Its dark out on London's streets and inside the flat of 221B Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes sits sipping his cold tea. John Watson is slumped in his chair across the room, fingers curled gently around the laptop he'd been using before sleep dragged his mind under.
Sherlock looks up from his mug and lets out a barely noticeable breath. He calculates his companion's even breathing until he is sure the other man is asleep. The consulting detective lets his composure drip away, leaving the heaviness in his heart displayed across his angular features for the world to see. Sherlock can hear the clock in the kitchen ticking; ticking his time away. It will all be over soon. Given a few more days, Sherlock will be dead. The thought triggers an unfamiliar twinge in his heart and he wonders when, exactly, he'd decided he even had a heart.
Sherlock has a plan, of course. He's not going to die; dying is a far too lackluster affair for a man such as himself. Yet, for reasons he refuses to see, he is afraid.
Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.
You look sad when you think he can't see you.
Though his mind reels like clockwork, the only exterior sign of thought is a miniscule twitch of an eyebrow as Sherlock watches John in his armchair. He's not going to allow himself to think about his blogger coming home to the empty flat in a few days' time. And he's certainly not going to think of the way his friend will likely reach for the cane that has sat, collecting dust, in the corner of their flat since the day they moved in together.
No, instead he would focus on the here and the now. Caring about John; or anyone, for that matter; would not stop the inevitable from happening.
Sherlock dutifully focuses his attention on the sleeping man across from him. Things had been rather tense lately and the wrinkles of wariness had begun to define themselves in John's face a little more than usual. But, asleep, his features were surprisingly tranquil once more. No worry lines marred the area around his blue eyes and no twitching fingers unconsciously stroked his knee as they did when he was in concern for Sherlock's safety. Sherlock can't help but wonder if he, too, the ever composed Sherlock Holmes, looked that peaceful in the rare occasions when he slept. He gives a bitter-sweet smile at the thought, and then he rises, crosses the distance between John and himself, and slips the laptop from between the sleeping man's fingers, replacing it with a light book. Sherlock closes the laptop's lid and sets it aside. He drags a throw blanket from the couch and drapes it sloppily over his friend. The detective thinks a good book is more pleasant to awaken to than research on a case about dead children.
Sherlock slips away with feline agility, avoiding the floorboards known to creak. He grabs his long coat and blue scarf from their hangers and wraps them both tightly around himself. As he heads out toward Saint Bart's, Sherlock Holmes ponders the only puzzle he cannot solve: just how he'd let John Watson get to him.