If John Watson had known he was about to enter into a relationship with Sherlock Holmes, he probably wouldn't have expected it to start a little more explosively. As it was, they'd had a relatively sensible discussion about the matter and made out on the sofa for a bit, before Sherlock had to admit he was losing his battle with his headache and proceeded to wage a war against any crack of light that managed to seep its way into Baker Street. He'd made a pointed comment about going to bed, Sherlock had either missed the hint or decided to ignore it (which was probably for the best, all things considered – especially given the whole slow thing they'd talked about), and John hadn't really felt much like pressing the point any further.

He'd gone to bed with that blissful calm feeling, mixed with the classic giddy anxiousness, that he came to associate with being far too emotionally invested in people, had laid awake going over the whole conversation a maximum of three times (maybe four) before he drifted off.

Of course, then he had one of those bloody, brutal dreams of Afghanistan and Sherlock in Afghanistan and Afghanistan in the pool and Moriarty's mad eyes as the bullet ripped into his shoulder and through his flesh and the pain and –

"Do you ever sleep?" John muttered, still shaking slightly as he walked towards the kitchen, trying not to be obviously holding himself together whilst trying to hold himself together.

Sherlock glanced at him.

"Do you?"

He hadn't had a bad dream for quite awhile. Usually, they correlated with the in-between cases where the domestic lull started driving them both crazy and wound up with them fighting. He definitely hadn't been expecting them to creep back up on him tonight of all nights.

"Well, I attempt it," John said, fumbling with the kettle and the teabags. He laid his hand flat against the kitchen counter and watched it for a few minutes, as if to remind himself that it wasn't still shaking. He was fine. Absolutely. "You purposefully bypass it."

"The end result is the same," Sherlock returned.

"Fine," John said, almost scalding himself pouring his tea (he was being an idiot, he was fine, there was nothing to get upset about – just a stupid nightmare – and they weren't supposed to be lingering around his brain like that... he was, absolutely, categorically okay), "well, I hope you don't mind company,"

"If you mean you, then no – I don't mind,"

"Who else could I mean?" John asked, taking a sip of his tea – forcing himself into a state of calm – before stepping into the kitchen.

"That's irrelevant," Sherlock said, removing his feet from the sofa to allow John room to sit down, "If it's not you, then I'm not interested,"

"Excellent," John said, sitting down on the sofa gingerly, "excellent basis for a relationship. What are you doing, anyway?"

"Thinking," Sherlock said.

"Don't have to be a consulting detective to work that out. Anything interesting, or more tobacco ash?"

"The effect of salt on a rotting corpse," Sherlock said, "cold case,"

"Mind if I put the telly on?"

It wasn't one of those British Politeness questions, but an actual question; John didn't really want to disrupt Sherlock's thought patterns too much, even if the quiet of the place was a little too much right after his nightmare.

Sherlock looked at him for a second. Usually, anything involving noise or sound or bad storylines was not remotely allowed in the flat when Sherlock was thinking, but he was usually a little more lenient with things when John wasn't quite as okay as Sherlock would rather him be. Evidentially, John must have looked awful, because Sherlock mutely nodded and removed the remote from underneath his stack of chemistry books.

"Thanks," John said, closing his eyes slightly as he found some god awful movie he hadn't watched since he was a student, full of an appropriate amount of gore and bad acting for this time in the morning, and turned down the volume until he could only just hear it – just enough that the hum of activity blocked out the near-silence (or as close to silence as London ever got), to block out the more persistent thoughts swimming round the back of his head.

"What was it about?" Sherlock asked.

The nightmare.

It was a general unspoken agreement that they were supposed to pretend the PTSD and the dreams didn't exist and were simply not a problem, but then John had delivered a fine lecture about communication issues a few hours previously so maybe that was no longer applicable.

"Afghanistan, you, Moriarty, getting shot," John said, forcing the words out through his base instinct not to mention the whole damn thing.

"I thought so," Sherlock said, glancing at him, dissecting at him, "you were holding your shoulder when you walked in – before you saw me – and stopped and look at me slightly too long before walking to the kitchen. Your shoulder, does it hurt?"

"A bit," John said, taking another sip of his tea, "And my leg. I know it's not – "

"- psychosomatic pain is real pain," Sherlock said, cutting across him, "may I see?"

