John woke on Christmas to an armful of Sherlock Holmes. The detective’s very long limbs were tangled around his clunky body, trapping the doctor within their proximity. After attempting to wait until Sherlock woke himself (he hadn’t had much of sleep lately, no matter the effort John put into it), he fidgeted his way out of the maze…and accidentally roused Sherlock in the process.

John was just out the door when the detective mumbled a “Morning” into his pillow. He grinned to himself, said “Merry Christmas”, and closed the door behind him. Tea sounded excellent at this early hour, if ten in the morning would be considered early. It was to him today, anyway.

Sherlock stumbled into the kitchen a whiles later, hair a jumbled, chaotic mess and eyes fairly glazed over with sleep. He hardly did reacted when John handed over a mug with chilled tea—just meandered his way over to the couch where he brought his knees up to his chest and rested the cup amazingly there.  

John sat in his chair opposing the detective, now finished with his drink, and skimmed the paper. Missing person here, job offers there… nothing really of substance for a case. Maybe, if he were lucky, Lestrade would arrive that night with not only a gift, but also a Christmas miracle: a case. Sherlock hadn’t had one in weeks surprisingly. Usually the holiday season was filled with them.

Sherlock eventually came to his wits, and, after slurping his drink very loudly, said, “Isn’t it customary to open gifts now? Isn’t that what normal people do?”

“I suppose, but then again I don’t think we are normal in most people’s eyes.”

Sherlock made some sort of noise, but it was muffled while he drank his tea.

“You said, on the blog, that you know what I’ve gotten for you,” John stated as he dropped the paper onto his lap, “is that true?”

Sherlock nodded and then took another drag from his tea.

“Then is there an actual point in me giving it to you?”

Sherlock’s head darted upwards and he scrabbled to keep his drink from spilling. His eyes shot up with electricity as he talked and his lips couldn’t help but to twitch into their half-sided smirk. “The laptop charger is a necessity if you’d like me to stop using yours since I’ve…destroyed… my own. The petri dishes, seeing that all of my own are currently` occupied, will also come into good use. And the new Cluedo board is mostly for your enjoyment. I’m not too fond of its rules, but because you are overly sentimental, I’ll accept it graciously.”

John swallowed and rubbed at his temple. “Why did I even wrap them?” he said weakly to himself.

“You’re a man of tradition,” Sherlock responded, barely able to take a sip of tea with his arrogant grin stretching the course of his marbled skin.

John watched him for a moment. Sherlock was quite brilliantly molded—with his forest of warming brown curls, to his eyes that never seemed to be the same color—Sherlock was engrossing to look at. Almost addicting.

John caught himself gawking and cleared his throat. “You’re lucky I’m fond of you,” he said, shaking his head, a grin now appearing on his own lips, “or else I would never put up with this rubbish.”

“You put up with it before you were fond of me.”

“I put up with you because there was a murderer on the loose and I had nowhere else to say, mind you.”

Sherlock chuckled.

Eventually John brought out his gifts and Sherlock acted surprised when he opened them, making dramatic ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s during stubborn moments for the full effect. Once he was done, and his computer was successfully charging next to John’s, he disappeared to their room. Sherlock didn’t emerge for a few minutes.

When he returned, he carried a small package in his hands. His gift was also wrapped—his gift was in green paper and topped with a red, velvet bow. And, in a swift flick of the wrist, he tossed it to John. Sherlock seated himself next to the, his legs spilling over John’s lap in the process. The poor man had such long legs. John couldn’t imagine having to deal with their length so often. But, then again, he assumed Sherlock hardly noticed it.

John tore opening the paper slowly—almost to make what was inside more of a surprise. What would Sherlock give to someone? A bag of intestines? An alphabetized collection of dust varieties? Having now revealed what was inside, John found that Sherlock hadn’t given him any of those things, but instead a small, leather-back journal.

“It was mine,” he explained, fingers resting on his chest as it rose and fell progressively. “I wrote in it when I was dead. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to show it to you and somehow giving it to you now felt most logical. I thought you would be less… despondent if I gave it to today rather than any time earlier.”

John peeled back the cover and discovered Sherlock’s messy scrawl suffocating the pages. He went on from writing things about minor cases he was working on, entries of his thoughts, to a small essay on honeybees near the back. Some of the notes—actually, most of them—consisted of thoughts about John. Sherlock went on about how he was worried for John’s health, scribbles about John’s personality, speculations as to what he might have been doing at that exact moment, and to descriptions of John’s appearance and habits (some of which John didn’t know he had until reading them…did he really curse that often?).

John glanced up from the journal, gaped at the detective for a minute, and then pressed his lips into a line. “Sherlock,” he breathed, eyes wild with life.

Sherlock slipped off the couch and strode to his desk. His fingers fumbled through a stack of paper as he spoke. “I didn’t expect you to like it, just thought you’d want to have it. You’ll have more use of it than I will.”

“No,” he said sternly while shaking his head. He over-pronounced the ‘N’. “No. This is fine, Sherlock. Great, actually. It means a lot to think that you thought of me this much while we were separated. This is perfect.”

Sherlock’s grief stricken face quickly darted to suppressed glee as a smile cracked through his lips. He looked up from the mess. “Is this where I’m compelled to wish you a Merry Christmas?”

“Not essentially.”

John stood up from the couch and walked to where Sherlock was. He threaded his arms around the detective’s torso. “Merry Christmas, you git.”

Sherlock chuckled and pressed his mouth to the top of John’s head. “And a happy New Year,” he added while a smile wound its way to his lips.