institutesamples | you know what I'm sayin'?

Sherlock's movements tend to be fairly precise, but at the moment they're really rather not. He almost yanks from John when he feels the stab of fear come from the doctor, but some internal force of will makes him stay put. Instead, when John removes his hand for the second time, Sherlock curls long fingers around his his wrist, just above the cuff of his jumper. His brows furrow inward toward one another, confusion laced with the effects of the alcohol, and he swallows tightly as the room takes another spin around him.

"M'not an idiot," the reply is petulant, but there's not much force behind it.

"I shouldn't say anything, I should't be talking right now, but I know so many things, so many stupid little details," Sherlock muses softly, his voice pitched a little lower than usual. His words blend together, a lazier version of his native accent, which even now might be fairly pleasant by virtue of its softness. "So many things... about so many people, places..." His pale eyes seek John's face, studying the lines, looking for signs of sleeplessness or stress, picking out any grey that might be starting to form. Sherlock shifts again, more slowly this time, lest he feel as if he's going to fall off of the couch and perhaps even off of the world.

Sherlock lets out a miserable groan, curling into a fetal ball around John. The fingers curled around his wrist release their spidery grip for half a second. The first two fingers on Sherlock's hand pulse point in the doctor's wrist with fair accuracy. That done, Sherlock lets his eyes sink closed. His breathing slows.

I haven't slept in a few days. Not since ... His internal broadcast voice trails off, still calm and clear. John is shown a few images - Sherlock standing in a dark corridor, his hands coated in blood. He's bleeding too, in agony he's never known from what's probably broken ribs, stab wounds - the extent of his injuries were far worse than when he'd shown up to see John. The smell of mold, damp and dank. Sherlock lets a tiny bit of the relief he felt then eke out toward John. That it was over. He could go home.

The body of a man is before him, what can only be Mycroft's men swirling around him to clean the scene within seconds of the fellow's death. Sherlock tries only shows John the empirical observation - he's kind enough not to share the majority of the emotional content, though it's there too, writhing underneath the surface of all the thoughts. Images of Sherlock hunched in strange, cold places, stealing patches of sleep every three or four days. A flicker of a dim imagination of John next to him, keeping watch. He shares missing with him, longing. Just wanting to go home for a cup of tea to dissect pigs and watch John recoil in terror from the fridge. The mercy of his own regenerative properties is what has kept him alive in many instances where ordinary folk would have lost their minds from fatigue.

Sherlock's physical voice breaks into the silence between them.

"Can I come home? Would that be alright?"

Edited 2012-11-02 23:16 (UTC)

It's temping to pull away from the touch but a combination of things keep him from doing so. Missing Sherlock, knowing how determined the lanky shit could be, and curiosity.

"You are an idiot," he says, "sometimes." He listens to his friend with an almost sad smile, but there's fondness in it. "Too many stupid little details." He nods and watches his friend carefully watching him back. He doesn't know what Sherlock can deduce from him right now, but he doesn't care too much about the outward signs.

Despite common misconceptions about masculinity, especially in the army, they weren't strangers to comfort. It usually came towards the end of a long run out there. The point of stress becoming too much, the fear and loneliness. So it didn't feel out of place to pull the figure in his lap a little closer, arms around him. Even if it was Sherlock of all people.

"You're home," he says, a little choke to his voice he tries to clear out. "Get some sleep now. You can stay on the couch...."

He tries to untangle and get up so that Sherlock can have a proper rest.

Sherlock isn't about to let John up. No chance in hell. When John tries to extricate himself from the lanky detective, Sherlock's arms grow even tighter around him. "No," he mumbles. "No, John, please. I can't sleep. If I sleep, they are going to come, and they are going to kill you, and Lestrade, and everyone. Please. You have to keep me awake. Do whatever you have to." There's a a faint pleading note in Sherlock's voice. Sherlock does sit up though, just for a moment, to stare at John with wide, frightened eyes. Then everything, the emotion, the fear, the trembling quaver of his voice completely drops out, and Sherlock's eyes snap back into focus.

"My apologies," he intones softly, sounding very much like a certain elder Holmes before he gets to his feet. The attempt to stand is pretty much a failure. His bandy legs wobble, and he simply collapses back into the couch. "There is something very wrong with me, John." Sherlock's quiet, calm assessment of the situation. Then his eyes are blank again, and Sherlock balls up his fists in his hair, causing the curls to go mad.

