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It’s a dark and stormy night.
The wind is howling, the rain is lashing down in torrents, thunder is rumbling closer and closer, and John and Sherlock are right in the middle of it all.
John loves it.
He’s running after Sherlock, the grass slick beneath his trainers, freezing water soaking through his clothes as he dodges between gravestones, because, oh yes: they’re in a graveyard. It’s midnight on October 30, the night before Hallowe’en, and they’re chasing a man through a cemetery. This, John thinks as he ducks under a tree branch, will be one for the blog.
Maybe he’ll call it “The Graveyard Shift.”
“Left!” Sherlock shouts, his voice nearly disappearing into the rain, and John veers, almost sliding on a patch of fallen leaves, and grinds to a halt beside the detective. Sherlock’s face is all sharp angles and shadows in the light of his torch; his hair is as black as the night and plastered against his pale forehead. He looks like a mad genius. He is a mad genius. John loves it.
“He went in there,” Sherlock says, bending down to speak quietly in John’s ear. He points, and at that moment a flash of lightning illuminates the hulking stone crypt some ten feet away. It looks it came right out of a vampire movie.
John wonders if “The Cullen Caper” makes him sound too much like an adolescent girl. Still, it’s got a ring to it.
They don’t need to speak as they advance toward the mausoleum. John already knows what’s going to happen when they get inside: Sherlock will dart forward and corner the man, while John hangs back and guards the door. They’ve done this kind of thing before. They’ve got a system.
Sherlock gives a nod, and John pushes open the stone door. Sherlock dashes in, John at his heels; he closes off the entrance as quickly as he can, muting the sound of the rain and the wind to a distant howl. Then he readies his stance, in case the man decides to attack.
But Robbie Norberton is leaning against the wall, eyes closed, water dripping down his face, giving off an air of utter defeat. Next to him is an open coffin. Inside it, something is wrapped in gray fabric—something shaped suspiciously like a human body.
“Beatrice Norberton,” Sherlock says, and flicks the fabric back to reveal the face of a very human, very dead woman.
She’s been deceased for close to a week, John calculates, his heart sinking as some of the fun of the chase ebbs away. He’d been hoping that they’d find the sister alive—that they’d burst in, discover her trapped or tied up, and stop her brother from killing her in the nick of time. But it looks like they’re too late.
“She was already dead, I swear,” Norberton says pleadingly, looking from John to Sherlock. “She had a heart condition. I put her in here a week ago, I know it’s awful, but I…”
“You had to wait until the online tournament this weekend,” Sherlock says, cutting through the man’s whinging. He looks at John. “He’s got an Internet gambling addiction, and the debts to show it. But,” he says, turning his gaze abruptly back on Norberton, who winces under its force, “you plan on paying them all off if you do well tomorrow. Your sister dying threw a wrench in the plans—oh, yes, yes, stop sniveling, I know you didn’t kill her, it’s obvious she was ill.”
It’s not obvious to John, and he’s a doctor. Some of the excitement of the night surges back through him—sure, it’s sad she’s dead, but if it wasn’t murder…and Sherlock is positively sparkling just now.
“The house is in her name, and you’ll inherit the lot. Unless, of course, her executors find that you’re in debt, in which case it’ll be forfeit to the bank. But,” Sherlock continues, pacing back and forth, “if you win the tournament, you’ll pay off your debts and keep the house. So you hid her body in here until it was safe to tell everyone she’d died.”
John feels a surge of contempt for the man. Norberton runs a trembling hand over his wet face. “How did you know?”
“A dozen different ways,” Sherlock says cuttingly. “You hardly hid it well. But when your sister’s toy poodle didn’t recognize the woman you hired to impersonate her for the week, I was certain.”
Norberton gives a shaky laugh. “Damn dog. I always did hate the thing.” He hesitates. “Are you going to call the police?”
John looks at Sherlock, who gives him a nod. The doctor unzips the inner pocket of his coat and finds his phone miraculously dry.
“Please—” the man begs. “I just need until tomorrow, and then—”
“Boring,” Sherlock says, turning away, and for once John feels no need to chide him for rudeness. He dials the local police, who are only too happy to step in.
They wait in silence until the car arrives. After Norberton has been taken away, John turns to Sherlock to find Sherlock turning to him. John grins.
“Pretty good for a Hallowe’en case. Body in a crypt. Chase through a cemetery in the rain.”
“Yes, I’m sure your readers will be thrilled out of their tiny minds,” Sherlock says, rolling his eyes, but there’s amusement rather than disdain beneath his words.
“So,” John says, looking to the open door, outside which the storm is as strong as ever. “What now?”
“There’s a train back to London at one a.m.”
John makes a face. “Will they let us on board like this?” He spreads his arms, dripping all over the floor.
“Would you rather sleep here?”
Sherlock’s tone is so serious John almost takes it for a genuine suggestion. Then he sees the sparkle in Sherlock’s gray eyes and grins ruefully.
“Rain it is, then.”
They take a deep breath and head back out into the night. Somehow the downpour feels much colder and much wetter now that they’re no longer chasing a potential murderer. John lags behind Sherlock a little, hunching his shoulders against the chill, staring at the ground in front of him so he doesn’t trip over any tree roots or grave markers.
A flash of lightning illuminates the stone just ahead, and suddenly, the world seems to tilt, spinning horribly out of control. John stops dead, heart in his mouth.
The gravestone reads:
SHERLOCK HOLMES
B. 1941
D. 1976
John looks up wildly, searching the cemetery for the silhouette of the world’s only consulting detective, feeling as though he’s stumbled right into a horror movie. For a mad moment he can’t find him, and he wonders frantically if some Halloween magic has conjured him away, if the earth has swallowed him whole—but no, there he is, tall and lean as ever, striding through the wet toward the iron fence.
On the opposite side of which is standing, to John’s everlasting horror, a hulking, misshapen, monstrous thing.
It’s too dark to see the creature’s face, but it’s shaped like a man up until its shoulders, where it looks as if it’s got some sort of growth or maybe wings or a giant domed head. John can’t tell. But Sherlock is walking toward it, slowly, steadily, as if mesmerized or possessed, and John kicks belatedly into gear, racing in the direction of the gate, determined to stop the detective before he gets there, but Sherlock is so close and for some reason he isn’t stopping.
Another flash of lightning cuts across the sky, and the monstrous figure is illuminated, stark against the black night.
It’s Mycroft Holmes.
Sherlock’s brother is standing under an enormous umbrella, which, John immediately realizes, accounts for the odd shape of his silhouette. He slows to a walk, embarrassment and relief surging through his body. He hopes neither brother noticed his frantic run. Seems unlikely, though.
Mycroft steps into the weak light of a nearby streetlamp and John sees, to his immediate irritation, that his suit is crisp and immaculate and totally dry. It’s characteristic of the brothers that Sherlock is drenched and muddy while Mycroft looks as calm as if he were being received at Buckingham Palace. Mycroft may have more power, but Sherlock’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. There’s a reason John is devoted to the younger Holmes sibling instead of the elder.
“It’s touching, really, Sherlock,” Mycroft is saying, voice just a little too innocent. John doesn’t think Mycroft’s ever been that innocent in his life. “That you would brave such a terrible storm just to visit—”
“It was for a case,” Sherlock bites out. “Obviously.”
His voice carries that brittle quality that John only ever hears when Sherlock is talking to, or about, his brother. It infallibly makes John want to tell Mycroft to take a long walk off a short cliff as punishment for whatever he did to Sherlock, once upon a time, to make him sound even less human than normal.
“Indeed,” Mycroft replies blandly. “What a curious coincidence that it should bring you here, of all places. Upon this of all days. Are you quite sure you had no other motive for taking this case besides the purely professional?”
Sherlock looks furious. John’s hackles are raising—something about Mycroft Holmes always brings out the guard dog in him—but at the same time he can’t help wanting to know what the elder Holmes is talking about. Still, when Sherlock’s eyebrows get that close together, John knows it’s time to go.
“Don’t know if you noticed, but it’s raining bloody buckets,” he says conversationally. “Can we possibly take this somewhere that feels a little less like a swimming pool?”
