Boys only want love if it's torture
Chapter Sixteen:
"Well, this is going to be a very merry Christmas."
Sherlock glared at his brother over his shoulder. He hadn't shifted from his armchair by the window all morning, seeming content to just make some irritating, matter-of-fact comment every now and again, always peppered with the same barely concealed glee.
"Shut up," Sherlock snapped, wobbling a little on his footstool.
"A little higher on the right," Mycroft remarked, glancing at him over the top of his newspaper.
Sherlock dropped the tinsel and stepped down from the footstool, landing with more force than necessary. The clock on the mantelpiece gave a violent shake.
Mycroft raised his eyebrows at him, lowering the newspaper an inch. "As charming as that looks, I think it's traditional to hang tinsel over the mantel."
Sherlock glowered at his handiwork; the moulting red tinsel was hanging limply down by one pin. "I refuse to hang up anymore goddamned tinsel. I don't even fucking like tinsel."
He kicked the footstall aside and snatched his packet of cigarettes from the mantle. Mycroft watched him as he forced one between his lips and hastily lit it.
Mycroft coughed loudly. "Awful lack of ventilation in here."
Sherlock ignored him and took a lengthy drag. He fell into the chair opposite his brother, staring out of the window past his brother's raised eyebrows and infuriatingly knowing expression. "What are you staring at, Mycroft?" he snapped, not looking at him.
There was a quiet cough behind his chair. Sherlock turned his head so quickly he cricked his neck. "John," he said, a little too eagerly.
"Hi," John said stiffly, edging into the room. He had a strange expression on his face that had hardly shifted from his face in a week.
Sherlock hadn't touched him in a week, when he tried John shrunk away like he was going to strike him. "Come to admire Sherlock's handiwork?" Mycroft said from behind him.
Sherlock turned to glare at him.
"Very nice," John replied, the stiffness still not leaving his voice.
Sherlock turned back to him and saw his eyes flicker towards the half-hung tinsel. "I do have a flare for decoration," he said drily.
John glanced at his hand. Sherlock realised too late that he still had the cigarette in his hand. It was sprinkling ash all over the floor. He hastily put it out on the coffee table, ignoring his brother's disapproving cough.
He looked back at John. There was an uncomfortable silence. He could see John wanted to say something, but he wouldn't let himself. He was too determined to punish Sherlock. He had been punishing Sherlock all week. He probably had no idea of just how successful his attempts to hurt Sherlock had been. Sherlock's attempts to coax him into speaking to him were tempered by the belief that he had done the right thing and he shouldn't have to apologise to John for trying to protect him.
The piercing cry of John's phone finally broke up the unspoken argument. It rang for a few moments before John seemed to become aware of it in his pocket and gave a small jolt.
"Sorry," he mumbled, snatching it out of his pocket.
He turned and disappeared out into the hall. Sherlock stared after him, half of him wanting to follow.
"Still not speaking?" Mycroft quipped from behind him.
Sherlock had no intention of discussing it with him, when he was convinced it was his fault. "Shut up."
"I did warn you," Mycroft said, shaking his newspaper and folding it onto his lap. "Boys like that aren't interested in-"
"Oh, please," Sherlock snapped, rounding on him. "Spare me! You wouldn't know the first thing about John's and my relationship. If you did, you wouldn't be so eager to shut him out of my life."
"You seem to have done a very good job of that yourself," Mycroft said shrewdly.
Sherlock didn't reply. He frowned at the fraying tinsel nailed to the wall. This was definitely not what he had envisioned when he'd asked John to stay for Christmas.
He could hear John's voice outside, it was echoing around the hallway, making it impossible to distinguish one word from the next. He was pacing up and down with restless fervour. Sherlock was fairly certain he knew the only person who John could be talking to who made him so anxious.
A moment later there was a beep and John went silent. Sherlock heard a low creak as he hurried upstairs.
He narrowed his eyes at his brother, as though it were his fault. He went across to he sofa opposite and fell into it, with a silent sigh.
John reappeared minutes later, with a pinker complexion than when he had walked out and his overcoat. Sherlock hastily got to his feet. "I have to-" he began.
"Who was that?" Sherlock asked, before he could stop himself.
"I- John stammered, fumbling with his coat. "Just Marty." His expression hardened. "Why do you care?"
"I don't," Sherlock said coolly. He could feel Mycroft watching him.
"Good," John replied shortly. He turned on his heel.
"Where are you off to?" Mycroft finally remarked.
John paused at the door. "I have to pop to the post office and post a card to my parents."
He avoided Sherlock's eye. Sherlock watched him go. As soon as the front door slammed, he jerked towards his brother. "Not a word," he spat and stalked out of the room.
He went up to the guest room and flung the door open. He didn't know what he expected to find. Lovelorn poems dedicated to him, evidence of an alien body invasion, more dirty magazines. He didn't know, but he felt frustratingly helpless.
