AFF Fiction Portal

Substitute

By: danglingdingle
folder S through Z › Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: Adult
Chapters: 1
Views: 4,216
Reviews: 1
Recommended: 0
Currently Reading: 0
Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to BBC et al. I do not own the series, and make no profit from writing this.

Substitute

Teetering on the fine line between sleep and wake, John relinquished his worries of Sherlock’s well-being, as the living proof of the man, remarkably, being capable of finding sustenance rummaged through the kitchen.

Only for a few minutes, John promised himself, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he reclined in Sherlock’s bed. Just for the moment. No reason to haul himself upstairs to the room which had been alarmingly vacant ever since John had moved in.

A vivid dream of half-microwaved, freshly bought pig-eyes simmered behind his lucid eyes, when a voice shook him out of the abstract.

“Move over.”

Sleepily John rolled over, the bed wide enough to accommodate them both skin on skin.

“Hold me. Tight.”

Awake now, discombobulated, John fought the urge to comply without questions and uttered them instead;

“Sherlock, I… Why?” There was always a reason for the eccentrities. This would hardly be an exception.

“I’m fresh out of nicotine patches,” said the man with four plasters sticking to his skin beneath his rolled-up sleeves so bloody obviously.

“Human contact makes for a reasonably passable substitute… Hold me…hold my mind still.” It wasn’t a plead as much as it was normality in this house.

Watson rolled onto his side, concern engraved on his features as he wrapped his arms around his strangely petrified friend.

“Harder. Let me feel you.”

Harder it was then, and in that moment when John could feel the lanky body relaxing in his arms, their noses nigh touching, Sherlock closed his eyes for the first time in days.

“Thank you, John,” were the last words before Sherlock’s breathing evened, shortened, indicating that he’d lost his consciousness. Just like that, as if the magic of John’s presence alone had chased away all the wraiths shadowing, looming in the crevices of the brilliantly odd brain.

Purely out of practicality, Watson laid his head on Sherlock’s shoulder.

The first rays of Sun found them locked in an embrace 221b Baker Street had never witnessed before. So thought also Doctor Watson once he crept his eyes open, finding his companion in the same exact position he’d laid down to sleep, his eyes staring right into Johns;

“Best night of sleep I’ve had in decades.”

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