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It’s only the 2nd of December, but anyone would think Christmas was right around the corner with the way stores and shops were forcing the Christmas spirit down everyone’s throats.
But John supposed they had a point. ’Tis the season to be jolly, after all.
And 221B Baker Street was anything but jolly.
Macabre, if anything.
“Right.” John stood with his hands fisted at his sides, looking down at Sherlock’s elongated, prone form on the couch. “It’s bloody Christmas and we are going to celebrate the holiday whether you want to or not.”
“I am aware it’s Christmas, John.” Sherlock kept his eyes closed as he answered, fingertips pressing against the delicate skin under his jaw in a mock prayer.
“Sure you are.” John didn’t quite believe him. The way Sherlock looked at the decorations being set up mid-November in the stores that were probably a bit too eager suggested that he was anything but aware that Christmas was fast approaching. No, he probably was aware. Sherlock most likely just didn’t care for the holiday at all so was constantly deleting all the Christmas propaganda from his Mind Palace daily, so that the shock of red and green had Sherlock consulting his internal calendar to assess what fresh hall of a holiday was upon them every time. Much to John’s amusement. There was nothing quite like watching that confused dimple of skin between Sherlock’s eyebrows as he had to go down into the bowels of his Mind Palace to try and relate to what others would consider obvious and ordinary.
But that was beside the point.
Their flat had only gotten a mere sprinkle of tinsel and a sad looking plastic wreath in the past. It was time to expand their Christmas decoration collection a bit and join in with the most of the world in celebrating the birth of Christ.
Which meant falling victim to commercialism and spending money on shiny decorations and ornaments that were only up for a month a year.
And he might as well start making a Christmas decoration collection he could expand on. John could see himself living with Sherlock for quite a few years to come, hopefully, all going well and baby Jesus permitting, so this would be the year they started embracing Christmas.
“I want to decorate the flat. The tree, wreath, tinsel, lights, the works. And I’ll do it with or without you, but it will be done. No, you know what? You’re going to come with me. We are going to do this together because that’s what flatmates do.”
“One flatmate forces the other flatmate into a completely unnecessary trip to Tesco’s to clear them of their tinsel and baubles?” Sherlock opened just one eye to watch John’s reaction.
“Yup. So go get your coat on.”
“What could possibly make you think that I’m just going to get up and let you haul me around London to embrace a commercial holiday I don’t even believe in?” Sherlock scrunched his eyes shut and frowned blindly up at the ceiling.
“Because if you don’t,” John’s smirk was both triumphant and utterly evil. “I’ll go out and buy a CD of Christmas carols and give it to Mrs. Hudson as an early Christmas present and then insist that she play the entire CD on repeat as loud as her stereo can go so that by the end of the day your entire Mind Palace is going to be ringing with the sounds of Christmas…”
“Fine!” Sherlock stood up in a flourishing strop, dramatically flinging his coat on and stuffing his hands into his leather gloves, the scarf joining the rest of his attire in an equally melodramatic fashion.
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“Wouldn’t it make more sense to buy the tree first to determine how many decorations can be reasonably spaced out onto said tree?” Sherlock cringed at the cacophony of thankfully motionless dancing Santas.
A small child who obviously has a death wish upon them ran down the aisle and looked up at all of the miniature Saint Nick’s in wonder. Sherlock glared at the kid, already knowing what was going to happen before the horrific event occurred. The hateful child turned its head around and looked up the length of Sherlock’s tall body in wonder of a human growing so big, Sherlock just knowing that some stupid little notion was being imprinted into its little subconscious about growing as tall as that tall man one day. Idiotic. The child was headless of Sherlock’s glare and set about pressing the button of every little fat man in red then ran off in a fit of giggles as Sherlock drowned in a cacophony of various Christmas carols.
And bloody John had the audacity to tune the dancing fat bastards out.
“Reasonably spaced out?” John looked up at Sherlock, brows furrowed in confusion before they relaxed in comprehension. “You had one of those immaculate show-home trees growing up, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. John could see the Holmes’ tree in his mind’s eye. A perfectly decorated tree that was dual colour themed, the colours changing every year depending on what was fashionable. The kind of tree that looked pretty in a catalogue but vaguely depressing in person. The kind of tree that lacked any sort of hand made ornament that children made at elementary school to bring proudly home to their parents. Like the little paper angles Harry had been obsessed in making, each one adorned with a glittery halos and wings, wearing various brightly coloured dresses with different glittery patterns on them. John had preferred making the sculpted ornaments. The one that always came up in his memory was a clay candy cane that looked more like leg cast because it was huge and he’d put the hook in the wrong end when he made it so it could only hang upside down and looked like a grey leg boot.
