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"Christmas it seems to me is a necessary festival; we require a season when we can regret all the flaws in our human relationships: it is the feast of failure, sad but consoling."
― Graham Greene
John turns the key in the lock, expecting to arrive in a quiet, dark foyer. Mrs Hudson had been fussing about visiting her sister for the holidays for weeks, and Sherlock is supposed to be at his brother's for Christmas.
The lights are on. Sherlock must've forgot to turn them off. Having been the man's housemate for a few days' past eight months now, John likes to think he's quite familiar with his friend's habits.
John might even be as bold as to say new best friend's. It's a novel concept: in his experience, boys had always seemed to move in groups rather than pair up like girls and play all sorts of nasty games about excluding and including others. And John had habitually kept even closer friends at an arm's length at least until he moved away from home and started to feel less guarded, less careful about what he said and did.
Judging by what had happened at Harry's this Christmas, he seems to have liberated himself from the heavy burden of their childhood with more success than his sister. Harry was on a bender again, her Christmas preparations consisting only of a trip to the off-licence in the corner. John had no taste for joining in, and had decided to return home earlier than planned to grind in the point that Harriet Watson wasn't pleasant company off her tits and rather maudlin.
A Christmas in solitude in the flat he gladly calls home is a very enticing prospect. It would be even nicer if Sherlock was present, but he deserves a few days of relaxation with family after the back-to-back cases he'd buried himself in right before Christmas. It was as if the devil was driving him to fill every moment with something to do. Cases he would have normally dismissed were accepted with a desperately manic sort of glee. John had no idea what is going on, and hopes that a Christmas at Mycroft's will break that viciously workaholic cycle.
Not that John thinks spending any amount of time with Mycroft Holmes is relaxing, but the brothers seem to enjoy their bickering, and the food is likely very good, judging by what Sherlock often has to say about his older sibling's culinary habits.
Trudging up the stairs to the flat, John hopes the fridge isn't completely empty. The train journey has left him peckish but he'd prefer to avoid having to go out in the cold gale for milk and a bag of toast.
To his great surprise, upon arriving at the landing, he hears the sound of the radio from inside. Sherlock never has it on, especially not on some channel playing Christmas pop music, as John's ears tell him as he presses one close to the door. There's nothing that strange that seems to be going on, but something is pricking his thumbs.
Maybe Sherlock's tolerance for Mycroft has been reached faster than anticipated. Family — that's something they can commiserate together by a nice fire and a glass of scotch, John decides and enters boldly.
He's barely in the door and removing his scarf, when footsteps approach. "I thought you were supposed to––" John hangs the scarf up and turns… and the words die in his mouth when the person, man as his stuttering brain supplies, turns out to be not Sherlock at all.
He's shirtless, wearing jeans. He's carrying a shirt he seems to have been about to put on. The radio is playing something with jingle bells.
The man gives John a slightly quizzical look, but quickly recovers towards cheery nonchalance. "He didn't say anyone was joining us. Sorry, didn't mean to–– He didn't say," the man excuses, the halting speech sounding oddly rehearsed. He then raises his hands. "No hard feelings?" he suggests.
John's brows have hitched towards the ceiling. "No, um… that's, that's fine. Merry Christmas?" he offers.
The strange man — roughly Sherlock's age if not slightly older, well-groomed and annoyingly fit — gives him an almost grateful nod, then goes to Sherlock's desk as if he's rummaged around it before. There's a set of crisp bank notes shoved underneath the edge of a book there — forensic entomology, a bit of light reading as Sherlock had described it — and the man grabs it as though doing so is the most natural thing in the world.
As if that money belongs to him.
And that's what keeps John from protesting. This isnt a burglar, he knows that much.
But is he quite ready to make some deductions as to what the hell is going on?
The door to Sherlock's bedroom is closed.
The strange man has shoved the money into the back pocket of his jeans and grabbed an expensive-looking puffer jacket from where it seems to have been ungracefully dropped — John's chair. He slips into it, and then out the door, but stops just short of closing it. "He told me to make a cuppa, but maybe you could––"
"Yeah," John offers more eagerly than he probably should. "I'll sort it. Thanks."
