In Christmases past, Sherlock has given him practical things, interesting things. Books, scarves, a new alarm clock for his bedroom when his old one started to get fussy around the snooze button. Last year he’d gotten him a pass to an underground, top secret shooting range, so he could practice with his gun and a couple of other firearms, in exchange for five solid favours for Mycroft. John had taught Sherlock how to stand and shoot, correcting his stance with a hand on his shoulder and on his hip, and the silence in the empty shooting range had been deafening, and three days later John had gone to Sherlock’s parents’ house and pretended to forgive his wife.
That’s over now, Sherlock reminds himself fiercely. Over and done. This Christmas is different. This Christmas they are different. This will be the first Christmas since John had kissed Sherlock months ago, so gentle and cautious and hopeful, in the rain outside 221B, the day he’d come home for good. I’m sorry we had to wait so long, John had said, God, I’m so sorry, I feel like we’ve waited forever.
So it has to be perfect. He wants John to feel like the wait was worth it. He wants John to know that he’d have waited longer, as long as it took, that he’d have waited forever, for John.
What do you give a person when you want to give them the rest of your life?
And Sherlock stands there, in the middle of a Christmas market as John hums along to Silent Night, John’s hand warm in his with fingertips a little gritty from the cinnamon-sugar doused churros they’d shared, and thinks, oh, that’s–that’s an idea, isn’t it?