Sherlock has never had what one would term a normal sleeping schedule. It tends to range from "insomniac" to "borderline-narcoleptic," and even as an infant he'd been inconsistent to the point where threats against his life were made by the nurse hired to watch him. Apparently some patterns continue throughout one's life.
Much like the sleeping. Which, as of 4 am that morning, is still not forthcoming, despite the three hour long chase along the Thames followed by a rather vigorous shag which has deposited him here: on a double bed hardly built for two, with smooth, cotton sheets, and John Watson pressed warm and close to his chest while short strands of blondish-brownish hair envelop his olfactory glands in traces of honey and lemon and London air and good, clean sweat. Out of all of this, nothing can induce him to sleep.
Because he thinks he's heard someone downstairs.
There is no one downstairs, of course. He's already slipped out of the covers six times to verify, somehow managing not to wake John on any of these occasions, and damned if he's going to try for a seventh. Because no one is down there. Anyone who would have reason for prowling their flat at this time of the night is either incarcerated or dead, and it certainly isn't Mycroft. He knows better than to show up at their flat unannounced after that regrettable incident with the handcuffs and the kitchen table.
(John had thought it regrettable, and hated having it brought up. He turned a violent shade of red and became incapable of maintaining eye contact with anything, even inanimate objects. Sherlock thought it had been marvelous. Mycroft's face had certainly been worth the bit of unexpected exhibitionism, superseded only by his immediate departure from the room. Sherlock would have to make full use of this new tool.)
So since no one is in their flat and Sherlock knows this, he bloody well isn't going to check. Again. He will ignore the odd creaks (the building is old), the faint rustlings (there are trees just thirty feet down the block from their door) and the occasional hushed breathing.
Because no one is there and Sherlock knows it.
But he still stays awake.
He'd never slept much before, anyway.
Three years is a long time. Very few people realize it, but then again very few people realize anything at all, and it's no small wonder that by the time they're struggling little minds catch up, the Earth has gone through several hundred revolutions and they've barely moved an inch all the while. But yes, three years is incredibly long, longer than the actual number would imply, however when thought of in terms of days, or even months, it becomes a far more impressive figure. Sherlock knew the number of minutes (roughly 1,576,800 not accounting for leap year). He knew the number of minutes because he had felt every single one of them. For three years.
For three years he'd moved, always moved, couldn't stop for any real length of time because that would make him a target, he already was a target, but a target is always easier to hit when it stands still. His body became transport as it never had before, performing leaps and flights and wit-bound miracles with hardly any fuel at all, because fuel required time and that was precisely what he didn't have.
Moriarty's network had been vast. Far larger than he'd ever imagined, and every day unearthed more and more evidence of him, mysterious incidents all bearing his mark. Sherlock got hold of cold cases from every jurisdiction he came to, from Finland to Guatemala and even, of all places, Wisconsin. He couldn't solve the cases, precisely; in fact, to say he obtained the files legally would be a bit misleading. Solving the cases would only serve to light his current location up like a Christmas tree, leaving a blazing trail of anonymous, brilliant deductions in his wake leading Moriarty right to him, and it just wasn't the time. There was no time, not really, but now certainly wasn't it, he was still uncovering all the angles he needed.
Sherlock spent the first year of his self-imposed exile just setting groundwork across the globe. It was tedious and maddening, and somehow, for all his great skill in disappearing (prior to Mycroft's complete takeover of the British government, Sherlock managed to live eight-and-a-half months in London without his brother finding him) he was still unable to wipe all traces of himself away. Moriarty's goons always found some tiny piece of him wherever he was, and then wherever he was had to swiftly become wherever he'd been before the trap closed round him. He barely had time to breathe in all this.
Breathing was boring.
He certainly wasn't bored now.
John finally stirs at about six that morning with the sun just beginning to hum over the horizon and Sherlock hasn't blinked much in the last fifteen minutes, wanting to catalogue every muscle that shifts, in order, as his lover steadily climbs towards consciousness. He's documented it before, every day, in fact, has even begun compiling data on the differences between John waking up from a full night's sleep and John waking up from a brief nap. There are too many variables to make it a real experiment, but Sherlock likes these sorts of things, facts and repeatable observations and predictable outcomes. John wakes up the same way almost 90% of the time, and it should get boring, even that remaining 10% should lose its interest after a while, a pattern should present itself and then relocate this entire ritual into the Boring file in his mental hard drive along with politics, taxes, and common courtesy (it was common for a reason, and Sherlock had never been common in his life).
But it doesn't. It never becomes boring even when it becomes predictable, which is in itself a novelty worth investigating although he fears the answer will be something tragically mundane such as, "I love him." Which is true, of course, but Sherlock already knows that, and people use that line for all sorts of reasons and most of time, in Sherlock's experience, it isn't really true in the slightest. It just somehow seems too important a fact to simply bandy it around for every single move he makes. He'd rather save it for something special.
