Part 3 BBCSH 'The Comfort of Company'
Author: tigersilver
Pairing: J/W
Word Count: 2150
Warnings/Summary: It's a trope that John and Sherlock end up sharing in the same bed eventually and I admit I do adore it unconditionally, along with all it infers as to the lowering of defenses and the heightening of trust. I put forth for your consideration that the notion persists because those who think about these things realize these two men are each in dire need of some good company. And by that I mean specifically the sensation of having stumbled upon a boon companion and then of having managed to retain that person through the thick and the horribly thin. Terribly crucial to survival, companionship is. A peerless feeling, perhaps set even above the formation or fixation of a romantic interest. A bit obvious a conclusion, I know; however? I couldn't resist. Shoot me for waxing simplistic, then, but please—not in the chest! (Also, I am so done with fiddling with this one, so just take it as is, yeah? Ta.)
It's been nine months already since John's best friend appeared at the hospital and almost literally carried him away. Bodily. As John couldn't see properly for the tears blinding him nor shift a leg for the dry sobs racking him, nor even breathe properly for the accustomed weight that had been summarily torn from his gaping chest.
(All gone, all gone and it's lights out on that life and…and? What is life, anyway? A value Mary Morstan Watson no longer owns nor requires. She's an 'ought' now, reduced to a zero. That singular impish grin is gone away forever; it lives only in memory, as does her warmth.)
Sherlock is warm. He's hot. He glows with life still. His blood beats down through long lean veins and inflates cavities and impels the transport and his focus has changed, fundamentally. If it hadn't already well before, but John doesn't dare dwell on speculations about that. He's enough to deal with, considering the changes in the last almost-a-year.
Nine months of forced feedings, nine months of crap telly (always comedies or informational sorts, never dramas or slice-of-life, or so John has noticed of Sherlock's recent choices) and nine months of touching.
Handsy bloke, Sherlock is. Constant and continual touching of John's person, initiated mostly by the detective but not always. If (as suspected) Sherlock had possessed little or no concept of a personal space bubble previously, it's clearly now completely out the window as far as the person of John Watson is concerned. The man quite obstinately spends more than half his daily routine somehow in a form of physical contact with John's person. Has been doing, for nine—count 'em!—months.
When he's not actively touching, he's well within the boundaries of John's bubble and John shivers even just recalling how those boundaries have dissipated. In a mere nine months (it's worth repeating, really it is):
A hand pressing down upon a slumping shoulder, albeit briefly. Finger brush-bys, not carelessly done at all. Ankles bumping and then sometimes knees, usually under tables but also across the little gap between their two armchairs. A lanky warmth settling in upon the next cushion over on the sofa, excepting not even quite that distance; hip-to-hip there's barely a distance worth measuring. A grip on an elbow when walking, and even going so far as linking elbows together. Now and again an actual hug, delivered very tight and very fast. Knuckles resting on the small of John's back, gloved or bare depending upon the ambient temperature.
And those are just the obvious ones, the ones handily to memory, rising like sparks in a cloudy coalescence. John can't recount all the other instances, he just knows now that Sherlock is very handsy man, at least in his own particular instance.
"Sherlock," John has attempted to protest more than once, though to no real avail. It's more rote, really, if he's honest; he doesn't truly mind it. "If you could just please not—in public?"
"Don't, John," Sherlock always cuts John off right the nub, which is to the good, really. John doesn't care to flounder about searching for polite words of rejection, particularly when he's not really certain he can actually stand to reject what's become a bit necessary. "I'm not planning on stopping."
Sherlock thins his lips and flips through the channels, this night. There's nothing of interest showing but that doesn't seem to prevent him from choosing the worst of them all. John sniffs and hunkers down to watch some bloody 'Merican rerun of a—a what? A puerile teenage musical?
"Git. This?"
"Yes, all right. Whatever."
Telly aside, mutual disdain of its brilliantly odd programming aside, the most awkward instances by far of this latest month's old and ongoing habit of John's ever-shocking flatmate arrive during the night, and these days (this sennight past) that's every night. And in bed. Specifically in John's old bed, which is now his regular bed once again, just as 221B is again his regular home.
He feels there should be quotes about it, his status: 'John Watson, lately and then again of 221B Baker Street. See blog for updates.'
Except he doesn't blog. Nothing to blog, is there? It's not as though he's accompanying Sherlock on cases lately. He's not felt up to it.
