The One Next Door

Priests, Potatoes, and Puppies

    Breakfast was filled with the usual chatter, John being an absolute gentleman of course, not missing an opportunity to complement either of the Holmes parents. They seemed to be absolutely thrilled to hear of his gratitude, as if shocked by his manners. When breakfast was over, the parents insisted on doing the dishes in an attempt to let the boys 'get ready' for when Uncle Rick arrived. Sherlock couldn't tell if that was mentally ready or just dressing up to look less like the social outcasts they were about to be. So Sherlock and John climbed the stairs, Dudley still in the kitchen hoping to score some of the leftover bacon.
"So, this Uncle Rick, everyone seems to think it's Armageddon." John decided.
"He's always been a little bit harsh, but he's a man of God, so I'm sure he won't deliberately insult us." Sherlock guessed.
"Well, that makes me feel better." John muttered doubtfully.
"What happened to your speech at breakfast?" Sherlock asked.
"It still stands of course, the Devil himself could not approve of our relationship and I wouldn't care. All I need is your approval." John insisted.
"Well, you have it, of course." Sherlock agreed.
"What should I wear?" John asked, holding up a checkered dress shirt and just a plain red one.
"Red one, it's Christmas." Sherlock decided.
"And what are you wearing?" John asked.
"In a perfect world I would wear my pajamas." Sherlock sighed.
"But it's not a perfect world. Wear the white one, it looks like snow." John suggested.
"But the purple one looks like..." Sherlock muttered, trying to finish his own sentence.
"Like a stereotypical gay person. Wear the white." John insisted.
"True." Sherlock agreed.
"Do you think your parents are going to try to pass us off as good friends? As if your 'girlfriend' couldn't show up so you brought your best mate?" John asked.
"No, they're not going to embarrass you like that. I'm thinking that they'll just drop the bomb as soon as he walks in, as to make it less explosive later on." Sherlock guessed.
"You mean when you invite him to the wedding?" John asked.
"I meant like, an hour later, but I like your option better." Sherlock agreed, pulling his white shirt out of his bag and trying to smooth out the wrinkles. "Well I'm going to look like a dweeb." He guessed.
"You always look like a dweeb; we're used to it by now." John assured.
"Shut up." Sherlock snapped, quickly changing into his white shirt and buttoning it up.
"I brought a surprise!" John said happily.
"Oh yay!" Sherlock said excitedly. But, to Sherlock's despair, John pulled two of Molly's ridiculous Santa hats out of his bag and threw one to Sherlock.
"I'm not wearing this." Sherlock insisted.
"Oh yes you are, put it on." John demanded, perching one of the hats on top of his own head and checking his reflection in the mirror.
"Come on, first they think I have a heart, now they're going to think that I care about the holidays!" Sherlock groaned.
"Put it on right now." John demanded. Sherlock growled, putting the hat on and looking at himself in the mirror.
"I look like an idiot." He decided.
"Good, then we match." John agreed, pressing a kiss onto Sherlock's cheek before walking out to the hallway.
"Oh don't you two look adorable!" Mrs. Holmes exclaimed when they walked out. Sherlock's scowl deepened.
"It was all John's idea, I assure you." He insisted.
"Well I believe that of course." She agreed. "Hold still, I'll get the camera."
"You don't have to get the camera!" Sherlock groaned.
"Maybe I'll make a new scrapbook, Sherlock and John!" she said happily, grabbing her camera and flashing a picture of them. "Get closer, don't be strangers."
"Come here Sherlock." John insisted, putting an arm around Sherlock's shoulder and smiling obnoxiously. Sherlock forced a smile, and the camera flashed, Mrs. Holmes making a little noise of delight and showing them the picture on the screen.
"See, twenty years ago we wouldn't have been able to see this picture until I got it developed, it was terrible." She sighed.
"I remember one of our wedding pictures was cut off, chopped my head right off. Of course, she wanted to get it framed." Mr. Holmes agreed with a laugh.
"It was hysterical." Mrs. Holmes agreed.
"What on earth do you have on your head?" Mycroft asked, making an appearance in a cream colored suit with a red tie.
"It's called a Santa hat, look it up." Sherlock snapped.
"You look like an elf." He decided.
"Well, that's not really the point now is it?" Sherlock laughed.
"I'm going to get some appetizers together; Uncle Rick will be here any minute." Mrs. Holmes decided.
"How early is he coming?" Sherlock asked in amazement.
"Well, he has to do mass and then he's coming down, so around ten o'clock." Mrs. Holmes shrugged.
"If I was a bachelor I'd be sleeping in until twelve." Sherlock muttered. Mycroft just glared at him, as if wanting to add something but knowing well enough not to start anymore family drama. About twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. The Holmes parents had customized it to play the most obnoxious version of Jingle Bells, and Sherlock was just about to kick the thing into the wall before someone finally opened the door.