"Sherlock?"
Deep, groggy, sleep-muzzled. John was lovely first thing in the morning, face soft and dopey like a small dog, eyes an unnamable blue and hair skewed to one side smelling more like them than him. If Sherlock could bottle this moment and distill it, he would inject it into his very blood stream and carry it inside him always.
John rotates his shoulder just slightly (he slept very well last night, so well he never shifted, now his left shoulder will be sore for a few hours. If I massage it, it will recuperate in one), right hand coming up to rifle through his hair briefly, fingertips grazing the scar above his ear that is almost entirely hidden by his thick, closely-cropped fringe. Sherlock catches that wrist before it retreats, kissing the mark on his head and then bending lower to kiss at the scar on his right bicep. An ache flares up in his chest and is quieted the next minute.
He thinks this is why he keeps watching.
Sherlock knew he was in love with John Watson. As far as cases go, it certainly wasn't the most intricate, although perhaps it did take the longest as any test involving emotions is difficult to find a control for. In fact, if Sherlock was particularly honest he would have to admit that no real "tests" were conducted. He had deduced it the same moment John had deduced points along the railroad tracks where Andrew West's body had been found; no real impetus, no experiments, no final clue that put the puzzle together in his mind's eye. Just a simple moment of epiphany, and he had the answer. So he'd deduced it and known it and decided that was that; case solved, dull, wait for the next pip and the Game to continue. He hadn't thought there was anything more to it.
People often debated the difference between knowing something and understanding it, but the argument was philosophical at best, which was really a euphemism for "unimportant, irrelevant, with no actual answer forthcoming." Besides, the entire dispute can easily be turned on its head once one challenges the meaning of "knowing" and "understanding." Sherlock had never had much interest in the soft sciences anyway.
Apparently there is a difference between knowing something and knowing it. Somehow pulling John's limp, water-logged body back onto the edge of a burnt out, blown up public swimming pool had given that bit of stray knowledge – Sherlock Holmes loves John Watson – a sudden and immediate relevance. So immediate he didn't quite have time to breathe before he had wrapped himself around the doctor, trembling fingers seeking a pulse while his insides seemed to shudder and snap. His stomach was made of iron and he had an ice flow in his veins and his head was full of broken glass and steep cliffs and rushing water and the constant, shrill repetition of, NononononononoNO!
It seemed an eternity before he found a pulse, thread-bare and slow, but constant, and it was while he watched in morbid fascination the different patterns created by blood steadily seeping across a checkered button-down and a burgundy jumper that Sherlock's mind finally recalled why either of them were there in the first place, and when his eyes rose to the place he knew Moriarty's body was supposed to be, he finally understood.
Understood what was required of him. Understood where his future led. Understood how this war would continue.
Understood he'd have to leave John behind.
And so he left. But he refused to say goodbye.
John finally pushes the last haze of sleep from his mind and turns over in Sherlock's arms, so small and wonderfully warm. Eyes half-lidded, that indecipherable shade, and though he's well-rested he still seems tired.
Dry, gentle fingers against his jaw.
"You're going to have toast and jam for breakfast," he says, because anything else will lead them nowhere.
John grins, a slight hitching of the corner of his lips and Sherlock contemplates licking it.
"You don't know that. Perhaps I decided I'd make omelets today?"
"You won't."
"Why not?"
"You didn't go to the shop yesterday."
"I have everything I need to make omelets right here, I don't need to go to the shop."
"You never make food if you haven't been to the shop because going makes you feel guilty for the food you already have and haven't used. So you always make something that night and the following day, sometimes even until breakfast of the third morning. It's been more than four days, you aren't due at the clinic today, and you haven't been to the shop. You weren't going to make omelets. Besides, I've replaced the egg yolks with pig embryos and have them incubating under the heat lamp below the sink."
John blinks slowly, expression blank, before another slow smile, tinged with exasperation and something like affection, spreads across his face. "Why am I not surprised? And what do pig embryos – on second thought, nevermind. It's too early for your geniusing, I need at least two cups of tea before I can properly deal with your brain."
There are many things Sherlock could respond to in that statement. He chooses, "My 'geniusing'?"
"Yes, it's that . . . thing you do, you know? When you're a genius."
"I'm always a genius."
"Don't I know it."
Sherlock smiles this time, still odd and slightly foreign-feeling for all that it happens more often. "Better make it three cups."
John's hand leaves his jaw only to smack his chest half-heartedly.
"Wanker," he mutters, eyes falling shut for a moment.
There is a silence then, during which Sherlock contemplates the urge in his limbs to pull the doctor closer, so strong as to almost be a full-body ache. His mind is whirring in the background, reduced to mere white noise in the stillness here.