Mycroft turns his gaze to John for the first time. “Dr. Watson. Practical as ever. As a matter of fact, there is somewhere warm and dry and very much nearby, if Sherlock would stop being stubborn—”
“Mycroft,” Sherlock snaps dangerously. But he’s not walking away. John can’t even begin to guess why.
“Right, then,” he says to the detective, ignoring his growing curiosity. “Let’s be off, then. We’ve a train to catch.”
“You know how important this time of year is to her,” Mycroft calls as they turn away, and John just can’t help himself.
“Important to who, Sherlock?” he queries as quietly as he can. But Mycroft overhears.
“Our mother, of course,” he replies, and John feels the world shift beneath his feet. He realizes belatedly that he’s stopped walking, and that his mouth is hanging open. It means a lot that Sherlock isn’t mocking him for it. Sherlock isn’t saying anything at all, in fact—his eyes are turned away, and he’s standing very, very still.
“Oh, surely you knew we grew up here?” Mycroft asks, knowing full well (John is positive) that John knew no such thing. “You were just looking at our father’s gravestone, after all.”
In a flash, John remembers the slab of marble that had sent him panicking about Hallowe’en curses and hulking monsters. Of course, he thinks. Date of death, 1976—Sherlock would have been, what…
“Two years old,” Mycroft says, cutting into his thoughts. “And I was ten.”
John gets irritated when Sherlock does that, but at least the detective has some proprietary claim on his mind. John’s not sure how he’s allowed Sherlock to invade him so thoroughly, but he realizes now, with shockingly little regret, that it’s absolutely the truth. Mycroft, on the other hand, has no such right to be inside his head.
“Your point?” John asks Mycroft, valiantly pretending not to care that Sherlock grew up nearby. That his father is buried in this cemetery. That his mother apparently lives so close that John could meet her tonight—maybe even within the hour—if he wanted to. If Sherlock wanted to, John corrects himself, and crosses his arms in what he hopes looks like casual defiance.
“Sherlock has a standing invitation to the annual Holmes Hallowe’en festivities,” Mycroft explains smoothly. “I thought perhaps this year he’d decided to avail himself of it—alongside yourself, of course. You’re more than welcome to join us.” Mycroft smiles, not quite pleasantly. “We’d be delighted to have you.”
And still, still Sherlock says nothing. This long a silence in the face of such provocation is, in John’s experience, unprecedented, and consequently a little terrifying. Hesitantly, wishing Mycroft’s eyes weren’t trained on the two of them—because this is none of his business—John slides his hand into the damp crook of Sherlock’s elbow.
He feels the detective snap back to life under the pressure of his fingers. Sherlock glares at Mycroft, and as he opens his mouth to refuse his brother’s offer, John can’t help but feel a wave of disappointment. He knows Sherlock’s childhood must have been difficult—he can’t imagine it otherwise, given the way the brothers flinch at the very idea of sentiment—and though he has no wish to dig up painful memories for his friend, he does sometimes think he’d understand Sherlock a little better if he could see where he came from.
“You don’t want the good doctor to catch his death of cold, surely?” Mycroft asks softly, forestalling Sherlock’s refusal, and the detective darts an involuntary glance at John’s admittedly rain-soaked form and chattering teeth. John hopes his desire for Sherlock to accept Mycroft’s offer isn’t written all over his face, but then, Sherlock’s always been able to read him like a book.
“Fine,” Sherlock snaps after a long pause. “We’ll come.”
And all of them—the detective included—fall silent, looking briefly, utterly shocked.
Mycroft has a car waiting for them, of course, though to John’s undying surprise, Mycroft is driving. John slides in the backseat next to Sherlock, glad of the warmth and not overly concerned about dripping all over the smart leather seats. The detective says nothing as the car rolls into motion. John wishes he could ask Sherlock if this is okay—if he isokay—but even if Mycroft weren’t listening, he knows Sherlock would probably bite his head off for presuming he’s got anything resembling emotions about his childhood. Touching is out, too; they aren’t casual touchers—Sherlock doesn’t seem to need physical contact like other people do—and John wouldn’t dare break his personal bubble twice in so short a period. So he sits and stares out the window, feeling more and more as if he’s just stepped out of a cold shower—freezing, soaked, and about as helpless as if he were wearing nothing but a towel and a shower cap.
He’s expecting Mycroft to take them away from the lights of town, out to some country estate with acres of land and a giant house straight out of a TV miniseries starring Jeremy Irons, but instead, they drive through more and more obviously residential areas. Through the rain-streaked windows, John sees rows of big brick houses, warm and inviting, with pretty yards and well-kept sidewalks. He barely has the presence of mind to hide his shock from Sherlock when Mycroft turns into the driveway of a mid-size, two-story house with a charming peaked roof and a yard overrun with Halloween decorations. As John hurries out of the car and follows the siblings through the rain, he catches a glimpse of fake tombstones, a row of jack-o’-lanterns, and a truly impressive giant spider perched in a tree. They step up onto the porch, which is brightly strung with orange and purple fairy lights, and Mycroft rings the bell.
As they wait for a reply, John realizes that he’s tensed up in sympathy with Sherlock, whose shoulders are rigid and feet spread as if in preparation for a blow; but then the door opens, and John can’t for the life of him understand why.
She’s bright-eyed, pretty, and verging on plump, laugh lines creasing the corners of her gray-green eyes, silver streaking a mass of dark hair that is otherwise the twin of Sherlock’s, and when she sees not one but both of her sons standing on her front porch, her face lights up like Christmas.
“Sherlock!” she says, her voice low and rich and not nearly as public school as her offspring’s. “Mycroft said he was going to bring you back with him, but…” She shakes her head, smiling. “And you must be John Watson!”
John feels as though every single solid thing he knows is melting away under the warmth of her gaze. He has never, not in a million years, dreamed that Sherlock’s mother would be like this. He’d sooner have imagined Sherlock a penniless orphan than the son of somebody so warm, and outgoing, and human.
“Pleased to meet you,” he says, feeling slightly faint.
“I’d give you a hug, but I’m afraid you’re rather drenched,” she says. “Come in, please, out of the cold.”
They follow her obediently inside. The front hall opens onto the living room, where a fire burns cozily in the grate and boughs thick with autumn leaves grace each surface. Mycroft leans with impossible ease against the wall, his cheeks very nearly pink, while Sherlock stands mutely in the doorway, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. John wonders if he might have stumbled into some sort of parallel universe.
“I’ve got apple cider mulling on the stove,” Mrs. Holmes says, “for after you get cleaned up.” She smiles at John. “I’m sure we can find you something dry to put on. You’ll stay the night, of course—and tomorrow as well.”
Sherlock makes a sort of half-noise, rolling his shoulders back uncomfortably, but his mother purses her lips and looks him dead in the eyes. All at once John sees the family resemblance.
“I know you can’t have come all this way on Halloween to stay somewhere that isn’t this house,” she says pointedly, and Sherlock meets her gaze for a moment and shakes his head.
“Good,” she replies, all trace of sternness vanishing. “You’re in your old room, of course, and we’ll put John just down the hall in the guest room.”
“I can take him there, if you like,” Mycroft puts in, with a helpfulness John finds frankly alarming, but Sherlock practically snarls his objection.
“I will show him, Mycroft, not that he isn’t perfectly capable of finding it himself.”
John blinks, wondering if Sherlock is aware of just how possessive he sounds, wondering if he ought to object. But he doesn’t. He follows the detective obediently out of the room—he still finds the situation utterly surreal, but he’d follow Sherlock straight into a Dalí painting if he asked—catching a glimpse of Mrs. Holmes’ expression, sad but resigned, as she watches Sherlock’s retreating back.
“Just look at you, Mycroft,” he hears her say as he and Sherlock climb the stairs. “You’re completely dry. Not a drop on you. I don’t know how you do it.”
“State secret,” Mycroft replies dryly, and John adds Mycroft Holmes joking to the rapidly growing list of impossible things he’s witnessed in the last half hour.