What is he thanking this stranger for?
By the time the footfalls down the stairwell disappear, he's ready to question even more of his reality. Has he imagined what has just happened? His eyes flit from the closed door to the desk, now devoid of what must have been at least a hundred quid.
A member of the homeless network? wonders John. Not in those clothes, though. One of Mycroft's employees?
John has seen Sherlock reward his informants with money before. Mycroft's minions probably wouldn't accept bribes. Most likely this is something case-related, but the shirtless bit is what is throwing John's logic off kilter. That, and the holiday radio he goes to turn off. It must've been on to humour the visitor, but Sherlock never, ever humours anyone.
John makes tea. It usually makes the world make a lot more sense. Not tonight, though.
Sherlock must know he's home. Surely he'd heard John's voice as the stranger was leaving. Why is he hiding in his room? He's usually excited to share with John new case-related developments.
This isn't about a case, John admits to himself. Or if it is, I really do want to hear the gist of it.
Steaming mug in hand, he goes to knock on Sherlock's door. After all, this is tea he had commissioned.
Sherlock comes to the door with such a delay that John even considers opening the door to make sure he's not in any kind of trouble. He's in his smoking jacket, barefoot. The air in the room feels stuffy even from just standing on the doorstep. Heady, even.
And Sherlock's hair is a mess.
Just as their eyes meet, the universe sees fit to spark into life in John's head a full theory — no, a mortifying certainty — of what has just transpired.
Sherlock thought he'd be away until tomorrow.
Sherlock, who had made clear to John his disdain for all things Christmas, had adamantly refused to engage in anything related, including shopping for a gift for the person who was going to be hosting him. Quite logical, if he never had any intention of actually showing up.
Instead, he'd chosen to spend Christmas eve with… someone he'd paid for the pleasure. Literally.
"Tea," John says quickly.
Something remarkable but hard to identify flashes in Sherlock's eyes just before he averts them. He accepts the mug, practically hides behind it.
"Harry was at it again. I'd rather be home alone than watch her lose her one-year chip."
"Statistically, holidays are a test on sobriety," Sherlock muses dryly. He hasn't moved from the doorway as though protecting his sanctum by preventing John's entry to it.
John takes a step back. "Listen, I'm sorry I didn't text. If I'd known you had company––"
"He was just leaving."
"Seemed nice," John offer awkwardly. "Have you two known each for long?"
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I'd prefer it if you spared me the commentary."
"It's all fine, Sherlock," John scrambles to offer. "None of my business."
"Exactly."
They linger in some odd, wordless limbo until Sherlock pivots on his heels and takes the mug with him.
John takes this as his cue to retreat back into the kitchen. He wishes he'd at least had the good sense to say Merry Christmas; the bedroom door slams shut again and he doesn't hear a peep from his flatmate until the next morning.
---x---x---x---
None of my business, John rehearses in his head multiple times during the night. He knows he should move the fuck on, treat this as just one of Sherlock's peculiarities, but keeps tripping up on the fact that Sherlock had cared enough about Christmas to lie.
If he didn't want to go to Mycroft's, why not say so? John would have understood wanting a quiet Christmas at home. Was it because everyone around him had been making such a fuss about going home to see family?
And why wait until John had left town to have… relations? A sock on the door would have worked. We both went to uni, I'm sure he knows how to signal he's getting a leg over.
Perhaps what's also keeping John awake is the realisation that he'd just received a glimpse into very personal preferences they haven't exactly disclosed to one another. Sherlock knows he dates women, but he doesn't know about the few encounters John's had with men. All John knows about his flatmate's orientation is that Sherlock had turned his tentative approach down that very first night, stating that he existed in some kind of a workaholic celibacy.
Confirmation that Sherlock isn't straight doesn't feel like any kind of a revelation. But the fact that he'd act on said orientation is one.
He treats his body not like a temple but like a boiler that keeps acting up, needing servicing and parts replacing. He eats only when he has to, thinks sleeping and even breathing are a waste of time that could be better spend in intellectual pursuits.