"You didn't sleep, did you?"
He's not proud to admit the question surprises him, and yet he is, and it does, because John is really the only one who can surprise him and that's certainly something to be proud of. John keeps his eyes closed, as though he'll allow Sherlock to lie to him if he wants to because John can tell, somehow, some part of Sherlock's face always gives it away and no matter how many times he tries to hold everything perfectly still, to not betray even a twitch, John knows all the same.
It is largely because of this that Sherlock decides to exhale heavily, watching the hairs over John's forehead stir slightly in the change of air pressure, and murmur, barely a whisper, "No."
John opens his eyes just then and the exact depth of color in them has shifted, something warmer and brighter and soul-deep, and it looks like love.
He sighs too, and it is weariness, Sherlock can tell now with certitude. He thinks there's a dull pain in his chest, because he knows the cause of that weariness, and it doesn't seem fair.
"I really think you need to -"
"—Your therapist made an utter hash of you, I refuse to speak to one."
"I wasn't going to suggest it. But Sherlock, this is getting very, very bad," John says, fingers on his jaw again, lightly tracing his cheekbone as though he were something precious. "It's been days now since you've had a proper sleep."
"I've never had a proper sleep in my life, John."
"Well, proper for you, then. You've barely even dozed since you got back, and that was over two months ago. Something's not right."
Sherlock can lash out, if he cares to. He can turn the conversation right around on John and demand to know why he has to check that Sherlock is still in the bedroom, despite the fact that he's always wrapped around him like a squid every morning, before he'll even open his eyes. He can demand to know why John won't even look at the liquor aisle at the Sainsbury's, or why he suddenly hates eating at all the restaurants they used to go to, or why he still feels the need to have dinner with bloody Lestrade every other week.
"You know why I check that you're in the room," John says, and Sherlock feels another stab of something that might be guilt, for even entertaining the idea that he might use that against this man. "No, I'm not – I don't say that to make you feel bad, it's just . . . you've already figured all that out about me, you've probably made a list of all the ways I'm different now and know the reasons for everyone of them, and I . . . I can't do the same. Trust me, if I could figure it all out at a glance without forcing you to tell me, I would. But even then, I think I'd still want you tell me anyway."
Sherlock knows what John is saying when he won't say it, and his mind flails for a second, alarm and panic brewing beneath the surface and he finally gives in to his body's ache and pulls the doctor closer, buries his face at John's shoulder and presses his hands into a strong, impossibly sturdy back.
Grounding himself.
"It's not a lack of trust," he mutters, voice obscured where it's pressed against smooth skin.
Those careful fingers in his hair now, gently taming curls, and how has Sherlock managed to find someone like this, how does this man exist, he could scour the entire world and never find another like him, in face of guns and war and bombs and domestic unrest he's still calm and quiet as a mountain.
To continue that metaphor, Sherlock must be the freezing gales that howl and batter at the mountain, slowly wearing it down over time. He feels ill, and holds John tighter.
"Then what is it?"
Sherlock squeezes his eyes closed and wishes he was somewhere else, but only if he's allowed to come back.
Living without John Watson for three years had been like living without the entire left side of his body. That the side chosen for such a comparison also happened to be the one that housed his heart (along with several other major organs such as his spleen, one kidney, and his rational mind) was entirely deliberate.
Sherlock was never very partial to sentimentality, but the last three text messages John had sent him (if you don't stop texting me at work i'll break your nose. and then all your erlenmeyers. JW; just ran all over westminster where the buggering hell are you!? JW; saw the news are you okay? did you get blown up? sherlock answer your goddam phone! JW) were saved permanently to his mobile's very limited memory card. On some occasions, when his research had hit a temporary brick wall and he felt like he was splintering, he would curl up in a corner of whatever hovel he was staying in at the time, with a blanket thrown over his head and read them over and over. It made him feel less brittle and dead.
Sherlock was even less partial to phone calls. Throughout the entire 1,095 days he was scurrying around the world like a lab rat in a maze, he had only two phone calls: one he placed, and one he received. Neither to people that, under any other circumstances, he would willingly speak to.
The first call, less than two days into his exile, was him calling Mycroft.
You have to let me know if John's in danger.
I already promised I would.
I mean it, Mycroft. If I have to find out from Moriarty or Sebastian-sodding-Moran that John's been dead this entire time, I swear to you there is no hole on this Earth where I won't find you.
Threats of violence are so very tedious and juvenile, Sherlock, I had hoped you'd grown out of them.
-call ended-
The condescending jibe had reassured him more than any promise from his brother ever would.
