Before I start this, I would like everyone to know I have nothing against Gordon Brown. He's literally my bestie. Mycroft does not feel the same. Can't tell you why. Can't tell you why he's crushing on Lestrade either. His mind works in mysterious ways.
For as long as he lives, John won't quite be sure how Sherlock managed to rope him into this. It may have involved tequila or nudity, he's not very sure. All he knows is that Sherlock cunningly taped his promise to go to his family home on Christmas.
It's not really as if he has anything else to do, what with him and Harry's relationship being tentative at best, but the idea of Sherlock, Mycroft and the demons that spawned them all around one table makes him want to take the brace position and hide under the table until it's all over. He knows absolutely nothing about Mr Holmes, and a little more about Sherlock's mother. Her name was Judith, for a start. But Sherlock could have countless cousins and other relatives he'd simply neglected to mention, and that's what has him fidgeting in the driver's seat.
They had to rent a car because the nearest train station to the Holmes' country home was nearly 30 miles away, and the cost of the various buses needed to get within 500 feet on the place was astronomical. It was bloody typical of the Holmes family, those that he knew, to live somewhere so frustratingly inaccessible. John hasn't driven for years, but he's quite comfortable behind the wheel. Sherlock is asleep, which at least meant the man wasn't complaining about boredom and cramped conditions.
Giving directions in his sleep is slightly unnerving, though.
Still, he trusts Sherlock asleep much more than the sat nav, which was viciously ripped from its socket before they'd even left London, much to Sherlock's great amusement ("You really must get over this irrational anger at electronic voices, John.") and he'd been relying on Sherlock's incredible memory ever since. John wondered if the annual journey was just imprinted on his mind, or if he had a roadmap of the entire UK stored in some dusty corner of his mind.
"Left," Sherlock says clearly. And John takes the next exit to the left.
Nearly half an hour later, the car draws up by the sprawling house, spraying gravel despite John's attempt at gentle braking. Army driving training really hammers the 'brake hard and fast' instinct into a head. Sherlock jerks awake as he always does, immediately alert. It used to worry John a little, who was a slow waker who needed copious amounts of caffeine before he could even talk. Sherlock never lay still for longer than strictly necessary. Even when sulking, he fidgeted under the premise of getting comfy. Come morning, Sherlock would cheerfully untangle himself from the sheets and roll with a thump to the floor. Ready for the day.
The early, jolting mornings were nothing compared to the Herculean task of coaxing Sherlock to sleep in the first place. Of course it's easier to slide his arm around skinny hips and pull him to the bed, encouraging with kisses and nibbles to that pale, smooth column of a neck. Much easier than trying to persuade him from across the room, pleading with him to sleep with his head in his hands. He still doesn't like the memory of those stomach-twisting days. They're behind him now, but the memory of nights tangled and too warm in his sheets, agonising over every word Sherlock has said to him that day, still haunt him.
Sherlock doesn't feel the necessity to say 'We're here', so John says it for him.
"We're here, Sherlock," he says, yawning despite it being eleven am. Driving makes him sleepy, which is probably very dangerous. No wonder so many drivers fall asleep at the wheel. Sherlock is bending his spine in ways John wouldn't have thought possible in the confined space, but Sherlock proves him wrong daily. Why should Christmas day be any different? Sherlock's like a cat, purring as the kinks are worked out. John pats him on the shoulder, and slides out of the car. It's bitterly cold, too cold to actually snow, which is a rubbish cold really. Nothing to look forward to.
John has both their overnight bags out on the frozen gravel before Sherlock has unfolded his tall frame from the car. He looks slightly dishevelled, from the sleeping and the manoeuvres required to get out of the car. It's maybe the closest Sherlock Holmes can physically come to cute, and when he comes to fetch his bag, John gives him an impulsive kiss. Sherlock never seems fazed when this happens, just slides cold fingers under the shirt and writes SH on his back in ice. John shakes his head fondly when he registers the letters.
"And you said I was possessive," he murmurs against Sherlock's lips.
"I'm not possessive," Sherlock argues. "I just don't feel like sharing."