“Mummy wanted the tree to be perfect.” There’s a slight hitch to Sherlock’s voice that probably hints that he had tried to help with the decorations once, and was promptly denied in the name of perfection.
“There’s no limit to the amount of decorations that you can put on a tree, Sherlock. You just stop when the tree feels right or you run out of decorations to hang, or what has proved to be the case a couple of years for me personally, the tree runs out of available branches.”
John choked on his laughter at the look of sheer horror on Sherlock’s face at the thought of a completely overstuffed Christmas tree.
“So, if you see something you like, just put it in the cart. We have to go pick up a real tree later on anyway, so let’s get all of the decorations sorted now.”
“We will not be getting a real tree. They make me sneeze, and my eyes go puffy, and everything itches, and… just, no.”
“Alright. No real trees. A synthetic one then.”
As John craned his head to look around the department store to try and find where the synthetic trees were displayed, Sherlock looked around at all of the absolutely, horribly, and horrifically plastic decorations and baubles that seemed to be mocking him with their cheapness.
A pair of children appeared in the aisle and looked up with anticipation at the now motionless dancing Santas. Before they could instigate what promised to be a debilitating Christmas fuelled migraine, Sherlock grabbed John by the upper arm and hauled him out if the department store.
“Sherlock… Sherlock, what the hell?!” John spluttered as Sherlock pulled him out onto one of London’s main streets, the frigid winter air making John’s shoulders bunch up by his uncovered ears.
“If we are going to suffer through the commercial holiday that is Christmas, then I want to do it properly.” He took off down the street at a brisk pace, hearing John swear before jogging to catch up. Sherlock took them into one of those stores that only open before Christmas to sell overpriced, ornate decorations, train sets, nativity sets, a variation in lights so vast that it actually becomes unnecessary, and synthetic trees that look very much like a real Christmas tree, with the price tag to prove it.
“Sherlock, we can’t afford to get everything from here. We can get a couple baubles, maybe, but…”
Sherlock cuts him off with a flourish on his hand reaching into his coat pocket to pull out a Black AmEx, turning it around so John can see the raised letters spelling out a brief, and totally pompous, “M Holmes”.
“Sherlock, we can’t…”
“Think of it as his Christmas present to us.” Sherlock smirked.
“Mycroft is going to kill us…”
“Fear not, John. I imagine anything we spend today will just be taken out of my trust fund because Mycroft’s a dick like that.”
“You have a trust fund? Of course you have a trust fund. Why wouldn’t you have one? You’re a bloody Holmes, which means trust funds…”
“Come now, John. Let’s indulge in the very reason that this is a commercial holiday.”
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John stepped out of the store the moment Sherlock started haphazardly stacking things into their trolley. He’d only managed to place an absolutely stunning porcelain auburn angel with a golden dress into their trolley before the guilt had gotten to him from seeing the frankly enormous collection of ornaments and fucking lights, did Sherlock want to see their flat from space? But the tree topper was a sacred tradition in the Watson household and John didn’t think that Sherlock deserved the right to decide on the beauty that would top their tree. That and John had a thing for red heads, and that angel was just so beautiful…
And that didn’t even include the bloody tree, which Sherlock had told John he would pick out, and John just couldn’t handle the thought of how much a plastic tree would cost in a place like that, so removed himself from the situation by breathing in crisp air that was so cold it burned his lungs, trying to not think about the bill.
Don’t think about the bill.
Think of anything.
But.
The bill.
Sherlock came prancing out of the store with five over stuffed, environmentally friendly bags, handing three to John and wearing a smirk so large all John could see was the Grinch with curly dark hair and a turned up coat collar.
The bill must have been enormous.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Because there was more. So much more. And John doubted the tree was broken down into these five bags.
“It’s being delivered this evening. They tried to tell me that tomorrow was the earliest they could drop everything off, but a substation tip made them able to bring everything around this evening.”
“You didn’t.” John was mortified. Mycroft was going to brutally murder them. Trust fund or not.
“John, I think I love Christmas.”
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The moment the door to their flat was closed and all of the bags were placed on top of the coffee table, Sherlock’s phone pinged with the arrival of a text.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” John looked down at the five bags guiltily.
Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pocket and smirked as he notified John of the message’s contents. “Mycroft wishes us a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and says that the entirety of our little festive shopping trip is coming out of my trust fund except for the wreath that was bought for Mrs. Hudson, he’s claiming that as his early gift to her. Oh, and the credit card we used…”
“You stole.” John corrected.
“Has now been cancelled and he would appreciate if I’d keep out of his things.” Sherlock finished with a proud look over his purchases. “Go give Mrs. Hudson the wreath while I begin on the decorations.”
