Chapter Text
John wrapped the last of the chipolatas in bacon and wondered for the hundredth time what he'd been thinking when he'd offered to host Christmas dinner at Baker street.
Well, all right, he knew what he'd been thinking: Harry and Clara were making a go at patching things up, and inviting them to celebrate Christmas in neutral-but-friendly territory seemed like a clever tactic at the time. Get them someplace new, not haunted by the ghosts of past Christmases, somewhere they could make a fresh start. So his blurted-out invitation hadn't been entirely the result of temporary insanity.
But now the gathering was imminent, it was hard to keep that in mind.
The first hurdle – telling Sherlock that he'd unilaterally invited guests in the first place – had been cleared with surprising ease. John had feared some sort of blow-up, or at least a haughty huff, but Sherlock had blinked, like a considering cat, and nodded. “All right,” was all his flatmate had to say at the time. John had only learned about the hidden catch when they were shopping for supplies.
Sherlock, once committed to the idea of playing host, had taken charge of the meal planning and gone through the grocery store like a pro, all sweeping confidence and laser focus, proving something John had long suspected: Sherlock could get along with retail establishments just fine . . . provided he was properly motivated.
John, trailing in Sherlock's wake, had only been shaken from his bemusement when he realized exactly how much food Sherlock was piling up. “Um, Sherlock, there's only four of us,” he'd offered. And one of us is a vampire, went unsaid but implied.
“Five,” Sherlock had corrected, frowning at a display of bagged, fresh cranberries (no tins this year; Sherlock was something of a food snob when he bothered to pay attention) and tapping his lips thoughtfully with a fingertip. “Mycroft will be attending as well.”
”What?” John yelped, and heads turned in their direction, prompting him to drop his volume. “Since when?” he added, in a hissing whisper.
“Since he informed me he was planning to be there,” Sherlock said, picking up a bag of berries and hefting it. He shot a sidelong glance at his fuming flatmate and added, “He is family. You invited your relatives without consulting me, and . . . I've learned, with Mycroft, it's important to pick one's battles. He will 'check up' on me this Christmas, one way or another, and having him do so openly will at least keep him where I – we – can see him. Or would you prefer I force him into engineering something more secretive, underhanded and invasive?”
The fact that Mycroft already knew about the intended gathering (and John was certain Sherlock wouldn't have mentioned it to his brother) was pretty bloody invasive in itself, but he bit his tongue. Sherlock did have a point – more than one, in fact, John's rash decision to make the invite in the first place coming 'round to bite him in the arse at last.
“Better get two packs of cranberries, then,” John gritted out.
Sherlock nodded, tossing the the bags into his basket before turning with a dramatic coat-swirl and heading to the meat aisle where he proceeded to select a by-God Christmas goose. John hadn't been particularly surprised; he doubted the brothers Holmes had been raised to expect anything so modern and plebeian as turkey.
The goose was now occupying a roasting pan in the oven; Sherlock had managed to cram not only the hefty bird into the relatively tiny appliance, but also a separate pan of potatoes and parsnips. In John's experience, people who displayed natural talent in the laboratory also tended to be good cooks – the same skill set at work – and Sherlock was proving to be no exception.
The world's only consulting detective was stirring a bubbling pot of cranberries (spiked with orange and ginger, from the smell of them) and looking perfectly at ease in his good suit trousers and a crisp white designer shirt with the cuffs rolled up, a folded tea-towel slung over one shoulder like this season's newest fashion accessory. If John had dressed like that in the kitchen it would have been an invitation to disaster, but Sherlock's fine clothes were still immaculate. He seemed like some elegant celebrity chef, moving with casual grace, never measuring anything except by eye, confidently applying the contents of a collection of unmarked spice jars John hadn't even known they owned.
Sherlock nodded approval at the cranberry sauce and shifted the pan off the heat before cracking the oven door and inhaling the fragrant steam that seeped out.
“Still smells a bit like blood,” he announced, as if it were a perfectly ordinary observation, “but cooking right on schedule.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you'll never find a vampire hosting a cooking show, John thought, grinning and shaking his head as he slid the baking tray of completed pigs in a blanket to one side and reached for the printout of Harry's email containing their mother's bread sauce recipe. John had never made it himself before and he might not be the intuitive cook Sherlock was, but he was confident in his ability to make measurements and follow directions.
He'd got as far as sticking a few cloves haphazardly into a peeled onion before a long arm slid around his waist and a lean body pressed against his from behind.
“All of this,” a low baritone rumbled in John's ear, “is making me hungry.”
