This is a one off in my “The Boys in Sussex” verse. Sherlock and John have retired to Sussex after John survives the Garridebs case. This scene takes place on Christmas Eve, Mycroft and Lady Smallwood are getting married at the farm the following day…
‘Twas the Night Before…
Sherlock sighed as he watched John sleeping peacefully. He never could sleep on Christmas Eve, even after he had learned the truth about Father Christmas when he was six. Mycroft hadn’t spoiled it, he recalled, he had actually caught their father filling the stockings, as he had been sitting up trying to catch the old man coming down the chimney. He pretended that year though and for several years afterwards that he believed, he wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was for his father’s benefit, who seemed to love the idea of the 'Magic of Christmas’ - damn. He shook his head and kissed John’s forehead, then put on his robe and quietly went downstairs. He had to smile at the stockings that he had filled a few hours earlier, he wasn’t sure why he did it, but he thought he finally understood his father’s reluctance to give up the tradition. He rubbed his eyes as he adjusted to the brightness of the hundreds of fairy lights that he and John had managed to get hung up, and the scent of the tree nearly overwhelmed him, as he slowly made his way into the kitchen.
“Bloody hell!” came a hushed, exasperated voice. Mycroft. Sherlock couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his brother swear, as he ducked to avoid getting hit with a balled up sheet of paper.
“Myc?” Sherlock whispered. “You should be getting some beauty sleep. You -”
Mycroft narrowed his eyes at his brother, waiting for the insult that never materialized. Sherlock shook his head.
“You don’t know how - it’s - exhausting. You think a ten minute ceremony shouldn’t be, but it’s not just that - the village will be here, and they will want, expect…” Sherlock sighed and switched on the kettle. “Your vows?”
Mycroft nodded and ran his fingers through his hair. “I thought I was so clever when I suggested it, I thought it would be easy to write them down myself - in a way that doesn’t make me come off as -”
“Overly sentimental?” Sherlock smiled at his brother and took a seat next to him. Mycroft rolled his eyes, but nodded after a moment.
“How did you do it? Stand up in front of people and share something so personal like that. I think it was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen you do - honestly. I don’t think I can do this, Sherlock. We should have just signed the book in London and carried on as we have been. Things are satisfactory as they are, why muck it up, now?”
“I wanted people, we both wanted those people we loved to be there, including you - to witness what we were becoming, I don’t know, it made a difference, Myc. I knew how I felt about him, and I knew how he felt about me, in an abstract way, I guess. But when I promised him, to be there, to love him, and share his life, no matter what, I watched his face - I saw it change, Mycroft, I saw that he believed me, trusted me, and after everything - you know - I never truly thought he’d trust me again. But when I put my ring on his finger and tears filled his eyes - I knew.”
“But -”
“Myc, you’re marrying her at Christmas, and you hate Christmas, fer chrissakes!”
The kettle sang out and Sherlock got to his feet, then thought back to that moment when he had to make his vows, and he took a deep breath as he made two mugs of tea, then carried them back to the table, and sat down again, taking his time to stir in the sugar before speaking again, in a softer tone.