He had a suspicion that John had just needed an excuse to sulk. He was strung out about his parents, anxious about school, confused about Mycroft and to top it all off he was horny as all hell, going by the amount of times Sherlock had heard him getting himself off.
Sherlock wasn't exactly coping well in that aspect either. Turning John down for sex had been one of the hardest and, he was beginning to think, stupidest things he had ever done. He had to put up with Mycroft's smugness, clearly thinking he had had something to do with John and Sherlock being at odds. He had been exuding a sort of triumphant glow all week and it made Sherlock want to hurt him in a gruesome fashion.
What Mycroft thought had happened between them he wasn't entirely certain but he knew his brother thought it was due to him in some way. Sherlock did have a sneaking suspicion that he may be overreacting and reading way too much into his brother's behaviour but with John refusing to spend longer than ten minutes with him he had found himself in his brother's company more often than he would have liked and every second grated on him.
The house was now decked in a nauseating amount of decorations, thanks to Sherlock's efforts. Mycroft would no doubt take the credit for it, when in reality the extent of his exertion was to move from his armchair to get his newspaper or make a cup of tea. Sherlock didn't care, he had only put up with it because he needed something to distract him from John.
He cast a glance over John's room. It was as well-kept as his room at Redverse. His suitcase was sitting neatly by the window, containing some school books and shoes. Everything else seemed to have been put away in its correct place.
He opened the wardrobe and found a row of painfully unwrinkled jeans and t-shirts. John's dedication to the iron bordered on something kinky. He closed it and went across to the bed, crisply made with his pyjamas folded on the pillow.
"Weirdo," he muttered, prodding them.
Half of him expected John to notice his finger imprint in the material. He turned and went over to John's desk. His school diary was sitting on it and his mobile.
Sherlock glanced over his shoulder and picked it up. He went into registered calls. The last registered call had been at 11:08am, just ten minutes earlier.
"Hah," he said, staring down at the word 'Home'.
He put it down and went to the door. He hadn't needed proof to convince him that it hadn't been Marty Hester who had called John that morning. To Sherlock's knowledge John hadn't had any contact with his friends and had been ignoring most of the calls from his family, who called almost every day. So much so that John had resorted to turning off his phone completely sometimes. He didn't think Sherlock knew, but he did.
Sherlock shut the door of his boyfriend's room and leant against it. He felt strangely anxious. He had never doubted John's affection for him before, but John's ability to live without him had been more than proved this past week. As selfish as he knew it sounded, it bothered him. He couldn't live without John; he didn't see why John should have the privilege of feeling any different.
He spent every awkward, stifled breakfast, lunch and dinner jammed between Mycroft and John wanting to touch John so badly that he often almost completely lost it at the table. Just to wipe the smug, self-satisfied smirk off his brother's face would be reason enough.
He dreaded the possibility that John was just bored of him, that he had never felt any particularly strong regard for him and when they returned to Redverse everything would revert back to the way it was. Sherlock lusting after John from afar and John oblivious. Well, not so oblivious anymore.
And that was the worst part.
...
On Christmas morning, John awoke with an erection.
"Fuck," he groaned, stuffing a hand under the covers.
His pyjamas felt like a small tent. Not only that, but his cock hurt from the strain of being confined inside his underwear for God knew how long.
He threw his legs over the side of the bed, wincing at the pressure between his legs. "You can't have wet dreams like a normal teenage boy," he grumbled. "You have to get a fucking hard-on at seven in the fucking morning."
He couldn't even remember what he had been dreaming about to induce this side effect, but he had a hunch. He only hoped he was wrong. He scrambled upright, staring around his room for a towel. There was no way he was risking getting ejaculate all over Sherlock's guest room.
He had taken all his towels to be washed the night before. He knew it, but he half hoped that he had missed one somewhere.
Of course he hadn't. That would have been too much good luck for him. He would have to get to the bathroom and do it in the shower. He cringed.
"Fucking hell," he moaned, grimacing as he stood up.
He waddled across to the chest of drawers and pulled out a clean pair of underwear, jeans and a t-shirt. He held them at what he hoped was a subtly low angle to obscure his predicament. He could hardly walk without adopting a distinctly bandy-legged appearance but he didn't have time to stall. He needed a hand around his dick right now.
He darted out of his bedroom and hurried down towards the bathroom. He passed Sherlock's bedroom, hardly daring to breathe for fear of the door suddenly flying open. Every floorboard seemed to groan underneath him.
He reached the bathroom door with a premature swell of relief and tried the knob, only to find it was firmly locked.
"Mycroft, I'm almost done! Can you wait three bloody minutes?"
John froze. "Shit," he hissed, glancing back down to the guest room.
He was contemplating running when the door opened and he found himself face to face with Sherlock with a towel secured around his hips. Steam rolled out behind him and John caught a whiff of shampoo and shower gel.
Sherlock stopped short in the doorway, his cheeks still pink from the hot water. "John," he burst out, with less poise than usual.