"Hello Rick!" Mrs. Holmes said happily at the door. Sherlock sunk even deeper into the couch, as if scared to face his Uncle.
"Hello dear, lovely to see you." Rick said happily.
"This is it." John decided, giving Sherlock's hand an encouraging squeeze before getting up to meet the newly arrived guest. Sherlock followed him timidly, having far less confidence than John did, even though he had known his Uncle since birth.
"Ah, Mycroft, you look well." Rick said, shaking Mycroft's hand in the kitchen. Mrs. Holmes was putting some drinks together, and Mr. Holmes was hugging Rick hello. Sherlock never really learned which parent Rick was siblings with, he was just kind of there.
"Sherlock! Wow, you grew!" he insisted.
"No I haven't." Sherlock muttered as Rick trapped him in a hug.
"Well, since you were little you certainly have." Rick guessed. He was a little bit shorter than Sherlock, with greying hair parted in the middle, wearing his traditional black clothing with that little priest thing in his collar.
"Well, you're not wrong." Sherlock agreed.
"And who is this, not a new sibling?" Rick asked, looking over to John, who was standing off to the side with his Santa hat sitting crookedly on his head. No matter what he said about being confident, John looked very pale.
"No, I'm John Watson, Sherlock's..." John started.
"Boyfriend." Sherlock finished, and Uncle Rick's face drained almost as white as John's. John nodded in a defeated way.
"Oh dear." Rick muttered, looking at the Holmes parents for support.
"Nice to meet you." John said with a forced smile, holding out a hand to shake. Rick shook it kind of apprehensively, as if he didn't want to touch John's hand in case he caught the homosexuality disease.
"Nice to meet you too. I was told Sherlock was bringing his girlfriend?" he asked.
"We were told that too. Some purposeful miscommunication I suppose. But we support Sherlock and John all the same. I hope there's no issue with them being together?" Mr. Holmes asked, taking place of his wife, who was looking very awkward and shakily arranging crackers and cheese.
"No, um, not at all." Rick assured.
"Lovely." Sherlock said with a smile.
"Would you all like some drinks?" Mrs. Holmes asked, handing out little paper cups with Christmas holly on them for punch. When they all had drinks and plates of cheese and crackers, everyone arranged themselves on the couch, the smells of the baking ham making all of their stomachs growl. Rick, of course, kept sneaking looks at Sherlock and John, as if hardly daring to believe that he was in the presence of two homosexuals.
"So, have a nice trip down?" Mrs. Holmes asked, coming back from stirring the baked beans.
"It was fine, traffic was a little bit heavy, everyone going to and from, but it was alright. No accidents, which is good." Rick said.
"That's always nice. It would be a terrible thing for someone to get their car wrecked on Christmas day." Mr. Holmes agreed. Rick nodded, looking once more in Sherlock and John's direction. Of course, the two of them dared not hold hands, or even sit too close to each other, just in case any sign of personal affection would set Mr. Priest on fire. Then again, that would solve some of their problems...
"So, Sherlock how's the art business coming on?" Rick asked, sipping his punch.
"Oh, um, it's not, for the moment. I've kind of taken a break, got a real job at a coffee shop with my neighbor." Sherlock shrugged.
"That Molly Hooper girl, she lives down the hall from Sherlock, she's so sweet." Mrs. Holmes said happily.
"That's good, got some revenue coming in." Rick agreed.
"Sherlock has a knack for befriending very nice people." Mrs. Holmes muttered, maybe just to herself, but Mr. Holmes nodded in agreement.
"And I assume you all are going to mass on Sundays?" Rick asked.
"Oh, definitely." Sherlock lied.
"Every Sunday, that's where I am." John added hastily. 
"Mass last night was simply beautiful." Mrs. Holmes decided. They all seemed to talk at one time, so Rick seemed satisfied enough.
"That's good. God needs to know that his creations still worship him for his kindness." Rick agreed.
"Yes, definitely." Sherlock agreed, maybe a bit too quickly because his Uncle gave him a very peculiar look. Sherlock sipped his punch innocently, looking at the carpet as if terribly interested in it. At that moment, Dudley came blundering in, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and one of his ears bent over his head.
"Ah, good first impressions I see." John laughed.
"Who is this?" Rick asked happily, bending over and patting Dudley on the head.
"That's my dog, Dudley; he came along for the trip because no one wanted to take him in." John laughed.
"No, Molly would've, she just went away." Sherlock assured.
"He's a great house guest, I assure you. A lovely little puppy." Mrs. Holmes decided, scratching Dudley behind the ears. The dog rolled over onto his back and tried to get Mrs. Holmes to scratch his stomach, but she just shook her head with a laugh and went back to her cheese and crackers.
