Possibly, I'm Insane

chocolamousse

It’s odd to John how familiar it’s become for him to spend Christmas at a grand estate. It’s all so beloved to him now as the place where so much perfect madness happened. He navigates its layout, including its multiple staircases. He recognizes the sounds of its various antique clocks around the hallways. But mostly he associates the house with the smells of Christmas: the freshness of the greenery, the spices from the mulled wine, the rich steam of decadent puddings. John would marvel at the Christmases he experiences here – but he marvels daily at Sherlock, so that’s nothing new.

kylaraingress

“Family” is a word that Sherlock finds it difficult to define. It’s easy for him to accept that Mycroft is (lamentably) their family, but Oliver expands the definition to Lestrade easily, uncritically. At the foolish school he attends, he brings home drawings of his “family” – the school is obsessed with talking about “family” – and the drawings always include Mrs. Hudson, even though Sherlock has told him a million times that they are not related to Mrs. Hudson.

Oliver tells him scathingly, “I don’t think you understand the definition of ‘family,’” and Sherlock thinks maybe Oliver is the one who’s right.

kleoette

Oliver gapes at a window display of nativity scenes in a shop they’re passing.

Oliver says, “But what are they?”

“They’re little scenes people set up in their houses at Christmastime. The birth of the baby Jesus,” John explains.

Oliver looks thoughtful.

So John supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when he comes home a few days later to the flat full of nativities, all of them scenes of brutal murder, decapitated wise men, disemboweled babies.

Sherlock explains, “Oliver had the brilliant idea to have festive murder scenes at this time of year.”

“Scenes of birth…or scenes of death!” Oliver adds.

rereader

Sherlock had never really considered getting a tattoo before. It wasn’t that he had anything against them per se, just that he had never encountered anything he wanted permanently on his skin. He saw people covered in tattoos and wondered at how many things they wished unfailingly to see every single day. It seemed absurd to him. Sherlock, in those days, couldn’t imagine ever wanting to see anything every single day. Even a good murder would get boring.

But these days, looking at John and Oliver, Sherlock understands tattoos. There are things he wants to see every day, unfailingly, permanently.

kleoette

“I think,” Oliver said, “it should be fairly obvious for children to determine that there’s no such thing as Father Christmas.” He said this thoughtfully, puzzling it through. “He doesn’t bring everything anyone asks for. And he very obviously brings more presents for rich children than poor children. Surely it’s easy for everyone to figure out.” He paused and looked at John. “But they don’t figure it out.”

“Dad would say it’s because people are stupid,” John remarked.

“I think…” Oliver considered. “I think maybe they want to believe. So they do.”

John smiled. “Yes.”

“And also people are stupid.”

chocolamousse

When you think about it, there’s a shocking lack of food in the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unless you count all the birds, which – John thinks about Perdy the partridge and decidedly does not count any of the birds in the carol as food. So that just leaves him with the maids a-milking, he supposes.

He is aware that he could make any number of Christmas foods – plum pudding, or a Christmas trifle – but it needs to be Twelve Days of Christmas-related. It’s romantic.

John makes them simple cups of steamed milk with honey and cinnamon. Sherlock, gratifyingly, gets it.

charisstoma

Sherlock hates to admit there’s anything he can’t do, but—

“What should I get John for Christmas?” he asks Mrs. Hudson. Getting a…boyfriend…a Christmas gift is simply outside of his area of expertise.

Mrs. Hudson says archly, “If I were you, I’d clean the bathtub. A proper scour.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you just run an experiment with human ears and hydrochloric acid?”

“Human noses,” Sherlock corrected her. “But yes.”

“John loves a bath, you know.”

“I did wipe the bathtub down when I was done with it!”

“Bleach it, Sherlock Holmes. John would appreciate it.”

It turns out that John does.  

“And here is another one for your collection,” Sherlock announced extravagantly.

When John was a baseball player, he did indeed have an extensive collection of things with sentimental value, and those were things like baseballs, gloves, bats.

But now that he had this new life in London with Sherlock, when Sherlock announced there was another one for his collection, it was now apt to be a particularly gruesome and perplexing murder.

John said, “I don’t think I like to say that I collect murders…”

Sherlock said, “No, you collect intriguing and problematic puzzles. That’s how you ended up with me.”

hominysnark

Sherlock was, predictably, willing to engage in the decorating of gingerbread people if it meant they could be decapitated or otherwise mutilated with plenty of red icing to represent the blood gushing from gory wounds.

John remarked, “To any other child, this might be traumatic.”

Oliver happily munched on a severed leg.

“What’s traumatic about this?” Sherlock demanded. “It’s a fake murder! True trauma is having to sit and listen to the vapid conversation of Mrs. Hudson’s so-called ‘baking friends.’” Sherlock’s voice dripped scorn.

John laughed. “Were you enlisted to help bake the gingerbread?”

“It was torture,” Sherlock clipped out.

kleoette

The headmaster insisted on summoning Oliver’s fathers, who arrived expecting the worst.

Dad said, “What’s all this? The school is still standing. I thought at least you would have caused some damage if you did indeed orchestrate an explosion. As I was told.” Dad frowned at the headmaster.

Oliver said, “It wasn’t an explosion, it was a little bit of sodium and potassium in water.”

“Not ‘a little,’” the headmaster harrumphed. “A great deal. The laboratory is unusable now.”

“It’s science,” Dad snapped. “Science never hurt anybody.”

“Not entirely true,” said Papa, and, “We’ll pay for it to be cleaned.”