Although he was admittedly wearing a towel.
"Merry Christmas," John said too quickly, lowering his clothes an inch. "You look-"
John's mind suggested "so damn good", but he decided against it.
Sherlock stared at him questioningly.
"You look..." John said, giving a tortured jiggle. "Like you've had a shower," he finished lamely.
"I have," Sherlock said, looking at him strangely. "What's wrong?"
"N-nothing," John said, clamping his clothes tighter to him. "I'm going for a shower."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow at him as he passed him, dripping water onto the hallway floor. "Good?"
John detected a smirk in his expression as he turned to go down to his bedroom but he didn't have time to argue. He threw himself inside the shower and locked the door.
He stared at the steamed up glass of the shower. Five minutes ago Sherlock had been in here. Naked. He threw the clean clothes into a pile.
Collapsing against the door, he stuffed one hand into his mouth and the other down his pyjamas.
"Oh f-fuck," he moaned into his knuckle. "I hate fucking C-Christmas-"
He bit down hard into his skin as his erection gave a painful throb. His hand was soaked with sweat and he could hardly get a grip on his own cock, could hardly work up any friction when it was so goddamned wet.
He slid a finger experimentally down below his shaft and gave a bodily shudder. He felt his eyes roll back on their accord.
It was almost too much. He decided that he would leave that particular area to Sherlock's more seasoned hands and returned to activities he was more familiar with. He began rubbing himself with desperate rapidity, he could feel the door rattling against his back but he was too far gone to care. Let Sherlock hear him. Who cared. He needed this. He needed this.
His heels were sliding on the damp floor. There were small puddles of water left behind by Sherlock's shower and John seemed to be getting most of it on his pyjamas. He could feel himself getting sticky all over, it was hot as a sauna in the bathroom and it was making him sweat like a pig.
He bit down hard on his knuckle to keep from crying out as he came into his hand. He knew whose name his mouth kept almost articulating. He had just enough dignity left to stop himself. The door gave a hard rattle as he pressed himself against it, his hand still wrapped around himself.
His pyjamas were ruined. He could feel it all over his underwear and the crotch of his pyjamas. He pulled his hand out of his pants, wrinkling his nose. He felt filthy. He was filthy, he was drenched in sweat and the water from the bathroom floor. And his own cum.
He peeled off his pyjamas, and showered himself thoroughly. He didn't have any of his own toiletries but there was no way he was risking a journey back to the guest room in his current state.
When he felt he had scrubbed off every inch of the morning's activities from his skin, he dressed in his clean clothes and rolled his dirty pyjamas into a ball, obscuring the mess he'd made. If he ran into Sherlock again, which given his luck was likely, he would at least have a shot at pretending nothing had happened. Unless he had overheard him, which John had to admit was also rather likely.
However, he did not meet Sherlock on the way back. When he passed his room he noticed Sherlock's door was open an inch. He risked a glance inside and glanced a slither of dark hair near the bed. He walked down to his own door and hesitated with his hand over the doorknob. He looked back over his shoulder. More than half of him was contemplating walking back and knocking on Sherlock's door.
He gave himself a shake and went into his own room. He tossed the ruined pyjamas into his suitcase, deciding he'd deal with them later. Though he had no idea when.
He sat on the edge of his bed. All of the erratic, aroused energy had dribbled away and now he just felt flat and humiliated. As he always did after an experience like that. He hadn't spent the week in perfect, undisturbed indifference as Sherlock clearly had; he had been suffering through it day by day. All he wanted to do was be with his boyfriend but something -he suspected pride- held him back.
He had waited in vain for Sherlock to come and apologise to him all week. He deserved an apology. He was determined to get one, but as every day passed it seemed less and less likely that he ever would. The more he watched Mycroft and Sherlock together, the more he was convinced that this was a family that he could never hope to belong to.
It was Christmas. He should have been happy. He should have been spending the day with his boyfriend. Christmas had never been a time he particularly enjoyed. He didn't enjoy the days leading up to it, the stress and pandemonium of buying presents and sending cards and giving the house what seemed like a violent make-over for their relatives, and he didn't enjoy the day itself, which seemed to swing wildly between moments of intense chaos and moments of intense boredom. The Holmes' Christmas probably wouldn't be much different, but it would have been bearable because he'd have Sherlock and that was all he needed.
He stood with a sigh and left to go downstairs. Sherlock was still in his room. He could hear him shuffling around inside. Sherlock probably hated Christmas too, despite evidence to the contrary. He had had a very active role in hanging tinsel and putting up the tree, though John had a suspicion it had less to do with real interest and more to do with having nothing else to do. Sherlock had an aversion to doing nothing. In that respect, he was nothing like his brother.
John reached the second floor and stared down to where Mycroft's library was. It felt like an age ago that he had walked down there with Sherlock, having no idea who Mycroft was or what he'd be like. A week had admittedly done little to illuminate that.