“Don’t overload the circuit boards.” John warned, taking an actual fresh-made wreath, not something made out of plastic leaves and old pinecones, out of one of the bags.
“That was one time, John…”
“It only needs to be one time when you kill the power in the whole bloody street.”
“Just take the wreath to Mrs. Hudson.”
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John ended up getting sucked into a conversation about how lovely and polite Mycroft is and if only Sherlock could learn a thing or two from his elder brother. He kindly reminded their landlady that Mycroft had told her to shut up, to which Mrs. Hudson had simply tutted that not everybody was perfect.
She loved the wreath though, and would have hung it outside on the front door but was too afraid of some kid coming up and nicking it, so John helped her hang it on her flat’s front door instead.
Several fruit mince pies later found John struggling up the stairs with a full stomach muttering about how he should get Sherlock to test and see if there was some illegal substance in mince pies that made them so addictive.
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The delivery truck arrived later that night, and Sherlock bounded excitedly down the stairs to meet it with John yelling behind him about broken ankles.
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Christmas had officially thrown up in their flat.
There was red and gold tinsel wrapped around the railing of the banister to the stairs, those twinkling gold lights running down the support beams for the railing. John had put a small Santa hat on the skull, Sherlock running the intended effect by stuffing red tinsel in its eye sockets. The cow skull had a wreath around its neck and silver tinsel wrapped around its headphones. Little ornaments covered every available flat surface, ranging from hand carved wooden nut crackers to delicate glass snowflakes. Anything that protruded slightly was met with icicle fairy lights, John having to constantly remove the ones over the fireplace due to them being a colossal safety hazard. And anything that looked even a bit bare had tinsel tacked to it.
John felt like he was crammed into Santa’s workshop. The one Santa abandoned because even this was a bit much for him.
The tree, thick and lush and not looking like it was made of plastic at all, dominated their living room.
And Sherlock had taken John’s comment about ‘no such thing as over decorating a Christmas tree’ to heart and absorbed all of John’s previous tree-decorating tips like a sponge.
The lights went around the tree first, both regular white lights that dimmed softly in a golden twinkly matter and bright colourful lights that flashed along to Christmas carols that came from a little green speaker at the end of the cord. The gold beads went on next. Followed by the gold tinsel. Then it was an attack of the baubles, in various shades of red, orange, gold and silver. The occasional glass ornament shone from what little of the actual tree could be seen.
All in all, it looked like a kid had decorated the tree, and the flat, with everything from an old cardboard box labelled XMAS.
John loved it.
They had put the angel up together. John would have done it himself, but he supposed that this was Sherlock’s first Christmas to really get excited about, so he had held the base of the top of the tree as Sherlock gingerly lowered the beautiful porcelain angel down onto it, making sure she was secure before stepping back to admire his work.
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It wasn’t until John was sitting in his armchair, Sherlock in his own armchair looking at the tree lost deep in thought, the fire popping away in its hearth that John really took in the decorations that Sherlock had chosen.
Everything was either red, orange, gold or silver. And it all sparkled and gleamed in a way that John just knew was going to give him a headache at some point soon.
It reminded him of being a little kid, helping his family put decorations on the tree. His mother would tell them stories of mythical creature and old Scottish lore as John would pass baubles to Harry and tell her where to put them because he was too short to actually put them anywhere significant on the tree. He always liked the red decorations and his mother had smiled and accused him of being a mermaid.
“My dear John is a mermaid! How could this be?” His mum had been dramatic and put the back of her hand against her forehead, over acting as she slumped back into a chair.
“I’m not a mermaid, Mum!” John had giggled.
“But you must be! Mermaids love shiny red things. Orange and yellow too. It reminds them of the sun when they are deep in the seas.”
John had kicked his feet up into the air and wagged his legs about, giggling the whole time. “I’ve got legs, not a tail. I can’t be a mermaid!”
“I suppose you’re right. Thank goodness!” Then she had scooped him up in her arms, Harry in their dad’s and they had put the hand-made paper angel that Harry had made at school on the top of the tree together.
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John looked back over the Christmas explosion that was now their living room then studied Sherlock for a bit before speaking.
“You’d tell me if you weren’t human, aye, Sherlock?”
Sherlock turned to face him slowly, an eyebrow raised in response to the question that had seemingly come from nowhere. “Should I ever appear to be anything other than what I am I will inform you of such lies personally.”
“...” John squinted at Sherlock, not trusting the ‘man’ for a second. That statement could mean he was both a mermaid and so obviously so that if John was missing all of the obvious signals then it was his own fault, or that he was just a man and John was reading far too deeply into things.
John swore to begin mer surveillance first thing tomorrow.