The day the packaged arrived, I didn't think much of it.
It actually sat unopened for the longest time on the table by the front door. I just assumed Sarah had ordered it. But she was gone, in Europe for the summer working on her thesis, so it was just me all alone. We must've had what, a dozen Skype conversations, before I remembered to bring it up.
"A package came for you."
"Who from?"
"No idea. No return address." That should've been my first cause for suspicion. No return address, no name, no sender, just addressed to our apartment.
"Then how do you know it's for me?" She asked.
"'Cause I haven't ordered anything recently, dummy," I told her. "So it's obviously yours."
"It can't be too important, then," she shrugged. "We can open it now, or just wait 'til I get back. I really don't care." But we quickly moved onto other things—and by other things I mean it's our sex life and it's private so no, you're not getting a play-by-play narration or vibrator setting recommendations. You want porn, just browse the Sherlock tag on AO3.
The box continued to gather dust.
It did, however, happen to have a near nightly propensity for falling off the table-stand. I thought this was weird, but maybe Mycroft (yes, Sarah has a cat named Mycroft—can you think of anything more suiting?) had taken a fancy too it. Eventually I got bored of the morning ritual of replacing it so on the floor it sat.
Every once in awhile it'd be flipped over, or seemed to have scooted across the room on its own, powered, no doubt, by batting kitty paws. "Having fun with your new favorite toy?" I asked him probably around a month later, finding him guarding the plain cardboard box in full ninja stance.
…I was wrong. Mycroft fucking hated that thing.
I know. I know. That should've been my second clue.