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“Here. Happy Christmas.”
Sherlock drops a cube-shaped box wrapped immaculately—indeed, luxuriously—in tastefully glittering paper with wide, soft, gilt-edged ribbon onto their shared footstool. John and Greg are drinking the last of their Christmas cheer, beside the little fire, and either could be the cause of the pink in their cheeks and at the tips of their ears. They bought a little tree in a pot and set it on the big table in the sitting room. Beneath it are a few recently-opened gifts they’ve given each other: cigars, whisky, a wristwatch, a beautiful pen, cashmere cardigans with leather covered buttons (three, in muted jeweltones, an in-joke, but a properly lovely one, in the end), an antique money clip, a book of Victorian memorial photographs.
“What’s this, then?” Greg sets aside his almost-empty glass and shifts forward to the edge of his chair. Sherlock settles into his own. John’s eyebrows are up.
The tag, written upon in Sherlock’s unmistakable chemistry-student-precise block printing, says, For Us, From SH.
“Too pretty to wreck; we’ll just put it on display,” John suggests.
“Open it,” Sherlock scolds, nose wrinkled, offended.
“All right, all right,” Greg laughs. He and John each pick a tail of the elaborate bow on top and pull; the ribbon falls away like liquid. Greg gathers the satiny ribbon in long, loose loops that rest over his knee. “I’ve an idea for this,” he says slyly, and Sherlock’s entire posture goes a bit liquid as well, forgiving them for whatever slight he’d perceived in the preceding moments.
“Ho, ho, ho,” John puts in, “Tidings of discomfort and joy!” and slides fingers beneath the edges of the thick paper to free the sellotape. There is a very satisfying ripping sound as the paper gives up the ghost. An unremarkable, brown paperboard box sealed with a bit more sellotape, and Greg folds back the flaps. They both dip hands in, dig, grasp, and withdraw.
“Socks?” John looks amused and stumped. Greg looks vaguely worried.
“Four dozen, all the same. No mating them up, no need for His and His and His drawers in the chest,” Sherlock explains. “I anticipate having a communal collection will save us roughly fifty minutes per month we would have otherwise devoted to pairing, sorting, and delivery to various storage areas.”
John grins; Greg barks a laugh, half-rises from his chair just far enough to kiss Sherlock’s temple. Sherlock closes his eyes like a contented cat.
“Watson,” Greg says conspiratorially, “I suddenly find myself with an unaccounted-for hour on my hands. Any ideas what we could do to fill it?”
“At least a dozen,” John confirms.
None of them complain that their hour runs quite a bit over, leaving them in a panting, smiling heap in the earliest hours of Boxing Day.