“Honestly, I had a much longer speech planned, I had spent days on it, paragraphs of quotes, Auden, Cummings, I’m sure I even had a sonnet in there - spellchecked it and everything, had it memorized, word perfect - but when I stood in front of him and he looked into my eyes and smiled at me, it all vanished, and I just told him what was - yes, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true - I told him what was in my heart. Logically, I know my heart has nothing to do with how I feel about John. But, Myc - love is - there is absolutely nothing logical or reasonable about love. It isn’t neat - it’s messy - even when you know - it’s still terrifying - because you know, one day - no matter how much you love them -”
Sherlock looked down at his ring and lapsed into silence for a moment. “No matter how much we care, Myc, one day, they won’t be there, and, I’ve already lost him once, well, twice; once when I 'died’ and once when I watched him actually die, Mycroft - and he was dead for one minute and twenty-three seconds. I was still breathing, I survived it. I stood there in the ambulance as we screamed through the traffic. I was holding his hand, he was beginning to get cold, at least it felt that way, maybe it was me - and suddenly - damn. Sorry. I didn’t mean to -”
He took a sip of tea and met his brother’s unreadable gaze. “All I’m trying to say is, do this for her - she deserves to know what you are afraid to say to her. Love takes more - I didn’t know until the first time I said it to him. It changes every time I say it to him and I tell him every day. I keep thinking one day he will get bored of hearing me say it, but he hasn’t yet, his breathing still catches, his eyes still flash at me - just think about what made you want to be with her.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes as his brother shifted in his seat. “I don’t mean in that way - what is it about her that makes you want to spend time with her, what is it that makes her different from all of the billions of people on the planet, Myc? Think about why you want to spend the rest of your life with her. Why are you changing the habits of - I’m assuming since birth, yes? You came into the world in a bespoke suit, didn’t you?” Sherlock’s eyes twinkled at his brother as he quietly finished his tea, then got up from his seat. “It’s nearly midnight, Myc. Go back to bed, be with her, it will come to you. I see you with her. I know. She knows. No matter what you say to her in a few hours, she already knows how you feel about her. It doesn’t have to be poetry, just honest, from your heart, Myc. I do know that you have one. I am going back to bed. Night.” He put his mug in the sink, then turned towards the stairs.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“No, I mean it. Thank you for just being here today. I never thought I deserved a day like this, or that you - there were Christmas Eves when I wasn’t certain, I didn’t know if you were - never mind. Good night, Sherlock.”
“Mycroft. I am sorry. I have never apologized for my transgressions -”
“Sherlock, you don’t have to.”
Sherlock shook his head and walked back to the table. “I do. There was so much I blamed you for and you didn’t deserve it, none of it. But, I made you pay over and over again, Myc. I’m so very sorry. I know it comes a bit late in the day, but I need you to know. Please, forgive me?”
For the first time in his life, Sherlock saw his brother’s gears screech to a complete, dead stop. “Oh, damn. No wonder it freaks John out so badly. That is frightening. Myc? Myc, look at me, blink, say something?”
Mycroft cleared his throat, then blinked, and blew out a breath. “Apologies. I. hmm. I think you’re right. I should go to bed.” He reached out and took Sherlock’s hand in his. “Thank you, Sherlock, you’ll never really know what it means. Night, brother mine.”
“Night, Myc, Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Sherlock.”
“How is he?” John whispered from his chair.
Sherlock shook his head. “Much as I was, the night before I married you.” He moved closer to the fireplace and stared into the dying embers. “How much did you hear?”
“Everything.”
“Everything. John. I -”
“You filled the stockings.”
“Well, I wanted to practice, next Christmas, Maddie will be here. I know, she won’t old enough to understand, but -”
John pulled Sherlock into his lap and kissed him softly. “You. Perhaps one day you will stop finding ways to amaze me. Today is not that day. I love you, Sherlock. Merry Christmas.”
Hi everyone, since we’re already more than halfway through November, I just wanted to remind you that there’s a week and a half left until the submission date on the 30th November. Thanks to those who have already sent me their submission! :) The calendar is starting to look great! And thanks to those who have already followed this blog.
Once you’ve finished your submission, message me or send me an ask on my jeremyholmes profile and I will give you my e-mail address. If you know someone who’s participating but for some reason doesn’t get notified, can you let them know or let me know so I can get in touch. Thank you! I’m so, so excited about this! :)
This is the blog where all your lovely Christmas Calendar contributions will be posted to starting 1st December. Let me just remind you all again that the deadline is the 30th November (the earlier the better). Once you’re finished just shoot me an ask or hit me up on chat on the jeremyholmes account and I’ll send you my e-mail address!
when s5 rolls around and many ppl reunite to blog about Them once more it will be like in jumanji (1995) when robin williams and bonnie hunt see each other again and they’re like It’s been 30 years since we’ve been here and we don’t want to play but The Game is calling us and we have to finish it, we have to do it together
I can’t pick which cover I like better for my new #mormor fic on Wattpad!
Which one do you like best?
The current cover is the marble statue.
Check out an RP style Mormor fic! It is partially AU within the canon universe. Follow Sebastian Moran and Jim Moriarty meeting for the first time with their extraabilities.
Sebastian Moran wields great strength, his military generals reference him as a super soldier.