John chuckles and they have one drawn-out kiss before Sherlock pulls away with a reluctant sigh and picks up his bag. John follows with eyes rolling as Sherlock strides ahead intoning "And so into the Valley of Death..."
It surely can't be that bad. Sherlock and Mycroft might do that 'let's be nice for mum' thing that all siblings that can't stand each other do. There could be minimal fighting, and a house this big would have staff. The food would be really nice. And they could leave around nine, and drive back home in time for bed. It could be a nice Christmas. There wasn't even the embarrassing act of opening presents. Sherlock gave him his beautiful cashmere jumper this morning, and he gave Sherlock a simple silver band on a chain, to hang around his neck. He'd only lose a ring in a back alley somewhere.
The baying and snarling to his left makes him jump. He's not a big fan of dogs. But the fact he stumbles into empty air where Sherlock had been half a second ago, and the scarf-adorned figure crouching by the wire fence suggest he's the only cat person in the vicinity. Gingerly, he edges towards Sherlock. Not that the skinny man would be much defence if the rabid Rottweillers spontaneously broke free.
He's poking his fingers through the gaps in the fence! It's official. Sherlock Holmes has finally cracked. He should call Sally Donovan. She'll want to throw a party.
"Hello Churchill, did you miss me? Where's Thatcher, huh? Huh?"
The dog, completely unappeased, snaps at Sherlock's fingers. John winces, but Sherlock bats him away with a practiced hand motion.
"No biting," Sherlock says sternly.
"Are they all named after British Prime Ministers?" John says, keeping a safe distance from the enclosure.
"Yes, but we don't have all of them. Just the well-known ones. Chamberlain, Gladstone, Blair...that sort of thing."
John is scanning the writhing mass of dogs for no other reason to know which ones to keep clear of, when notices and old, unhealthy dog. His stomach sinks. They wouldn't...
"Please don't tell me that one's who I think it is," John implores, pointing a finger at the odd one out.
"Yes, that's Brown," Sherlock says, grinning.
"Did you do that on purpose?" John says, hands flying to the back of his head in stress. He's screwed. Screwed. So very, very screwed.
"No," Sherlock says matter-of-factly. "Mycroft did."
"Oh God," he groans, and he continues to mentally bemoan the fact that his lovers family was completely bonkers until they reached the door. Sherlock stabbed the button for the intercom, muttering 'Sherlock' and standing back. John isn't very surprised that he doesn't say Merry Christmas. Or even hello. The Holmes family are unbelievably dysfunctional, even by today's standards. Watch enough cheesy teen movies with the tagline 'AND YOU THOUGHT YOUR FAMILY WAS BAD!', and you began to believe colourblind pilot wannabes were the worst a family could offer. Then Sherlock came into his life, followed swiftly by his brother trying to pay him for information. Nothing if not...bad.
The door swings open to reveal literally the most beautiful woman John has ever seen. Luckily, she looks like Sherlock's female twin, so it isn't too much of a betrayal. Her hair was short and boyish with Sherlock's dark curls, but her lips were fuller and her cheekbones even more pronounced, if that was possible. She has his height as well, and her black dress leaves little to the imagination. She smells very strongly of jasmine, cloyingly so.
"Sherlock, dear," she said, and envelopes him in a hug, which Sherlock backs out of so quickly that the woman stumbles off the front step. John steadies her with a hand under her elbow, ever the gentleman. She flashes him a brilliant smile, but he's proud to say he's quite unaffected. She's beautiful, but not so much as Sherlock. And she's unnerving, with her poisoned-honey vibe.
"Sherlock," she pouts, stepping carefully back into the house. "I'm insulted."
"Last time you hugged me I was knocked out for three hours by your perfume." Sherlock reminds her in that rich, cutting baritone of his and John feels a powerful rush of love for him. Nobody can compare to him, not really. They don't even come close. His skin and his voice and his lips. His quirks and his habits and his silence.
"I was twelve, sweetheart," she laughs and pats his cheek. "Get over it."
Suddenly the full force of her is turned on him. John smiles politely, careful not to allow anything more than a friendly look on his face.
