Warnings: Contains angst and multiple references to alcohol abuse.
Author's Notes: Written for sabrinaphynn for fandom_stocking 2012. Set from sometime just after the series begins until after The Reichenbach Fall. This is pre-slash, but the emotion is still definitely there.
The very first Christmas after John returned from Afghanistan apparently wasn't destined to be one of his better holiday experiences, despite his best hopes and intentions.
"Christmas," Sherlock repeated back at him blandly. As rare as it was for John to be a step up on him, in this case Sherlock actually sounded like he hadn't a clue what John could possibly be blathering on about; as if 'Christmas' was a completely foreign concept to him.
John wondered whether this was one of those basic things that Sherlock had deleted from his brain because he had determined it to ultimately be useless data. He tried to view it from Sherlock's point of view (not a particularly easy task, he had to admit): all those smiling children, the food and merriment, the spirit of giving... yes, John could see how a man like Sherlock might possibly class it all as irrelevant.
"Yes. It's a holiday –" John started to explain.
"Obviously I know what Christmas is, John," Sherlock interrupted. "I'm only wondering why you'd be interested in celebrating it. Apart from a one-off appeal to a higher power when you were on the verge of death – which you have to admit barely counts in the grand scheme – you're hardly a religious man."
For a moment, John thought to question how Sherlock even knew that, given that he was so up in his own head most of the time when he wasn't on a case that he probably wouldn't even notice John regularly pulling out a bible or even ducking out of the flat for a few hours every Sunday. If he asked, though, John would only earn himself a disdainful look and some remark about how it was so glaringly obvious from the state of his sleeves or the wear on his shoes that even the average three year old could have puzzled it out.
John might not have known Sherlock for long, but he thought he did still understand him well enough to avoid making Sherlock think John was an idiot most of the time.
"That's really not the point," he settled on saying instead.
Sherlock waved his hand impatiently. "Oh, yes, of course, you're going to tell me about all those other popular holiday traditions that have nothing to do with the actual point of the holiday, and that I should apparently be looking forward to joining in on. Perhaps I should be contacting old acquaintances I don't ever bother with just to appear polite because it's the thing to do at this time of year. Or should I throw money into overpriced gifts that the recipient doesn't even want or need? No? Then obviously I should pretend to be interested in garishly decorated gatherings full of half-stale food, cheap beverages, and people whose most fascinating thought in a typical day probably centres around whether their diet will allow them to butter their bread at lunchtime... should I even go on? Dull, dull, and more dull. You know I have no time for such inanities unless it's absolutely necessary for a case, and even then, I'd rather not bother."
"Look, come on, it's just dinner with Harry," John said. "She's got no one else this year."
"A chronic alcoholic who is otherwise alone on what's already one of the most depressing days of the year – mmm, I can see how you'd think me an indispensable companion, in those circumstances," said Sherlock sarcastically. "Is it your aim to drive her even more decisively into the bottle?"
"Well, I'm not suggesting you come along and play psychoanalyst, am I? I know it's hard for you to understand, but you don't actually have to verbally pick people to bits. You don't even have to talk directly to her. Just be there, is all."
The real reason John wanted Sherlock to come along was hardly to support Harry, anyway. Christmas was for family, and not just blood relatives either. It was one of the few Watson traditions that John had any desire to actually follow.
"No. I don't think so. Unlikely it would end well," Sherlock announced.
"You know, I'll risk it," John said.
"Oh? Would you really?" Sherlock asked, with the same kind of gleam that lit his eyes whenever Sherlock was feeling even more contrary than usual (in other words, usually whenever Mycroft was within meddling distance).
John sighed. Once Sherlock had dug his heels petulantly into the ground, there wouldn't be a single person within a mile radius that escaped his ire if he were forced to move against his will. John didn't for a moment doubt Sherlock would take it up as a challenge to make an already tense situation that much worse if John didn't drop it.
"Fine. All right. Spend Christmas holed up in your bedroom with only your violin for company, then. Do whatever you like. You always do," John muttered.
He still secretly hoped that Sherlock would, for once, choose to put someone other than himself first. But the one thing that he could say that might possibly make an impact on Sherlock wasn't something John was yet willing to risk saying aloud for fear it would be ignored, or worse, cruelly thrown back in his face:
I need you there.