He glanced quickly back up the stairs and then walked along to the door. He hesitated in front of it, feeling a childish pang of nervousness in his chest, like he had been sent to Principal Harvey's office. He raised his hand to knock and had barely brushed his knuckles against the wood when there was a brisk:
"Enter."
He hesitated for half a moment and then cautiously slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He didn't like the idea of shutting himself into a room with Mycroft but he couldn't risk Sherlock overhearing.
Mycroft was leaning back in his usual chair; both feet back up on the table and his usual newspaper resting on his lap. He was wearing pinstriped trousers, a very stiff white shirt and a scarlet waistcoat with rather large buttons. John was struck by the image of a pale, overgrown elf but shoed it away before he smirked.
"John," he said pleasantly, his expression perfectly blank as always. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," John said awkwardly, standing very close to the door.
Mycroft slowly lowered his legs from the table. "What can I do for you?"
There was a slight purr to his voice that John didn't entirely trust. "I wanted to ask you something," he said, shifting uncomfortably where he was. "About Sherlock."
Well, he had said it. He couldn't get out of it now.
Mycroft was silent for a moment, catlike eyes darting quickly over his face. "Well," he said finally. "I can try and be of some help, but trust me he is as much an enigma to me as he is to you."
John took a step forward. "I think you do know," he said, finding courage from some unknown source. "It's about his life before... before me."
"Then you will be here for a rather long time," Mycroft said, with a distasteful sweetness to his voice. "Is there a particular aspect of his life "before you" that you are speaking of?"
John didn't reply. The stairs outside gave a groan and John knew Sherlock was coming downstairs. He could only hope he didn't decide to visit his brother in the library or wonder where John had disappeared to.
"Look," John said quickly, turning back to Mycroft. "I know you don't like me. I don't know why. Maybe you're just overprotective, maybe you really are just a bastard like Sherlock says you are but I'm not here to do anything to your brother."
There was a hardness to his voice that he had never heard before. He almost immediately regretted his outburst. Mycroft was watching him closely. John half expected him to kick him out.
Then, to his considerable surprise, he smiled. "Good to see you have some spirit in you. I was beginning to wonder what my brother saw in you." He looked away with a widening smile. "Beyond the obvious of course."
John flushed. "You...I... Stop playing games-"
Mycroft gave a silky laugh. "I assure you that I am very serious." The smile abruptly left his face. "I will answer your questions, but first you can answer a question of mine."
He stood up. Before John realised what he was doing he had walked across to the door and turned the key in the lock. He put it in the pocket of his trousers. John stared at him. "What are you doing?"
"We don't want to be disturbed," Mycroft said, sitting back behind his desk. "Sherlock's very nosy. Especially when it comes to me- and you it appears."
"What question?" John snapped. He couldn't help a note of panic creeping into his voice, which he knew Mycroft would undoubtedly distinguish.
Even if he did, Mycroft made no sign of it. He folded his newspaper and placed it to one side and then rested both his hands on the table, threading his long, pale fingers through each other and looking very much like a lawyer or a doctor. Save for the red waistcoat. "I'll be blunt, Mr. Watson. What do you want with Sherlock?"
John stared. "What do you mean?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean," Mycroft said quietly, watching him beadily. "Why would a boy of your background be interested in my brother?"
"Why not?" John said coldly.
"Let's not play games," Mycroft said, leaning back in his chair with a low squeak. "Despite appearances to the contrary, Sherlock is my main priority. He may be a demanding brat at the best of times but I have his best interests at heart."
"You clearly don't or you wouldn't be so eager to take him from me," John said sullenly.
He edged back towards the door. He was beginning to regret coming here. He didn't know what he had expected or if he had truly believed that Mycroft would help him.
"You aren't answering my question," Mycroft said, with more patience than he evidently felt. "What do you want with my brother?"
John was silent. He didn't know what to say or how to word it or whether he had any need to in front of Mycroft. He didn't see how he should have to prove himself to a brother who Sherlock didn't even like, but at the same time he was unintentionally moved by Mycroft's protectiveness of his brother. It was the first time he had displayed any brotherly affection for Sherlock. Given, it wasn't exactly "affectionate" but it was good to know he wasn't completely indifferent.
"I..." John faltered. He didn't want to say this to Mycroft. "I... I really..."
He didn't know how to word it without making a fool of himself. Mycroft's eyes were boring into him, cold and unreadable.
"I care for him and he cares for me," he garbled at last, fixing his eyes on the window behind Mycroft's head. "I have no intention of hurting him."
Silence fell on them. John could feel his cheeks burning. He couldn't meet Mycroft's eye.
At length, Mycroft cleared his throat. John heard his chair scrape across the floor. "I'm glad to hear it," he said drily, though his voice had lost some of its sharpness.
John forced himself to look at him. "I've answered your question. Now answer mine. What happened to him?"
