Hello to all my readers! How did it get to Advent?! It being the first Advent Sunday tomorrow, I have decided to post the first instalment of a bit of a Christmas special that I have been putting together for a while now.
It's essentially a series of oneshots set around the Christmas of the first year in Baker Street. I have borrowed fragments from some of my failed stories, and from things that were never stories to start with, and I've even written some new material, all to form a fic that I hope you enjoy.
By the way, I looked at the BBC's attempt at John's blog about halfway through writing this, and discovered that my time scales are all a bit skewed according to that particular source. I have chosen therefore to ignore that version of events. Any other mistakes are entirely my own and I apologise.
I do not own Sherlock. I feel as if that would be too much responsibility.
1st Sunday in Advent, 2010
'Did you know Mrs H was in a choir?' John asked as he hung up his coat.
Sherlock did not turn round from where he was slumped in his chair. 'Yes.'
'Stupid question. You know everything,' said John with a laugh, coming to sit in his own chair, tired out after an exhausting day at work. People had an annoying tendency to get ill around Christmas, just when he didn't want to work quite so hard.
'Church choir, isn't it?' said Sherlock vaguely.
'Yes... They're doing a carol-service this weekend. It'll be the first Sunday in Advent, won't it?' At this Sherlock merely shrugged. 'Anyway, I think she quite wants us to come.'
Sherlock rolled his eyes. 'She can't possibly think it's my sort of thing.'
'Sherlock,' John scolded him. 'It would be really nice of you. Appreciative. After all she's done for you, an hour of your time –'
'Mrs Hudson knows I appreciate her,' countered Sherlock. 'I've saved her life several times over the past year. Is that not enough?'
John let out a sigh. He had known Sherlock for almost a year now, and he had put up with him for nearly all of that, but there were some things about his friend that he just couldn't support. 'What do you have against –'
'Can you imagine me at a carol-service?' Sherlock demanded of him.
To this John could not find a response. 'But it'll only last an hour or so, not long. Mrs H really wants us to come.'
'I suppose you're going.'
John looked indignant. 'Yes. Of course.'
'Even though it's not your sort of thing either?'
John nodded with a raised eyebrow. 'It won't be that bad. I haven't sung in a while though. Could be interesting.' He paused. 'Come on. I don't want to go on my own.'
'I'm not coming.'
'You're not doing anything this weekend.'
'I'm not coming.'
'Please, Sherlock.'
'I'm not coming!'
Sherlock swished into the church with the air of a child who has been dragged somewhere by his parents. He hadn't been to church since he had left home – it had been the bane of his life, having to go out every Sunday morning, just at the time when his brain seemed to work best. And anyway, growing up in an essentially Christian household had always been inconvenient for his logical brain. He would never understand religion, and what he didn't understand he didn't tend to like.
Carol services, John had tried to persuade him, were different. Lots of people went to carol services who didn't usually go to church, and who weren't even religious. Most people found them fun. It was nice to enter into the Christmas spirit a bit; and anyway, John wanted to make Mrs Hudson happy.
Sherlock sighed. He liked to see Mrs Hudson happy – he liked to see anyone happy, especially when he had made them that way, because it meant he had said or done something right for once. But making people happy without solving a crime for them or saving their life was always so damned tiring.
John found them a seat at the end of an empty pew that wasn't behind a pillar, and they sat down, taking off their outer layers. Sherlock stared grumpily ahead and tried to deduce things about the people around him, and studied the stained glass window with no small degree of boredom. The choir stalls were for the moment empty, but sent a small shudder down his spine. He had always felt a little resentment towards church choirs ever since Mycroft had been chosen for one and he hadn't.
At length the church had filled up a bit (though not much – Sherlock felt a little self-conscious as he realised they were alone on their row and rather visible to the rest of the church, rather than being squished in among crowds that would hide them), and the choir emerged from the vestry, all garbed in long white robes with red silk at the collars and wrists. They caught sight of Mrs Hudson, who looked perfectly silly in her robe, and she giggled silently and beamed at them. John waved a little. Sherlock allowed himself a smile that was more like some kind of tic at the corner of his mouth.
And they all stood, and launched into the first carol, which was Hark the Herald. John sang fairly terribly, but quietly, because he didn't overestimate his singing ability. Anyway, he was drowned out by a small eager girl in front of him who didn't know most of the words but sang loudly regardless. He was however distracted halfway through the carol not by this overenthusiastic child, but by the realisation that the rather good voice he could hear nearby belonged to – Sherlock.
Sherlock had his eyes closed, and sang in a deep and rich voice, a voice that, with a certain amount of tailoring, could have become excellent. It seemed the detective had another hidden talent. John had known that Sherlock was a musician, of course – he seemed to spend half his time playing his violin, whether he was producing strangled tones not unlike the sound of two fighting cats, or eking out the most gorgeous melodies that anyone would have fallen for regardless of their tastes in music – but he hadn't known that he could sing.
