An unfamiliar voice pervaded the grey, miasmic haze of sleep that John had unwittingly fallen into, abruptly rousing him from his unpremeditated slumber. Blinking blearily against the unforeseen awakening, John straightened in an effort to reorient himself with his surroundings and locate the source of the prior intonation. Recognizing the cramped confines he currently abode to be a taxi cab, John lifted his sleep-addled gaze to meet the blasé face of the cabbie whom had turned towards him, face strained into a schooled expression to deliberately mask the exasperation beneath.
John shook himself mentally to further rouse himself into lucidity. "Yeah, sorry?"
"We're here, mate," the cabbie repeated, voice flat and interlaced with barely stifled annoyance. His thumb jerked towards the window from which the familiar visage of Baker Street projected, an arched eyebrow beckoning for the fare.
"Right; thanks," John mumbled in response, fumbling for his wallet and frowning at the realization of an unknown weight pressing against his arm. A turn of his head unravelled the mystery; his eyes met the sight of a sleeping Sherlock, body slumped fully against his, head propped against John's shoulder as his chest rose and fell with even breaths. Shaking his head, John nudged Sherlock aside – an action that failed in rousing the slumbering detective – to rifle through his pockets and retrieve his wallet.
"Alright you; it's time to get up," John pushed his elbow into Sherlock's ribs after paying the fare, rolling his eyes when a sleepy and incoherent murmur was his only response. "Sherlock."
"Mmmm…." The detective mumbled unintelligibly, smothering his face into John's coat.
"We're home already, you arse," John hissed, flashing a brief and sheepish glance towards the cabbie, whom was watching the proceedings with an unamused frown. "Wake up!"
"Don't wanna…" Sherlock groaned in complaint, blindly batting John's hands away as he reached forward in attempt to shake the detective awake.
John arched an exasperated eyebrow, then popped open the cab door to vacate the vehicle and plant his legs firmly upon the pavement outside. "Fine then," he muttered in challenge, reaching once more into the confines to the taxi to hook his hands under the comatose detective's arms and haul him out into the curb.
Sherlock uttered a stream of unintelligible grumbles in complaint as he was all but dragged out of the cab, but fortunately did not fight it as John manhandled him into a better position. Slinging Sherlock's arm across his neck and winding his own across his waist, John stumbled painstakingly up the steps towards their flat and fumbled for the key, muttering profanities towards the sleeping detective slumped against his side.
"This is why you should sleep once in a while during a case, you git," John hissed through ground teeth, jamming the key into the lock and flinging the door open when it clicked open in response. His shoes thumped dully against the floor as he entered the premise, readjusting Sherlock against him when he seemed liable to tip forward in sleep. "It's your own fault you can't even walk now – Sherlock! Try to support your own weight, please!"
"Hmmm…?" Sherlock's eyelids fluttered in response, a glint of blue-green iris shimmering through dark lashes before they fell shut once more. "Right…"
"Yeah; right," John grumbled to himself, grunting in discomfort as he hauled Sherlock's listless self the rest of the way towards their bedroom. Gingerly, he lowered the unresponsive sleuth onto their bed, careful not to jostle him out of his peacefully slumbering state. As much as he resented Sherlock for neglecting sleep throughout the week to focus on a case of minimal importance, witnessing the usually cold and calculating expression soften in sleep caused a bloom of affection to blossom within John's chest, and he was determined to not wake him and cause him to lose any more much needed slumber.
Sherlock, exhausted from the demands of his recently resolved case, fell into bed with minimal response. He burrowed himself into the plush sheets and smothered his face into his pillow, yawning and stretching out luxuriantly before curling up on his side, fingers groping blindly for John. Eventually he sought him out in the semi-dark, slender white fingers grasping the fabric of John's jacket and yanking him downward. "Mmmm…" he murmured groggily, eyelids fluttering sleepily as he gazed upward. "…sleep with me, Jawn…?"
John smiled, feeling the rush of fondness explode within his chest. "Yeah; in a sec," he reached out to smooth down the thick curls at Sherlock's nape with no short of affection, moving to unbutton the detective's coat. "Let me just get ourselves undressed, yeah?"
"Hmmm…" Sherlock's eyes fluttered shut once more, and his body seemed to relax into a deeper state of sleep. Smiling gently down at his detective, John released the final button from its fabric clasp and tentatively inched it off Sherlock's shoulders, putting it aside to remove the scarf and suit jacket he wore beneath. Now satisfied the brunette wouldn't become overheated in sleep, John's fingers roved his own torso to divest himself of his outer layers, shrugging off his jacket and jumper before clambering onto the bed next to his slumbering detective.
