Summary/Warnings: WIP. The burning question is the same as it ever was: what does John require of Sherlock?
"If you do not cease that abysmal thrashing about, I will kiss you." Sherlock blew out a puff of harsh hot breath impatiently, causing a flattened curl to ruffle fitfully off his pale brow. "John."
"Kiss? Hmph!" John stared at the ceiling, too knackered to bother with the kissing, or even the idea of kissing, and especially the foreign idea of kissing his recalcitrant flatmate. "Like to see you try it, Sherlock."
It was, as Sherlock would say, very dull, the ceiling. And very dimly lit, too, as they were situated in Sherlock's room, where there was far less ambient light of a sunny afternoon. Sherlock favoured black-out curtains, it seemed. They were not, however, there for any such silly thing as kissing. They were there for the purposes of sleep and Sherlock was a prat and a brat and attempting to put it off, any way he possibly could.
"I might. If you continue to push at me, John."
"Empty threat." John sighed. "Kiss my arse, more like. You're the one who's making a fuss here and refusing to be sensible. Shut up, close your eyes and then maybe you won't notice what I do. Nitwit."
"I always notice what you do." Sherlock had the temerity to sound reproving, as if John were the nitwit…or perhaps a halfwit. "I notice everything about you." Or entirely witless, which Sherlock wouldn't hesitate to accuse him of being if he felt it appropriate. "And currently you are flopping your feet and blinking far too often. Stop it. I can't sleep. You want me to sleep, I am attempting to oblige you, but then you go and render it impossible, John. Stay your damn feet. Stop blinking."
"And you think threatening to snog me will make me stop?" John jibed nastily. "That's more than a little mental, far as threats go. Your judo now…that's a different matter. You could always try on knocking me unconscious, Sherlock, but I can't say as I think it'll work. Now, close your own eyes and your mouth too, you great noisy tit, and get some shuteye. I'll try not to indulge my toes, alright? Or blink unnecessarily."
"Is it?" Sherlock segued from sardonically reproving to sanctimonious with barely a breath. He remained rigid, though, not shifting a single millimetre. "Mental? I think it's actually quite a good threat as threats go, John. So…awkward. Socially. So humiliating for you if it's bruited about we are really, er…the boyfriends. You're presently engaged to your Mary, are you not? It follows that you wouldn't necessarily want someone else snogging you, even as a joke or in retaliation. You're taken."
"Huh!" John snorted. "Wrong, Sherlock!" He rolled over onto his side to glare vaguely into the dim, peering at the detective laid out in mummy-like fashion by his side, even to the arms folded impassively across his thin, be-robed chest. "As you like to say—wrong. I am not engaged to 'my' Mary; we've only just started speaking of any kind of commitment and she's hardly 'mine' just for the asking. Only a notion, damn you, and I must say it's highly unlikely to ever pan out, given your place in my life. Please just shut up now. Please."
"Me? Why me, John?" Sherlock jerked his chin abruptly, peeping sidelong to meet John's searching gaze through a fluttering and generous fan of dark lashes. He seemed genuinely curious. "I've done nothing to hinder your path to true romance this time 'round. You can hardly dare accuse me of it. I've been everything obliging."
"Obliging? You don't say?' John laughed softly. "Sherlock. Sherlock, just because you've not invaded Mary's flat to drag me out bodily—thanks for that, by the way; much appreciated—and just because you've not teased her to tears the very few times she's stopped over here does not in any way equate to obliging. You've only been….well." He sighed and poked a gentle fingertip into the firm flesh of Sherlock's upper arm for the barest moment. "Heh. You've been you, mate, but I'll give you the one thing. You've been a little less you around her, at least. There's that. Kind of you, cheers for that."
John closed his eyes again, letting his hand drop and curl into a relaxed fist atop one of Sherlock's posh pillows. Mother of god, but he was exhausted. And his flatmate was sure to be in worse condition. He sighed, exasperated.
"Now go to sleep, please," he repeated, always game to repeat a request till his mate gave over from sheer boredom. Sometimes that particular tactic did, in fact, work.
