Chapter Text
Sherlock, glass of wassail, a mulled apple cider traditionally served on the winter solstice, in hand, took a moment to step back from the crowd milling about in his dining room and leaned a shoulder into the wall to simply watch. The drink was warm and fragrant as he raised it to his lips, the scents of cinnamon, clove, allspice, and orange peel curling up with the steam. Evan had offered to add a splash of brandy to his cup but even without it the drink spread its sunny fingers through him as he took in the scene: candlelight flickering from every surface, fronds of evergreen: mistletoe, spruce, and holly, adorning the table and window ledges, and every head festooned with a colourful crepe paper crown, remnants from the burst crackers littering the floor like so much merry confetti.
Ellen and Hayley were perusing the trays of starters laid out on his dining room table, which had been pushed up against one wall to serve as a buffet—their fingers lifting delicate wafers topped with smoked salmon and sprigs of dill, pigs in a blanket, and prawn cocktail, along with fruit and olives and cheese from one of Zoe’s beautiful charcuterie boards, onto small plastic appetizer plates—while Evan dipped a ladle into the bowl of a slow cooker, which kept the wassail warm, to fill a cup for a flushed cheek Charlotte. Zoe, who had taken charge of the cooking, had marshalled the help of Penny upon her arrival, and their laughter could be heard now and again through the open door that led to the kitchen.
John was standing beside Evan and their conversation resumed once Charlotte had twirled away, the skirts of her emerald green dress flaring wide, back to the sitting room where she was busy hanging baubles on the small fir tree that Mycroft had had delivered, along with his polite note declining Sherlock’s invitation to attend the Yule party. Edith, alongside her carer, Sam, were also in the sitting room beside the record player from which Ella Fitzgerald’s A Swinging Christmas played.
Due to the fact that the Edicotts would be traveling to Ireland the next day to visit family and that Evan and Penny had made plans to celebrate Christmas with friends, they had decided to celebrate the solstice all together, to mark Yule, which Penny and Zoe observed, and the return of the sun.
Sherlock wasn’t sure he had ever had this many people in his house before. What a difference a few months had made. From that morning in October when he had first met Charlotte and Carrot to now, his home full of a bright clamour, so much had changed. If you had asked him a year ago, spending the holidays alone as was his custom, if he could imagine that he would not only be celebrating the advent of winter with a communal feast and ritual bonfire, but that he would be the one willingly—no, gladly!— hosting said festivities…
It simply beggared belief.
To be stood there, in a dining room that rarely saw more action than a passing glance through from him on his way to adjust the thermostat, with its really rather lovely green wallpaper and its wood floor, which gleamed from the thorough mopping he had given it that morning, and the candlesticks of beeswax his bees had produced and he had shaped, now casting a soft glow on the faces of those Sherlock had come to regard as the closest of friends, dare he say, family, he was quite overcome.
To add to that the feelings that stirred when he looked at John, well, it was not only the wassail which kindled the warmth flooding through him. How had this perfectly ordinary man come to mean so extraordinarily much to Sherlock in so short a time? As Sherlock grappled with the mistakes of his past, to be granted what felt like an undeserved second chance, meant that the risk of mucking things up was ever greater. Sherlock’s very character was on the line. What type of man had he been building these last few years? Would this man prevail or was he destined to repeat the mistakes of his past?
He felt the urge to revert, he could not deny it. If you had something to lose, then it followed that there would be pain in the losing. It was the lesson he had learned from the abandonment by his mother, and the rejection of his father. A lesson which had guided his lifelong solitude and his reprehensible actions with James. If you never loved, you could never feel hurt. If you were alone, you could never cause another harm. It had seemed like such a simple equation for living, once.
Sherlock supposed there was a small sign of growth apparent in the fact that he had finally come to accept that one was worth the other. Or at least it was finally a risk he was willing to take in order to be in love with John.
Ellen drifted suddenly into view, her upper body, clad in red plaid, tilting sideways to interrupt his line of sight. She smiled knowingly at him as he blinked away from John and, blushing, took a hasty sip from his cup.
“Things are going well, then?” Ellen said, settling herself beside him and munching on a cracker as her gaze flitted back and forth between John and him a few times.
Sherlock’s cheeks prickled and he cleared his throat, looking down at his shoes. “Is it that transparent?” The lines around her eyes creased sympathetically.
