Hello! I'm back from my holiday, I wrote three chapters and edited the previous one while I was away so as soon as the other two are edited I should be putting those up too.

Words: about 2000


Sherlock had been acting strangely all week, he was being much warmer and more helpful towards John, not snapping at him or telling him he's an idiot. He made tea for John and even did the washing up occasionally. There were no experiments cluttering the table or in the fridge and when there wasn't a case, Sherlock acted like a normal human being rather than going completely insane.

It was almost as if he was trying to be as different from how he normally was as possible. This did not go unnoticed by John. He had no idea why Sherlock was acting so strangely, or normally, depending on how you look at it.

When Sherlock came back one day carrying three bags of groceries (four cartons of milk, a loaf of bread and two bottles of vinegar – for an experiment, John expected; there was no way he could go much longer without one to keep him occupied without losing his mind) John finally had to ask.

"Sherlock, are you alright?"

Sherlock paused trying to squeeze the four cartons of milk into the door that was designed to hold two and turned to face John, "Yes John I'm perfectly fine, why?"

"You're being…weird," Sherlock looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes at this. "You're being helpful and…"

"What, would you rather I wasn't helpful?"

"No, I just…" Realization dawned on him. "Sherlock is this about the experiment again? You're trying to butter me up aren't you?"

Sherlock sighed in defeat. "Well what else am I supposed to do?" He slammed the fridge door shut behind him, almost for emphasis.

"I said no, for god's sake respect my answer will you?"

Of course, Sherlock didn't respect this answer. It wasn't an answer he liked so he simply disregarded it and treated it as a maybe or yes, go ahead, as if there was a way to get John to agree to take part that he just hadn't found yet.

So far Sherlock had tried to get John to let him conduct the experiment with bribery, hunger strike, tantrums and blackmail. One time he even tried lying on the floor outside John's bedroom door and not moving a muscle, not even to get up and eat, but after three days of John completely ignoring him and simply stepping over him, he gave up and had to think up a new tactic.


So instead of doing what John wanted him to and giving up on his experiment, Sherlock simply went ahead with it. First he would need information about how they were both sleeping before they attempted to sleep together anyway so he could get that before John even agreed to take part. He wouldn't know.

When Sherlock actually slept, he recorded information about the quality of sleep, whether or not he dreamt (usually not), how long he slept for, where he slept and why (tiredness, boredom, John forcing him to, his body simply shutting down) etc.

He also recorded information on Johns sleeping pattern. He recorded how often he slept, (a ridiculous amount; almost every night) how long for and the quality of his sleep which was apparent from how much he tossed and turned and how well rested or not he was in the morning.

About an hour after John went upstairs to his room at night, Sherlock would creep up and watch him sleep; taking notes in a small black notebook before tiptoeing back downstairs and hiding it before John woke up and came downstairs.

Several times John had nightmares, probably about Afghanistan. He thrashed around in his bed, covered in a light sheen of sweat and moaning, sometimes shouting, crying out desperately. Sherlock hated these nights. But he didn't comfort John. It would affect his experiment and mean that John would know that he was watching him sleep which he probably would have been angry about.

Sherlock would instead sit outside John's room on the landing and wait until the thrashing and moaning stopped. He would sometimes hear John sobbing afterwards, trying to calm himself down but he didn't interrupt him. John would probably want to be alone anyway.


At some point Sherlock managed to delete the information all together about John not wanting to take part in his experiment. He seemed to have given up giving Sherlock his thought out reasons as to why he didn't want to take part in the experiment and simply walked away from Sherlock when he tried to persuade him. It was almost like dealing with a small child who is being purposefully irritating just to get attention; ignore them for long enough and they'll get bored and give up.

Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table holding a pipette of something when John walked in to grab a cold beer out of the fridge to drink while he was watching crap telly.

"I'll be conducting the experiment in your bedroom as it will make you feel more comfortable as it is more familiar to you so as not to make you uncomfortable. I doubt the change in environment will make much difference to me and you being as relaxed as possible is vital to the experiment,"

"No."

John opened the bottle and took a swig and walked from the room as if nothing had happened.

Sherlock didn't seem at all fazed.


