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“Find God in all things.” — Ignatian principle
When John announced over breakfast that, now that the rest of his life was starting to fall into order, he planned for the first time since demobilization to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, he did not anticipate that Sherlock would accompany him. Neither did he expect that Sherlock would now be pointing out that he’s forgotten to genuflect before entering the pew.
“Did you read my mother’s catechism in my nightstand or something?” John asks, backing out of the pew to dip his knees and cross himself before reentering. “Hell, I haven’t even read my mother’s catechism.”
Sherlock smirks. He swings a leg into the narrow space between the pews and lowers himself to sit, all stiff right angles like the seats themselves, softened only by the dark-worn velveteen cushions and the fuzzy pills starting to collect at the seams of his coat. “My mother attempted to send me to Donhead after the Carl Powers incident, but even Jesuits have their limits. One year, as it turns out.”
John’s face cracks into a grin.
As more people file around them into the pews, Sherlock carries on a whispered commentary about their lives. That woman kneeling with her rosary is addicted to romance novels and is uselessly praying for her son — he’s married a Muslim. And, That man has skin cancer and has only started attending since his diagnosis. And as the cantor leads the parishioners in “O Come All Ye Faithful,” Sherlock takes one glance at the priest coming up the aisle and pronounces: “Gay.” He cranes his neck towards the altar. “And sleeping with the cantor. In the sacristy,” he adds, the priest passing them in the processional.
John tucks in his chin and stares pointedly at the hymnal. “Sherlock, you’re brilliant, but I do not want to know how you know all that.”
“Well I can’t imagine how else his vestments would —”
“And I really don’t want to know that in particular. Here —” John hands him the heavy hymnal. “If you can’t shut that big mouth of yours, at least sing instead.”
Sherlock casts large eyes at him, but his dramatic rejoinder turns into a cough as the fog of incense thickens through the church. John winces, wishing the sacristan hadn’t overloaded the censer.
After the Gloria, they seat themselves, and Sherlock shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets. “Things like that don’t bother you in the real world,” he murmurs.
John tries to follow the readings at the back of the hymnal with his eyes as he listens to Sherlock. “Like what?”
Sherlock nods at where the priest sits on the altar, hands folded over the missal in his lap.
John tilts his forehead towards him. “Sherlock, this is real to me.”
“That doesn’t make it any more rational.”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s just …” He exhales. “We have a way of doing things. It’s our game,” he adds, pushing a smile onto his face.
“You could pick a different game,” Sherlock says, his eyes moving from the thorn-crowned Sacred Heart in the nearest leaded window, to the marble statue of some pope near the altar, to the gold-leaf lettering painted on the plaster walls: Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus. Non habebis deos alienos coram me. Non facies libi sculplile ut adores illud … “Or you could modify the rules. It would greatly amuse Mycroft to have such precedent to adjust the rules of Guess Who? in his favor.”
John’s eyebrows twitch up and down. “We could. And yet, we don’t.”
Sherlock returns his gaze to him. “So it’s sentiment, is what you’re saying.”
“Yeah. That’s about it.” And lest Sherlock gets the wrong idea, John lifts a hand and squeezes Sherlock’s thigh, resting it in his lap.
As the priest spoils the plot of the latest blockbuster in service of his homily, Sherlock clears his throat again.
“Your church is not exactly hospitable towards the … queerer sorts.”
John nods his head to the side. “Today’s church, no, it’s not. But centuries ago it was a haven for those who don’t quite fit in with the demands of marrying and being given in marriage.”
“Really? Name one gay saint.”
John whispers immediately, “John Henry Newman.”
“Oh, have they canonized him now?”
“No. Sherlock, are you sure you haven’t had a case about this?”
“Doesn’t matter anyway. They exhumed the grave he shared with his beloved to move the relics and then conveniently didn’t find any material remains.” He fixes his eyes on the altar. “But I’ve read his Apologia, it’s far more likely he was asexual.”