Is sex like that for him, too? Is that why he might prefer to pay for it, to keep things simple and separate from emotions?
That would explain the money, but it does not explain this whole caper about Christmas.
And is whatever's behind it something that John should leave well enough alone, or something he should address because Sherlock is his friend? And because on his features, John had read none at all of that healthy bliss he always felt after being intimate with someone.
In fact, Sherlock had seemed rather miserable these past few days, cranky and short-tempered even despite all the cases. John had assumed it was due to impending brotherly presence and a general dislike for the sensory assault that is London's Christmas season, but is there more at work here?
It's close to three in the morning when John finally falls asleep. Outside, the first snow of the season is falling, a convenient backdrop to what might be the first case John will have to solve without his mad, brilliant flatmate detective's help.
---x---x---x---
For the next few days, John carries on as he imagines an Englishman should after getting an unwarranted glimpse into his mad flatmate's love life. Sherlock is in a volatile, withdrawn mood which isn't unusual — John suspects holidays may bring out cravings for old habits when even the criminal elements of London seem to cease operations and focus on rest and family.
But before, Sherlock had brought his frustrations out on John. Now, he avoids company, and John keeps getting an uncanny sense of having done something so wrong it requires punishment. He just cannot tell whether it was coming home early, something he said — or leaving for Christmas in the first place.
Mycroft drops by at one point to drop off a present and to tut at the state of the flat. Without the regular industrious hand of Mrs Hudson who is still vocally most decidedly not their housekeeper yet acts the part, things have gone to the dogs a bit. But, as long as John doesn't care, Sherlock doesn't notice and Mycroft is annoyed, it all works. 221B, even in a messy state, is home in a way that terrible bedsit the veterans' support services had placed John in had never felt.
Mycroft had been worried when Sherlock didn't show up for Christmas dinner. CCTV had placed him at home, and he hadn't left the flat before or after, so Mycroft decided to leave him to it.
"I always have my people do a thorough sweep for illicit substances right before Christmas," Holmes the Snooty tells John as though revealing state secrets. "Holidays are always a danger period."
"Why's that?" John asks innocently while Sherlock bristles by his desk. At least he's put on trousers today, after moping around in underwear topped with one of his gowns for days.
Mycroft gives his brother a pointed glance. "He'd say it's not my story to tell."
"Stop putting words in my mouth. I don't care what nonsense you spout to people, just don't mess up John's head with your theories."
John's head, of course, has been messed up ever since he walked in and met Sherlock's paid company. And now he learns that Mycroft has not just facts but theories…
But he can't ask about those even if he manages to do so without Sherlock present. It would be a breach of privacy.
John curses inwardly, sits down in his chair and pretends to be inspecting the bottle of port wine Mycroft had shoved at his person as an unexpected Christmas gift.
---x---x---x---
Lestrade comes calling on New Year's Eve with a festive murder to cheer Sherlock up and distract John. He knows he's becoming hyperfixated on the mystery of the one-night boyfriend (that's what John would call it if it was something that could be turned into a blog post) in that same way Sherlock hyperfixates on tobacco ash and poisonous ranunculus variant (whatever those are). What had transpired, makes Sherlock so… human, and while John knows many men wouldn't struggle at all to see Sherlock as a target of sexual desire, when it comes to Sherlock having said desires, it's all…
"John!" Sherlock barks an order, making him flinch. "The discolouration!"
John blinks, steps closer worrying his lip. Right. There's a corpse. The same corpse that was there… fifteen minutes ago, according to his watch. He must've drifted off into his thoughts.
And now Sherlock wants his opinion on… "Stop poking that," he chastises when Sherlock's prying forefinger sinks right through the rotted skin into the poor victim's abdominal flesh. "That part decomposes first because the large intestine is full of bacteria and rests against the skin and subcutaneous tissues there."
"I didn't mean that!" Sherlock's frustration has reached the level of a schoolmistress finding the same boys smoking behind a shed for the fifth time. "The bright green!"
John leans closer, schooling his brows into looking like he knows what's going on. This is the only part about cases he dislikes: always being seven steps behind Sherlock. "Oh. Yeah. That's not normal body decomposition."