John allowed his eyes to flit over the slack features of Sherlock's sleeping self, smiling softly as he brushed an errant curl off his smooth forehead. Sherlock's lashes fluttered faintly at the contact but he did not wake, mumbling something incoherent under his breath before instinctively sidling up to John and pressing his cheek against his arm. John felt the corners of his lips tug up further in response and yawned, slinging an arm across Sherlock's shoulders to draw him closer and push his face into the head of soft curls. With the soft embrace of the blankets enclosing them and the press of Sherlock against his chest, John released a contented sigh and allowed himself to be pulled into a dreamless sleep.
oOo
John was unbecomingly roused from sleep at an interminable hour of night by the cold of eventide biting at his exposed skin and the queer absence of a curly-haired detective sprawled against his chest. Bemused, John propped himself up on his elbows and glanced around, peering through the dark veil of twilight to scrutinize the right half of the bed. He could vaguely perceive the outline of a peculiarly-shaped lump occupying that half and blinked in bewilderment, rising from bed to examine it more closely.
To his profound annoyance, what he found was the entirety of the blankets twisted and tangled into a tight knot, and in the centre of it all – Sherlock.
"Sherlock!" he hissed, yanking exasperatedly at the heap of blanket wrapped snugly around Sherlock's dozing self. In the midst of the night, the detective had somehow snatched the entirety of the duvet away from John and was currently lavishing in its warmth, leaving John to huddle into a trembling ball in a futile attempt at staving off the cold. Sleep-deprived and chilled by the night air, the notion made a tight knot of annoyance unfurl within John's chest. He gave another sharp yank at the blankets, but the skein of blankets Sherlock had swathed himself within was so tightly and convolutedly done that it would not yield to John's pull. "Sherlock, give me back the blankets, you greedy arse!"
"hmmph…" Sherlock grumbled in response, blinking awake in bemusement when John attempted another yank at the fabric. Bleary eyes turned towards John, groggy and narrowed in sleep and annoyance. "…go away Jawn…wanna sleep…"
"No, I will not 'go away'," John hissed, grabbing hold of Sherlock's exposed shoulder as he began to turn away from him. "Oh, no you don't! I'll let you go to sleep when you give me back my share of blankets!"
In the darkness of the room John could barely make out Sherlock's exasperated eye roll. "Don't be childish, John."
John felt his eye twitch. "Sherlock, I'm freezing to death here! Just give me back some of the blankets and we can BOTH go back to sleep."
John heard Sherlock sigh, then felt the bed dip as he sat up and attempted to unwind the convoluted mess of blanket from his torso and legs. With ease the detective unravelled the knot of fabric from his body and smoothed it out, grabbing one end of the spread blanket and hurling it towards John.
John accepted the offered half of blanket eagerly as Sherlock huffed, then rolled over to resume his slumber. "Happy?"
"Much," John smirked at the sleeping outline of Sherlock on the bed before pushing his face into his pillow once more, shrouding himself in the warmth of the blanket and surrendering himself to the beckon of sleep once more.
oOo
John awoke himself in the middle of the night again with a harsh sneeze, the intensity of it rippling throughout his body and jolting himself from slumber. Blinking blearily in bemusement, John scrubbed the back of his hand across his face and turned tiredly to his side, smothering his face into his pillow with an exhausted moan. Just before the alluring haze of sleep began to pull him down again he felt a bodily tremor shiver up his spine, the sharp prickle of coldness ghosting across his skin in a playful caress that had him rousing back into wakefulness once more with a start.
Tentatively, John blindly groped the surrounding mattress in search of the blanket, seeking it out in the darkness of the night so he could draw it up to his chin and shield himself from the merciless shroud of cold that had began to encroach his shuddering body.
However, when his searching hands once again located nothing more than empty air and bare mattress, his heart plummeted to the tips of his toes.
"Sherlock!" John sat up with an exclamation, knowing without looking that Sherlock, once more, was the culprit of his current dilemma. A glance to his right clarified it - his eyes once again met the lumpy, irregular outline of Sherlock bundled up in the blankets, indiscernible beneath the cacoon of sheets he'd smothered himself within. The only part of him John could descry from beneath the thick layer of fabric was his head of dark curls, locks splayed in disarray across the ivory of his pillow as he slept turned away from John. John ground his teeth in sheer frustration and annoyance at having his blankets pilfered AGAIN and crawled towards the lump, stabbing the area he presumed was Sherlock's side with an irate finger.