The upstairs hallway is just as pleasant as the downstairs. There are family photos on the walls, with which John completely fails not to be obviously entranced. The image of a small Sherlock in a school uniform is a gift, a windfall the likes of which John never expected to stumble upon, and he knows the detective will resent his interest but he just can’t help soaking it all in.
Still, it’s not as if he’s oblivious to Sherlock’s mood. His friend is in a high sulk, his cheekbones somehow sharper than usual as if in sympathy with his temper, but John knows there’s more to it than that. Something’s gotten under Sherlock’s skin, and he’s really and truly uncomfortable to be here. John wishes very much that he knew why.
“Sherlock…” he begins.
“Your room is here,” the detective says, ignoring the doctor’s attempt at speech. “There’s a shower through there.”
“Right.” Neither of them moves. “Er,” John says.
“What?” Sherlock snaps.
John’s courage fails him. “I…don’t have any dry clothes.”
Sherlock gives a huff of impatience and disappears through a doorway down the hall. John glimpses blue walls and what looks like a collage of magazine pictures taped on the wall before Sherlock emerges again, arms full of pajamas.
“Roll up the legs. They’ll be too big,” he says, thrusting them into John’s arms.
“Thanks,” John replies, feeling more than a little lost, and Sherlock retreats once more.
After a moment, John does likewise.
It’s heaven to remove his dripping clothes, and even better to step into a warm shower. He rinses the grime of the graveyard from his body, basking in the steam, trying not to worry about Sherlock. He can’t begin to guess what the detective finds so upsetting about this house. It’s so much nicer, so much warmer, so much better than John had ever expected. There’s not a servant or a cold marble floor in sight, and Mrs. Holmes is kind and smart and John can’t possibly imagine what happened to make Sherlock feel like coming back home is torture.
He shivers a little, even under the hot water, and turns off the shower.
Putting on Sherlock’s old pajamas isn’t like anything John has ever experienced before. He supposes it ought not to be quite so meaningful, given that he and Sherlock are, as they say, just friends, and Sherlock is about as unsentimental about such things as a lamp, but John’s stopped being worried about what things should be like where the detective is concerned. The fact is that, in no small way, John belongs to Sherlock. And he’s starting to believe that Sherlock is, to some extent, his. It’s not that John has fantasies about being Sherlock’s boyfriend, because he doesn’t. He’s not secretly pining after Sherlock like some people at the Yard clearly think. True, John’s beginning to suspect that he wouldn’t refuse anything Sherlock wanted from him—and he does mean anything—but that’s not really the heart of the matter. It’s beside the point, actually, given Sherlock’s stated lack of interest in such things. Which John doesn’t regret. Yet the fact remains that sliding into Sherlock’s worn pajamas is a little like sliding into Sherlock’s skin, and John feels more intimately connected to the man than he’s ever felt before.
When he goes back downstairs, the brothers are already sitting at the kitchen table with their mother, whose face lights up when John appears.
“Much better,” she exclaims. “Please, sit. The cider’s almost ready. Would you like a pumpkin bar?” John accepts gratefully. “Sherlock? No, of course not. Mycroft, you’ll have one, won’t you? Oh, go on.”
Mycroft takes one and Sherlock gives a small but distinct snort of derision. In a flash, Mrs. Holmes’ gaze turns steely.
“None of that, Sherlock, thank you. Mycroft works hard enough that he deserves not to have to worry about what he eats when he’s home for the holidays.” She runs her eyes up and down Sherlock’s lean frame. “So do you, for that matter. Still, I think you’ve gained—oh, five and a half pounds, I’d say, since I last saw you. It’s a definite improvement.”
Her eyes flicker to John, their expression warm again, and John feels a pleasant flush rising to his cheeks. It isn’t often he’s thanked for what he does for Sherlock, and sometimes he despairs of being any use at all.
“We’re very glad to have you, John,” Mrs. Holmes says. Startled, John wonders if she’s got the family talent for following his thoughts.
“I’m very glad to be here, Mrs. Holmes,” he says honestly.
“Oh, call me Violet, please.” She chuckles. “It must seem a bit odd, all this fuss about Hallowe’en from a grown woman. But it’s always been the favorite holiday in this house. Christmas is too garish, too commercial. We Holmeses like a bit of mystery, don’t we?” She smiles at Sherlock, who doesn’t meet her eyes. “The strange and the grotesque. It’s all quite fun. You’ve missed the pumpkin carving, I’m afraid—Mycroft and I did it this morning—but there’s trick-or-treating tomorrow. I like to give the children a bit of a scare.”
“I always manage to get away for a couple of days at Hallowe’en,” Mycroft adds. “Haven’t missed a year since I was at university.”
John doesn’t miss the implied criticism in his voice. Sherlock remains stubbornly silent, which John knows indicates, much more than if the detective were offering snappy retorts, that Sherlock is seriously troubled, so he tries to steer the conversation into safer waters.
“Well, it seems like fun,” he says. “Sorry to keep you up late, though. We didn’t mean to disturb you at this time of night.”
Violet Holmes waves away his apology. “No, no. I keep odd hours. Another Holmes trait, isn’t it? You’ll have deduced that by now, of course.” Her eyes sparkle. “I never managed to set a proper bedtime for the boys—I didn’t have much of a moral high ground, did I, when I was in here at three a.m. doing the crossword?”
“The Sunday crossword,” Mycroft puts in, and John finds it bizarre to see an expression of pride—pride for someone other than himself—transforming the elder Holmes brother’s face. “Mum doesn’t talk about the most important Holmes trait she shares. She’s quite brilliant.”
“Oh, Mycroft.” Violet makes a face.
“Modest, though,” John remarks without thinking, grinning at her. “That’s a bit of a change.”
For a terrible second of silence, he’s afraid he’s made an awful misstep. But then Violet and Mycroft burst into laughter.
“Oh, I like him,” Violet says. “He’s got guts. When was the last time someone insulted you, Mycroft?”
“I think it was the Romanian ambassador,” Mycroft replies dryly. “He didn’t like my tie.”
They all laugh again—everyone but Sherlock—and John thinks again that he must have stepped into an alternate universe. He’s sharing a joke with Mycroft Holmes. It’s pleasant.
“Really, though,” Mycroft says. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s an astrophysicist.”
The solar system, John thinks, his humor abruptly draining away. Sherlock has deleted the solar system.
Once again Violet Holmes seems to be following his train of thought. She looks at her younger son, still sitting stoically with his eyes fixed on the table.
“So, Sherlock, tell me about the case.”
He looks up, startled. She grins. “Oh, please. I know you didn’t come all this way just for me. Of course you were on a case.” She raises her eyebrows. “For one thing, you’ve got dirt under your fingernails. I don’t think you got that walking from the train.”
John peeks surreptitiously at both their hands. It’s true. Sherlock looks deeply chagrined.
“You’ve been in the cemetery,” Violet says softly.
Sherlock looks away. There’s an awkward silence.
“It was a brilliant case, really,” John says, rushing in as he always does whenever other people’s conversations with Sherlock get too difficult. “Quite good for Hallowe’en. The whole thing started because this man, Robbie Norberton, was burning old bones in his fireplace—turned out they were from a crypt in the graveyard, he needed to empty out a coffin so—”
“So he could put his sister’s body in it,” Sherlock cuts in. “She died, and he pretended she hadn’t in order to pay off his debts before coming into his inheritance. He wasn’t even good at the deception. It was a stupid and sordid little problem. I fail to see anything remotely ‘brilliant’ about it.”
John tries not to be hurt by the rancor in Sherlock’s voice. Helping the man is often a thankless task, but he does prefer not to be insulted for doing it. Mycroft’s lips are pursed in obvious displeasure. Violet stares at her son, clearly choosing her words carefully.
“Perhaps John merely finds you brilliant, Sherlock,” she says quietly. “You’ve still got quite the temper, haven’t you? One of these days it’s going to be too much.”
There’s a long silence.
“Cider’s ready,” Violet says, growing suddenly bright again. “You’re all having some, no arguments.” Mycroft stands to help her ladle the steaming liquid into mugs. It smells incredible, spicy and sweet, and John is relieved to see that Sherlock doesn’t refuse his glass.
