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It was a pleasant holiday evening at 221B Baker Street. The sitting room was awash in holiday spirit. Strings of lights hung in the window and along the mirror above the fire place. Holiday cards were on the mantle.
Sherlock was stretched on the sofa with his laptop. John had come down from having put Rosie to bed and was now going through the post. Being near Christmas there were several holiday cards, so he stood by the fireplace as he opened them. He opened a card from a former client. It was classic rendering of Saint Nick with a saccharine sentiment penned inside. John’s lip curled in an unpleasant way when he saw the image on front and he placed the card behind several others that lined the mantle. John frowned when he saw a different card with a jolly Santa image had been moved to the front. Sherlock usually paid no heed to them, but something about the card must had captured his attention and he left at the front. John moved that card to the back as well.
“Why did you stop believing in Father Christmas?” Sherlock asked seemingly out of the blue.
John realized then Sherlock’s moving the card was not an accident and sighed knowing what was coming. “Most people ask when or at what age they stopped believing. No one asks why. I take you never believed…?” John looked at Sherlock’s reflection in the mirror to see the look of scorn he knew would be his flatmate’s expression as a response and smirked when it came to pass. Mrs. Holmes may have been a seemingly flighty woman, but John Watson had learned quickly that the erstwhile mathematician dealt in facts, the whole facts, and nothing but facts – thank you very much. As much as she loved Christmas, it was no surprise to John that she had utterly refused to engage her boys in that part of the tradition.
“You’re deflecting, John.” Sherlock gave him a I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work look.
“It’s not that you learned the truth as all children do eventually. I have observed that as much as you enjoy all the other cloying trappings of the season the one thing you actively avoid, with one sole exception, is anything to do with Father Christmas. None of the décor alludes to him. All the cards that we have received with an image of Father Christmas are shoved behind the others. You do not want to see any incarnation of him at home if you can help it.” Sherlock placed his laptop on the coffee table and turned to face him, “Why?”
John took a seat in his chair by the fireplace and picked up the medical journal he had been reading earlier. Sherlock did not move. Having the undivided attention of Sherlock Holmes in deduction mode was always a little unsettling and John bristled under the focus of those beautiful eyes. John knew Sherlock was aware he had been heard and that John ignored him. John also knew now that Sherlock was on to something, the detective was not going to let it go.
After a moment John sighed as he replaced the bookmark and returned the book to the table beside him. He ran a rough hand over his head and rested it on the back of his neck. He saw Sherlock’s slight cant of his head at John’s classic tell as he prepared himself for a conversation he did not want to have.
“Not good?” Sherlock’s crystalline eyes pierced into John’s at the man’s hesitation.
“A bit…” he admitted.
Like most young children who believed, John and Harry, his younger sister by two years wrote letters to Father Christmas. Harry had her heart set a doll that came with these little pink accessories. John saw how much Harry adored playing with the one their neighbor’s daughter, Michelle, had. John himself could not decide if he wanted the game “Operation” or a G.I. Joe action figure like his friend Billy, Michelle’s brother, got from his cousin in America. He felt asking for both was greedy. In the end, as he and Harry went with their mother to drop their letters in the post, he had asked that Harry get her gift because she only wanted one thing and he would happily play with whichever one of his two choices Father Christmas would give him.
On Christmas Eve Anne Marie was working a late shift. Because John and Harry were young, and she did not trust her husband to stay awake, let alone sober, the two stayed next door with Michelle and Billy being watched by their older Gwen. Miss Pam, Billy, Michelle and Gwen’s mother, had stepped out to go to the grocers. At some point Billy and John decided they wanted biscuits, specifically the biscuits John’s mum had baked a couple of days ago. John was a mature little boy, with his own key to the door, but he was still a little boy, a little boy with a hankering for his mother’s biscuits. He was only going next door to filch some cookies for everyone and return.
“Da was home, but the telly was on and I made it into the flat without a problem because the kitchen was by the front door. I remember I had eleven biscuits, two for each of us, including Gwen, and an extra one for me for doing the work of sneaking to get them.” John stood and walked towards the kitchen.
John paused by the shelf that held the liquor. He considered getting a drink but changed his mind and went to get a glass of water instead. He continued speaking as got the water and came back into the sitting room to lean over the back of his chair as he drank.
“There was a giggle and a sound coming from the living room that was not the telly. I heard a man’s deep voice telling someone that they were being such a good little girl for Father Christmas.”
John saw as Sherlock grimaced. He knew the detective heard the italics in his voice as he spoke and already had an idea of what unfolded.
“I was so happy! I thought that meant Mum had come home early as a surprise and was talking to Father Christmas. It did not register that the time of evening was too early for him to be delivering gifts. I wanted to see him, catch him in the act.” John sighed harshly as decades old buried memories came to the surface. “Which I guess I did, so to speak. I peeked into the living room and froze. Da was dressed as Father Christmas – well half-dressed to be precise. He had the robe on, but open. The fake mustache and beard were on his face half-hazard, and the trousers were at his ankles. He moaned as he held the head of a woman who was bent over him. Her legs spread and her red arse where he must have spanked her earlier faced me as she sucked his dick.”
John stood up and shook his head as he forcibly tried to dispel the visuals of the memory. He was unsuccessful.
“Miss Pam?” Sherlock asked though John knew he already knew the answer. John nodded anyway.
