Anote: If anyone has any additional ideas for these one shots, please let me know.
Chapter 10
Sherlock was vastly amused that John, four minutes and thirteen seconds after insisting he would stay awake and keep him company, fell asleep slumped against his shoulder.
Four minutes and thirteen seconds?
What an odd observation. Why not five minutes or ten minutes?
Sherlock rubbed his forehead distractedly, worried about these seemingly random pieces of information that swam across his mind's eye.
For example when he was taking a shower earlier on, he noted that the bath water was a cool twenty five and a half degree Celsius. Who noticed things like that? What was the point?! John had informed him that he was a private detective of sorts and had a keen eye for facts, but this was something else entirely. He couldn't control it, and facts and figures were suddenly starting to wander in and out his head at an alarming pace, every time he looked at something.
This loss of memory was beginning to become a gigantic pain in the buttocks.
In the meantime, he turned to gently lower John to the bed and pull up his blanket, ensuring that all exposed toes and fingers were covered. The doctor snuffled in his sleep but then settled down, contented it would appear to be rolled up like a piece of sushi. Sherlock then strangely found himself focused on counting the pulse point in John's exposed neck.
The young man clapped his hands over his eyes in dismay, wondering what he was doing. He still hadn't quite gotten over the astounding revelation that he had once experimented with hard drugs, and now this bit of strange of behavior had to rear its ugly head. John would be so freaked out by this. He was freaked out!
Freak.
Something cold uncoiled in his belly but in the next moment, the memory started to fade. He concentrated fiercely, coaxing the memory to come forward but like all the instances so far, the information stayed out of reach.
Eventually he gave up and when he finally came back to himself, Sherlock found that he had been staring fixedly at his dim reflection in John's table mirror.
'I am not a freak!' he insisted to his mirror image; ducking to nimbly avoid the pillow John sent sailing in his direction.
'Quiet,' the doctor muttered irritably, as he shuffled around like an energetic caterpillar, safe and warm in its cocoon. Sherlock smiled wistfully down at John's shoulder, just visible by the lights in the street outside. Unlike the doctor, he wasn't tired at all, perhaps too keyed up by the adrenaline of the last couple of hours. He would welcome the blankness of sleep right about now though; anything to quiet the way his mind was pinging like one of those old arcade games.
'Go back to sleep, John,' he remarked casually, and sure enough the suggestion was enough to push the man back into the unconscious.
'And I am glad you're here,' Sherlock whispered down at his friend, after he was sure that the other man was fast asleep. The detective had a strong feeling that he did not normally say such complimentary things out loud. Perhaps he should change that; especially where John was concerned. If he had to do this on his own, he felt certain that he would have been well on his way to being completely unhinged.
Carefully he rose from his seat on the edge of the bed and walked across to stare out of John's single window.