AN: llLethell, SerenityMoonlight and Arlewena were kind enough to let me know about their appreciation. Thank you very much, dears!
Stay (bonus track)
Sherlock sleeps like a log, as if all the manic energy he uses during daylight needs to be recharged with stillness during night. It's a not a common sight, since the occasions when he would fall asleep with her still keeping watch had been so very few, even after their long years together. Most nights after they would separate from their passionate embrace, he would stare out, thinking, while she succumbed to her dreams.
Not tonight, though. There's a salt and pepper fringe falling down his forehead and Joan can't, or better yet won't, resist the impulse to reach out and gently put it behind his ear. Joan never did particularly like men's hair – the thickness, the coarser feel of it, even the smell, but Sherlock's is like no one else's. Her fingers glide through it and Joan feels as if she could caress it all night long. Especially since Sherlock is asleep and not huffing impatiently, to make her stop, because he has better things to do than just stay there and let her play with his hair. Yet, for all his grumbling, he usually stills when she starts petting, as if he's a well fed cat.
Her fingers trail lower, her touch feather light, while the tips are barely tracing the elegant arch of his cheekbone, the smoothness of his brow – despite his age – the curve of his ear.
He looks so vulnerable when he's asleep, she wants to take him in her arms and never let him go. Her heart swells with love, so much that's almost painful, and she thinks that no matter what happens, today, tomorrow, next week or an eternity from then, she will always love him like she's never loved any other man.
She settles closer to him, her gentle breathing causing a few loose hairs to stir and then she closes her eyes. Whatever tomorrow brings, here and now is her moment.
TBC.