Chapter Text
“It’s snowing again.” John peered out the window of 221a’s living room. “Again, Sherls.”
“Nothing is stopping you from going outside, John.” His boyfriend lay on the carpet, lazily scratching behind Archie’s ears.
“The cold is!” John moved away from the window, settling himself into the armchair. “Is the heater even on?”
“Yes. And that’s the third time you’ve asked.”
“Put a different jumper on.” John turned as Mariana entered the room, balancing three cups of tea and a bag of marshmallows on a tray. “You know that one doesn’t keep you warm.”
“I’m being festive, Mari. And my mum made this for me.”
“Carol wouldn’t want you to freeze though.” She put the tray down. “Marshmallows, Sherlock?”
“Yes please, Mari.” Sherlock sat up, Archie climbing into his lap. “You look nice today.”
“Aw, thanks.” She smiled and handed him a cup of tea.
“Thank you.” John tried to sneak a marshmallow from the bag while the two were distracted, but was unsuccessful. His girlfriend grabbed the bag and held it out of reach.
“Ah, no.”
“What?! Why can’t I have one?”
“You didn’t use your manners, mister!”
“Oi! No fair!” John scrambled for the bag, standing up on the chair and reaching over. Mariana held it just out of reach, laughing. Sherlock grinned as he sipped his tea, Archie slobbering onto the carpet in his lap. The phone rang.
“Not it- hey!” Mariana turned as John took the marshmallows from her hand, shoving a handful into his mouth. “John! ¡Mono descarado!” The man smirked, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. Sherlock laughed, and Mariana stood, hands on hips, until she snorted and joined in. The phone continued to ring, and Sherlock put his tea down, moving Archie off his lap.
“I’ll get it.” He chuckled at John’s face as he attempted to chew the large amount of marshmallow in his mouth, and picked up the phone from Mariana’s desk. “Hello?”
“Hello, dear.” Sherlock froze, the voice sending shivers down his spine.
“…Mother.” Mariana heard him, and turned. John looked at him, eyes worried. “Whatever could you be calling for?”
“Your father and I want you to come home for Christmas. We could have lunch, if you’d like. I miss you and your sister terribly.”
“You know that My-“
“You’ll come, won’t you? You can bring your friends, your father has been desperate to meet them.” Sherlock took a deep breath, attempting to calm the storm that had begun to swirl inside him.
“I will see if we can, but I believe we will be occupied. Merry Christmas, Mother.”
“Merry Christmas, William.” Sherlock hung up and put the phone down.
“Why was she calling?” John furrowed his brow, blue eyes sparkling in the light. Mariana laid a hand on his arm.
“Are you alright? Come sit. You’re shaking, and you’ve gone pale.” She steered him to the armchair and John moved so he could sit. Sherlock took a deep breath, trying to steady his hands.
“She… she wants me to come home for… Christmas lunch.” He pulled his knees to his chest, fiddling with his pant leg.
“No fucking way.” John scowled. “Absolutely not.” Mariana nodded.
“They don’t get to make you do anything anymore, Sherlock. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“But I do, don’t I?” Sherlock noticed John and Mariana share a look before they both hugged him. John let him bury his face in his terrible jumper, and Mariana kissed his forehead gently.
“No. Not if you don’t want to.” And suddenly he was eight all over again, hiding in the third-floor closet and sobbing into the arms of his older sister who hated being a girl.
“Sherlock. Sherlock, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Mycroft’s grey eyes were sad, and they watched him worriedly.
“Why… why did Father… why did he… why did he hit us, My?” Sherlock dug his fingers into the fabric of his sibling’s shirt, sniffling.
“Because he didn’t understand what I was saying. People are scared of what they don’t understand, Sherlock. And you tried to help.”
“But he… he hurt us! And there was… there was no reason-” Mycroft cupped his face in their hands.
“Hey, hey. Sherlock. Look at me. There was, in his eyes. I wanted him to call me by my middle name.”
“Why would he hit you for that?”
“Because it’s not a girl name, and I’m supposed to be a girl.”
“Sherlock. Love.” John’s voice filtered back through the memory, soft. “Hey.” Sherlock blinked the tears from his eyes that he hadn’t realised where there and looked up. John smiled gently. “You do not have to go there ever again. You told me your parents hurt you, and I don’t need to know why, but please don’t expose yourself to that again.” Mariana ran her fingers through his hair, pressing her forehead to his.
“If you want to go, we’ll come with you. If you don’t, we’ll stay home. Promise.” Sherlock took a shuddering breath, and the phone rang again.
“Oh for God’s sake!” John grabbed the phone, then paused. “Um… Sherls, who’s My?” Sherlock looked up, blinking.
“Phone. Please.” John handed it to him, and Sherlock answered.
“Sherlock. Are you alright?” The voice rang clear from the phone’s speaker, and Sherlock smiled faintly.