The second call he received. He has been minimally successful in deleting this conversation from his hard drive; only his precise location and what he'd been doing at the time of the call had faded into the background. The words and all their implications still lingered in his memory and played quietly in his ear whenever his mind attempted to relax its stranglehold on clarity.
Two and a half years into his exile, Moriarty called him.
How is Johnny-Boy then, Sherlock?
That is none of your business.
Oh come now, that isn't very polite. I've seen him, you know. (Sherlock's gut in a knot, tense, furious, he hasn't seen John in 912.5 days and he's so close and he's going mad) He's still there, at Baker St. with good ol' Mrs. Hudson. He just looks so sad all the time, you know? Like a dog waiting for his master to come home. It's heart-breaking, really.
(Said so gleefully, so joyfully, he loves this, loves knowing Sherlock doesn't know, loves holding something this important over him)
You don't have a heart.
But you do, don't you, Sherlock. And I know right where it is . . .
(Panic, fear, no, not the rules, not how the game is played, Sherlock left so Moriarty has to stay away, he can't hurt him, it's not how the game is played)
You will leave him out of this. I've been playing by your rules and I've been playing fair, but never forget that I have the tools and the connections to implode your entire organization. I've been kind enough so far not to employ those methods.
Don't you dare insult my intelligence, Sherlock, and don't pretend you've been behaving out of sportsmanship! (Sudden, wrathful, voice contemptuous and poison) We both know the real reason you've held back. I've got you in a vice and you know it. You won't break the rules because you know what happens if you do. And you won't risk it.
(Silence. Nothing he can say, it's all true, he knows it, if this bastard has the manpower to simply stalk John day-in, day-out he can have him killed any moment and of course it may be a bluff but the point is Sherlock doesn't know, not for certain. It wasn't supposed to be like this, he was supposed to be safe, Sherlock was supposed to be able to protect him)
See? Having a heart really is as wretched as you always thought it'd be. Why have it at all? It doesn't do anything other than ruin concentration, slows down your thought-process, clutters the mind –
- You sound as though you're speaking from experience, Jim.
I think you'd be better off without it! (Quick and defensive, angry, touched a nerve there) I think I'd be doing you a favor if I just blew up that whole fucking block –
(WRONG, no, not good, more than a bit, he shouldn't have said anything)
Don't you dare, I swear to God I will –
You'll do what, Sherlock, destroy me? Torture me? Kill me? You're not that sort of animal. You forget, I know exactly how you think, how you work. I know what goes on in that big, sexy brain of yours. Besides, blowing up a block of flats isn't nearly elegant enough. This requires a more . . . personal touch, don't you think?
(Dread, deep in his bones, dull horror, he sounds too pleased, too placid, always more dangerous when he's placid)
What do you –
I want to see your face, Sherlock. I want to see the face you make when I murder him right in front of you. Tie you to a chair, bolt you to the floor, while you watch me take him apart bit. By. Bit. It'll be so delicious, so good, Sherlock, you don't even know. I bet he screams so pretty. And he'll scream. Just for you, Shirley, he'll scream just for you. I'll make sure of it. I want to take your pulse as you watch me flay him open, I want to measure your blood pressure when I carve my name along his neck, I want to measure your pupils when I slowly slip inside him, deep, warm, where you've never been. Know him in a way you never will. And then, maybe, I'll kill him. If I can't think of anything else to do to him, of course, but then again, I am a genius.
(Nothing to say. Can't speak. Rage, pure, undiluted, bloodlust, he will die)
I wonder if you'll cry, Sherlock. That'd be just the best, honestly, I couldn't imagine anything better. I'd love to know what they taste like, your tears.
(Silence. Silence.)
Oh, have I upset you? I'm terribly sorry, but you brought it on yourself. If you hadn't made it so painfully obvious you loved him I would have just left him alone. Maybe. But he is so delightful in a pinch, isn't he? So stoic. A soldier through and through. How I'll enjoy ripping that away from him.
(Silence. Silence. Silence.)
Sherlock? I know you're there, I can smell your hatred.
(Pause. Then)
You will be dead before the year is out.
-call ended-
Moriarty was dead before the year was out. Apparently, Sherlock was that sort of animal after all.
"Sherlock?" John murmurs close to his ear, fingers now kneading at his scalp. "If you trust me, why won't you just tell me?"
He can't squeeze his eyes shut any tighter, and he can't pull John any closer, and he thinks he's leaving bruises where he's clutching the doctor so fiercely, so he decides to talk.
"It's stupid." (It is.) "I can handle it." (He hasn't managed it yet.) "It's not a problem." (By tomorrow he'll have started hallucinating.)
"Well, if it's so stupid and unproblematic, just tell me what 'it' is. You did say you valued a second opinion."
Yes, he had said that, three years ago although it feels like it's been at least a millennia, and Sherlock isn't one for exaggerating facts.
