A/N: Yeah, the list of unfinished plotlines is now embarrassing. Life and all that. No good explanation for that, or for this plotless plotline. I think I just need a hug or something like that. -csf


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First thing John seems to register, even before his sleep heavy eyes blink open, is the arm possessively curling around his waist. He lowers a hand to rest over the long, slender fingers, slackened and gently poised over his exposed skin. John notices he's fallen asleep shirtless, not for the first time, the room must have been too warm. He then registers the other warm hand, coming from under his arm, reaching up towards his left shoulder, protectively covering his scar and damaged bone. That is certainly unusual, most of his partners avoid the gruesome aftermath comprised of scar tissue, surgical reconstruction and the ravished, blemished, desensitised mess overall his shoulder has become. John takes a deeper breath, snuggling in those accepting arms, still holding onto him, even if John can feel the soft, deep, slow breaths pressed against his own ribcage. It's incredibly soothing, comforting, and the former soldier nearly allows himself to fall deeper in this strange vivid dream, see wherever it leads him. Because a dream it must be, John never felt so good in the morning after...

After what? The first hint of doubt crosses the doctor's mind, dispelling some sleep delay from his thought processes.

He's been known once as a bit of a ladies man, but he's never been ungentlemanly to the point of forgetting who he's bedded before sleep.

Actually, the last thing he remembers he was with Sherlock – who is so obviously a bloke – on a case in a medieval city, tempering reopened centuries old graves with freshly decayed unidentified corpses. Sherlock didn't take two rooms in the inn because he insisted he didn't need to sleep, and John had himself fallen asleep as the genius wandered the tiny room in comforting proximity, deducing away in muttered remarks of assumed brilliance over the case in hand. His deep voice a constant presence as John fell deeper asleep.

Wait. Sherlock?

John looks down on the elegant fingers, calloused by the violin and stained by hydrogen peroxide, recognising those hands that cage him in soft protection at last. Well, this could be awkward. John reminds himself that Sherlock has no notion of the intricacies of social convention, and even less of personal space, and realises Sherlock must have been bone deep tired when he decided to share the tiny bed. He clung onto John for fear of falling off the slim mattress, instead of claiming the bed for himself as he would definitely do some other time, and trusted John enough to sleep soundly by his side. Parasympathetic reactions, perhaps, would lull him to a healthy deep sleep, in mimicry of the friend so close by.

John would stay there, he really would, if only to give Sherlock some more much needed rest, but John's morning habits call for a quick visit to the loo. Damn. Slowly extricating those fingers feathering his abdominal muscles, John pulls Sherlock's hand away. It waivers momentarily and Sherlock grunts, still asleep, clinging back with a squeeze.

Oddly touching, that Sherlock would turn out to be a cuddler, but this won't do. John tries to free himself gently of this human limpet, but stills himself in sudden shock as he registers the landscape of the lanky creature encircling him in flexible limbs.

Right, how much more awkward can this get?

Sherlock doesn't stop, he sleepily sighs and rubs his stubbly cheek against John's shoulder, breathing in deeply and humming in apparent approval that his human teddy bear has quit squirming away. The detective's soft exhalation tickles the doctor's exposed skin, revolving around the swirls of his back shoulder scar, a depression on muscle, tissue and skin from the bullet entry wound a different lifetime ago. John shivers, as he does not recall the last time he felt sensation in the devastated area. He thought he lost all the important nerve connections, and is utterly surprised to find some regeneration, or at least some other nearby nerves compensating for the loss.

In response to his indiscretion, those long fingers gently curl to claws, a breath becomes a sharp intake and incomplete in shock, and John feels long soft eyelids fluttering open.

Next thing John is flying over the edge of the mattress, shoved in panic by the unmerciful bed guest.

'Dammit!' John exclaims, rubbing his elbow pain away. The side of his head just narrowly avoided the room furniture and a concussion. Good thing he's still got hair trigger reflexes from his army days. He looks up at the grimy eyed consultant, dishevelled hair, congested face look making him seem fifteen years younger, and recognises sheer panic in those familiar but touchingly private features. 'John?' the guest asks in absolute confusion.