"My shoulder?" Sherlock nodded. "Help yourself,"

John pushed the material of his dressing gown away from his shoulder, exposing the wound.

John was not self conscious. He wasn't unattractive and he didn't really care about all the rest, but Sherlock was like a walking advertisement for posh suits. John was short and wore jumpers, and Sherlock was bloody younger and a genius and...

Well, it wasn't one of his most confident moments of all times. Obviously, that wasn't logical – because Sherlock had seen more skin than just his shoulder before, but things like that tended not to be all that logical from John's experience.

"I feel like one of your corpses," John muttered, as one of Sherlock's fingers drew a circle around the mark on his flesh, his expression so absorbed that John suspected Sherlock hadn't heard him at all. Of course, he'd been forgetting this was Sherlock who was probably going to view each of his scars and marks as mysteries to be worked out and deduced... Any semblance of privacy he'd ever had was sure to be zeroed out during the course of this relationship.

You couldn't keep anything from Sherlock.

"Fascinating," Sherlock said, withdrawing his hands away from John's skin. John blinked and released, at some point during the course of the examination (if that was the right word) his heart rate had slowed down and the deep set panic abated slightly. Good.

"You done?"

"For now," Sherlock said.

John pulled his dressing gown back over his shoulder, decided to sod it and twisted himself round so that he was half resting against the other man. Physical affection wasn't something Sherlock was particularly good at, and he probably wouldn't have aimed for an-almost-cuddle on the sofa had it not been the middle of the night, having had the image of Sherlock bloodied in Afghanistan burnt into his vision and any hope of sleep being crossed off for the duration of the night.

Sherlock tensed for a split second before he relaxed again, deliberately shifting his arm so that it curled around John's waist – an almost cuddle type position.

John closed his eyes for a split second. This was good. This was very very good. Maybe they were only about six hours into their new relationship, but it was definitely going excellently as far as John was concerned.

"John," Sherlock said, the words vibrating through his chest and punctuating the easy quiet, "this film is terrible."

o0o0o0o

"Sherlock," John said, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. As much as Sherlock was attractive and brilliant, he was also a right pain in the arse. "What are you doing with my phone?"

Sherlock didn't answer.

"Sherlock, give me back my phone."

"Believe me, John, I have better thing to do than talk to anyone on your contacts list,"

"Well then," John said, making a grab for it, "you won't have a problem giving it back then,"

"You're interrupting my concentration –"

"- what are you doing?" John asked, reaching out to grab it again, finding that Sherlock had deliberately turned away from him and being locked in one of those sibling-esque grab battles with bloody Sherlock. If John had to sit on the man to get his phone back, he wasn't above it – he'd categorically, always beaten Harry when she'd tried to nab his stuff. And Harry was feisty.

The problem was that Sherlock had stupidly long limbs and was notoriously difficult to pin down.

Still, John wasn't likely to lose.

"You're playing Tetris?" John questioned, when he'd finally trapped one of Sherlock's arm against the back of the sofa and was able to get twist round his other arm to view the screen. "I don't have Tetris on my phone."

"Evidentially," Sherlock said, long fingers still curled around his phone, "you do."

"Why do I have Tetris on my phone, Sherlock?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, lacking a large amount of his usual dignity due to being half pinned to the sofa. Honestly, the expression of Sherlock attempting to retain his usual haughty, superior look whilst being pinned down to the sofa was frankly adorable.

"Studies have shown that Tetris is supposed to help with PTSD," Sherlock said, "your nightmares have returned."

"And you were testing it out, were you?"

"Infernal game," Sherlock muttered, "ridiculous notion. How that is supposed to help anyone is beyond me."

"I take it you're not very good,"

"It's a ridiculous game," Sherlock sniffed.

"May I have my phone back then, Sherlock?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow archly.

Really, the man left John no choice… besides, it was rare that Sherlock was ever pinned down anywhere, even if this was just a result of the battle for the right to his personal possessions rather than anything else, but there was no need to waste an opportunity. Not when Sherlock was looking so self-satisfied and with the knowledge that the man, for all his genius, couldn't play Tetris.

And anyway, John was allowed to now; it was perfectly within his rights to just kiss him.

So he was damn sure that he was going to whenever he felt like.

They were gradually falling into a rhythm of a relationship. Honestly, there weren't really that many changes from before they were in a relationship (which was more of a good thing than it sounded like if he were to tell people – which he hadn't, yet), instead a series of small shifts.