Sherlock's back snaps straight like a catapult from where he'd been hunched down. "Copper!" he shouts, ballets on his heel and marches right out of the butcher's cold storage they're shivering in.
Lestrade spreads his arms at John, his entire form a questionmark.
"Copper," John repeats as though it's the most obvious thing in the world, flashes a smile and starts for the corridor.
---x---x---x---
Less than two hours later, a suspect has been identified and apprehended and a killing and temporary body storage site identified. Three brothers in the food trade: one a butcher, taking over a family business in a small village, one barkeep running a gastropub in the same village and an angel investor who'd made his money winning the lottery. He'd invested heavily in said gastropub while leaving the old family business languishing. To John it seems rather poetic to off the investor in the gastropub's drink storage, then take him to the butchery's cold storage when the inexperienced murderer couldn't work out a proper, long-term body dump plan. Sherlock had made the connection to the bar through realising that there were Moscow mule glasses — copper — stored on the floor level, which had caused a turquoise discoloration on the victim's stomach.
They end up having lunch at the gastropub after dropping by to tell the news to the owner, grieving the loss of his brother. Sherlock, ever the tactful investigator, tells the poor bloke that his murdering brother had probably first intended for him to find the victim in the building to grind his nose into the motive, but realised how that would have implicated him since the bar owner had been in Costa del Sol during the murder. He is back now, and grateful enough to stage a feast for the pair of amateur sleuths who'd found out what happened to his big brother.
"I've wanted to murder Mycroft a great many times, but this serves as a good reminder of how messy that gets. It's hard to conceal a homicide in the family; you're bound to become a suspect," Sherlock muses dryly over his aged Angus steak. "Your sister has hardly served as your pride and joy at all times," he then points out, fork waving patterns at John.
"She drives me round the bend, but I can't help thinking we always had the odds stacked against us in terms of making it out in the world. You don't survive a Watson childhood and come out unscathed."
"She's taken to the bottle again, then?" Sherlock asks, tone careful and eyes on his plate. This is more sensitive an approach than he ever tends to bother to take with people. John appreciates greatly how big an effort Sherlock is willing to make with him.
This is the first reference Sherlock has made of the past Christmas. The solved case seems to have put him in a content mood, and perhaps enough time has passed that the subject can be approached.
"That, and some idiot GP's given her a prescription for codeine for back pain. Rinsing those down with vodka is not the greatest idea. Had a shouting match with her after flushing those down the loo."
John realises he may have more in common with Mycroft Holmes than he likes to think. "I should've stayed home. For the holidays, I mean. I should've known since she was drunk when she invited me."
"You wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. That's nice. A lesson Mycroft should try out sometime."
John decides that probably confirms the older Holmes' impression that at least Sherlock hadn't used during Christmas. But had he replaced that escape with something else?
John realises Sherlock hasn't replied to his comment — that maybe he should have stayed at home for Christmas. "We've spent a lot of time together. Maybe it was good to still have a bit of a breather over the holidays. I know it must be… an adjustment to you in particular, living with someone," he offers.
"I've not regretted a single minute of our cohabitation. It's not a hardship," Sherlock replies fast and adamant, surprising John completely.
This sort of extreme politeness isn't like Sherlock. Which means it just might be honesty.
"You're the one having to accommodate my habits, some of which I know are not… conducive to sharing a living space. I was granted special dispensation to get my own flat during first year at university instead of continuing living at the college. There was a petition." He grins, but there is something in that rictus-like expression that tells John there's hurt somewhere in there, too. "It was convenient. For many reasons," Sherlock adds cryptically and takes a large sip of his oxblood-coloured wine.
John isn't much of a wine expert, but this chateau whatever, a dusty bottle dug out by the owner and presented with great pride, is the nicest red he's ever had.
"Sorry I interrupted your… I didn't intend to make him uncomfortable."
Sherlock gives him a short glance, looking a bit unsure of himself. "No need to apologise. Perhaps it would've been best if you had made him more uncomfortable. He's been texting me, asking if I'm free this weekend. Euphemism, of course. Business must be slow."