The next time this happened they were at a crime scene. Sherlock had finished his examination of the body. He stood up and spoke as if they had been talking about it the whole time and they hadn't been interrupted in their conversation by two days and a string of murders.

"We should use a set time to go to sleep then measure how long we sleep for before waking up on the days neither of us have to get up early for work, we can also measure how easy it is to wake up early for work on the days it's necessary. The arranged time should be flexible though, if we feel like going to bed earlier or later then that could be important information,"

"No."

John walked past Sherlock to do his examination of the body, again acting as if Sherlock hadn't said anything more to him than take a look.


However hard he tried, Sherlock couldn't focus on the case. By a usual persons standards being focussed on the case for about half an hour at a time before being interrupted in his thoughts by John and his experiment would have been amazingly focussed, especially as he made it through the night, thinking, eyes closed, lying down without falling asleep. But no. This was Sherlock's standards and by Sherlock's standards he was unfocussed and that had to stop.

He couldn't work out why it was distracting him so much. Usually experiments could be put on hold for cases, unless they were relevant, without a second thought. He wondered if it was because it was because it involved John. Possibly, but he had used John in experiments before. It could be because it involved him too. Still unlikely. He tested himself in experiments all the time and they never affected him like this. Then what?

There was a possibility, however small, that this was to do with emotions. His emotions. The ones he shut down years ago. But why would they resurface now for a little experiment like this? It wasn't even an experiment to do with emotions; it was to do with sleep quality. Why should that distract him so much?

Sherlock needed to investigate this further but he wouldn't be able to do that without actually being able to conduct the sleep experiment. He was sure that if he just carried on telling John what the experiment would be like then he would stop thinking it was such a big deal and just let Sherlock get on with it. He couldn't see what the problem was in the first place really but he was sure it was just something as stupid as not wanting everyone to think he was gay. Even though they already did.

.oOo.

Sherlock continued with the conversation the next day; again just picking up the conversation where they had left off and expecting John to keep up, while they were in the murderer's house and had just seen his car pull onto the drive.

"the experiment will take place over the course of four weeks, one week before we sleep together, two weeks together to optimise results and then one week afterwards to see if it has made any change to our regular sleeping patterns,"

"No."

John hurled himself through the door, gun held out in front of him out in front of him.

"I wouldn't if I were you,"

The man dropped the baseball bat he had been holding and raised his hands to shoulder level where Sherlock grabbed them and handcuffed him with the handcuffs he had "borrowed" from Lestrade when he wasn't looking.


When the returned home John hung his coat up, yawning, and headed up the stairs, calling "Night, Sherl," over his shoulder.

Sherlock followed him up the stairs and to his bedroom like they did that every night. When John reached his room he went in and swung the door shut behind him.

A muffled "No." came from the other side of the door.

Sherlock glared at the door then retreated downstairs in defeat and threw himself down onto the sofa, hands pressed together under his chin, eyes closed. Anyone who didn't know Sherlock would think him asleep and wonder why he didn't just go to his room. Anyone who knew him would think he was in his mind palace or something like that trying to solve the case. John Watson would have noticed the tiny crease that appeared as Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows slightly in frustration and wonder what was wrong.


That was how John found him the next morning, Sherlock seemingly having not moved at all. He hadn't even changed out of his suit from yesterday. His jacket had been discarded on the coffee table and he was lying on the sofa in his tight white shirt, hands pressed together under his chin as always.

"When would it would be best to start the experiment? It would be no good if you were to go swanning off to see your sister or something equally as pointless halfway through." Sherlock didn't even turn his head to indicate that he was speaking to John and not just to himself or to the room in general, "Though it would be interesting to compare before and after a break, maybe I should test more fields-"

"No." John called from the kitchen where he was making tea and toast Sherlock probably wouldn't eat. "Why are you still on the sofa?" He poked his head around the door to look at Sherlock, who still hadn't opened his eyes. "The case is over; there isn't anything else to figure out. You should have gone to bed,"

"Thinking."

"What about?" When Sherlock didn't reply John shook his head and went to finish making their breakfast. He emerged a few moments later carrying his tea in one hand and two plates of toast in the other, rather skilfully if you asked him. "Breakfast, Sherl." Sherlock sighed but swung his feet off the sofa to join John at the table.


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