A/N: Writer's block, guh. Have some fluff.
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Sherlock seemed to prefer to keep to something like a 36-hour-to-a-day schedule as a general rule. Most stimulant addicts were like that, Eric knew, but it didn't stop the vague worry that one of these mornings he was going to wake up to find the stubborn idiot facedown in one of his chemicals, dead asleep.
So he did his best to try to drag Sherlock off to bed whenever it seemed remotely possible to persuade him to rest. This usually happened between doses of cocaine, when Sherlock was too distracted by his chemistry or fiddling around with Eric's guitar or failing miserably at Halo to remember to shoot up. Eric would watch for the heavy blinking, the furrowed brow against a growing crash headache, slight slurring of speech... it was all really pretty obvious when you knew what to look for.
Then he'd begin with that particular brand of gentle but persistent nagging he'd perfected so many years ago with his baby sisters. Always suggestions, never orders - that way they thought it was their idea. The method seemed to work equal wonders on both primary school girls and twenty-something geniuses.
Actually in honest truth rather a lot of Eric's techniques regarding keeping an eye on Sherlock stemmed from his skills in looking after young children... and that was probably quite a bad sign when discussing someone you were meant to be dating.
But hell whatever worked, right?
"Y'should sleep sometime soon," he pointed out as Sherlock yawned for the second time in ten minutes. Eric had actually succeeded in getting the prat to eat a halfway-decent meal and they were now sitting at the kitchen table, Sherlock fiddling with the last dregs of his chicken soup and Eric debating the best way to do dishes while the sink was full of lab equipment.
"I've got things filtering," Sherlock objected halfheartedly.
Finally Eric decided to simply dump their two bowls in the basin alongside the beakers and figure out how to go about washing them tomorrow. He plucked Sherlock's mostly-finished dish out from under the prat's idly prodding spoon and stacked it on top of his own.
"I don't see why shit filterin' means y'gotta stay awake."
Sherlock frowned as his food-based entertainment was washed out into the sink. "Something might... knock them over. Or get stuck, I guess... I don't know."
Eric half-smiled to himself. And there was the most obvious sign of Sherlock-sleepiness: complete inability to string together a sentence. Apparently even geniuses could get too tired to talk.
"I think they'll prolly be fine overnight." Eric turned back around to find Sherlock leaning his head heavily on one hand, spoon tapping listlessly against the scuffed tabletop.
"Maybe," he mumbled. Eric raised an eyebrow in mild exasperation and grabbed his boyfriend's arm to drag him into a standing position.
"Bed," he ordered simply. It was a testament to how completely knackered Sherlock must have been that he didn't bother arguing - just grumbled something indistinct and wandered off toward the stairs under his own power.
Soon enough they were both in their pyjamas (which in Sherlock's case just meant he'd taken his jeans and sweatshirt off - he still hadn't bothered to obtain any clothes of his own, instead preferring to perpetually ransack Eric's wardrobe for t-shirts and underthings). Eric, for his part, was quite ready to fall asleep the second his head hit the pillow.
Hours must have passed in an instant, because the next Eric opened his eyes it was to the twilight darkness of his room. His scant collection of secondhand furniture stood bathed in the half-light from the streetlamp outside, the muted sounds of Stockwell's night life filtering like phantom noises through the walls. Eric lay still under the covers and blinked at the far wall with a slightly quizzical furrow to his brows as he tried to figure out what in hell had woken him up. He didn't usually have vivid dreams on oxy - the stuff knocked him out far too fast and way too heavily for any real images to form. So probably not a nightmare... but what, then?
That question was answered when he finally mustered the willpower to shove himself over onto his back, looking around the rest of the room - and more specifically to the other side of the mattress.
Beside him Sherlock was sitting up ramrod straight, legs tangled in the duvet as he stared at the darkness of the room with an expression of blank terror. Eric pushed himself up on his good arm and regarded the other man with concern - the skinny prat was trembling very slightly, panting like he'd just run a marathon... and good christ he looked bloody scared.
