Chapter One: Dream a Little Dream of Me
The inside of the cab was warm after the sharp cold of the midnight air outside, an almost painfully hot touch on the tip of John's nose and the red of his cheeks. He buried his fingers in the depths of his jacket pockets, far from complaining. "So. Explain, then," he said with a yawn. "I understood the bit about the blood stains and the chair, but how did you know that it was his sister who did it?" His head drooped to connect with the cool condensation of the window and he grinned.
Sherlock beamed at him. "Thought you'd never ask."
"Since when do you wait for anybody to ask before you start showing off?" John asked, rather sleepy, an amused smile on his face.
This wasn't dignified with an answer, and instead Sherlock rocketed off into a rapid-fire explanation of the events of the evening that left John bewildered. "Wait—you got all that from his dog?" He shook his head. "You are amazing, Sherlock."
The detective seemed genuinely pleased at this comment, and John's lips turned up in a small smile, which he hid with the turn of his head. Sherlock had always been very susceptible to flattery, at least from John. It could be quite endearing, if not a bit empowering. A man who balked at the thought of needing approval, so delighted with the army doctor's praise; it was a heady feeling.
"Thank you, John." Sherlock's voice was strangely quiet. John looked up at him, confusion on his face. Sherlock didn't thank him, and he didn't thank Sherlock. Their friendship was symbiosis. They made sacrifices for each other, each dependent on the other for something that they could get from no one else. In some ways, there was no room for a thank you in that, and John didn't ask for one. In a different way, there was every last bit of room for a thank you in it and they both studiously ignored the fact.
"Of…" he hummed, trying to clear his throat. "Of course." John struggled to find the right words, not knowing what would be too much, and after a moment of silence, he just let it go, leaning back into his seat and closing his eyes with a yawn, which was ineffectively hidden behind his hand.
Apparently Sherlock didn't think that John had elaborated well enough. "What do you mean 'of course'?" he murmured after a silence long enough to make the conversation disjointed. He didn't sound upset, only genuinely curious. John was falling asleep when he said it, and jerked awake at the sound of Sherlock's voice, however quiet and civilized.
John cleared his throat again. "You're my—best friend. Sherlock. I—you don't need to thank me." Here he paused, forgetting his train of thought for a moment before continuing on. "I mean every word—and…" John yawned again. "If anything, I should be thanking you. So of course I'm going to tell you—you know." His eyes drooped closed and he sank back against the seat of the car, assuming his job done. Lord, he was tired. Understandable, considering he had only slept four hours of the last thirty-six. Three cases in as many days, and Sherlock had solved them all. John grinned and was powerless to stop himself from falling asleep.
When he woke, he was leaned against Sherlock, drooling. Sherlock, for his part, was staring off into space pensively, seeming neither particularly comfortable nor uncomfortable with the arrangement. Still, John was embarrassed, and he sat up, swiping at his mouth with fingers weakened from fatigue. "Where are we?" he asked softly, his cheeks tinged with pink.
Sherlock gave him a disdainful look. "Baker Street, John." He looked pointedly out the window, and John followed his gaze. True, though they were still nowhere near the two hundreds. John turned away.
"You're paying this time." John yawned and no more was said on the matter. When they arrived, Sherlock produced several bills from the pocket of his trousers and thrust them at the driver before heading towards 221B with all of his usual haste. John took measured steps and when he finally made it up the stairs, Sherlock was sprawled out on the couch, his coat gone, and two nicotine patches on his arm. John watched from the doorway as he slapped on a third before turning to head into the kitchen.
"Will you be eating dinner then, Sherlock?" he asked casually. Still, he didn't hold out much hope. Multiple nicotine patches tended to mean that Sherlock had some sort of puzzle to solve. John briefly wondered what it was, considering that they had just solved several cases, and then decided that he didn't care. If Sherlock wanted to tell him, he would, but all John really wanted was to eat and then sleep for at least a day.
Sherlock didn't respond, but John dished him out a plate anyways, knowing that if he put the plate in front of him, a few meagre bites may very well find their way past his lips. Once the whole lot of leftover lasagna was thoroughly heated in the microwave, he brought the plates into the living room, leaving Sherlock's on the coffee table next to his head before settling into his chair.
Sherlock had opened the window, and the cold of the London night was creeping in over the merry crackling of the fire, which John had to assume that Mrs. Hudson had kindly started for them before they got home, because it was already well on its way to becoming a bed of coals. He reveled in the sensation of it on his skin as he ate and was rather disappointed to see that Sherlock hardly touched his food at all, but he didn't mention it. Sherlock had always been rather touchy about his eating habits, and starting a row would have ended the quiet euphoria of his sleepy after-case buzz.
The lull of the flat was calming, and John was content, so when Sherlock stood abruptly and picked up his violin, John smiled. He enjoyed it when Sherlock played, unless it was done at two or three in the morning.
The music was soft and sweet, and John felt it touch something inside of him. He could only wonder what Sherlock was feeling to inspire such playing. John watched Sherlock with interest. The lean man before him was swaying slowly, and John tilted his head in confusion, his eyes never straying from his friend. The way Sherlock moved in time with the music was almost like a dance, but it was much too tender and unhurried to be seriously taken for anything more than a gentle sway. Seeing such honesty from him was quite rare. He had nothing to gain from this obvious display of emotion, and it was times like this where John doubted Sherlock's self-assessment of 'high-functioning sociopath'. He looked blissful, unguarded, and John felt a kind of fierce joy that he got to witness this from a man who often appeared so cold.
