He stirred in his deep slumber. He was quaking limbs tangled around serpent sheets slowly starting to constrict him. He always stirred because he always dreamed. And he always dreamed those haunting, bone-chilling dreams about Afghanistan. Only those kind of nightmares left him gasping awake, a cold trickle down his back leaving him shivering. This night was no different.
Dr. John Watson once again found himself startled awake by the vividly gruesome memories of the strange, maroon color blood turned when it hit sand. These visions were like thieves in the night, stealing precious time, precious hours of his life he could have spent living rather than reliving a gory past. Yet there was always a thirst for more, and perhaps this unconscious part of him also triggered those awful nightmares, as if reminding him of this unquenchable appetite.
He sucked in the thick air, rubbed his temples, and, with a defeated groan, slipped back underneath the safe haven of his comforter. Tossing a bit, he finally found the comfortable indent he'd left in the mattress and drifted to sleep.
Well, he would have, that is, if he hadn't caught a glimpse of two incandescent, sapphire eyes staring at him from the darkness that was the other side of the bed.
"Sherlock?! Wh- what the fuck are you doing in my bed?!"
"I think the more important observation here is that you're still having war nightmares when you've been home for nearly a year. You've also failed to mention this your therapist, or me for that matter," replied the unmoving lump of blankets on the edge of the mattress. Sherlock Holmes was so self-righteous, so matter-of-fact, and always completely and utterly right. It gave John the urge to choke his brilliant flatmate a little too often.
"No. Nope. You're not turning this one on me," John interjected, blowing steam out of his nostrils. "You're in my bed, and you haven't told me why, or how, or when for that matter. And please don't tell me this is one of your experiments again."
"Then I won't." Sherlock merely answered, which ended up being his only answer, and his eyes fluttering closed.
John should have known. The moment he said "experiments," Sherlock's expression illuminated with curiosity and even slight defense. "You know what I mean. Alright, what is it this time? What big discovery are we going after?"
"I can taste the sarcasm on your breath, but since I'm in your bed I'll very well answer..." the detective said with a deep, shoulder-shrugging sigh and snapped his eyes open. "I've released a breed of cimex lectularius, bedbugs, on my mattress to study their life cycle and feeding patterns. And unless you'd like me to spread the infestation around the flat, I need an alternative place to sleep." He made it seem so logical, like basic algebra.
John still felt the need to fight for his right to sleep in his own bed, and in peace. "Well, wait. We have the couch. If I remember correctly, one of them even folds out into a mattress. Couldn't you have just slept there?" He was prying, knowing fully well that he couldn't win in a fight of wits.
"John, you've insulted me. I've checked the couches, and they're simply unsuitable for sleeping for eight consecutive hours, or in my case approximately five."
"But don't you think it's at least weird? Two blokes sleeping together?"
"Are you really so insecure about your sexuality? Or perhaps this is about your nocturnal emiss-"
"No, Sherlock, no." By this time, John was furious. He knew he couldn't win, he knew the only way he'd get to sleep alone is if he either occupied Sherlock's infested bed or slept on the couch himself, which his pride nor his aching back would let him do. "Look, I'm exhausted, and since you have no intentions to move, I'm going back to sleep. We'll talk about it tomorrow." He huffed, pulled the covers over top of him and rolled over so that he faced the wall opposite of his bedmate. He couldn't believe this was happening. It was absurd. It was wrong.
But it was also amazing. The man, whose mental capacity for observations could fill the entire city of London, sacrificed his own bed to bugs. All for the sake of science.
"Good night, John." His voice was like a soft, rumbling thunder, easily lulling John back into an easy sleep.
An easy sleep without a trace of nightmares.
John awoke to sunshine seeping in from the cracked window, creating ripples of shadows on the sheets of his empty bed. Empty. A small wave of relief washed over him when he realized a certain curly-haired brunette wasn't still lingering in his bed. Lingering. What a wonderfully descriptive word for Sherlock. He always moved so gracefully. When he plucked evidence from a crime scene, when he waved down a London-bound taxi, when he played often beautiful, but sometimes scratchy, violin at the window of the flat. He could just feel those long, pale, cold fingers tracing the back of his hot neck with a sizzle...
The thought of it gave him goosebumps when John knew very well that it shouldn't. Furthermore, Sherlock Holmes was his business partner, his flatmate, his friend, and nothing more. John loved and adored women. He loved their curves, their soft and supple bodies, and especially their luxurious hair. The only think he often disliked was the way their minds' twisted everything around. It was really no wonder why John couldn't hold down a relationship for more than a month.
John stretched his tired limbs, wincing at the cracking and popping his old joints made. He rolled out of bed, slipping on his dressing gown before slumping downstairs. "Aaah, good morning Sherlock," he yawned down the steps and planted a seat on the couch after fixing himself some tea. The unresponsive brunette was currently shuffling in the kitchen, probably finding something else for his absurd experiment. They hadn't had a noteworthy case in an awfully long time, besides the usual missing person or dead singleton. This, in turn, made the poor, unstimulated detective a bit stir crazy in his experiments. John hoped, prayed, a big case would come soon. He really couldn't take any more creepy, crawly insects or minute house explosions.
"John," Sherlock's tone seemed precautionary, enough to make him perk up. He didn't even want to imagine what the man was going to say next. "After deducing and studying the bedbugs, I decided to let them farm on my bed until I die." John would gamble all his money away trying to guess what his flatmate might say next. "I might be brain dead with boredom."
"That's not funny, Sherlock." John replied dryly as the detective reverted to pulling his tight, brunette curls through his fingers.
"It wasn't supposed to be."
"C'mon, we can find something to do. Let's go out to eat to keep your mind off of it. I know a great coffee house-"
By then, Sherlock looked red in the face and boiling. "That's the point, John! That's the fucking point! I want to think, I need to. You poor pitiful people looking for an excuse not to think. What's eating a bloody bagel going to do for my starving mind, John?! Please, enlighten me."
It was as if by fate that the detective's phone nearly vibrated off the table. His hawkish eyes ripped through everything in the room as they glued onto it. Sherlock nearly dove for it despite the fact that it was barely two feet away.
John listened with adrenaline-induced rage at the verbal abuse he had just received seconds prior. And he would have stayed that way had he not seen a familiarly brilliant spark in Sherlock's eye once he hung up the phone.
Nor did it take long before he heard those long-forgotten words:
"John, get your coat."