Not this time, though.
"A…little less…of me. Hmm." Sherlock's eyes flashed as he snapped them back to stare straight up, presumably taking over John's previous unremarked duty of glaring at the dull ceiling. "Whatever that means in plain English—oh! There—just there, John!"
"What?" John flinched, startled. "Where?" He went up on one elbow and stared frantically about the darkened bedroom, all thoughts of a decent nap scattering like chaff. "What is it, Sherlock? What d'you see?"
"Spider, see her? Right there." Sherlock disengaged a languid hand from under his armpit and gestured with it upwards and to the left far corner of the boring ceiling. "Little brown thing, very active. I've been watching her spin for several minutes now."
"Yeah? So?"
"Common sort, I think, as I've not been examining any other kind recently, though the web she's made is of some small interest. See how it's perfectly triangular there? See the repaired rents on the upper left? Course, I wonder what it catches to eat, in here. Can't be much. Maybe moths. After your horrid jerseys, I don't doubt."
"Oh, I disagree!" John giggle-snorted as he flopped back down on Sherlock's springy mattress, making certain to remain on his good side, and snugged down into heathen comfort. "My jerseys aren't horrid, leastways no more so than your wrappers, Sherlock, and—"
"There's nothing horrid about my night apparel, John."
"Hmm. Right." The sheets were quite soft, John noted, and the pillows plentiful, too. He spared a second to envy; his bed, though larger across, was not nearly as nicely dressed out. "Point; you're very posh, always, Sherlock, in person at least, but likely there's all sorts of strange beasties lurking about in here for her to eat, I'm thinking. God knows what's running wild. Have you ever cleaned in here, I wonder? Has Mrs Hudson, poor dear? I can't recall anyone ever daring to tidy in here. Certainly not you, your Majesty."
"Very little," Sherlock sniffed, sending a gimlet-eyed glare toward his bedmate from the corner of one pale eye. "To sustain a spider of any variety in here, I assure you. Do not assume that I am some grubby, lax uni student on the basis of the state of the rest of our flat. There is a certain order to be attained, John, and I maintain it, thank you. And I seldom tolerate rubbish or vermin."
John scoffed, just under his breath.
"Look here," Sherlock raised his voice a half-decibel, "are you truly planning on chattering away in my ear the entire time? Because I'm not best pleased at being compelled into a fake rest-state in the first place and you're—"
"You need to sleep, Sherlock," John interrupted firmly, gently, seriously, all scoffing cast aside with nary a regretful blink. "Don't deny you do. Everyone sleeps, even you."
"I'll sleep later; I've already said," Sherlock grumped. "Leave off, will you?"
"No, now, Sherlock. You'll sleep now, and I'll sleep now, and after that we'll have tea. That was the agreement. No reneging."
Sherlock huffed, "Fine! Just so; you needn't repeat yourself. But make note you are the one preventing me, John," he went on imperiously, a sudden hand gliding through the intervening space to come within an inch of John's furrowed forehead. He proceeded to flick it sharply, right above John's eyebrow, with a manicured forefinger. "You, you're to blame, wriggling about, disturbing me. Yapping." Not painfully, so much as more as a non-verbal reminder Master Holmes was not, indeed, best pleased to be occupying the same bed as John—nor any bed, really—on a perfectly good day meant for rushing heedlessly about London. "And saying nothing to the point. Nagging, actually. How can I rest under these adverse conditions?"
"Oh, bugger, this again." John giggled darkly. "Always with the nagging, is it?"
"You're an officious nuisance, John," the man carried on, soft but sharp-tongued, almost kindly in manner, as if to a dear old auntie, "is what you are, always going on and on about the necessity of dormancy, John, and then not indulging yourself in it when we finally have the opportunity. You want your precious sleep so very much? Do you? Then sleep yourself, won't you? Close your trap and bloody well sleep. Waste your damned life away doing it, see if I care."
"Sherlock," John intoned dampeningly, blinking sternly and slowly at the boring plaster, the innocuously active spider. "We've just gone over this. Three times now. I'm not going there again; you already agreed. Honour your fucking promise."
