Thanking everyone for the reviews, alerts, etc. and hoping the end won't disappoint you!

This time, John gets the short end of waiting.

He watches as Greg listens to Sherlock's inaudible voice, and tries to steal a march on the DI by interpreting his body language - a flexed eyebrow, a hand raised to the DI's thin lips to still a thoughtful whistle, and Lestrade's eyes, sizing him up with an odd jubilant glint as he hands back John's property after less than a minute.

"Sweet Jesus on toast with marmite." Greg's profane incipit is followed by a low-keyed giggle. "Speak of previsional analysis. Knew it would come to this from day one, you two making sheep's eyes at each other across my yellow tape, but - pheww. No offence meant, Doc, but I've been told much more about your anatomical particulars than I ever wished to know."

John's wave of the hand signals that no offence is taken, but more data would be welcome.

"He, er." Damnit, they're grown boys, the three of them. "He likes me?"

"Like you? John, he's fairly hooked on you! This is — I've never heard the like of it. He sounded like a cross between a sweet sixteen and Alex Comfort. Christ, I don't know if I'm to warn you against breaking his heart or radio for a bodyguard. Just so you know, he wants to lick your mouth goodnight." Lestrade swallows and surveys his desk top, probably for a tot of iced Arabica, but John waves him on mercilessly. "He's memorized each and every muscle on your upper thigh, the left one, because you weren't facing him when you knelt to repair the fridge door. Next bit was a bit mumbled. I think he worships your armpits. Could be your kneecaps, though."

"Sounds more like you pulling my leg." John is laughing too, dizzy with the joy, leaning across the desk.

"Nope. Your kneecaps are worshipped, John, deal with it. And your - wait, what was it - crinkly tenor. That's your voice, I guess." Greg gesticulates with stolid gusto, entering the spirit of the task. "Your beautiful toned arms! Your - yes, Anderson, what is it?"

Anderson glugs something about unmatching samples and beats a hasty retreat.

"Damnit, you'd think they'd learn to knock when I'm investigating high-functioning erotica. Well, John, congrats and all that. And may I ask what your intentions are, laddie?"

"My— oh, ah." The brusque swerve from linguistic Cupid to inquisitive mentor figure leaves John momentarily speechless. His whole quest has been so focused on deciphering Sherlock's intentions that he hasn't had time to reflect on his own. "Well, I'll, er. I'll have to tell him I know about his, his feelings for me. And that I, well, sort of, er, like him too. Very much so. And that we should really sit and talk about all this." His gaze meets Lestrade's implacable shake of the head. "Before a strong — cuppa" John concludes lamely.

But even as he speaks, he knows this is the reasonable outlet, not the probable one. "Sit and talk" was all right with Sarah, who is a reasonably clever woman, with a doctor's gift for empathy and without a case history of repression that would make the late Sigmund Freud lick his venerable chops with abandon.

"Make it a cup of bubbly if you want to ensure the targeted results." Lestrade, it seems, is still caught up in his previsional high. "Yeah," John gripes back, summoning his best Captain-Watson-to-you-sonny scowl. "So he can spout some more frogspeak - no offence meant, Grog, er, Greg - and all I can do is clutch him there and then, and chances are he's never been clutched before. What if he hyperventilates? Oh god, what if he hyperventilates in French?"

"John, calm down. You're close to panicking yourself, while the answer is obvious. You're a doctor, for Chrissake!"

"Your point being?"

"Give him a taste of his medicine." John's Captainy scowl freezes into uncomprehending disbelief. "Yeah, you heard me. Mountain, Mahomet, old old song. He can't flirt in English? So chat him up in French."

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious. There are twenty days to Christmas, more than enough to cram you with the necessary basics. We can practice here. Or at the pub. Ha! Trade you a crash course in voolay-voo for a pint. No, make it three, so we get the atmosphere right on rehearsal."

"Get the — you know what, that's fucking insane. I couldn't order a French stick in French to save my life!"

"You've done Pashto and Farsi to save your life. Of course you can do this."

"Bloody hell, Greg!"

"Bon dieu" Greg corrects beamingly. "Do we have a deal?"

"Yes! Damn you to Boxing Day and back, Gregory Lestrade!"

"Good!" Lestrade strides to the door, opens it widely and pretends not to hear Donovan and Anderson's fervent whispering in the adjacent office. "Oi, you lot! No trespassing till you get the all-clear. Violators will be cast as Santa at the Staff Children's Christmas Party - yeah, all of them. Survivors will be fed to Gregson. Thank ye!"

The door shuts on a stern click, letting the whispers rev up on the other side. There are now two young constables and four secretaries in Sally's cubhole.

"You know you've just totally and irrevocably compromised us, don't you?"

"Anything to keep them happy and bouncing. Now haul your beautiful toned thighs over here and let's start on le b-a-ba. And I want a full report on the 25th, chapter and verse."

