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A Bit Not Good	By : VulpineBeesKnees Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 2924 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: We do not own or make any profit on BBC's Sherlock or any of their characters. It's all for fun.

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It wasn’t until the sun began to gleam in through the small crack in the shutters that John woke up. Everything felt foreign and it took a moment to recall the night before, and whose body was wrapped so tightly around his own.

Sherlock was back. John opened his eyes, testing to see that it was really him, and sure enough the consulting detective was there. He didn’t dare move. Somehow during the night he had turned into Sherlock, his face tucked tightly under the younger man’s chin causing his nose to press the groove between Sherlock’s collarbones. John couldn’t help but think he smelt faintly of dust, but that must have been the clothes, which had sat untouched for so long. Trying not to fixate on how badly he wanted to nuzzle deeper into Sherlock’s chest and drift back to sleep John focused on what was transpiring between the two of them. The detective’s lanky arms wrapped clear around John, one running under his head with his fingers lacing through John’s hair, the other wrapped over the small of his back, his hand tucked neatly underneath John’s waist. One of John’s legs had been captured during the night by his now, bedmate. Deciding he wanted to try and fix that particularly, before Sherlock woke, he attempted to slide the leg out without jostling the sleeping man.

Eyebrows knitted together as the leg was moved, and Sherlock instinctively gripped tightly to everything he held in order to keep it from being taken away from him. He was no longer in as deep a slumber as he had been, but he was not awake either. With the movement that had brought him closer to the world of the waking, he shifted,moving his legs from their cramped position, and stretching one of them forward, successfully releasing John’s leg but tucking his own between John’s ankles.

His body naturally snuggled closer to the warmth coming from the man in his arms, and his face tilted towards John’s hair, wanting to burrow away from any thoughts of waking. However, he was slowly but surely moving that way, and a soft moan of displeasure and another squeeze to the body in his arms voiced it. He desperately dug in with the heels of his mind, trying to go back to that blissful place.

Sherlock seemed less than willing to give up any sort of hold on John. John tried not to laugh as he was essentially being used as a life size teddy bear. “Sherlock?” he cooed softly, trying to wriggle out of the powerful grasp, “I’m just gonna go make some tea.” The more aware he became of their proximity the more desperately John felt he needed to put some space between them. His initial feelings upon waking up were warmth, happiness, but some of the emotions from the night before were beginning to creep back and a sort of panic was beginning to set in.

He spoke a little more forcefully and with more volume as he pushed against Sherlock’s chest softly, “Sherlock, come on, budge up.”

Sherlock didn't want to leave the warmth that surrounded him. He knew that the cold stark world was waiting for him, and he had no wish to return there. But when John's panicked voice sliced through his dream state, his eyes opened and he took in their position.

He had John tight in his arms, John's head tucked beneath his chin and their legs were twined together. John was pushing at his chest and trying to get away. A pained expression crossed his face as he instantly released John and pushed away from him, giving the other his space.

"Apologies " he muttered, sounding a bit too much like Mycroft as he avoided Johns gaze and rolled onto his other side, pulling the blankets up over his head, "I'd like to sleep a bit more if that's alright." He curled up, knees to his chest and closed his eyes, knowing full well he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. His mind started rattling off reasons for the other man's sudden withdrawal. He frowned and rubbed his temples. The sudden noise of his brain starting up again was deafening.

John closed his eyes, breathing for a moment when Sherlock’s body left his own. He wasn’t sure if he was more relieved or disappointed at the loss. Sitting up he glanced back over at Sherlock, who had pulled the blankets over his head in an obvious sulk. There was no stopping the smirk that pulled at the corner of John’s lips at the sight, Sherlock really hadn’t changed all that much.

Pulling on the edge of the blanket, so it slid down enough that he could see the curly mess of hair, his face turned away. It hadn’t really been fair for him to push Sherlock away, he had enjoyed being held like that, and now that they weren’t intertwined the fear had ebbed away. “I didn’t mean it like that Sherlock. I just got overwhelmed. Come on, I’ll make tea.” He placed a hand on Sherlock’s hip through the blanket, urging him to roll back towards him with a slight amount of pressure.

