He was dreaming of the desert again—more specifically, about the nights there. With little to no cloud cover and no blistering sun beating down on the sand, the temperatures dropped quickly, and the men would find themselves huddled in their bunks, grateful for their blankets. Somewhere deep in his mind, John knew he wasn't still in Afghanistan. His dreams had slowly been becoming less and less realistic, tempered by the knowledge that his body was tucked safely into his small room at 221b Baker Street. For now, though, he was stranded in one of the army's vehicles with enemies and darkness approaching him from all sides.
He awakened suddenly, and it didn't take long to figure out why. The cold had not been simply another part of his dream: it was very real, and so was the state of hypothermia he was approaching. What the...? It was Sherlock. Of course it would be Sherlock. He wrapped the duvet around himself and padded downstairs to make sure that his flatmate had not actually found a way to move the whole building to Siberia overnight.
The sight that greeted him made him wonder if maybe he was still asleep. There were "experiments" spilling out of the kitchen—glass tubes and jars bubbling menacingly on the coffee table and the floor. (He didn't even want to look into the kitchen.) Brown case files lay open on the sofa, their contents fluttering in the icy wind coming in from the windows, all of which had been thrown wide open. Sherlock was nowhere to be found.
John closed the windows, deciding that he would not be able to conduct a decent search-and-rescue with the threat of frostbite looming. Just as he was latching the last one, Sherlock stepped into the room, toweling off his hair. John spun on him.
"Just what the hell are you doing down here?" he demanded. The effect of his vehemence was compromised slightly by the fresh bout of shivers that wracked his body. Sherlock looked at him blankly.
"I see your date didn't go well," was all he said. If John hadn't been clutching onto his duvet, he might have thrown his hands into the air with exasperation.
"And how can you possibly know that?" He should probably know better than to ask, but secretly (oh god, so secretly) he still found Sherlock's process fascinating. "Are my eyebrows crinkled in a way that suggests we fought? Are my muscles too tense? Not tense enough? Are my lips not curling up at the right angles, or is my posture too slouched or my hair not mussed enough or...what?"
Sherlock had gone over to the sofa, picking up the documents from the floor and shuffling them into the appropriate folders. "No..." His voice was amused. "If you had a companion up there in your bed with you, you would have left her with the blankets." He smirked. He was right. Of course he was right. They'd barely gotten through their appetizers when her ex-boyfriend had called looking for reconciliation and she all but ran from the restaurant to meet him. To be honest, he wasn't too upset about it, though—she wasn't really his type, anyway. He pulled the duvet still tighter, then made a decision and moved to kneel by the fireplace. It was stuffed full of old papers, but he cleared the more flammable rubbish away from the hearth and started to light a fire.
"What were you doing down here with all the windows open, Sherlock? You must have noticed it's January, right? Or is that not important enough for you to remember?"
"Don't be ridiculous, John." Which, John had to notice, was not actually an assertion that the genius in fact knew the months of the year. "It was an experiment."
It was always an experiment. John was starting to catch on, though. Sometimes a mess or a foul odor or a pile of moulding food left out on the counter actually was an experiment, but more often it was a result of the fact that Sherlock was a very bad person to share a flat with. He said nothing, trying to coax a spark into becoming a lovely roaring fire. Behind him, he heard Sherlock shifting his weight from one foot to another. One of the floorboards was squeaking beneath him, a fact that did not escape John's own (somewhat limited) deduction prowess. He was doing it on purpose.
"It's cold in here, isn't it?"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you! Was it really necessary to open all the windows?" Finally, the spark held, and flames grew. John sighed with relief, warming his aching fingers.
"I may have made phosphonofluoridic acid."
John's mouth went dry and he turned to stare incredulously at his brilliant-but-psychotic flatmate. "Sarin. In our flat? While I was sleeping? Are you trying to kill us both?" His voice cracked with panic. Sherlock wasn't looking at him. "Sherlock, maybe it was okay for you to play mad scientist when you lived alone, but I'd really like to, you know, go on living!"
"It was a mistake."
"You don't make mistakes!"
"I did tonight, okay?" He looked almost embarrassed. And cold. It was only now that John realized he was only wearing a dressing gown—he must have been in the shower. Concern replaced his anger.
"Shit. Sherlock, did you get any of it in your eyes? On your skin?" John couldn't see any signs of irritation, but he also couldn't see all of him. He immediately pushed aside the imagined expanse of Sherlock's pale chest. Now was not the time. John wasn't sure there would ever be a time.