“I am. Mother called you too then?”
“She did.” There was anger in My’s voice. “And she’s bloody mad if she thinks she can just waltz back into our lives like this.”
“You’re not going to go, are you?”
“They haven’t changed since we were kids, Sher. Why would they have now?” My let out a sigh. “What did she say?”
“Her normal. Talks over me, says I can bring my friends, that her and Father miss us. Load of bollocks.”
“As always.” There was a pause. “You feel you need to go, don’t you?” Sherlock took a breath. My’s voice went soft. “Oh, Sherlock. If you want to see them, you can.”
“I want to see you too. But I don’t want them to hurt you.” My laughed.
“Nothing they do can hurt me now, Sher. I’d better go, I’m needed. I’ll call you later, alright?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Love you, little brother.”
“Love you too, My.” The call ended, and Sherlock looked up to find that John and Mariana were both looking at him, and failing miserably to disguise their curiosity. Sherlock smiled. “You can ask.”
“You have an older sibling?” John’s eyes were wide. “And I didn’t know?”
“Yes.” Sherlock wiped the remaining tears from his face, and accepted a tissue that Mariana handed him. “Mycroft. They’re six years older than me.”
“Sorry, um… they?” Mariana tilted her head, sitting down on the couch.
“Yes.“ Mariana paused a minute, digesting this information, before nodding.
“Cool.” John smiled, and Sherlock felt warmth in his chest for both his partners.
“You sound close.” John picked out a marshmallow from the bag and put it in his mouth. Sherlock slowly released his knees and allowed Archie to climb onto his lap.
“We are. I suppose years of looking out for each other do that.”
“From your parents.” Mariana noticed his face darkened, and backtracked. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Sherlock-“
“I should. You both… deserve to know, if we’re going to see them.” He took a deep breath. “My parents… they were not kind to us. Not after they found out about My.” His hand was shaking again, and Mariana took it, squeezing encouragingly. Sherlock took another deep breath. “Mycroft came out when they were sixteen, and I was ten. I knew beforehand, of course, but when they tried to tell our parents…” he swallowed, the memory threatening at the edges of his mind, “… our parents weren’t happy, to say the least.” He laughed bitterly. “I hadn’t… hadn’t known they would react the way they did, or I hadn’t considered it. In my childish mind, who could ever hate my sibling?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Evidently, George and Martha Holmes could. They used to scream all the time, and they’d lock My in their room and tell them that they had to go back to being their daughter,” he spat the word out like it was a curse, and Mariana rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb, “or they’d be thrown out. My chose the later and ran away barely a year after. I went with them.”
“And you stayed together?” Mariana squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“Yes. I was a troublemaker as a teenager, I’m not afraid to admit, but Mycroft never treated me like our parents had. They never beat me, or locked me in my room without dinner, or shouted. Even when I was on the drugs.” Sherlock blinked a couple times, steadying his hands. “Even when I got arrested constantly, or when I yelled or I got overwhelmed. They were always there. Mycroft gave up everything for me.”
“They sound like a very good person.” John smiled, taking Sherlock’s other hand. “Your parents though, they sound like dickheads, mate.” Sherlock laughed.
“See, there’s our Sherlock.” Mariana kissed his cheek. “How about penne for dinner, hm?”
“That sounds lovely.”
The sun had set by the time they had finished dinner and snuggled in on the couch. John and Mariana were arguing over whether to watch Revenge of the Sith or A New Hope and Sherlock was sitting on his phone.
My
6:34pm
Hey. You feeling better?
Sorry I had to rush off.
It’s okay. I am.
I’ve got John and Mariana.
When am I going to get to
meet them?
Sherlock smiled and looked over at his two squabbling partners. John was pointing at the television and waving his arms.
Hopefully soon.
Are you planning on going to
Mother and Father’s for
Christmas?
Are you?
I think so.
If the office doesn’t need me,
I’ll be there.
Thank you, My.
There was a screech from Mariana, and Sherlock looked up to see John running away with the remote.
I have to go, John’s stolen
the remote.
Good luck getting it off him.
The days passed slowly as the snow drifted down over London like a white blanket, and Sherlock did his best to distract his mind from the impending Christmas disaster. Mariana had done her best to locate a case to keep the detective occupied, but it was too simple for his mind, solved in barely an hour. Currently, Sherlock lay on the couch, head hanging over the back so the blood could flow to his brain, having abandoned his violin for the time being. John had gone out to The Volunteer to meet with Stamford for a pint, and Mariana had left to do some shopping, so he was alone in the flat. He sighed, thoughts dragging back, as they tended to do, to his memory.
“Well, maybe I will!” The door slammed, Mycroft stomping into the kitchen with their bag over their shoulder, a scarf wrapped around their neck.
“Where are you going?” Sherlock looked up from his book, eyes wide.
