"No."

"Sherlock…"

"No."

"Sherlock—"

"No."

"Oh for Christ's sake Sherlock, it is one night!" John snapped, closing the laptop just seconds short of taking off his boyfriend's fingers. The consulting detective immediately started pouting and curled up on himself, intentionally mussing up his hair. John sat on the edge of the sofa, Sherlock's laptop set aside on the coffee table, and closed his hand around Sherlock's. "My aunt Cherie practically raised me, Sherlock. I would have gone to her after the war if she hadn't already been living with her own children, and then we never would have met. We owe her quite a lot, if you think about it."

Sherlock's tousled head rose up from where he had been busy burying it in the couch cushions. "You accredit our sexual relationship to an old woman?" He smirked when John sent him his Bit Not Good sigh.

"It's not every day you turn a hundred years old, Sherlock," he said earnestly. "She's been 'old' since I was born. No one knows how much longer she'll be with us, and I want one of the most important women in my life to meet the most important man in my life." He schooled his face into his most disgustingly saccharine puppy-dog eyes and reached around to grip Sherlock's hand again. "Please? It's just one night."

Sherlock sighed loudly and rolled over. "I'll need to shower, and can't do that with you sitting on me, John."

Heedless of his flatmate's apparent desire for him to move, John leaned down and kissed him. "You won't regret it."

John spent the entire cab ride to the party staring out the window, drumming the fingers of his left hand against his knee and moistening his lips. Sherlock had to reach across the seat and close his hand around the incessant appendages. "You're nervous."

The doctor's eyebrows furrowed slightly. "Wouldn't be so nervous if you'd promise not to deduce any of my family," he admitted. Sherlock's gaze narrowed slightly.

"You're embarrassed by me."

John's hand flipped over in his and clutched his fingers. "No. Sherlock. You don't embarrass me. You worry me, sometimes, but never embarrass me. You're fine."

They were silent for a full five minutes before John spoke up again, in a small voice. "You do promise not to deduce any of my family, right?"

"You promise sexual intercourse?" replied Sherlock. John laughed for a full minute before pressing a kiss to his temple.

"Throw in a dance and we have a deal."

The food was terrible, but Sherlock and John's family got along and that's what mattered to him. His parents listened to his (toned down) recollections of their lives on the edges of their seats, grinning from ear-to-ear and praising Sherlock's deductive reasoning. The detective preened subtly and touched John's hand under the table; their relationship was complex in the day-to-day, of course, but in all other senses they were just like any other couple: constantly trying to impress one another and yet accepting the flaws that come with every man.

Harry had already pressed two strong, fruity drinks into Sherlock's hand before John noticed and thoroughly chastised her. "Harry, no; he gets philosophical when he's tipsy!"

"John? Why do they sterilize needles used for lethal injections?"

The doctor groaned to himself but smiled regardless.

Cherie Watson, John's great-aunt and resident birthday-girl, sat in the corner with her cane and watched the children run in circles on the dance floor, playing duck-duck-gray-duck. After a few minutes her bleary gaze drifted upward to the edge of the floor, where her John was standing with that young man of his, Sherlock Holmes. One arm was around the thinner (and taller) man's waist, and the other was ruffling the hair of one of the younger children as they passed by. They looked at one another companionably, shared a smile, and then returned their attention to the conversation with John's sister.

"Uncle John, will you dance with me?" asked his 12-year-old niece (who was really like a second-cousin, but uncle was easier for the kids to remember), and John happily stepped forward. "And, well, Ellie wanted to know if she could dance with Detective Holmes."

John turned to look at his flatmate, who took the moment of quiet to ask: "If police proportionally profit from illegal activities, then aren't they themselves criminals?"

He turned back to Marie. "After he has a coffee, and Auntie Harry stops bringing him punch, Ellie can have a dance with Uncle Sherlock."

"So, Sherlock," asked John's mother over cake, "is there much danger involved in your work? I understand you've been on a few adventures – chases and the like – but aside from that our John seems quite mute on the subject."

There was a brief instant where Sherlock glanced up into John's face from across the table and they had a moment of crystal clarity. The slight widening of the eyes, the subtle twitch in the corner of his mouth. No one had ever understood him so much after weeks in the way John seemed to with a single glance, and it was only fair that he repay the doctor in kind.

"Every career in law enforcement has a certain degree of danger involved with it, of course," he admitted, measuring each word carefully. "However, when I determine the amount of John's involvement in a case I always carefully weigh the risks involved and, if the risk is too great, I either take it on myself or don't take it at all."

John blinked and straightened slightly in his seat, unable to contain himself in front of his beaming mother. "Sorry, what? You don't take cases if you think they're too dangerous?" What happened to the thrill of the chase? What happened to my mind rebels at stagnation?

His partner slowly nodded, silver gaze never leaving John's. "I know my limits, and…I know my weaknesses."

Sherlock waited until John went to the bathroom to approach his sister. He'd managed to overcome his brief intoxication by the power of his own sheer will and was now prepared to get the information he'd been rolling over in his mind since John invited him to the party.

"John tells me your great-aunt practically raised him," he said, unceremoniously removing the margarita from her hand and replacing it with a club soda. "Where exactly were your parents for the majority of John's childhood?"

