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holmesticeTitle: Burnt Wool and Viscum Album
Recipient: freebirdflying
Author:brilliantlyburning
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: Suitable for general audiences
Warnings: None
Summary: Five times Sherlock gives John a present, and one time John gives him a present instead.
Also on AO3: Burnt Wool and Viscum Album
I want to give you gifts, he doesn’t say. He says: “I needed to compare the temperature at which synthetic fabric burns to that at which natural wool burns. You were most helpful.”
John rubs his forehead wearily as he translates this. It’s a comfortable, familiar gesture; Sherlock likes it enormously, particularly when he is the source of it. “Which of my jumpers did you burn?”
“The holiday one and the beige one,” Sherlock says, waving a hand dismissively as he gestures at the sink. John walks into the kitchen with the air of a man who knows exactly what he will find but hopes against hope that he’s wrong. He’s not, of course. What’s left of the jumpers is a sodden mass of charcoal, still steaming slightly. Surprising that John didn’t smell the acrid smoke on his way into the flat. He looks closely at the slight shine above John’s upper lip: he had applied a menthol balm to his philtrum to cover up an unpleasant lingering scent, one that clung to his—ah. Sherlock narrows his eyes. “A patient threw up on your shoes today.”
“How—? No. Not important.” Bracing his hands on the edge of the sink, John says, “I liked those jumpers.”
“I bought a replacement,” he offers.
John looks at the box on the kitchen table: glossy silver paper tied up in a red satin bow. Sherlock fidgets.
“You wrapped it,” John says.
“It was going to be a Christmas present.”
“Don’t think this gets you out of giving me something for Christmas,” John warns, tugging the ribbon loose with gentle fingers and, incongruously, ripping the paper. He holds up a jumper and examines it. It’s 100% cashmere, Sherlock knows, with a crew neck and rib-knit cuffs; he’s far more interested in seeing how the grey-green plays off John’s coloring.
“It’s, um. It’s nice,” John says, sounding surprised. Sherlock doesn’t know why he would be. He has much better taste in clothing than John, after all. “Just, Sherlock. Boundaries.”
“I shouldn’t have bought you the jumper?” He furrows his brow.
“You shouldn’t burned mine in the first place,” John says and inhales sharply, as though about to shout. He lets out the breath slowly. “Replacing them is the least you could do. But. This is nice.”
Pleased, Sherlock says, “You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t—” He stops himself and hangs his head. John’s index finger twitches as he counts in his head, doubtless a trick his therapist taught him to control his temper. Ten beats later: “Don’t intentionally destroy my things. I’ve lived with you long enough to know that, you know, bombs and snipers and toxic chemical explosions from mad experiments are inevitable. Let me worry about the big things and not that my entire wardrobe has gone up in flames, yeah? And if you accidentally—” John glares to emphasize the point— “destroy something, you will replace it.”
The loophole is large enough to drive a tank through, and Sherlock smiles gleefully. Oh, it really is Christmas! Caught up in plans, he absently says, “Yes, alright, I’ll replace the kettle.”
“Sherlock—”
—
John goes to a conference in Edinburgh the next week and returns to disabled smoke alarms, a kitchen table with a hole burnt clear through the wood, and a new laptop.
“What—no. I don’t care. You’re going to replace that table, you realize. Berk.” And ah, there’s the wrinkle between his eyebrows that Sherlock so likes.
“I thought replacing your laptop was a higher priority.” John opens his mouth and Sherlock hastily adds, “And before you fret, your files were all saved to the cloud; you haven’t lost anything and it’s already been downloaded to your new computer.”
John’s voice is suspicious. “I didn’t think I’d set that up.”
He hadn’t. Sherlock had, before placing it directly in path of a carefully controlled chemical explosion. “You type with two fingers, John, and your knowledge of modern technology is commensurate to your typing ability.” Sherlock smiles and adds, helpfully, “Did you know that floppy disks are no longer in use?”
