YULE

[fighting_northumerland]

John stopped in front of the front door. It wasn't too late, he reasoned-- they hadn't seen him yet. They could escape back into the cab, get Chinese, have a quiet night to themselves and not deal with the madness of Watson Christmas...

Behind them, the cab pulled away and turned off into traffic. Trapped.

"Well then," he said, steeling himself, and knocked.

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[fighting_northumerland]

John lifted the lid of the box curiously, and gasped when he say the small round shape inside. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.

"Sherlock..." he said, running his finger of the surface of the button.

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It was cheap and clearly handmade, and to be honest the color scheme was a little gaudy: the background was dark brown but the lettering a vivid yellow.

John Watson Was Right.

"A few days before I came back..." Sherlock's voice had dropped to a low murmur. "There was this girl on the Tube. University student, probably in psychology. It was on her bag, and I..."

He trailed off, not really wanting to bring up the whole situation or the painful mess of emotions it evoked. The gift was, quite simply, sentimental--but the sentiments were all positive, all the sorts of things Sherlock had once claimed he rejected wholesale. The change in him was small, but it was permanent.

"You don't have to wear it. I just thought--you should see it," he finished lamely.

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"You pinched a button off a girl's bag," John said, with a slightly nervous sounding giggle. "I didn't know if you saw...I suppose you did." He took a deep breath.

"It wasn't me who started it, but I couldn't...bring myself to go through with the lie. To tell the truth, I'd almost forgotten about these..." He smiled.

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"I hadn't."

It was a poor substitute for "I love you". Sherlock wanted to say it, wanted it badly--but this was someone else's house, and the very small emotional part of him shied away at sharing such an intimate feeling in a strange place. Instead he lifted a hand, awkwardly, and curled it around John's wrist.

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John used his free hand to covertly wipe his eyes. He looked up at Sherlock and smiled.

"Thank you," he said, softly. "It's...it was a bad time, but knowing you saw really..." he couldn't go on.

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"No. No. Thank you."

He shifted in his chair, and then very carefully moved his hand from John's wrist to his face: a brief, uncertain touch, but a warm one all the same.

"And don't--dribble, all right? We made it to coffee, it'll be a disgrace if everything goes to hell now." The remark was nowhere near his usual level of acid or sharpness--in fact it was almost gentle. Or at least as gentle as Sherlock Holmes could ever get.

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John laughed aloud at that. "Then don't give me things that make me into a teenage girl," he said, turning and giving Sherlock's hand a gentle peck.

"Let's go in the living room, or they'll come find us here and Harry will be unbearable."

He reverently closes the box and tucks it into his pocket, patting it safely into position.

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"Wait."

It was still uncomfortable, but--it was a gesture, and his work had taught him that most people needed things translated for them through metaphors and gestures on a regular basis. Show, don't tell, Lestrade had shouted at him once when he was thinking aloud at a crime scene; he'd always thought that a surprisingly scientific approach on Lestrade's part.

He leaned in and kissed John, quick and soft.

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"Hopeless romantic," John grins, leaning in closer-

"John!" Harry shouts, "How long are you two going to make out in there before joining the rest of us?"

John cringed, but leaned in for a quick reciprocal kiss before taking Sherlock's hand.

"She'll come in here next, and frankly, we don't deserve that."

[punchmeitssubtext]

"No," Sherlock agreed, and got to his feet, tugging John with him. "She's... a lot like her blog comments," he added, which was pretty much a subtler way of saying I want to put her and Mycroft in a cage and see who makes it out alive.

"Uncle John," Susan shouted from the living room, "you're going to miss all the presents! And you have to tell us a story, you always tell us a story!"

"If you tell them about Baskerville I'm calling a cab back to the train station," Sherlock muttered.

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"Yes, Sherlock, I'll tell them I willingly continue to live with a man who has been known to slip hallucinogens into my coffee," John muttered.

"Susan," he called, as they stepped into the living room. "If you'd hand me the package in green, you'll find the red one under it is for you--" he'd hardly finished his sentence before the package zoomed to his hands, brought by a child-sized blur.