"I'm fine. The shower was just a precaution." He stood there in the thin silk gown, looking thinner and paler than he usually did.
"You're going to get sick," John finally said, sympathy coloring his words. "Come sit by the fire."
Sherlock looked as though he wanted to say something—likely a scientific refutation of the cold-results-in-illness myth or more likely something ridiculing John for believing such an old wives' tale, but he closed his mouth and went to sit on the floor by John. Now that he was closer, the doctor could see the trembling in Sherlock's elegant fingers, could practically feel his body shaking through the floorboards.
"Dammit, Sherlock..." He wrapped the duvet around the other man's shoulder. He needed it far more.
"Warm..." Sherlock observed softly, pressing it to his face. John interpreted that as "Thank you for caring, John. I appreciate you more than my emotionally-stunted brain allows me to express."
He could be a bit optimistic at times.
The men sat in companionable silence, John surreptitiously monitoring his friend for any sign of poisoning from the gas. As always, he probably wasn't being surreptitious enough: Sherlock looked over at him.
"I am quite alright. Would you like your blanket back now?"
"No, you need it more than I do. I've got a jumper, and the fire."
"You're shivering."
So he was. Before he could say anything, Sherlock was unwrapping the covers from his own lean shoulders, only to wrap one end around John. It was an unexpected move, though certainly not an unwelcome one. John busied himself with making sure that the blanket was tucked around their feet, telling himself that Sherlock's arm was only pressing against John's back in order to...well, he wasn't sure why, and really, it was stupid to try to pretend he wasn't enjoying it, because Sherlock could read body language—especially his body language—like a child's book.
Gradually the fire, the blanket, and the heat coming from Sherlock's body eased John's muscles. He stopped shivering. Soon he began to feel cozy—drowsy, even. Watching the flames was putting him back to sleep. His head began to droop forward, only to snap backward again when he woke himself up. He almost didn't notice the smooth pale fingers pressing his head against Sherlock's shoulder, not until the smell of the other man's shampoo filled his nose. He drew in a deep breath before he could stop himself. It would certainly not have escaped Sherlock's notice.
He was making a fool out of himself. Sherlock Holmes was married to his work—he'd made that abundantly clear. Even if he wasn't, he would be far more suited to a beautiful and mysterious woman, maybe Russian, with an intellect to match his own. Or a man with the same qualities, depending on his preferences. John knew that most of the time he was merely tolerated, useful primarily in making Sherlock look good and keeping the kitchen stocked. Moriarty had called him a pet, and it fit. It was just the way it was, and John had even grown to like it. He let his eyes slip closed, no longer caring about looking like a fool.
"What were you trying to do before you almost killed us, anyway?" He asked sleepily. The silence stretched on for so long that he had to pull away and look up to make sure Sherlock had not fallen asleep. No, his eyes were open and he was staring intently at the fire. "Sherlock." It struck him. Sherlock didn't make mistakes. "Were you actually trying to make sarin gas? Look, if you want to be rid of me, you could just ask me to move out."
"Don't be ridiculous, John." Two ridiculouses in less than an hour. Surely that was a new record for them. "I wasn't sure if you had someone up there with you."
"You couldn't tell from the air pressure in the flat or my footsteps on the floorboards or the sounds or lack thereof coming from my bedroom?"
"I do wish you'd stop doing that. You make me sound like some kind of mystic." His arm around John's shoulder was tightening a bit, perhaps attempting to soothe him or something.
"That's not the point, Sherlock! If my having guests over bothers you so much, I'll just promise not to bring anyone home with me. You don't have to poison the whole street, you know."
"I was engrossed in my reading." While John's voice had been growing more upset and bewildered with every syllable, Sherlock's remained steady. It was soft, meant only for John, but with such close proximity, it seemed to reverberate through John's chest. Against his heart. "And I could hardly creep up the stairs and listen for your bedsprings."
John snorted. "No, Sherlock, that sounds pretty much exactly like something you would do." A thought was developing in his mind, a hopeful little bubble that continued to resurface each time John pushed it back down. "What if I had had someone up there with me?"
"Then I suppose you wouldn't have needed me for warmth, would you?" Was it his imagination, or was there just a hint of a sulk hiding beneath Sherlock's words? He was still looking at the fire.
"No. I mean, what would the difference be? What would it matter if I'd had a woman upstairs?" Without knowing exactly why, it suddenly felt important to understand the other man's motivations. If he'd had Sherlock's powers of deduction, maybe he'd already have figured them out, but for now he'd have to rely on asking loads of questions that would probably only be ignored.
