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It had been far too long since Sherlock last slept.
John wasn't actually sure exactly how long it'd been, but he would guess it was at least 78 hours, which, no matter what Sherlock himself insisted, was much too long.
Healthy sleep schedules (or really any other kind of basic self-care) were never easy conversation topics with Sherlock.
He was incredibly smart about everything that didn't involve keeping himself alive.
John often wondered how exactly Sherlock had functioned so long without him.
He imagined he hadn't done so very well.
Regardless, now that John was there to look after him he was going to make sure that Sherlock was well cared for- even if that often went against Sherlock wishes.
The current problem at hand was of course the lack of sleep.
On some level even Sherlock must have known he was pushing himself too hard.
Normally working for days on end without a break or meal would somehow seemingly have no effect on Sherlock, but this case was clearly testing even his limits.
Sherlock had been yawning and staring off into space all morning. Every time he sat still he seemed dangerously close to dozing off, but -much to John’s dismay- he always managed to wake himself back up before he did.
Reluctantly John resigned himself to the fact that he was going to need to remark on all of this, even though he knew that bringing attention to these ‘signs of weakness’ would surely upset Sherlock to no end.
But there was no other choice,
“Sherlock, you need to get some sleep,” John said, opting to take the blunt route.
He braced himself for a long angry tirade from Sherlock about how insulting that was, but Sherlock just stared at him with mostly lidded eyes, yawned for what must of have been the hundredth time that morning and said, “No, I don't agree,” Then he turned his gaze back to journal of a suspect he had been allegedly reading for the past hour or so (although he hadn't turned a page in a long while.)
John was more than a little shocked by this muted response, and it only further convinced him of how desperately tired Sherlock must have been.
So he continued,
“Sherlock, I mean it. If you don't rest you won't be able to do any good work on the case.”
“I'm doing great work,” Sherlock replied dismissively, clearly stifling another yawn.
John couldn't help but roll his eyes.
He wasn't getting anywhere with this, luckily a new strategy occurred to him.
Normally he would never consider trying to trick Sherlock into anything, he was far too clever from that, but in his current state John could be pretty confident of his ability to outwit him.
“Fine, Sherlock. But you’ve had that book for hours, I’d like to see it.”
“But I'm so close to figuring this out,” Sherlock retorted, sounding a little like he was just trying to convince himself of that fact.
“Well, why don't we look at it together.”
“Fine…”
“But my back’s been killing me,” John said, gesturing to his hard wood chair at the kitchen table, “would you mind if we read it on the couch?”
Sherlock stared at him again, and for a moment John was sure he had detected his ulterior motive, but Sherlock just shrugged and wandered over to the couch, which he all but collapsed onto in a very ungraceful manner.
As it turned out a half asleep Sherlock was apparently a very agreeable man; frankly that was making John uncomfortable, he needed to get him back to the annoyingly wide awake stubborn bastard John was used to.
If the plan worked (which he could see no reason why it wouldn't because it was really a very simple plan) Sherlock would be back to himself in no time at all.
John took a seat on the couch next to Sherlock and pretended to read the journal (there would be time to actually go over the evidence later, right now he didn't want to possibly disturb Sherlock by turning the page.)
Sherlock seemed closer to sleep than ever, but he was still somehow hanging out to consciousness.
John quickly thought of a solution.
He pulled down the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over Sherlock’s shoulders.
“What's this for?” Sherlock inquired with a serious frown, as if this blanket could be part of some evil plot.
“Thought you might be cold,” John replied with a shrug. He knew very well that Sherlock naturally ran cold, and their home wasn't exactly warm.
Sherlock seemed to think this over, but quickly abandoned it and mumbled something that just might have been a ‘thanks’.
The blanket seemed to have done the trick.
As the minutes wore on Sherlock seemed to be supporting his own weight less and less, instead relaxing into the couch.
For a while he continued to force himself to wake up, blinking rapidly as he did so.
But eventually he closed his eyes and they stayed closed.
John let out a relieved sigh. He carefully took the journal from where it was balanced in Sherlock’s hands and placed it on the table.
Although he quickly found himself settling back in. The simple action of leaning forward to put the book away had seemingly been enough to nearly wake Sherlock as he could see him shifting uncomfortably in the corner of his eye, and there was no chance John was going to risk that.
He looked over to check that he was still asleep, but to his horror he found that Sherlock’s eyes were open- barely, but definitely open.
John prepared to answer questions about where the journal was, but Sherlock only asked,
“Where’re you going?” There was a strangely worried edge to Sherlock's voice that John wasn't very familiar with.
“Nowhere,” John replied, hoping that was the answer Sherlock had been hoping for.
“Good,” Sherlock replied, then he took John's hand in his, muttering something along the lines of, ‘just to be sure’ before he promptly fell back asleep leaving John very sure he had never been all that awake to start with.
The interaction was so thoroughly not-Sherlock that John could almost laugh.
Sherlock would destroy him if he mentioned this when he was actually awake enough to think it through.
John was definitely going to tell Sherlock. Certain destruction aside, the look on Sherlock’s face when he heard about this would be so worth it.
Although it would be a while before Sherlock actually woke up… John was going to be stuck there for a while, wasn't he?
Just then Sherlock muttered something frantic in his sleep (who knew he was a sleep talker?) gripped John’s hand a bit tighter, sat up a start (although he remained asleep) then basically fell onto John, his head coming to rest on John’s chest with a dull thud, his forehead pressed into John’s shoulder. Sherlock had abandoned holding his hand and now had an arm thrown around John and was clinging to him as if for dear life.
For a moment John was a little frozen, in great deal shocked by how tightly the sleeping Sherlock managed to hold on to him, like a weird lanky sociopathic kola bear.
Slowly he came to his senses and brought a hand to Sherlock's back, rubbing soothing circles into his skin, while gently whispering reassurances.
Yet this didn't seem to have any huge effect.
John scanned through his memories of every time he'd needed to calm Sherlock- There wasn't much to draw on because Sherlock was naturally so eerily calm even in panic worthy situations.
But thankfully that meant that the small handful of times that Sherlock had needed reassuring stuck out in John's mind easier.
Now that he was thinking about it and not letting how strange the situation was make his mind go blank he could easily recall an instance a little like this one.
There had been a time before when Sherlock had flown into a proper panic. It had been after too little food and sleep, paired with enough near death experiences to rattle even him. Sherlock had gone from his regular unshakable self to a sobbing, shivering mess.
Although it had taken awhile for John to actually work out how to comfort Sherlock, he had luckily discovered that apparently an almost crushingly tight hug was what helped Sherlock to relax.
It seemed like a risky move, like it would most definitely just wake Sherlock up, but as he sat there listening to Sherlock's uneven shallow breathing occasionally punctuated by small exclamations of distress he knew he didn’t really have any other choice.
So, with a careful mix of gentleness and intense pressure he pulled Sherlock into a hug.
And amazingly Sherlock did start to relax, his breathing leveled, and his hold on John eased.
Best of all he didn’t even wake up.
After a few minutes John did release Sherlock from the embrace, although he kept his arms around him, ready to help fend off any other nightmare that might threaten the detective's well earned rest.
Somehow he no longer felt like recounting the day's events to Sherlock when he was awake enough to care. He didn't want Sherlock to feel embarrassed, in fact all he did want in that moment was to keep him safe.
Although the one other thought bouncing around in his head was, ‘Who knew Sherlock Holmes of all people was a cuddler?’