John grumps, getting up from the floor. 'For the record, you clung to me while I was asleep.'

'Did we?'

'Would we?'

'I don't know', Sherlock answers their private monologue with a shoulder shrug. John smirks. That answers that question in potential.

Sherlock is human.

It also answers other Sherlock-specific questions, the likes of which John rather not ponder right now. Including that the bed roused detective is less than genial at deductions; his giant brain must still be rebooting.

Yet the most surprising feature of this unexpected morning wake up call is another altogether. The most unsociable human in London, the self-proclaimed sociopath, actually trusts John this much, to lower his guard entirely, and sleep snuggly right up against him. And to cuddle him, for good measure.

John feels even a bit smug at the revelation, but files that away for the moment, gently coming to sit on the mattress side. Sherlock looks him over, warily, sizing the empty distance between them with mistrust. It seems a narrow miss that Sherlock doesn't again shove John away – the soldier would be less than graceful at a rerun try – and the long legs fold tight at the raised knees, hugged even tighter by wiry arms. Sherlock, of course, is wearing yesterday's clothes, minus the suit jacket and the shoes. More and more it impresses on his friend this idea of a stolen quick nap at the other side of the mattress; but then why all this awkwardness? John is a former soldier who has lived in populated barracks, he has worked the long hours shifts in the A&E with ten minute breaks in packed sofas in staff areas, he has bunked up with colleagues, drunk mates and fellow intern students, and he could have been sleeping on the streets when his MoD bedsit term would end if he hadn't moved in to 221B. John, therefore, is not making a fuss out of this.

One more glance at Sherlock's terrified stance and John is going to have to apologise for something in which he didn't even contribute.

'My decision making is decidedly poor when I'm asleep', the tall brunette suddenly declares, aristocratically, looking away. His profile looks chiselled out of pale marble, so young, so unblemished. So utterly naïve.

John keeps his cool, watching out for a crack in the cold façade.

'That bad, hey? I've been told I mumble in my sleep sometimes. Did I elbow you?'

Sherlock glares right at the matter-of-fact doctor. 'Not at all. You were perfectly gentlemanly', he assures courteously.

'Did I shove you off the bed?'

'No, John.'

That's right, he did.

'Did I take up all the mattress?'

'No, John.'

'Did I hog the blankets?'

'No, John. I did.'

John smiles, Sherlock unwillingly does the same. It shatters the cold morning light highlighting the distance set between the two friends.

'Then what?'

Sherlock, still strangely subdued, rehearses a small tentative shrug. Before the army doctor can think of how else to address this bizarre set of circumstances, Sherlock's phone rings.

It's a testament to the consulting detective's out of sorts state that the man who prefers to text and always insists on it with everyone as if naughty kids sharing spy coded messages, actually takes up the call, while jumping up from the bed with flexible limbs and accurate honed in gestures.

'Lestrade, what news you have for me? No, of course I picked up the call. No, everything's alright. If you didn't think I'd answer why did you call? No, John's right here, we just slept together.'

The poor doctor nearly chokes on the water he's splashing his face with in the adjoined loo, and proceeds to try to cough his lungs out through his throat. In the room, Sherlock doesn't bat an eyelid, but can hardly hide the mischievous gleam in his eyes now. Back in control. He carries on from his explosive declaration without a break: 'We're staying at the nearest inn from where the bodies got dug up. It's already clear that among the 16th century cholera burial ground there are 21th century victims. I gave orders that you wanted all the bodies exhumed and sent to Molly Hooper. Lestrade? Are you there, Lestrade?' The detective abruptly cutting short his monologue hands over the phone to John. 'I think he's choking too. Fix him, John?'

The doctor shoves a pillow the detective's way, without bite. 'You fix it, I'm going to get myself a couple more hours' sleep. The train's not until half past ten.'

'Slept well then?' The remark is disingenuous, underlined by a vulnerable tremble.

