Title: The Good Thing about an All-Nighter

Author: Videl86/Masakochan

Series: Sherlock Holmes

Rating: G

Summary: Holmes and Watson are 21st century, liberal art undergrads.

Pairing: Pre-slash Holmes/Watson.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of any of these characters.

A/N: Inspired by liiife~ because I practically lived in the architecture building for a week up until the undergrad art show, and yeah.. sleep 'schedules' and sanity start holding very little relativity to us.

Holmes comes back into the classroom after his venture down to the vending machines to find Watson with his head down on his desk, hoodie over his head, and lightly snoring.

After weighing his options of how to wake him, a sharp whistle next to Watson's head sounds like the best idea. He almost rethinks this decision when he hears a crash from the far corner of the classroom and a curse. He'll probably have to guard his project from Blackwood for a few days, but that's not what concerns him right now.

"Holmes!" Watson is glaring at him with exhausted eyes, and checks his watch. Holmes spies a bit of green paint on his left cheek. After taking a second to rub his eyes and yawn, he continues on, "It's 6AM, and we've been over here for two and half days. Please tell me you have a reason for waking me up after I've only just caught an hour of sleep."

Holmes just grins in response and waves a can of double-shot Starbucks espresso in front of Watson's face. "Come now, don't you know- sleep deprivation can lead to some rather fun ideas. Now follow me, I have something to show you."

Watson takes hold of the can, and follows Holmes who takes a quick moment to swipe a bobby-pin off of Adler's desk, and then is practically skipping out of the classroom. He starts wondering what this is all about when he and Holmes get into the elevator, and Holmes punches the button to go to the 4th floor.

"Holmes, that's the graduate floor. And you already told me about the epic zombie battle the grads have come up with. Please don't tell me you just want to 'borrow' some of their Nerf guns." He pauses in his tirade when he notices Holmes is quiet and giving the floor counter a hard stare.

The elevator lets out a 'DING!' noise, and they both get out and start to make their ways through the 4th floor halls. Holmes doesn't even pause when they both hear a couple students let out a cry of "THUNDER CATS HOOOO!" and someone starts blasting Michael Jackson from their laptop.*

Watson gets even more curious when Holmes starts using the bobby-pin to pick on a door that hardly anyone goes through, but he stays quiet because Holmes had still been silent as they'd gone down the hallways.

Three minutes later, and Holmes is successfully able to get the door open which leads to them getting blasted with a hit of cold, morning air.

"The roof? Holmes, we could get in trouble!" Watson wonders if it's his imagination, or Holmes really just lets out a small flinch.

"Well, if you'd rather go back inside to your project," Holmes says as he starts going up the steps, not looking backwards.

"No, I'd rather see why you woke me up at-," and Watson stops because he is stunned at what he sees. Nothing can amount to what he's seeing suddenly.

Watson's brought briefly out of the sunrise's spell when Holmes starts talking.

"Yeah, I'd heard you uh..," it's more of an awkward pause as Holmes takes a second to light up his cigarette, "- you'd been talking about needing some inspiration for your painting, and I just thought.. ah dammit." He awkwardly shuffles as he stuffs his lighter back into his pocket. Watson has never heard Holmes be like this. Ever.

Watson coughs, takes a sip out his Starbucks can, and walks over.

He stands quietly next to Holmes for a second just looking at the sunrise. "Well, thanks- I mean, I really appreciate you bringing me out here," he ends this with a smile at Holmes. Holmes ducks his head, and gives a small grin.

Correction on one of his last thoughts - Watson thinks he's just found something better to look at than a Texas sunrise.

END

*- Yeah, this was inspired by the architecture students in their section next to us who started blasting Michael Jackson music at about 2:30AM in the morning. And some of them were singing along to it, and were kind of out-of-tune.