Sherlock didn't budge a muscle but John felt the whole of him tense on a cellular level. The bed practically vibrated; he rolled his eyes, unnoticed.
"Bugger that, John. It was forced out of me, practically at gunpoint. You forced me in here, you did, and I still don't see why you felt you had to. I was perfectly satisfied kipping on the sofa. Or would've been, if you'd left me there undisturbed as any other decent flat-mate would do. Sleep would've happened eventually, naturally; I am not above the call of transport when it's common sense. And it's not—has never been—your particular concern where I sleep—if I sleep, for that matter. Leave off!"
"Git. Settle down." John was absolutely unshaken. "I am completely concerned and I should be. What you get up to in a well-rested state is bad enough; I'm not having you running amuck 'round the City clocking in at zero hours downtime and that's final. There's only so much smoothing over I can do, Sherlock." He snorted, rubbing a fast hand over his frown to wipe it away. "Do stop fussing. A bit of break, Sherlock, that's all I'm asking. Just close your eyes, calm down, rest. Maybe even try out being quiet, for a change. It does help the process along, you know, the quiet."
"I don't like—I cannot—" Sherlock cut in, but that same quick hand was brushing over his wide-open eyes, stalling him into a small sputter. "Ah? Er…John? Wha-what are you doing? Exactly. Touching me?"
But he didn't budge away, not at all.
"No, really, Sherlock."
John felt the lashes batting fitfully against his palm, like trapped butterfly wings. He pressed down, ever so gently, and paper-thin eyelids slid down under the faintest of pressures, conceding. Sherlock's wan features faced him blindly, muted in the shadows, all brilliance subdued. At this close range and even in the nearly absent light John could see the signs of fatigue. Sherlock was young yet; younger than John, of course, but not invincible. "Cooperate. Please."
"Mmph?" Blinded for the nonce and reliant on the feel of John's fingers to lend direction, Sherlock looked confused for an instant, following after John's fingertips, nudging into them like a haughtily pleased feline into a petting. John smiled briefly at how deceptively innocent he was, his Holmes. How very young, really. This was nothing he could imagine Mycroft ever doing, no.
Stiff as starch, the both of them, but not really. Sherlock could laugh, although he seldom did.
John smiled to himself, recalling.
"Relax a bit, will you?" he coaxed sweetly. "Stop berating me and do cease with this endless distraction with things like poor harmless spiders and the damned divan. Or hypothetical snogs—or Mary—or anything else you've got bouncing around that ridiculous brain of yours right this moment. Just…just sleep, Sherlock. You'll feel better. Hell, I'll feel better, knowing you have. It's only an hour I'm asking you for. One short little hour of your time, that's it."
Sherlock winced. Dramatically.
"John. John, I—"
"Hey?"
The man stiffened ever so slowly, going rigid and barely showing any signs of normal respiration. John's smile disappeared.
"No. Shhh, Sherlock." He leant closer, close enough to whisper, determined not to allow his mate to backslide. Always he was a trying sort, and always having his way, but not this time, not if John had anything to say about it. "Come on, please? For me."
"Mnh!"
There was a pause, a longish one, whilst Sherlock shifted restlessly about, twitching and flinching under the residual warmth of John's slowly withdrawing hand, and then began the process of ever so casually rolling over to his side. He was so long, so attenuated, John grinned again; it was like watching adaddy-long-legs or a newborn foal, all elbows and acute angles, and none of them in concert.
Sherlock turned his head and shoulders first, fully and ever so slowly, like treacle flowing cold, anchoring the upper half of himself with the weight of his arms coming close together. Then his torso and his lean hips, by degrees.
"That's it, get comfortable," John whispered, still smiling. "Come on."
His long legs followed, first one knee bent slightly, drawing up, and then t'other, until at last he was mirroring John's position but in reverse, his narrow feet settled into an elegant heap a solid twelve plus inches below John's curled toes, rustling the duvet.
"Better?" It was the barest breath, almost sub-audible. "John?"