"Sherlock...?" Eric asked hesitantly after a moment. He wasn't entirely sure if Sherlock was awake or still trapped in some sort of dream world.
Sherlock startled, head whipping around to look down at Eric. His skin glowed a deathly pale white in the weak light.
"Who-?" he started, then abruptly cut off as he seemed to realise where he was. With a jerky shake of his head he scrunched his face up and pinched the bridge of his nose as if fighting off a headache. "Fucking hell..."
"Nightmare?" Eric guessed, quirking a sympathetic smile. Sherlock scowled under his hand and let his arm drop as he turned to glare out the window.
"No," he uttered tersely. The lie was dead obvious, but Eric didn't press the issue. Instead he just smiled again, expression soft and tinged with a hint of pitying sadness (and hopefully Sherlock would miss that in the gloom, else Eric was in for a solid day of stoic robot instead of the usual spastic nutcase - if there was one thing Sherlock absolutely hated it was pity). Well, that was probably it for sleep tonight then. Even though it was barely half past two in the morning, and they'd gone to bed at eleven... but really four and a half hours was about as good as anyone could ask for with a coke habit like Sherlock's. Quite decent actually.
"You gettin' up, then?" Eric asked with a half-stifled yawn.
Most likely the prat'd go do another hit - chase off the lingering wisps of fear in a chemical haze then spend the next twenty hours happily immersed in his chemistry work. That was just fine with Eric; he rather fancied having the whole duvet to himself again anyway.
Sherlock didn't immediately answer him. Instead the fierce glare of his expression slowly melted into a blank, faraway look. Still staring out the window he spoke again.
"Do you think I'm insane?"
Eric blinked. Where the hell had that come from? What, had Sherlock been dreaming about some sort of fucked-up acid trip magic adventure or something? Eric snorted softly to himself in amusement at the mental imagery and let himself flop back onto the pillows.
"Yer a bleedin' nutter," he replied without hesitation. Sherlock seemed to startle a bit and turned to blink down at him with a somewhat affronted look - apparently he'd been expecting a denial or some other sort of reassurance. Eric just smirked back. "But so's everyone else. Ain't nobody quite right in the head, s'what makes 'em all different."
Sherlock regarded him for a few seconds, an expression of vague confusion creeping over his face. Finally his features settled into a perplexed sort of half-glare. "That doesn't make any sense."
"No?" Eric frowned to himself. He made a token effort to analyse what he'd said - thoughts meandering along through the half-stoned, still-sleepy haze in his head - but almost immediately gave up. It hardly mattered anyway; Sherlock would just argue circles around any explanation Eric could possibly think up. With an unconcerned shrug and a yawn he rolled over onto his uninjured side and flapped a dismissive hand over his shoulder. "Eh, I dunno then. Yer prolly fine."
He heard Sherlock huff a quiet breath of bemusement, but there was no sign of a clever comeback. Instead another few minutes of companionable silence passed between them.
Sherlock had apparently chosen to continue sitting upright on the mattress staring at whatever-the-hell, still and unmoving in the darkness. Beside him Eric found himself beginning to slip back into slumber under the warm blankets.
Eventually Sherlock's voice broke into the settling fog of sleep.
"Do you mind if I stay here and read for a while?"
The question was accompanied by shifting weight, the soft clicks and whirring of a computer booting up - he'd evidently retrieved Eric's laptop from beside the bed.
Eric didn't even bother opening his eyes. "Y'know I don't."
"Thought I'd ask anyway," Sherlock replied in a low mumble, voice slightly distracted as he clicked around whatever website he'd pulled up. Seconds later he added on a muttered; "... good lord, your browser layout is completely inefficient."
Eric pressed a fond smile into his pillow, content to let Sherlock's litany of quiet complaining follow him into his dreams.
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