“Oh, fuck off,” John says. Weary: insisted on taking the train, improbably. Why would anyone choose a fourteen hour train over a two hour flight? Sherlock can’t fathom it. The overnight trip aggravated John’s shoulder; he can see it in the way John holds himself. He can also see the exact moment when John decides to let the argument go. “You’re still replacing the kitchen table.”
“Of course,” he says, and John goes to make tea in the new, no-experiments-allowed kettle.
—
Science is, at its heart, a process of trial and error. Mistakes are inevitable, Sherlock knows. It’s all in the name of progress in the end.
Regardless, intentionally infecting John’s mattress with a particularly virulent species of bedbugs might not have been his best idea. “It was an experiment, and anyway the bed aggravated your injury,” Sherlock tries. And: “I need you in top form if you’re to keep up with me on cases; for God’s sake, John, you were ten feet behind me when we chased Jones last week and it was entirely due to your substandard rest.” And finally, in response to John’s furious query: “Of course I wouldn’t like it if you did the same to me, but it’s entirely different. My mattress is comfortable. If I had your mattress, I’d consider the bedbugs a favor.”
“If your mattress is so nice,” John says through gritted teeth, “I’m borrowing it until you buy me a new one.”
And oh, isn’t that a lovely thought: John in his bed, curled into his sheets, head resting on his pillow. His scent would linger in the fabric—
“Fine,” Sherlock says. It occurs to him that he may be smiling more than is considered appropriate, which is confirmed when John says, exasperated, “At least, you know, try to act contrite, will you?”
Retreating to his chair, Sherlock steeples his fingertips and considers. John had stipulated that he is allowed to replace things that he has destroyed, but Sherlock reckons that said tactic has run its course. By current estimates, any further replacements would wear through John’s thin veneer of patience entirely and result in unacceptable outcomes. A new strategy is needed.
—
On December 19th Sherlock finds his new strategy in the form of a series of poisonings at Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. He bullies John into his coat and scarf and they end up chasing the poisoner, posing as a hired elf, through the market. The shrieks of traumatized children follow in their wake. It ends with Sherlock, John, and the elf-cum-poisoner sprawled in a pile on the ice rink while Sherlock cuffs the man’s hands behind his back.
The ice skaters stare as Sherlock stands, covered in hot chocolate thrown at him by a little girl who preferred the elf to the man chasing him. “With the Met,” he says, flashing Lestrade’s badge at the crowd, which begins to disperse. “Um,” Sherlock says eloquently as he turns to John, still holding the elf, adrenalin coursing through his blood, “happy Christmas?”
John looks up at the fairy lights hanging above them and laughs helplessly. “Oh God,” he manages to say, between burst of laughter, “this is, without a doubt, the maddest Christmas I’ve ever had. You’ve outdone yourself, you know; I no longer need a Christmas gift. This was perfect.”
Stunned, Sherlock says, “You like Christmas. I’d no idea.’
“Yes, I do,” John agrees, an amused twist to his lips, and Sherlock curses himself for not thinking of it sooner. John likes cases, John likes Christmas, and therefore Sherlock will do his level best to supply him with all of the holiday-themed crimes in London.
“Well, you never know,” Sherlock says, beginning to chuckle himself, “I could always come across a Santa who doubles as a human trafficker, there’s still time,” and they laugh as they keep hold a handcuffed elf in the middle of an ice rink and wait for Scotland Yard.
—
There are no Santas who moonlight as human traffickers so far as Sherlock can tell (and wouldn’t that have been ironic), but Sherlock puts his ill-gotten police scanner to good use and is among the first to hear of a serial killer who, according to an anonymous tip, frequents fetish clubs dressed in a Santa costume. When he hears Lestrade’s weary voice on the scanner saying, “Yeah, I’ll call in Holmes, and Christ he’ll be a right bastard about it,” he nearly jumps for joy.
John shoots him a disbelieving look when Lestrade explains the case. “This isn’t actually your doing, is it?” he asks, mostly joking. “Suppose it’s just your luck to find all of the murderous residents of Santa’s workshop.”