A low grumble came from the detective, and he knew he was being childish. All he would end up doing was sulking anyway, he might as well get up, but that didn't mean he was going to let John off easy. However the touch on his hip felt misplaced and his eyebrows rose unseen. The fingers almost burned through the material. Odd. He filed it away to think on and examine later

He rolled over enough that one eye was visible and sent a glare that was playfully cold. "I might still be tired did you think of that?" He rolled back over and plopped his face into the pillow.

"I can't go back to sleep now though..." His voice was muffled by the pillow and he raised a hand waving the man off. "Go on, I'll be along shortly."

John hesitated for a moment, thinking he should at least say something else, but instead let out a defeated sigh and stole from the room quietly. Once down stairs he fell into the domestic act of preparing tea, happy to be able to put out two cups once again. A habit that had been hard to break years before.

As the water boiled he searched through the fridge for something Sherlock might be able to stomach. The fridge was surprisingly barren, save for the chinese that had caused such a horrible result the night before. Settling on toast John popped two slices into the toaster oven. “Butter or Jam?” he called down the hall to the room as he poured the steaming water over the tea bags.

“Just tea for me thanks...” he called, sitting up and running a hand through his unruly curls. He stood, grabbed some fresh clothes, then made a break for the bathroom. After an extremely quick shower, just enough to wash some of the sweat away and wash his hair, he dressed and brushed his teeth with the spare he always kept hidden. He was quite happy John hadn’t found it.

John shook his head at Sherlock’s response, he needed to eat something. Deciding butter was the simplest choice he pulled it from the fridge. It wasn’t long before he heard the water running in the shower, at least Sherlock had pulled himself out of bed. John was sure he was going to have to coax him out after finishing the tea.

He came back downstairs, buttoning up the last button on his shirt, leaving the top two undone, and a pair of slacks. Shaking his wet hair out of his eyes, he ventured into the kitchen to see what John was fixing. He wouldn't have taken Sherlock's request just for tea, the younger man knew him too well for that.

After preparing their tea and toast accordingly John placed the small excuse for a meal on the kitchen table. By the time Sherlock made his way into the kitchen John had retrieved his novel and was holding it open over his plate. His toast lay half eaten, almost forgotten, but his own tea had been finished off quickly. Sherlock’s tea and unwanted toast was set out for him on the table, waiting. John was actually finding it surprisingly difficult to focus on the words. In fact he had been stuck the same page since he opened the book. He assumed his expression would hold that of one who was enthralled by the material in front of him, but John’s mind was elsewhere.

He knew why he had pushed away from Sherlock so fervently, his mind had been working at the problem since he left the room. John had honestly liked the touch, just as he had liked waking up in the morning with women he’d been with. But with Sherlock it was different too, because he had never felt such unconditional love or faith in a person. Of course he had felt that with Sherlock, he would follow him into anything, but John had always thought it to be platonic. But now, with the memory of nuzzling into Sherlock’s chest burned into his mind, John wasn’t sure of his own intentions, and that scared the hell out of him. Fear. Fear of his own actions had led John to pushing Sherlock away, and John felt bad that he had done so.

As Sherlock entered the kitchen John stole a glance. He did clean up well, even as strung out as he was. Offering a small smile John nodded toward the plate. “You might need to heat your tea back up in the microwave, but you need to eat something.

The detective grumbled silently to himself as he put his tea in the microwave for about 20 seconds to heat it up. Eating was the absolute last thing he wanted to do, but he supposed that bread would be the easiest thing on his stomach. When the microwave beeped he pulled the mug out and took a seat at the table, frowning at the offensive food before him, but one glance up at John reminded him of the argument from the night before and he frowned. John had given in to his request, it was only right for him to reciprocate. Raising the toast, he took a bite, decided it wasn’t half bad and took another before setting it down in favor of his tea.

He also had been doing some thinking about this morning. He had several theories, but each of them had their holes. Perhaps it hadn’t worked for John as well as it had for Sherlock. Perhaps he’d had a nightmare and lay awake for hours without him knowing. Perhaps he just decided that he didn’t want to be so close to Sherlock. Or maybe he was just normal and didn’t want to be cuddled by another man. This was John “I’m not gay” Watson they were talking about. He never did care for labels like that, but then again he didn’t really understand nor care to understand the concept of love. However, things had been changing in him, and he found that the emotions he’d been able to keep at bay were sweeping through him with a force he found hard to contest. He found himself actually feeling bad for things he’d done, which had been unheard of before the doctor came along.