"And who might this be?" she purrs.
There's a jolt deep in his chest when Sherlock's arm encircles him protectively, like he's afraid this woman will steal him away. John leans absent-mindedly into the embrace, feeling Sherlock's collarbone against his cheekbone. He really should eat more. It can't be healthy, surviving on raids of Mrs Hudson's fridge and stale milk.
"John is mine, Adelaide," Sherlock says crisply. John can feel the angry confrontational reverberations along the crown of his head, and while the rush it gives him is heady, he can't help but feel Sherlock is overreacting a tad.
"Fiesty. Aren't you just the smitten kitten?" Adelaide mocks. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it, kitten. I have a yummy rock star waiting for me inside. Bye bye!" She flutters her fingers at them and sweeps down a grand hallway, leaving a trail of jasmine in her wake.
John stares after her, bemused.
"Who-" he begins, but Sherlock interrupts him with a voice like thunder.
"My younger sister," he says, tugging John into the house after him. It really is hard to keep up. Sherlock walks very fast when he's angry. And he has such long legs... "...We don't get along."
"None of you get along," John mutters under his breath. And he thought Sherlock was being melodramatic when he quoted the Charge of the Light Brigade. Now, it seemed completely appropriate. He was going to die.
He hadn't even seen Mycroft yet.
And Sherlock was a middle child, apparently. It explained so much. Middle children didn't like their siblings playing with their toys. This Adelaide is possibly most terrifying of the Holmes siblings, despite Sherlock's tendency to blow up their furniture and Mycroft's bloody unnerving skill with an umbrella. Adelaide made his skin crawl. She was like the Damien of their family.
John stumbles after Sherlock as he made a series of bewildering twists and turns through the labyrinthine house. John wonders where the family got their money from. There's the possibility of 'old money', and that seems quite likely. The father could be some high-flying banker who didn't crash and burn recently. Or an MP.
They finally arrive at a dining room, with a smaller table than expected. For some reason, John pictured a massive banquet table, set in an opulent scarlet-painted room, decorated in gold. It's quite a cosy place, really. Eight chairs only. Mycroft and Adelaide are seated next to each other (John wonders if that's a deliberate attempt to keep the most volatile sibling away from the others), and across from the oldest Holmes child is a steel-haired woman in blue. John likes her immediately. She's confident enough to age gracefully and she brought up three of the most reality-TV friendly children on Earth, without calling Wife Swap once. Good enough for him.
"Mother," Sherlock says stiffly, dropping John's hand like a hot brick. John scowls, but schools his face into a friendly smile when Mrs Holmes turns to them. So it's fine to kiss him in front of Lestrade and his colleagues, and it's perfectly acceptable to allow Harry to walk in while both of them are shirtless despite Sherlock hearing her on the stairs, but they can't hold hands in front of his mother?
High functioning sociopathic bastard.
"Hello Mrs Holmes," he says, fighting the urge to stamp on Sherlock's foot to make him talk.
"John, is it?" she says kindly, making Sherlock glare daggers at his siblings, who are giving creepily identical smirks. "Have a seat dear," she continues.
"Thank you," he says gratefully, glad to get out of the spotlight, especially considering his audience: Mycroft examining him over the rim of his teacup, Adelaide giving him a come-hither look while twirling a glass of champagne in her hand. He slides into a seat one down from the matriarch, assuming she'll want to be able to be able to control her son if the need arises.
The second Sherlock is seated, the war begins.
"How is your diet coming, Mycroft?" he says, picking up his cutlery, and John sighs.
He's not the only one.
"It's lamentable you've become so predictable, brother dear," Adelaide comments, sipping her champagne, eyes off John at last, drawn into the game. Her rock star date begins shifting uncomfortably. Hasn't been in contact with the Holmes clan long, John deduces.
"Why, what did you ask?" Sherlock says. He's got his game face on now, despite nibbling on a roast potato.
"About his job."
"You did that last year," Sherlock dismisses, as Mycroft raises his teacup yet again. He most consume enough to fuel a second Boston Tea Party, John thinks in faint awe. "I do hope that's artificial sweetener in that, Mycroft. For your health, you know." Sherlock adds.