"Mmm, yes. Good boy."
"Mngh."
No single one part of either man encountered the other; just the waft of their breathing, caught in the small gap between their respective faces, mingling. Tea, butter, biscuits.
"…Must I?" It was plaintive query and John had to grin. "This is—"
"Dull; yes I know. And yes, you must. You agreed already, remember? Promised me."
"But…but."
"Shhh, shhhh, Sherlock. Hush, now."
John, strangely reluctant to cease touching his flat mate, and perhaps mainly from a largely metamorphous fear he'd begin straight again with the distraction tactics, trailed one finger down the sharp line of the cheekbone Sherlock presented the dull ceiling. It felt oddly fragile beneath his fingerprint. Sherlock caught his breath for an instant and then released it on an almost inaudible sigh, lungs visibly deflating. His eyelids twitched; his one wrist turned upwards upon the pillowcase ever so slowly, exposed, as his fisted fingers uncurled one by one, going lax.
"John," he said, ever so small. "John."
"That's it exactly," John crooned encouragingly, heartened greatly by these small signals. "Keep those observant eyes closed for me, Sherlock, shut everything out. Nothing going on here anyway. Breathe in, breathe out, nice and steady and slow. Only for a very little while, I promise you, just a few moments more; you'll hardly notice. Really, no time at all, Sherlock, but do…please...sleep. For me."
"I." Sherlock swallowed hard, with obvious difficulty even in the ill-lit room, though he gamely kept his brilliant eyes shuttered. Stayed quiet and still under John's touch. "For you, even for you, I…can't. John, I really can't. You mustn't ask it of me—"
"Sher—"
"Don't you see?" The detective's eyes popped open, wide as they could, grey-green and searching as they took in John's abruptly worried frown. "It's…I can't. I try, really I do try, John, but I can't. I can't see how."
"—lock? Oh….er." John sighed, a long slow breath through gently pursed lips. "Yes, well. That's a problem, isn't it, then." He licked them, apparently suddenly realizing they were dry, and Sherlock, still examining him fiercely, unwaveringly, did the same, unthinking. "A real one."
"It's hard, John," Sherlock muttered, shutting his eyes again, obstinately. "Very…difficult. Specially with you here."
"Oh, Sherlock," John murmured, diverted, as his friend looked rather adorable, pouting, "whatever shall I do with you? Poor sod. I keep forgetting how hard this must be on you, tense twit you are, always running on fumes. You're all buggered up, aren't you, internally? Not accustomed."
"Not a poor sod, John," Sherlock snapped, though he kept his lids down. "And not buggered up, either." He frowned and pushed his face forward across his pillow, rubbing his prominent cheekbone into it, making a shallow dent. "This is only a bit difficult, is all. You demand a lot of me. Always."
"Maybe so," John nodded. "Maybe I do, at that. But I'll help, how's that?"
"Help? Help how?" his flat-mate demanded suspiciously. "You have a drug, John? Why didn't you say so in the first place, a drug would be—oh, but no. They leave me all muzzy, I can't afford that; John—"
"No, not that, Sherlock. Just…here, let me, okay? Like this. No drugs needed for this."
He slid his free hand carefully around Sherlock's damp nape, careful not to tug at his hair, and cupped it, then began a slow spread-fingered drag through the curls, just pressing gently down on Sherlock's scalp as he went.
"Nothing chemical, nothing that'll mess up your head, just. Let me do this, just like this." Came to end of it, right at the detective's hairline, and subtly reversed the motion, smoothing down the disturbed seal-dark tendrils as he went. "See? That's not so bad, is it? Feels good, doesn't it? And it'll help, I swear."
"John." The detective stilled, barely breathing. "John."
"No, you're already relaxing, Sherlock, a little. Don't fight it; let go. I've got you."
"…John?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you, really?" It was a whinge, but then again, it wasn't. John grimaced fleetingly but kept up with his steady stroking. "John?"
"What?"
"Have me." Sherlock buried his head as much as he could into the forgiving fluff of his pillow. "Or more like, maybe—"
"Sherlock?"
