvet curtains. Some are maroon, others a mossy green, some chopped short like a bad haircut and others draped to the ground like a ball gown.
All of the furniture appears to have been rummaged from antique stores, received as heirlooms, or lovingly restored by Mrs Holme's fondness for upholstery. Over-stuffed armchairs, throw-pillow rich chaise lounges, and stained coffee tables slot together to make the most of every inch of space; bookshelves cut to fill any leftover gaps.
Carrying on down the hall, they stop at a door painted bright orange---like the warning-coloured skin of a poisonous frog---but Sherlock doesn't open this one and says seriously, as if pressing the words onto Y/N's memory:
"My great-grandfather is staying in this room. He was in several wars so if you have to go past his room at night creep quietly or he might shoot you."
Y/N opens her mouth to ask if he's joking but he's already stalked away on the tips of his toes in a way that makes her think he really isn't.
The door opposite is painted a grainy, soft sort of pitch black, and Sherlock does open this one, his voice softening with fondness. "When Mycroft and I were little, this was our playroom."
Peering inside, curious to find out what young Mycroft would have 'played' with (a rock tumbler? A tandem electrostatic accelerator? Alevel maths papers?) Y/N is disappointed to find another cushy bedroom, messy with the belongings of a guest who has made herself quite at home.
Presumably Sherlock's aunt Mildred, given the amount of jewellery heaped on the dresser like a dragon's hoard, chaotic, half-finished chalk-paintings in the making taped to the wallpaper, and several plastic tubs labelled 'crickets' stacked in the corner---hopefully for the sake of her pet lizard.
Y/N is so distracted by their chirping she barely realises Sherlock is saying guiltily:
"I was given a bunsen burner for my seventh birthday and..." he runs a finger along the wood of the door and, when he holds it up, it's black with what Y/N realises to not be paint, but charcoal.
...
They come across only one other room that looks as though its caught fire; a craft room several doors back with a circular scorch mark burnt into the ceiling. Sherlock had given little explanation for this except:
"Father used to be very interested in rockets."
Deceptively large, the cottage must continue some way into the woodlands because most of the bedrooms are wide enough to boast cramped ensuites cut into the thick stone walls. The sunlight fades into shadow as they near the cooler side of the cottage, the rooms becoming shaded by trees.
The window at the front is mirrored by an identical window at the back, this one not looking out over farmland, but into the woods, the thick branch of an oak tapping its leafy fingers against the pane. A cold breeze seeps between the window frame, carrying in the earthy smell of tree sap and fallen leaves.
"A cat from down the road visits sometimes, so we leave this window open," Sherlock explains, gesturing to a hand-made clay dish being used to wedge the window ajar.
It's painted with splotchy paw prints, fresh water making the glaze shiny.
"What's the cat's name?" Y/N asks, unable to decipher the bowl's lettering.
"We call her Eggs."
"Why?"
"She likes eggs."
Through the window, Y/N scans the foliage for an egg-loving cat's piercing round eyes hopefully, but nothing but a cooing wood pigeon gazes back at her. Turning back to the hallway she notices something.
In the shadow of the forest, a door they hadn't visited is squashed so close to the stairs one may be in danger of tumbling down them should they need to visit the loo in the night.
Y/N hadn't noticed it as they'd passed because it's the only one stripped of lively, eccentric paint and returned to its naked, woody brown. She isn't surprised when Sherlock answers her unvoiced question:
"Oh, that's Mycroft's room."
"Did we forget it? Or can't we go in?"
"We can. It's just boring so I left it out."
When Y/N insists she still wants to see it, Sherlock sighs but knocks on the door all the same. He hadn't done this to the other rooms, just strode straight inside, but he waits a good few seconds before slowly edging it open.
Sherlock's bedroom may have been converted into a guest bedroom, but Mycroft was apparently less compliant; peeking round the door jamb, Y/N finds herself transported back to a home office from the eighties.
There is a bed, a single, thin mattress (the rest of the room given up to accommodate an expansive oak desk), the crease-free duvet and pillow a dignified, formal grey. They match the uniform paint on the walls, the bed made so tightly it's a wonder anyone can get back into it at nightfall.
On evenly spaced shelves, numerous books stand like soldiers in alphabetical order, every pencil on the desk sharpened to a point and assigned to a specific pot according to its line weight. The posters, so straight they must have been measured with a spirit level, are not of films or singers he admired as a youth, but his own passions: the flags of every country, prints of paintings by old men who only ever painted in the colour brown, and dizzyingly detailed---now outdated---maps of London; the city he apparently planned to make his home since childhood.
Everything smells heavily of lemon Pledge.
From the ceiling hangs the only sign that a child might have resided within; several Airfix model aeroplanes dangling from fishing wire, their paint so tidy it could have been brushed on by a machine.
Y/N points to a filing cabinet, Mycroft's computer-like, no-nonsense handwriting labelling the first draw 'A--F' and the last 'V--Z'. Nudging Sherlock with her elbow:
"I dare you to move something from 'M' and put it in 'G'."
He looks at Y/N very seriously, and the smile disappears from her face. "He'd have an aneurysm."
"Since when does that bother you?"
"Since Mother said no fighting in the house."
"Surely he wouldn't notice if just one moved?" She catches his unchanging expression and sighs. "Yeah, he definitely would."
Softly, as if the very air might blow a sheet of ruled A4 on the immaculate desk askew, they shut the door.