In a fit of fury, Sherlock catapults from the couch, picking up the bottle of scotch one again and downs about half of what's left in the bottle.

"Yes you can," he says firmly. But he knows what it's like to be caught there, in a memory or a fear and how frustrating it is for somebody to tell you it's not real. "I'll be on watch for now. My gun's in my desk. I'll take care of everything."

And then Sherlock returns. The old Sherlock. Or at least almost the old Sherlock, this one's still not quite as steady on his feet. "What's wrong with you is," he hesitates and watches Sherlock drink, "....not going be solved by doing that."

Standing up, he urges Sherlock back onto the couch.

Sherlock's eyes are wild as they level on John as the man tries to push him toward the couch. His fingers curl tightly around the scotch bottle. He'd probably break it if he could, but Sherlock's hands, even with their violin proclivity, are not going to be able to crush a scotch bottle. So he sets the bottle down on the floor, hugging his legs into his chest, his eyes dilated, unable to sit completely still.

"John. You must not let me sleep," he repeats, more calmly, but his fingers dig into the cloth of his trousers. "Under any circumstance."

John stands in front of Sherlock for a moment, looking at him. He could let him down the rest of the bottle and hope it knocks him out, or take it away and save a worse hangover. And a little money.

He holds his hand out.

"Do that thing. The...weird... mind thing. Not weird, you know what I mean."

Sherlock stares at John for a long couple of moments, saying nothing at all, his eyes too bright and too wide in his face.

He reaches out for John's hand, taking it in his own, his grip a little too fierce, a little too tight.

There's an open connection now, dead air, static sounding mentally between them.

Edited 2012-11-03 12:52 (UTC)

John, new to this, is a quiet jumble of thoughts about Mrs H, about Lestrade and guns and the taxi driver and the war. But it settles into a voice that soon begins to soothe.

Sleep. I've got you.

He tries to imagine himself as sleepy as possible to try and encourage Sherlock. Thinks of home, of their chairs, of peace and quiet. It was a rare thing to happen in that flat, Sherlock either working or bored, so he focusses on a particular memory. Of Sherlock by the window, gazing out at London at 4 in the morning, violin tucked under his chin, bow only ever-so gently touching the strings as though thoughtfully trying not to wake John. John had stood and watched for sometime before it had chased his nightmares away and he'd been able to return to bed.

Sherlock pulls in on that memory, clinging to it, making it his own. What returns to John is screamed. Noise. Fury. Unquenchable, tireless rage, anger that drives Sherlock on each and every night with little sleep or food for weeks upon end. The image of peacefulness John shows him is torn apart by gunshots, Sherlock's mind wheels back at him, showing him the corpses of Mrs. Hudson and deargodnoJohnno-. Blood on the faded carpet, over the walls, over that damned yellow smiley face. The entire flat turned over.

So he can't sleep. Absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, why can't John just see that, why can't he understand?

The response is too much at first, John pulling back but not away completely. He sees the images and, as shocking as they are, they're not unknown to him. Things like this used to be all to normal and had become so again after the fall.

Keeping the contact, he holds Sherlock's face and looks him in the eyes, simply sending back his memory of the Taxi Driver. He'd barely known Sherlock, but he knew all he needed to. He sends the memory of walking into that room, seeing Sherlock across the way, too far, the killer right there. The fear, the worry that he was too late. And then the calm as he lifts his gun, steady, focussed and pulls the trigger. And then the relief.

He has already killed for Sherlock and he'll do it again as many times as he has to.

"Besides," he smiled, softly, "I'm a much better shot than you."

Sherlock only reaches over into his coat to pull out a Walther PPK - both amusingly appropriate and tiny in his hand, but his hand shakes a touch as he pushes the weapon up onto the couch, in reach of John. Sherlock's other hand tightens on John's a bit. Sherlock's never killed anyone. People have killed themselves in front of him, he's seen corpses, but it's a very different thing to be the direct cause of a living person's death, no matter how reprehensible they seem to be.

So, Sherlock sends a memory back at John. Waking up out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night to the sound of the doctor's voice, calling frantically for soldiers who are not there. Sherlock padding across the flat to sit next to the bed on the floor, tapping Bach canons with his toes and staring at John's face in silence. Sherlock is confused, bewildered, unsure of what to do. He's unable to sleep after watching his friend in such agony. So the rest of the night is given to researching military codes and protocols, trying to find what John would have heard and said during his time in the war. The second time he wakes up to John shouting, Sherlock sits by his bed on the floor, speaking responses quietly to him, giving the most correct replies to his commands that he can manage until John quiets back into calmer sleep. Sherlock remembers going to step out of the room, standing in the doorway, and then going back to tug the blankets John has kicked off back over the sleeping form of the man.