“Amazing,” John says after taking a long sip. It tastes like liquid autumn. “I’ve never had anything half this good.”
Violet’s face lights up. “Oh, I’m so glad you like it. It’s rather special, you see.” She turns to her younger son. “Go on, Sherlock. Give it a taste.”
Grudgingly, the detective raises the mug to his lips. As he sips the cider, his eyes widen and the mug slips from his hands. Golden-brown liquid spatters all over the floor as the cup shatters, splinters of porcelain exploding upwards.
“It’s impossible,” he says hoarsely, making no move to clean up the mess. Mycroft, looking thoroughly puzzled, hurries for the dishtowel, but John can’t take his eyes off the detective and his mother.
“I knew you’d recognize it,” she says softly, radiating happiness. “Oh, Sherlock.”
“But—how?” he asks urgently.
“They’ve reopened. George Tanner’s nephew is taking over.”
Mycroft has gone stock still, now, too, crouched over the cider-spattered floor. “Tanner Farms is open again?” he asks, voice hushed and reverent.
Violet nods. Mycroft beams, but Sherlock looks positively stricken.
“Er,” John says, because he cannot even begin to work out what’s just happened.
Violet’s laughter breaks the charged atmosphere. “I’m sorry, John, it must feel like you’ve wandered into a madhouse. Tanner Farms is a nearby orchard. We used to go apple picking there every fall, and we’d get gallons of their apple cider to freeze—we just couldn’t get enough of it. They closed when Sherlock was—oh, he must have been ten, yes, as it was Mycroft’s last year before university. It was quite devastating, I’m afraid. The end of an era. But the owner’s nephew reopened this year, and I think the cider tastes precisely the same as it did all those years ago.” She smiles at Sherlock. “I knew you’d recognize it, Sherlock, you’re extraordinary as ever.”
Sherlock stands abruptly. “It’s sour,” he says, voice utterly flat. That, John knows, is a very bad sign. “It bears no resemblance whatsoever to its predecessor. I merely object to the taste of unripe apples.” He sweeps his robe back and strides across the room. “I’m going to bed.”
“At two in the morning?” Violet calls after him, her voice full of disbelief and disappointment.
Sherlock doesn’t answer, and they listen to his footsteps disappearing up the stairs.
“I don’t know what I’ve done,” Violet confesses to John quietly. “I really don’t know.”
He’s torn between sympathy for this kind, compassionate woman and worry about Sherlock. He ought to go to him, he thinks, even though he knows there’s probably nothing he can do. “Er,” he says awkwardly. “I…”
“Go on, then,” she says, smiling sadly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
John nods, pushing back his chair. “Thanks for the cider. It’s—” He struggles. “It’s lovely.”
“Thank you, John,” she replies. As he starts to go, she says, “And please, make yourself at home. There’s a telly in your room and some DVDs if you have trouble sleeping. Don’t worry about waking me in the morning—I’ll be up and about, I’m sure.”
He nods. As he leaves the room, his gaze falls for a moment on Mycroft, who has finished cleaning up the spill and is standing at the counter, his own mug of cider at his lips. He’s drinking slowly, and his eyes are closed, and there’s an expression of utter peace on his careworn face.
John hesitates outside the door of Sherlock’s bedroom. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, really—that Sherlock’s going to let him in and they’ll tell each other secrets all night long like a couple of kids at a sleepover? That Sherlock will confide all his deepest, darkest secrets and John will hold him tight? More likely, Sherlock will bark at him to go away and John will spend the rest of the night nursing his wounded pride.
But he knocks anyway. Looking out for Sherlock Holmes seems to have become his dedicated purpose in life, though John doesn’t know exactly when or how that happened. It’s a thankless task most of the time, and Sherlock certainly doesn’t seem to appreciate or even notice—except on a few rare occasions, which, John has to admit, feel like getting a gold star in kindergarten, or scaling Mt. Everest. John suspects it’s not even a possible goal, really, protecting Sherlock from other people’s cruelty, from Sherlock’s own temper, from the darkness of his own mind. It’s tilting at windmills, probably. But John likes nothing if not an impossible task—he went to Afghanistan willingly, after all—and if the care and keeping of Sherlock Holmes is a quixotic venture, it’s one at which he’s happy to fail.
Well, not happy, precisely. He’d prefer to succeed.
There’s no answer from Sherlock’s room. John knocks louder this time, heart suddenly pounding. He doesn’t think Sherlock would do anything stupid—or not anything irrevocably stupid, anyway. Sherlock may be self-destructive and dangerously reckless and at times deeply depressed, but he’s too in love with the complexity of the world to wish to leave it permanently behind. And yet the night’s been so surreal that John’s not sure of anything anymore.
“Sherlock,” he says firmly. “Are you okay?”
There’s a long silence, and then, finally, a muffled sound behind the door—not a word, not even quite a noise of assent, but John accepts that it’s as close to those things as he’s going to get. Marginally relieved, he retreats back into his bedroom. But he finds that despite his physical exhaustion, his mind is racing too fast for him to go to bed. So he sits on the edge of the bed, staring around the room—a perfectly nice, normal guest bedroom that could belong in anybody’s house, though now that he notices, there are a few volumes of advanced physics on the bookshelf, a very old microscope tucked in the closet, and a tattered history of the Cold War underneath the bedside table. There’s also a television, as Violet Holmes had mentioned, and John goes and crouches beside it, surveying the shelf of DVDs. Here, too, evidence of the family’s brilliance and unusual interests peppers the otherwise ordinary selection of films. Then John notices a row of VHS tapes, and his eyes widen.
The first one is labeled Mycroft 1966-1974. The next, Mycroft and Sherlock, 1974-1978. Others have more detailed descriptions: Model U.N. 1981. Science Fair 1982. Christmas plays 1969-1978. First day of school 1971-1984.
They’re family videos.
John thinks it’s possible his heart might have stopped.
He’s never been able to imagine Sherlock as a small child. The detective seems as though he sprang from the womb fully-formed, a brilliant and difficult and distant baby, a two-year-old in a suit jacket, a six-year-old with sculpted cheekbones and a tendency to call his playmates “idiots.” He’d imagined a palatial family home, strict nannies, cold parents; he’d certainly assumed Sherlock had attended boarding school, not day school, and he’d never once considered that he would have consented to be in a Christmas play, of all things. And yet here was all the evidence to the contrary, at John’s fingertips: it was a gold mine, a treasure chest—everything he’d ever wanted to know about his best friend, right in front of him.
Sherlock would be furious.
He wouldn’t find out if John watched them, John reasoned. Then again, he always found out. But that wasn’t even the point, was it? Watching these tapes would be an invasion of his privacy, whether or not he ever knew. It would be tantamount to a betrayal.
John looks at the VHS tapes, burning with curiosity—and it’s not just idle curiosity, after all.
He cares about Sherlock. He wants to help the man. And if he can understand how he got to be the way he is…
The last two tapes are sticking out on the shelf a little, almost begging to be removed. John squints at their labels.
Hallowe’en, 1966-1983, reads the first one. The second reads merely Hallowe’en 1984-. As if someone had intended the tape to cover more years, but for some reason, it had stopped there.
He pulls it out, heartbeat quickening, and sticks it in the machine before he can stop himself.
There’s that old VHS static, the whir of the tape and the white-and-grey fuzz on the screen, and then a slightly pixellated image appears. It’s the porch of the house John’s in now, decorated with pumpkins and cornstalks, and three boys stand in the center of the frame. One of them is Mycroft; he looks to be in his late teens, and he’s covered, strangely, in red and blue feathers. The other one, who’s wearing a tan sort of coverall suit with “Venkman” written in red on the chest and who looks about Mycroft’s age, John doesn’t recognize. The third is Sherlock.
He must be about ten. He’s wearing tall boots, a big shirt with a belt, a long velvet jacket, and an eyepatch, and his unruly dark hair is escaping from beneath a three-cornered hat. He’s grinning. It’s a real smile, broad and genuine and guileless and like nothing John’s ever seen on his friend’s face.
John presses play.