"I've never slept much before," he says, because he still can't quite give it up, too stubborn for his own good, but he can't seem to stop prevaricating. "Why does it matter now?"
"Because it's different, isn't it?" John asks, perennially pragmatic. "It's true, you've never slept as much as the average person, at least not while I've known you, but the reason why seems to have changed."
Sherlock tamps down on his instinctive scoff. 'Why,' indeed.
"Why has never been a factor in my work," he says coolly. "It's immaterial. The why has no real bearing on a case, the why doesn't alter the facts; why a murder is committed doesn't change the fact that one has been, or how, or where, or by whom. Why is a question for theologists and moralists and the courts. What does the 'why' of my sleeping habits matter? It doesn't change them."
John shifts, pulling back enough to frown at Sherlock as though he's an absolute moron, which he doesn't appreciate in the slightest.
"Of course it matters!" he cries, indignant. "The 'why' changes the whole situation, because - as I'm sure you've noticed by now - it isn't that you won't go to sleep, or you keep choosing not to, it's that you can't fall asleep. You can't, Sherlock, and that's very, very different from just not wanting to. You couldn't sleep if you tried, and that matters. A lot, actually."
And Sherlock does feel like an absolute moron, because the answer is so painfully obvious that if John – who is considerably above the everyday man's intelligence, but still leagues below Sherlock's own – has managed to spot it out before him, he is suffering some very serious side-effects of chronic insomnia.
"Yes, yes, all right, you've made your point," he says wearily, the closest he can get to conceding defeat. John won't gloat though: he knows Sherlock is operating with an intense handicap, and also he's a decent person.
John pulls his head back down to rest at the crook of his neck, because he no doubt heard the exhaustion Sherlock can't hide anymore, not after three days of this nonstop. The fingers resume their idle petting, as if he were cat. Sherlock would resent it, but he doesn't have the energy.
"So then why can't you sleep? I know your massive intellect has already figured it out."
It has. And Sherlock's reticence to disclose his results is not actually due to embarrassment. He realizes he has a problem, and he is not ashamed of it. Rather, he's ashamed that he has been unable to do anything about it. Sherlock has complete mastery over his physical being (John would disagree, primarily because all physical things pertaining to John happen to the be the only exceptions to the rule, not that Sherlock dwells on that), and his is an imminently logical creature: that his mind should fall subject to such illogical fits is vexing, of course, but to be expected given the circumstances. That that same imminently logical mind is incapable of undoing the damage merely adds insult to injury.
And to be perfectly honest, it isn't fair. He'd quit whinging about such things when he was nine and his schoolmates had so eloquently (and repetitively) proven that nothing in life is fair, but he is currently 34 years old and he is bone-weary and defeated and John is so lovely and solid and there that Sherlock allows himself to be frustrated and petulant, at least in his own head.
It's a nice alternative to sobbing.
There is a head space one occupies when one is simultaneously hunting and being hunted. The constant vigilance and constant suspicion keep one on one's toes, keeps the mind focused on the here and now, the sounds of that very instant, the factors immediately relevant; it serves as a blinder, of sorts, for which Sherlock couldn't help but be grateful.
He went a week without sleep and two without food. He was never in a country for longer than a day, and never in any given city for more than three hours. He worked relentlessly, tracing bank accounts, tracking money trails, following lines of dust and breathless whispers, trying to pin the intangible down, trying to hold it and look at it and prove it was real, and all of it was just a mad desperate race to end it. It wasn't about the Game, it hadn't been since the Pool, when Sherlock saw the cost of his entertainment was far, far higher than he would ever be willing to pay, and that he'd happily be bored the rest of his life so long as he never saw that look on John's face again: not panicked, not frightened, but frighteningly still and grim. The look of a soldier.
The look of a martyr.
And so he raced now to end it, to destroy Moriarty's network and destroy the man himself, all a frantic, perilous route home and he had to finish it, had to put a stop to it all because he was beginning to forget what John smelled like, what aftershave he used, the precise pitch of his voice when he spoke low in Sherlock's ear so as not to be overheard by nosy Yarders, or the tonality of his laugh. He was forgetting what his strong, gentle fingers felt like inspecting him for wounds, handing him a cup of tea, his mobile, a biro, anything. Forgot what shade of blue his eyes were, and it was intolerable, hateful, it was the worst sort of brain fugue, to know that cramming all this data and information about fucking Moriarty had pushed carefully accrued and meticulously documented knowledge of John Watson out of his mind, deleted it from his hard drive, when it was so much more important and it had been three years and Sherlock could no longer remember which direction John's mouth curled when he was amused, and the work distracted him from all this. The work made him forget about his fears, made him forget about doubts.
Made him forget that everything he was trying to protect, he had already lost.