“I had never seen a naked lady before. I knew nothing of sex. I had never seen or heard anything…like that. I never imagined dear old Father Christmas in that state. It certainly wasn’t Mummy kissing Santa Claus.” John said scornfully, “I was eight; I had already heard that Father Christmas was fake, but I still believed then. I was so taken aback I just stood there with a bunch of Mum’s biscuits in a serviette in one hand and one paused halfway to my mouth with the other, utterly unable to really make heads nor tails of what I was seeing other than knowing something was grossly wrong. Unfortunately, I was partially right in that Mum had come home early as a surprise. Her scream at what she walked in on snapped me out of my own shock. I knew then it was Miss Pam because Da immediately stood up and she fell on her bum. I had never seen an erect adult penis before, and I think Miss Pam had got some teeth into it when she was…forcibly ejected. He grabbed it hissing in pain and then he saw me still standing there. He started screaming at me. Called me a little pervert and a faggot as he waved his prick at me, asking if I like what I saw. He was still a little drunk. In his head he thought I called Mum and that’s why she was home early. He started to come for me, but nearly tripped being that his trousers were still at his ankles. Mum dropped the bags she was carrying and pushed me behind her as she attacked my father in a rage. The bags had our Christmas gifts. The price tags were still on them and I knew. Da backed-handed Mum still trying to get to me. Mum had left the front door open when she came in; I dropped the biscuits and ran.”
For a moment John thought he had tilted the glass and dripped water on his hand, but the glass was held securely in the hand that rested on the back of his chair. He wiped angrily at the tears that continued to fall.
Sherlock rose and walked past John. John knew exactly where Sherlock stood, by the shelf with the liquor. John drained the remaining water from his glass and held it out behind him without looking. Sherlock poured some whiskey in the glass and John gave a nod of thanks.
“Mum had left work early to come home and wrap the presents while we were still at Miss Pam’s, then hide them until we went to sleep. It never happened once everyone realized I was gone. It took over an hour before Gwen and Billy found me. I was two klicks away, huddled in a corner by some building, shivering, near hypothermic. She put my coat on me and carried me home.”
John shivered in memory. He walked over to the fireplace and took another sip of the amber liquid. Sherlock returned the whiskey bottle to the shelf and then came up behind John and pulled him into an embrace. John leaned against him, rested the back of his head on Sherlock’s shoulder and sipped as he forced the rest of the tale out.
“I woke up on Christmas day, sick as dog from the exposure, but otherwise okay. Da was…wherever he went, I think jail at first to dry out and then who knows. He was gone a couple of days. Harry was in tears because while I was gone my father saw the bags and broke everything in it. Her doll and my G.I. Joe were fixable, most of the accessories for both survived, but Operation was destroyed. It wasn’t the only thing destroyed.” John finished the drink and put the glass on the mantle. He rested his arms on top of Sherlock’s that held him.
“Mum’s face was bruised from where Da hit her. He had never hit her like that before. He came back home after a couple of days, but it seemed that once he cracked that seal on hitting her it continued until the fucker’s liver gave out on him a few years later. Suffice it to Harry and me were never allowed over to Miss Pam’s again. A few months later she moved out of our tenement, but it was too late. It marked the beginning of the end of what was a struggling, but I once thought was a happy-ish family. Something in my mum broke that Christmas. She went through the motions of life, but she was never the same after that. Still, she tried for us kids. Harry being younger never really lost her love of the holidays. And I eventually learned to enjoy Christmas again, but even now, the memory of my Da as a half-naked Father Christmas, being fellated by the next-door neighbor is what usually comes to mind when I see any rendering of the character. It’s gotten better, but…”
John shrugged and was grateful Sherlock did not try to apologize for something that was not his fault. He did not waste his voice stating what he knew John already knew. John simply enjoyed the feel of the arms the held him.
“Yet you take Rosie to see Santa in Lapland at the mall each year.” Sherlock noted as he stood with John at the fireplace and picked up the latest picture of their daughter with Father Christmas.
“That’s what I meant by usually.” John smiled at the photograph and replaced it on the mantle. “Thanks to Rosie I’m being reminded of the magic of it through her eyes, so it’s not as bad as it used to be for so many years. I can go through the motions and keep it fun for our daughter. She deserves the joy of that innocence for however long she believes. My little girl deserves it and I feel that little boy in me needs to close the door on it.”
“And as for you…” John turned and poked Sherlock in the chest with a finger, “I don’t care if she’s thirty and still believes in him, don’t you dare ruin it for her the way you did Elf on a Shelf.”
“The tolerance of one fictional character to garner a child’s good behavior, something which should be given regardless, and not as an incentive to receive presents is bad enough. The addition of a fictional tattle-tale on top of such was simply too much, John.” Sherlock huffed.
“Sherlock, you painted him to look like he had contusions all over as if someone beat him senseless and then left him on the bottom step for her to find when she stepped out to go to school! She’s six; it took twenty minutes to calm her! What were you thinking?”
“Snitches get stiches, John.” Sherlock shrugged deadpan.
John tried valiantly to keep a straight face; he failed just as valiantly as they both sniggered.
“Gee thanks for the support, love.” John wrapped his arms around his husband.
“Anytime.” Sherlock kissed him, “Though I just thought of another way to support your efforts to replace the bad Father Christmas memories with good ones.”
John raised a wary brow at the tone heard in Sherlock’s voice. “And how’s that?”
Sherlock leaned in. His warm breath ghosted John’s ear.
“Me...in a Santa hat, my military boots and…”
“And…?” John prompted at Sherlock’s teasing pause.
“…and…nothing else.”
“I see… Please understand, it may require many arduous viewings to be sure it works…”
“Oh, most arduous, indeed! It will be quite the sacrifice on my part.”
“I was clearly traumatized. It could take quite the while.”
“I am prepared to devote years to the cause; John, decades if needed.”
“I pick the Santa hat?”
“Of course.”
John cleared his throat while his smile spread very slowly.
“You’re on.”