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Sometimes, the distance between his sleeping and waking is a stretch between two joined burning candles. It’s rapid, driven to the edge of the seat of exhaustion, and upon it jitters his body, scrambling inside the confines of his mind like a caged animal because his mind does not quit. But the wick burns and he drifts off.
Other times, that distance extends diagonally, and he’ll have no choice but to think of it as the Pythagorean distance between the earth and some random rock in the sky. It looks infinite but measurable, and his mind really does try to measure it sometimes, but the number does not translate to solutions.
Insomnia is a beast that plagues his body and merely irritates his mind. It is not vital, it is not cured—not with the medication he has in mind— and it does not hinder his work, therefore, it is not important.
Sherlock lives by this circular, and at times tedious, routine. Long before he lived by himself, long before he dropped out of uni, and long before he turned to drugs. It is the punishment of a busy mind, Mycroft used to tell him that an elevated state of mind is a mind in suffering. Their cross to bear, their fault the brain cannot shut off.
Sherlock scoffed at him every time his brother made such ridiculous exclamations, though, from time to time, he finds himself agreeing with the man. Not to his face, he would never give him the satisfaction, but he did agree.
Because he cannot sleep, he fools his body into thinking that it is in a state of rest by sitting perfectly still, to facsimile a corpse basically, posing his arms and legs in the only position that feels even remotely comfortable.
His body shuts off like a machine, and his mind roams the plains that he cannot even begin to define. He has headaches sometimes, other times he just drifts off to a nap. Most times, it is a torturous mixture of both; he has a train of thought, a sequence of events, a trail of evidence stacked and beautifully organized, and then he falls asleep, and he cannot progress in his dreams.
The progress is lost, oftentimes, the trail fades over and he has to start again. It’s partly the reason why he plasters everything to the walls, he could easily memorise them, and though inconvenienced, recall them. But his sleep takes revenge, it temporarily erases things and that bothers him.
It bothers him because Sherlock idiotically feels as though he forgets. And there are things he rather not forget even for a second; like the pattern of the blood spatter in the Leed’s murder case from last week or the Tunisian syntax he started learning from boredom or JOHN.
Forgetting John really bothers him, even for a second. Sherlock vividly remembers that the night they met, the very first night in the lab, he walked back to the flat, his eyes brimming with the scene of their interaction like some broken tape.
And he remembers skipping up the stairs and dodging all the unopened boxes to collapse on his chair. With giddiness, he remembers looping his fingers under his chin, and just observing the man, running him under the microscopic lens of his mind.
Military, blonde, injured and in therapy, doesn’t need the cane, recently in Afghanistan, alcoholic brother, alone, alone, depressed, and interesting.
There was just something so damn interesting about John Watson. And Sherlock for the life of him, could not delete a single fact. Every little detail was transcribed, every inch accounted for.
John was a man of contradiction, Sherlock could see it in his eyes; he didn’t seem scarred by the horrors of war though he was horrifically injured by it. No, he missed it. Not in contact with family or friends and yet the way he beamed under Sherlock’s observations suggested high sociability and need for human connection. He was alone, he didn’t need the cane and Sherlock just HAD to see him again.
So of course, when he drifted back to sleep and woke up the next morning, in those few hellish moments when his mind was not quite in place yet, Sherlock forgot John Watson existed. He got so mad at himself and his body that he denied it caffeine and Mrs. Hudson’s muffins.
Even now, after an entire year, every night when John groggily mutters good night at eleven—like clockwork— and brushes past him, Sherlock is thrilled to sit back and inspect and review every single thing about John Watson that day.
He has a chart in his mind. The trajectory of John Watson. His moods, what he had for breakfast, which aftershave he's used-the one Sherlock got him for Christmas or the one Harry grudgingly dropped in for his birthday- what sorts of patients he's had, did he like his wrapped chicken lunch or should Sherlock subtly convince him to quit the practice altogether already to save him from the horrid lunch breaks.
But most importantly, when John goes to sleep and Sherlock is awake, he's thinking of the way John runs his fingers through his hair in passing. Every night, well, most nights, when Sherlock is either sitting down, or on the floor or playing the violin, John walks up to him, puts a steaming mug of tea (two sugars and a pinch of milk, just the way Sherlock prefers) by his side, bids him a goodnight, scolds him to actually get some aforementioned sleep-- "Please, actually go to sleep tonight, Sherlock."--and then does the hair thing.
The hair thing. Sherlock is embarrassingly affected by it. Just that simple act of the man ruffling his curls. So casually, but at the same time, there is that hint of something. Sherlock can never figure it out. The way John's warm skin grazes his, and the way his eyes prune and the way he chuckles at Sherlock's put-out expression every single time. It is maddening, it feels nice, like Sherlock is some sort of overeager seal, just waiting to turn over on his belly at the barest of touches from the man, and at the same time, it irritates him. Yet he never complains.