“Of course I didn’t set it up,” Sherlock returns, ignoring the latter part of the statement, which is just as inaccurate as the former in its own way. He never relies on mere luck, obviously, and he therefore has a plan: not only will he give John a Christmas-themed case, but he’ll also provide John with an opportunity to showcase his skills as a soldier. After such occasions John stands tall and proud and grins recklessly at him, and Sherlock can glimpse who John must have been during the war. It threatens to take his breath away.
And so when the murderous Santa comes at him with a rather sharp knife, it’s a small matter to put himself in mild peril, which he intends, and receive a gash to his bicep, which he does not. It’s not an ideal course of events, but he counts it a success.
John, evidently, does not.
“Shit, shit,” John hisses, having tackled the murderer and handed him off to the Met. He examines the wound with quick, careful fingers. After a moment: “It’s mostly superficial. Keep pressure on it; I’ll patch it up at the flat.”
“You’re ruining my jacket,” Sherlock protests, clutching it to his upper arm regardless.
“Yeah, well, it’s already torn. Adding bodily fluids wasn’t the deciding factor, you deciding to dive in front of a knife was. On fucking Christmas Eve.”
“I didn’t—”
“Save it.”
In the bathroom of the flat John is quiet: the kind of quiet that builds and explodes at the slightest noise. Sherlock is silent too. He watches as John washes his hands, unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt, cleans and bandages the wound without making a sound. The rasp of the plastic amidst the quiet grates on Sherlock’s nerves.
John presses down on the edges of the bandage, ensuring its adherence. “I’ll check it tomorrow, but you’ll be fine. Might scar a bit.” He sounds exhausted.
He must have miscalculated. Sherlock frowns, puzzled. “Is something the matter?”
“You need to ask?” When Sherlock doesn’t answer, John clenches his fist. “Because, you dick—tonight I saw you put yourself in the path of a knife. For no apparent reason, I might add. And I don’t know what to do about that.”
“I thought—” He stops, gathers himself. It was supposed to be for John: not the injury but the case, the danger, the thrill. “I thought you liked danger.”
John’s shoulders slump. “I can’t lie to you about that because you already know the answer, but—well. Danger is something I like. Adrenalin is, um, something I really like. But for some unbelievable reason, I prefer you alive to dead. I’ve no idea why. You’ve destroyed my wardrobe, my laptop, and my mattress; you throw yourself in every dangerous situation available in the greater London area; there are ears in Tupperware on the top shelf of the fridge—the fucking top shelf, Sherlock—and you’ve chased off all of my dates for years. So. God only knows why.”
“But—”
“I have to wonder if you even care about me, honestly,” John says quietly. He’s not angry but resigned, and somehow that’s worse. “It doesn’t often seem like it.”
His pulse races and the gash in his arm throbs in sync. “Don’t be stupid, John,” he scoffs, half-panicked. It’s immediately obvious that he’s said the wrong thing: John’s face shutters.
Methodically, John gathers up the medical detritus on the counter and sweeps it in the bin. “I’m not,” he says finally. And he leaves.
—
John doesn’t come home Christmas Day and Sherlock paces in the sitting room, one-two-three-four to the window and one-two-three-four to the door. He glares at the fairy lights strung up over the mantel. Hateful things. What’s the use of Christmas without vicious holiday-motivated murders or a John to give gifts to?
It isn’t as though John had appreciated his gifts, Sherlock thinks, flopping down on the sofa sulkily before sitting upright. Oh! He’d overlooked the obvious: of course John wasn’t stupid, but he’d been too subtle. In trying to give John gifts without John’s awareness, he’d—well, he’d done exactly as he intended. Sherlock curses his own effectiveness. What he needs is something obvious. Something sentimental. Something that John will hold over him for years to come, but the corner of his mouth will turn up when he thinks of it, as it does when John reminisces about his fondest memories.