If Sherlock wanted to be left alone, he'd either occupy one of the armchairs or stretch out across the entirety of the sofa and that was that (subtext read and understood, thank you very much), whilst Sherlock would just read John's posture and come up with the usually correct conclusion about whether he should keep his distance or not. They'd gotten through a series of conversations about stuff that John had wanted to know for ages.

"Thanks," John said, finally pulling the phone from Sherlock's grasp and pulling back away from him.

Sherlock looked at him, his gaze shifting over him, dissecting and deducing.

Sherlock frowned.

"What's wrong?" John asked, self-consciously shoving his phone into his pocket, "what have I done wrong?"

"Is it me or your continued attempts to cling onto your own perception of your sexuality?"

"Sorry?"

"Although you initiate things, you always pull away first. We've yet to sleep together –"

"– we've yet to do a lot of things,"

"Exactly," Sherlock said, eyes flashing, "so, what's the problem?"

"There isn't a problem," John said.

He should have known that a million miles an hour Sherlock would be incapable of taking anything slowly without deducing problems out of thin air and demanding an explanation from him. And given they'd yet to… go on a date or share a bed, it was downright ridiculous for him to jump straight to sex but… well, this was Sherlock.

"Then why?"

"I don't know whether you missed the convoluted way in which we got together," John said, "but I'd rather sort out the blatant communication issues before pushing things further."

"Why?" Sherlock demanded. "What difference does it make?"

"There are just a couple of things I'd like to know before the point of no return,"

"And you don't think we've probably already crossed that line?"

"Well, maybe, but -"

"And you want there to be a way back?"

"Sherlock," John snapped, "stop it. If you're going to put answers into my mouth and tell me what I think, I'll leave and you can have this conversation by yourself," Sherlock's lips thinned slightly, "This has got nothing to do with what I want, I just want to be sure that I know what you want. And given you won't tell me, I'm having to try and work it out…"

"If you're still hung up on the sexuality thing then – "

"– it's not that crazy that I want to know," John interjected, "usually, these things are quite helpful."

"How's that working out for you?"

"Just… fine, forget sexuality, but I can't sleep with you if I don't know…well, frankly anything about your sex life,"

"Why?"

"Because," John said, breathing heavily, "because Mycroft seems to think you've never slept with anyone, and whilst I think that's rubbish… it would make a big difference to things. Or, you could have slept with half the country. I don't know."

"Do you demand a sexual history off everyone you've slept with?"

"No," John said, "but usually, you can sort of guess. You're a walking enigma, Sherlock, and I have absolutely no clue whether or not you've done any of this before. I can't really see you in a past relationship, but I can barely comprehend this… so, who knows?"

"What do you want?"

"I'd like a number," John said, "I mean, a rough estimate. You can leave gender out of it if you really want."

"No,"

"What exactly is your problem here?" John asked. "I've never known you be so tight lipped about something, ever. I don't care, Sherlock. It doesn't make a difference. I just need something to work with here,"

"Why?"

"Because if Mycroft is right then that's a whole different ball game, and if you've slept with half the country then we need to make sure you're clean, especially because…"

"Because I'm an ex-drug addict?" Sherlock filled in, expression dangerous.

"That's not what I meant,"

"Isn't it?" Sherlock asked, "So you don't trust me,"

"Oh I trust you," John muttered, his own anger flaring up, "I trust you with my life, Sherlock, but I don't for one second trust you with yours,"

"How illuminating,"

"There's no problem here,"

"Clearly," Sherlock muttered, stretching out on the sofa with his muscles at tense angles, expression still stony. Sherlock closed his eyes.

"Sherlock," John demanded, fists balled at his sides. Sherlock didn't react. "Fine," John said, "fine. I'm going out."

He quite wanted to tell the man not to do anything stupid whilst he was out, but he was entirely sure that wouldn't help with the situation.

God the man was a pain in the neck.

o0o0o0o

John returned to the flat to find the kitchen and the sitting room completely empty. He'd rather have talked out the argument with Sherlock before he went to bed, but he wasn't about to knock on the other man's door just in case Sherlock was actually sleeping for once.

"Sherlock," John muttered, stopping mid stride and hesitating in the doorway to his bedroom, "You… you're in my bed?"

