Chapter 45: Midnight Movies.

"And nothing is quite as it seems…. You're dreaming! Are you dreaming? Oh, Alice…."

-Danny Elfman, Alice's Theme.

John lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. The room was dark, aside from the slice of light shining under the door. On the other side of that door, he knew that Jim was working. Every night, the criminal mastermind would stay in John's living room, never sleeping. It had been at least three days since he'd laid down, and John was becoming seriously worried. If it had been Sherlock, he would have just drugged the genius' tea, but he had tried that with Jim, and predictably, had almost gotten himself killed. No, he wasn't doing that again.

Normally, John would be asleep by now, and Jim would be tapping away at the keyboard, hundreds of plots and deaths and robberies, all leading back to that computer in the next room. But John was too worried to close his eyes, his mind running through all the symptoms of sleep deprivation, and all the ways that they could get Jim killed.

He had only seen Jim asleep once, on the couch one morning. It was a surreal sight, to see him so unaware. Or not, as it had turned out that Jim was a shoot-first, questions-later morning person. John's own reaction time had been the only thing to save him from an unpleasant end.

John shifted onto his side, curled slightly, and continued to think. At least this genius didn't have any problems with eating. But sleeping! What was it with higher IQs and an aversion to sleep? 'Too boring,' they'd both say. 'Too time consuming.' Your mind needed sleep to put things into the long-term memory, though, so shouldn't they do as much sleeping as they could-

The door swung open, and a familiar silhouette leaned against the doorway.

"I can hear you thinking," Jim said disapprovingly. "It's very distracting."

"Sorry, I was just-"

"Worrying that I should get some sleep, I know. You're probably right, too. I'm not going to get any more work done tonight while you're shifting around next door."

"Good. Go to bed," John said, and let his head fall back against the pillow. Jim left the room, and John closed his eyes, waiting for the click of the door, but instead, the lights went out. John popped his head up again, confused, and squinted into the dark.

Jim sat down on the bed beside him, making him jump. He heard the rustling of clothes, and then two thumps on the other side of the room. Shoes. As his eyes slowly adjusted, the moonlight falling through the skylight in the next room became enough for John to make out Jim's movements. The criminal mastermind loosened his tie, slipped it over his head, and threw it unceremoniously away. Some nights, Jim was very careful with his suits, smoothing them carefully, hanging them just-so. Other times, like now, he threw them into the corners of the room until he felt like cleaning them up.

John lay there and listened to the suit jacket, the trousers, and the shirt hit the floor. Then the blankets were lifted up, and Jim shifted under them in his socks, pants, and under-shirt holster.

"Gun and socks?" John asked, voice filled with half-exasperation.

"Naturally," he replied, with a smirk that John couldn't see in the half-light, but could hear as clearly as anything.

"Come here, then," John sighed, and rolled so that his back was to Jim. The criminal mastermind draped himself over the doctor in that trademark way that screamed 'mine'.

"Good night, John," came the Irish drawl by his ear.

"Night, Jim," John responded, and then he closed his eyes and waited. As he had expected, it didn't take long for Moriarty to fall asleep. Once the criminal mastermind's breathing evened out, he let himself curl a bit closer to the body wrapping around him, and drifted away into dreams. Dreams that slowly twisted into nightmares.

Oooooo000oooooO

"Well of course it was the daughter," Sherlock said, pacing around the body, hands folded behind his back. "Her fingerprints were conclusive, and that isn't even my specialty… division… specialty…"

They were chasing the woman down an alleyway, John hyper-aware of Sherlock's movements, their feet hitting the asphalt at slightly different times, discordant but perfect. The suspect was just ahead of them, a flurry of skirts and dark hair, but then she was gone, and both of them halted, looking around.

"Where did she-?" John started, but Sherlock wasn't there anymore. The doctor twisted and turned, exposed in the darkness of the alley, aware of eyes on him, not knowing where his watcher was. A hand touched his arm and then became an iron grip, yanking him further into the shadows. He struggled, but then a voice whispered

"It's okay, Johnny boy." He relaxed and let himself be pulled against the wall. Moriarty grinned at him and flicked back the long hair of his wig. "What do you think?" He made a slow turn, lifting the skirts of the dress he was wearing. "Aren't I pretty? Convincing?"

"Where's Sherlock?"

"It's just you and me," Jim whispered, drawing closer.

"No, it's not," John said, because he recognized their surroundings in the sudden daylight. It was his old high school, and there was the dumpster that the kids in black clothes had hid behind to smoke, and this was not a good place, he just couldn't remember why.

"Calm down, John," came the voice, and John turned to Roger, blinking and smiling away the anxiety. The other boy was almost painfully good looking, with honey-blond hair and innocent eyes. "We're alone." And John tilted up his chin, because he didn't know what else to do, and then they were kissing.

John could feel something on the edge of his mind, a knowledge that it was going to go wrong, that he needed to push the other boy away. But he had had a crush on Roger for years, why should he want to stop kissing him?

"John?"

And John turned, recognizing the wide eyes of his best friend before he was standing in front of his mother, feeling awfully small in the brightly lit kitchen.