“Nothing to be embarrassed about, Blue. We’ve all been there.”
“I haven’t,” Sherlock admitted.
“Ah,” Ellen said. “First time…?”
“Well, I’m not a virgin, but otherwise…yes.”
“Oh, Blue,” Ellen said, touching his arm. “You must be feeling…all the things, as Hayley would say.”
Sherlock chuckled. “An apt description.”
Ellen turned her gaze across the room. “And John is—”
“New to many aspects of this as well, yes,” Sherlock finished for her, wryly.
“Well, I won’t say you don’t have your work cut out for you, but…” Ellen left off, a wistful look on her face.
“But what?”
“Oh, just remembering what it was like, falling for Zoe, all those years ago. She was dating a man when we first met.”
Sherlock reared his head back, surprised. “She was? I genuinely cannot-”
“Fathom it?” Ellen said, laughing.
Sherlock shook his head wonderingly. “I honestly cannot imagine either of you with anyone else.”
“Not all of us queers come out fully formed, you know. Sometimes it takes a particular person to open our eyes, as it were.”
“You too?”
Ellen guffawed as if this supposition amused her greatly. “Uh, no. No, not me. I came out of the womb a bull dyke. I’m just saying, for others, it takes a little longer. Doesn’t make them any less valid.”
“John’s been struggling a bit with internalized homophobia,” Sherlock said.
“That makes sense. Most men are raised to hate and deny any sort of affection for or attraction towards other men, unless it’s through ordained masculine activities, like sport. It’s like dirty air he’s been breathing his whole life. Natural that he’d need a little time to sort himself. In fact, it’s a good sign that he’s even aware of it.”
Sherlock nodded, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth as he looked across the room at John. For a moment John’s eyes met his over Evan’s shoulder and Sherlock felt his insides turn hot and liquid and wobbly.
“And you? How’s it going for you?”
Sherlock considered this. “I’ve done a lot of my own healing over the last few years,” he said. “Filtering out some of that dirty air.” Ellen nodded. “But I’ll admit, I’m terrified.”
“What scares you the most?”
“I have abandonment issues from my childhood. Instead of becoming codependent I’ve simply abstained from forming close relationships so that I would never have to feel that again.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
“To an extreme.”
“And if the worst were to happen? If it weren’t to work out with John?”
“I think I’m afraid that I’ll feel like I have confirmation that my parents were right; that there is something inherently unlovable about me.”
“Jesus, Sherlock.” Ellen touched his arm again, gently, her expression anguished.
If Sherlock hadn’t spent the last few weeks working through this with Tom he was sure he would have been crying. Instead, dry eyed, he shrugged, owning the full brunt of his truth. “I know I can’t put the onus of that, of justifying one’s worth, on one person’s shoulders, but-”
“The stakes are high.”
“Impossibly high.”
“And that, my friend, makes you incredibly brave.”
Sherlock shook his head. “More like incredibly naive. To think that I can enter into this and have it somehow not crumble under the weight of all that’s stacked against us…”
“Sherlock, there will never be a perfect point in your healing journey when you’ll suddenly be without baggage. So you’re working on validating your own worth right now, that doesn’t mean you aren’t also allowed to fall in love. It doesn’t make it naive. It means you’re stepping into it with your eyes open, knowing what it is to lose. That’s courage.”
A hard knot had formed in Sherlock’s throat. His words were thick when he spoke around it. “You’re a good friend, Ellen.”
This time Ellen clapped him on the shoulder and squeezed. “Always here to hold space for vulnerability. Thank you for honoring me with your trust.”
“What are you two talking about over here so seriously?” John asked, coming to stand beside Sherlock, one hand slipping around to rest on the small of Sherlock’s back.
“Cheese,” Ellen said smoothly, nodding her head towards the table. “Have you tried Zoe’s newest goat cheese creation?” She stepped away, leading them over to collect plates.
“You ok?” John asked quietly, as they followed, his hand moving up and then down Sherlock’s spine in a currying manner.
Sherlock nodded reassuringly. “Perfectly fine. Grateful, in fact.”
John’s smile was warm and relieved. “Me too,” he said, as they rejoined Ellen and her expert navigation of her and Zoe’s excellent creations.