All I Want for Christmas Is...
Squealing Santa 2022
Moriarty The Patriot - Sherlock x William
A/N: Merry Christmas @italeean!! I’m your @squealing-santa this year, hehe, are you surprised? As much as I want you to have an amazing holiday, I hope you enjoy this fic and that it ended up like you wanted~
Also, I’d like to thank @hypahticklish for being an amazing host and for all the hard work! Wish you a Merry Christmas as well!
Summary: While decorating the house for Christmas, Sherlock notices something is off and helps William cheer up ~
Sherlock pressed his eyes close before slowly opening them, blinking a few times as he tried to adjust his sight to the dim brightness of the room. The detective shifted his position on the couch, moving his body under the blanket as he tried to get a glimpse of what surrounded him.
He had spent another night in William’s place. After managing to find him and make contact with the professor once again, visiting him was almost a habit of his by now. However, due the distance between the two of them, he would end up having to stay overnight before going back to England and, as an excuse to stay at the professor’s place, he would always claim to forget booking a room in a local hotel or inn.
This time, in particular, he was staying way longer than just a few days. All under the saying that “no one should spend Christmas alone” and making sure the blonde would understand that also applied to him.
As he sat down on the couch, Sherlock scratched the back of his head, trying to understand the scene around William's living room. Boxes and bags all over the place, some opened and empty, some still closed. He moved his head from one side to the other, scanning the place and, then, he spotted it: a tall and fairly large Christmas tree standing next to one of the corners of the room.
Were all these boxes and the tree enough to make him question what was going on, Sherlock stopped the professor, sitting next to the tree while he slowly hung small decorations on the lower branches, humming a song as his fingers carefully did the work.
“Liam?” Sherlock muttered shocked, doubting the reality before his eyes. Regardless of his surprise, the detective couldn’t help but smile as the blonde looked at him for a moment, staring at him for a few seconds before looking back at the tree again.
“I see you are already awake, my friend,” William commented, trying to feign ignorance and acting like Sherlock wasn’t glaring at the scene as an excited puppy.
“And I thought you didn’t like Christmas,” the other continued, not paying attention to the attempt of changing the topic and starting to inspect the work he had already done on some other branches, gently moving his hand between the decorations. William, on the other side, tried to keep his reactions low, but a proud smile managed to slip through his control, already feeling praised by Sherlock’s awe.
Taking a moment before looking up, William waited for Sherlock to finish the inspections before speaking. “I never said I didn’t like Christmas, I just told you I wasn’t going to do anything just for myself,” the professor lowered his eye, looking at the snowman decoration he had between his fingers, carefully pulling the string to hang it on the tree, “but since you don’t seem to be leaving anytime soon, I thought it would be a good idea to prepare something.”
“Hah, well, I’m impressed, Liam,” Sherlock chuckled, “maybe surprised would be a better definition. When did you have time to prepare all that?”
“Oh, don’t you waste your flattering words on me, it’s not like it’s ready. In fact, I started setting it up not long ago. I had to be careful to not be noisy and end up waking you up,” he added, picking another decoration up and, then, choosing a branch to place it.
That sentence made a pinch of embarrassment spark inside Sherlock for some reason, but the detective quickly shrugged it off, deciding to join his friend. The detective walked away for a second and reached for one of the closed boxes, opening it with ease before bringing it back with him, closer to the tree. “Let me help you, then,” Sherlock muttered, picking up one of the decorations.
As if expecting this kind of behavior from the other, the blonde simply smiled and remained quiet. ‘Predictable’, he thought to himself, now getting on his knees instead of sitting down on the floor, so he could reach some higher places.
The two men continued to work in a comfortable silence. Other than a few words such as “can you toss that to me?” or “can you hold this for me?”. the two of them didn’t say much to each other while that simple tree slowly became a Christmas one.
As they were closer to finishing the decorations, Sherlock decided to try to break the ice again and start another conversation with William. “Is it the first time you decorate a tree like this?”
“Of course not,” the blonde muttered, looking at the detective with the corner of his eyes. “When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to do this every year. Decorate the tree, the house… even write letters and leave cookies for Santa. Albert insisted that we should keep decorating our place each year, so I suppose they might have done it this year too.”
