Title: Sleeping Arrangements

Author: Pompey

Universe: ACD

Rating: PG13

Warnings: character death

Word count: 1226

Summary: My friend and lover, John Watson, was a man who preferred sleeping next to others rather than sleeping alone.

Prompt: July 27 - Tavener Chilingirian Quartet "Come and do your will in me"

My friend and lover, John Watson, was a man who preferred sleeping with others rather than sleeping alone. I mean this precisely as I said it, although perhaps "next to" would be more accurate than "with." Left to slumber by himself, his sleep was shallower and he was more prone to nightmares. Somehow the presence of another soul eased him even while unconscious.

Equally notable was his desire for human contact while asleep. It could be sleeping with his back against mine or his arm by my side. It could be our hands merely brushing each other. The position I suspect he found most comforting was when he was bookended by both Mary and myself, all three of us fitted together like measuring spoons, for only twice in my recollection did he ever have nightmares while we slept thusly.

My own sleeping preferences run rather the opposite, but for Watson's sake, I learned to tolerate his and even became accustomed to them. I never was able to ascertain if his time in the army was the origin of his nighttime preferences or an enhancing factor. "Sleeping in large groups protected us from surprise attacks in the dark," was all Watson would say on the matter, and I suppose in the long run it mattered not.

We had to take all necessary precautions in London, of course: retiring to bed at different times, mussing up the bedclothes of the empty bed, returning to said empty bed before dawn. However, a detective (and a doctor, come to that) keeps a practice with severely erratic hours. We both knew even the best of careful preparations can fail. The best protection for us was, sadly, limiting the number of nights were spent in each other's close company. If I noted Watson's quality of sleep was suffering, I would do what I could to ensure a case out of town where we might share a single inn room without question or even invent a reason why the two of us must spend the night together in one of my London bolt-holes.

The night that I returned to Baker Street with Watson for the first time in three years, I had the forethought to ask Mrs. Hudson to forego breakfast the next morning as Watson and I would undoubtedly be talking late into the night. Worthy woman that she was, she smiled and promised she would prevent any disturbances until noon. Watson half-embraced me all through the night with his left arm flung over my chest and his head against my shoulder, all the while sleeping like the dead. I hadn't the heart to shift or move until biological imperatives became urgent. I could not help but wonder when he had last slept that soundly or that long, given Mary's death was over a year ago.

Retirement to Sussex had a profound advantage in regard to sleeping arrangements. A pair of elderly, respectable London gentlemen with quiet habits quickly stopped being a novel item of curiosity and became merely a town fixture. We maintained separate bedrooms within the cottage for appearance's sake, of course, yet our nights – and days, for that matter – were free for us to spend them as we pleased. And we did so.

The last night we shared a bed was memorable only in hindsight. The sleeping position Watson preferred in our later Sussex days was similar to the one we had maintained after my return to London: his left arm across my chest and his head resting on my shoulder. I had long-since modified my own position to bring my arm 'round his shoulder. We were still in this position when I woke in the very early morning, with dawn just beginning to break.

I knew in the depths of my soul that something was very wrong but I did not know what. I tried shifting to roll over but immediately realized that Watson was cold beside me. Not only cold, but showing the beginnings of lividity and of rigor mortis.

In utter horror, I wriggled out of his embrace and shook his still form even though I knew it would do no good. I called his name in increasingly loud tones, though I knew that to be futile too. When I finally stopped my vain endeavors, I could feel myself starting to fall to pieces inside, yet I could not succumb without safeguarding our reputations one last time.

Thankfully, we had been in Watson's bed that night so I was spared the ghoulish task of moving his body to another room. I snatched up the pillow I had been using and thrust it under his still-outstretched arm, supporting it. I bunched up his pillow beneath his head and pulled the sheets and blanket up to his shoulders. I kissed him one final time, a kiss good-bye, and retreated to my own room. Only then did I let myself crumble entirely.

A few hours later, when I was truly worn out from grief, came the soft noises of our part-time housekeeper, Mrs. Janet Everley, bustling about in the kitchen. I thrust my feet into slippers, forced on a dressing gown, and went out to Watson's room. I stood inside for a minute or two but I did not approach the bed nor truly look at him. Then I went out to meet Mrs. Everley.

She took one look at me and dropped the bowl she had been carrying. It clattered on the countertop without breaking. "Mr. Holmes, whatever is wrong?" she exclaimed in alarm.

"I must ring the authorities. Dr. Watson is dead," I replied, distantly aware I sounded rather dead myself. I turned away as Mrs. Everley's eyes began to fill with tears. I was holding myself together with little more than cobwebs and disintegrating desperation and could not afford the slightest weakness until it was over. Until the officials determined Watson had died quietly in his sleep, in his bed, quite alone and unaccompanied.

There was one bad moment when the mortician's assistant questioned if Watson's apparent embrace of the pillow was unusual. "He often slept so," I said, rather coldly. "His arm was wounded in war and caused him pain ever since."

"Ah, quite so," the mortified mortician replied with a sharp glance to his assistant, who had the grace to look properly chastised.

The day passed in what seemed like an eternity and yet also a haze. I have only a few scattered memories: Mrs. Everley bringing me cups of tea that I ignored, staring out at the Channel and faintly wondering at the audacity of the sun to shine so brightly, a late afternoon call to set up funeral arrangements. With this last item came a prick of relief, for I realized it meant our safety was nearly assured.

That night, however, that first night I had to spend without Watson lying next to me, I remember with great clarify. I could not sleep but tossed from side to side without rest. Finally I gave up and entered Watson's room. Mrs. Everley had stripped the bedclothes and the mattress and pillows were bare. I did not care.

I lay down in Watson's bed on my right side, pulled the blanket up to my shoulders, tucked one pillow under my head, and crushed the second pillow under my left arm in a tight embrace.