"Yes this is um, well this is Annie." John said at last, ignoring Sherlock as of now so that he could steer his wife's undivided attention towards the little girl. Annie gave a little wave, and the woman smiled back at her just as enthusiastically.
"Hello Annie! I'm Mary, Coach John's wife." The woman introduced, not bothering to try to give Annie a handshake, and perhaps for the best. Sherlock watched the woman closely, watched her now as she stared into the face of the lost bird, looking for even a spark of hopeful recognition. When none appeared (and perhaps that was for the best) she straightened up and readjusted her vision now on the father, realizing that they hadn't been properly introduced.
"And Mary this is...well this is Mr. Holmes. Annie's father." John muttered a bit forcefully, as if he really did hate to acquaint the two of them. Surely it had to be done, as they seemed to be caught in an inescapable accompaniment all the same. This part, at least, was much more amusing for Sherlock than it was for John. To introduce the man you nearly kissed to the woman you nearly sacrificed...well surely that was a death defying act of bravery.
"Very nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes." Mary said politely, sticking out a proper hand to shake. Sherlock shook her hand as well, though with a sort of smile of knowingness. This was agonizing for poor John, and perhaps that's why Sherlock found it to be so much fun.
"Call me Sherlock, I insist." He said with a smile. "That goes for you as well, Coach John."
"Certainly." John said abruptly, though he did not offer up the same sort of informality when directed at himself. Perhaps he felt it gave him a power over the thing he could not control, by making his time bomb address him with the proper titles.
"Sherlock was just about to get going, actually. I think Annie would be best suited joining the team over at the net where...well I told them to be passing. But it seems they're shooting again." John admitted with a regretful sigh, though he seemed to accept that he had lost utmost control over this situation.
"Aren't you going to join the parents? Oh I'm sure they would love to meet you, John said you were new in town?" Mary wondered a bit insistently.
"Yes, moved in just last week." Sherlock agreed with a grin. "But I haven't got a lawn chair and..."
"We've got an extra! Come along then, I'll introduce you!" Mary insisted, giving him a great toothy grin and nodding off towards where the parents sat in their appropriate rows. Sherlock gave a sigh, deciding of course that meeting the parents was a necessary evil. If this really was to be Annie's new team, well then he surely had to make a good first impression. Though this woman, this Mary Watson, she seemed to be the key subject of interest. She seemed to be the sort of woman Sherlock needed to investigate better, in an attempt to find out more of her backstory and her direct (and perhaps misplaced) lineage.
"Very well." Sherlock decided with a sigh, patting Annie on the shoulder as something of a goodbye and following Mary Watson over to the sideline. He gave the Coach one last glance, something of a teasing one at that, and proceeded to follow the poor man's wife where she decided to lead him. It was a nauseating set of introductions, in which each and every face he saw and name he heard was lost just as soon as it was declared. Each person seemed delighted to see him, or rather they put on quite a good show of being delighted. Each woman gave a great smile, each man gave a firm handshake, and when at last Sherlock had made his way down through the rows it seemed as though no one was bettered by such a string of introductions. Besides, there was only one person here who seemed to be able to hold Sherlock's interest. And thankfully, that very same woman was unfolding a lawn chair right next to her own, as if she seemed to know that Sherlock had it in his mind to speak with her for the duration of the practice.
"Your daughter seems to be getting along quite well with our little one." Mary commented as they settled themselves down, nodding over to where Annie was kicking a ball back and forth across the field in the general direction of another little child.
"She had mentioned a friend here, Hamish?" Sherlock presumed.
"That's him." Mary agreed with a smile. "I'm happy to see he's there to welcome her. The kids are all very nice, though. I'm sure she won't have trouble making friends."
"Oh I don't think so. I raised her to be polite, though she seemed to have gained the social confidence from another source entirely." Sherlock admitted with a regretful sigh. Mary nodded, sitting back and sipping from a large water bottle. Sherlock had the slightest inclination to ask just what was contained in such a bottle, as it wasn't see through, though he decided that inquiring about a woman's alcohol consumption wasn't the best way to make a connection.
"Does your husband enjoy coaching?" Sherlock wondered, turning his attention now to where John was jogging his way around the little team, trying to instruct them on how better to kick the ball to and from. Annie seemed to be a particularly helpless case, as she seemed to only grasp the idea of kicking, not necessarily aiming. A great many times the little soccer ball took flight from beneath her toe, going this way and that like a stray comet out of orbit. Sherlock watched with some pride, knowing of course that she had adopted her rather brutish exhilaration from his own teachings. Each time the ball went spiraling in the air she gave a loud and audible cry of excitement, as if she had never seen anything quite as beautiful as a ball with the potential to knock out anyone standing more than five feet from the ground.
"Oh he loves it. He's always trying to be more involved with Hamish, and of course he's loved the sport since his own days at school." Mary admitted with a smile.
"Yes, well the sport will certainly get Annie and I out of the house a bit more." Sherlock agreed with a smile. "Though I can't admit to being very athletic myself."
