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“Good Morning.”
Sherlock sat wrapped in a quilt in front of the fire. He supposed he should have been surprised that his mother puttered around so early, but he was not. The part of him being honest with himself had hoped she would.
“Good morning, Mummy, thank you.” He reached out barely looking up from the mug of tea placed in his hand. He smiled gently staring into its milky depths.
I knew she would bring me tea if I made enough noise to let her know I was up. I do the same with John sometimes. Mrs. Hudson is right. I am lazy and spoiled.
He started to rise, to sit in one of the armchairs, but his mother tossed a pillow at his feet, grabbed an afghan and joined him cross-legged on the floor in front of the hearth.
A fire was needed, Old Man Winter had sunk his cruel claws into Londontown and had yet to let go. It had been well into the negatives in bitter cold for a week. Still, not even the Holmes boys were callous enough to have allowed something as mundane as foul weather keep them from their parents’ home for the holidays when they are home themselves. It was one of the few times Sherlock was grateful to his older brother’s access to resources. The four-wheel-drive truck safely depositing them at that their childhood home. The intent was as always arrive Christmas Eve and leave the morning after Boxing Day.
That was the intent.
They were closer to New Year’s Day than Christmas Day as Old Man Winter and Jack Frost tag-teamed in an unexpected blast that dropped nearly two feet of snow to fall within a twenty-four period that nearly brought everything in their township to a crawl. London itself might be well on its way to bustling about again, but not even Mycroft would not be able to get them dug out of their parent’s property for another day. The past two days had driven both bored brothers out of their skulls. Their constant sniping forcing Violet Holmes to send her two adult off-springs to bed without supper like the children they were behaving.
Sherlock was very much like her in needing only so much sleep to function. Unlike her children, she does so on a regular schedule, not when her body forces her to. She was actually glad to hear from Mycroft, that Sherlock’s new flatmate was good at getting a sleep deprived Sherlock to go to bed more. Still, she knew he would pop up early. While in the kitchen, already making their tea, she shook her head knowingly as Sherlock made his presence known in the living room. His not-so-subtle way of asking for tea, without asking for tea. A holdover from when he was a young child and did not speak at all. Heaven only knew how the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, put up with him.
As such it was a comfortable silence as Sherlock and Violet sat, sipping their respective teas.
In a tradition in all Holmes’ households, from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day, the first log of the morning was the Truth Log. If you were in the living room in front of the fire all spoken must be truth for as long as the log or the morning lasted. It generally was not that big of a deal, though sometimes evasive it was their family’s natural tendency to be a brutally honest bunch. This log, cut from the same tree as the annual Yule Log, guaranteed the morning would end before the log.
Violet caught her youngest flick his eyes at the log. She knows he wants to talk, but does not know how to start, so she does.
“Sherlock? I meant to ask - where is your new flatmate spending the holidays?”
Sherlock flicks his eyes to his mother.
How does she do that?
“John? He told me he was spending it with his sister. Though I believe he’s spending it alone at Baker Street.”
“Sherlock! Why didn’t you ask him to join us here?” Violet had risen, on her way to the kitchen for more tea, turned in surprise at her youngest.
“Because he’s not a Holmes?” Sherlock shrugged.
“You let the man spend the holidays all alone - why?” She stepped back into the room.
“I live with him. Maybe I thought he’d like some time away from me.”
“Or perhaps you need time away from him?” She sat before him again studying her baby’s face.
Yes. No. Maybe?
“He drives me up the wall with his insistence that I at least put the laundry in the hamper and to not put my refrigerated experiments on the same shelf as the edibles. I call him an idiot – though to be fair I call most people idiots, but really, he is not. I realize he’s a slow thinker, but he does actually think compared to most. I find his sentiment and care annoying. He finds me cold and callous and I frustrate him a lot I know I do. He is effortlessly the perfect assistant, without even trying. People gravitate to him; seem to like naturally him. He serves well as a go between, softening the edges when I don’t realize or don't care that I’ve come down too hard. And I am beginning to see a little how it helps. He appreciates my analytical mind, yet will call me an idiot. He seems to understand me. Not just tolerate me, Mummy, understand me. Above all Mummy John stays. I do not know what to make of him.”
With a shock, Sherlock realizes that is the most he has ever spoken about another human being he was not directly related to. Violet arched a brow.
“Why do you need to make something of him? Why can’t this Watson just be Watson?”
“Because other than you and Daddy everyone wants something from me. I know Lestrade cares in his own way, but I solve cases for him. I make him look good, I do not know yet if he would be there were I not who I am. Molly Hooper could be a friend, but she is besotted with me, I cannot be what she wants, I would rip her apart. Mycroft – well Mycroft would be over the moon if I became an agent - I know that is what he wants. They all want something – except John. I get that I give him purpose, but I can tell he enjoys the chase, the game nearly as much as I do. He’s there because he wants to be, no other reason.”
“You mean he’s an actual friend.”
Sherlock stopped short and stared at his mother.
“I – I don’t know. I’ve never really had one before. I think so?”
Violet lowered her eyes at that admission. Listened to everything he has said and everything he has not.
“And before you go there Mummy, don’t. Just don’t. He’s a serial monogamist among the women. John Watson has adamantly, short of screaming it from rooftops, announced himself as Not Gay from the first day he moved in. I am not on his radar.” Sherlock glared at his mother, wincing as the last words left his mouth.
“But he’s on your radar, yes?”
“Mummy…” Sherlock’s tone held warning as he stood.
“Liam…” She stood with him, placing a hand on his arm to keep him from walking away.
He blinks at the woman before him. She has not called him by that diminutive since his single forms, before Mycroft left for uni. He cannot lie to her, but he cannot possibly admit to his mother that for the first time since he himself graduated, he has a desire for someone. He realizes what she is really asking of him without saying the words for fear he’d bolt from the room.
She is waiting for you to answer regardless; you put the log on – talk to her.
“I – I don’t know, Mummy. I’ve never been in love before. I don’t think so. How would I know?” His voice drops to a whisper at the end.
“If you don’t think so, then you likely aren’t. You will not have to ask yourself if or how, once you are.” Violet smiled gently as she reaches up and tousles the dark curls of her youngest boy. “There’s still a couple of hours until dawn. I’m going back to bed, until later dearie?”
“I’ll take the mugs into the kitchen and clean them, until later, Mummy.” Sherlock bends and kisses the top of his mother’s head. She pats his arms and heads back to her room. Sherlock waits until he hears her bedroom door close.
Sherlock tosses the pillow his mother sat on back to its corner and picks up the empty mugs from the floor.
He glances at the fire for a while. With a sigh, he whispers to the log before heading to the kitchen.
“I do know. I love him. I don't think he loves me and it hurts. I’m sorry for lying.”