In John's opinion, Sherlock was capable of a lot more than he would have people believe, at least in an emotional sense. Sherlock was starved for love and strangely, also more than able to give it. There were quite a few little tells, and John had spent several years piecing them together before he understood any of it, though he was sure that out there beyond the scope of his knowledge there were fathomless depths to Sherlock's personality that he would never get to see.
Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, and Angelo all seemed to think that a relationship wasn't out of the question for Sherlock, which suggested that he did, or may at one point have had relationships of some sort. The dealings with Irene Adler seemed to attest to this as well, though John wasn't quite sure exactly how far Sherlock had taken things with her. It really wasn't his business, and he didn't want to know anyways. The point was that Sherlock would do a lot better if he had someone to show him the kind of love he needed. They would also have to be someone that Sherlock could respect, someone intriguing and more than a little bit insane, but who would also keep him in check when he needed it and be willing to give show him some tough love. Honestly though, John wasn't sure he could manage finding that person for Sherlock without some kind of outside help. The only thing he could think of would be to ask Mycroft, and he really wasn't sure how well that would go over.
"What in the world are you thinking so hard about?" asked Sherlock, jerking John harshly back into the real world. He lifted his bow off of the strings and held it down by his side as he gave John his most penetrating stare.
Being examined by Sherlock like this always made John uncomfortable. He turned a light shade of pink, couldn't help himself. Then he shrugged, mumbled, "Nothing, really," and waited in dread for Sherlock to deduce him, to make conjectures about his thoughts that would undoubtedly be shockingly accurate. Nothing came. Sherlock smiled the quiet, genuine smile he reserved mostly for John and Mrs. Hudson; the one that always looked uncertain to John, like it was a recent addition to the expressions Sherlock's face had mastered.
When Sherlock put his bow back to his strings and started to play again, John heaved a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. Sherlock having the chance to find out his thoughts would honestly have been disastrous, and if he kept on like this, Sherlock would definitely know something was up.
It wasn't long before John drifted off to sleep. His dreams were hazy and he knew them for what they were, almost like daydreaming or lucid dreams, though he didn't seem to have any control over them. In the background of it all, there was the sound of Sherlock's violin going in stops and starts.
The scenario playing out behind his eyelids was strange, and he woke with a memory of it that was less like a story or chain of events and more a generalized idea of what it was about. And that memory made him blush, when he awoke, drove sleep from his brain, even though he woke in his chair at three in the morning with aching muscles, gritty eyes and a fowl taste in his mouth.
Sherlock (and it obviously had been Sherlock, at this hour: Mrs. Hudson wouldn't even have been awake), had draped a blanket over him, and John was rather touched by the gesture. It was unlike Sherlock to show that level of attention to the needs of anything but a crime scene or an interesting experiment.
Instead of going up to his room and falling miserably into his bed, he headed to the bathroom, trying not to bother Sherlock when he passed through the kitchen where Sherlock was scratching away in a notebook. He didn't even look up when John passed, and John sincerely hoped that the man hadn't noticed anything he might have done or said while he had slept… or the half-hard state that he had found himself in when he had woken up.
Under the spray of hot water, he was powerless to banish the vivid mental picture of Sherlock holding him close, caressing his skin and kissing him tenderly. Somehow, this gentle version of Sherlock was more arousing than anything else could have been. In his dream, he had reveled in it, possibly because it was a side of Sherlock that may not have even existed. Now he ran over and over the dream in his head, wiggling the thought in his mind like one might a loose tooth. It was just so strange, in the bright light of the waking world; he couldn't realistically imagine Sherlock doing any of those things.
As a doctor he knew that Sherlock needed physical release just like anyone else, but it was hard to think of him as a sexual being, at least in any way other than the abstract. He supposed that it was plausible that Sherlock was asexual, in which case he wouldn't be interested in sex with other people. Still, he would need to achieve orgasm, just like any other fully functioning adult male, or risk health problems. Even those who identified as asexual could have romantic relationships, though, and John figured that maybe Sherlock could try it out.
He realized that at this point he had a rather strange curiosity about his flatmate's sexuality (and apparently his subconscious had run rampant with this fascination), but he couldn't be arsed to care. Sherlock was an enigma, and John loved it, as he loved any good mystery. It was one of the things that had drawn him to Sherlock's way of life, if not Sherlock himself. John wasn't as quick as Sherlock, couldn't piece the stories of the crimes together like Sherlock could, but he loved the thrill of finding out. John didn't know whether he would ever be able to figure Sherlock himself out fully, but he would never stop trying.
What John did know was that Sherlock had closed himself off from quite a few things that had the potential to make him happy. And of course, as Sherlock was undeniably his best friend, John felt obligated to help the detective find whatever measure of happiness he could… and if that meant helping him find the missing piece, or at the very least someone to adore him in every way... then so be it.
John thought about this while he brushed his teeth, he thought about it while he shaved, he thought about it as he towel dried, he thought about it when he wrapped the striped dressing gown around himself, tying the belt around his middle, and he thought of it as he walked upstairs and collapsed on his warm bed. And then he decided that he would do it.
After that, his sleep was dreamless, peaceful. Capitan Watson had chosen a course of action. Carrying it out was the easy part.