ihadabadday | The Black Book - AU - Locked to seaweed

"Of course." He nodded. Thirty six weeks of bedrest. He was going to get bored fast, but it would be worth it. John let out a breath and relaxed back against Sherlock.

"I want this child to be healthy and grow up with love." He said. He knew that Sherlock and he had plenty of that to give. It was just ensuring that their child got to meet them.

John didn't glance at his mother, he would probably yell at her. He took a breath and then stepped forward towards the counter. "What would be the best way to contact you if I had questions or needed you Cagnazzo?"

Cagnazzo's face lit up. "Oh! I have just the thing!" He put down his mortal and pestle and came back with what looked like a little black rock, a smooth pebble you would find in a river. But when he put it in John's hand, it pulsed with magic.

"Just rub it for a few second, until it is warm, and then whisper the word E'oelo. It means 'speak' in Demon. That will summon me, or well you still be able to speak to me. I won't come to you automatically." He patted John's hand once, like a grandmother bestowing a gift on a grandchild, and then went back to the mortal and pestle.

"Almost done." He said. "Any other questions?"

John took the stone and closed his fist around it. "No. That is everything that I can think of. Sherlock, do you have any questions?" He asked.

Alright. So his mother was against this. What would Sherlock's sire say? Well, he couldn't worry about that now. They had to first get out of the Underworld and back home.

He put his free hand over Sherlock's and rubbed the spot where a ring would be if they were married.

Sherlock did have a question, but it was one that he was a bit loathe to ask, especially with John's mother right there. So he decided to go a bit roundabout with it.

"You said no strenuous activity." Sherlock said. He hated that he could feel his cheeks heating up as he blushed.

Cagnazzo laughed. It was apparent that he got the idea of what Sherlock was asking. "Yes, you can do that. Try to keep it fairly simple and not to strenuous, but it sometimes can help with hormonal changes."

A few moments later, he took the powder that he had mixed and put it in a small fabric bag, and then tied up the top with a small ribbon. He handed it to John.

"It doesn't look like much, but this should be enough for 30 weeks. There is a spoon inside. Take one spoonful and put it into a glass of water and stir it up until you can't see it any more. Add the natural sugar if you wish, then drink it as fast as possible. I honestly don't think you will even make it to 30 weeks, but if you do, I can make more. That should be everything."

He flushed and looked down, shuffling his feet a bit. That was good to know. Sherlock might go stir crazy if he couldn't have sex for thirty six weeks. John knew he would.

The half demon looked up and took the bag. He smiled gratefully at Cagnazzo. "Thank you. I will do everything that I can to keep this child in for as long as I can."

He then looked up at Sherlock and then over to his mother. "Shall we go?"

"I wish you the best of luck." He smiled and bowed again to Martha.

She gave Sherlock a bit of a glare, then opened a portal and walked through, John and Sherlock following behind.

When it closed, Martha turned to her son. "I have held my end of the bargain. I have put you in touch with a healer who should help you through this journey." Her voice was harsh at first, then she sighed and slumped her shoulders.

"Japhrimel." She said, sounding almost.... defeated. "You know that I do love you. You are my son, and I want the best for you. I am worried about you. I do not want you to die because you decided to do something that no one has ever done before." She looked over to Sherlock, then back to John.

"This is dangerous, what you have decided to do. And you... are my last link to Hamish. I truly did love him. I knew that I would lose him, but when you were born, you have the Old Blood running through your veins. I... don't want to lose you too."

John pulled away from Sherlock and went over to his mother. "Mum... You've known my entire life I've always wanted a family. Whether it was human or not. And you knew from my eighteenth birthday when that Mystic told you I would walk a different path, that nothing would be ordinary about me."

He put his hands on her shoulders. "Mum, I love you. Thank you for taking me to the healer. I know you're scared. I am too. But I want to try." he told her, "I do. I want to see if I can have this child."

"Dads would be over the moon and you know it. He always wanted to be a grandfather."

"I know. I just hoped that he was wrong. I didn't want you to have a difficult life. I knew that you already would because of your heritage. You are not a Demon and not a human. You walk a path that I can't know. And now, you have made your life even more difficult." She sighed and looked down.

"Hamish would have loved your mate, and he would have adored your.. child." It was the first time that she had used that word, and it felt weird on her tongue. She held her son tight for a moment, then let go. She had never been demonstrative, so it didn't come easily to her.