Mycroft didn't reply immediately. He unlinked his fingers and then linked them again. John got the feeling he was weighing up whether he was really going to tell him what he knew. "No doubt you have noticed that Sherlock is far from normal," he said finally. "He's always been in need of constant employment. He's always needed his mind to be occupied-" He broke off. "I hardly expect you to understand."
"I will," John snapped, his hands balled up so hard they hurt.
Mycroft shrugged. "Two years ago or so, it's hard to say exactly when, he became particularly destructive. He's always been destructive. He likes chaos. No doubt you've gathered that from the state of his bedroom."
John said nothing. He jerked his head very slightly.
"When he was fourteen or fifteen he became particularly depressed and self-destructive," Mycroft said, his voice very different to its usual calm, contented drawl. "So he went looking for a rush." He paused, looking at John very seriously. "He tried alcohol and when that didn't work, he moved onto... other avenues. Other more dangerous avenues. My parents didn't have the ability to stop him, I was away at school and it wasn't until he fell into the hands of a particularly nasty..." He swallowed and John realised he was barely holding back a tremor from his voice. "Well, he was badly hurt. It was probably the only thing that kept him from killing himself. He was sent away to Redverse and that was that."
John took a desperate gasp of air. He had barely been aware of not breathing while Mycroft had been speaking, but his throat was suddenly as dry as paper. "God," he croaked.
Mycroft sighed heavily. "I didn't expect it to be remedied so easily, but he seems to have sorted himself out." He fixed him with a hawkish expression. "He smokes so he can bear those feelings, that need for mental stimulation. Do you understand me?"
There was a brief silence. Mycroft's eyes never shifted from him for a moment.
"You don't think he really wants me," John said, his nostrils stinging. "You just think I'm another outlet for those feelings."
Mycroft didn't reply, but it was obvious what he thought. He was watching John with an almost pitying expression. John wanted to tear it off his face.
"You're wrong," John said, shaking his head. "He needs me. He feels for me."
Mycroft laughed shortly. "He's a Holmes. He doesn't feel anything."
...
Sherlock glanced down to where John was seated. It seemed as though Mycroft had purposely placed them as far from each other as possible. Mycroft was at the head of the table opposite and John was on his right, with one of Sherlock's aunts beside him. Sherlock was between one of his triplet cousins (he still hadn't learnt to tell them apart) and his grandmother, who hadn't stopped complaining since she had sat down at the table.
To John's credit, he had been making a visible effort with the Holmes relations, answering their questions and forcing a laugh at all of Sherlock's uncle's terrible, racist jokes. It was obvious that he wanted to be anywhere but there. His eyes were very red, but no matter how much Sherlock looked at him he couldn't decide whether it was because he was tired, or because he had been crying. The latter reason was too painful to comprehend.
He had known Christmas dinner was going to be hellish but knowing that John was suffering along with him made it ten times more awful.
"That boy's hair is terribly untidy," his grandmother remarked, jerking her greying head at John and not bothering to lower her voice. Though the room was so noisy anyway that there was probably no real need to. "Why is it that boys your age never seem to know how to use a comb properly?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes while she was busy sawing at her roast beef. "I don't think it's particularly untidy," he said coolly. "Compared to the rest of our year at school it's quite conservative."
She gave a chuckle through a mouthful of food. "Well, you know best, dear. I do wish you'd let me cut your hair, Sherlock." She gave his untidy tangles a wistful look. "You're such a handsome boy. You ruin yourself with that hair!"
Sherlock had had this conversation with his grandmother too many times before to take the bait. He was not in the mood for having another argument over the length of his hair with her. They became far too boisterous and his grandmother was a stubborn woman.
"So where are the parents of this friend of yours?" remarked his triplet cousin, glancing down to where John was pretending to be deeply engrossed in whatever his Aunt Shona was talking about.
"They're in Southampton," Sherlock replied calmly, picking up a carrot without having much intention of eating it.
"I see!" said his triplet cousin, furrowing his thick red eyebrows. "Saddled him on you, did they?"
"They didn't saddle him on anyone," Sherlock said, just able to keep a smirk from creeping onto his face at the explosions of images that his own words created. "I offered. He's a very good friend of mine."
"The last time I checked," his triplet cousin said, looking at him sideways, "you didn't have any friends."
"The last time I checked you and Mary were getting a divorce because she slept with your boss," Sherlock replied flatly.
He had taken a gamble, as he hadn't been entirely certain if this was the triplet who was getting a divorce, but he could tell from the violent magenta tinge that crept across his cousin's features that he had guessed correctly.
"My goodness, Sherlock," his grandmother said reprovingly. "No need to be snappish. Why must you always be so irate? The least you can do is pretend to be pleased to see your own family! It only happens once a year!"
Once a year was far too often in Sherlock's opinion.
The other two triplets were watching John with a mixture of amusement and scorn. Sherlock bristled in his seat, wishing he could walk over and knock their heads together. He could see them muttering together, clearly making their own conclusions about who John was and why he was there. It didn't matter one bit to Sherlock what they thought but if they made John uncomfortable he'd personally remove every single one of them from the house. Fortunately John seemed too preoccupied with pretending not to be miserable to notice.