He texts John.
Please come home. There are things I need to tell you. SH
Message sent, Sherlock sets himself to his task.
Three hours later, he sets the last load of presents on the sofa, straightens with a grimace, and sees John standing in the living room with a bouquet of flowers in one hand, looking both unsure and determined. For a moment they only look at each other.
John breaks the silence. “It took me a while to figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” Sherlock asks, more weakly than he intended. He feels caught out. Vulnerable.
“You’ve been trying to give me gifts these last few weeks, haven’t you,” John says. Hesitant but certain. “The Christmas-y case because you know I like Christmas, even though it wasn’t quite up to your usual standard. The jumper and the laptop and the mattress and the, the kettle. In a twisted way I think you tried to give me a gift by putting yourself in danger, which, don’t even get me started on that—”
“The kettle wasn’t intentional,” Sherlock protests. It’s the only thing he can refute, after all, and accuracy is essential.
“But the rest were.” John’s hand grasps the bouquet nervously. “And so, um. I did figure it out. Eventually.”
“Again, figure out what?”
John still doesn’t answer; instead, he gestures around the room. “Sherlock. Look around.”
He does, envisioning the building as John must have upon entering: first the orchestral Christmas music would have floated down the stairs, as would have the spices from the mulled wine; and upon entering the flat he’d have been greeted by a fire in the grate, additional strings of fairy lights strung along the curtainrods, the bison skull, the bookshelves. The lights, Sherlock notices now, gleam off the glossy paper of the presents he’d spent the better part of the afternoon wrapping. “Is it—” he hesitates— “not good?”
“Oh God, Sherlock, no, it’s—it’s good. Very good. Especially the Santa hat on the skull.” John huffs out a laugh. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he says, and his voice is gentle now. “These presents, though. Um. The shops are closed today, ‘cause of the holiday and all. They wouldn’t have been open last night, either. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that you’d bought these before the case.”
“Why are you holding flowers?” Sherlock asks. He’s filled with a sudden, vicious desperation to escape the inevitable conclusion; to turn the focus onto John. To force John to bare some small part of himself, so Sherlock isn’t the only one in the room who feels flayed open.
“Because unlike you, you berk,” John says, “I didn’t have it all figured out, and the shops were closed by the time I realized. I had to make do.” He proffers the flowers to Sherlock.
Examining them, Sherlock breathes, “Amaryllis. Eranthis. And—viscum album?” He looks at John in wonderment. “You gave me a bouquet of poisonous plants.”
“Er, yes. I did.” The tips of John’s ear turn a delicate shade of pink, which is delightful. “So. Do I get to open my presents now?”
“Will you berate me about ‘boundaries’ and ‘financial responsibility’ when you do?”
“Probably, yeah,” John agrees, unabashed. “But mostly because I think you’d have continued to destroy my belongings for the purpose of giving me gifts. Am I wrong?” He raises his eyebrows, and when Sherlock doesn’t deign to answer he chuckles. “Right. Well. You asked me what I figured out.”
“You don’t—you don’t have to say it,” Sherlock interrupts. “Must we?”
His attempt at aggravation falls short of the mark, but John only smiles. “We needn’t,” he agrees, “but I would, um, like to tell you something.”
“What would that be?” Sherlock asks. He will not allow himself to hope. He won’t.
John only tilts his head and reaches for Sherlock’s hand. He turns it over and rests his thumb on his wrist, sweeping over the fragile skin reassuringly before pausing. Feeling Sherlock’s pulse. And then he taps a pattern on Sherlock’s skin: two short taps; short tap, long tap, short, short; long, long, long—Morse code, Sherlock realizes belatedly.
O-V-E Y-O-U T-O-O
I love you too, John is saying, and Sherlock feels his face crumble. Odd how joy can feel so much like grief, he thinks. John looks at him with a question in his eyes. “Did you hear me?” he asks, and Sherlock has to swallow before he manages to say, thickly, “I heard you.”
