Watched A Scandal in Belgravia again, so this happened during my French and Bio classes yesterday. More of a drabble than anything, really. Headcanon. I don't know.
Right. Johnlock time.
John lets him fall onto the bed. He turns back toward the door. "I'll be next door if you need me."
"Why would I need you?" Sherlock says, his voice slightly muffled by the pillow.
John turns in the doorway, looking back at the man sprawled across the covers, remarkably lucid for having been drugged only a few hours earlier.
Of course, this is Sherlock Holmes.
"No reason at all," he says, and pulls the door shut behind him.
/ /
Sherlock wakes again two and a quarter hours later. He is entirely still for a moment, listening. Then, sighing, he sits up and moves to the side of the bed.
He moves from his room out into and down the darkened hall. With his bare feet illuminated, he stops, regarding the door from under which the light spills.
He clears his throat. "John?"
A moment passes before he pushes open the door. John is asleep, his dark leather chair dragged close to the wall between his and Sherlock's rooms. The lamp beside him still burns, and his laptop is open on his knees, though the screen has gone dark.
He stands just inside the doorway, watching and noticing. He watches John's chest slowly rise and fall, and his jaw tighten slightly as he swallows in his sleep. He sees the dark circles under his eyes, the rumpled bedsheets where John had been sleeping before he called out to him hours earlier, the slightly darkened mark on his cheek where Sherlock struck him to provoke the retaliatory attack to his own face.
He reaches up and feels the gash at the side of his face, feels his unharmed mouth and unbroken nose. He remembers the woman's words.
If I had to punch that face I'd avoid your nose and your teeth too.
He reaches over and lightly prods the matching mark on John's face.
Someone loves you.
He straightens, withdraws his hand as if burnt.
He steps away, about to leave, then turns back to John, pulling an afghan from the foot of the bed to replace the laptop. He sets the computer on the floor and tosses the blanket almost carelessly over John's lap, only covering half of it.
Then he pulls it straight.
He reaches the doorway and flips the switch down. Pauses for a moment in the dark, listening to John's breathing.
Goodnight, Doctor Watson.