"I should say, will you—will you be keeping me?" His deep voice was muffled by down; John could barely make out what he was asking. "Despite her? Your Mary?"
"Sherlock!"
"Whaaat?" Sherlock hissed, emerging from his pillow with narrowed eyes that glittered and a very sharp expression. "What, now?!" He jackknifed upwards, bringing up his kneecaps and clasping at them with long arms, all in one elegant motion. One that expressed great sullen gouts of energy, barely in check. "Is that not a reasonable question, John Watson? What are your intentions, man? Towards me—for me? I need to—I need to know. You must tell me, straight out. You must."
"My—my intentions?" John faltered, his hand rendered useless for the moment. He blinked upwards and sideways at Sherlock, not comprehending immediately. "What're you getting at, Sherlock?"
Sherlock threw his hands up in frustration, scowling. Eyes adjusted to the dim, John was able to discern every little twist to the lush lips, the speaking eyebrows. Certainly, the man's voice was eagerly impatient to the brimful and spilling over. And thin to the point of tissue-silk, all the same. As if he hated to ask these questions, as if it pained him to force the words through his parted lips, past his darting tongue, but felt he must.
Interrogate John, his friend.
"Sherlock? What are you asking me? What are you saying?"
John too sat upright, extending his petting hand to catch his flatmate's flapping forearm instead, clinging to it when Sherlock clamped it tight to his own waist in a swift, hissing movement.
"Don't touch me! For fuck's sake, don't touch me if you don't mean to, John—and speak! Why won't you speak? I need to know. What you mean by this, coming in here. What you mean, by caring. By acting as though I matter a jot to you when I have never in my life mattered to anyone much, really. Certainly not my person, not what holds this!"
Sherlock clapped a hand to his pate, rubbing his mussed curls into a veritable frenzy. Ripped it away and employed it to bop John suddenly on the center of his chest. They were but inches apart suddenly and both breathing fast in the dark.
"Oi!" The lightening dark, at least metaphorically, for John's eyes widened as he absorbed every sign of distress on that unusual face. He didn't leave go of his arm, not for an instant. "Sherlock."
It scowled at him, petulant.
"You cajole me into your boring sensibilities, your so-dull routines, and act as though there's no way I can satisfy you if I don't comply and go along with every one of them, no matter how difficult, how stupid, how pointless. You imply you are my friend, John Watson, my only friend and I admit it, and that you're glad of it; it's not grudging at all, but then you go off and dig up that horribly mundane female and she takes up all your spare time, much as your Sarah did, and that bloody twit Rachel or Regina or what-have-you did too! They crow over me and act as though they own you, though they never do, John—they never do! And then you take up with another one, as if they're all interchangeable, your bloody females! You leave me to my own devices, John, and act as though it's a hardship and a personal favour to me to allow me my work, my life, and then berate me when there's trouble and you've not been there all along to oversee it. You give every sign you're jealous of my time, my attention, and you could seem to care less when I make the effort to give it you, whatever I can spare, whenever I can. No! It's ridiculous, is what! I don't understand, John. What is it you want of me, exactly? How is it you want me? I cannot make it out, what path to take, how I must needs act around you—what I must do to have you happy with me—to lo-like me, John. And it's not fair, none of it; not proper nor sporting nor anything like. You have to say!"
So young, so very young, and yet the look in those eerie eyes was ages old in the making.
"Sherlock."
"You cannot leave me stranded, not again. John."
"But."
"But what?"
"You left me…didn't you?"
Just like that, Sherlock was laid back down again on the mattress, flopping into a strings-cut heap of limbs, arms extended way above his head. His fingernails scraped the headboard; John flinched at the tiny sound.
"Yes, yes of course," he sneered. "And you shan't let me forget it, either, will you?"
"It's not," John licked his lips, following his flatmate down, so that he lay again upon his side, the better to see. "It's not like that."
"Then, John," Sherlock swallowed hard, gulping, fighting for air in a room suddenly so close, so dense with tension there seemed to be no space left for something as simple as oxygen. "What is it like?"