anarion | Fic: I watch you while you sleep (2/2)

This is the second part of the story that was inspired by the amazing art series 'Somnophilia' drawn by the wonderful

livia_carica. All art featured in this story is from her, links will be provided in the AN below.

Title: I watch you while you sleep
Words: 2636
Rating: NC-17 (probably R, but just to be sure...)
Pairings : Sherlock/John
Beta: the wonderful

verityburns
Disclaimer: Sadly the characters are not mine and no money is made.

Part one here.

I watch you while you sleep

Sherlock puts the picture on top of the other in his lap and shuffles through a dozen or so that show the two of them sleeping naked in various spooning positions. This seems to be their favourite way of sleeping together.

He puts those on a different pile and picks up the next one. He takes one look at it and suddenly the tears come. The pain in his chest is so intense, he fears for a moment that he is having a heart attack.

He drops to the floor and curls himself up, the picture pressed to his chest.

“John. God, John.”

It can’t be. I can’t live if I’m never going to have this again, never have him again. How do people survive this?

For a while, the only thing he can do is alternately sob and take big gulps of air.

When he has calmed enough to sit up again, it is dark outside. Sherlock gets up, turns on a light and distracts himself again by deducing when this picture was taken.

They are tangled up together, Sherlock has cradled John in his arms. For a moment he imagines what it felt like. One hand in John’s soft hair, the other on his warm back, slowly rising and falling with every breath. Each exhale a warm breeze against Sherlock’s neck.

No, not good. His chest starts to hurt again. Think.

Somehow, this picture feels special.

Maybe it was the night... No. John is dressed. So earlier in their relationship, when Sherlock had not yet convinced him that coming to bed dressed is completely unnecessary. And a waste of time.

It might have been the night John had told Sherlock that he loved him.

Sherlock had always imagined people doing that either in overly romantic situations or after something dramatic happened.

So when John came into the kitchen that night...

Sherlock is bent over the kitchen table, carefully administering a few droplets of glycerine to his latest experiment.

A part of his brain registers John coming into the kitchen. He makes tea and then leans against the counter and watches Sherlock for a while.

“I love you, you know?”

Sherlock almost drops the pipette and straightens up so fast that he gets dizzy for a second.

John just stands there, cup in his hand, and smiles at him.

Sherlock for once has no idea what to do. You are supposed to respond, aren’t you? He has to do something, any reaction at all.

But John doesn’t seem to need a reaction. He puts his empty cup down, walks over to Sherlock and gently touches his face.

“I love you.”

Then he kisses him, just a soft pressure of lips against lips before he pulls back.

“Thought you should know. Are you coming to bed tonight?”

Sherlock can only nod and stare after John.

He loves John. No question. But he can’t say it. Not yet. Maybe never.

But he can show John.

So what follows when he crawls into bed with John can only be described as worship.

Sherlock kisses John, first his mouth, then every bit of skin he can reach, ignoring John’s more and more urgent exclamations of his name. He gets distracted by the soft flesh of the inside of John’s thighs until the other man does a kind of whisper-shout.

“Christ, if you don’t do something soon Sherlock, my heart will fucking explode.”

So Sherlock does something.

His initial plan was to suck John off, but he seems to have miscalculated John’s state of arousal.

Because as he crawls up to kiss John before, um, getting down to business, he presses one hand on John’s cock, just to signal that he's going to end this soon.

But John is suddenly clinging to him for dear life, rubbing against his palm and desperately sobbing Sherlock’s name.

It only takes a few strokes before John actually explodes under Sherlock’s fingers, his hoarse cry filling the room.

After a while, when John’s breathing has calmed down, Sherlock turns him onto his front and starts to drop kisses onto his other side.

John is pliant and spent, but by the time Sherlock has worked him open, he is hard and panting again.

Sherlock takes his time making love to John, it’s slow and gentle and the release so sweet.

John went to have a shower and when he came back from the bathroom he had pants and a shirt on. Ridiculous, it isn’t as if Sherlock doesn’t have a perfect image of naked John in his mind.

So, if he is honest, he can’t tell if the picture is from this night or from just another ordinary night. Does it matter?

He looks again.

He never thought of himself as a cuddler and was convinced that most of the time he just let go of John as soon as he fell asleep.

But looking at the pictures seems to suggest otherwise.