And his bed? John's bed. His new-old one, his most familiar? Really, it was inevitable they would come down to this. John is just a little amazed it's taken so long a weary time to arrive. That doesn't, however, mean that he needs make it easy for Sherlock to invade. As a matter of fact it is more than mildly amusing to not (make it easy) and John recognizes he could use every little bit of amusement (his sense of humour has been flagging, and is perhaps even failed, in need of revivement; like a necromancer with a corpse of particular interest, Sherlock is, and that's such a critical aspect to existing in Baker Street, that morbid humour; John really needs it!)
That comes his way, these days. The amusement? Half the time he thinks Sherlock does it simply to wind him up. The other half he's not especially certain as what the motive really is. For these nights.
These nights, now. There have been two weeks of them straight on. Not a blip, then, and not an experiment. So, no. All evidence points to his best mate being on task; Sherlock's a goal in mind, an end result and it's likely for the betterment of one John Watson.
Most things that happen in the flat are, these days.
John isn't positive what triggered his best mate's new method of 'keeping John Watson afloat and alive through the grief process', but he's damn sure he's not planning on delving into the topic either. It's awkward enough without the risk of sinking into a discussion of John's tattered-and-torn psyche.
It may be that his psyche is a little less 'T & T' than before, though.
It may be that neither he nor Sherlock need ever (god forfend!) obsess over it but Sherlock (contrary, caring) so most definitely is. (That's what he does, apparently.)
"Shove over," Sherlock huffs when John stubbornly clings to the edges of his duvet and tacitly refuses to make room. "Childish, John. Move it, you blighty arse!" He valiantly pretends not to notice the slight upwards curl of one corner of John's mouth. "No, really. You're…you're not serious. Cannot be. Now. Move."
"Pah!"
John does, of course, as he always does eventually, especially when Sherlock sniffs loud as a ticked off goose and then up and shoves at him bodily.
"That's better."
The mattress dips under the weight of the two of them. As it's a bit elderly they immediately begin a slow roll towards each other, a motion Sherlock deftly halts at the very last moment.
"Bloody."
John sighs.
"Bloody!"
It's not the largest bed in existence so inevitably there's a bit of jostling for space. It's generally solved by Sherlock flopping sideways, facing John, and inching in another millimetre or more but never so much as to be actually pressed up against John's side. His movement seems crafted especially so he's mirroring the slighter line of John's prone body, from the top of John's mussed head and then all the way downward. Even beyond that ending point of John Watson, down again to the area of truly icy cold sheeting, which is just where the detective brings a set of bare feet up and presses the tops of them against the sensitive bottoms of John's equally icy cold toes.
"Shh! It's…it is."
Comfort, John's toes report happily. Relax, his hind brain advises him. Safe now.
"Better," John is informed. Sherlock's tone is superior and very smug. John snorts at the ceiling and wrinkles his nose at it, as if he's miffed. He isn't, really; of course not!
"Oh, really?" he shoots straight back at his persistent nocturnal invader, as teasing Sherlock is fun. "Well, maybe for you."
"You don't mind it. Don't pull that act."
"Hey! I'm a bit—"
Miffed? John Watson, over a little creature comfort, miffed? After all this long time without? Not hardly. He is not.
"What? What are you? John."
"Bloody wanker. It's not as though I invited you." But there's no reason to just outright roll over and be a door mat—is there?
"…Don't lie. It's not as though you tossed me out, either."
It should be a demand, and given that it's Sherlock speaking, it should be snappish and redolent of strong impatience; it isn't.
"I'm not!"
"No…?" Sherlock doesn't shift, doesn't change in any real physical way but John can somehow sense the slight frost freezing over him, limning his long body silver from tosses of dark moonlit hair to pale toes scrunching up under his old sateen feather duvet. It's the worst of things to happen ever, Sherlock going cold all over like that. By all means John he cannot afford to lose this last spot of warm, so freely given. "No, then. Right, good."
John won't. And he shan't. He's no fool, though mayhap sometimes a bit blinkered.
"Sherlock, you? I mean…are you?"
There's a pause, longish in feel but very shot in real duration, during which several more bits of data are offered and received across the exceptionally small distance between them and John arrives abruptly at a brand new conclusion.