"Be careful." She said, stepping away. She looked over to Sherlock. "Keep care of him. On pain of your life, keep him safe." She knew the conversation was done, there was no more to say, so she turned and created another portal back to Baker Street for them.

"I love you Mum. I'll call soon. I promise." John took Sherlock's hand and then pulled him through the portal back to their flat.

"How are we going to tell your sire? Does he even know we've mated?" John asked the vampire as he set the bag down and went to go make them some tea.

Sherlock let out a long breath. That had been one long series of awkward and tense moments, one after the other. He was quite happy to be safe in his own home.

"Oh, I can assure you that he knows." The voice was smooth and rich and posh. Sherlock turned to see his sire sitting in his chair, legs crossed primly, his hands steepled under his chin, umbrella resting against the side of the chair.

"Mycroft." Sherlock almost spat out the word.

"Sherlock" He said quickly, interrupting Sherlock before he could say anything else. "I will only be a moment." Mycroft stood while Sherlock murmured "One moment too long." under his breath. Of course Mycroft heard, but he ignored it.

"I must take the same stance as Malthyne." Despite their rivalry, Mycroft still called her by her true name as a sign of respect for her station. "This is quite a dangerous undertaking that you are endeavoring in. " He looked over to John. "I care not for the half demon.." He looked back to Sherlock. "But I am concerned for the welfare of the child. It will be a child of the Darkness, unable to walk in the light. It will be of Old Blood, the blood that I bestowed upon you. It will be my progeny, and therefore will be under my protection."

He paused, looking even more serious. "But know this, half Demon." he looked to John. "You are a child of two world, this will be a child of three. If it does survive to be born, it will not have an easy life. It will not belong to humans, or Vampires or Demons. It will forever be an outcast of all three. I do not condem this child and on my oath will do nothing to harm it, but think hard about bringing this child into the light. It may have an immortal life of bigotry and hatred."

He picked up his umbrella and headed to the door, looking back. "Good day, brother mine. John." He nodded his head, not even giving John the honor of his true name.

And with that, he was gone.

John jumped and swore. He walked out of the kitchen and over to Sherlock. He touched his mate's shoulder and then looked to the vampire before them. He could feel the power of the First Blood in front of him. Christ. No wonder Sherlock was the way he was. This was what it must be like for people meeting his mother for the first time. Now he understood.

He put a protective hand over his belly, feeling his magic starting to come to his hand. The instinct to protect his unborn child was strong already.

He listened to the words from his mate's sire and then his shoulders slumped. He practically collapsed into a chair.

"Are we doing the right thing?" He asked looking up at Sherlock, "Bringing this child into this world when they could face so much hatred?"

Sherlock hated to see John so upset. And for the health of their baby, he knew that John needed to stay as calm as he could. He walked over to John, slumped in a chair, and gently put his hand on his shoulder.

"I wish I knew the answer to that, John." Sherlock said, after Mycroft had left. "This is unprecedented, like they both said, so there is no blueprint for how we should do this." He sighed and went into the kitchen to make them tea. He came out a moment later, handing a cup to John. "Herbal, non caffeinated. You'll have to watch your caffeine intake." he smiled. John being a doctor, he would know this already, but he wanted to bring some levity into the tense atmosphere.

He took the tea and sipped it. It took a few minutes, but he started to relax, letting the tension leave his body. No, they didn't have all the answers, but who did? No parent did. Every child and every birth was different. Sure, some had it easy. Demons, humans, even vampires. He finished his tea before he looked up at Sherlock.

"Do you want this child?" He asked. He knew he had already asked. But John needed to know, needed to hear it again.

"Yes." Sherlock's tone was resolute. There was no wavering or unsureness in his tone. He knew that he wanted this baby as much as John did.

"And I know that you do as well." He said, sipping his tea. "So, I guess that answers the question, doesn't it?"

"I just wanted to make sure, before we went through with all of this." He said after a moment.

John let out a breath and then laughed slightly. "We're going to be parents." He couldn't help but smile.

"God..." Sherlock ran his hands through his hair. "I guess in all of the craziness of what is going on, I forgot about the most obvious thing." All of a sudden, his smile faded.