Sherlock looks at the photograph one last time. He is holding John, as if he never loved him more than at this moment. As if he was the most precious thing in Sherlock's world.

If John had seen this, would he still have said what he said? Would he still have left?

And just like that, somewhere in his brain, still undiscovered, an idea begins to take shape.

---

Sherlock really doesn’t want to think about it, but for some reason he can’t stop it. It plays in his head as soon as he stops deliberately concentrating on something, anything else.

He is sure that he will never be able to forget the pain, the emptiness, in John’s eyes as he said that Sherlock didn’t love him.

Sherlock still is not sure how the end happened, because he can’t really understand where John was coming from with his arguments.

Yes, the last case had been tiring and stressful and he didn’t have much time for John.

John was frustrated, because Sherlock wouldn’t let him help. It was a case involving dead children and he knew that it would destroy John, because he always cared too much and was not able to shut emotions out as Sherlock was.

They fought a lot in that time, John accusing him of not caring about how he felt and always being absent, Sherlock angry with John for distracting him.

John complained that Sherlock was never there when John woke up.

Sherlock tried to explain that he has always been a man who didn’t need much sleep and just lying around, doing nothing, made him nervous. He started to wriggle and feared to wake John. So he got up and occupied himself downstairs.

And of course the nights then were not spent in bed. He had a case, lives were hanging in the balance. Sleep was not important.

And then the last big argument happened.

The case was finished and Sherlock came home. He found John in the kitchen, walked over, took him in his arms and bent down to kiss him.

John snapped.

“No. No, you can’t just come home now and pretend everything is fine.”

“What? John?”

“So now that your case is finished my presence is again convenient to you, is that it?”

“John. Don’t pretend you didn’t know what I am like when I work. I told you that I wouldn’t change in that respect. You said you didn’t want to change me.”

“I didn’t. I don't.”

“No? It definitely sounded like it. I told you before. Sleeping was not important. Wasting time in bed so you can wake up next to me was not important.”

John makes a sound between a sob and a laugh.

“People warned me about you. They said that I would end up being hurt. They said that you are not capable of love. I did not believe them.

“I am not just here for your entertainment, to use me whenever you feel like it or have the time. I have needs and feelings too, Sherlock.”

Tell him. Now. I need to tell him that I love him.

But before Sherlock can even try to say it, John goes on.

“You know what normal couples do? They go to bed together and they wake up together. I’ve never, not once, woken up with you next to me. The only time you come to bed while I’m still awake is when you want to have sex. Apart from that you drop dead next to me in the middle of the night and you disappear before the morning. That is, when you bother to come to bed at all.”

“I never meant to hurt you. John, tell me what I can do to make it better.”

John doesn’t seem to listen.

“You order me around for everything. You are taking me for granted, Sherlock.”

“I... No... John.”

“I just can’t do this any more. For a while I thought it was enough that you wanted me, but it’s not.”

“I never...”

“I know that you never promised me anything.”

That is not what he had wanted to say. This is all wrong and upside down.

Suddenly John’s anger seems to vaporise and he looks only sad. And so much older.

“I think I’m not even angry at you. I’m angry at myself.”

John closes his eyes for a moment.

“I’m going to bed. Don’t bother following me.”

Sherlock spent the night on the sofa, trying to understand what had just happened.

When he returned from giving his statement at Scotland Yard the next morning, John was gone.

----

Sherlock opens one eye, then the other. He apparently fell asleep on the floor, pictures of John all around him.

It’s still dark outside, but you can begin to imagine that the new day is just a few hours away.

Sherlock sits up and gathers the pictures up again. There are only a few left that he has not looked at.

A few minutes later he has divided them onto the existing piles. He picks up the last one.

Oh, he remembers that night, not so long ago.

Sherlock is tossing and turning in the bed, having a nightmare.

In the dream he comes home and finds Mycroft sitting in the living room.

“Ah, Sherlock. Have you found a flatmate yet? And just for the record, I still think it is a preposterous idea.”

“Mycroft. What are you talking about? I have a flatmate, as you are well aware.”

Mycroft just looks at him questioningly.

“John. Remember John? Short, blond, not afraid of you.”

“Imagining people again, Sherlock? Are you back to using?”

“I am clean. Is this just a trick to get me to show you his bedroom? Fine, come along.”

But the bedroom is empty. There is no sign of John in the whole flat.