"You, um." John can't seem to find the words appropriate. "It isn't…is it? You…and me?" Or more it's he rips the bandages off his mental eyes and stares unshrinking at the evidence. So two, actually. One about himself and one concerning Sherlock. "Is…is that what you're thinking, with all this?"
"John? John, I—" Without any more data than that, Sherlock confirms it, John's suspicion. "You must have known—I. I, erm."
"No! No, I! Me, Sherlock!" John gulps, and manages to refrain from flinching away from his own realization. The bed's all the sudden precarious; he's feels as if he's on a great ship, afloat at sea, and the waters have turned calm to rough. If he were standing he would surely stumble; John can only grateful he is not. It's a dark, a peaceful dark, rough mental seas aside, and Sherlock cannot glimpse every single little thing that crosses John's face. "Not you; me!"
"John?"
"No, please, it's not at all what I meant, all right?" That would leave him far too naked…but then again, he can afford to be little more naked than he has been. The problem is trundling through this morass, making it clear, when it's not even clear to John.
"No, it's. It's…I'm…I'm sorry," John tacks on almost instantly, thrashing about to meet the steady gaze of his very best mate in his entire life, the one who persistently saves it. "I'm sorry, I am. I didn't mean to be a prick; no, I didn't! It's just I didn't even think—I'm sorry. Should be thinking. I'm not. Not really."
As Sherlock has certainly gone out of his way to bare himself to John. At a little distance, to be sure, but still…nude as the Woman was, prancing about their flat all that time ago.
"John. You never do." Sherlock mutters, but not nastily, dissipating john's uneasy memories of their guest, that wench, and all she'd tried out on his poor old flatmate. Sherlock had never deserved that, had he?
John is still angry over it, even this long after. But now? Now, he's more concerned, ta.
"No!" Even with this—this new warmth at night, this carryover of touch from the daytime to the bleak hours of dark-thirty—Sherlock is insanely intent on saving John, over and over, ad infinitum. "Don't mistake me, okay?" It's boggling, but mayhap not so? "I do; I do think. I know, Sherlock; don't think I'm completely gone, I'm not!" When viewed from the proper angle. "I—look? I've missed it, this."
"What?"
"This." John waves a vague hand at them both arrayed like two sardines in a tin, wordless indicating the fact that they are tucked in close by each other but not actively touching, but yet that Sherlock has commandeered the edge of John's pillow; that the shared body heat is cozy but not cloying and that the duvet acts as a sort of bridge between them, binding but not constrictive. "You know? Being…er."
"With someone."
"Yeah."
"I know."
"Yes."
"Then sleep. Don't talk. Be still."
Sherlock doesn't bother to say I'll be here. He doesn't repeat the command to sleep; he doesn't creep any closer to John and John stays right where he is laid out as well. They are close enough that their individual breaths mingle but that's all right as all due oral hygiene has been duly observed. They are both clad in sleep attire and for once the street outside is fairly quiet.
"Er? 'Be quiet'?" John shuts his eyes, well aware of what he didn't say, just now. He didn't say he missed Mary, specifically. "Not a child. Know when to sleep."
"Oh, yes. Then do, John. For the best, really. For now."
"Ahem."
"John."
"Oh…oh, mmh'kay. Right. Right, then." What John has missed sorely is the sensation of being in bed, at night, situated right next to someone who loves him, and that being a person who loves John fiercely and ferociously and furiously and with every timbre of their being, every single cell. For John has missed it terribly, so much so it was ruthlessly debilitating, but now he needs lack no longer. Not by day and now not by night.
"Better still." Nor does Sherlock Holmes, best man extraordinaire, who simply never shuts it and likely doesn't know how, as he's still babbling on and on. In a purr or maybe a honeycombed rumble and yet still he draws no closer. Yet?
John grins, accepting sleep. He's close enough, for now; he sinks gratefully into his old familiar bed. It's warm. "Best yet," Sherlock announces clearly, and follows that rational statement with a tiny snore.
"Heh!" John snuggles his cheek into the shared pillow, and allows lassitude its merry way. It's not so bad, really; it could be far worse. "Git."
But it isn't.
They are neither of them alone; they are 'with someone'. It is quite enough to go on with.
'Course, if Sherlock weren't already snoring (comical really, as he whistles a bit, right through that posh, pert, terribly-elevated- atop-John's-pillow beak of his), he'd likely agree.