John closed his eyes and prayed for strength. Sherlock tended to get randy at the most inconvenient times, probably on purpose.
“Cooking, here, Sherlock,” he said, adding an edge of testiness to his voice. He jabbed another clove into the onion for emphasis.
“No, you're not,” Sherlock purred, kissing the side of John's neck. “You're preparing to cook. You haven't started yet.” Sherlock's lips were velvet-soft, sending a shiver straight to John's groin, but he resisted.
“Sherlock, we've got guests on the way . . .”
“Who won't be here for another hour or two – and I'm hungry now,” Sherlock whispered, cool breath brushing John's cheek and ear. John set down the onion and braced shaky hands on the worktop, closing his eyes. Sherlock's scent curled through John's nasal passages and then went straight to his reptile brain. It was a lost battle at this point, and John knew it, but he was still too innately stubborn to give in right away.
“I'd rather not greet my sister at the door with a set of fresh fang-marks in my neck, thanks,” he growled. “She's got enough issues with her brother being a werewolf. Best not spring any new surprises on her just yet.”
“I wasn't thinking,” Sherlock said, “of biting your neck.” Strong hands turned John around to face his flatmate and Sherlock, shameless and feral, slid down the length of John's body in the process of kneeling at his feet. He rubbed his cheek, catlike, against the front of John's jeans, then mouthed at the denim, making John gasp as arousal spiked fast and hard. He leaned back against the worktop for support, no longer trusting his knees to hold him upright.
Sherlock looked up with a small, smug smile quirking the corners of his mouth. His eyes were so pale they were practically luminous. He was playful, dangerous and infuriatingly beautiful.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, running a teasing fingertip along John's belt buckle. It was, possibly, the most rhetorical question in the history of the world.
John, already breathing hard, swallowed. “I hate you,” he said, with feeling.
Sherlock, hearing the resignation behind the words, gave a fang-filled grin of triumph and began unbuckling John's belt, his pale eyes going black in anticipation.
-
John flung open the door with more force than strictly necessary and beamed at his sister and sister-in-law. “Harry! Clara! Hi!” he chirped. The two women looked taken aback by the intensity of his greeting, Clara's eyebrows going up and Harry's going down. John desperately attempted to dial back the combined aftereffects of a spectacular blow job and a pint's worth of blood loss. The bite mark on his upper thigh, where Sherlock had fed from the femoral artery, was still throbbing with a warm blend of pleasure and pain that did nothing to reduce John's endorphin high.
Clara was the first to recover. She set down the bag she was carrying and moved to embrace him. “Good to see you, John,” she said, resting her chin on his shoulder.
“You, too,” John sighed, closing his eyes, unable to keep himself from turning his face into her hair as he breathed in deeply, letting her familiar scent light up all the neurons in his brain relating to family and home. He had no doubt she knew what he was doing, and she gave his shoulder blades an affectionate little squeeze with her hands. It's true what they say, he thought, feeling for the first time in a long while as if it were genuinely Christmas, about the family you find.
But the moment could only last so long, and then it was time to greet Harry, the family fate had dealt him – to their mutual dismay. She looked unsettled and standoffish, but determined; John understood exactly how she felt, since he was experiencing the same emotions himself. Looking at her was, as always, like looking into a weird, gender-swapping mirror; there was a reason people had taken them for twins when they were children, despite the two years' age gap between them. “Happy Christmas, John,” she said, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans.
“Happy Christmas, Harry,” John replied, giving her a small, complicated smile made of equal parts genuine and forced pleasure. He was saved from having to say anything else when he heard Sherlock approaching and John turned to make the introductions.
“Harry, Clara, this is Sherlock; Sherlock, Harry and Clara,” he said, waving back and forth between everyone and stepping back so the others could trade handshakes.
Sherlock, with his shirt sleeves rolled down and suit jacket on, smiled with every ounce of feigned charm he possessed. “It's wonderful to meet you both,” he said, with entirely believable warmth. John had to admit the slight flush of being newly-fed looked good on his flatmate, and wondered if that had been one of Sherlock's reasons for seducing him in the kitchen.. Probably; Sherlock tended to play life as if it were tournament chess, every move calculated in advance.
He certainly made an impression; Harry blinked, looking surprised, and Clara was even a tiny bit flustered. John found himself experiencing the contradictory urge to simultaneously warn Sherlock off his female relatives, and to defend his flatmate – all right, his boyfriend – from any outside advances.
Oh, it's going to be a weird afternoon, John thought as two different portions of his life intersected before his eyes. And Mycroft isn't even here yet.