Will I be like that? Sherlock questions, refusing to uncurl from his position. Will it always be like this when I close my eyes? A flash of blood, the harsh report of gunfire. Sherlock shuts his eyes, opens them, finds that he cannot get away from the memory replaying in his head, and instead turns to look up at John, blank and exhausted.

He almost wants to pull away from watching Sherlock's memory. It's a little embarrassing and he's not sure what else. But, why had Sherlock done that. Curiosity, surely, maybe an experiment? But he knows there's more to it than that and he's grateful. Even if it is something private he prefers to keep to himself.

John gives Sherlock a sad smile and shakes his head.

"Not when you know who you killed and why. Or when you protect the people you.... grudgingly like."

He had been in the Army for seventeen years. He had a lot of things to be afraid of, confusion and doubts. The nightmares that remain are no longer people he'd killed, but people he hadn't saved.

"Get some sleep," he says, taking the gun. "I'll be right here."

Sherlock leans forward, between John's knees, keeping the doctor's hand in his own to continue the mental contact. A ripple of trust comes from Sherlock, so terribly open it can't possibly be something native to the detective, though he tries desperately to clamp down on it and the wash of calm that comes from feeling and hearing John's heartbeat underneath his jumper as Sherlock's head collides softly with the doctor's chest.

He doesn't care anymore. He's exhausted. Something in Sherlock breaks a little, just a bit, and he floods John with the things he cannot say, that he does not know how to say and does not understand. They're simple concepts to a man like John Watson, but to Sherlock, they are as foreign to him as Swahili is to John. Sherlock pours forth implicit trust, a tangled heap of feelings that is too noisy to identify, but it's fond anyway.

John rests his chin on the top of Sherlock's head and breathes in, deeply, his eyes closed. What a whirlwind of a day and how strange it was to see Sherlock so honest. Soaking up the emotions coming from Sherlock, he waits until they've quietened before standing.

"It'll all fix itself soon."

Sherlock untangles himself from John, finally, collapsing into the couch and reaching for his coat. He doesn't even bother to take off his shoes as he pulls the coat over his shoulders, wrapping himself in it tightly against what is otherwise a warm room. A hand reaches out for John again, fingertips brushing his trouser leg and holding onto the fabric by the tips of his fingers. He tugs John toward him, but his hand falls by his side off the couch, fingers trailing the hardwood.

John moves closer, looking down curiously before ruffling Sherlock's hair.

"Just get some rest or you'll be useless. And when you're useless you're bored. And when you're bored..... you're a pain in the arse."

A part of him would love to see Sherlock being annoying right now, it beats this horrible depressive state, but maybe in time. He turns away, taking the gun over to the desk.

"I'm always bored," Sherlock grumbles, but as he hears John's footsteps move away from him, the detective tumbles out of the couch onto the floor with a thump. He manages to clamber to his feet in sort of a half-daze, his coat hanging off of him lopsidedly - it might be a strange reminder of the time the Woman drugged him. Sherlock walks into the desk, smacking the corner painfully with a hip (he doesn't seem to feel it.) He takes a perch against the wall, stationed next to the chair with his back carefully nestled into a corner so that he's sort of half facing the door andt the window. Apparently the couch is too comfortable for him.

Sherlock pulls his coat around him, pulling the scarf out of his pocket to ball up under his chin, and shuts his eyes to whatever ambient light is left.

"Sherlock," he sighs, "you're bloody useless. Back to the couch, Doctor's orders."

Putting the gun away in a drawer and locking it, he gets up and tugs on Sherlock's sleeve, trying to lead him back. He has such strange habits, especially when it came to sleep and rest. But this was John's workplace. If he wanted to stay, he was going to stay out of the way.

Sherlock opens his eyes to stare blearily up at John, and for once, doesn't make much of an argument, only looking grumpy and paler than usual. Back to the couch he trudges, and then simply falls into it.

"You will be here when I wake up with the list of things I requested," Sherlock rumbles from the couch, his voice layered with sleep. "Or I will throw up in your desk. Every single drawer."

Sherlock throws his arms over his head and curls into a ball beneath his coat. No more than a few minutes pass before the detective's breathing shallows and slows, Sherlock passing into what seems to be bricklike slumber.