"Go away, Mycroft!" Sherlock abruptly exclaimed, so sudden and irrelevant was the declaration that John felt obliged to recoil in reaction. Blinking his eyes open blearily, Sherlock surveyed the room with an inquisitive gaze before narrowing upon John, his blue-green eyes hazy with the vestige of sleep. "What now, John...?"
John cocked an eyebrow, gesturing towards the cocoon of blankets wrapped around the detective's lithe body.
Sherlock's brow furrowed in response.
John sighed deeply. "The blankets, Sherlock?"
Sherlock groaned irritably. "This again, John? Really?"
"What do you mean by that?" John snapped.
"I'm just saying that, as a doctor, you're being rather unsympathetic-"
"Unsympathetic!"
"Yes," Sherlock frowned at the interruption, "you've been yelling at me to get some sleep all week, and now that I finally desire it after resolving the case you're quite persistent in waking me up at regular intervals for the most trivial things."
"Trivial!" John spluttered, aghast and offended. "I'm freezing my bloody arse off because you keep stealing all the bloody blankets and you call me unsympathetic and trivial!?"
Sherlock merely waved him off with a flutter of his hand. "Do keep your voice down, John; you'll wake Mrs. Hudson."
John fumed silently for a little while longer before relenting, reaching forward to roughly haul the blankets off Sherlock's supine form. Fortunately, the sheets unraveled far easier than before from where they had been tightly woven around Sherlock's body - though the rough pull had caused Sherlock to roll across the bed slightly, much to his indignance and John's satisfaction - and he yanked them around himself once more, grumbling to himself all the while about blanket-stealing consulting detective boyfriends and the stupidly cold night. He continued to seethe until sleep called for him once more and dragged him to a - hopefully uninterrupted - oblivion.
oOo
"Oh, for fuck's sake!"
John could only throw his arms up in exasperation as he - once again - surveyed the entirety of Sherlock's blanket-clad form. The idiot had gone and dragged all the blankets away from him AGAIN and the worst part was, this time, he wasn't even USING most of it. John could see the tail end of the sheets tumble off the right edge of the bed and sweep the floor, a majority unused and only a portion swathed snugly around Sherlock's comfortably dozing self. John glowered at the sleuth's sleeping face, wondering how he could've ever deemed those lax features as anything better than the blanket-stealing demon that he was.
John felt a chill ripple up his spine and he braced himself for the inevitable.
The sneeze broke free, shuddering up his body in a powerful tremor that had him groaning moments afterward. Trembling with the cold and profoundly pissed off, John cast one last withering look at the cocoon of blankets that was Sherlock Holmes and rose, tucking his pillow under his arm as he stumbled from the bed towards the door of the bedroom.
He'd had it up to here with Sherlock's constant blanket-theft. Maybe if it had been another night - a warmer night - he wouldn't have thought much of this infuriating idiosyncrasy of his boyfriend's. But on a bitterly cold night such as this...John wouldn't tolerate it. Once? Yeah, sure. Twice? Fine. But thrice in a single night, with the promise of more? Hell no.
Luckily, they hadn't established this bed-sharing pattern for very long, which meant John's previous bedroom - the one he'd used before he and Sherlock had engaged in a romantic relationship - was still available and hadn't yet been converted to the laboratory that Sherlock had been clamoring for ever since John had agreed to share a bedroom with him. With a yawn John let himself into the threshold, hailing the sight of his old bed and neatly folded blanket with an eager smile. He deposited his pillow upon the worn mattress and surrendered himself to the pull of the plush sheets and comfy duvet, sighing contentedly as he sank into its soft embrace and drew the blankets across his goose-pimpled body.
At least here he didn't have to worry about Sherlock swiping the sheets from him - unless the git decided to go all the way to John's old room and yank the blankets away just to spite him for waking him up so much.
Which...did sound like something Sherlock would do, considering.