John stares at Sherlock, trying to formulate a question. But the deacon signals for them to rise for the creed and prayer of the faithful, and John’s question is lost to the movements of the ritual.
When the priest starts swinging the censer again over the altar table, Sherlock pulls a face and whispers, “I’ll be outside.”
“I’m sorry, Sherlock,” John whispers back, but he waves him off, his Belstaff swirling around his legs as he turns out of the pew.
John sits back, his eyes taking in the water sparkling from the pitcher into the lavabo dish, the candles shimmering on the gilded vessels, the pale Host elevated over the priest’s dark head. But his mind lingers on Sherlock’s resonant voice.
From his rear pocket, John’s phone buzzes demandingly against the pew. Sweating, he makes some loud, embarrassed noises for the benefit of his neighbors and swipes his volume to silent.
Moments later, just as the cantor intones the first Agnus Dei, John jumps at the grinding emergency alert klaxon that sounds from his phone, and his phone alone.
“Sorry.” He gives a tight smile to the fur-hatted matron frowning at him and checks his unread messages.
It’s snowing. I doubt the Chinese place will deliver tonight. –SH
This church was razed during the Blitz, did you know that? Your god must have been as appalled by the architecture as I am. Incredible that he hasn’t burnt it down again. –SH
Did the Virgin Mary say that her hymen was intact or was that another doctrine some bishop made up? You’d think she’d know they don’t exist if she’s Mother of God, Holy Wisdom, etc. –SH
You know that that mystical awe and joy you’re feeling is just a shot of dopamine surging through your brain. You are literally getting high on an aesthetic experience, which is really quite impressive when you think about it. Pity it never worked for me. –SH
If the cantor has moved on to the Sanctus, John doesn’t notice. His fingers are twitching so much that he has to type out each separate character.
Did you fucking hack my phone? Sherlock, one more text and I swear to God I will dredge your decaying tongues through your breakfast tea
A new text starts to make the same bone-grating noise but he opens it before it finishes.
Swearing and taking the Lord’s name in vain with a liberal mix of wrath and vengeance. Hardly congruent with a soul in a state of grace. –SH
Sherlock FUCKING Holmes
Unlikely. –SH
Just give up now, John. It will be a nightmare getting back to Baker Street if we have to contend with all these parishioners leaving just after communion in the snow. –SH
John puckers his face at the ceiling. He’s managed to seat himself under an apparently neo-neoclassical painting of the Expulsion from Eden, a billowy-haired Father God swooping in from the sky and pointing naked Adam and Eve out into the brown, half-barren world. When the next texts arrive, they come in on silent, but he’s already holding his phone open anyway.
Come out the back way. Down the staircase to your right. Hit the middle light switch on the landing. You’ll avoid the Virgin Mary statue. –SH
And more importantly you’ll avoid the actual virgin Mary, the sacristan who has just emptied her bowels of the Indian food she ate barely an hour ago. –SH
Heaving a sigh, John hastily crosses himself and ducks into the thin stream of people starting to leave from communion. He avoids eye contact with the ushers in the narthex, pulling on his gloves as he follows Sherlock’s directions out of the church. He leans against the crash bar of the downstairs exit and steps into the bright chill of the Christmas night. A snowball hits him square in the face.
John gasps, the ice crystals stinging his nose and eyes and melting on his teeth. He catches sight of Sherlock who stands at the edge of the sidewalk, a dark streak of grass in the snow at his feet, and sucks another breath.
His first reaction is to be angry that Sherlock should pull shit like this when he bloody well knows his PTSD is in remission but only in remission. But the lights from the stained-glass window of the Resurrection fall on his face, spangling his pale skin and dark hair red, blue, green, and gold. The colors melt onto the dusted snow around them.
John spits out watery snow. “Christ, Sherlock!”
“Not exactly.” A tiny smile twitches onto his lips.
John laughs, a puff of steam frosting in the air. He bends to scoop his own handful of snow, throwing it before Sherlock can move out of range, the powder catching like a white halo around his curls.