John is startled by the frank reference to the fact that a financial transaction is associated. He suspects this will be his one chance to find out more, so he scrambles to ask, "How'd you two meet?"
"He was a witness, later also suspect, in an early case of mine. Exonerated him. First case Mycroft ever brought to me. He was doing a favour to a friend who wanted Barnaby's name to be disassociated with the incident as fast as possible so that he could continue to use his services without either of their names ending up in the press because of the murder."
Barnaby, John laughs inwardly. He has no idea what high-end escorts should be called or are called, but this isn't what he'd expected. Then again, he's having lunch with a man named Sherlock.
Upper-class twits and their weird-arse names, he chuckles in his head.
Of course, the world's most observant man picks up on his amusement. "What?"
"Nothing. So, Barnaby––" he manages to keep a straight face, "you two aren't dating, then?"
"God, no."
"And you're being… careful?" John can't help his doctor side leaking out. "With his profession and all."
Sherlock gives him a dirty look. "I'm not an idiot. Nor is he."
"That's good. Had a nice time, then?" At least Barnaby seemed to be in good spirits.
John is surprised to see Sherlock's expression shift. It's now the same barely hidden mask of misery he'd worn for days after Christmas. "I wonder what we'll get for pudding."
"Sherlock?" John asks. The shift in mood had been too dramatic and too fast — he's worried, now. "Are you alright?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Too defensive. Too sharp.
"Did something happen? With… him?"
If the man is texting Sherlock, being too eager, maybe there had been some wires crossed. Some… consent issues trampled over? Sherlock isn't the best emotional communicator, and though he can read people when it comes to solving crimes, human drama that relates to him personally is…
John is relieved when Sherlock snorts dismissively. "I don't know what theories you're concocting but no. There wasn't an issue. Services were rendered as requested."
"Right," John says on autopilot, telling himself firmly to stop imagining the details of those services.
"You disapprove, then?" Sherlock tries to deduce. "Didn't take you for a prude, considering your parade of recent one-night stands."
I don't have to pay for them is what John doesn't say because that would be mean, would it? But why would Sherlock need to pay for it, either? He's bloody gorgeous. John has seen the looks men and women alike throw the man's way. If he showed up at a bar, he'd pull within the first twenty minutes, assuming he wouldn't insult everyone in the first ten.
Maybe that is the problem, then. That he has a hard time negotiating the social side of things. With a professional, he could perpetrate a hundred social gaffes without having to worry about derailing the proceedings. It must be so much easier, John realises.
"No, no, I… As long as everyone's happy with the arrangement, it's fine. It's all fine."
"I know it's fine."
"Married to your work, I get it. You want something uncomplicated when it comes to sex." John tries to sound jovial. He doesn't always intend to have a one-night thing, but if he realises halfway through a date that he wouldn't want a relationship with a person but would very much still like to have a nice fuck, then what's the harm?
He expects Sherlock to agree, but instead he seems to have lost his appetite for the steak he'd been shovelling in with gusto moments before.
John feels like he understands even less than before about what had happened at Christmas and especially after. If engaging Barnaby's services (for heaven's sake, that's no name for a bloke like that) makes him miserable, then why do it?
Unless it hadn't before.
And somehow, John has the uncanny feeling he's somehow involved in this conundrum of why things might have changed.
"Just give me a heads up when he's coming over and I'll make sure to have something to do elsewhere," John says cheerily, trying to sound encouraging. In reality, it's the wonkiest thing he can imagine: walking around Regent's Park while Sherlock is… While Sherlock has… While Sherlock gets…
A twist of jealousy breaks through, and it's as sharp as it is tart. It's not right that Sherlock would have to pay someone named Barnaby, for fuck's sake! It's not right that someone like Sherlock would have to settle for something like that.
For someone who doesn't love him.
What if John's 'parade of one-night stands' has inadvertently ground Sherlock's nose in the fact that he thinks resorting to such means to get a bit of sex and companionship is his only option?
It's me, John realises. I'm the one who's bollocksed this up.