Mycroft doesn't so much as twitch.
"Naturally," he says. "Not all white powder is good for you, is it Adelaide?" Brother and sister's eyes lock, and Sherlock throws the next blow. Apparently, they only form an alliance if it's against another of their number. John wonders if Mycroft will protect him if he is Adelaide's next target. He snorts mentally. Unlikely.
"Tell me, is this delightful new interest of yours suffering any mysterious stomach pains yet?" Sherlock says, leaning his head on one hand. "Remember George, Mycroft?"
"Ah yes, George," Mycroft says nostalgically. This is all so, so surreal. And unnerving. "Fourth husband, correct? Blonde" Mycroft sighs. He's the more showy of the two of them, John has observed. The only movement Sherlock has made thus far is slide his hand onto John's knee. "What a pity."
"Mmm," Sherlock agrees, straightening in order to neatly cut himself some turkey. John doesn't blame him: it's delicious. "What a shame some men just can't hold their arsenic."
The rock star chokes. It's quite funny actually. John catches a small smile on Mrs Holmes' face.
Adelaide isn't fazed. "Remember Cameron, Sherlock?" she asks, parodying him while her guest nervously shifts his chair away from her.
Sherlock's grip tightens painfully, both where his hand in on John's knee, and one his silverware. This could turn nasty. Mrs Holmes head snaps up to level a warning look at her daughter, but it's Mycroft who deigns to involve himself in the argument.
"Now now," he says, not even looking up from his food. "You know better than to bait Sherlock while he has a fork in his hand."
"Yes, how is your hand, Mycroft?" Sherlock asks viciously.
Mycroft clenches and unclenches his right hand, seemingly without thought. John shudders.
"Oh, alright," Adelaide sighs, like she's being denied some great sport. Her eyes light up forebodingly, though, when she alights on a new topic. "Why not tell us a little more about your John, Sherlock?"
Sherlock's spine stiffens perceptibly, but his hand unclenches and his knuckles no longer turn his skin white from beneath. Even their relationship is a more comfortable topic than this Cameron, apparently. John is oddly jealous.
Positive that he doesn't want to hear this as Sherlock begins a masterfully vitriolic list of reasons why this is absolutely none of his sister's business, John leans behind him.
"You have a beautiful house, Mrs Holmes," he compliments in a low voice.
The woman looks at him in slight surprise, and John can definitely see Sherlock's beauty in her face.
"Please," she says, her face softening. "Call me Judith. Excuse my surprise, our guests don't normally talk to me." She has a very motherly smile.
"I can imagine," John says, his laugh quiet as Mycroft begins talking about the hospital. "You're very intimidating."
She returns his laugh, glancing balefully at her feuding brood. "They don't seem to think so."
John smiles. However her children turned out, Mrs Holmes is a perfectly nice, normal woman. Even if she has a pack of hounds named after British Prime Ministers. He says so, and she continues to smile while rising from her seat.
"Please excuse me," he says to him, and John wonders if he has offended her. "I must fetch the children's gifts."
Sherlock must have heard, because he slams his napkin onto the table and says angrily, "I'll accompany you, mother."
Adelaide giggles, and John wonders if she's violated her brother's warning.
Mycroft just stands and wanders into one of the corridors branching off from what must be the family dining room, because an official one would have had the banqueting table he still believed existed in the expansive country home. He gives no reasons: Mycroft never does. He's probably gone off to eat some babies for dessert or something.
And so John is alone with the poisoner, her potential victim having taken this opportunity to scarper. He can't resist, of course he can't.
"Who's Cameron?" he asks abruptly. He doesn't expect her to be surprised. This bloody family never are.
As expected, she gives him a predatory smile and sets down her champagne glass. Her food is practically untouched. Perhaps her chosen method of killing off husbands has given her some form of paranoia.
"Sherlock's first and last Christmas guest, before you came along," Adelaide answers, leaning forward on her elbows in an act of social indiscretion Sherlock also frequently indulges in. It's one of those moments when a sibling looks eerily like the other.