Recipient: freebirdflying
Author:
brilliantlyburningVerse: Sherlock BBC
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: Suitable for general audiences
Warnings: None
Summary: Five times Sherlock gives John a present, and one time John gives him a present instead.
Also on AO3: Burnt Wool and Viscum Album
I want to give you gifts, he doesn’t say. He says: “I needed to compare the temperature at which synthetic fabric burns to that at which natural wool burns. You were most helpful.”
John rubs his forehead wearily as he translates this. It’s a comfortable, familiar gesture; Sherlock likes it enormously, particularly when he is the source of it. “Which of my jumpers did you burn?”
“The holiday one and the beige one,” Sherlock says, waving a hand dismissively as he gestures at the sink. John walks into the kitchen with the air of a man who knows exactly what he will find but hopes against hope that he’s wrong. He’s not, of course. What’s left of the jumpers is a sodden mass of charcoal, still steaming slightly. Surprising that John didn’t smell the acrid smoke on his way into the flat. He looks closely at the slight shine above John’s upper lip: he had applied a menthol balm to his philtrum to cover up an unpleasant lingering scent, one that clung to his—ah. Sherlock narrows his eyes. “A patient threw up on your shoes today.”
“How—? No. Not important.” Bracing his hands on the edge of the sink, John says, “I liked those jumpers.”
“I bought a replacement,” he offers.
John looks at the box on the kitchen table: glossy silver paper tied up in a red satin bow. Sherlock fidgets.
“You wrapped it,” John says.
“It was going to be a Christmas present.”
“Don’t think this gets you out of giving me something for Christmas,” John warns, tugging the ribbon loose with gentle fingers and, incongruously, ripping the paper. He holds up a jumper and examines it. It’s 100% cashmere, Sherlock knows, with a crew neck and rib-knit cuffs; he’s far more interested in seeing how the grey-green plays off John’s coloring.
“It’s, um. It’s nice,” John says, sounding surprised. Sherlock doesn’t know why he would be. He has much better taste in clothing than John, after all. “Just, Sherlock. Boundaries.”
“I shouldn’t have bought you the jumper?” He furrows his brow.
“You shouldn’t burned mine in the first place,” John says and inhales sharply, as though about to shout. He lets out the breath slowly. “Replacing them is the least you could do. But. This is nice.”
Pleased, Sherlock says, “You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t—” He stops himself and hangs his head. John’s index finger twitches as he counts in his head, doubtless a trick his therapist taught him to control his temper. Ten beats later: “Don’t intentionally destroy my things. I’ve lived with you long enough to know that, you know, bombs and snipers and toxic chemical explosions from mad experiments are inevitable. Let me worry about the big things and not that my entire wardrobe has gone up in flames, yeah? And if you accidentally—” John glares to emphasize the point— “destroy something, you will replace it.”
The loophole is large enough to drive a tank through, and Sherlock smiles gleefully. Oh, it really is Christmas! Caught up in plans, he absently says, “Yes, alright, I’ll replace the kettle.”
“Sherlock—”
—
John goes to a conference in Edinburgh the next week and returns to disabled smoke alarms, a kitchen table with a hole burnt clear through the wood, and a new laptop.
“What—no. I don’t care. You’re going to replace that table, you realize. Berk.” And ah, there’s the wrinkle between his eyebrows that Sherlock so likes.
“I thought replacing your laptop was a higher priority.” John opens his mouth and Sherlock hastily adds, “And before you fret, your files were all saved to the cloud; you haven’t lost anything and it’s already been downloaded to your new computer.”
John’s voice is suspicious. “I didn’t think I’d set that up.”
He hadn’t. Sherlock had, before placing it directly in path of a carefully controlled chemical explosion. “You type with two fingers, John, and your knowledge of modern technology is commensurate to your typing ability.” Sherlock smiles and adds, helpfully, “Did you know that floppy disks are no longer in use?”