With that in mind, John tightened his hold on his blankets and fell into a troubled sleep.
oOo
The soft plodding of footsteps across the floorboards was enough to call John from his doze, his senses instinctively sharpening to a razor's edge in response. His eyes flitted through the semi-dark in scrutiny, seeking out the source of the sound to gauge whether it was friendly or a possible threat. His senses heightened and strained - a testimony to his experiences during the war and the equally harrowing escapades he'd undertaken with Sherlock - as he pierced through the gloom with sharpened eyes and strained ears.
"It's fine, John," a smooth, velvet timbre pervaded the silent of the night, deep and sultry and infinitely familiar, "it's just me."
John's rigid posture relaxed, but only a tad.
"Sherlock?" bewilderment interlaced the intonation, barely masking the suspicion that dwelt beneath. After all, he hadn't put it beneath Sherlock not to steal into his room with the purpose of swiping his blanket, and after losing it three times prior he was not eager to repeat the experience. "What are you doing here?"
He could practically hear Sherlock scoff. "I'm not here for what you think, John," he declared, his voice a trifle strained, "you can loosen your grip on the blanket now, because its not going to go anywhere."
John glared up at Sherlock from the darkness, loosening his grip on the aforementioned sheet in humiliation. "Right."
A period of silence lapsed.
"So-" John fiddled with the hem of his blankets absentmindedly, eyes seeking Sherlock's face under the shroud of darkness. The detective's posture was peculiarly rigid, shoulders even, spine striaght, his head subtly ducked enough for shadows to obscure his expression - the epitome of forced nonchalance. He'd ventured to John's room despite his fatigue, the reason for which was beyond him - but if he hadn't planned on pilfering John's blanket in spite, another cause must have driven him to John's room in the midst of the night. "-are you going to just stand there, or...?"
Sherlock's shoulders hitched infinitesimally; a motion barely detectable under the cover of twilight. Another few minutes elapsed without progress, to the point where John humored the idea of simply falling back asleep with the detective still hovering above him - when Sherlock suddenly lunged forward to strip the blankets away from John's mattress, clambering into the empty space uncovered beside John before wrenching the sheets back over his head.
John observed the proceedings with growing bemusement, blinking in bewilderment at the outline of Sherlock that could be gleaned from beneath the blankets. "Sherlock?"
"Go back to sleep," was the muffled reply.
John's brow furrowed in perplexity, and he gazed down at Sherlock for several moments more before obliging his request. Gingerly he lay himself beside the motionless detective, eyes scouring the shadow-swathed ceiling as he pondered over Sherlock's unbidden visit to his room. He sought the irregular outline of Sherlock, smothered under his blanket, and sighed in exasperated relent after several minutes of awkward silence elapsed, turning towards the taciturn sleuth to tentatively strip the sheets away from his head.
"Sherlock?" he murmured quietly into the night, watching the twin beacons of silvery-turquoise flicker upwards as they were uncovered from the fabric. "Something up?"
"No."
John resisted the nearly irrepressible urge to roll his eyes at the detective's blatant obstinacy. Honestly, did Sherlock really deem him THAT stupid that he figured he wouldn't notice his overt sulking?
Sherlock shifted ever so slightly, the glint of his eyes downcast, before gingerly inching himself towards John and ducking his face into the crook of his neck. John could feel the dishevelled curls tickling the sensitive skin of his throat as the detective adjusted his position, fidgeting slightly as he yanked the blankets more firmly under his chin and released a breath that ghosted over John's skin in a cascade of sudden heat. John blinked down at the mop of dark hair tucked against his chest and tenderly wove his fingers through the soft and rambunctious coils, heart warming slightly as the sleuth leaned eagerly into the touch. "Sherlock?"
"You weren't there," Sherlock abruptly began, voice roughened by sleep and an emotion John couldn't quite distinguish, "I woke up and...you weren't there."
John felt his brow rumple in confusion. "So?"
Silence.
"Sherlock?" John insisted.
"Forget it; it doesn't mean anything, alright?" Sherlock snapped crossly, eyes smoldering in the dimness, "it just means that I'm annoying and you're going to get sick of me and sooner or later you're going to leave. That's all."
John paused, his stout fingers still tangled within Sherlock's luxuriant curls, slowly processing the realization dawned with a vague sensation of horror - that Sherlock, despite his bravado and his apparent indifference towards their newly instated relationship status, had been scared. He'd been scared that, one day, John would grow tired of his brooding and his extravagant episodes of boredom and his countless other unfavorable character traits. He'd been dreading that, despite John's countless physical reassurances and vocal declarations of his affections, he'd one day become exasperated to the point of leaving him. Hell, he'd probably been convinced of it. By the way he sounded just now - the raw distress that had interwoven the undercurrent of his words - he'd probably been struggling with those thoughts on a day to day basis. John leaving him due to his pet peeve of blanket theft hadn't been a petty endeavor like John had assumed - it had been a milder analogy of Sherlock's insecurities, and that had bound to hurt.