"Yes," he sighs, sitting on the edge and feeling Sherlock's forehead. He tries to focus on healing, but he's not sure what, exactly. Still, every little helps.

Returning to his desk, he watches Sherlock until the man falls asleep and gets up. He switches the computer on, plays some soft music and retrieves a pack of cigarettes from another drawer.

He might as well get the shopping in before he falls asleep himself.

One last look at Sherlock and he he goes to the door, glancing at his stick before striding straight past it and locking the door behind.

~~~~~

It's with caution that he unlocks the door and peers inside. Sherlock hasn't moved an inch. What a relief. He checks the locked drawer, just in case, and hides the cigarettes once more, taking a mint out instead and setting out Sherlock's shopping.

No new emails (that he wants to read, anyway), no missed calls, and no students queuing. He leans back and closes his eyes.

When John finally decides to trundle off to bed, Sherlock trails him quietly, and they have a quiet, decidedly familiar argument - the topic isn't, but the tone is, and Sherlock takes comfort in tormenting his flatmate.

"I'm coming with you," Sherlock speaks quietly, still hazy from sleeping so hard. He needs more sleep. He's still deeply fatigued and hung over.

"Fine," John's answer is tired. Worn.

"I steal covers," Sherlock hazards quietly.

"You're not getting any.

"Any what, John?"

"Covers, Sherlock."

"Fine, I'll just use you.

"Like hell you will. You'll be on the floor. With your coat.

"John," Sherlock shoots him a faintly hurt look. They travel through hallways, out of the main office building and into the dorms for the resident faculty. Sherlock's still following him, silent as a shadow.

"Sherlock." John's tone is edged now, and the doctor looks up at Sherlock as they pace quickly through the hall, Sherlock's long strides more than capable of keeping up with the doctor. They march into John's room, and John shuts the door behind him, not bothering to strip out of his clothing. He just collapses into his bed with an exhausted sigh. Sherlock, in a rare show of compliance, curls up on the floor and is quiet for about five minutes.

"John, it's cold." Sherlock tries to pout and can't seem to find it in himself. His lips curl upward helplessly. Thankfully he's facing away from John so the man can't see his amused expression.

"Sherlock. You're a reptile. Find a rock." Sherlock notes John is cranky, and this is what sleep deprivation does to him. To make up for lost time (and to harass John), Sherlock picks himself off the floor unsteadily - he's still not slept off all of the scotch, and then falls over onto John.

"GET OFF!" snarls John, wriggling beneath him and pushing against Sherlock with his hands.

"You said find a rock!"

"I also said get UNDER it!"

"Ah, right," Sherlock uncurls off of John onto the other side of the bed, and then languidly reaches out to pull John over on top of him, using the man's stockier frame like a normal human being would use a blanket. John's patience is growing thinner by the second. Sherlock is his friend, his flatmate, and a total arse when he wants to be.

"What I didn't tell you," John starts, narrowing his eyes and shoving at Sherlock a bit. "Is that I will have outrageously emotional, human, earth shattering sex with anyone and anything I find in my bed. Is that something you want to risk?"

This puzzles Sherlock. Anything? Horses? Tables? He debates putting a shovel into bed with John just to text this theory. Maybe a rubber ducky? Lampshades seem novel too. Sherlock is endlessly amused by the possibilities.

"...yes, actually," John peers up at him. "I thought the emotional bit would be more than enough."

"John, I'm a telepath," Sherlock explains with patent condescension, peering up at the form of the doctor on top of him quizzically. "Do you honestly think I'm as intimidated by emotions as you think I am? They don't make sense to me, I'm not afraid of them."

"Fine, I'm going to---..." John trails off almost immediately, letting out a harsh puff of air, realizing that hey, he could just move. He does so and tried to shove Sherlock roughly off the bed.

Sherlock stiffens faintly at John's touch, and then removes himself from the bed easily. He doesn't say a word, picking up whatever of his belongings are anywhere nearby and steps out without so much of a goodnight. A light hand shuts the door behind him gently. John crawls back into bed, but watches Sherlock go, wondering just what in the hell has gotten into the detective. He hears a quiet noise outside, the sound of wool shifting and someone taking a seat quietly against the wall. Sherlock's been thoughtful enough not to block John's path out.

John exhales slowly, passing a hand over his face. He utters a string of curses as he gets up to open the door. "Fine. Whatever. Get in. Just don't think you're getting the covers all to your-..." Another faculty member wanders by. John nods politely. "r... self." He clears his throat. "We're not gay."