"So, Mr. Watson, how did you meet my nephew?" Rick asked.
"Oh, well, we live across the hall from each other. We were bound to meet eventually." John said with a smile. Sherlock nodded, patting the couch for Dudley to leap up onto his lap, just for something to do with his hands.
"And I assume you two are very happy?" he asked.
"Yes, of course." Sherlock agreed.
"Now, I know that homosexuality is supposed to be a sin, but personally, I believe that it is God's will for everyone to love each other, no matter what gender." Rick assured. Sherlock could breathe a lot easier now.
"Good, that's, precisely what I think as well." John agreed. Rick smiled assumingly, and Sherlock could almost feel a weight getting lifted off of everyone's shoulders.
"And Mycroft, government work right?" he asked.
"Yes." Mycroft agreed.
"Very important I presume?" Rick asked, almost teasingly.
"It's the government, of course it's important." He agreed officially.
"Mycroft, I'm sure the only important things you know is how much sugar all of the office workers take in their coffee." Sherlock laughed.
"Says the coffee shop worker." Mycroft pointed out.
"Mycroft wins this round." John muttered, and Sherlock's scowl deepened. The oven beeped, probably saving Sherlock from anymore self-inflicted humiliation.
"That would be the ham." Mrs. Holmes said excitedly.
"Do you need any help in the kitchen?" John offered.
"Do your culinary talents stray from omelets?" she asked.
"I can make a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich." John shrugged.
"You're hired." Mrs. Holmes decided, getting up to get the ham out of the oven.
"Not without me he's not." Sherlock decided, following the two of them into the kitchen.
"Can you two start on the mashed potatoes? I've got the recipe here in this book; it's quite simple, even Sherlock couldn't mess it up." Mrs. Holmes insisted.
"Oh, I doubt that." John laughed.
"I'm right here, I can hear you." Sherlock pointed out.
"I know, that was kind of the point." John insisted. Sherlock rolled his eyes, but Mrs. Holmes handed them a gigantic bag of potatoes and some potato peelers.
"Here you are then, thanks a lot." She said happily.
"Oh, that's low." Sherlock laughed, but took a peeler and sat down on a stool, peeling over an open trash can. Mrs. Holmes disappeared back into the sitting room, so John and Sherlock sat and started on the bag of potatoes.
"They look a bit like you." Sherlock decided, holding a wildly misshapen potato up to John's face and observing the similarities.
"So you're peeling off my skin?" John asked.
"That is the point." Sherlock agreed, shaking a peeling from his peeler into the trash can.
"Your uncle seems nice, definitely a lot more lenient than you portrayed him to be." John decided.
"I'm not terribly familiar with his personality, but I'm happy he's...permissive." Sherlock sighed.
"I wasn't worried." John assured.
"Yes you were." Sherlock laughed. "I saw your face when he first acknowledged you; you were white as a sheet."
"I was not!" John defended.
"How would you know?" Sherlock insisted.
"I was fine, I was cool, I knew what I was doing. You had to cut me off of my sentence of course." John insisted.
"I think it's better coming from me. I felt like it you said it, he'd think it was some sort of joke or something." Sherlock shrugged.
"Do you think I'm one to joke about that?" John asked.
"I feel like you don't look the type. I spent all that time thinking you were straighter than straight." Sherlock laughed.
"Well, maybe I don't fit the stereotype, but I still wouldn't lie about something like that." John insisted.
"He doesn't know that." Sherlock pointed out.
"Well, how does he know you weren't lying?" John asked.
"Because I'm not, everyone in a half mile radius can tell I'm gay." Sherlock pointed out.
"Well, I didn't really...never mind, I did." John sighed.
"You knew the whole time?" Sherlock asked.
"Well, I knew I had suspicions of course, I mean, if we're talking stereotypes here, you're quite flamboyant, stylish, best friends with a girl without any intentions of going out with her, you're an artist and you work at a coffee shop. So, I took my guesses." John shrugged.
"Then why were you so stunned when Molly told you?" Sherlock asked.
"Well I never thought that you'd ever tell me, did I? I was more uncomfortable with that fact that you probably didn't trust me with the information, that it took Molly's slip to actually find out for myself." John shrugged.
"I was going to tell you eventually, of course, I definitely didn't want you to find out from someone other than me, especially not like that." Sherlock shrugged.
"Well, I know now, don't I? And I think we both benefited greatly from it." John insisted, poking Sherlock's nose teasingly.
"They're definitely listening, keep it dumbed down." Sherlock muttered in a whisper.
"I'm definitely not going to say anything too obscene at your parents' house, with your uncle here." John assured.
"You better not." Sherlock agreed, and John just shrugged.
"I won't, trust me." John assured with a laugh.