Jim Moriarty and his Silver Tongue is absolute in its persuasiveness but the toll it takes on his body leaves him defenseless. He should hire a body guard as well as a man to do his dirty work… hmm, who should that be?
“What is all this about?” John grumbled, taking the pen and clipboard that Greg handed over. There was a single piece of lined paper attached to it. He glanced around at Sherlock (standing, aloof) Donovan (seated, scowling) and Anderson (slouching, worried).
They were crowded into Greg’s office at the yard. Greg had sent a vague message about needing John to come in, immediately, and John had needed to do some grovelling to get his regular babysitter to watch Rosie. He hadn’t known that Sherlock had been called in as well.
Things had been strained between them ever since that debacle with Eurus. John had tried to put in the effort, but it seemed that Sherlock got colder and more distant with every passing day. Even cases didn’t seem to get him going anymore, leaving John to wonder what might…
“It’s that stuff, isn’t it?” Anderson said, clearly anxious. “That lemon-smelling stuff. I knew it was lethal, I just knew it!”
“It wasn’t lethal,” Donovan said, rolling her eyes. “You’re still alive.”
John thought back to the incident a month prior. At the end of a long case he, Sherlock, Greg, Donovan and Anderson had all ended up in an industrial warehouse. There was a gunfight, and one of the bullets hit a canister full of some unknown new compound, spraying all of them.
His favorite jacket still smelled like lemon toilet cleaner even now but as none of them had gotten sick, he’d eventually put it out of his mind.
“It wasn’t lethal,” Greg confirmed. “But still dangerous. Long-term it can cause damage internally, but we have the antidote ready.”
Relieved, John noted the reduction in tension, but then Sherlock spoke for the first time.
“If we were merely here to receive the antidote, then what are the pen and paper for?”
Greg again appeared very uncomfortable.
“Well… Turns out this stuff can be passed along…”
“Passed along?”
“Yeah. Um… Through contact. Bodily fluids.” Greg was obviously trying to remain professional but struggling with embarrassment.
“What?”
“He means sex, Anderson,” Sherlock said with a long suffering sigh. “We might have infected people through having sex.”
“Yes, um, that,” Greg agreed, beet red. He rallied, “So I just need you all to write down the names and contact information of anyone you had…er…contact with, in the past month. It’ll remain confidential, but we need to tell them to come get the antidote.”
“Fantastic,” Donovan groaned, but she did immediately start writing.
John swallowed, feeling foolish, though he had no real reason to. He decided to brazen it out.
“Well mine’s easy,” he said, handing the clipboard back to Greg. “Been a slow month.”
Greg smiled awkwardly.
The DI wrote something on his own clipboard, and John wondered if he could go. Anderson handed in a blank sheet and Donovan was looking something up on her phone, and Sherlock…
Sherlock was writing.
Sherlock was writing quite a lot.
John tried not to stare as the man reached the halfway point, but then he kept going and it was like John couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“Um, Sherlock,” Greg spoke up. “We don’t need info on everyone you talked to or anything-”
“Just those I had sex with, yes I know,” he drawled.
“Uh… Ok then.” Greg caught John’s eye, eyebrows raised. John felt like he’d been punched in the gut, though he told himself he had no right to feel that way.
Donovan turned in her paper then looked with shrewd interest at Sherlock, going as far as to peek over his shoulder.
“Blonde from Bradford?” She asked. “What’s her name?”
“I didn’t ask,” Sherlock said, not looking up, but then he paused and wrote something else.
“Blonde MAN from Bradford,” Sally read aloud. “Still not that helpful you know.”
“I’ll find him on the security cameras.”
John watched Donovan scan the rest of the paper as Sherlock kept writing. He didn’t seem at all concerned at her interest, but he did pause after he turned the paper over to write on the back and Greg produced an audible gasp.
“Problem?”
Greg shook his head frantically.
A minute later and it seemed Sherlock was finished. He turned in his clipboard to Greg, who scanned it with what looked like a great effort at composure.
“I’ll need your help tracking some of these down,” he said after a moment, and Sherlock merely nodded.
Greg led them all to another room marked ‘Clinic’, and one by one they went in to get a shot of the antidote. While Sherlock was inside out of earshot, Anderson said,
“Always knew he was gay.”