"Yes," Sherlock muttered irritably, flicking over a page of his book and resolutely not looking up at him. Honestly, John had expected several days' worth of silence and another argument at best – he certainly hadn't been expecting Sherlock to reconvene in his bed. That was more or less the Sherlock equivalent of an apology (although John wasn't entirely sure which of them should be apologising at this point), "Your next fascinating statement?"

"Okay," John said, "so, bad mood reigns on, then. Why… why are you here, Sherlock?"

"Don't couples share beds?"

"It's the tone of distain that gets to me," John said, frowning slightly, "I'm not… Sherlock, I'm not meaning to be an idiot about any of this, but frankly I still haven't gotten over you actually being interested,"

"I know," Sherlock returned, finally glancing up at him, "obviously."

"Right," John said, "what?"

"John," Sherlock said, placing his textbook on his knees for a second, "you are not as entirely idiotic as most people. Now I'm thinking clearly it's obvious that your continued obliviousness was, in part, my fault. Having repeatedly told yourself that I was not interested and would never be interested, you were reluctant to believe otherwise. If I'd addressed the issue a year ago –"

"– addressed the issue?" John questioned.

"Please," Sherlock said, his expression twisted.

There it was. Sherlock just didn't mean things the way they necessarily came out. The please was a polite request for John to continue to ignore what he actually said, and keep reading what he actually meant; referring to the whole thing as an 'issue' wasn't exactly the height of romance, but if there was any hope in hell this was going to work then…

Besides, he didn't much want a Sherlock that spouted poetry and talked about his feelings. He wouldn't know what to do with that sort of Sherlock.

"I come out of this whole story looking a bit pathetic," John said, "but…thanks. I'm just having a hard time convincing myself that any of this is real,"

"Hence the nightmares,"

"Sorry?"

"Uncertainty and self-doubt. Mycroft informed me it was in the notes from your therapist,"

"Lovely,"

"I tried to delete it," Sherlock said, almost apologetically.

"Don't… don't worry about it," John said, "Although, I thought Mycroft thought Ella was rubbish,"

"He's predisposed to dislike therapists on the whole,"

"Are you going to tell me, then?"

"What?"

"I stand by my statement, Sherlock. I can't sleep with you unless I know,"

"I assume you mean sex rather than sharing a bed,"

"Yes,"

"Well then," Sherlock said, turning back to his book, expression in a set line, "it can wait. Probably longer than you can,"

John shook his head at that and decided to ignore it, at least for the next few minutes.

He took a few steps close to his bed; still not sure what to do about the fact that Sherlock was in his bed, but not really wanting to question it lest he ran off. There were a few things that John considered as pretty important for relationships and thinking about most of them in regards to Sherlock was a little baffling; he didn't think date nights and regular communication was on the cards. Then again, they'd spent the first night of their actual relationship watching a film, cuddled up on the sofa. And now Sherlock was in his bed.

Maybe, just maybe, this had the potential to be a lot more conventional than John had anticipated.

"So, we share a bed now, do we?"

"I don't… I don't sleep the majority of the time. I dislike it. My sleeping schedule is erratic and – "

"– and I've lived with you for long enough to know that. I'm okay with it, Sherlock. I'd like you to sleep for eight hours a night and eat three meals a day as a matter of health, but certainly not for any reason as selfish enough as to sleep in my bed. I know this changes a lot of things, but it also doesn't change a lot of thing. So, are you planning on sleeping? Or just reading your book all night?"

"Does it bother you?"

"I'm… I'm really glad you're here," John said, eventually, "so no, it doesn't. Providing you want to be here, and aren't here out of some sense of obligation,"

"I'd prefer your nightmares to stop," Sherlock said evenly, "which means I need to convince you that I am deadly serious about this. Sex would help,"

"Well, give me a number and I'm all for it," Sherlock rolled his eyes irritably. John grinned, and got into bed feeling a little wrong footed again – the problem with the whole thing was, theoretically, he was now allowed to touch and hold at will. Yet, this was still Sherlock, so goodness knows where the man's line in terms of anything remotely touchy feely stood.

"Ridiculous idea," Sherlock muttered.

"Why's that, again?" John asked.

"You're going to lose,"

"Oh?"

Sherlock shifted, twisting round in the bed and into John's personal space. He was close; so close that their noses brushed together. John's breath hitched in his throat. "Pupils dilated," Sherlock said, his lips brushing over his skin. "Not to mention…" Sherlock's lips skimmed over John's neck, "your pulse,"

"Just because you're stupidly attractive doesn't mean myself control is compromised," John said, flipping himself over into Sherlock's space and kissing him.

