John is in the strange stage between wakefulness and sleep, where reality blurs and crinkles around the edges of conscious thought, when Sherlock hammers on the door and opens it a moment after.
"Something's going on in Southwark; Lestrade wants me."
Sherlock is out of the door, feet hammering on the stairs before John has even fully woken up, but he returns soon enough, wrapping his scarf briskly around his neck.
"Well? Are you coming?"
John doesn't want to. He is enjoying the warm cocoon of his bed; was enjoying the haze he had been in before he had been so rudely disturbed. But he finds it difficult, when Sherlock snaps his fingers, not to come running. He has never stopped to consider whether it's a byproduct of his army training or simply the younger man's charisma. It doesn't matter either way; before he has really thought about it, he is sliding his feet out of bed and reaching for a jumper, and Sherlock's features dissolve momentarily into pleasure before he shoots off down the stairs again.
"Hurry up! We'll miss all the fun!"
The fun turns out to be no fun for anyone; a tragic suicide for all bar Sherlock, for whom it is a disappointing suicide, and he wastes no time in venting his spleen, the majority of the bile reserved for Lestrade who bears the look of a man who'd really rather be anywhere than where he currently is.
John tries valiantly not to smile as snatches of the conversation float back to him, Sherlock barely pausing for breath in his diatribe against Lestrade, Anderson, the corpse, the government…essentially anyone he can think of.
Donovan lags behind, clearly trying to avoid the line of fire, although John could tell her that it's really an inevitability. Still, if she hasn't learnt yet, he's not going to waste his breath.
He wonders when it was that he started thinking like Sherlock. Then he wonders when it was that thinking like Sherlock stopped being such a bad thing.
Sherlock follows Lestrade all the way back to Scotland Yard and by association John follows Sherlock, the younger man's grumbling dying down as they arrive and he is placated with a mug of lukewarm coffee.
Of course, nobody thinks to offer John a drink, and he leaves Lestrade apologising profusely for wasting Sherlock's time to go and hunt for the canteen.
He doesn't get more than two corridors away when he hears footsteps behind him, speeding up to meet him, and the sound of a throat clearing.
"You should stay away from Sherlock" comments Anderson, arms crossed in front of him and an unpleasant look on his face. John's eyes narrow, his posture straightening to mirror the other man's.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. The man's bad news."
"I'm a big grown man now, Anderson" he says coldly, "I can take care of myself, thank you very much."
Anderson takes a step forward, too close, arms dropping to his side and an unpleasant smirk sliding across his face.
"Not what I've heard" he breathes into John's ear, his breath hot and moist, and it feels like the bottom has fallen out of John's stomach. For a second he can't breathe, and when the air does flood into his lungs he thinks he might vomit.
"I don't know what you're talking about" he rasps, knowing how unconvincing he sounds, and Anderson laughs, his mouth still almost touching the shell of John's ear.
"You can keep telling yourself that, doctor. But neither of us actually believe it."
John's tongue feels dry and heavy in his mouth. He wants to ask if it was Anderson who did it, or whether he knows who did, or whether it's just malevolent rumours and he's testing the water. He wants to punch Anderson in his smug face and wipe that smile off, and he has never felt so sympathetic towards Sherlock's antisocial tendencies as now. He wants to cry that someone else knows.
He does none of these things, but stands stock still and blank faced in the corridor until Anderson moves back and the panic that has been clenching at his nerves and muscles begins to abate.
They stand there for a few moments until John can't hold the other man's cool gaze any longer, and his eyes slip down. It feels like a defeat in a deeper sense than he can fully grasp at that moment, and he thinks Anderson is going to say something for a moment before they hear a voice calling John's name and he immediately moves.
Anderson's arm shoots out, catching him across the chest, and he smirks at John.
"Run back to him then" he says, his voice low and dangerous, "Like the good dog you are."
And god help him, that's exactly what John does.
It's what John will always do.
He doesn't sleep a wink that night. Anderson's face blurs and sharpens behind his eyelids, his expression alternately flat and mocking, and no matter how many times he turns over to the cool side of his pillow, he can feel the hot gust of breath against his ear.
And he knows Anderson didn't do it. He's been at enough crime scenes with the man to have been pulled and pushed out of the way, has felt the wiry fingers grasp his wrists impatiently, stopping him from going further. Ironic that he is willing to manhandle John, who is far less likely to remove limbs from the corpse than Sherlock, but will only scowl and snap at the other man from a distance. But no; it wasn't Anderson. Fingers too bony, the man doesn't have enough strength to restrain John like that (he suppresses a shiver at the thought, suddenly feeling a pang of sympathy for Sherlock's pathological inability to let a thought go).
But if it wasn't him, Anderson might still know who it was. Certainly knows that it happened; he hadn't been bluffing. Would he tell someone? Would it happen again?
He rolls over again, burying his face in the pillow and letting out a frustrated noise deep in the back of his throat.
What had he done to Anderson? Nothing he could think of; the man was deeply unpleasant to his friend, but he himself had never really crossed swords with John. So was all this some ploy to rattle the detective? Was John the bait? Had they assumed that he would go to Sherlock? And what if he had; finding the criminal and bringing him to justice would have been swift and efficient if Sherlock had been involved; what did anyone have to gain by this?
For the first time since it has happened, he feels a surge of anger, rolling around his mouth hot and bitter, and quickly bites down on it. Anger won't help him, he knows – it's a luxury, a senseless emotion.
He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly through his teeth. He feels – knows – that he's playing a game that he isn't going to win, surrounded by men ten times more intelligent than himself, and it's not the first time he's felt helplessly out of his depth.
Kicking the covers aside, he swings his legs out of bed and pads over to the windowsill, twitching the curtain aside. The street is deserted; it usually as at this time of the morning, although he hasn't looked at a clock. A cat trots across the pavement and disappears into shadow and, bored, he sinks back onto his bed, unable to stop himself from sighing heavily.
The insomnia is wearing him down; he has days where he feels energised and beyond exhaustion and days where breathing itself feels like too painful an effort. He feels stretched thin, worn down and any other cliché that comes to his tired mood, and he feels it constantly. It's not dissimilar to a permanent hangover, and the frustration of not being able to sleep it off is…well, immense.
He can hear the sound of Sherlock moving around downstairs. He's not slow enough that he hasn't noticed his flatmates increased efforts to make his life easier; he makes less noise when he thinks John might be sleeping and sometimes even buys milk and teabags. It's vaguely disconcerting, and in some ways John wishes he would stop trying to make things better, because it all feels so irreparable to him.
Sleep still doesn't come.
Downstairs, Sherlock lies on the sofa and listens to the sounds of John's insomnia, the occasional sigh and creak of floorboards, and wishes he knew how to make it better.