~

Sherlock wakes up flailing and shaking. He looks around and the bed is empty. Panic rises inside him like a tidal wave.

He jumps out of the bed and dashes towards the door. Where he almost collides with John.

“John!”

Sherlock grabs him and he really, really doesn’t care that he sounds like a frightened, sobbing child.

“Sherlock, what happened? You were squirming and woke me up. I just went to get a glass of water. Did you have a nightmare?”

Sherlock doesn’t speak, he just clings to John. Warm, reliable, here.

“Ok, calm down. Sherlock. Everything is ok. Come back to bed.”

John slides down against the headboard and opens his arms for Sherlock, who silently crawls closer and rests his head on John’s chest, holding onto John with both hands.

He feels John weave his fingers into his hair and hears him make small, soothing noises. Every movement, every sound saying ‘I’m here. I’m here.’

Slowly he feels the nightmare fade away.

Sherlock looks down at the pictures in his lap.

The idea pushes forward until it is noticed.

---

John sits on a bench in a park, not his usual one, just one he stumbled upon while walking aimlessly through the city.

He stares into nothingness, wondering how someone stole all the warmth in his life and trying to understand what happened to them. How did they get to this?

He is pretty sure that most of it is his fault. The Watsons are famous and dreaded for their temper. John is no exception to that rule. He is not proud of it.

Suddenly someone sits on the far end of the bench. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a tall, slim figure in a suit sitting there, arms propped on his legs, head hanging.
John's heart jumps and then starts hammering away while his stomach feels like he swallowed a swarm of bees.

Sherlock.

He is afraid to listen to one of Sherlock's cold, analytical attacks, but he is so glad that Sherlock found him. That has to mean something, right? That he took the time and effort to find John. He wouldn't have done it if he just wanted to tell him that this really was their end.

Look at him. Now. Come on, don’t be a chicken, John.

John gazes up. Sherlock looks terrible: paler and thinner than ever, with dark circles under his eyes. John has been avoiding mirrors recently, but he assumes that he looks similar.

Tell him you’re sorry. Ask him to take you back. Beg him if necessary.

“Sh...” His voice fails and he has to try again.

“Sherlock.”

For the first time Sherlock meets his eyes. John almost wishes he hadn’t. They are completely empty.

Sherlock’s eyes fall down again and John notices the small envelope in his hands.

Without saying anything Sherlock hands the envelope to John, who carefully opens it. A few pictures fall into his lap. Someone – Sherlock – has written something on the back of each of them.

Neither of the two men makes a noise while John looks at the pictures that Sherlock collected in his own lap the night before. Then, when he starts reading the little stories Sherlock has written on the back, John’s breathing starts to get a little funny.

And when he is done reading about these scenes from their relationship in Sherlock’s words, he is back to being silent. But tears are falling from his eyelashes.

“I am an idiot. I felt neglected and rejected because you didn’t want me with you on the case and you were never home and... I obsessed over the idea that you didn’t love me. I’m so sorry.

“Somewhere inside I always knew that you loved me. But I never knew just how much you loved me.

“You don’t have to say it. I will never doubt you again. I promise.”

And suddenly saying it is the easiest thing.

---

Epilogue

Over time John learns to appreciate the occasions when Sherlock is there next to him when he wakes up rather than fret about the times when he is not.

And Sherlock? He learns that staying in bed now and then even when there is an experiment waiting downstairs almost always leads to lazy morning snogging and more often than not to some lazy morning shagging.

And he discovers that holding a sleeping John in his arms is one of the best ways to help him think. Go figure.

So what would you see if you looked into their bedroom today, just about this hour? Let me tell you. You would see... Oh hell, let’s just have a look shall we? You have to promise to be really quiet though. And don’t touch anything, you never know if it won’t explode.

Ok, ladies, come on, through the kitchen door you go. Sh, quiet! Through the living r... what did I say about touching? Yes, I am talking to you, woman with the red scarf! Hands off the purple shirt! Jesus, some people!

Now, let’s move on. Up the stairs. Real quiet now, everyone, I am going to open the door.

Here, have a look:

-----------------------------

AN: Yes, the last one is not technically from the same series as the others. But since the fourth pic for the series will sadly remain unfinished, I decided to add another as a little treat for you.

All art by livia_carica:
The first pic: 'Tangled'
The second pic: 'Sunrise'

Thank you again, Livia, for your amazing art which always touches something inside me!

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