It's quiet.
In fact, John thinks as his eyes dart nervously about the living room, it seems a little …too quiet. Christmas day, well into the afternoon, and so far, not a peep from the consulting detective. No cutting sarcastic remarks, no grandiose sulks, not even the excitement of an experiment gone wrong. John has seen neither hair nor hide of his flatmate, and while it's not unusual, it's Christmas. Everything is closed; where would he go? The whole thing is starting to seem a bit suspicious.
He checks the kitchen. Inside, various, assorted, and asundry chemical concoctions boil and bubble in a frothy, foaming fracas of twisted holiday festivity. It seems the sort of place Sherlock would be, and often is, in the midst of the fuming poisons and potions only he could dream up. However, today he is absent.
John knocks on the bathroom door, and, receiving no response, turns the knob. The door opens to a typical scene – messily organized disarray, the constant battle between John's old Army habits and Sherlock's utter lack of care for cleanliness (except in experiments, of course) at its finest. John sighs and stacks the towels again, barely flinching back at the puce-colored mold underneath. The whole mess is in capped-off test vials, so John assumes it's for a case. Still unsanitary. John picks the vials up, planning to put them on the kitchen table, where they belong. No Sherlock here, either.
He wanders in the direction of Sherlock's bedroom, hesitates outside the door. If the bathroom and living room are so disastrous, it's only logical that the man's room itself should be at least doubly so. He wonders for a minute whether it would be overreacting to search for a gas mask beforehand, then decides against it.
It's… a perfectly normal room. John looks around. Bed, looking as if it's never been used before (and John would bet good money it hasn't, what with how much Sherlock seems to prefer sleeping on the couch); nightstand next to it, perfectly normal except for the titles of the books stacked upon it (Exotic Poisons of the Southern Pacific Islands , Decomposition Rates of Common Canadian Mammals, The Life Cycle and Mating Habits of the African Honey Bee); floor relatively clean (for their flat, anyways; there's a bit of glowing green goop on the rug, but it hasn't eaten through the fibers, so no danger there); all in all, somewhat tidy. John is both surprised and impressed; he didn't know his friend had it in him to be so neat. He hears a commotion on the stairs, turns, and almost runs out the door to Sherlock's bedroom, irrationally terrified at being caught snooping.
"—and stay out, Mycroft!" Sherlock is yelling down the stairs, hands fisted and cheeks enflamed. The door slams, and he whirls around, nearly crashing into John.
"Well, hello, then." John laughs nervously. Sherlock looks at him, mouth pulled taut into a thin line, sniffs, and stalks past John. The door to his room slams shut, and John sighs.
"A happy Christmas to you, too," he mutters under his breath.
o.O.o
A few hours later, just as John's sitting down to eat, Sherlock's door opens. He traipses out into the kitchen and flings himself into a chair, limbs splayed in every direction. John raises an eyebrow at him, but he seems content to sit and play the world-weary intellectual yet again, so John continues on with his supper.
"Want anything?"
"No. John," Sherlock starts, hands flitting over his face to land in their usual position, pressed together and resting on his lips, "I realize my actions prior might have caused you minor discomfort, in view of the season and your lack of… people around with which to share such an occasion." His lip curls, whether at the thought of other people invading the flat or general distaste for the holidays, John isn't sure. "It was not my intention to do so, and –"
John breaks in, pointing his fork at Sherlock. "Are you apologizing to me?"
"No!"
"Sounds like it."
Silence reigns in the kitchen once more, only broken by the meditative chewing of one doctor. Sherlock steals a green bean from John's plate. Then,
"It could be seen as a miracle."
"…a what?"
"It is the season for such things, is it not?" Eyebrow cocked, water-glass eyes watching him, waiting for something, something – ah. It's a joke, John realizes, and laughs.
"Alright, Sherlock," he answers, gaze warm. "It's a Christmas miracle."
Sherlock steals another green bean. "Anything good on the telly?"
"Doctor Who Christmas special." Sherlock groans.
"Ah, what an absolute travesty amidst the wide and varied seas of travesty that is the genre of science fiction. It speaks to the plight of the human species that people find such an utterly unimaginative and uninformative selection of base television entertaining."
"Well, I like it, so we're watching it." Sherlock grins at him, the expression made slightly terrifying by the neon colors of the glass-beakered experiments on the table, which he now makes a point of checking.
"If we can't find anything more interesting to do, I suppose," he agrees, sighing dramatically.
"My god, another Christmas miracle. What will happen next?"
Sherlock smiles at him. "Anything could, John." He pauses, steals a bit of turkey, dips it in the gravy welled up in the mashed potatoes. "Anything at all."
o.O.o
A/N: I now own a bottle of Tabasco sauce. 'Tis the season, man! But other than that, I own nothing. Sadly, this includes BBC Sherlock and the characters found therein.
So! Christmas! I'm a little rusty from all the (stupid, horrid, awful) papers written in a fairly dramatic fashion during all-nighters, so this is my first offering from the ante-semester-writing-blowout. (Also, I'm in desperate need of a beta, as this work may or may not prove. So, if interested, please please please contact me!) Just to let everyone know, I haven't abandoned the other Sherlock fics, and will be posting chapters soon. Thank you for reading, please tell me what you think, and I hope you enjoyed! Happy holidays, y'all!