A sigh of disdain, or maybe frustration. "John, you're smarter than the average man, surely you can put it together. If you'd had a woman upstairs, you'd be up there with her right now and not sitting here with me."
John turned to look at the man from this uncharacteristically intimate angle. Tucked inside a blanket, under Sherlock's arm and against his chest the way nestling lovers might sit before a fire. He could see more details of the man's face than he'd ever had before. Usually the difference in their heights and Sherlock's frenetic energy or brooding demand for solitude kept him from seeing the way his eyelashes curled just so or the way they caught the dancing flames. As dark as the man's hair was, he didn't often see the day's stubble contrasting so sharply against light skin as it did right now. His hair was starting to dry, and there was one little curl in particular just above his ear that was practically begging John to reach out and wrap around his finger. He resisted.
For about three seconds.
He'd expected to feel panic rising, choking him until he had no choice but to excuse himself back to his room. He'd expected Sherlock to pull away, maybe turn to look at him with confusion, maybe arch an eyebrow or even remain still, humoring him until he lowered his hand, at which point he would excuse himself and begin locking his bedroom door each night. What he had not expected, however, was for Sherlock to lean into his touch, first pressing his ear against John's fingers and then turning his head slightly to touch him with his cheek. Sherlock's eyes were closed. They betrayed neither permission nor hesitation, and John floundered, lost. He started to pull his hand back, wondering if he had made a terrible, very awkward, mistake, but as he did, Sherlock turned to face him and opened his eyes. John had to hold back a startled gasp when he saw the firelight and intensity in the strange but familiar irises.
"There was never any sarin gas, John," he told him, with the air of someone delivering a very important message. He curled one corner of his mouth. "I would not risk killing you or Mrs. Hudson just to find out if you'd brought your date home." A pause. "Not like that, anyway." Now he gave John a full-on grin, which did more to warm his body than the fire ever would. "And you were right. I don't make mistakes. I'm almost offended that you thought I would." John couldn't think of anything to say in reply: he was too busy watching his friend's face and trying to figure out exactly what was going on between them. Sherlock's smile faded a bit, replaced with determination. "I am going to kiss you now."
John's heart thudded in his ears. He'd misheard him. It was the only explanation. Sherlock was hesitating a bit, searching John's face. He looked like he did when he was deducing, though somehow more...tender. "Wh—why?"
He arched an eyebrow just slightly, in a manner that John read as "Perhaps I was overestimating you when I said that you were smarter than the average man," and then one hand (still cool to the touch, but then John couldn't remember a time when Sherlock's hands had ever felt warm) was pressed against the doctor's face. "Because you needed me for warmth."
Before John could protest (or even decide whether he wanted to), Sherlock was leaning forward, ducking down a bit to press his lips against John's. Even with the warning, he was frozen for a moment, unable even to close his eyes. Sherlock kept his open too, and John got the feeling that he was analyzing every second, monitoring John for signs of discomfort or panic. He felt neither. Finally John closed his eyes, and the mood of the room shifted as soon as he did. Sherlock pressed closer, holding onto one of John's shoulders to keep his balance. John allowed his hand to go to the back of Sherlock's head, tangling his fingers through his hair and tugging slightly—only slightly. When Sherlock nibbled on John's lower lip, asking permission for perhaps the first time in his life, John granted it immediately.
Eventually, John pulled away slightly, though he kept his fingers locked into Sherlock's hair. It was his turn to study Sherlock's face now, that familiar and alien structure that had been haunting his waking hours, if not his dreams, for months on end. Sherlock smiled a bit, though his brows were knitting together with an unfamiliar expression—confusion.
"What are you doing?"
"Predicting." John kept his voice low. "It's like you have your deductions. I think I'll have my predictions."
"That's ridicu—" Sherlock stopped. John read that to mean "alright, then, I'll play along. For now." He laughed once, softly. "So what are you predicting?"
"I am predicting how you will react when I ask you to come to bed with me."
For a moment Sherlock's face gave nothing away, even at this distance. The only thing John could see was the way his eyes flickered along his face, stopping only briefly, like scattering kisses along his skin. Then he met his eyes again and allowed a smile to make its way slowly across his face. "It is still rather chilly down here."
The men rose and made their way up to John's room. It was perhaps unwise to leave even the dwindling fire unattended, but the fire that would catch in the upstairs bedroom would burn hotter than the reddest glowing ember.