The epiphany came to John like a slap in the face.
"Sherlock..." the word was a whisper in the night air, interlaced with comprehension in sympathy.
"Its fine," Sherlock responded curtly, pressing his face more firmly against John's chest. "I was just overthinking; its fine. I'm fine."
John glanced down at the bowed head of curls, his lips downturned and his expression colored with unease, before gently coaxing the detective's face upwards with a tip of his chin and softly meeting his lips with his own. The kiss was ephemeral and chaste; a brief touch of skin-on-skin, but it was enough to ease the tension from the sleuth's rigid shoulders, soften the lines of worry that had seamed his pale face. He relaxed against John with a sigh, parting his lips and melting into John's kiss with a softening expression and fluttering lashes. Long, white fingers sought John's face as he arched up into the kiss, sliding his arms across his soldier's neck to deepen it and turn it more ardent and impassioned.
They parted with a moist sound, their breaths labored and chests heaving. John sought Sherlock's hand in the darkness, intertwining their fingers to trace the raised skin of his knuckles in a soothing gesture of reassurance. Blue-green irises flickered and panned across his features, eyeing the sincerity behind John's movements and the silent promise it entailed; I will never leave you..
Sherlock cast his gaze downwards. "You can't possibly know that for sure."
"What?"
"That you won't leave."
John smiled gently.
"But I do," he whispered in response, his words a wisp against the night. He slipped his fingers across the pale neck to soothingly caress thick, dark curls, knowing how much Sherlock enjoyed having his hair petted despite never explicitly stating it. "Trust me; this is something I know for sure."
Sherlock huffed, lips pursed and eyes conveying his uncertainty, but leaned into John's touch either way. "I know you're aiming for reassuring, John," he intoned blandly, "but you're phrases are just oozing sentimentality; you've been watching too many of those horrid rom-coms."
John smirked, slipping an arm across Sherlock's shoulders to enclose him within an embrace. "Yeah; maybe. That was pretty corny."
Sherlock snorted in response, then burrowed deeper into the affectionate warmth of John's arms, his eyelids drooping in contentment and drowsiness. John smiled down at him and rested his chin atop the dishevelled curls, nosing against a few errant curls to inhale and savour the sleep-heightened scent of Sherlock. "You just go to sleep," John murmured, allowing his eyes to flutter shut. "I'll be here."
"Mmmm," was the sleepy response.
John smiled, then pulled the blankets tangled around their legs once more across their twinned bodies. With the warmth of both the blankets and his curly-haired detective pressed against his chest, John once again succumbed to the call of sleep with a smile.
oOo
John awoke once more when the light of morning was just beginning to peek through the gauzy-veil of the curtains, shrouding his room with the muted glow of imminent dawn. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he scrubbed a hand across his face tiredly and yawned, resisting the urge to smother his face into his pillow and surrender himself to the alluring notion of slumber once more. Shaking his head to clear the lingering vestige of sleep from his clouded mind, he pushed himself onto a sitting position and instinctively reached out to untangle the blankets from his legs.
He blinked in brief bemusement when his fingers groped empty air, glancing downwards at the clear lack of bed sheets anywhere on his person. A fleeting moment of bewilderment came and gone with the realization of what had occured and he sighed, stealing a glance to the right side of his bed at the sight he was certain his eyes were about to meet.
Sure enough, there was Sherlock, bundled cozily within the cocoon of blankets. He was smothered under the fabric, his hair drawing raven curls across the ivory of his pillow, dark lashes fanned across the exposed sliver of a pale cheek. John shook his head at the sight, determined to be cross with him when he woke up but could not suppress the warm and heady rush of fondness that was beginning to blossom throughout his body and dampen the lingering remnants of annoyance that had already been chased away by Sherlock's midnight revelation.
He crept silently towards the lump of blanket, smile soft and affectionate as he smoothed his fingers through the thick, silken coils of hair at Sherlock's nape.
"Oh, Sherlock," John murmured softly, pushing errant locks of hair from the detective's pale forehead to drop a kiss against his skin, "you blanket-stealing git."