And then he found Carl Powers. Or, rather, he found James Powers, little Carl's younger cousin. When in the thick of it, back in London, it had occurred to him in an oblique way that Jim Moriarty was likely not Moriarty's real name, but at the time he hadn't been trying to stop Moriarty, only beat him. It never occurred to him that the reason none of Carl's schoolmates – older and younger – turned up suspicious was because the killer hadn't gone to school with Carl at all: he'd known Carl some other way. It took Sherlock a disgustingly long time to realize the one connection he hadn't tried yet; the one that, even more than romantic, was the most sordid, embittering tie a person could have: family.
The moment he'd figured it out, he heard the door to the rundown shack he'd been staying in that night creak slightly one floor down, and he grabbed up his papers and his rucksack and promptly lit the room on fire before he jumped out the window and fled into the woods.
He'd tracked Moriarty down by the end of the week.
He left the rounding up of the organization's feelers to someone with more man power and less red tape to deal with.
Two weeks later, he was realizing the locks of 221 B had been changed, and so climbed into the third-story bedroom, filled with the scent and the sound and the presence of John Watson, after three long years, surrounded by this small, safe little cocoon of him, and he very nearly collapsed from relief. He couldn't help but creep near his still form, check his pulse, just to make sure, just to really really know that everything was fine, and then John spoke, and then John rolled over, and then John was his, still his, after all this time he'd only thought of his safety, only thought to keep him alive but he never dared hope that John, after three unending, unkind years, would still be his.
He hadn't slept that night, either, but for very different reasons. And his mind, for once, was quiet.
"Sherlock?"
Twice now John has had to get his attention, and it's becoming absurd, Sherlock never gets distracted from John, even when a case is on, even what it's a decently engaging case, he is always aware of John, some recess of his mind forever attuned to the doctor's words and movement and location and breathing pattern.
It's all terribly vital to Sherlock's existence.
But he has drifted twice now from the sound of John's voice and soothing touch to his hair, and that simply isn't acceptable.
He confesses.
"I don't sleep because I think I hear people in the flat."
John is quiet a moment, in case Sherlock wishes to elaborate, which he doesn't, though he realizes he'll probably have to at some point.
"You can't sleep because you think you hear people?" John says slowly, as though digesting, and Sherlock would snap at him for unnecessary repetition, until he notices the one difference (can't, yes, must fix those verbs), and he's too tired anyway. "What are they doing, walking around? Robbing us? Why do you think they're here?"
Sherlock blinks. He . . . hadn't expected John to take him seriously. Well, not seriously seriously, John doesn't actually believe people wander into their flat just to prevent the detective from sleeping and then leave in the morning, but he hasn't merely dismissed Sherlock as acting childishly, hasn't remonstrated him for being illogical and idiotic, and Sherlock feels a little guilty for having anticipated such a reaction.
John was kind and good and gentle and understanding and everything Sherlock wasn't. Of course he would take it seriously, act as though Sherlock were still sane.
And he confesses again.
"Mostly I believe they're here to kill me. I suppose in an abstract way I fear they'll kill you too, as a logical progression of events, but it has more to do with me due the circumstances that this paranoia began under."
Another beat of silence.
"While you were hunting Moriarty?" John asks low and calmly, and Sherlock can't fit into words how happy and relieved and exhausted he is, with John, with everything, it's already both better and worse than it has been in two months.
"Yes," he breathes.
John huffs a bit, voice going harder as he says, "Probably should have figured that myself, to be honest. You haven't said much about it, but even I realized it couldn't have been the most relaxing way to spend three years of your life. You probably moved around a lot, yeah? And it wasn't like he didn't know you'd be after him. He chased you as much as you chased him."
"It is a bit ridiculously cyclical when looked at in hindsight," Sherlock mumbles, curling deeper into John's chest, hypnotized by the soothing circles drawn into the skin near his temple.
"Why didn't you just tell me?" he asks, followed by a gentle kiss to the nearest ear, letting Sherlock know he's not mad, not blaming him for anything, only curious.
"I was frustrated that I couldn't fix the problem myself. It's irrational and infantile. I know there is no one after me in London, and anyone with any cause to be is either dead or locked away in a Turkish prison and will likely never see the light of day again. Logically, there's no reason for it."
"And God forbid you ever do something illogical," John chuckles, breath warm on Sherlock's cheeks and he sighs a bit, closing his eyes. "But that's not all, is it?"
Sherlock swallows and doesn't answer. Merely butts his head against John's clavicle, hopefully convincing him not to ask any more questions.
And he doesn't.
But Sherlock can hear his worry in the air anyway.
He confesses a third time.
"I just . . . I hate how it feels. It's like . . ." but there are no words for what it's like, and he is so very tired.
"It's like you're there again."