He's not loved the women he's been with during the last eight months. He can't imagine starting to love them even if those relationships had lasted longer than a few weeks, tops.
When he'd been with them, he'd been almost grateful when Sherlock had gatecrashed so many of those dates…
Oh, fuck.
Now John has lost his appetite for the grand steak, too.
It's as if Sherlock has sensed his preoccupation, and is now staring at him, eyes ablaze with anger. "I don't expect any more courtesy from you concerning my personal life than you give me. He won't be coming over. I've realised my mistake."
"What mistake?"
Sherlock rises from his seat, slams the linen napkin that had rested on his knees on the table.
"Sherlock, what mistake?"
He gets not a single word in reply, not even a look. Sherlock grabs his coat from the hanger on the wall and walks out.
The restaurateur shows up right then, probably intending to ask then how they're enjoying their mains, but he's left confused by the sight of Sherlock marching out the front door.
"I guess we'll take the puddings in a takeaway box," John says with an apologetic smile.
---x---x---x---
Should he go home? Is Sherlock there, or walking around London fuming? Should John give him space or try to get this thing resolved?
If only he knew what the thing is. Somehow, he's ruined Sherlock's paid sex dates — not just the one at Christmas but for the foreseeable future.
And, somehow without even realising, he's come to prefer Sherlock's company to any of the women he's dated during their cohabitation.
You see but you don't observe. Occam's razor, John, the most obvious explanation tends to be the right one.
"Oh, shut up," John mutters at the voice of reason in his head, the one that sounds like Sherlock more often than not these days.
He'd taken a right turn at Baker Street station, wanting to walk off the tipsy buzz in his head before attempting what he knows is a minefield of a conversation with Sherlock. That is, if he can even find the man. Sherlock has boltholes all over London, and John wouldn't be surprised if he'd taken to one of them for a proper sulk. Then again, when he's upset and not just in one of his boredom-induced black moods, he seems to prefer home, with John as a sounding board and conductor of light.
Right now, John feels more like a conductor of darkness. After all, he's managed to upset Sherlock twice now over Barnaby.
"Bloody Barnaby," John curses at a bin he passes.
Is that Sherlock's type, then? Boringly handsome, lean and fit? Hardly John's doppelganger. He remains incredulous of his own part in this: isn't the likeliest and most reassuringly innocent explanation that Sherlock just feels a bit embarrassed about engaging a sex worker's services? Many men would be, wouldn't they, if their mate found out?
But he'd told Sherlock it was all fine. He'd said the right things.
Sherlock is right: it's impossible to operate without all the facts. Why are holidays a reminder of something bad? Why hadn't it worked out with Barnaby this time around?
Gritting his teeth, John digs out his phone.
Mycroft answers on the third ring.
"What did you mean about Sherlock hating the holidays?" he asks without even giving the older Holmes time for a habitual greetings and an acknowledgement of who's calling.
"I'll assume because something is causing strife in your domesticity? I could tell on boxing day. He was more irascible than usual and wouldn't look at you."
"None of your business."
"Yet you're making his past yours, despite his reticence to address these things."
"Either you tell me or you don't, but I'm not discussing the current circumstances any further."
"Very well. He thinks me too nosy as is, so it's hardly going to change his opinion if I humour your request."
"Enough yapping, Mycroft. Get to it."
"You'll have noticed, by now, Sherlock's difficulties in dealing with people. Once, and only once, has he expressed his romantic intentions to the object of them, and that backfired badly. He mistook friendship for more, since friendship was a commodity with which he'd had very little experience."
"If he was taught to think of it as a bloody commodity, I'm not surprised." John wonders if Mycroft had played a role in such a malignant lesson being imparted.
"The object of his affections ceased his association with Sherlock. He was already unpopular among his university peers, and children — yes, children, since males around the age of nineteen are hardly sensible adults — can be terribly cruel. The world was not as tolerant as it is now. Much has happened in just fifteen years to make things better for minorities."
Don't I know it. Their parents' reaction to Harry coming out as a lesbian had been explosive. And permanent.
"He's made sure never to repeat that mistake again," Mycroft says ominously.
Married to my work.