At the other end of the table, Mycroft barely ever opened his mouth except to put food in. He glanced now and again at one of the guests or, much more frequently, at John. Sherlock didn't know whether he was just doing it to piss him off because he wasn't being particularly subtle about it.
"Mary and I are not getting a divorce besides," said the triplet cousin at length, whose name Sherlock now remembered was something like Rodney. Or Roy. "We've decided that it would be best for the sake of the children if we at least tried to... to sort it..." He trailed off into humiliated silence.
Sherlock didn't even bother replying. His grandmother was glaring at him out of her winged glasses in an unsubtle attempt to make him apologise. Across the table he could see his uncle was drinking too much wine and sloshing more and more of it down his front and on the tablecloth the more he drank. John was staring at his plate, toying with a piece of salad without bringing it to his mouth.
His role as perfect guest seemed to have finally exhausted him. Across from him Aunt Shona, dressed in one of her many ugly homemade jumpers, was still droning away, oblivious to the fact that John had longed since stopped listening.
Sherlock sighed and took another mouthful of wine. He didn't know how else he was going to get through this. He already felt like throttling everyone at the table.
"You'll never get a girl with that sort of bad attitude!" his grandmother chided, unabated. "Deary me. When I think of how polite your brother is!"
Sherlock gritted his teeth, on the verge of telling her to go and sit with Mycroft if she liked his manners so much. "I'm sorry," he said, having to use every scrap of self-restraint he had to get the words out. "How are Marbles and Petunia?"
He knew that the one thing his grandmother could talk about for hours without pause, besides the length of his hair, were her two overfed, foul-tempered Burmese cats. It was the sort of one-sided conversation that only required an occasional "oh, really" or "I see" every so often to keep her happy.
When she was firmly in the midst of it, he excused himself to go to the bathroom just so he could have a few minutes alone to brood over the insufferable hatefulness of everything and everyone.
He met his uncle in the hallway. He smelt strongly of rolling tobacco and wine. "Good evening, Sherlee-Sherla-Sherlosh," he said, with a high-pitched hiccup. "Didn't get a chance to shpeak with you 'afore-'athore- before dinner!"
He gave Sherlock's shoulder an irritating slap and wobbled past him on his way back to the dining room.
"Like your -hic- friend by the by! Knowsh- knowsh- knows hish football!"
Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned his back on him.
When he got back to the dining room after a needlessly slow journey up and down the stairs and a detour to his bedroom he found everyone on their way to the drawing room across the hall for tea. He waited patiently for the procession to pass, instinctually knowing John would be at the back.
His grandmother tutted at him when she passed him, clearly not pleased that he had slipped away during one of her anecdotes about Marbles and the clothes dryer. Rodney -Rory?- gave him a distinctly dirty look as he went past, the only thing that distinguished him from his two red-headed, awkwardly limbed siblings.
Mycroft and John brought up the rear. Mycroft raised his eyebrows at him. "And where did you disappear to?"
"Bathroom," Sherlock said nonchalantly.
Mycroft rolled his eyes and disappeared into the drawing room. John went to follow him, keeping his eyes determinedly forward. Sherlock grabbed the wrist of his woollen pullover. John looked back at him with a strangely taut expression.
"What?" he said quietly, not tearing his arm out of Sherlock's grip but not turning around completely to face him either.
Sherlock gently pulled him around to face him, emboldened by the fact John hadn't rebuffed him. He threaded his fingers through John's and wordlessly pressed his lips to his. "I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas properly," he said, stepping back and feeling for something under his jumper.
"What's that?" John asked, eyeing the flat package.
"Your present," Sherlock said, pushing it into his hands.
"Oh," John said, looking over it guiltily. "I didn't get you anything."
"That's alright," Sherlock smiled. "It's just a little something." He paused, glancing around. He leant forward slightly. "I wouldn't unwrap it quite yet though."
With that, he went into the drawing room. It looked markedly different with tinsel hanging off the borders of all the portraits, and the tree hulking over them from the corner with its various green and red baubles. Sherlock thinned his lips at his handiwork. It would be just like Mycroft to bring it up.
He took an empty seat between his Aunt Shona and his uncle, who was nodding off in his seat with a glass of eggnog still in his hands. Mycroft looked at him from the sofa opposite, with a distinctly sharp expression.
"Where did John get to?" he asked in a would-be quiet voice.
"He just had to put something in his room," Sherlock replied calmly, ignoring his relatives' stares.
"He's a nice boy!" Shona said fondly. "You couldn't have picked a better friend!"
The fact that she had only known John for a little over an hour rendered her compliment less than gratifying.
His grandmother gave a disapproving snort. "He needs to comb his hair! I don't know what these boys think they're trying to prove but looking like street urchins won't get them very far in life, you mark my words."