"What happened?" John knows he shouldn't be prying, but he can't seem to help it.
"Cameron wasn't as gay as Sherlock was led to believe. He was a little more...bisexual. And weak-willed."
John laughs. He'll probably go for Hell for it, but something about Adelaide is indescribably charming. No wonder she's been married enough to make Husband Four a distant memory.
"You aren't Sherlock's first, you know," Adelaide says conversationally. She has Mycroft's way of delivering revelations like weather reports. "He may say he's married to his work, but he was once a firm fan of adultery."
John shrugs. It doesn't actually bother him as much as he thought it would. Their love has never been innocent or virginal. John had a steady girlfriend at the time they became...whatever they are. A couple just sounds too commonplace for the madness of their day-to-day lives.
"Explains why he's so good," he fires back casually. Apparently, Adelaide has no need to prove any further points, because she throws her head back and laughs. John can't help that Sherlock's laugh is far more attractive and unique. But he won't be telling her that for a long time, at least until he's developed a full resistance to her repertoire.
"I like you, John," he says happily, just as John receives a text from Sherlock. He laughs out loud. Adelaide is contagious in her humour.
"Let me see," she demands, and John passes the phone to her.
"'Do not talk to Adelaide. Not safe. SH.'" Adelaide reads, snickering. "How delightfully paranoid of him!"
She begins pressing buttons, and John immediately comes over fidgety and nervous. Never pass your phone to a Holmes, he thinks despairingly. Never pass your phone to a Holmes. Why can't he learn?
"What are you doing?" he asks gingerly.
"Replying," she says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, pressing one last button with an air of finality and passing it back to him. John swiftly checks what she's written.
He barely has time to read, 'I'm telling him a nice story about a climbing frame. AH.' before Sherlock's reply arrives.
"What did he say?" Adelaide asks, leaning forward in anticipation.
"'Stop or I'll tell him how it ends. SH.'" John reads, smiling despite himself. Petty, petty man.
Adelaide giggles. "I give him ten minutes before he bursts through the door. He doesn't trust me in the slightest, you know?"
"I don't blame him," John replies, and Adelaide just smiles.
It's actually five before Sherlock stalks angrily through the door, Mycroft at his heels. He looks odd without his umbrella, John muses, before realising how completely and utterly ridiculous he sounds even in his head. Sherlock is far too mature to flick Adelaide on the head, but that maturity does not extend to not dumping a small wriggling lump of fur in her lap.
Predictably, Adelaide squeals, and shoves the puppy off her. Judith is possibly John's new hero, because she scoops the animal up as it begins scampering past her as if she was just picking up a particularly interesting shell at the beach. She really is incredible.
"You know I'm allergic to dogs," Adelaide hisses angrily, trying to remove static dog hair from her black silk.
Sherlock just smiles.
"Merry Christmas boys," Mrs Holmes says drily, holding up the puppies by the scruffs of their necks. John's no expert on dogs, but they look a bit like Staffordshire terriers. Or pit bulls. Either way, one of them is a sort of buttercream yellow, and the other one is a weird grey-blue.
"Cameron and Clegg?" he guesses mournfully.
Sherlock looks like he wants to break something. Remembering what Adelaide had told him, and not really wanting a dog named after Sherlock's cheating ex-boyfriend in his house anyway, John says quickly, "We'll take Clegg."
One look at Sherlock confirms he is not going to be the one to touch the puppy, and so John gets up and does it himself. He's apprehensive at first, of course he is. For all he knows, the little monster could take his finger off. And it tries too, but John is too quick for him. He does manage to get the puppy into a position where it won't be able to chew on his face and/or escape, but he's going to regret this. He can already tell.
Mycroft receiving his 'gift', however is a moment of pure joy for Sherlock, Adelaide and even John.
None of them had ever seen the man so shocked, John guessed, judging from the twin smirks of vicious delight. Judith hands a puppy to her son as if it were a pen, and the dog immediately claws at his immaculate silk shirt. Mycroft actually snarls. It's the best part of Christmas yet.
What follows is, while mind-bending, incredibly...nice.