"It was just before Christmas that Victor Trevor dismissed his interest," Mycroft continues. "It was just as well that I was already looking for a flat for him; he struggled with communal college life and hardly wanted to continue living on the same floor as the Trevor boy after the embarrassment."
'It was convenient. For many reasons.' Sherlock's words.
"But it was just one person turning him down," John argues. "That's hardly a reason to quit relationships for a whole lifetime."
"It was difficult enough, embarrassing enough, to be the final straw," Mycroft explains. "Plucking up the courage to express his interest and getting a black eye instead of a partnership merely cemented the lessons learned from so many social encounters he'd misinterpreted and made a mess of before. This was not for him, he decided. It doesn't mean he hasn't suffered as a result of that vow of solitude."
"And you haven't tried to change his opinion," John scoffs. If anyone truly seems married to their work, it's Mycroft.
"He's devised certain solutions to the issue of physical and emotional needs. They're not uncommon ones for men like us, and they have served him until now. Your appearance was an outlier I did not expect."
Mycroft knows about Barnaby. John shudders. Too nosy is the understatement of the bloody century.
"Have I sated your curiosity?" Mycroft asks dryly.
"It's not curiosity." It was curiosity, now it's damage control. "Thanks. And happy new year and all that."
"A happy new year, John. Send my regards to Sherlock. He's not answering his phone."
John rings off.
Right, he tells himself, clasping his wrist behind his back as he starts walking home from the edge of Regent's Park. What have I got for puzzle pieces?
He has perhaps seven minutes of walking to solve this case.
Sherlock tells some bloke he fancies him, gets rejected, brutally, at Christmas. He swears off relationships after that, but since humans, not even him, don’t quite work like that, he hires Barnaby occasionally as some kind of a consolation prize, a scratch to an itch, so that he can pretend he's above it all. I leave for Christmas, and that itch comes back, but the scratch doesn't work anymore. God, that sounds as if affection is some kind of a disease.
What the hell kind of a family are the Holmeses to teach Sherlock this sort of nonsense? That just because he's different in ways John suspects might well find certain diagnostic terms in modern neuropsychiatry, he should just withdraw from humanity to spare himself and others of further embarrassment?
Hell, no. And Barnaby can fuck right off, too.
But where does that leave John? John, whose departure for Christmas has apparently soured the previously sufficient performance of said Mr Cock-For-Hire.
That is the final puzzle piece, and only one person in the world holds it.
Sherlock.
John crinkles his nose and hastens his steps.
Time to replace a Christmas mystery with some new year closure.
---x---x---x---
He expects to find yet another closed bedroom door and the air heavy with weapons-grade sulk but instead, he finds Sherlock sitting at the kitchen table, peering into a microscope. He's got what look like soil samples and a fresh packet of glass slides sitting by the device. John's greeting is answered with a thoughtful hum; he doesn't look up.
John swallows. Hard.
He needs to decide, right now, where the conversation he's about to have could, and should lead. Is he ready for the outcome?
Sherlock hasn't been operating with all the data, either.
He shot down John's interest that first night because he could tell John was interested. Solid deduction right there.
So why is John hesitating right now to act on said interest? He's never hesitated expressing it before because what's the worst that could happen? Someone says no. That's not the end of the world.
But for Sherlock, it apparently had been — bad enough to make him never want to try again. Bad enough to protect himself from feeling anything by paying people for affection.
John is hesitating, because he's holding something so brittle he fears he'll break it for good, even worse than that sorry excuse for a man Victor-whats-his-fuck had done.
"Why was it not good with Barnaby this Christmas, Sherlock?"
Brutal. Blunt. Unescapable.
To make sure of that last one, John has taken up position by the chair opposite to Sherlock, which plants him right between the man and his bedroom door.
Sherlock's head snaps up, a deer in headlights. His mouth drops open, his facial muscles do some theatrics he's clearly not in full control of.
Good. I need to get past that control so that we'll get to some honesty.
John holds up a hand. "You don't have to answer; I'm going to give you my theory. It wasn't good, because it's not much, is it? In and out like a fiddler’s elbow, grab your payment on your way out. It doesn't quite work like that, does it, when it's not just sex you want, hm?"