“Oh, fuck off,” John says. Weary: insisted on taking the train, improbably. Why would anyone choose a fourteen hour train over a two hour flight? Sherlock can’t fathom it. The overnight trip aggravated John’s shoulder; he can see it in the way John holds himself. He can also see the exact moment when John decides to let the argument go. “You’re still replacing the kitchen table.”
“Of course,” he says, and John goes to make tea in the new, no-experiments-allowed kettle.
—
Science is, at its heart, a process of trial and error. Mistakes are inevitable, Sherlock knows. It’s all in the name of progress in the end.
Regardless, intentionally infecting John’s mattress with a particularly virulent species of bedbugs might not have been his best idea. “It was an experiment, and anyway the bed aggravated your injury,” Sherlock tries. And: “I need you in top form if you’re to keep up with me on cases; for God’s sake, John, you were ten feet behind me when we chased Jones last week and it was entirely due to your substandard rest.” And finally, in response to John’s furious query: “Of course I wouldn’t like it if you did the same to me, but it’s entirely different. My mattress is comfortable. If I had your mattress, I’d consider the bedbugs a favor.”
“If your mattress is so nice,” John says through gritted teeth, “I’m borrowing it until you buy me a new one.”
And oh, isn’t that a lovely thought: John in his bed, curled into his sheets, head resting on his pillow. His scent would linger in the fabric—
“Fine,” Sherlock says. It occurs to him that he may be smiling more than is considered appropriate, which is confirmed when John says, exasperated, “At least, you know, try to act contrite, will you?”
Retreating to his chair, Sherlock steeples his fingertips and considers. John had stipulated that he is allowed to replace things that he has destroyed, but Sherlock reckons that said tactic has run its course. By current estimates, any further replacements would wear through John’s thin veneer of patience entirely and result in unacceptable outcomes. A new strategy is needed.
—
On December 19th Sherlock finds his new strategy in the form of a series of poisonings at Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. He bullies John into his coat and scarf and they end up chasing the poisoner, posing as a hired elf, through the market. The shrieks of traumatized children follow in their wake. It ends with Sherlock, John, and the elf-cum-poisoner sprawled in a pile on the ice rink while Sherlock cuffs the man’s hands behind his back.
The ice skaters stare as Sherlock stands, covered in hot chocolate thrown at him by a little girl who preferred the elf to the man chasing him. “With the Met,” he says, flashing Lestrade’s badge at the crowd, which begins to disperse. “Um,” Sherlock says eloquently as he turns to John, still holding the elf, adrenalin coursing through his blood, “happy Christmas?”
John looks up at the fairy lights hanging above them and laughs helplessly. “Oh God,” he manages to say, between burst of laughter, “this is, without a doubt, the maddest Christmas I’ve ever had. You’ve outdone yourself, you know; I no longer need a Christmas gift. This was perfect.”
Stunned, Sherlock says, “You like Christmas. I’d no idea.’
“Yes, I do,” John agrees, an amused twist to his lips, and Sherlock curses himself for not thinking of it sooner. John likes cases, John likes Christmas, and therefore Sherlock will do his level best to supply him with all of the holiday-themed crimes in London.
“Well, you never know,” Sherlock says, beginning to chuckle himself, “I could always come across a Santa who doubles as a human trafficker, there’s still time,” and they laugh as they keep hold a handcuffed elf in the middle of an ice rink and wait for Scotland Yard.
—
There are no Santas who moonlight as human traffickers so far as Sherlock can tell (and wouldn’t that have been ironic), but Sherlock puts his ill-gotten police scanner to good use and is among the first to hear of a serial killer who, according to an anonymous tip, frequents fetish clubs dressed in a Santa costume. When he hears Lestrade’s weary voice on the scanner saying, “Yeah, I’ll call in Holmes, and Christ he’ll be a right bastard about it,” he nearly jumps for joy.
John shoots him a disbelieving look when Lestrade explains the case. “This isn’t actually your doing, is it?” he asks, mostly joking. “Suppose it’s just your luck to find all of the murderous residents of Santa’s workshop.”