The ballpoint pen is already sketching a human figure with a doodle of curls on the back of a paper sheet. John is nearly certain that the recto contains part of Budget's loving interrogatory but feels mean enough to keep his mouth shut. Greg is mouthing something that sounds like "pool" and apparently refers to Sherlock's shoulder. And John's shift begins in less than two hours.

To quote another long-haired git, tonight's going to be a hard day's night.


Yet for all their hardness, the days are hurrying forth — December is on its last legs and determined to make a sprint of it. It rallies the polar winds from Scandinavia up Baker Street only to blow them back on a second thought, it fills Mrs Hudson's kitchen with Cox's luscious Orange Pippins and John's surgery with late vaccine enthusiasts. It even enacts a pre-Christmas miracle by galvanizing Sherlock Holmes into a vertical position so that he can be sped daily to the morgue. Days, nights, chores, snatched halts, they all storm John's tired excited brain in a wild round of hopscotch, as the twenty-fourth looms closer and closer.

On the twelfth, John goes BAMF on French nasal vowels and Lestrade's leonine roars send most Yarders in their vicinity cowering while "DI's having words with his new boyfriend". Which shows that truth, at least partial, still comes from children's mouth.

On the fifteenth, Mycroft Holmes deftly blackmails his younger brother into finding a Greek interpreter kidnapped two days before an all-important UNO convention. Mr Melas is duly recovered and the conference is a success (from Mycroft's perspective) but John has to endure a few nightmares in which Sherlock pours out his heart in Cyrillic texts.

The eighteenth sees Mrs Hudson depart for her sister's house in Suffolk. John comes home to find sprigs of holly stuck in all the places where Sherlock has voided his spleen and John's Sig, and a singing card on their table along with a bottle of home-made Glogg. John leaves the card and hijacks the Glogg. There's a time and hour for everything, and he is still struggling through On est copains, hein ? Bien. Maintenant, soyons amants ? [All right, we're mates. Now let's be lovers].

On the twenty-first, Sherlock tells his elder brother in rather forceful terms what he can do with his invitation to partake of peace, good will and apple stuffing. The same evening, John defeats the French student's arch-enemy, aka the "doggy letter" — the French R. An ecstatic Lestrade kisses the barmaid at the Brewery and Tap.

From his surgery, on the twenty-third, John sends Harry a twenty-word text. Upon receiving word that his sister will spend Christmas in a Detox Spa, he allows himself a minute's contemplation of their respective predicaments, and the irony thereof, before ushering in his next patient.

And on the twenty-fourth of December, on the strike of eight from the bells at St James' Church, John Watson enters his and Sherlock's common room, his leather vest dusted with frost and a brown paper bag dangling from his fingers on a string handle. Sherlock, who has been persuaded to research the toxic properties of holly through magnification rather than self-induced vomiting, unbends from his microscope and parts his lips.

"Bollinger Champagne" says John, looking his flatmate straight in the face.

Sherlock's stills in cautious disbelief before he throws his head back and starts laughing. "How did you —" He is still laughing as he steps aside to retrieve another brown bag – empty – from the sofa's shadow. There is a fire in the chimney, that provides the shadow. "Yours is Blanc de Noirs Brut, by the way. The cork design is very distinctive."

"Really, Mr Holmes." John sets his bottle on the coffee table, shoulder to shoulder with Sherlock's, brought fresh from the fridge, and two cups. "Child's play, even to a sidekick. Look at your absent tie. Look at the scruffed leather on your left slipper's toe. Plus, you were queuing before me at Sainsbury's."

Sherlock's eyes are brimming with laughtears, but his shoulders keep up a straight line as he bends to uncork the first bottle – his, naturally. The glasses foam over with the drink and John's blood, flooding his heart in synch, slows to a dull hum as it has learnt to do before the act. They clink their glasses together, wordlessly, and drink.

The wine is sharp velvet frost to John's throat. He fights the urge to clear it, seeking Sherlock's eyes indeed. Eyes clear as the frost, sparking a light known to both of them, Sherlock's signal that the game is on. Eyes unquiet, their silver nerves visible in the fireglow, taut with... what? Tenacity? Lust? Apprehension?

John drops his gaze and raises his glass. He selects his words carefully, conscious that this may be the moment that seals their beginnings to now in a perfect circle, or unmakes everything between them.

"Want to taste some more ?"

Sherlock's answer is half-laughed, half-rushed. "God, yes."


"Mrs Hudson."

"Mrs Hudson."

"London."

"Why London?"

"Why not?" Sherlock's voice is already a bit slurred. "Y'toasted the Yard two cups ago. Quite warmly too."

"Yeah, well, you're rather expected to cheer absent friends and relatives at this stage of – things. Hand over your glass."