"Aren't you? Well, certainly if you were interested in any sort of adult league there are plenty of organizations around these parts. We are all very passionate about our activities, trying to stay in shape." Mary said with a little chuckle.
"Oh no, no I wasn't asking for suggestions." Sherlock countered, shaking his head in some urgency as if she was already prepared to put his name on the condemning list of participants. The idea of running about chasing a ball...well it seemed practically damning.
"Oh no, no life is exhaustive enough as it is. Certainly I don't need to occupy myself by...by running." Sherlock muttered, shivering as he remembered again to his first interaction with Molly Hooper, and the five minutes of jogging that nearly took his life. Mary chuckled, as if she found his repulsion to be quite amusing.
"Leave the sports to the kids, then?" she presumed with a little smile.
"Quite so." Sherlock agreed, nodding his head in terse agreement. Practice got underway rather quickly, and before long Coach John had gotten everyone lined up in long rows, practicing their side crosses and a couple of other rather complicated kicks from the half line. Sherlock had never played a sport himself, and so the way practice was conducted seemed almost terribly linear. It seemed as though there were a great many lines formed, and for a moment he wondered how this even counted as exercise at all. The kids weren't even maintaining a steady heart rate, they would merely prance up to the ball, give it a great kick, and proceed to the back of the line to stand and giggle some more. They were truly stagnant for almost the entire practice, save of course for the little game they put on at the end. Finally they all got up to running about, and it would seem as if Annie was truly the fastest of them all. Perhaps she had no usable ball skills, though she was always the first one to the soccer ball when it went flying about over the grass, using her little legs to accelerate like a gazelle. Sherlock watched the majority of the practice in silence, though there were moments when Mrs. Watson would engage him in some amount of small talk. He admitted of course that he was the one most at fault, for while her conversation intrigued him very much he had not prepared himself properly for the route of investigation he had to follow. She fit the bill almost perfectly, as she had the same soft features, same blonde hair, and same good manners as Annie did. The two of them, if stood together and compared, would very likely bear some resemblances that could not be ignored. Though there might be hundreds of other women about this town who had the same traits, surely Mary Watson was not entirely separated in looks from the common pedestrian? Though Sherlock had not yet created a series of questions that would interrogate her properly, he had no way of telling if she was just a blonde woman or if she was the blonde woman. Well it would be a hefty coincidence if the woman he had sought out after was the very first contender he had bumped into in this God forsaken town, though it was not an impossibility. Perhaps this was his little challenge; this was an obstacle that he would have to surpass. It was a little bit of irony, indeed. For if Mary was the girl's mother that meant that John was the girl's father...and that was certainly an uncomfortable situation indeed. And so Sherlock amused her conversation, he answered her questions and traded off a length of his own, though nothing that touched upon the level that he was most interested in. He inquired nothing about her family life, her tragic backstory, or perhaps her knowledge of any family having misplaced their child in the train station some five years previous. They talked of their children's school, and their own tedious posts of employment. They spoke of the local grocery stores and coffee shops, and indulged just for a moment on the topic of the local bars before Sherlock decided that they should steer clear of that topic all together. Perhaps Mary knew of her husband's indulgences, perhaps not. Perhaps Mary knew of her husband's unfaithfulness...perhaps not. And so Sherlock didn't want to tempt her with information she ought not to know as of now, he didn't want to stray into conversations that were best left unmentioned. When at last practice was over, Sherlock got to his feet, with the sole intention of collecting his daughter and leaving the premises unnoticed by the coach or perhaps by the other parents. Though it seemed as though the crowd had other ideas, for just as he thanked Mary very much for her chair and her company she gave a chuckle, as if wondering why on earth he assumed he was leaving so soon. The children came running over to their parents not long after the final whistle had been blown, their water bottles in hand and their complimentary snack in the other. Annie was already peeling apart an orange when she came stumbling back to where Sherlock was standing, a little ways away from the rest of crowd in his own urgency to get going. It was already seven fifteen, and it was veering a bit close to Annie's appointed bedtime. Certainly that would be excuse enough for the little family to head towards their obnoxiously large minivan and be on their way?
"Daddy, did you see me playing? I almost scored a goal!" Annie exclaimed excitedly, still so open minded to her own talent and limitations that 'almost' was certainly an accomplishment enough.
"I know, I saw!" Sherlock said with a little grin. "You were quite fantastic."
"Hamish said I'm good." Annie said with a proud little grin. "And he never lies."
"I'm sure he doesn't! Now then, are you about ready to head home?" Sherlock suggested, looking about the overly crowded field and getting very overwhelmed. There were so many voices now mixing together, and so many little gangs of parents and children all encircled about themselves in a very restricting and uninviting way. Sherlock felt very out of place, if not entirely secluded from the masses of parents who all interacted so...so properly. He was an outlier in every sense of the word, even Annie was lingering off to join a small group of friends where they stood huddled about the pile of oranges, picking their favorites to eat on the ride home. And so Sherlock was alone...though not for long.