Sherlock doesn't move, leaning forward to rest his chin on the top of his knee. "Go to sleep John. I daresay you need it more than I do."

"Not until you go to bed." John is apparently every inch as stubborn as Sherlock. The detective emits a frustrated noise. He shifts from the door, steps in, and then curls back up on the floor, balling his coat underneath him to serve as a pillow. John cannot help but press his palm to his face.

"Sherlock! Bed. Now."

"If you insist, doctor," the tone from Sherlock is undeniably peeved. Sherlock strips out of his clothing, the coat getting tossed on the bed, trousers and shirt shucked for functionality's sake. The coat gets pulled over himself before he curls up in a tight ball on the very edge of the bed, leaving all of the covers for John to cocoon himself in, if he so desires. "Your sense of masculinity is very easily threatened," he mutters. "Sharing a bed with a man does not a homosexual make. And trust me," growls Sherlock. "If you ever share a bed with me in that context, you will know it. None of this idiotic subtext."

"..... I wasn't threatened. I just don't want you hogging things," John's voice is deeply defensive. "Stop being such a... baby."

Sherlock considers this for a moment, and then rolls over abruptly, casting an arm around John's middle and pressing his nose into hollow behind his jaw. "What about now?" There's a subtle, teasing growl in his tone, even though he sounds tremendously exhausted.

The doctor stiffens, and not in the homoerotically desired way. A tight swallow and he clears his throat. "No, fine, whatever. But I'm telling Mycroft. Clearly you need help, he can have a rentboy shipped over right away."

Sherlock's not in the mood to play gay chicken with John, but at least he smells nice. Because playing that game that would be strange, even for him. A hand goes up to ruffle John's hair gently, and Sherlock shifts away, giving John breathing room. He tucks his coat around his chin and reaches out one hand, fingertips resting against the middle of John's back. "Eyeballs. In your tea."

"....yeah, that only works as a threat if it's something that wouldn't happen anyway." John yawns and feels strange having Sherlock's fingers on his back. Not bad strange, but he doesn't want to move for some reason. As though it's be a bad thing to chase the touch away.

"You carry most of your tension in the middle of your back," Sherlock observes hazily, fingers tracing the muscles on either side of John's spine. "You're in pain?"

"No. not pain." But John aches constantly. ""Don't tell me you're an expert masseuse too? Reflexologist?"

"I have some knowledge in human physiology, John, though I am not at your level of expertise." Sherlock's thumbs press into a knot beneath John's shoulderblade gently, beginning to work at the tension . "I am neither, however."

A half-grunted sigh escapes John. "Yeah well... give it a go." This isn't gay, right? It's a massage. yeah. It's normal for it to feel good. And it's only exciting because....it's not exciting, no that's not it. it's just different. because.... it's like being a kid again. A slightly horny kid with a lot of tension and a friend who knew about physiology.

Sherlock sighs patiently, giving John a shove with his hand. "On your stomach, please, at this angle I might hurt you or cause you more pain." Once John's rolled over properly, Sherlock shifts to sit alongside his flatmate, his fingers sliding up the back of John's shirt to carefully massage the muscles between his shoulderblades, strong thumbs and violinist's fingers firm, but gentle.

Sherlock's shove rolls John over and the doctor feels the chill as his shirt is lifted, tries to ignore the shiver that comes with his breath. he could take his shirt off but, too much effort. He likes the way it feels, the mixture of warm and cold. "This is a nice change..."

"What is?" Sherlock hands glide across John's back easily, his palms warm against the other man's skin. He's practical about his movements, tugging up the shirt and moving it about to access the muscles at John's upper back, mixing accurate pressure with his thumbs and alternating with slipping his palms for a more generalized weight.

"Being taken care of." John folds his arms and squirms a moment to get more comfortable. "You're not bad. With my training, young padawan, you could become a master."

"John, books would make me a master, not imaginary made up words," Sherlock is at least, starting to sound more like himself. Sleeping for a bit seems to have brought the edge back to his mind. There is decided telepathic silence from him as he shoves John's shirt up more to work on his neck - his touch here is gentler than it was on John's back, fingers rubbing light circles at the base of John's skull, trying to convince the muscles that they should just relax. John does relax under his hands, and Sherlock feels a vague wash of relief that he hopes does not translate through the physical contact he has with his flatmate. He's not always great a shutting himself up.