"Absent friends."

John giggles. "Right y'are. I give you ships, wooden ships, ships that sail the sea, and I give you the best of ship, friend —" But Sherlock is resting his cheek against his outstretched arm, his empty cup at half-mast and his fingertips ghosting John's short-cropped nape. John shifts course hoarsely and a little prematurely. "The New Year."

"Th'year's an ab — an abs — "

"An absent friend ?"

"An ab-stract — entity. You just can't – toast'n' – tity."

This tides them over another wave of glee as they keel against each other in raw, helpless delight. Sixteen, John thinks, I'm bloody sixteen. Hard as nails just peeping at the V of his shirt, and it's not like he had tits in the first place. He flicks his eyelids to chase the tears, opening them to a warm wisp of breath on his cheek.

"Joyeux Noël, mon Jean." [Happy Christmas, my John.]

John fights the urge to scuttle back into blindness. If he's doing this, he's doing it clear-eyed. He licks his lips, more to flex his tongue than indulge Sherlock's rather endearing fetish, and smiles. "Joyeux Noël, Sherlock."

So far, so good.

Something surges briefly over his friend's face – a spasm here and gone, not unlike a computer glitch – and John, for one tight hearbeat, wonders if Sherlock is busy deleting French. He flings himself into the breach. "Il— ah — il faut que je te parle. Oui ?" [I need to speak to you. Yes ?] It's fantastic, this new clarity – this feeling that he has invaded another strange land, Sherlock's forbidden mindscape, no, heartscape really, and is meeting him there on nearly equal ground. Come what may, any angel with his flaming sword – John will take them bare-handed and in French.

But – "Oui"echoes between them instantly, and John groans in relief. This is too much. This is the closest to epiphanic he's been yet, and he really, really needs a drink. The Blanc de Noirs, while neither black nor white, is insanely burning, as if the glass holding it was porous enough to let the gold flow straight in from the fireplace. "Oui" Sherlock has said, and it gives an extra sensation to John's mouth. "Oui" John repeats to him, though to his beginner's ear it sounds like cooing, and closes his free hand over Sherlock's.

Two glasses roll down onto the rug. Another more figurative cup is close to overflowing as John musters his strength for the last, greatest leap of faith.

"Alors écoute-moi.". [So listen to me.] "Tout ce que tu m'as dit, je le sais. Ça me va. Mon tour de te proposer..." Hell, double doggy letter fail. Forget the fail. Breathe deep, hold tight, go. "On est copains, hein ? Bien. Maintenant, soyons amants ?"[Everything you told me, I know and it's all right with me. Now it's my turn to make you an offer... We're friends, right ? Good. What about being lovers ?]

Fuck, he's done it. He's truly done it and, consequences be blown, he's feeling Olympic. All Ulysses had to do to get his mate was send an arrow through twelve axe-heads, but John Watson has bested eight French nasal vowels in a row. Now he can close his eyes in fierce elation.

The mouth that answers him is firmer than any woman's mouth for all its apparent softness. It has an odd little knob of flesh on its upper lip, like a bee-sting, that sets John's spine tingling, as Sherlock misses John's lips at first, kissing his chin eagerly. "Oui" he adds as an afterthought, and grazes John's mouth with his tongue for good measure.

"Oui, you infernal tongue-teaser." John wraps his arms around his prize and half-lifts, half-pulls him on his lap, Sherlock's nose bumping softly into his cheek as he zips down once more for John's mouth. "Oui to this and much, much more, because I'll want more, Sherlock. I'll want what's inside that smart tight shirt and lower, I'll want to do things to you sober that will make your body come in any fucking tongue you like, provided it comes under mine. And again, and again, until I know it by heart, every pore of it, and then more. Oui, Sherlock ? Say it, love. Oui ?"

There's much more he could tell Sherlock in these vivid, intimate words – how he's watched Sherlock's mouth in sleep and Sherlock's bright sheen of sweat in fever – how the last weeks have raised a new man in him, fighter apart, who was transported by what he saw. But John is done with words, and so is Sherlock, seemingly, as they tumble back on the couch in a knot of long limbs and short, champagne-scented breaths, and begin to celebrate Christmas in earnest.


Greg's text has the decency to tweet itself in twelve hours later, when John is emerging from his third post-coital doze. "Alors, mon vieux ?" [What news, mate?]

John is about to type a human, all too human "!" when he's distracted by a body sidling closer against his back. It looks like Sherlock Holmes is waking up, and John drops his mobile where he's found it – on the floor, nestled in his rumpled trousers – before he turns over cautiously on the narrow couch.

He is rather curious to hear in which language he will be greeted this morning.

Sherlock opens an eye, says "Hmmmmm"in a decisive tone of voice, and pulls John to him for an open-mouthed kiss.

FINIS