"Mr. Holmes?" asked that ever predictable voice, now so familiar to Sherlock's ear that he could recognize it without even turning back to clarify. Yes, there he was.
"Mr. Watson." Sherlock muttered, turning his head almost lazily towards the man as he approached with a great mesh bag filled with soccer balls. He looked just as he always did, like that suburban father straight out of a stock image. His baseball cap was now coated in a little line of sweat, and his whistle was bouncing wildly about his chest with every step he took. Sherlock couldn't help but smile, as he found this man to be ever the more amusing by the moment.
"I thought perhaps you could help me gather the cones from the far end of the field?" John proposed, throwing the bag down rather agressivley and nodding towards some orange plastic cones that were very far away from any witnesses. Sherlock hesitated, wondering if he was going to get something of a scolding over on the far end of the field, where there would be no little ears overhearing the vulgarities that were sure to fly from that man's mouth.
"Certainly you could employ one of your younger, more enthusiastic members to such a task?" Sherlock suggested, nodding over to where one of the little boys was running lengths down the sidelines, apparently on some sort of sugar high.
"No, no. I think you're just the man for the job." John said with a rather threatening little grin, and with that he started his way across the cold grass with the assumption that Sherlock would just willingly follow. Well unfortunately he was correct in such regard, as Sherlock was a little bit afraid of what might happen if he denied John's more obvious command. And so he followed, making his way across the trampled field at his own leisure, rather dragging his feet in an attempt to lengthen the journey that was shortened with every long step he took through the field. The sun was just about set over the horizon, and the sky was beginning to dull in its brilliant colors and give way to the more obvious signs of darkness. When at last they met in the far corner of the field they collected about the orange cone, though neither made any move to pick it up. Instead John hesitated, taking a look across the field to make sure there were no onlookers, and finally set his attention back upon Sherlock. Well for a moment Sherlock had his doubts, as there were two possible ways this scenario could play out. John may either let out all of his anger here and now, trading Sherlock's insufferable attitude for a good punch in the teeth, or perhaps he would let out all of his pent up frustration in the form of a kiss. Either one seemed possible at the moment, as they had left each other on angry though attracted terms. John could deny it all he wanted, though there had been a moment when he had lost all of his restraints, when he had shaken away the chains which bound him and broke down all of his walls of hesitation. There had been a moment in his drunken state when he wanted Sherlock more than anything in the world...though it seemed now that his sober self had a little bit more self-control. And as his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched, well Sherlock was preparing himself a bit better for a slap than any sort of embrace.
"You have a lot of f*cking nerve, you know that?" John growled, finally positioning himself in such a stance as to point a sharp and accusing finger into Sherlock's chest. Sherlock recoiled, not having expected such hostilities right off the bat.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Watson, but I wasn't aware that you would be here. You never did me the honor of introducing yourself that..."
"Don't talk about it." John demanded in a growl. "I swear to God, Sherlock, one word about that night and I'll cut out your tongue."
"Mr. Watson, let's not get too hostile!" Sherlock insisted, raising his hands up in defense though feeling as though his submission would get the man all the more infuriated. Perhaps there was nothing Sherlock could do but cooperate entirely, knowing of course that silence and secrecy was all John expected of him. That wouldn't be too difficult of course, as Sherlock had never prepared himself to go blabbing around town either way.
"I was drunk, okay? And what I do when I'm drunk does not reflect my priorities." John demanded.
"I understand that, you remember? I told you..."
"I said don't talk about it!" John growled, jabbing his finger even deeper between Sherlock's ribs and making a rather concerning indent. Sherlock hesitated, though gave another apologetic smile. He didn't know what else to do, as he had never really been in this situation before.
"Well you were talking about it." Sherlock defended weakly.
"I was elaborating. Now, Sherlock, I say again. Don't speak of it to Mary; don't speak of it to Hamish. Don't even mention having seen me before this very day to anyone you ever meet." John demanded.
"Have some reputation to upkeep, do you?" Sherlock presumed with a little chuckle. Evidently that didn't go over well, for just as soon as the words left Sherlock's mouth John rather pounced at him, attempting to grab him in a headlock but finding ultimately that there was nothing to support the two of them, and they were together falling forward at an astonishing rate. And so while John was able to regain his balance, Sherlock was sent falling to the grass with something of a terrified yelp, collecting in a heap of limbs and grass clippings at John Watson's feet.
"Point made." Sherlock muttered weakly, letting his head fall miserably onto the painted line as he watched John give a grin of satisfaction.
"Very well. Nice chat." John muttered, and with that he plucked the orange cone from the line and continued on his way. Well of course he wasn't going to help Sherlock up. It seemed as though he had some sort of point to prove, some sort of show to put on to demonstrate that he cared nothing for the man. Well, perhaps it didn't reflect his inner emotions at all, though at the moment it was quite convincing. At the moment Sherlock felt as though he had effectively made his first enemy in this horrible town, and he had done nothing more than be tragically beautiful.