Sherlock goes still and breathless at the slightly haunted tone.
"That's the worst part, isn't it?" John continues. "It's not that you can't sleep, or that you know it's all in your head, it's that you feel like it's happening again, still, like you've never left and the good parts, the parts when you're awake, start to seem like the dream. And for a while you think you're going mad, because you start doubting what's real, and it isn't until morning comes when you realize you were up the whole night tormenting yourself for nothing."
Sherlock's heart has a small seizure and he gasps wetly against John's throat, because of course, of course John would know what it felt like. And Sherlock never knew. It must have been before, before Moriarty and everything fell into rubble; before, when they slept in separate rooms and were little more than flatmates, probably barely even friends. Sherlock had always known John had nightmares from the war; he hadn't expected, though, that it was anything like this.
His chest is too tight, and his eyes are stinging and he doesn't want to, God he doesn't want to, but he might not have quite as much control over it as he would like to think he does, if for no other reason than because 72 solid hours without rest is a bit much, even for him, and he can't seem to control anything at the moment, not even his thoughts.
Obviously.
So when the tears come, they aren't a surprise but they are intolerable, and he gnashes his teeth and tries to curse them away, but then John is there, holding him tight, so tight he couldn't move if he tried but not tight enough that he can't breathe. John had always been good at hugs, made something of a science of it apparently, because he knew the proper ones to employ in every situation and he was there, voice soft and smooth and deep in his ear.
It's fine Sherlock. It's all fine. You're so tired and you've fought so hard and you're so wonderful, you know that? You're amazing, you're my hero, you're my everything, my only. I love you so much even you won't ever understand it, but it won't matter because I'll show it to you every day and you'll never have to wonder, I promise, I promise you'll be all right, love. Just let go.
It seems a small eternity before the whole process stops, chest quits hitching, breath no longer clogged in his throat, and Sherlock feels salty dampness on his cheeks slowly drying in stiff, itchy patches, but he's too far gone to bother with it or try and wipe it away. There's really no one to hide it from, after all.
"Feel better?"John asks, voice still low and unbelievably soft.
Sherlock huffs. "Not hardly."
"You will eventually. Don't worry."
John kisses his forehead and then both eyelids, because he is a hopeless romantic.
"Why are you so disgustingly optimistic?" he grouses with no actual heat, much too lethargic and mellow and – oddly enough – content to waste energy on feigning it properly.
"Well, unlike someone, I actually slept very well last night."
"Mmm, yes, shoulder," Sherlock mumbles.
"What?"
"Nothing. Remind me to give you a massage when I can be bothered to move."
"About when do you suppose that'll be?"
"Next year, or thereabouts."
"Sherlock Holmes using imprecise timetables? You really are exhausted," John chuckles.
Sherlock makes some mutinous noise against the other man's throat.
"Fine. No massage for you."
Lips pressing his cheekbone.
"You know I love you," John breathes, kissing now his jaw, his neck, a bony shoulder. "I'm only taking the piss. There's nothing at all wrong with your lack of minute planning. I fully respect your vagaries."
"God, will you shut up?" Sherlock groans as teeth scrape across his pulse point, trying to disguise it as annoyance instead of pleasure. Because all told, Sherlock probably is not physically (or, yes, emotionally, let's be honest here, at least where no one else will know) capable of anything more than what they're currently doing – which on his part is admittedly not much, but John is in caretaker mode, and he usually prefers Sherlock docile at times like this so he can lavish him with affection and sex, supposing as he does that Sherlock has been cruelly deprived of such things (he has).
It's as if John has made some sort of study of the muscles in Sherlock's body, though, the subtle ways they tense and relax seeming to communicate the detective's mental (emotional) state, because after that little bit of teeth, John gentles it again to light, lingering kisses and doesn't bother with anything lower than his sternum.
"So beautiful," he whispers, like he would in church, a temple, in front of a relief of some marble deity. Reverent. "You really are. So gorgeous, so lovely, don't know why you took up with a bloke like me, sometimes," as he continues his journey, each statement punctuated by a kiss to his chin, another to his nose, the lobe of an ear, the edge of an eye.
Sherlock hears this last part just as John presses his lips to the corner of his mouth, and he makes another noise, low, throaty, displeased, even as he finally darts forward, seizes that soft, teasing mouth in a real kiss, deep, demanding, thin lips so soft yet firm, and he suddenly has a hand buried in John's short hair pulling him impossibly closer, he's raised up on his elbow now, he needs more grounding, more balance to twist that mouth open and shove his tongue inside, so warm, so delicious, so John, panting as he bears the doctor back down to the pillows, tips his jaw up, and just devours him.
Just because he can, because John will let him, because John wants him, because John is even still here to let him and want him and belong to him, and Sherlock has done this. He has managed this much, if nothing else in his entire existence: he kept John safe, so that John could save him.