“All ready, boys?” says a female voice, low and bright.
“Yes,” the boys chorus, and the camera dips woozily as Violet Holmes zooms in.
“Good. All right then, hello, it’s Hallowe’en, of course, 1984. The boys are about to go trick-or-treating. We’ve got Mycroft and Sherlock, obviously, and this is Peter—do you want to introduce yourself, Peter?”
The third boy exchanges a glance with Mycroft, then gives the camera a shy smile. “Er. I’m Peter. I’m, er…”
“He’s Mycroft’s boyfriend,” Sherlock pipes up. He looks infinitely pleased. “He’s not an idiot.”
Mycroft whacks Sherlock on the head, but lightly, with a somewhat sheepish grin. “Sherlock.”
Peter laughs and turns a bit pink.
“That’s quite the compliment, coming from Sherlock,” Violet says, sounding as if she’s attempting to hide her amusement. “But do try not to be rude, dear.”
Sherlock rolls his eyes.
“So tell us a little about yourself, Peter,” Violet continues. “For the camera. Tell us how long you and Mycroft have been dating.”
“Mum,” Mycroft says, looking embarrassed. “Can we just…”
“They’ve been dating since September 12,” Sherlock cuts in, giving his brother a triumphant look John knows well, the look that means Sherlock is about to say something clever and inappropriate and is relishing it, “but they’ve been sleeping together since the bonfire in August, I know because Mycroft’s trouser knees—”
“Sherlock!” three voices chorus. Mycroft is blushing furiously, but he looks more pleased than angry. He and Peter meet each other’s eyes and then look away hurriedly, both suppressing smiles.
“You’d better watch out, Sherlock, I know what you’re keeping in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator in the basement,” Mycroft warns, eyes dancing with amusement despite the seriousness of his tone.
Sherlock’s eyes widen and he shuts up abruptly.
“All right, all right,” Violet says, not bothering to try not to laugh anymore. “Back on track, please. Tell us about your costumes, each of you. Peter, you start.”
“I’m a Ghostbuster,” Peter says. He grins. “Who ya gonna call?”
Violet laughs. “What about you, Sherlock?”
The young detective-to-be places his hand on his hips and assumes what he clearly thinks is a ferocious stance. “I’m a pirate.”
“Of course you are.” Violet sounds amused. “Sixth year in a row. Mycroft?”
Sherlock’s elder brother smiles. “I’m the pirate’s parrot.” He holds out his feather-covered arms and shakes his head. “Really, I don’t know how I let Sherlock talk me into this.”
“You didn’t,” Peter objects. “It was your idea, and you know it.”
Mycroft grins, looking perfectly happy to be found out. He puts a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, and Sherlock lets him. In fact, Sherlock beams up at him like Mycroft just gave him the moon.
“All right, boys, that’s it,” Violet’s voice says cheerfully. “Time for trick-or-treating. Have him back by ten, Mycroft,” she adds in an undertone as Sherlock draws a wooden sword from his belt and gives a few experimental thrusts into the air.
Mycroft nods and links his arm in Peter’s. “We will.”
“Last one to the first house has to walk the plank!” Sherlock shouts suddenly, and dashes out of the frame. Mycroft and Peter follow at a slower pace, waving goodbye as they go. The image wavers and then goes dark.
John sits back on his heels. He lets out a long, slow breath.
That. That was…flabbergasting. Earth-shaking. Life-altering.
Sherlock had been so happy.
John looks at the shelf. Sure enough, the video he just watched bears the most recent date. After Hallowe’en of 1984, the tapes stop.
What the hell happened after that?
John gets into bed, numbly, after replacing the VHS tape in its exact position, jutting out just a bit. Maybe he’s being paranoid, but he doesn’t want Sherlock knowing he watched it.
John finally falls asleep, the exhaustion of the case and the shocks of the evening kicking in all at once. He could sleep forever, he thinks as he drifts off, and wouldn’t that be easier, after all, because then he’d never have to try and unravel the mystery of Sherlock Holmes…
He wakes up in darkness to the sound of his door sliding open. Instinct born from his time in Afghanistan sends a jolt of adrenaline through his chest, his hands scrabbling for a weapon that isn’t there, but he relaxes almost immediately as his mind catches up with his body and he understands what’s happening. His heartbeat is racing, but he lies very still, giving no indication that he’s awake, as the tall, dark figure of the world’s only consulting detective appears in his doorway.
This has happened before. Three times, to be precise. The first time was on the night after the swimming pool, when John had told Sherlock to run, when Sherlock had refused, when Moriarty had nearly blown them both to high heaven. Then, as now, John had been alone in his bed, in the middle of the night; then, as now, he had known instinctively not to make a sound when Sherlock entered his room. He was certain Sherlock knew he was awake, but he was also sure that if either of them spoke, the detective would disappear.
Sherlock closes the door of the guest bedroom behind him, ever so softly. He stands there for another moment, then pads silently over to the bed and climbs in.
He’s very cold as he wraps himself around John. His fingers are freezing, even through the thick fabric of the borrowed pajamas. Sherlock tucks his knees up against John’s back and rests his forehead on the back of John’s head.
When Sherlock did this the first time—and the second, during a particularly miserable stretch of no cases, and the third, after the men in Irene Adler’s house had threatened to kill John if Sherlock didn’t crack her safe—John had been shocked and a little afraid, had felt as though he had a ticking time bomb, a live wire, wrapped around his body. Like the tiniest twitch could set Sherlock off.
And yet it also felt shockingly natural. Like Sherlock fit, right there, in the crooks of John’s elbows and knees.
He did, after all.
They’d never discussed it. Sherlock had always been gone when John awoke. But that was okay, if that was what Sherlock needed to do. John is willing—John is more than willing—to hold Sherlock, to be held by Sherlock, if that’s what Sherlock needs. What he wants. That’s what John is for.
So he lies very still, as Sherlock’s limbs and fingers thaw against the warmth of John’s body, and eventually, both of them drift off to sleep.
In the morning, Sherlock is still there. Golden light is streaming through the windowpanes, and the sky outside is clear and impossibly blue. The storm has blown over, but the evidence of its passing remains in the shiny wet of the trees and the bareness of their branches. John looks at the clock—12:26, not morning after all—and then back at the man in his bed.
Sherlock is stretched out, looking lithe and catlike even in his sleep. His feet are pressed against John’s legs, and one of his arms rests atop John’s chest. In the cold autumn sunlight, he’s more beautiful than ever, dark hair mussed and pale skin flushed with the chill, and John is struck once more by how mutable, how all-encompassing, his feelings for Sherlock are. He finds his friend undeniably lovely, like a classical sculpture come to life; he has never regarded a man (or anyone, really) like that before, like a precious work of art. And yet there is so much more to John’s desire—for desire John supposes it is, however strange its form. He doesn’t long for Sherlock physically, like he has for women he’s known; Sherlock’s presence in his bed isn’t making his body squirm or his pulse race. And yet he is almost certain that if Sherlock awoke and trailed his long, thin fingers down John’s chest and lower, John’s body would respond in the obvious way. But if Sherlock awoke and merely pulled John closer, burying his nose in John’s sandy hair, John would be just as happy. And it would be enough.
John used to wonder if he ought to be disturbed by his willingness—no, his eagerness—to do whatever Sherlock wants. It isn’t just that Sherlock is a man, and John has only been with women before; it’s that John doesn’t understand how his own desires became so closely linked to another person’s, shifting and changing based on what Sherlock seems to want or need. Oh, he is certainly still attracted to people who aren’t Sherlock—he still wants sex, still hooks up with women he meets in bars on occasion, though he doesn’t try to date anymore. But he’s beginning to find that less and less relevant to his sense of self. Regardless of how much physical intimacy Sherlock does or doesn’t want—regardless, too, of how much he acknowledges what he and John have together—Sherlock is the center of John’s world now.
It would be nice, John reflects, if Sherlock acknowledged it. Just once or twice. Just a little. But maybe, John amends, as he feels the weight of Sherlock’s palm on his chest, he already has.