"I don't––" Why are you doing this, John is what the look Sherlock gives him is pleading. "Why are you hell bent on torturing me over this?"
Defensive. Steely. Sherlock's back is now ramrod-straight, and he's staring daggers at John.
Fortress Sherlock has been reconstructed.
But John is determined to be the wallbreaker. "So you're unattached. Like me. And you backed the hell out of that conversation without even considering what it was that you might have wanted. Maybe you didn't, not yet. But come Christmas, you sure as hell didn't want to settle for good old Barnaby."
"You're reading too much into things." Sherlock averts his gaze, returns to his microscope, but he fumbles a bit with the diopter adjustments, betraying his distress.
"Why did you get pissed off at me when I came back early? It wasn't just embarrassment."
"That's not why––" Sherlock stands up, chest expanding with anger. "I didn't want to be alone, like I have been, every damned year! And I specifically didn't want you to leave for Christmas! Does that satisfy your curiosity?!"
"I thought you'd have spent a lot of Christmases with your family, with Mycroft at least?"
"Being physically alone and feeling alone is hardly the same."
"Yeah, you’re right," John readily agrees.
"Perhaps I didn't choose my words very well. I wanted to spend Christmas with you. I couldn't, because you chose something else."
It feels like a stalemate. Spending Christmas with a good friend is… great, but they're still only skirting the issue. Or are they? Suddenly, John is second-guessing himself. What if he is reading too much into this?
Then, he realises Sherlock hasn't contradicted his claims about that first night at Angelo's.
"If I'd known you wanted to spend Christmas with me, I would have stayed. In fact, I'd have made it a date. Our second. Or maybe our hundredth," John smirks. "I've lost count. Does today's lunch qualify?"
Sherlock is gaping, now, blinking as though his brain is attempting a reboot but the hard drive is missing. "Qualify as… what?"
"You said you're flattered by my interest. That means you could tell it's there."
"You're straight."
"According to whom? I never said that."
Sherlock looks like someone has just told him he's solved a case wrong and proven it with incontrovertible proof. He looks rather insulted, really. It's the same expression he'd worn when John had revealed he has a sister, amplified a thousandfold.
"You never… said that," he repeats. "Oh. Idiot." And this time he's clearly not meaning John. (What a nice change.) "I thought my dismissal was the end of it. That I discouraged you for good."
"You did discourage me for good — from other people, apparently. Kind of pointless, sitting on dates just thinking of my barmy flatmate. Kind of pointless, too, trying to replace someone you really wanted as Christmas company with some bloke who takes cash."
"Indeed," Sherlock admits. The fight is gone from him and he's now looking like a wrung rag, exhausted by the weight of the conversation.
John lets out a little laugh. "I should be flattered, really, that he was a poor replacement. He looked quite fit."
For a moment Sherlock looks like he might open his mouth in defence of Barnaby's good qualities, but then he bursts out laughing, too. "He put on some Christmas radio channel, John," he laments; clearly, in Sherlock's equivalent this is a crime equivalent to drowning kittens.
"He doesn't deserve you, that's for sure," John says, and his sober tone sends Sherlock's brain visibly reeling again. "Not sure I do, after ruining your Christmas, but maybe I could have another chance?"
"I hope you won't wait until next Christmas to make use of it?" Sherlock suggests carefully.
He looks suddenly so young and unsure of himself that John can imagine quite easily that scene all those years ago when his interest in someone had been not just shot down but brutally eviscerated and ridiculed.
"I wonder if they still sell mistletoe?" John wonders out loud with a suggestive smirk.
"Myddelton House's grounds in Enfield have a healthy colony. Their teahouse is passable," Sherlock suggests primly. "Solved a robbery there once."
"Then you can tell me all about it on our date there. Tomorrow," John declares.
"Oh," Sherlock says after considering this. "So we're––"
John nods. "Yeah."
"And I'm your––"
"Date, yes."
"As in––"
John gives him an endeared, mock-sardonic look. "Work it out, genius."
— The End —