The triplets, who had all had thinning hair since they were about twelve, nodded sagely. Sherlock rolled his eyes and said nothing.
John appeared moments later and Sherlock inwardly winced as all eyes swivelled towards him as he took the only empty seat beside Mycroft on the sofa.
"But how do they know each other?" his grandmother said loudly, to almost no one in particular it seemed. "That's what I'd like to know!"
"Where did you meet him?" asked one of his cousins. "Not at Redverse, surely?"
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the comment. "Yes, at Redverse," he said coldly.
"Hasn't he told you? My my, Sherlock. This'll never do." Mycroft said quietly, his eyes fixed on Sherlock. "John is Sherlock's new beau. They're positively inseperable."
John froze visibly in his seat. The eyes, which had been darting between them until now, fixed themselves on John with almost vicious curiosity.
"What on earth do you mean, Mycroft?" his grandmother said, breaking the silence.
"He's not serious, is he?" one of the triplets said, a triumphant grin threatening to engulf his lower face. "Surely he's not serious?"
"Well, you know what Sherlock's like," Mycroft said lightly. "I suppose he couldn't help himself."
"Fuck you," Sherlock growled, truly not able to stop himself.
There was an icy silence, broken only by his grandmother's horrified "Sherlock!". The triplet cousins looked positively gleeful. His uncle gave a loud snore from his chair.
"My God!" his grandmother exclaimed at length. "Such language! I never knew you to be so aggressive!"
She stared at John with a suspicious expression, as though she supposed he had a part in it. John had gone brilliantly red and didn't seem able to move in his chair. Mycroft laid a hand on John's leg. Sherlock's stomach twisted with hatred.
"It's perfectly alright, Meredith," Mycroft said coldly. "I'm just sorry that he had to act like this in front of his own guest."
John pushed Mycroft's hand off of him and got to his feet. "Yeah, I'm Sherlock's idiot footballer boyfriend," he snapped, glaring around the ogling crowd. "Get a good look while you still can."
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving a ringing silence in his wake. Sherlock stared at his brother. He thought he could detect the slightest hint of heightened colour to his brother's cheeks.
"I'm so sorry," Mycroft said quietly, not looking at any of them. "That was entirely unex- Sherlock, where are you-"
Sherlock didn't reply. He stepped pointedly over his brother's crossed ankles and walked across to the door.
"Sherlock!" Mycroft said sharply, as his hand was on the knob. "These are your relatives!"
Sherlock looked back at him. "Exactly."
He walked out and shut the door behind him.
...
John wrenched open his suitcase and stuffed a handful of clothes inside without folding them. He pulled open the top drawer of his suitcase and yanked out another handful of clothes, tossing them over his shoulder to the rest of the pile.
"What the hell are you doing?"
He turned to find Sherlock staring at him from the door. He looked almost ready to run at him he was so angry. "I'm going home," John spat, turning back to his suitcase and beginning to fling shoes inside. "I don't belong here. I don't know why I ever thought it would be a good idea to come here. I'm no good for you."
"Where the fuck is this coming from?" Sherlock demanded, standing between John and the suitcase and grabbing his wrists.
John wrenched himself out of his grip. "Your brother knows I'm no good for you. He knows I'm no good! Why wouldn't you tell me something like that? Don't you think I'd care? Don't you think it'd matter to me?"
He was so filled with rage, so filled with humiliation and hurt. He could hardly look at Sherlock without a cascade of agony bursting in his chest.
"What are you talking about?" Sherlock said in a low voice. "What the hell did Mycroft tell you?" His eyes flashed in an almost menacing fashion.
"He told me the truth," John burst out furiously. "Something you seem to be incapable of doing!"
Sherlock stared at him, realisation flashing through his eyes. John felt the heat rush into his face.
"I don't want to be your fix for when you can't get nicotine," John said quietly, almost regretting speaking so rashly.
For a moment Sherlock didn't move and then he abruptly twisted around and marched towards the door. John jerked after him, almost too surprised to react.
"Where are you going!" he blurted out, grabbing Sherlock's arm.
Sherlock didn't look at him, he gave his arm a violent tug in John's stronger grip.
"I'm going to find Mycroft," he snarled.
John yanked him back. "Mycroft told me the truth!" he said, unable to keep the note of panic from his voice. "Don't blame him for what you chose not to tell me."
Sherlock rounded on him so quickly that he dropped his arm out of surprise. "Mycroft didn't tell you the truth!" he roared. John stumbled back a foot. He had never seen Sherlock so angry, he almost expected to feel a fist come into contact with his nose. "Mycroft has never known what I want! Whatever the hell he told you, whatever lies he's been pissing into your ear it's all his own smug interpretation!"
"Why did you never tell me?" John said softly, his throat feeling very sore. "I wouldn't have judged you. You know I wouldn't."
Sherlock laughed bitterly. "The same reason you never speak about your family." He exhaled heavily. "It hurts."