The smile was ripped from John's older sister's face for the first time all evening, and she ducked into her club soda as if it were a clever hiding place rather than a transparent glass. "Mum and Dad went through a really rough patch when Johnny was little," she admitted. "There wasn't even a full day where they weren't screaming at each other, and I didn't really help much, I guess, and so one day Auntie just storms in with this look on her face, y'know? Like, she really meant business or something. And she just…she just packed Johnny a bag and took him with her to her house, and he lived with her until he was thirteen and our parents figured things out. He still spent half of every summer holiday with Auntie, though. He actually joined the army because of all the stories our uncle told him." She took a sip of her soda and grimaced; Sherlock detected guilt in the way she was shifting in place. "I know I should have been there for him, alright? Johnny and I have had a few talks, and we're past it now."

"Have I missed anything good?" John asked, returning from the washroom and wrapping a hand around Sherlock's hip. He tensed with surprise when Sherlock pressed a compulsory, almost protective kiss to the top of his head. He glanced at his sister. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock grinned down at him. "Nothing of great importance. I think I'd like to meet your aunt, now."

He managed to shake John off as he insisted on coming with, promising he wouldn't mention anything untoward and intending to keep that promise until the moment he was face-to-face with the old woman (which meant crouching to meet her eyes). She gave him a stern look over the bend of her cane and sharply said: "My youngest son was a gay man too, you know, and he killed himself in 1967."

He leaned back onto his heels; John obviously got his short stature from her side of the family. For once he'd been thrown for a loop and found that sarcasm, a sense of humor that has always been a bit below him, the only acceptable response. "It's nice to meet you too." At least that seemed to make her smile.

"My nephew is very fond of you," she admitted. "You won't kill yourself, will you? I hate to see my John upset."

"I wasn't planning on it, I assure you," he said, pulling a chair nearer to him and sinking into it, rather than crouching any longer. "Now, I would like to repay you for bringing John up during his childhood, but for a woman your age material gifts and money seem rather moot. I can offer my services for anything you might need, but—"

She put a hand over his mouth and smiled a bit more softly. "All I want from you is to see my John happily settled," she said resolutely. "You may not be planning on killing yourself, but you have planned on proposing since shortly after you met, haven't you?"

Taken aback not by the statement but its accuracy, Sherlock's eyes widened and then narrowed. "How could you know that?" He leaned closer, always seeking a kindred spirit in the science of deduction.

The ancient woman smiled fondly, leaning forward. "I know my John, and how much time it takes for someone to love him. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, though. Will you marry him? Would you do it tonight if he agreed?"

There was something unusual about Cherie's urgency, the way her hand was closed so tightly on his shoulder, and despite his promise to John, Sherlock found himself "deducing" the old woman. "You're dying," he stated plainly.

The hand vanished from his shoulder and Cherie laughed. "Young man, I am one hundred years old. Anyone who makes it to my age is dying just by living. I won't be around for long, and I want to see my John happy before I go. He was such a sensitive child."

Before more could be said Cherie's large eyes rose and lit up. "It's about time you come over here and take your young man for a dance, John, dear," she said, back to her cheerful dominion over everyone at the party. "He's nice, if not predictable." Something private passed between aunt and nephew, and John beamed before leading Sherlock to the dance floor.

John tries to teach him to dance The Twist, astonished by the fact that Sherlock doesn't know something even the littlest of children at the party do. Sherlock can't seem to coordinate his long limbs properly, at one point moving hips and arms in the same direction and accidentally spinning in a full circle. John laughs for nearly three and a half minutes, and Sherlock doesn't mind at all. He catches on mentally, but cocks it up a few more times to see John's affectionate grin, and for the amusement of the many Watson children who have now gathered to watch "the giraffe man" dance.

He dances with John's tiny cousin (who is also more of a niece, really) Ellie, who is four years old and fascinated by his dark curls when surrounded by sandy-haired relatives. He had been initially shocked and appalled when the girl boldly approached and expectantly held up her arms, but upon seeing the anxious, half-guarded expression on John's face, ready to swoop in and offer comfort when Sherlock inevitably made her cry, he accepted. He doesn't ever want to see John like that because of something he did.

Ellie is a heavy warmth in his arms (holding her is a compromise; she wanted to dance on his feet but he didn't want a sore back from her Watson-esque short stature) and a spot of humidity on the side of his neck where she's been breathing. The song is slow, and he glances up to see the look of tender amazement on John's face as he watches, transfixed. The weight in his arms lessens considerably, and another possibility of normality, one that Sherlock would never have even considered for himself before, blooms forward in his mind. Children. What an odd thought, but for the look on John's face, not completely undesirable.

"Ellie, dear? Can Uncle John cut in?"

They finally had a quiet moment, but Sherlock glanced up and saw Cherie watching them with a foreign sort of hunger in her old faded eyes. He swallowed; his mouth was suddenly dry as a bone. Is this what being in love feels like? It's a good sort of burn. "Will we have a party like this when we marry?" he asked nonchalantly. "It seems that your family enjoys this sort of ritualistic thing." He felt the doctor's startled gaze rounding on him from where he'd been watching his family dance around them, and felt a small twinge of terrified doubt. "You…John, you will…I mean to say, would you…that is…"

John smiles so widely that Sherlock wonders if he might split his lip, pulling him down for a kiss that is searing with joy.