He runs his fingers ever so gently along Sherlock’s arm, then nudges it lightly onto the bed. Sherlock stirs but doesn’t awaken. Taking care to be as quiet and gentle as possible, John slips out from between the sheets. Finding Sherlock still here feels like a gift, but John knows it’s best to be gone when the detective wakes up.
He finds a set of clean clothes folded neatly in the bathroom and puts them on, wondering where they could have come from; they fit perfectly, and John knows he’s not the same size as either Sherlock or Mycroft. He runs his fingers through his hair and heads downstairs, where he finds Violet Holmes sitting at the kitchen table, a steaming mug of cider at her elbow and a thick notebook in front of her.
She doesn’t look up when he enters, holding up a finger and jotting down what looks to John, from upside-down, to be an extremely complicated equation. She reminds him powerfully of Sherlock in the middle of an experiment—she has that same intensity of focus, that same constrained energy—though she did acknowledge his presence, which Sherlock would never have done. He hides a smile.
“Sorry,” she says cheerfully, dropping her pencil and smiling up at John. “Had to jot something down before it got lost. We’re in the middle of something big at the lab—I can’t let it go, not even on Hallowe’en, more’s the pity. How are you? Would you like tea?”
“Good, thanks,” John says. “Tea would be great. Sorry I slept so late.”
She waves away his apology as he goes to help with the kettle. “No, no, I keep all sorts of odd hours here. Mycroft only woke up an hour ago—he’s gone out to ready up a few things for this evening.” Her eyes twinkle. “The trick-or-treaters do love a good show. And four people in costume is better than two, isn’t it?”
John tries not to let her see his alarm. Violet Holmes seems perfectly lovely, but he’s made it a policy not to allow any Holmeses to put him in costume, not after that incident with the fancy dress ball at the French embassy—he’d been washing pink dye out of his hair, courtesy of both Sherlock and Mycroft, for weeks afterwards, and he’d never been able to look at a lobster the same way again.
Violet seems to know what he’s thinking, for the sparkle in her eyes gets even brighter. “Don’t worry, Mycroft’s fixed up something quite nice for you.”
John seriously doubts that.
“Milk, no sugar,” Violet says—it’s not a question—and hands John his tea. “I’ve got sandwiches in the fridge if you’d like lunch.” John thanks her and takes a seat at the table. She sits, too, and John can’t help but notice that her eyes have gone suddenly dim, tiny lines appearing at their edges. “What’s Sherlock up to this morning, do you know?” she asks hesitantly.
“He’s sleeping,” John answers.
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Really.” She shakes her head. “He doesn’t do that often, does he?”
“Not as often as he should,” John replies.
“Well.” The corner of her mouth lifts in a small smile. “Really, I think the rumors about you must be true.”
John stops, the tea halfway to his mouth. Because there are quite a lot of rumors about him and Sherlock, and he wonders very much to which one his friend’s mother is referring.
There’s the rumor, of course, that he and Sherlock are sleeping together. They aren’t, obviously, except in the most literal sense of the phrase, and even that is so infrequent as to be an anomaly. Not that John wouldn’t—well, not that he wouldn’t, if Sherlock wanted. But. They aren’t.
Then there’s the rumor that John’s a sort of—pet. A living version of the skull on the mantelpiece at 221B. That he’ll follow Sherlock everywhere, even though Sherlock finds him slow and a little useless. That he’ll take any abuse from the man in exchange for a few scraps of praise. It’s only the more resentful Yarders who say this, of course, and never to John’s face, but he has to admit that once in awhile he used to wonder if it were true. He knows better now.
And then there’s the rumor that he and Sherlock are a couple. It’s not quite the same as the first rumor, because, John thinks, it isn’t exactly false. He’s almost sure it isn’t exactly false.
Violet breaks his reverie.
“It’s all right, dear,” she says, her voice warm with understanding. “I only meant that I think you’re good for him.”
To John’s shock, his throat gets suddenly tight, and he’s blinking back tears. He masters himself, Violet looking politely away, until he is able to respond.
“Thank you,” he says, a little hoarse.
She shakes her head. “No, no. Thank you.”
They sit companionably, John sipping his tea, eventually accepting her offer of a sandwich. As he’s placing his plate in the dishwasher, he hears the sound of water running upstairs, and before he realizes it, he’s started for the door.
“Er,” he says, looking awkwardly at Violet, “I should—er…”
“Yes,” she says, and for some reason, her eyes are a little sad. “By all means.”
He hurries up the stairs. He meets Sherlock in the hallway. The detective is perfectly put together, not a hair out of place, a totally different man from the rumpled, sunlit one who was lying with his arm atop John’s chest only an hour before. But his eyes are guarded, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
“Fancy a walk?” John says, to forestall any confrontation or, worse, any attempt to run away on Sherlock’s part. “Beautiful outside.”
After a moment, Sherlock nods. They wrap themselves in scarves and coats and set out along the leaf-strewn sidewalk. It’s a charming neighborhood, full of trees and porches and small children in strollers. Sherlock keeps his head down until they’re a few blocks away from his home, as if he’s trying to insulate himself from the familiar surroundings. John wants to ask why, what happened to make Sherlock hate every last reminder of his childhood, but he can sense that it isn’t the right time. So they walk in silence, John doing what he does best: making sure Sherlock Holmes isn’t alone.
After an hour and a half, they settle in a park, sitting down on a wooden bench and watching the leaves stutter along the grass, the paper ghosts outside the house across the street quivering in the wind. John can sense Sherlock relaxing, softening just a little, and wonders if he might be permitted to ask a question.
“So,” he says, doing his best to sound unconcerned and matter-of-fact, “do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Sherlock is silent for a long moment. “You’ve seen the video,” he says quietly, not meeting John’s eyes. “You know what’s wrong.”
John’s stomach drops. Damn it, how the hell had Sherlock figured that out? He’d been careful to replace the tape just as he’d found it—
“You forgot to rewind it,” Sherlock says dully, with only the faintest trace of his usual exasperation at John’s slowness.
John squeezes his eyes shut. Of course he did. God, he is an idiot.
“Sherlock, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have watched it. I didn’t mean to intrude, I just—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Sherlock’s voice is still flat. “My mother meant for you to see it.”
“I—” John thinks about the way the tape was jutting out from the shelf, just a bit, calling attention to itself. Bloody Holmeses. “Right. Of course she did.”
Sherlock lets out a small huff of breath. “Well, then.”
Nothing else seems to be forthcoming. “Yeah, but Sherlock, I still don’t—if you don’t want to talk about what’s wrong, that’s okay, but…”
“You’ve seen the video,” Sherlock repeats, as if John’s being purposely dense. As if that answers all his questions.
“I don’t—look, Sherlock, you’re going to have to spell it out for me, I’m afraid. Idiot, remember?” John attempts a grin, but Sherlock’s expression doesn’t change. John sighs. “I don’t understand what was wrong with the video. Maybe I missed something, I don’t—it seemed, well. Lovely. A shockingly normal home video, in fact. You all seemed…” He hesitates. “Happy.”
Sherlock looks at him bleakly. After a moment, it sinks in.
“Oh my god,” John breathes. Because of course, of course the most devastating memory for Sherlock Holmes would be one in which he felt happy. Happy, and normal, and loved.
“Was that…the last time it was like that?” he asks, heart in his mouth.
Sherlock’s eyes widen. He nods.
John lets out a long breath. That’s it. That’s the secret. The truth about the detective, the riddle he thought he’d never crack.
Sherlock Holmes had a happy childhood.
John’s instinct is to ask what happened. What turned the laughing child from the video into the difficult, sharp-edged, lonely man who’s sitting beside him. And yet, he realizes as things fall steadily into place, he’d been imagining it all wrong: he’d thought there’d been a family betrayal, a terrible fight, a falling-out, some mysterious secret deep at the heart of the Holmes family. The truth, he suspects, has much more to do with the closing of an apple orchard, and the departure of an elder brother for university.