John felt a pang of annoyance. It was just like Sherlock to bring this around and make it about his family. He stomped his foot impatiently on the floorboards. "Don't give me that!" he spat. "You know I'd love you no matter what you did." He rolled his eyes. "Or who you did."
Sherlock watched him wordlessly. John stared back at him. It took him three long, silent seconds to realise what he had just said.
"Oh fuck," he said, throwing his hands over his mouth. "Oh fuck. I didn't... I mean... When I say love I mean-"
He was cut off by Sherlock forcing a knee between his legs and roughly shoving him backwards. He staggered back a few steps, almost losing his balance before he came abruptly into contact with the wall.
He found both his hands pinned above his head. He stared into Sherlock's face, still reeling with surprise. He felt Sherlock's body press against his and couldn't hold back a whimper. He bit his lip in a weak attempt to stifle it.
"You don't know how long I've wanted to hear those words," Sherlock said weakly.
He bruised John's lips with an almost violent kiss. John wrenched his wrists from Sherlock's grip and blindly clawed at the buttons on Sherlock's shirt. He felt Sherlock's hands on the hem of his t-shirt, tugging it upward.
Sherlock broke away, tearing John's shirt clean over his head and immediately moving to the buttons on John's jeans. John hastily tore at the remainder of Sherlock's buttons, almost yanking more than one completely off its seams.
"I've... wanted this... for so..." he panted, his voice trembling almost uncontrollably.
"Shhh," Sherlock said hoarsely, pushing his lips back against his.
John felt his jeans slide an inch down his thighs. Sherlock firmly prodded his tongue inside his mouth, caressing the inside of his lip. John curled his arms around Sherlock's back, forgetting about his shirt and the fact that his jeans were slipping further and further down his legs.
Sherlock cupped his crotch through the material of his underwear, rubbing the rapidly forming hardness with his palm. After a week of wanking off in bathrooms, the feel of Sherlock's hand touching him was almost too much. He felt his knees buckle underneath him.
"Sherlock..." he panted, breaking away for air.
Sherlock's face was extremely red and damp. He gave a hasty nod and they stumbled over to the bed. He gave John a gentle push and he tumbled down onto his back on the bed, his jeans now around his knees and his cock straining almost painfully through his underwear.
Sherlock shed his shirt and let it drop onto the carpet. His hands were on the buttons of his jeans when there was a loud knock at the door. Before either of them could respond, Mycroft's furious voice sounded.
"Sherlock! If you're in there, you can come downstairs this instant. The guests- your guests- are still downstairs!"
Before John could protest, Sherlock picked up one of his school shoes and hurled it at the door with impressive aim. "Fuck off, Mycroft!"
John had to stifle a laugh as Mycroft scoffed at them through the door. Sherlock turned back to him with a roguish smile and knelt over John on the bed. He slid his thumbs inside of John's jeans and yanked them down around his ankles.
John gave a soft moan as Sherlock pressed a hand against his throbbing erection again. "Sherlock..."
Sherlock bent down and pressed a feverish kiss to his lips and then put his mouth close to his ear. John shivered as Sherlock's breath cascaded down his neck, goosebumps erupting over his skin. "I've wanted this from the first time I saw you."
John tossed his head with a groan, almost colliding with Sherlock in the process. "Uh G- Oh God. Fuck me."
He hadn't ever thought those words would leave his mouth, nor had he counted on them on being so arousing. A heated wave swept through his crotch, his cock gave a needy throb.
"Sherlock, please fuck me," he whimpered, realising that Sherlock hadn't moved.
Sherlock was staring at him, an expression of the upmost anguish suddenly on his face. He looked so aroused that John thought him in danger of passing out.
"What's wrong?" he said, barely able to breathe properly.
"Er," Sherlock glanced at the door. "Do you have a condom?" He hesitated. "Or... ah... lube?"
John stared at him. "What are you talking about?" he said, not able to keep a note of hysteria coming into his voice. "I thought you would have that covered!"
"I don't keep them in the house!" Sherlock snapped. "For obvious reasons!"
John jerked upright. "You fucking idiot!"
Sherlock got abruptly to his feet. "We'll go and get some."
"From where exactly?" John spat. "It's Christmas!"
Sherlock hesitated. John stared at him, feeling close to strangling him for getting him into this predicament without foreseeing this. "There's a general store just around the corner." He was doing the buttons up on his jeans at the speed of light. "And if all else fails, we'll go to Sainsbury's. Something will be open."
John yanked his jeans up and staggered off the bed after him, yanking up his shirt from the floor.
Sherlock stopped at the door and stared at him. "You're not seriously coming."
"You honestly think I'm going to stay here like this?" John said crossly, gesturing to his lower half. "I'm calling a cab." He grabbed his phone from the vanity.
"It'll cost you a fortune!" Sherlock exclaimed.
"I don't care if it costs my life savings," John snapped, mashing the number in with his thumb. "We're getting those damn condoms."
End of Chapter Sixteen