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John’s room smelled like aftershave, stale tea, Napier gun oil, and something distinctly John. Sherlock breathed deeply, again, sorting the different scents into his mind palace.
It was, Sherlock reckoned, about three o’clock in the morning. John was sleeping, breathing deeply with one arm slung across his chest. He’d been tired, so very tired, when John had brought him to bed four hours before. Only managing to press a few kisses to John’s lips before they had stumbled up the stairs and tumbled into John’s bed. He’d meant to say so much more, but the mattress was so very soft and the pillows smelled like John and he’d been asleep before he’d even realised it was happening.
A nightmare had woken him, a usual one from Serbia: Moriarty’s laugh and the crack of a shot making John crumple. He’d woke with the start, bandages pulling on his back and cuts stinging sharply. And found it was night. In Baker Street. In John’s room, which he’d scarcely been allowed in before. Especially not after the incident with the fungus experiment. And it wasn’t just John’s room, there was John next to him. John under the duvet with an arm flung across his waist.
He should try to go back to sleep. I love you more than crime scenes, he inhaled, slowly. I love you more than catching Mycroft eating cake, he exhaled. It was presumptuous, he knew. They had never spoken in such terms. Never shared a bed before that night. He was so tired, but there was so much data: John’s body temperature was slightly higher than his own. John breathed just a little more quickly than Sherlock. He didn’t snore, but sometimes there was an ever so soft snk at the very end of a breath in.
His body was softer than Sherlock remembered, but thinner as well. Less exercise and a subpar diet for the last three years. What had John been doing, he wondered. There had been a medical bag that morning when John examined him. Standard kit. Prepped for home visits. GP surgery then. Intolerable, for a man with John’s talents. He’d made Mycroft give John and Mrs. Hudson some money. Claimed it was a modest inheritance-- his brother could easily afford it. Enough to tide them both over for a year. Then a year became two, which became three.
He had, he admitted, cocked up. Getting the time to take out Moriarty’s network so wrong. Reaching out, gently, he took John’s wrist in hand and measured his pulse. Filed it away for later comparison. They needed to talk, but Sherlock loathed that kind of talking. Feelings talking.
John’s scar was right next to him, he realised, hidden only by the dark and a thin layer of cotton. God, he wanted to see that scar. To measure, to touch, to taste, even. Data. So much data on John that he hadn’t gathered. He wondered if John would keep sleeping if he put the lamp on. A detailed examination of John’s hair was in order- the ratio of grey had appeared to increase. No, not a good idea. He was in the bed on a tenuous enough invitation as it was.
He tried to match John’s breaths in and out. Inhale: I love you more than a locked room triple homicide . Exhale: I love you more than a helplessly flummoxed Anderson .
It was hopeless. He was exhausted, but his brain was relentlessly awake. The room: there was a spot on the floor that told him John was drinking too much. Drinking downstairs and then retreating to his room with a pint of water that he couldn’t quite place on his nightstand. John didn’t have much money, he realised. The jumper on the chair was patched, the collared shirt more threadbare than John would normally let them get. Sherlock’s teeth ground. Mycroft. His brother was supposed to prevent things like this happening. The cane leaning against the wall was well used.
It was more than Sherlock could bear. He rolled over, carefully, and pressed his nose into John’s shoulder. There was a sleepy tightening of the arm around his waist. And this, oh, he’d never been in this position before, but all the same it felt like home. Sherlock reached out, gingerly, and wrapped his own arm around John’s waist in return. He was home. He could sleep.