Because after all, it happens to everyone, doesn’t it? Growing up. John can remember awakening one Christmas, when he was eleven or twelve, with the sense that all the magic had gone out of the world. All day he waited, as presents were unwrapped and dinner was eaten and the family dispersed, for everything to become exciting and wonderful. But it didn’t. Instead, he saw all the things he’d missed in years before: that his father’s increasing loudness was due to alcohol, not holiday cheer, and that his sister was swiping sips of beer in the kitchen to dull the impact of their extended family’s jibes about her having a girlfriend. Most of all, that he was helpless to do anything about any of it.
He knows, too—speaking of Harry—what it’s like to grow apart from a sibling, the way it happens so slowly you don’t realize until it’s too late: the missed calls, the dropped plans, the arguments over each other’s choices in life and the gradual dwindling of communication, until there’s a wall between you that you didn’t even know you were building. It’s hard enough for John to be estranged from his sibling, and he’s an ordinary guy—he can’t begin to imagine how hard it must have been for Sherlock to lose the only other person who understands the dark and fathomless depths of his extraordinary mind. And he can’t imagine how difficult secondary school must have been for somebody so brilliant and so unable to assimilate as Sherlock—he must have gone from precocious child to bullied teenager in a matter of months. It’s no wonder he thinks of his childhood not with longing but with anger. He must consider it the ultimate traitor.
So John doesn’t ask Sherlock any of these things. But it occurs to him—even as his chest feels too small and his lungs too tight—that there is something he does want to know.
“What happened to Peter?” he asks.
Sherlock’s eyes flick to John’s face, then away. “Mycroft broke his heart.”
His voice is flat, devoid of all emotion. But John remembers the way the young Sherlock in the video looked up at his brother and his boyfriend with delight. Maybe even with hope. “But why?” is all he can think to ask.
“Caring is not an advantage.”
Normally when Sherlock says things like that, John’s the first to jump down his throat. But right now, the words don’t sound like a mantra, a life philosophy, a triumphant defense of reason over sentiment. They sound just a little bitter. And they sound like a quote.
For a moment, John is extraordinarily angry with Mycroft Holmes. But then he thinks of him standing under that absurd umbrella outside the graveyard, bullying Sherlock into coming home, and his anger changes abruptly into sadness.
“He’s a very unhappy man, isn’t he?” John asks softly.
Sherlock’s face twists. “Yes,” he says, sounding suddenly vicious. John looks at him, startled. “He’s miserable because he can’t manage to be normal and happy and so he comes home every year to punish himself for it. That’s why he wants me here, so I can share in his suffering.”
It’s an extraordinary speech, like nothing John’s ever heard come out of Sherlock’s mouth, but when he remembers the look on Mycroft’s face when he was sipping the apple cider, he knows that not a word of it is true.
“Nope,” he says. “You’re dead wrong.” Sherlock looks surprised, then angry. John ignores his huff of irritation and keeps talking. “Mycroft’s not coming home to punish himself. He’s trying to—to, well, to recreate that video. You know. To be happy again. To make you happy again.”
Sherlock’s face looks, very briefly, stunned. But then the shutters close behind his eyes.
“Impossible,” he says flatly.
John realizes with sudden terror that he has no idea whether Sherlock means it’s impossible that those are Mycroft’s intentions, or that it’s impossible for Sherlock to be happy.
“Okay,” he says, breathing in and out. “Okay.”
There are things he wants to say to Sherlock. Things he’s only just now understanding. Because Sherlock has never been this open with him before, for all that he isn’t talking much, and John wouldn’t be surprised if he never is again. And John refuses to let Sherlock close up before he’s made him understand a few important things. But he knows that the slightest misstep will cause Sherlock to shy away like a frightened deer. So he thinks, very hard, about how to go about this.
“Right,” he says eventually. “Here’s what I think about Mycroft Holmes.”
He puts just the slightest pause before saying Mycroft’s name. Just the slightest emphasis on the words. Just slight enough, he hopes, so that Sherlock will understand that he’s free to believe John’s really talking about his brother, if that’s what he wants. If that’s what he needs, in order to hear what John is saying.
“I think,” John continues, sure he’s got Sherlock’s full attention by the way the detective is staring unwaveringly at his knees, “that because Mycroft doesn’t know how to be precisely normal—no, you’re right, sod that, doesn’t know how to be anything approaching normal,” he amends, because Sherlock has let out a contemptuous little noise—“he’s decided that he can’t be happy.”
Sherlock says nothing. John forges on, hoping he’s still in safe waters.
“Now, I know—and Mycroft knows, I think—that there are a lot of perks that go along with not being normal. He’s brilliant, for one thing. Extraordinary. He’s sharp-witted, quick, sees things other people don’t. He’s…not boring. He’s successful, ambitious—there’s nobody like him in the world.”
John takes a breath, watching Sherlock, whose gaze is still trained on his knees. He can sense that the detective is listening intently, no matter what it looks like. So he continues, softer now.
“He’s beautiful, too,” John says. “Just…beautiful.”
They both know for certain, now, that John isn’t talking about Mycroft. John can tell by the way Sherlock’s breath has caught, ever so quietly, in his throat. He wants to put out a hand, run it through Sherlock’s soft dark hair, but he isn’t quite sure that’s allowed.
“But,” John says softly, “Mycroft has decided that all those things come at a price. That they come in exchange for happiness. And, well, that’s just bollocks.”
Sherlock starts, finally looking John in the face. John puts up a hand.
“Hang on. I know. I know that it’s not always…easy, being Mycroft Holmes. I know that—well, from what I understand, sometimes the inside of Mycroft’s mind is not a nice place to be. I get, or I think I do, that the same things that make him a genius sometimes get him a little…lost. But.” John takes a breath. “That’s not all the time, is it? And yet Mycroft believes he can’t possibly be happy, ever, not even in the best of times, and that, that is what’s rubbish. Because,” John says, steeling his courage, “he thinks he has to be unhappy because he thinks he has to be lonely. Because being brilliant and successful and not normal means nobody will want him. And, er, I have to tell you…” he looks into Sherlock’s eyes, which are wide and unmoving and as grey and impenetrable as steel, “that’s just not true.”
Sherlock’s hand twitches. John almost misses it, but he’s got every last particle of his being focused on the detective, and he sees the fingers jump, just a tiny fraction of an inch, toward his own.
How many times has that happened before? he wonders, the question crashing down upon him with sudden breathtaking force, and he takes Sherlock’s hand.
The detective jerks, his whole body jumping a little, but he curls his fingers in between John’s.
John likes holding hands with Sherlock every bit as much as he suspected he would, and more.
“Sherlock,” he says, heartbeat speeding up, “have—er, has Mycroft ever, erm, been in a relationship? After Peter, I mean.”
Sherlock swallows. His fingers are cold in John’s, but they’re surprisingly soft. “He’s had sham ones, when he needed to for a—for work.”
John nods. He’d expected as much. But he wonders, with Sherlock’s fingers entwined with his, if he’d entirely misunderstood why.
“Sherlock,” he says, because in for a penny, and all that, “do you want to kiss me?”
Sherlock freezes. He doesn’t drop John’s hand, but his goes suddenly stiff. He looks panicked. “I—I don’t—but—”
“Hey, Sherlock, hey. It’s okay,” John says quickly, afraid he’s made a huge mistake. “You don’t have to. I just…wondered.”
Sherlock’s eyes are wide and wary. “Do you want me to?”
John would rather Sherlock answer first, but he supposes that might be asking too much. “Well,” he says carefully, “that depends.”
“On what?” Sherlock looks almost frightened.
“On what you want,” John replies truthfully. “If you want to kiss me—well, then, I want you to. And if you want…more…” he says, refusing to hold anything back, “then I want that too. And I don’t mean I’ll tolerate it, or—or just allow it. I mean I want it.”
“But…” Sherlock looks utterly bewildered. And Sherlock hates feeling bewildered, John knows; it looks, just now, as if it’s unbearably excruciating. “You’re not gay.”
“No.” John shakes his head. “But I’m yours.”
The confession is unexpectedly wonderful to say aloud. So, too, is Sherlock’s response. Others might think that his abrupt turn away is a rejection, but John knows better.