Judith herds her brood down a hallway with minimal explanation, and with Sherlock inexplicably rushing ahead (after all, John's quite sure there isn't a psychotic serial killer at the end of this journey), John is completely lost. He hates to talk while among the kind of company that terrifies politicians and press conferences the world over, but he feels like he might be being led into a trap. Especially as Adelaide is hanging back alongside he and Mycroft.
"What's going on?" he whispers under his breath.
Mycroft sweeps ahead of him impressively, Cameron at arm's length. Obviously, he'd rather John talk to the back of his head rather than vice versa. That's alright: John resigned himself to this family's strange ways about two hours ago.
"Family film," Mycroft annunciates with distaste, and John splutters. Has he heard correctly. He probably has. Mycroft was hardly mumbling. Adelaide seems to be dreading it more than anybody. Her rock star boyfriend is nowhere to be seen. Probably lying dead in the catacombs of Holmes Manor or whatever this place is called, but John can't bring himself to care. He was an absolute tosser anyway.
John decides to try a different tack than saying 'What?' frantically over and over again for the next few minutes. "...Where's Sherlock going?"
"To get his corner seat," Mycroft drawls, decidedly unimpressed. He really is so childish over such things.
John sighs, and Clegg escapes.
John considers running after him, but knowing Sherlock's bad luck, that's probably where the poor little devil-puppy will end up.
He's right, for once.
When he walks into the room, Sherlock is trying to push an excitable dog off his lap. Just as Mycroft has said, he's stretched out in the right angle of the immense L-shaped sofa. John hesitates. Much like every family gathering, everyone has their place. Judith Holmes has settled herself comfortably in an armchair, Adelaide is curled up against the armrest, and Mycroft single-handedly dominates the middle stretch without taking up any room at all.
Sherlock, in all his observational glory, gives up on the puppy currently climbing his chest with all the determination of the first man to climb Everest, and motions for John to sit next to him.
John flopped carefully onto the sofa, immensely grateful. He catches Sherlock's eyes flicking towards his mother, but he doesn't give a flying fuck what Sherlock thinks is appropriate at the moment, seeing as he's being completely unfair about the whole thing. She obviously knows. After all, why else would he be here? And whatever Sherlock may think, she can't possibly be a prude. No women with God-knows-how-many husbands can have a prude for a mother. It just doesn't happen. So John snuggles up against Sherlock unashamedly and waits.
It's not until Harry and Ron are on the train to Hogwarts that Sherlock gives in. Slowly, awkwardly, one arm winds around John's shoulder. Mycroft seems quite absorbed in the film, so he doesn't care. John's firmly of the belief that he wouldn't have cared anyway, but that's pointless where Sherlock is concerned. It's easy for Adelaide to bring her latest conquests into the house for Christmas, because it's expected of her. But for Sherlock, it just means a chink in his armour for dinner-table arguments. John wonders, actually, why Sherlock went through all the trouble of getting him here. The best he can come up with is that Sherlock wants his mother to know, but can't face actually telling her. But he could be wrong. He doesn't care.
Clegg is a dead weight on his lap, having found a much more agreeable pillow in John, and Sherlock's arm is tight around his shoulder. A glance to the left shows Adelaide sleepy and comfortable, curled up like that against the squishy armrest. She looks quite young. Quite like Sherlock's younger sister. John's cushion is hardly squishy, and Sherlock's razor-sharp hips are digging into his thigh, but he's not going to complain, winding his ankles around Sherlock's.
It's peaceful.
The idea of driving back with a sleepy Sherlock, no coffee and an excitable puppy in a cardboard box is quite far from his mind as young Emma Watson begins harping on about a toad.
Aha, yes. Adelaide. I considered not adding her, but I think I'm a bit too in love with the idea of Sherlock with middle child syndrome. Sorry. And for the record, the dog thing was not me. I blame my Mycroft!muse entirely. Mycroft will be available to take your flames and questions, please simply address them to him. Adelaide may also be persuaded to say a few words, but Sherlock says he has no time for such frivolity. Perhaps John will convince him, if you're lucky.