sherlock holmes was a shit dad.

he knew that. john knew that. mrs. hudson knew that. hell, lestrade knew that- and he barely knew the kid’s name!

mainly because sherlock had never advertised you. his main weakness, he saw it as, but really he just didn’t want you to get hurt. didn’t want you to be used or kidnapped as something against him.

he was a shit dad, but he loved you to death. enough to not make you stay with your mother– he never could get along with that woman past a brief spell in college when things he didn’t even let you see until you were thirteen were pumping through his veins.

she wouldn’t have done well with a child like you. the pristine state of her home and her daily bible quotes posted on an aesthetically pleasing facebook told him that much. at least he was confident he was fostering your mind.

that didn’t excuse the bad practical parenting he’d done in your childhood- namely toddlerhood, where he’d mostly just stuck you into a daycare or dumped you into the hands of mrs. hudson- who, though delighted to have you, chided him continually about bonding with his kid.

but as you got older, you grew closer to him. and he liked you better. was that bad to say as a parent? oh, well. he’d always loved you, you just weren’t…very interesting to him. not until you’d grown enough to not need a child leash.

now you were almost outperforming him during cases, and he dreaded having to face his mother with tales of your adolescence. he knew it mirrored his to the point of uncanny.

like your first case that you’d chosen.

a murder. it nearly made him smile. the apple never falls far from the tree, clearly. his kid was growing up. ugh. he sounded like john.

sentimentality aside, you’d solved it. mostly on your own. almost entirely on your own, actually- he’d been tagging along for caution’s sake. he’d figured it out less than an hour before you- and practically beamed with pride when he’d heard your hushed oh, an undeniable tell of the pieces all clicking into place.

he’d taken you to a restaurant after the mandatory forty-eight hours of rest between cases- even if he didn’t need it, he knew balancing teenagehood was, frankly, a bitch, even without the detective work. he thanked whatever deity there was that he was no longer in school.

so there you were. sitting across from your father at some place you’d picked, waiting on your food. he was staring at you, eyes piercing, blank.

affection.