"Stupidly attractive?"

"Mm," John muttered into the skin of Sherlock's throat, "who gave you brains and beauty, anyway? Very damaging to a bloke's heterosexuality,"

"Please," Sherlock scoffed, "your heterosexuality was a barely formed delusion born out of your parents prejudice against your sister,"

"Okay," John conceded, kissing him again.

"What? You're just agreeing?"

"Well, I'm snogging a bloke in my bed," John said, pulling away for a few seconds to look at him, "that seems fairly telling. And I'm not going to lose, Sherlock,"

"We'll see,"

"Night, Sherlock," John said, kissing him for a split second before reaching over and turning off the main light, "turn the bedside light on if you want to read."

There was a comfortable silence for a little while, in which John found himself debating whether or not to bite the bullet and wrap his arms around Sherlock or not.

"John," A brush of hot air on his cheek, Sherlock's body curving towards him, "thank you."

John wasn't entirely sure what he was being thanked for, but he could feel the gratitude in the word all the same. And it was entirely earth shattering to have Sherlock whispering thanks in the dark.

Who the fuck needed poetry, anyway?

John reached out and found Sherlock's hand, his fingers closing around it with a small smile.

o0o0o0o

"Is this your impression of a person who doesn't sulk?" John asked, poised at the door to Sherlock's bedroom, leant against the frame and trying not to get distracted by glancing up at the periodic table. He rarely went in Sherlock's room. Honestly, Sherlock rarely went in Sherlock's room and, well, John had thought if he maintained some level of respect for privacy from his direction then Sherlock might do the same in regards to his room (it hadn't worked).

Now, of course, it was their room on the nights that Sherlock actually decided to sleep.

"Because let me tell you Sherlock, it's utterly rubbish."

Silence.

"If you really wanted that placenta, you shouldn't have insulted Molly's cardigan,"

The Sherlock lump in the middle of the bed didn't react.

"And I know Mycroft is a git, but that's nothing new."

Nothing.

"And I'm sorry that I'm annoying you, Sherlock, but I guess I'm a git too."

Sherlock suddenly sat up in a flurry of limbs and dressing gown (and he didn't appear to be wearing much underneath, either).

"I don't know," Sherlock said. His blue-grey eye sharp and slightly manic. This Sherlock usually reappeared when he was on the cusp of figuring something out, but was still struggling to get there; brain overloaded with too much data and no real way of piecing them together.

Except, they hadn't seemed to have a case for several weeks. In fact, since they'd started their whole relationship they'd heard nothing from the police (maybe Lestrade was avoiding them?) and had taken on a grand total of two private cases (not really enough, considering it had been over three weeks since that conversation).

"You don't know, what?"

"The number," Sherlock said, "I don't know the number. I deleted half of it,"

"And the rest?"

"I was high. I don't know, John,"

John sat down on the edge of Sherlock's bed and tried to think.

"On Valentine's day," John said, carefully, "when you said 'the same way every addict funds an addiction' did you mean…?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, "probably,"

"Before then," John said, "before that, had you slept with anyone?"

"Yes,"

"Okay," John said, "fine,"

"Fine?"

"I told you it didn't matter," John said, head spinning slightly, "not that we're not going to talk about all of this, because we definitely are… but, it can probably wait."

"Probably?"

"You're an idiot," John said affectionately, "You know that, don't you? And if I'd known that's why this was stressing you out I would have just dropped it, but this is why I needed to know, see?"

"No,"

"Stubborn git," John grinned, reaching out and untangling Sherlock's clenched fist, "and I told you I wouldn't lose."

The lines of agitation etched into Sherlock's forehead softened slightly.

"Well?" John said, squeezing Sherlock's hand for a second.

"Well?"

"Well, get over here you consulting prat,"

And then John kissed him properly.


That awkward moment when a writer finishes a story but just keeps writing. Only one more chapter, I swear. I just wanted to explore their relationship a little bit more... couldn't resist. This is actually restraining myself from writing all the bits and pieces I want to. Argh. I've never written them actually together before... anyways, thank you for all the reviews, favourites and follows! And I'm renaming this story (because it's now got way more than six chapters so...). Thanks for reading :)