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John spots the first warning sign as soon as he gets home, shouldering open the door to the kitchen to find Sherlock’s phone discarded on the kitchen table, blinking green onto its wooden surface.“Sherlock?”John puts down the groceries and walks into the living room, trying not to worry about the milk going off in the next five minutes. Not for the first time, he finds himself wishing he’d taken a gun with him shopping.“Sherlock?”The tension in him deflates like a balloon and milk resurfaces as the principal concern in his mind. Sherlock is kneeling in front of the couch, removing the cushioning with no little force. He doesn’t look around as John makes a sound of pre-packaged fury and returns to the kitchen to unpack.“For god’s sake, Sherlock, what are you looking for?” He calls from the adjacent room, as he slides tins into cupboards and wrestles plastic bags into a bow for keeping. “The living room looks worse than when that lunatic with the knife fetish came over to bump you off before his trial.”When he comes back out, Sherlock is still tearing at the couch’s innards like gift-wrapping, and John must finally say his name with enough exasperation to warrant attention because the line of Sherlock’s neck finally stiffens and he says, with so much irritation John might’ve just interrupted his mind palace: “My scarf.”“Your scarf,” John repeats, slowly, his pulse now fully returned to normal. “You mean the one I gave you?”“The red one,” Sherlock corrects, which means yes, the one John gave him. John stares at the nape of his neck, the V of curly black, and bites his lip.“Well—where have you looked?”“Everywhere,” Sherlock says, viciously. “As even you can probably observe, I have done nothing short of ransack 221B Baker Street.”John tries not to say anything. He succeeds for all of two minutes. “Have you thought—”Sherlock pauses briefly in shredding the couch’s upholstery to make a derisive sound. John suddenly registers what Sherlock is actually doing and changes tack.“Jesus Sherlock, why would it be in—”“Did you think before asking that question?”“Let’s try to be methodical.” Maybe its best John doesn’t bring his gun with him when he goes shopping.“I have been methodical.” Sherlock suddenly stops rummaging and straightens up fully, infuriated. “I have been rigorously methodical and yet I find myself still scarfless and so I am forced to resort to the strategies of the common man: inquisition, and random chance.” Another pause. “You didn’t move it?”“Of course I—”“Alright,” Sherlock snaps, and he pushes himself up and marches over to the window, as though he’s finally given up on finding it in the bowels of the couch, despite its promise. John watches him watch Baker Street and wonders, vaguely, if he should move out of throwing distance.“It’s just a scarf,” he says instead, because John will never not run in headfirst, and Sherlock just makes that derisive sound again.“It’s not the lack of it that bothers me, John. What, did you think that was what was bothering me? Sentiment?” He doesn’t give John the chance to protest. “I must be getting old, forgetting a thing like that. My brain must be beginning to atrophy. I need some occupation; before long I’ll be just like the rest of you, wondering around in a daze in the supermarket, not knowing the aisle I’m in or the item I’m looking for.”The description does sound familiar. “Well, it has to be here somewhere.” Sherlock just makes that sound again and doesn’t move.At length, John tires of admiring his stillness and sets about reassembling the couch. The mess is considerable, but John has seen worse, and he’s mostly just relieved Sherlock hadn’t extended his search to any of his specimens. The thought of Sherlock picking through the set of organs he’s currently storing on the third shelf of the fridge makes John smile a little, tightly. Sometimes, for all his logic, Sherlock is more tenacious than methodical.“John.”John hums without looking around, yanking leather doggedly from one of the cushion’s zips.“John.”“Ah,” John says, then, and twists his head to find Sherlock standing next to the Christmas tree, expression thunderous.The Christmas tree is a new addition. It isn’t Tesco’s finest, but it had been one price point up from the cheapest and John had liked the dark cluster of its branches, much more convincing than the lurid green of the other models. John has never had a real Christmas tree growing up, so he has never seen the point of one in adulthood: the expense, the shedding, the agony of the transportation. This thing, plastic though it is, has always had all the magic he needs.And now, it has Sherlock’s scarf, woven through its branches like matte tinsel. Sherlock lifts one end of the scarf with an expression of mixed incredulity and disgust, angled carefully for John’s benefit, before pulling it unceremoniously from the branches, disturbing a good deal of the artificial-green foliage in the process, and fastening it around his neck. Then Sherlock throws himself onto the chair they usually reserve for clients and winds his arms around his legs, facing the wall.