“Hardly a brilliant deduction,” snorted Sally. Greg scowled at them both.
“Didn’t know he was a bit of a slapper though,” Anderson continued, voice mean, and both Donovan and Greg looked like they were going to angrily retort.
John beat them to it.
“You shut your mouth!” He snarled, getting into the man’s personal space.
“It’s a free country and he can do what he likes, and if I hear a word of it has got out then so help me-”
“Alright alright!” Anderson cried, cowering away.
“John?”
“You’ll regret the day you met me!” John growled.
“John!”
The voice finally registered. Sherlock.
John flushed, suddenly embarrassed.
“Are we done?” He asked Greg, eyes down.
“Yes,” Greg confirmed, and John didn’t wait for more. He pushed his way out of the clinic, hurrying away down the hallway, trying to outrun his feelings of awkwardness and disappointment.
It was only when he got outside that he realized Sherlock had been right behind him.
“Look, I’m sorry for making a scene,” he mumbled, wishing a cab would magically turn up like it always did for his friend. “I just couldn’t let that stand.”
“Couldn’t let what stand?”
Sherlock sounded a bit bewildered, which was more emotion than John had heard from him for weeks.
“He called you a 'slapper’. You know, like, promiscuous.”
“Not really an unfair assessment, given the evidence,” said Sherlock. John risked a look at him. Now he looked…amused?
“It’s a derogatory term,” John insisted, and Sherlock nodded in apparent acceptance.
“So…it doesn’t bother you?” Sherlock asked.
“What? No!” John said. He didn’t add that he was bothered that his own name wasn’t on the list. “I don’t care how many people you sleep with.”
“Oh.”
Was that… Was Sherlock disappointed?
“You might want to learn their names from now on though,” John said, trying to lighten the mood. Thankfully, Sherlock chuckled.
“Never seemed very important. Not like we keep in touch or anything.”
“So none of them are…”
“No, John” Sherlock answered, and his face softened. “None of them, are.”
“Oh…well…”
John thought of all the things he could say. Be supportive of Sherlock’s right to see who he pleased, do as he liked. But instead what he said was,
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. Good,” John repeated, falling into parade rest. “I’m glad none of them are anything special. I’m glad you don’t know their names.”
Sherlock was obviously nonplussed. John continued.
“I don’t care how long your list of names is. I only care about one thing.”
Amazed at his own daring, he took two steps closer to Sherlock - and took encouragement from the way the man’s breath hitched.
“I only care,” said John, “about whose name is going to be last on that list.”
Sherlock’s pupils blew abruptly wide.
“Have…have you got any suggestions?” Sherlock asked, barely seeming able to get the words out. John stepped closer again, head spinning but determined. He stretched up so he could whisper;
“Captain John Hamish Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Blonde, from London.”
All the warning John had was an anguished sort of keen from Sherlock, before he was being kissed like the world was ending. Sherlock had hold of his shoulder and jaw and John pulled him closer by the waist, tilting his head so he could give as good as he got.
After a moment he did his best to gentle the kiss, feeling Sherlock tremble against him. His lips were so soft, John knew he would happily go on kissing him forever if given the chance.
“Alright?”
Sherlock hummed, nuzzling into his neck. John was undone with relief.
Having Sherlock there where he belonged was worth everything. It was worth getting doused with mysterious chemicals and fraught police text messages and childcare and embarrassment and lists. Those were all irrelevant as long as he could have his detective in his arms at last.
As if reading his mind, Sherlock murmured,
“They didn’t mean anything, John.” John squeezed him in reassurance.
“I know, Sherlock. But…”
“But?” Sherlock leaned back, looking a bit anxious.
“But you must have learned a thing or two from them, hmm?”
Sherlock laughed in surprise, eyes twinkling with mischief.
“I might have. Just showed you some, with that kiss… want to see some more?”
“God, yes,” sighed John.
Sherlock raised his hand and a cab of course appeared, whisking them off towards Baker Street, and the future.
I really hope you enjoy reading it. If you like it, or if you just want to say ‘hi’, please leave me a comment. As every fic writer, I’m living on those. It’s the fuel that makes us write more.
