John was running through the darkness, stumbling his way through the forest racing as fast as his tired legs would take him. He glanced over his shoulder, and the beast was right behind him, all blood red eyes and fangs…he tried to run faster, but he felt like he was stuck in gelatin…with a bloodcurdling howl, the hound leapt for his throat…

John bolted upright, gasping. A nightmare, it was only a nightmare…the hound wasn't real, they'd proven that. But the drug—the drug was probably still in his system, of course. And the moors had always given him the chills. There was no way he was going to get back to sleep now, not in this creaky little bed in this little inn.

There was a footstep outside the door, and John huddled lower under the covers, terrified. The door started to open, and he shrieked, grabbing the lamp from the bedside table and swinging it toward the shadowy figure entering the door. But just as it was about to connect, he heard a familiar voice saying his name.

"John!" Sherlock whispered. "John, it's me."

John put the lamp back on the table, and then slumped back against the wall, his heart racing. "Oh."

Sherlock came in the rest of the way and shut the door behind him, looking at the terrified figure on the other side of the room. This had been a risk, coming in here, but so far it seemed like it might pay off. "I thought you might be awake."

John nodded. "I couldn't sleep, after that."

"Neither could I," he said wryly. He rarely slept. "Look, John," Sherlock took a step forward, "I wanted—" No, that was coming out wrong. Sometimes he hated the way John muddled up his perfectly ordered mind. He couldn't very well apologize for something John didn't know he'd done, could he? That would only get him in more trouble.

John looked up at him incredulously. "There's a new one: Sherlock Holmes at a loss for words."

Now it was time to resort to acting. "Maybe I'm tired."

"Of course you're bloody tired—when was the last time you slept? I'm bloody tired, I can tell you that. Too tired to put up with you and your cryptic conversations." John sat down on the edge of the bed.

"But too disturbed to sleep."

"That doesn't mean I have to listen to you at this hour of the night! Don't you have your own room?" John's tone was angry, but Sherlock noted the dilation of his pupils, which seemed to indicate a slightly different response.

Sherlock stepped forward and sat on the bed next to him. This was the leap. "I thought perhaps we'd have a greater chance of getting to sleep if we weren't alone."

John's eyes widened. "Sherlock…"

"Just to help you sleep. You're no fun when you get irritable."

"People will talk."

"People are already talking."

John opened his mouth as if to object again, and then shrugged.

They lay down together, and Sherlock wrapped his arms around John. They fit together remarkably well.

John snuggled into him, already half-asleep. "Thank you," he said.

When John woke up the next morning, he was alone in the bed. He would have thought he'd dreamed the whole thing, except for the foreign sock that was draped across his ankle. It was definitely one of Sherlock's… he vaguely remembered waking later in the night and finding himself entwined in Sherlock's legs.

He got ready as quickly as he was able, and went down to get breakfast. Sherlock was in the main room of the inn, reading a paper.

John held up the sock. "You forgot something." His tone was slightly harsher than intended.

Sherlock's eyes widened and the narrowed. "Thank you."

He took the sock and walked up the stairs. John went to an outside table to await his breakfast. It had just arrived when Sherlock came out with a cup of coffee.

"So they didn't have it put down, then. The dog." He said, turning away slightly—trying to act nonchalant?

"Perhaps they just couldn't bring themselves to do it." John cut into his breakfast, his tone as indifferent as Sherlock's had been. He was a little miffed that they weren't talking about it, but a larger bit relieved.

"I see," Sherlock said, still standing and looking the other way.

John shook his head, more than a little exasperated. "No, you don't."

Sherlock shook his head too, finally turning to look at John. "No, I don't. Sentiment?"

"Sentiment." John agreed, and Sherlock finally sat down. They looked at each other, and John couldn't wait any longer to voice the small nagging thought he'd been harboring since the day before. "Listen, what happened to me in the lab…"

"Do you want some sauce with that?" Sherlock interrupted.

John ignored him and continued. "I mean, I hadn't been to the Hollow, so how come I heard those things, in there? Fear and stimulus, you said."

"You must have been dosed with it elsewhere. Lab maybe. You saw those pipes. Pretty ancient, leaky as a sieve. They were carrying the gas, so… Ketchup, was it? Or brown…" Sherlock was obviously trying to avoid talking about it. Or maybe he was just nervous talking to John at all.

"Hang on—you thought it was in the sugar. You were convinced it was in the sugar."

"Better get going, actually. There's a train that leaves in half an hour, so if you want—"

"Oh, God," John interrupted his rambling with a sickening realization. "It was you. You locked me in that bloody lab."

"I had to. It was an experiment." Sherlock gave him just a hint of that puppy dog look, the one that said I'm-sorry-I-know-I-did-wrong-but-I-knew-you'd-forgive-me. Which, of course, he always did.

"An experiment?" John shouted.

"Shh!"

"I was terrified, Sherlock, I was scared to death!"

The look intensified. "I thought the drug was in the sugar so I put the sugar in your coffee. Then I arranged everything with Major Barrymore. All totally scientific, Laboratory conditions—quite literally."

John sighed, imagining Sherlock sitting in some safe little room, watching him losing his head. But he couldn't resist that face for long.

"I knew what effect it had on a superior mind, so I needed to try it on an average one."

John set down his fork and glared at him, although he couldn't quite maintain the intended level of anger.

"You know what I mean."

John resumed eating. "But it wasn't in the sugar."

"No, well," Sherlock said, waving a hand. "How was I to know you'd already been exposed to the gas?"

"So you got it wrong." Oh, John was having fun with this. He'd already forgiven Sherlock, but now not only did he get to keep Sherlock apologizing (for the second time in one weekend) but he also got to point out a flaw in his friend's "superior intellect". "You were wrong. It wasn't in the sugar, you got it wrong."

"A bit. Won't happen again."

John kept his face still, but inside he was grinning. He went back to his breakfast, and Sherlock drank his coffee. Then a thought struck him. "…any long term effects?"

Sherlock shook his head. "None at all. You'll be fine once you've excreted it, we all will."

"I think I may have taken care of that already," John replied, unable to keep the smile off his face completely.

Sherlock grinned and snorted, looking off into the distance. John found his mind drifting back to the night before, how it had felt to have this man's arms wrapped around him.

Sherlock stood suddenly.

"Where are you going?"

"Won't be a minute. I've got to see a man about a dog." He smirked.

John watched him walk away, wondering how long it would be before he got to feel that sensation again.