He tried not to stare, and sat down at the end of the carol without so much as a comment. Sherlock looked spectacularly nonchalant, as usual, and watched the preacher narrate his reading without hearing a word of it. To be perfectly honest, John too tuned out a bit for the majority of the service, roused only by the loud and glorious organ-playing that introduced each carol, and by that extraordinary baritone voice that came from his friend's mouth. Sherlock didn't even like Christmas carols that much. He wasn't even trying. If he actually put some effort in, who knows what he would produce? He was, quite frankly, better than most of the singers in the choir.
When the service was over, Sherlock immediately went for his coat, but John stopped him.
'Don't go just yet,' he said. 'I want to find Mrs H; and anyway, there are mince pies.'
'Dammit,' Sherlock murmured. John would probably be there all evening now.
'Oh, and your singing was great,' John said then, grinning a little.
Sherlock glared at him a little, as if he hadn't realised how loud he had been. The slightest hint of a blush began to spread into his impossibly pale cheeks.
'Did you learn to sing when you were younger, or –'
Sherlock shrugged. He had pulled his coat on despite John telling him not to for the moment, and had drawn the collar up above his chin, so that his expression wasn't quite visible. 'I was almost a choirboy... Mycroft was. I didn't fancy it.'
John had to admit to himself that he couldn't imagine Sherlock in the robes of a choirboy, and understood his distaste at the idea. He chuckled at the image of Mycroft in such apparel. 'You're so good though. You could be on the stage.'
Sherlock seemed to take this turn of phrase literally. 'I almost was once. They tried to make me be in Les Misérables. I refused, of course.'
John grinned. 'Of course... I can't imagine you in a musical. Even a gloomy one like Les Mis. Anyway, let's grab some mince pies before they all go, and – ah, there's Mrs H. Mrs Hudson!'
The little woman came over and beamed at them both, before bestowing them with cups of tea and dainty mince pies.
'You managed to bring Sherlock?' Mrs Hudson said, nodding towards the detective, who was staring very pointedly towards the door, and nibbling his mince pie absent-mindedly. 'It's lovely of you both to come. I didn't know if you'd... well, like it, you know.'
'It was good,' John assured her. 'Not my sort of thing, admittedly, but... cheerful. And the choir – you were really good.'
'Thank you, John,' said Mrs Hudson, patting his shoulder affectionately, and glancing towards Sherlock. John coughed a little.
Sherlock started. 'Yes, yes... very good,' he murmured.
'Turns out our Sherlock can sing,' John continued with a grin.
'Oh, can you, dear?' Mrs Hudson said. She looked as if Christmas had come early. 'Do you know, we're short of baritones –'
She had been sipping from her cup of tea, and now looked up to where the detective had been standing; to her surprise, he had already entirely vanished.
'Gone off sulking, I expect,' chuckled John, and, after he had finished his tea, he stuffed his mince pie into his mouth and hurried off back to Baker Street.
'It's Advent, then!' John said in slight surprise, leaning back in his armchair.
'Indeed.' Sherlock wasn't concentrating. He sipped from a cup of tea that John had just handed him, and shuffled into the corner of his own chair, his eyelids beginning to flutter.
'I was looking on the blog earlier. Couldn't believe it was almost a year ago we moved in here.'
Sherlock furrowed his brow and said nothing. He didn't much care for the passage of time, unlike, it seemed sometimes, the majority of the population.
'It's been a – well, a pretty good year, actually,' John considered. 'Exciting.'
'If you say so,' replied Sherlock.
'You certainly looked excited, a lot of the time,' John told him. 'C'mon, would it be that hard to admit that you do in fact experience positive emotions?'
Sherlock pursed his lips, looking a bit deflated. 'Yes. Yes, then. It hasn't been a bad year.'
'And the carol service wasn't a bad start to Christmas.'
'It wasn't the worst.'
John smirked a little. That was about the closest he would get to forcing Sherlock to admit that he had enjoyed himself. 'Nearly Christmas! We'll have to start thinking about what to do.'
'Do?'
'To celebrate... God, Sherlock, stop pretending you don't know anything about normal life... Should we invite people to ours on Christmas Day? A sort of belated housewarming? Should we get a fake tree or a real one? When should we start sending out cards? – That sort of thing.'
'You're forgetting the most important thing, John,' Sherlock informed him.
'What's that?'
'Whether Mrs H will make Christmas dinner if we ask her nicely enough,' Sherlock replied, and grinned.
The next update will be this Wednesday, with a little story set at Bart's. I hope you'll join me there!
