"Sherlock?" John said as he knocked on Sherlock's bedroom door, "I'm leaving for work now. You sure you don't want any breakfast?" John asked before hearing more sploshing noises from behind the door. "Well, I'm going! You better not be making a mess in there! I am not cleaning your bedroom!" John shouted from the doorway then made his way off to work.
Sherlock popped his head outside his bedroom door and when he was sure he was alone, he made his way into the kitchen and touched the kettle on the stove. "Ow! Perfect! Still hot," then started to pour hot water into empty hot water bags.
"Oh, if I fill these now," he told himself, slightly slowing his actions, "the water will be cold by later. No good." Before fully stopping up the water bag, he paused for a moment and decided to finish filling the bags and will just reheat them later.
"Knock, knock!" Mrs. Hudson said, knocking once then opening the door, "I made a new batch of biscuits! Would you like—" and was stopped short because of what she found in front of her.
Sherlock. On the living room floor. Sewing.
Well, not really sewing. More like a very sad attempt at sewing.
"No, thank you, Mrs. Hudson. Very busy," he said, clearly not aware of the shock his landlady was in.
"Are you sewing, dear?" she said as she looked at his current progress with the cut up pillow.
"No, I am doing an experiment" he said, not looking up from his task.
Mrs. Hudson stayed put and watched Sherlock struggle with the needle and thread before saying, "You do know you have to knot the end of the thread?"
"What?" he said finally looking up. "Knot the end of the thread, dear. Here," and took the needle and thread from him, knotted the end with a small, neat knot. "See? Now it won't go through the cloth and you can make your stitches," she said as she demonstrated on one stitch.
"Oh.." he said, looking at the finished stitch, "thank you, Mrs. Hudson. I don't know what I'd do without you. Biscuits later?" he looked up at her hopefully. "Just this once, dear, since you're too occupied to come down." she said before walking out of the room.
"Do we have safety pins in the flat? – SH"
"None that I know of, why?"
"Do we have tape? A stapler? – SH"
"No? Sherlock, what are you doing?"
But John received no reply after that.
"GOD!" Sherlock screamed out loud after he pricked himself with that pesky needle again, "HOW IS THIS SO HARD?!"
"Biscuits, dear!" Mrs. Hudson said as she walked into the living room. "Oh, no luck there then?" she asked as she looked at Sherlock's mess of thread, needles, and stuffing.
"Tell you what, I'm not doing anything today so why don't I take this pillow and sew it up for you? Just clean up that mess in the kitchen! It'll make John happy as well," she said as she gathered the needles and thread that scattered the floor.
"You're an angel, Mrs. Hudson."
"Sherlock," John said, looking at the contents of the oven, "why is there a pillow in the oven?" he asked looking at the mess of curls as it typed away on a laptop.
"Oh, just warming it up. Don't worry, it's on low." He said in a bored tone.
"..Alright then"
Finally, after his long and unfruitful events that day, he was able to begin his second test on John. Taking the warm pillow from the oven, after making sure it was the perfect human body temperature, Sherlock began to, once again, drag the pillow to John's bedroom. With the added weight of the water bags, it was proving to be a lot more work than the day before.
Just like yesterday, Sherlock placed the pillow onto John's bed and wrapped John's loose arm around it. Also like yesterday, John almost instantly wrapped himself around the doll-pillow.
3:00 AM. Just a few more hours before John were to wake up. Sherlock really believed this was going to work then, "no.. please don't…"
Sighing, Sherlock quickly typed out, "Result: Nightmares were delayed longer. Approximately an hour from yesterday," then shook John awake.
"Alright, Sherlock, we have to talk about this" John said sternly.
"About what, John?" he said innocently.
"This!" John exclaimed as he pointed at the large pillow. "Why do I keep waking up next to this pillow? Feels different from yesterday too"
"How does it feel today? Sherlock asked.
"I don't know.. squishy? Oh god, no, just," he said before breathing out slowly, "um, take it away please?"
"Sleep well, John" Sherlock said as he took the pillow and left John's room.
When Sherlock was sure that John had gone back to sleep, he took his laptop from his room and left to find something to make his doll-like pillow have a pulse. Without using actual body parts, of course. Though, Sherlock may have considered that.