“And what, exactly, was intended by all that?”With difficulty, John swallows the impulse to apologize. Instead, he finishes zipping up the cushion and pushes himself to his feet. “Simply making a point, Sherlock. Seasons are important.”Sherlock huffs angrily at the wall and John leans his body gingerly against the arm of his chair. “Christmas is not a season. It’s a marketing strategy aimed at idiots desperate to find some feeble purpose with which to occupy the last few months of the year. I was under the impression you were no such idiot. I see I was mistaken.”“You’re right,” John admits. “It’s a marketing strategy. And if you’d thought of that marketing strategy, you might have found your scarf a lot sooner.”“I prefer my deductions to be based on logic, John, not the irrational behaviour of a companion I deemed above such nonsense.”Regret flutters inside him again, accusatory, and John sighs despite himself. “Well, I’m flattered, Sherlock, but do you maybe remember me asking if we could have a tree?” Sherlock doesn’t move his head around, and John slides two gentle fingers beneath his scarf to rest against his nape. “Or put some lights up?”“Lights!” Sherlock begins explosively, but doesn’t continue. He’s leaning, ever so slightly, into John’s fingertips.“Did you even notice when I got the tree?” John continues, more softly. “Unpacked it and reassembled it in front of the mantelpiece? Plastic foliage everywhere?” Still, Sherlock doesn’t say anything. This time, John has trouble fighting back a smile as he adds, helpfully, “I believe you were lying on the couch, at the time.”“I’ve been far too busy to notice trees, John. Let alone plastic ones. December is one of the liveliest months for murderers. Family reunions, drunken confessions. The stultifying fear of facing another 12 months of a mind-numbing job or partner. Opportune moment to address these problems.”“I’m beginning to understand the temptation.”At this, Sherlock does turn his head, if he doesn’t meet John’s eyes. He crooks his mouth a little, ostensibly at the fireplace, but the arc of his chin is so deliberate John can’t mistake it. “I wouldn’t recommend giving in to it; even Lestrade would know it was you. Even Anderson. You’d be in jail by Easter. Not even wearing gloves.”“Maybe I’ll start wearing a pair.” Sherlock snorts, and John takes a chance and allows himself to slide slightly off the couch arm and into the warmth of Sherlock’s left side. “Just to be safe.”“You’d be a very poor murderer, John.” The misstep makes Sherlock look at him properly at last, briefly alarmed. “That is, of the covert kind. Obviously you’re perfectly capable when it comes to murdering of the military-condoned variety.”John doesn’t know what to say to that. He rubs a small circle into Sherlock’s neck and slides more of his hand beneath the red wool. “I prefer not to think of it that way.”“No?” Sherlock asks, sounding surprised. “Well, in any case. You’re not up to the task of my murder just yet.”“It took you over twenty-minutes to find your scarf,” John reminds him, slightly apologetic. He really hadn’t expected Sherlock to start lamenting early onset. Or dismantling the living room. “I think I might be a quick-learner.”“I’m not a murderer, John,” Sherlock reminds him gravely, profoundly dignified. Then his expression evaporates. “Well—unless you count that one time in Bolivia…or that very ugly week in Copenhagen…but I can hardly be expected not to defend myself.”“Perish the day when you turn the other cheek,” John agrees. His half-smiles has become a full grin. “Anyway, you’re not the only one capable of scheming.”“No indeed.”It’s warm, and John’s fingers are aching slightly from the accidentally gloveless trek back from the shops carrying groceries. Beside him, Sherlock shifts into a better position, and John ducks his head onto the right angle of shoulder and neck. Sherlock is looking towards the fireplace again, and John examines the side of his face as he does, feeling half-asleep. If it is not quite snowing outside, John thinks it should be.“You know, I’m not as nice as everyone thinks I am.”“I know, John.” Sherlock leans his head against the trap of John’s hand, caught between wool and skin. “I’ve always known.”