feathers
Sherlock always hugged John before he went to sleep. John didn't mind. Of course he didn't. He was only a pillow, after all.
Sherlock always hugged John before he went to sleep. John was soft and Sherlock could squeeze him until he folded into the impossible stretches of his body. Sometimes, John would be mad at Sherlock and Sherlock wouldn't sleep for hours until he'd walk up to his bed and stammer an apology. He'd be invited back into bed and snuggle into John, apologise again and fold right into sleep.
Sherlock remembered the first time he saw John, lying on a bed in a store about to close. The cashier had stared at him as he demanded to purchase, no, not the whole bloody bed, just the pillow, for God's sake, and do you speak English, habla Inglès, but he had gotten it eventually, even after spouting several vaguely racist comments to the poor, underpaid woman.
It was nice and covered in cable-knit beauty, and Sherlock figured the pillow looked a bit like a John.
It wasn't until much later that Sherlock started talking to the stuffed bag; imagined the feathers to be blood, muscle, a real, beating heart, and for a moment, even believed himself to have one. And then John got a face and sandy-blond hair, a toothy smile with matching, shining eyes and perhaps Sherlock was going mad, but it didn't matter.
Sherlock regretted that he first mentioned John aloud in a crime scene. In the heat of an argument and well-hidden embarrassment, though he did flush a little when he yelled that he had found someone willing to spend the night with him for free, Anderson, you bloody fool, and while he was sure Donovan asked little payment, at least John was soft and his hair not as bloody frizzy. He'd say he regretted the childish comment about Sally's curly hair, but he really didn't.
He hadn't meant to us John like this, not for the sake of being right, but when he described the looks of surprise, John forgave him easily, and maybe even made him chuckle a bit.
Sherlock was selfish, he knew, because his delightful John gave him everything he could: friendship, company, comfort, an additional beating appendage to get his bloodflow going, but Sherlock had nothing to give to him. He knew this. So Sherlock spent as much time with the large pillow as he could, because he knew he couldn't last forever. He sat on the sofa with John in his lap and thought that, yes, he would be devastated if he would be left alone again, but he could live. He'd go to France, keep bees and live with the thought John was happy, be it in another bed.
This didn't stop his heart from breaking when it happened, though.
It was a case, Sherlock muttered. And it was. He'd solved it, and that was that. Sherlock knew his life involved danger. A lot of danger, and Sherlock knew he never took the correct precautions to make it less so. But this would always be dangerous, and John knew this too. But John was brave and promised to stay no matter what. And when Sherlock got home, he fully expected John to be waiting for him on the sofa, eagerly waiting to hear his side of the double-trouble murders, as John had personally dubbed them. But John wasn't on the sofa. John was on the floor, surrounded most of his other belongings and a batch of feathers.
The criminals had not found what they were looking for, neither in the bedroom, nor in the soft, fluffy confines of John's body. And Sherlock stopped breathing. That day, John lost his heart, and not hours later, despite evermore denying owning one, Sherlock lost his.
Sherlock was okay with not having a heart, really. Everything was easier without it, he claimed, until something strange happened. Something Sherlock would usually have never allowed to happen, but just realised he didn't have a say in. Because that small military man next to Mike, invalided from either Iraq or Afghanistan with his baby-blue eyes and his hair, what was it, brown or blonde or both, should really not make his non-existent heart skip a few beats only to work at double speed shortly after.
And Sherlock really did not need a flatmate, because Mycroft was paying for all of that wasn't he, but then John lent him his phone and Sherlock spilt out his life-story onto the cold tiles of Bart´s laboratory and it was only the logical course of action, right? Because suddenly Sherlock's heart felt like beating enough to make up for months without it, and if ex-army doctor and permanent BAMF John Watson minded the softly snoring consulting detective crawling into his bed every night and clinging onto him like an oversized ragdoll, he chose not to comment.
WELL, this is awkward. But feel free to review. I BEG YOU. Because my week is already shit. And you know how reviews make people feel!
Love,
Mary-Jane