“It must’ve been adorable,” Sherlock muttered, with an amused smile on his face.
“I beg your pardon?” William said back, a hint of a mischievous intention in his voice, as if he wanted to make the other aware that he was loud enough for him to hear his words.
“You, Liam,” but, much to the professor’s surprise, his words didn’t make the detective take his statement back or flustered him in any way. In fact, it only made him shamelessly complete the sentence, “you, as a kid, must have been adorable.”
William looked away after the compliment, avoiding eye contact with the other man as he finished hanging the last decoration. The action didn’t pass unnoticed to Sherlock, who raised his eyebrows in surprise.
With the last piece in place, William took a few steps back to admire the tree, from the bottom to the top.
“There is one thing left to do,” Sherlock said, breaking the silence and already standing next to William, with a golden star in his hands, waiting for the professor to pick it up. And so he did.
After approaching the tree and getting on the tip of his toes, he carefully moved his arms up, using both hands to slowly place the star on top of the tree. Such a simple act, yet, so many memories came back to his head at that moment.
The sight of him and his brothers playing together, opening up the gifts… for a moment, a sad smile took place in William’s face. And that slight and small act didn’t go unnoticed. Thanks to Sherlock, the peace and nostalgic feeling of that moment didn’t last long.
Before William could process, a pair of hands climbed up from his sides to his ribs, making the blonde shoot his arms down in reflex to the feeling.
“Come on, you should be happy, we did it! Why aren’t you smiling, Liam? ~” Sherlock spoke, louder than he probably should, before bringing William down to the floor with him as his fingers tweaked and poked his ribs.
“Shehe-Sherlohock!! WhahAHat- nohOho, lehehet go!” William protested, trying to somehow get a hold on the detective’s wrists, jumping and squirming on top of the other’s lap like a live fish out of the water. What an embarrassing sight, he thought while giggles kept coming out of his mouth.
But the detective gladly ignored the request, trying to press his fingers a little to move in between each bone, moving one leg over Willian’s to keep the other in place as he continued to tickle him. “Oh please, isn’t this better than keeping frowning all the time?”
Sherlock had to be careful to not get hit as William threw his head back in laughter, but smiled fondly when he noticed how the professor was slowly stopping to resist, letting a more carefree laugh while one of the detective’s hands traveled down to tickle his side again.
“I wahAHahasn’t f-frohow- ahaha, plehehease!” The blonde cried out, pressing his arms against his torso as much as he could to try to stop Sherlock from moving his fingers further up. He greeted his teeth in an attempt to hold his laughter, turning his face away from the detective. “E-enohOHohough!”
“I’m not sure… For me, you still look kind of sad, look, you even have watery eyes,” he teased, having to pull William back into his lap as the other was almost managing to squirm away. Once he was back into his reach, the detective brought both his hands back to the blonde’s stomach, resuming to tickle him.
“I’m n-not sahaAHad!” William protested, but all he could hear was a little chuckle coming from behind and not a single sign that the tickling was about to stop.
Sherlock’s fingers eventually managed to find their way inside William’s shirt, gently dragging his nails over the skin of his lower stomach and, consequently, melting the other into a puddle of renewed laughter.
As the minutes passed by, a reddish tone took over the professor’s face, lacking strength to keep squirming and fighting back. Also aware of these details, Sherlock did his part and eased the tickling, leaving the other lightly giggling on his lap.
“I’m not sure… if this is the right thing to say”, Sherlock broke the “silence”, tilting his head to look at William and moving his hands away, “but I’m glad to be able to spend this time with you, I mean… by ourselves.”
“Despite your peculiarities,” William chuckled at his ironic comment, sitting down and taking a deep breath before continuing, “I’m thankful for having you here. But it’s still a shame that I didn’t have time to look for a proper gift,” he muttered, looking at the detective and smiling.
The last part earned another laugh from Sherlock, who shook his head and approached him, pulling him into a hug, “Oh, please, that’s easy. All I want for Christmas is… you, Liam”, he finished, with a cheeky smile.
“Where did that even come from?” The blonde giggled, slowly wrapping his arms around the other.
“From a song I heard somewhere… Merry Christmas, Liam.”
“Merry Christmas, Sherlock.”