John pretends to roll his eyes and raises the blankets slightly, an opening. 'Slept just fine, mate.'

The clatter of a phone tossed away is seconded by a definite weight shift on the mattress. Cold hands deliver back the pillow as an offering of peace. They try to settle in, feeling their movements and choices overly studied and choreographed.

Someone knocks on the room's door. Immediately familiar posh tones announce: 'Open up, Sherlock, I require immediate access.'

John's groan is muffled by the pillow.

'What is Mycroft doing here?'

The bedsheets stretch to the swing of Sherlock's shrug.

'Apparently digging up a cholera burial ground gets the government's attention.'

Impatient knocks repeat at a faster pace.

'Sherlock, let us not waste time, I know you're there and I know you aren't sleeping, you're too much the insomniac to try. Will you kindly open this door, or must I search this dreadful inn and find the good doctor for leverage?'

John's pearly giggles are muffled actively by a large hand and a convenient blanket. John just pats Sherlock's intervention away.

'I should get you back for that stunt you pulled with Lestrade, you know?' John murmurs, victorious, eyeing Sherlock.

'It would even the score, and I might even approve. Of course there's a nasty side effect of Mycroft's meddling... So, what will you do?'

'Me?' John smiles softly. 'Let me think, huh?'

'Just drop it, John.' There's a steely edge to the detective's voice, threatening, tensing.

Another quick rapping session at the door, less imperious now. Uncertainty permeating in the familiar rhythm.

John grabs the blanket and tosses it over the bed. 'Stop hogging the blankets, Sherlock.'

'I wouldn't do that, it's too plebeian.'

John's giggles nearly give them away; luckily the compass of footsteps and umbrella point rapping the worn carpet on the corridor has just crossed the corner.

'Did you really think I'd be bothered by your surreptitious sleep?' John asks the horrible ceiling plaster pattern.

Sherlock's answer takes a while to emerge from the depths of him. When it does it's an admittance of guilt, and totally uncalled for in John's mind.

'I broke your trust in me, and you value trust. Hence you are mad at me, or will be, as soon as you process this.'

The army doctor shrugs. 'I was in the army most of my adult life, do you really think I'm bothered by the discomforts of sharing a bunk? I'm sorry, mate, but just so you know, I was sent to actual wars, you know, with food rations and constant explosions as a background to every waking hour of day and night. Davies used to nick my headphones and Connor once took my deck of playing cards and marked all aces with a pin, too bad we only had that one to play poker with, and I've sworn an oath of allegiance to never tell anyone what Barmy Barry did with Colin's toothbrush, suffice to say it involved chilli peppers and ended with a routine stomach pumping.'

'You're making all that up.'

John crosses his arms over his chest, looking puffed and bulky.

'Prove it.'

Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

'How can I?'

'True, if you never come to my army mates reunions. They'd love to meet you, Sherlock...'

The genius huffs, indignant.

'I can think of more amusing ways to rot my brain, John!'

'Then you'll just have to believe me, won't you?'

'Of course I believe you, John.'

'You really don't.'

'No, not one bit. You're a storyteller, after all.'

'And you're never bored.'

Sherlock frowns suddenly. 'John, are we... alright?'

'Yeah. We're alright.'

'You are amazing.'

John's breath hitches. 'What, why? No, I'm not, what did I do?'

'You told me we can sleep together, didn't you?'

The doctor is utterly derailed, and Sherlock frowns, in that comedic way of his when he's feigning ungenial surprise, and they both break into undignified giggles at the same time. It gives John a stich on his side and he leans against the tattered headboard still gurgling laughter, Sherlock's impossibly liquid metal eyes crinkle at the edges as he fixes that magnetic gaze on John, as trying to memorise every square inch of his best friend.

They eventually fall asleep in a fitful doze, and they miss the ten thirty train, but Molly keeps the bodies cool for them when they finally arrive in London. Lestrade eyes them suspiciously for the rest of the week, constantly wondering who set up the prank. In the end, he decides the fair way is to get back at the both of them, and by them he no longer recalls why he's settling a score on those two.

.