"Happy Christmas," he said, handing the package to Sherlock.

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"But it wasn't even--oh." Sherlock blinked down at it. "You didn't have to--"

"Open it, open it!" Susan cried, attaching herself to his leg. Apparently she'd forgotten her Uncle John's advice about being gentle. "And come sit by me! Daddy says you went to Buckingham Palace, I want to hear about it!"

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"Susan, lovely, Sherlock can't sit down if you've got his leg hostage," John said, trying without success to pry her off. He gave up after one or two half-hearted tugs.

"Of course I got you a present. It's Christmas," he said. "Dunno if you like it, but I know you like useful things..."

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"Well. I could--" He moved, somewhat stiffly and still supporting the little girl's weight, to lean against an armchair. Several of the adults chuckled appreciatively; Susan herself let out a delighted giggle. "There. Not quite sitting, but it'll do. Oh--and John, like I said. In the bag, near the bottom with the violin, that's yours. And pass your father the one in the silver paper."

Okay, so a copy of Freakonomics personally annotated by Sherlock Holmes might be a really weird Christmas present, but it wasn't like he'd ever bought presents for anything approaching in-laws before.

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"Open your present!" Susan chided, "Uncle John won't tell stories until you do!" John shook his head. His tiny cousins were nothing if not persistent.

"Ta, Sherlock," Mr. Watson said, surprised. "How did you know--" he stopped, and then laughed uproariously.

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"What?" Sherlock stopped midway through unwrapping his present, eyes slightly narrowed in confusion. "Something wrong?"

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John's father gave him a very sympathetic look, one that clearly said I am proud of you and whatever autistic boyfriend you choose to bring home, before reaching over and patting Sherlock on the hand.

"Erm, he just means," John cut in, quickly, "you seem to know everything, so we shouldn't be surprised at this point. Open your present, Susan might burst."

[punchmeitssubtext]

"Oh. Well--no, like I said, it's really just a matter of training yourself to look at things. And in any case--"

He'd finally managed to get the package open, and when he realized just what the sleek headphones inside were for, his face softened with a genuine smile.

"Now that," he said, "is brilliant."

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Susan wriggled gleefully, only releasing Sherlock's leg to clap her hands. Finally, the her uncle's strange boyfriend had smiled!

John flushed pink. "I just thought, you know, when you're trying to work a case and Anderson won't shut up," he said, breathlessly. "Be best to just tune him out."

[punchmeitssubtext]

"That's fantastic. Exactly what I need--this'll be a huge help."

Without really thinking about it, he moved back to John and hugged him, right there in front of his family, God, and everyone.

Apparently the way to Sherlock's heart was through his disdain for other human beings.

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"I'm gl--- oooohff," John groaned, taken by surprise. He happily wrapped his arms around Sherlock in return, making a rude gesture at Harry, who was sniggering. "John!" his mother admonished, and Susan shrieked with glee.

"See, not all bad," John whispered.

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"Oh, shut up," Sherlock replied at the same volume, but the tension was more or less gone from his thin shoulders and his voice. The smile hadn't faded when he pulled back. "This, really--we work with this complete idiot sometimes, one of those people you just want to give a good hard smack whenever he starts talking. I think John's just solved that problem."

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Harry made kissing noises, while Susan covered her face (either in disgust or excitement, it was difficult to tell).

"Well, you can use it to ignore Anderson all you like, but if you don't hear me call for breakfast I'll come find you and drag you down by the ear," John murmured.

[punchmeitssubtext]

"Well, hang on, let's give it a try--"

He slipped the headphones on, and almost immediately his face relaxed into an expression of pure bliss. With one source of outside stimuli muffled, his mind had far less clutter to sort through.

"Should we try calling him for breakfast, dear?" Mrs Watson asked, a touch impishly.

[fighting_northumerland]

"There's no point, he's lost to us," John sighed. He would normally be put off by the trouble Sherlock's new toy was bound to cause, but not...when he looks so happy.

"Only one way to be sure, though," he leaned in close and shouted "Sherlock! PANCAKES!"