"Good night, Sherlock." John Watson says tonight, dropping a plate of neatly cut sandwiches--bacon, pickles, and mayonnaise because he knows Sherlock has a dislike for tomatoes-- and then he lifts his other hand, and Sherlock stills. His fingers clench very slightly on the cover of the herbology books he's been skimming as an excuse to spy on John's shadow, contently making himself (and Sherlock) dinner.
John's hand is lifted, in the air, in stasis, Sherlock is actually holding his breath, "Get some actual rest." John says, and his hand rests on the back of Sherlock's chair. The chair. Not his neck, or his back or his shoulder or hair. The fucking chair. "I know your mind does wonders but give your body a chance to catch up to the buzz."
And then he leans away from Sherlock and starts walking away.
Sherlock drops the book, and clears his throat before he can stop himself. What is he doing? Why is he opening his mouth? Sherlock feels like he is actually about to roll over. Like Pavlov's conditioned dog, he is actually about to open his mouth and inquire about the missed hair rub. He has time to stop it, precisely five seconds, give or take, seeing as John is staring at him.
"Everything alright?" John asks, and then his eyes immediately dart to the plate of dinner, and Sherlock wants to throttle himself. It's not the plate, John. It's perfect, the triangles are meticulously congruent, the crust is cut off and there are exactly three pickles in each chunk.
"I can remake it." John casually says because he's just that fucking nice of a person. "You don't need new excuses to skip meals you know, and this doesn't mean that I'm your carer or whatever--"
Sherlock sharply inhales and then opens his mouth again, like a goldfish, "It's not the dinner. The plate is perfectly fine, Doctor Watson."
John bends back up, gives him a look and then laughs, "Doctor Watson? What are you, a Victorian gentleman in need of a hand?"
Sherlock frowns at the man, and then scoffs at himself, because really, this entire mess, this deviation of the routine, is really his own fault. "John," he corrects himself and snaps the book shut. "Is…" how could he put this without seeming like a pathetic twerp?
There are no outcomes that paint him in a respectable light.
"Sherlock, you're worrying me a bit there."
A bit not good. Actually, this is awful. He didn't want John to be agitated before bed. That would lower his quality of sleep by fifteen percent and heightens that chance of the night terrors Sherlock has been painstakingly trying to prevent.
Sod this, he thinks. He'll just get it over with and get laughed at. It really wasn't worth John's rest. All this trouble.
"Your nightly routine consists of a seemingly affectionate hair rub after your overly sarcastic remarks on the amount of sleep I should be getting. It was suspiciously absent tonight and I was just wondering…" he trails off.
There's a dawning realisation in John's eyes and his shoulders drop. Much to Sherlock's displaced astonishment, there is no scorn or ridicule or condescension when John smiles. The corners of his eyes prune, his dimples show and he steps forward, "You're right." He says, "I'm sorry."
"I don't need your apology--"
"My hand was damp." John rolls his eyes at himself and then rubs his hands dry on his jumper, an act which should have disgusted Sherlock beyond measure but baffles him instead. He didn't notice the dampness. He didn't notice anything other than John's warm body behind him and the anticipation. He feels quite idiotic.
"John, you don't have to--" but John does. His fingers card back Sherlock's hair and his face leans very close and Sherlock can smell the minty toothpaste on John's breath. The overload of senses and information stun him in the moment, and there is only the feeling of John's eyes on him, and his fingers on Sherlock's scalp. Sherlock can basically feel each neuron in his raphe nuclei pumping serotonin to the rest of his body in bursts of implosions.
"You will go to sleep. Not in the chair," John sternly narrows his eyes at him, "In the bed. And I will know if you lie. Get some rest, I mean it, Mr. Holmes."
And then he does the most ridiculous thing. John leans in closer, drops a kiss on his forehead and just like nothing has happened, straightens up again. Then he smiles at Sherlock's wide-eyed face, and then turns and leaves.
Sherlock just sits there, dazed and processing the deductions that run over him like a trolly all at once, the kiss, warm skin, his hair, swept back, John's breath and the minty toothpaste he will worship from now and the feeling of his lips, warm, and fleshy and real, grazing against his forehead.
Sherlock slowly deposits the book on his lap to the side and stands, brushes off invisible lints off his robe and then stands. He looks at the staircase and then the narrow hallway that leads down to his room. A room he barely uses during nighttime.
It'll make John happy. He reasons. And a happy John gives out kisses and hair rubs without questioning a single thing or ridiculing him. Sherlock is a conditioned slug, and to be quite honest, he doesn't want to train his brain to dislike the attention John gives him so effortlessly.
And the bed feels nice. It's not as rigid and as inhibited as the chair, obviously. His covers are cool to touch. His head actually appreciates the pillow. And his mind, his mind is flooded with John.
John the thought, the article, the being, the man.
Sherlock stares at the ceiling and thinks about the distance between his sleep and waking. Somewhere in the middle, between the candles and the distant star, there is the perfect medium with a name.
John bloody Watson.