“Of course I didn’t set it up,” Sherlock returns, ignoring the latter part of the statement, which is just as inaccurate as the former in its own way. He never relies on mere luck, obviously, and he therefore has a plan: not only will he give John a Christmas-themed case, but he’ll also provide John with an opportunity to showcase his skills as a soldier. After such occasions John stands tall and proud and grins recklessly at him, and Sherlock can glimpse who John must have been during the war. It threatens to take his breath away.
And so when the murderous Santa comes at him with a rather sharp knife, it’s a small matter to put himself in mild peril, which he intends, and receive a gash to his bicep, which he does not. It’s not an ideal course of events, but he counts it a success.
John, evidently, does not.
“Shit, shit,” John hisses, having tackled the murderer and handed him off to the Met. He examines the wound with quick, careful fingers. After a moment: “It’s mostly superficial. Keep pressure on it; I’ll patch it up at the flat.”
“You’re ruining my jacket,” Sherlock protests, clutching it to his upper arm regardless.
“Yeah, well, it’s already torn. Adding bodily fluids wasn’t the deciding factor, you deciding to dive in front of a knife was. On fucking Christmas Eve.”
“I didn’t—”
“Save it.”
In the bathroom of the flat John is quiet: the kind of quiet that builds and explodes at the slightest noise. Sherlock is silent too. He watches as John washes his hands, unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt, cleans and bandages the wound without making a sound. The rasp of the plastic amidst the quiet grates on Sherlock’s nerves.
John presses down on the edges of the bandage, ensuring its adherence. “I’ll check it tomorrow, but you’ll be fine. Might scar a bit.” He sounds exhausted.
He must have miscalculated. Sherlock frowns, puzzled. “Is something the matter?”
“You need to ask?” When Sherlock doesn’t answer, John clenches his fist. “Because, you dick—tonight I saw you put yourself in the path of a knife. For no apparent reason, I might add. And I don’t know what to do about that.”
“I thought—” He stops, gathers himself. It was supposed to be for John: not the injury but the case, the danger, the thrill. “I thought you liked danger.”
John’s shoulders slump. “I can’t lie to you about that because you already know the answer, but—well. Danger is something I like. Adrenalin is, um, something I really like. But for some unbelievable reason, I prefer you alive to dead. I’ve no idea why. You’ve destroyed my wardrobe, my laptop, and my mattress; you throw yourself in every dangerous situation available in the greater London area; there are ears in Tupperware on the top shelf of the fridge—the fucking top shelf, Sherlock—and you’ve chased off all of my dates for years. So. God only knows why.”
“But—”
“I have to wonder if you even care about me, honestly,” John says quietly. He’s not angry but resigned, and somehow that’s worse. “It doesn’t often seem like it.”
His pulse races and the gash in his arm throbs in sync. “Don’t be stupid, John,” he scoffs, half-panicked. It’s immediately obvious that he’s said the wrong thing: John’s face shutters.
Methodically, John gathers up the medical detritus on the counter and sweeps it in the bin. “I’m not,” he says finally. And he leaves.
—
John doesn’t come home Christmas Day and Sherlock paces in the sitting room, one-two-three-four to the window and one-two-three-four to the door. He glares at the fairy lights strung up over the mantel. Hateful things. What’s the use of Christmas without vicious holiday-motivated murders or a John to give gifts to?
It isn’t as though John had appreciated his gifts, Sherlock thinks, flopping down on the sofa sulkily before sitting upright. Oh! He’d overlooked the obvious: of course John wasn’t stupid, but he’d been too subtle. In trying to give John gifts without John’s awareness, he’d—well, he’d done exactly as he intended. Sherlock curses his own effectiveness. What he needs is something obvious. Something sentimental. Something that John will hold over him for years to come, but the corner of his mouth will turn up when he thinks of it, as it does when John reminisces about his fondest memories.
He texts John.