"And when his father called, I told him that there was no way, that couldn't have been my son, and now you can't even deny it?" John stared at the floor, wishing that he could just open his eyes and wake up, feeling terrible for kissing another boy when he knew how much trouble it could get him into. "Look at me!" So he met her furious gaze, and watched the wrinkles spread around her eyes, marks from the few years that took an unimaginable toll.

He was wearing a tuxedo, ready for the prom that he wasn't going to go to, because tonight had to be the night that Harriet left the family, and ruin it all for him. He hated her, he really did... "You did this!" his mother was screaming, and her words were more painful than anything had a right to be, "you were the first! Ever since that Roger boy, it's all been wrong. It's contagious, it's contagious, I hate you, you've ruined our family!"

There were arms around him, and a hand trailed down his arm to slip a gun into his unresisting fingers.

"It'll hurt you," Jim murmured into his ear. "For a long time. Better to get rid of it now. Let the caring go, let it all go and be happier."

And even though it made no sense, it made perfect sense, so John raised the gun and pulled the trigger. His mother jerked backwards and then collapsed, one hand reached for the counter in an effort to pull herself up, and then falling to the floor, pale and open. Red spread over patterned linoleum. John turned to say something to Jim, but he was gone. John was alone with his dead mother, and a gun in his hand, and in that moment he knew that what he had done would destroy his life, and somewhere inside him a voice was shouting I will never meet Sherlock. I will never meet Jim. I-

Ooooo0000oooooO

"John Hamish Watson, wake up now!"

His eyes flew open, and he pushed himself up and away from the pillow. The room was dark, and he reached out his arms, searching for something that he couldn't see. Fingers met his forearm, and he relaxed as familiar hands swept up his arms to cup his face.

"Jim," he said, a breath that became a word without John's consent.

"You're awake," Jim said, a statement rather than a question, despite the fact that Jim hated it when people said the obvious.

"Yes," John answered anyways, and then took a deep breath, repeating it to himself inside his head. You're awake. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize, you woke me up from a bad dream. I should be thanking you."

"Oh." There was a silence. "What was yours, then?"

"No, John. Not for any answer in the world." That probably meant that John didn't want to know anyways. "Come on. Neither of us are going back to sleep for a while." Jim got up first, pulled on a pair of trousers, and tossed a pair at John's face.

"Hey!" John slipped into them anyways, and followed Jim into the living room. Instead of flicking on the lights like a normal person, Jim moved by the light from the microwave clock and the moon shining through the skylight.

First, he put on the kettle, and then moved to the cupboard to pull out a pack of popcorn, which he stuck in the microwave. When he opened the fridge door to pull out the milk, John had to stifle a laugh at Jim's puffed-up hair. But then again, he probably had his own case of bedhead, so he decided not to comment.

When the kettle had boiled, Jim made them both cups of tea, took out the popcorn, and silently led the way to the living room, where he turned on the television, and got down to his knees to grab a DVD from under the couch. He stuck it into the player, and settled back with John to watch.

'The Count of Monte-Cristo,' a black and white film, was a sort of depressing movie, in John's opinion. Jim decided that it was the perfect segue into V for Vendetta, which John ended up falling asleep half-way through, despite the explosions.

Ooooo0000ooooO

He woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, and realized that he had a blanket draped over him. On the table beside him were two half-drunk mugs of tea, which made him smile.

"Jim?"

"Breakfast is almost ready!" The consulting criminal called back. "Be there in one moment!" The 'one' was drawn out into a note of song, and John shook his head with a smile. He pushed himself into sitting and rearranged the blanket, tugging at the shirt he had slept in.

Jim came in a few minutes later with two plates full of scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast with strawberry jam for John and blackberry for him, two new mugs of tea, and a considerable pile of bacon.

He danced over to the couch, carrying all of the food effortlessly, and looking completely comfortable with his shirtlessness.

"Wow," John managed, as the meal was handed to him. "You should cook breakfast more often."

"Maybe I will," Jim said with a grin. "Certainly better than your boring cereals."

"Hmmph." John took a bite of his bacon. Jim sat down sideways, with his back against John's shoulder and his legs hanging off the side of the couch. They chatted and ate and ended up watching some telly before Jim had to go off to do some sort of work, and John carried their dishes to the counter for them to wash that night.

Then he headed out to the medical hall, smiling, nodding hello to Leo and Kathy as they left to sleep after their night shift.

From then on, by unspoken agreement, Jim came in and slept with John every third night, and even though he was always awake before John, it was all that the doctor needed.

A/N: I love writing dream scenes, even though they're supposed to be bad for a story. Ah, well, one can't hurt, right?

Anyways, wow wow WOW, over 200 reviews, that's pretty damn cool! I love you, I adore you, I cherish you. Any word you like.

Around 3 chapters left now... It'll be strange not to have this story around to occupy my spare evenings! On the other hand, it'll be the first multi-chapter fanfiction story that I actually see through to the end, and that is all thanks to you guys, for reviewing and being awesome and convincing me to stop watching Netflix and actually write something!