Sherlock's hands are unusually gentle on this task - avoiding the exit wound of the bullet that punctured through John's shoulder (though he does his best to work around it delicately.) He trails his fingertips - calloused on the left, soft on the right - down John's spine, repeating the movement up and down his back a few times before going to continue at his lower back, pressing his thumbs into stubborn knots. "Do the cases do this to you?" he queries lightly, his hands seeming tireless in the face of John's tension. He patiently finds and works through each knot, occasionally having to lean in with more pressure than he'd normally use. There's not much weight behind his body though.

Whenever those quick fingers come close to the scar, his fingers pull at the pillow, only slightly, but enough for a man like Sherlock to notice. It wasn't a wound that doesn't really bother him until others become aware of it and he appreciates Sherlock's delicate handling of it. If anything, he reacts more than usual in the worry that Sherlock will discover something with his 'connection'.

"Not the cases, exactly. Just you," he kids. "Lower. Press in a little more and push up..."

"Sorry," Sherlock mutters to the back of John's head, strong fingers obeying his directions. He grunts faintly. "Oh, I see what you mean." The detective's intentions seem bent upon the rather coiled knot near the exit wound. Still, he's careful, only applying force when he's absolutely sure he'll need it and that he won't hurt John. Sherlock works fairly tirelessly, though there's a faint, subtle tremor in his hands and arms after about forty minutes. At that point his touch is more methodical, thoughtful, spinning slow circles on the doctor's back meant to soothe and to relax him mentally as much as physically.

Sherlock's using the last vestiges of wakefulness to gently send thoughts of sleep, of being home, the sound of quietly playing violin in the middle of the night somewhere off in the distance. (He hasn't neglected to bring the instrument with him. It sits propped up against John's nightstand, and as far as Sherlock's concerned, that's the safest place in the world it could be. There's a funny noise coming from Sherlock's throat - he's humming along softly with the tune the violin plays (though an octave or so lower). Sherlock can sing - fairly well, in fact. It's unclear if John will know, but Sherlock hums something of Schubert's work to him.

Once Sherlock's convinced that John's back is in better shape than he's left it today, then, and only then, does Sherlock settle in on the very edge of the bed. The detective gives John plenty of space, though his fingers settle somewhere on John's skin, faint telepathic contact giving into mental static, and then nothing as Sherlock finally, mercifully falls completely asleep.

Edited 2012-11-04 07:20 (UTC)

It's quite early on that John begins to fall asleep, though it's a light sleep he's sometimes pulled out of by a touch here or there. Sherlock's influence sends him off into a much deeper slumber soon after.

At some point in the night, he shifts and the break of contact wakes him, though he doesn't quite realise that's the reason. He jolts a little, not afraid, and it's such a rare pleasure to wake without a sense of fear or depression.

Rolling over, he watches Sherlock at the edge of the bed and pulls him closer, half on top of himself but too tired to do much about it. He holds him there, feeling sleep heavy, and mutters, "Thank you for coming back. I needed you. Still do".

Sherlock is instantly awake. John's touch is something Sherlock was not expecting and after the weeks catching brief naps in strange places, any change in his environment is enough to rouse him fully. The alcohol has mostly drained out of him. His mind comes to life immediately, rolling through possibilities of his environment - John's bed, a dorm room, America. John is here, and they're both safe. Relief cycles through the tight, alert feeling in his chest. Not wanting to disturb the doctor, Sherlock lets John pull him over, subtly assisting by moving himself along carefully. He doesn't dare open his eyes, keeping his breathing in the rhythm of 'asleep.' His coat hangs off of his mostly-naked form, Sherlock in boxers alone (that's how he sleeps, don't panic, John.)

Keeping his movements clumsy and slow, Sherlock nestles closer into John's side, arm arcing over the doctor's chest to hold him, fingers splayed on the smaller man's chest. The detective's hair is a mess, curls flat on one side and absurdly wild on the other. His head ends up on John's shoulder, and Sherlock buries his nose in the crook of the doctor's neck so that all he can smell is the remnant of John's aftershave, whatever cologne he might use.

It doesn't take long for sleep to reclaim Sherlock. He's still exhausted. The contact is just spare enough, that Sherlock's emotions echo faintly at John. Just the singular, quiet concept, safe before Sherlock is asleep again.

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and this is an IM log transcribed.

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