Too soon for confessions like that.
It might always be too soon.
The first Christmas after Sherlock jumped off the roof of Bart's was ten times worse than John would have previously imagined a holiday ever could be. It arrived on the tail end of a week of barely sleeping between thrashing nightmares, and consequently it was spent in something of a haze. Admittedly, that was purposely helped along by John having downed enough booze as the day progressed to nearly put even Harry to shame.
The unaffected corner of his brain that he could never completely shut off – the inherent doctor in him, most likely – cried out that he was hurting himself with this cowardly behaviour; that this wasn't a road he wanted to take the first step down, for although he knew all too well where it led, he also knew how easy it would be for him to lose his way. Harry was hardly the only alcoholic his family had ever had the dubious pleasure of housing, after all.
The rest of John, though, told that part of himself to shut it for a while. It was just this one terrible, lonely day. There was no way he was getting through it without a little help, and he didn't see anyone or anything else volunteering.
Well, all right, so Mrs Hudson did keep hovering outside the door on and off throughout the day, trying to draw him out, but that hardly counted when John couldn't stand to see her pity face-to-face.
He'd rather be alone with his memories than have to submit himself to that.
If only he could really recall anything other than the sight of Sherlock plummeting towards the ground.
Don't be dead, was what John kept thinking over and over again the whole day long, like the kind of prayer Sherlock wouldn't have believed him to be capable of. Even the effects of the alcohol barely muted how tenaciously he continued repeating it.
But it was too late for that to make an actual difference.
It was too late for a lot of things now.
The first Christmas after John opened the door of 221B to find what he was half-convinced was a ghost standing on his doorstep... well. Less than a month ago he'd thought Sherlock was dead, hadn't he, and he still wasn't entirely convinced he hadn't deluded himself into creating some kind of mental fantasy world for himself. So all things considered, it was almost impossible to predict where this Christmas would end up falling along his recent sliding scale of holiday-related unpleasantness.
John didn't want to settle for being alone this Christmas, the way he'd had to be the last few years. Nor did he want to settle for being part of a crowd that Sherlock just happened to also be in as well.
No, what John desperately wanted this Christmas was to tie Sherlock to a chair while John lit some candles and served a cosy Christmas dinner for two, secure in the knowledge that Sherlock wasn't going anywhere. Frankly, John actually considered pulling out some actual chains to do it with; he knew where Sherlock kept them.
But there wasn't much point in spending Christmas alone with Sherlock acting all irascible because he didn't want to be there, was there? That kind of defeated the purpose.
And since the only Christmas they'd actually spent in each other's company had been in the midst of a group of people, and even then John had barely managed to convince Sherlock it was worth his while not to run off and leave John to play host on his own, John doubted he'd have much success if he just asked, straight up, for Sherlock to spend the day with him, just the two of them.
John had rarely considered himself to be an insecure man, or a weak one. He had been strong and coped for years on end, with only very occasional lapses. However, making such an obvious request of someone like Sherlock, who would understand all too well just what kind of power he was being handed, meant opening himself up for the kind of rejection that, this soon after Sherlock had reappeared, John might be still too raw to chance.
Don't leave me again, John was desperate to beg, but couldn't. Stay here with me. Only with me, at least for tonight.
It turned out, though, that John didn't even have to actually voice any of it after all. Not that day.
When they sat down together, there were no discontented grumblings from Sherlock, and nor was there any darting off in the middle of the meal because Sherlock's mind was languishing without proper stimulation. There was nothing but the two of them, together.
After three years spent in self-condemned isolation, it seemed there was nowhere Sherlock preferred to be just then rather than sitting down to one of those Christmas dinners he'd not so very long ago (though it seemed like lifetimes to John) declared to be so deathly boring and purposeless.
In an apparent mirror of John's own thoughts, all indications pointed to the idea that Sherlock considered being alone in a dimly lit room with one John Watson a rather acceptable way to spend this particular evening. It was undoubtedly odd for John to think he might for once actually be on the same mental page as Sherlock, but it was certainly a good kind of odd, as these things went.
After all they'd been through, it seemed like the timing between them might finally be right.
~FIN~