"What.. what if I'm a mad parent? What if I don't know how to take care of the child? What if it doesn't like me, or I accidentally hurt it?" All of his doubts and worries suddenly came to the surface. "What if I'm not cut out to be a father?"

"Then we'll stumble through this together." He said.

"How do any of us know how we're going to be as parents?" John got up and walked over to where Sherlock was. He reached out and touched his cheek. "All that matters is that we do it together."

Sherlock had to chuckle at that. "Yeah I guess there are no first time parents that are really prepared for what is going to happen. But this is going to be anything but normal, both the pregnancy and the birth.. and whatever will come after."

He leaned into the warm hand on his cold cheek. "Together." He replied. "Us against the world."

Things had not been easy. John was able to get a leave of absence from his job. Of course, the so far seven and a half months of bed rest was driving him mad. But he remained as relaxed as possible.

This particular day found him sitting on the new couch that sherlock had bought after he complained about the couch cushion being lumpy.

Was his mate nesting?

He sipped his (herbal) tea as he watched the vampire fuss about the flat. "Sherlock. Sherlock. It's fine." He said, "everything is fine."

It had been a long 7 and a half months. There had been a few scares along the way. John went back to visit the healer in the Underworld more and more frequently to make sure that everything was OK with the child. He would adjust his powder a bit every time a little bit, tweaking it to the particular issues he was having.

There had been bad stomach cramps- of course they had both been afraid that they meant the baby was gone, but thankfully that hadn't been the case. John had also had bouts with both diarrhea and constipation (at different times), nausea, vertigo, water weight gain, low sodium, high blood pressure and almost every thing else that one could think of, John had weathered it.

And all through it, John had been a trooper, while Sherlock had been a bloody disastrous mess.

One good thing was the, at least temporary truce between Mycroft and Martha. They never met, but they both tried to help in their own way.

And as the 7th month passed, and the baby (who the healer had said he could tell them the sex of the baby but they had decided not to find out) was still doing okay, a bit on the small side, but still active and slowly growing, Sherlock found himself... anxious.

He bought another couch, he bought baby proof light switch covers, even though they wouldn't need them for almost a year, he changed out pillows and had someone paint the room upstairs that was ostensibly John's room but he didn't need it. Then he got a crib and a travel cot and a changing table and a rocking chair, and a rocking chair for the living room and..

Maybe... he was nesting a bit...

" I know.. I know..." He was pacing around the room as John sipped his tea, deciding on his phone which mobile to get for the crib, he was leaning towards the one with the planets. One can't start learning about them too early..

Sherlock was anxiously pacing, a nervous wreck. John had been having some back pains and soft cramps , but it was nothing so far. But it COULD be the start of something, and that scared him.

"Come sit with me." He said patting the spot next to him, "you're going to wear a groove into the floor if you keep pacing like that."

John had adopted a very zen like state about everything. He had to, he was too worried he would work himself into a panic otherwise.

"Do you like the couch? Maybe I should have gone with that other couch, the one you liked at first, I can take this one back, and go get the other one, and maybe a new rug as well so it won't have to crawl on the wood, it will be bad for it's knees..."

He stopped when John invited him over to the couch. "Oh... um.. yes." He walked over and say next to John on the couch, but he was still, sitting up ramrod straight, hands in his lap.

"Have you had any more cramps? Does your back hurt? Are you tired or nauseous or diarrhea?" She asked, looking John over with a fine tooth comb.

"Sherlock. The couch is fine. I'm just glad I didn't reccomend redoing the whole god damn fault. Though we could use a bigger bathroom." He shrugged a bit.

He looked at his mate and leaned in to kiss him. "Relax. It will be okay, everything will be okay. The healer thought I'd be lucky if I got to thirty weeks, which was a month ago. If I can keep this little one in for another few weeks, we should be doing good."

Sherlock jumped up. "Bathroom!" He yelled, starting to walk towards the hallway. "Of course. I totally overlooked the bathroom! We'll need a bigger tub so we can wash the baby, and we need to get one of those baby tubs to wash him while its small.." He wandered down the hallway and into the loo to figure out what else needed to be done.

John groaned and dropped his head back.

He straightened and got his phone. He sent a text (not a group one) to each Mycroft and his mother.

Sherlock is nesting. If construction crews start showing up, I'm going to move into a hotel.

The Black Book - AU - Locked to seaweed_writes

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