It's beautiful symmetry.
Both of John's hands are buried in Sherlock's curls, but they aren't insistent, they aren't demanding, simply rubbing and petting, his tongue languid where Sherlock's is sharp and desperate. He just lays there and lets Sherlock take what he needs, asks nothing for himself, and a wide gulf seems to open in his chest then, warm and overwhelming and he might cry again if he weren't already so done in.
Finally he stops, lungs dragging air urgently as he pulls away to rest his head to John's, nuzzling just the slightest bit when he hears the doctor's thick, unsteady swallow.
"I adore you," he exhales, eyes shut against all these ridiculous emotions he can do nothing to suppress at the moment, all his defenses too shaken by lack of sleep and nerves and the sound of his own heart breaking with how full it is. "There's no other word for it. I adore everything about you. You're perfect. You're a marvel. God, it's like I can't breathe without you."
He can't. He already knows he can't. He'd like not to repeat to experience for the remainder of his time on Earth.
John exhales, stilted, almost a laugh for how little noise it makes.
"Well, my tea-making skills really are quite remarkable," he says, and Sherlock tries, but much like the tears, he can't stop the sudden explosion of air from his lungs as mirth somehow claws its way to the surface, a wide, weary grin breaking across his face, so bizarre after days and months and years of grim silence.
John clasps Sherlock's face and pulls him back then, looks up at him as he looks down on the doctor's sweet, lined face, so weathered and yet unspeakably kind and fair and lovely. Deep, near hazel-blue eyes, rare, unusual, gorgeous, like a colloid suspension breaking apart.
"It'll be fine, yes? I promised you, after all, and I am a man of my word."
"That you are," Sherlock murmurs, blinks, eyes itchy and swollen.
John's mouth curls (to the right, it curls to the right, he memorizes it over and over so that even on his death bed when he's forgotten all his exploits and his genius and his own name, he'll always remember John's mouth curls to the right).
"You look like death. Lie down, will you, before you collapse on me and crush my chest cavity?"
"It would take approximately 300 pounds dropped from a height of over six feet to crush your chest on impact. Since neither apply to either myself or the current situation, I'd say you're quite safe."
Sherlock does lie down, though, because he can't seem to keep his head up anyway, and the pillow does look uncommonly inviting.
John nestles near him, fingers still buried in dark, tangled hair and soothing his achy head.
"Just lie here," he says, voice like a whisper, like a lullaby. "Just close your eyes and lie for a bit."
Sherlock's eyes drift shut, relieved at even the simple joys of not being forced open any longer.
"Now, tell me how I wake up in the morning," John sighs. "Point by point. I know you've got it down to heart by now. Amaze me with your geniusing."
Sherlock would snort if he had the energy for it. As it stands, he barely has the energy to part his mouth about an inch and mutter, "Your feet twitch first. You flex your ankles and your toes at the same time. Then you bend your knees up towards your chest, but you never go foetal. I don't know why. Maybe by then you register my body pressed against you? And you want to maintain contact, so you don't pull away. When my hand is on your stomach, I can feel your abdominals contract and your shoulders lift while you stretch briefly. Your legs usually straighten out again, toes pointed to the end of the bed. Sometimes you frown, or sometimes you smile. Sometimes you just sort of grimace. The first two are dreams, I think. I like it when you smile. Usually dream's about me."
John's breath stutters in a bit of a chuckle. Sherlock's lips twitch upwards in response, his tongue going lazy with slurs.
"The grimace is 'cos you didn't dream, or you don't remember dreaming, but you slept well and now your shoulder's sore. We should probly change sides of the bed, if we wanna spoon. Shoulder hurts in th' morning. And then sometimes you grab my arm, or your turn over 'n press your head to my chest, and you won't open your eyes until I say something. You don't look at me 'til you know I'm there. I know why. I don't mind. 'M the same way."
Barely a brush of lips against his hairline, like butterfly wings.
"When you open your eyes, s'like I can see again. 'S wonderful. Love looking at your eyes. Blue. Not like mine. So much better. 'N I love you, love waking up with you so much, s'like it can't be real. S'all a dream. Has to be. After three years? After I left you, no explanation, nothing. After I did that t' you, hurt you, how could I be here?"
Warm air over his face, the barest brush of a nose against his own, something feather-light, eyelashes fluttering over his skin.
"But then I remember you're so much better 'n me. 'N I love you for it. So I get t' be here. 'M happy."
He stops there, mouth still open because he can't find the muscles to close it, and everything is dark and warm and soft, and he feels like he might be floating, floating away, but it's safe, he'll still be safe, even if he floats away. His John will bring him back.
"Amazing," the darkness says, and Sherlock breathes deep, and smiles.
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