Work Text:
John opens an eye. Just one.
He doesn’t know if it’s worth it to open the other one, to be honest. In front of him, on his PC’s little screen, skeletons made out of clay are gathered in front of some medieval guy’s castle, if he got it correctly, while the protagonist cheers on the troops or something like that. He knows he’s the protagonist, since he’s the only one speaking in that cocky American accent while everyone else speaks in a miserable Shakespeare’s English, but to be fair he fell asleep right at the beginning. He has to remember why he’s looking at claymation skeletons, and why his head is on soft bed panels with a pillow right at the base of his neck.
His bed has a hard, old wooden bedframe, and is not this comfortable for sure, so he opens his other eye and realizes that half his face is covered in thick, rather untamed hair.
Oh, indeed his childhood bed doesn’t include a short twenty-years-old using you as a pool float.
“Sherl…” he tries to mutter, his tongue rigid with sleep. There’s only darkness in the room, the only light from the screen. “Why are the arrows explosive?”.
A genuine question. He has never been a champion in History, especially in high school when they studied Medieval times, but he’s pretty sure the arrows didn’t contain gunpowder.
“Because Ash Williams taught lord Arthur’s wise men how to create gunpowder using the chemistry schoolbooks he had in his car’s trunk” Sherlock uses that tone, that one he uses when he feels the obligation to speak being placed between his thoughts and the objects of his analysis.
Oh, sure. Ash Williams. Who gets teleported in the past with his car after he found a cursed book and got his hand replaced with a chainsaw. That guy. Got it.
“This film is so dumb, I can’t understand how you of all people can like it” he takes a hand to his forehead, sighing loudly. Like, it’s not that unusual for him to appreciate shitty movies. Or as he calls them, particularly interesting media .
“You hate people who have fun, John”
“I hate people who…” he tries to come up with a quippy answer, but at this point it’s kind of a lost cause. “Look, I want to sleep. Can we finish it tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow you’ll come back, though” he feels Sherlock’s annoyed puff on his entire body, his smaller and thinner frame vibrating on his skin.
He can’t hide a giggle, stretching his arms to close his PC. The room gets eaten by darkness and silence, streetlights under the fourth floor’s window filtering through the glass with their amber-like shade and lighting shining over the buildings that surround the university’s accommodations.
It will rain soon, John thinks. One of those thunderstorms that seal the end of summer, even if they’re always through September and they’re in hoodies and sweatpants.
With a rapid movement, Sherlock leans out the bed to place the PC on the floor, trying to move in a gentle way as he gets prone over John.
“I have to go back home, don’t I?” John surrounds his hips with his arms, and in the darkness he can still recognize the other’s features: there’s that beard that grows in patches, the deep eyebags and his grave expression, his head over the backs of his hands. “I have a job there”
“Tutoring job, that you can simply do online”
“There’s concrete possibility that I will be employed in my cousin’s friend’s friend’s pub, so”
“Right, stay in your hometown forever” Sherlock has that focused expression, as if he’d put fifty pounds in the gas station self service machine and is currently trying to put all the gas he’d paid in his car while blindfolded, “one hour away by train from me”.
John smiles, and he knows Sherlock is looking at him. He grabs his face between his hands, leaving his stern face to melt like wax between his fingers.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?”
“Before or after the end of the movie?” he makes that insufferable smile, his lips touching John’s palms.
He’s too tired to discuss, and the second he notices that Sherlock is taking the breath that will start what he hopes will be one of his tirades, John shuts him up with a kiss.
Nothing special, actually, but they have so few occasions to do this that even the most simple of kisses seems like the most romantic gesture in the world.
He likes the expression Sherlock does after he gets kissed: always that ‘o’ shaped mouth, his ajar eyelids. If there was a bit more light he could see the pink-ish shade on his sunken cheeks.
“You’re petty, John” Sherlock places an ear on his chest, he talked at length about the importance of hearing his heartbeat for him to fall asleep, “you’re truly petty”
“And you’re annoying as hell, goodnight” with his arms around his shoulders and after placing his lips briefly on Sherlock’s forehead, he closes his eyes.
“Goodnight” Sherlock then whispers, following the other in a tranquil sleep.