Please come home. There are things I need to tell you. SH
Message sent, Sherlock sets himself to his task.
Three hours later, he sets the last load of presents on the sofa, straightens with a grimace, and sees John standing in the living room with a bouquet of flowers in one hand, looking both unsure and determined. For a moment they only look at each other.
John breaks the silence. “It took me a while to figure it out.”
“Figure what out?” Sherlock asks, more weakly than he intended. He feels caught out. Vulnerable.
“You’ve been trying to give me gifts these last few weeks, haven’t you,” John says. Hesitant but certain. “The Christmas-y case because you know I like Christmas, even though it wasn’t quite up to your usual standard. The jumper and the laptop and the mattress and the, the kettle. In a twisted way I think you tried to give me a gift by putting yourself in danger, which, don’t even get me started on that—”
“The kettle wasn’t intentional,” Sherlock protests. It’s the only thing he can refute, after all, and accuracy is essential.
“But the rest were.” John’s hand grasps the bouquet nervously. “And so, um. I did figure it out. Eventually.”
“Again, figure out what?”
John still doesn’t answer; instead, he gestures around the room. “Sherlock. Look around.”
He does, envisioning the building as John must have upon entering: first the orchestral Christmas music would have floated down the stairs, as would have the spices from the mulled wine; and upon entering the flat he’d have been greeted by a fire in the grate, additional strings of fairy lights strung along the curtainrods, the bison skull, the bookshelves. The lights, Sherlock notices now, gleam off the glossy paper of the presents he’d spent the better part of the afternoon wrapping. “Is it—” he hesitates— “not good?”
“Oh God, Sherlock, no, it’s—it’s good. Very good. Especially the Santa hat on the skull.” John huffs out a laugh. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he says, and his voice is gentle now. “These presents, though. Um. The shops are closed today, ‘cause of the holiday and all. They wouldn’t have been open last night, either. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that you’d bought these before the case.”
“Why are you holding flowers?” Sherlock asks. He’s filled with a sudden, vicious desperation to escape the inevitable conclusion; to turn the focus onto John. To force John to bare some small part of himself, so Sherlock isn’t the only one in the room who feels flayed open.
“Because unlike you, you berk,” John says, “I didn’t have it all figured out, and the shops were closed by the time I realized. I had to make do.” He proffers the flowers to Sherlock.
Examining them, Sherlock breathes, “Amaryllis. Eranthis. And—viscum album?” He looks at John in wonderment. “You gave me a bouquet of poisonous plants.”
“Er, yes. I did.” The tips of John’s ear turn a delicate shade of pink, which is delightful. “So. Do I get to open my presents now?”
“Will you berate me about ‘boundaries’ and ‘financial responsibility’ when you do?”
“Probably, yeah,” John agrees, unabashed. “But mostly because I think you’d have continued to destroy my belongings for the purpose of giving me gifts. Am I wrong?” He raises his eyebrows, and when Sherlock doesn’t deign to answer he chuckles. “Right. Well. You asked me what I figured out.”
“You don’t—you don’t have to say it,” Sherlock interrupts. “Must we?”
His attempt at aggravation falls short of the mark, but John only smiles. “We needn’t,” he agrees, “but I would, um, like to tell you something.”
“What would that be?” Sherlock asks. He will not allow himself to hope. He won’t.
John only tilts his head and reaches for Sherlock’s hand. He turns it over and rests his thumb on his wrist, sweeping over the fragile skin reassuringly before pausing. Feeling Sherlock’s pulse. And then he taps a pattern on Sherlock’s skin: two short taps; short tap, long tap, short, short; long, long, long—Morse code, Sherlock realizes belatedly.
O-V-E Y-O-U T-O-O
I love you too, John is saying, and Sherlock feels his face crumble. Odd how joy can feel so much like grief, he thinks. John looks at him with a question in his eyes. “Did you hear me?” he asks, and Sherlock has to swallow before he manages to say, thickly, “I heard you.”