“Yeah,” he says, and tightens his fingers around Sherlock’s. “So. Whatever you want.” He smiles a little. “I mean, within reason. I maintain my objection to experiments being performed on me, with or without my knowledge. I will continue to insist that you keep non-food items on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. I’d still prefer that you not take your bad moods out on me, and I still refuse to try the thing with the eyeballs and the London Eye, because ‘just to see if it works’ is not a convincing justification in my book—”
Sherlock’s hands jump to John’s head. He cups them around the wool hat John is wearing, just above John’s ears, and suddenly their faces are very close together, their noses inches apart.
John stops talking.
His heart is in his mouth, and, he suspects, in his eyes. Sherlock’s gaze is intense, his fingers firm, but there’s just a touch of uncertainty in the way he’s holding back.
“Go on, then,” John says quietly.
But Sherlock doesn’t kiss him. Instead, he rests his forehead against John’s and closes his eyes, breathing deeply. They’re breathing each other’s air, sharing each other’s warmth, and it’s the most satisfying sensation John has ever felt.
The sky starts to grow grey, eventually, and a chill in the air signals that darkness isn’t far off. They make their way back to the Holmes house in silence, their arms brushing against each other as they walk. Sherlock still buries himself further into his coat as they head into his old neighborhood, but John doesn’t think he’s imagining a slight softening in the detective’s gaze when his mother comes into view. And he knows he isn’t imaging the shock, and then the thin film of tears, that appear in her eyes when she looks at them both. Violet Holmes doesn’t miss much.
“You’re nearly late,” she says in cheerful reprimand, bustling them both into the house as if nothing momentous had just occurred. “You’d better get into costume before the trick-or-treaters start showing up.”
Sherlock stops in his tracks, looking obviously alarmed. “Costumes?”
Mrs. Holmes only laughs.
But the costumes turn out not to be too bad—not bad at all, considering what they could have been like, John thinks as he stands on the front porch, adjusting his long dark jacket. Violet is fussing with an ancient video camera, Mycroft hovering over her unhelpfully.
“Use your phone,” Sherlock finally calls out impatiently. John can hardly believe he’s agreed to this, let alone that he’s making useful suggestions, but maybe he’s decided to take the path of least resistance for once in his life and get it over with as soon as possible.
Or maybe it’s something else.
Violet—who is dressed in a witch’s costume, black and purple and frothy with tulle—gives in good-naturedly. “All right, all right. Go on, Mycroft. Thank you for trying.”
Mycroft joins them, and for a moment the three men stand awkwardly in a row.
“There,” Violet says triumphantly, holding up her phone. “Here we are. Halloween, 2010. We’ve got Mycroft, Sherlock, and John Watson. Friend of the family. Why don’t you tell us about your costumes, boys?”
She nods to John. He stretches out his arms, showing off a double-breasted coat with gold epaulettes and a double row of buttons. “I’m an eighteenth-century naval officer,” he says. Really, he’s privately quite pleased with the outfit. It’s rather…dashing. And considering he’d expected to be dressed as a murder victim or a post-Waterloo Napoleon, given the Holmes sense of humor, it’s really very nice.
“You look very noble,” Violet Holmes says mischievously, as if reading his mind. “Sherlock?”
Sherlock is standing stiffly, eyes pointed stubbornly to the side of the camera, but he’s wearing the costume he’d been given: a feathered hat, a tattered coat, a gold medallion, and a hook for a hand. “I’m a pirate,” he says, and the words don’t sound quite as irritated as John suspects they’re meant to.
“Quite right,” Violet says, and her smile is wide and genuine. “And last but not least, what about you, Mycroft?”
Sherlock’s elder brother is covered in fur. John thinks perhaps he’s meant to be some sort of primate, though he doesn’t know where the bandana on his head comes in. Then Mycroft pulls an eyepatch from a hidden pocket, and slips it over his face, and John understands.
“I’m the pirate’s monkey,” he says, with just a little too much eye-rolling to be convincing. “Though really, mother, I’m a grown man, for goodness’ sake—”
“Oh, don’t try to pin this on me,” Violet Holmes replies, laughing. “You planned this all on your own. He had the costumes made specially weeks ago,” she explains to John.
But John only has eyes for Sherlock. The detective is staring at his elder brother with an expression of utter shock on his face. He looks like he’s never seen Mycroft before in his life—or perhaps only as if it’s been a very long time.
Mycroft meets Sherlock’s gaze for a split second, then looks away.
“Well,” he says, not quite managing to sound dismissive. “It was nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing, and everybody knows it. And it’s not nothing when Sherlock waves his hook in the direction of approaching trick-or-treaters, growling something about walking the plank when they come up to take their sweets. (John’s not sure whether Sherlock is more terrifying, or Mycroft—the British government hasn’t quite got the friendly smile thing down yet, and the effect of a monkey-suited man baring his teeth at the tiny ghosts and goblins is bizarre. Yes, scratch that, Mycroft is definitely more terrifying.) It’s not nothing, either, when Sherlock accepts a glass of cider after the evening is over, and it is most definitely not nothing when he kisses his mother lightly on the cheek before vanishing up to bed.
John knows Sherlock is still Sherlock. He’s still going to be prickly and difficult and mad and wonderful and lonely and in pain and John isn’t going to be able to fix that. But he’s going to be there for Sherlock through it all, and now Sherlock knows it. And maybe, sometimes, that will make him happy. Or at least less alone.
That night, Sherlock comes into his room when John’s still awake, when his bedside light is still on and he’s perched atop the covers, rolling up the bottoms of Sherlock’s old pajamas. They look at each other, Sherlock framed in the doorway.
“Come to my room,” Sherlock says abruptly.
So John does.
Sherlock’s childhood bedroom looks like it hasn’t been touched since Sherlock left for university. The walls are blue, the curtains plaid, the walls plastered with magazine clippings about forensic investigation and a Victorian newspaper drawing of Jack the Ripper and a skull-and-crossbones flag. The bookshelves are overflowing; there are beakers stacked on top, and a microscope—nicer than the one in the guest bedroom—atop the desk.
Sherlock says nothing, but lets John look as much as he wants, standing at the edge of the room, not quite watching him.
Eventually, John sits down on Sherlock’s bed, which is covered in a quilt with a pattern of little blue waves, and looks at the detective. Sherlock is hovering by the doorway, waiting, it seems, for an invitation.
“Come here,” John says, holding out a hand, and Sherlock does.
It’s their first kiss, and it’s soft and gentle and more like an experiment than anything else, but the good kind, the sort John approves of. The absolute rightness of Sherlock’s lips against his makes John wonder if maybe he’d wanted this more than he’d thought—not the kiss, necessarily, but some explicit acknowledgement of what he and Sherlock are to each other. He curls his fingers around the back of Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock leans into him, his hands pressing against John’s chest. After a moment, Sherlock’s fingers start to move, running over John’s shirtfront, around his shoulders, down his spine. It’s like Sherlock is exploring, testing out this new territory. Like he wants to make sure he’s really allowed there.
John wonders how to make it perfectly clear that he’s more than welcome—that he’s home.
He stills Sherlock’s hands, removes them for just a moment from his body. Sherlock begins to look crushed, but John quickly pulls off his shirt and places Sherlock’s fingers back on his chest.
“There,” he says softly, smiling. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
Sherlock nods, looking almost overcome.
John can tell it’s overwhelming for Sherlock, all this sensation, all this new data. It’s overwhelming for him, too, as welcome as it is. So they both end up shirtless but with pajama bottoms on, wrapped in each other’s arms, the ghosts of each other’s fingertips still warm on their bare skin. John supposes that there might be more, later, once they’ve gotten used to each other like this, or there might not. It doesn’t really matter. Because before Sherlock closes his eyes, he looks at John, and pulls John’s hand up to his mouth, and kisses John’s knuckles, ever so lightly. It’s a thank-you, and a declaration, and a promise.
It’s a Halloween miracle.
Sherlock falls asleep in his childhood bed for what John suspects is the first time in many, many years. And he knows it’s strange, wrapped as he is in the arms of his best friend, but John feels a little like a kid again himself—safe, and warm, and loved. As if a little bit of magic has come back into the world.