“Away.” His sibling started shoved packets and cans of food into the bag without looking at him.
“When are you coming back?”
“Never.” Sherlock felt tears pick at his eyes.
“Why? Why do you have to go?” Mycroft stopped their furious packing and looked up.
“They don’t want me here, Sherlock. I’m going somewhere where I will be wanted.” Sherlock jumped from his stool and ran over, flinging his arms around his sibling.
“I want to come with you.” There was surprise on My’s face, their grey eyes wide. “I don’t want to stay here.” Mycroft smiled, and ruffled his hair. There was a pause, short but there, before they spoke.
“Pack your things then.”
The door opened, pulling Sherlock from his trance, and John entered. “Hey, Sherls.” His boyfriend planted a kiss on his forehead. “How’re you feeling?”
“Utterly bored.”
“Poor baby. That case with the missing poodle didn’t help?”
“It was easy.” John moved into the kitchen, and Sherlock watched him fiddle with the kettle. “Bell the poodle simply escaped out of the hole she had been digging under the back fence for the past three weeks, in order to travel three streets over to her secret lover, Frances.”
“Frances?”
“Yes. Black Labrador, 5 years old, male. I’ve alerted Bell’s owner that there may be a possibility of a litter.” John laughed, taking two mugs from the cupboard.
“God. It’s a bloody soap opera for dogs-“ there was the sound of a phone ringing. “Oh, shit, it’s Stamford.” Sherlock watched John pull his phone from his pocket and answer. “Hey, Stammo. What’s up, you miss me already?”
“You dolt. No, you left your wallet here.”
“Shit. I’ll come get it.” John ran a hand down his face.
“Nah, it’s good, I’ll bring it over. Give me five minutes.”
“You’re a legend, mate.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Stamford hung up.
“You left your wallet at the pub. Really, John?” Sherlock smirked. “How did you manage that? You’ll forget the microphone next.”
“Oi, you want tea or not?” He sounded cross, but Sherlock could see John’s smirk. “Speaking of the microphone, I think I’ll leave it here when we go for Christmas lunch with your parents. What do you think?”
“Probably best.” John brought the two mugs over, handing one to his boyfriend.
“I mean, I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable by recording your family business, even if I didn’t put it on the podcast, y’know, unless you want me to.” John took a sip of tea and almost spat it out. “Fuck- that’s hot!” Sherlock laughed, earning him a look from John as he wiped his mouth. “Not funny, Sherls!”
“Quite hilarious, actually.” He put his own mug of tea on the coffee table. “And regarding the Christmas lunch, I have a few things to let you and Mari know.”
“Right. The lunch. Should we wait for Mari then?”
“She’s just outside.” Sure enough, the door opened within the next minute, and their girlfriend walked in, arms full with the groceries.
“Little help, please, boys?”
“Sorry, Mari!” John jumped up, taking the bags from her and putting them on the kitchen table. “Sherlock has some things he needs us to know before we go to his parents for Christmas.”
“Oh, of course. What do we need to know, Sherlock?” Mariana started unpacking one of the bags while John did the other. Sherlock got up to help.
“Well, the biggest problem is that my parents… they’re extremely transphobic and rather homophobic too.” John dropped the packet of sausages he was holding, and Archie ran over to sniff them.
“Ack- no, Arch-“ John wrestled the packet off the dog before turning to look at Sherlock. “Okay. So, they don’t know that you’re…”
“No, neither of my parents are aware I am asexual or bisexual. I haven’t seen them since I was sixteen, and that wasn’t a time in which I was about to tell them anything.”
“But you said you left with Mycroft when you were ten… right? Why would they have contacted you after all that time?” Mariana tilted her head, looking confused.
“They didn’t. They tried to take My to court and get me back.”
“God, Sherls.” Sherlock put the last of the groceries away as John ran a hand along his face.
“They tried to take your sibling to court?” Mari’s eyes widened. Sherlock was aware of a faint grin spreading across his face.
“And failed. As far as the judge was concerned, I left willingly and Mycroft was financially and emotionally able to support me. There was also the matter of our former home life having to be looked into, so my parents had to drop the charges. It was in the news.” He closed the fridge.
“Good God.” John scratched his stubble. “Well. That proves the dickhead theory.”
“John.” Mariana fought a giggle. “Don’t call people gilipolas.”
“Even if it’s true?” Mariana rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Sherlock.
“So, your parents aren’t going to be supporting our relationship, big deal. It’s not like we’ll see them a lot.”
“Exactly, but it’s something to warn you both about.” He sighed. “They can be… outspoken about it.” Mari smiled reassuringly and held out her arms.
“Hug?” Sherlock nodded, and allowed her to wrap her arms around him. “Whatever happens, we stick together, right?” He felt another pair of arms envelop him from behind as John joined the hug.
“Right.”