“How did you sleep?” he asked nonchalantly over the mug.

Setting the book down, dogging the page as he did so, John looked up at Sherlock. He smiled, seeing that Sherlock was again, willingly eating. Hopefully this go around wouldn’t end quite so violently.

“Great actually,” And he had, up until the point where he lost control of himself. He hadn’t woken up in a sweat, nor had he been plagued by the almost constant nightmares. “Best night rest I’ve had in months. Thank you Sherlock.” Confused as he was about his own feelings, John couldn’t imagine Sherlock had any ulterior motive or feelings toward John, he couldn’t imagine Sherlock had romantic or sexual feelings toward anyone for that matter. So he smiled, trying to assure the man that his actions from the morning did not reflect Sherlock doing anything wrong.

“You?” John reciprocated the question with equal nonchalance, though he knew he would hang on the detectives every word.

"Good." He said through a mouthful of toast, "No nightmares here." He half smiled at his flat mate and pulled his phone out of his pocket, scanning the news.

"You know we will have to go get my status of deceased changed at some point..." He said, "I wonder if Lestrade has any new cases..." Things felt like they were back to normal. He suppose there were a few people he needed to contact about his not being dead, John had just been the first and most important. The only one that really mattered in his eyes.

"I suppose Mycroft could smooth it all over, he knows the whole story... That way I wouldn't have to retell it a thousand times. In fact. I think I'll do that. He does owe me a favor after all." There was a slight bitterness in his tone, the betrayal of his own brother had been a hard pill to take.

John leaned forward in his seat, obviously eager for information. “So you can’t tell me what you had to do this whole time, but could you tell me how? I mean what did Mycroft have to do in all of this? I found a few things out on my own, but none of it made any sense after you’d left.” That wasn’t entirely true. John had been close behind Mycroft the day Sherlock jumped, but after found he couldn’t be bothered. WIth Sherlock gone, nothing really had seemed of much importance. “How are we going explain this away?"

"Mycroft was my one connection to you." The words were out of his mouth before they were really thought through, and he pushed on, hoping to blow over them. "He's also helped me monetarily with travels and needs I had. However, any report can be forged, look at Irene. She died and came back. It's been so long people will have forgotten the exact circumstances, and everyone loves a good scandal."

He smiled, "People believe what they want to believe, not what necessarily makes sense."

It was as if something clicked deep within the recesses of John’s mind. He absorbed everything that Sherlock said, but disregarded pretty much everything save for the information about Mycroft. A small sound of comprehension escaped his lips and he gave a short nod as Sherlock went on.

Letting out a sound that was practically a growl John explained his discovery. “That’s why Mycroft was constantly hounding me. God between him, Lestrade, and Harry, you’d think they had been taking shifts on me.” Suddenly understanding washed over him in waves, making his jaw set tightly, he couldn’t believe he’d been so blind. “Jesus, they were taking shifts weren’t they?” He directed the question at Sherlock, not sure if he actually had an answer, but if Mycroft had been working with Lestrade and Harry it was likely that Sherlock was aware of the fact.

He dropped his face into his hands, heels pressing against his eyes as he let out another frustrated sound.. Had he really got so bad that they had placed a watch on him? A part of him had known at the time that was what they were doing, but to step back and see just how far he had spiraled out of control was beyond frustrating.

"I was aware Mycroft had enlisted help but I was not aware who it was. That does make sense that he would choose those two. They would be the most worried about you and it would seem the least suspicious. If say Mrs. Hudson constantly asked you if you were alright, it would seem out of character even though she cares deeply for you.... It's highly unlikely that Harry knows that it was anything more than the illusion of my family consoling yours to make sure you didn't take legal action or some silliness of the sort."

Sherlock took another bite of his toast and washed it down with tea before continuing, "Lestrade however, he is a wild card. He often knows more than he lets on. It's highly likely that he had his suspicions but wouldn't voice them even if you asked. I expect some sort of violence from him if he doesn't already know I'm alive. I would not doubt Mycroft would put his faith in such a man. I heard you struck up quite a friendship in my absence..." The last bit sounded a little bit jealous and Sherlock found himself surprised at his tone. What did he care if they'd become friends in his absence? Hadn't he wanted John to move on? However he knew it was because those were years of acceptance with John that he couldn't get back. Now that he had seen John's predicament, he was sure that Mycroft had been lying to him. Which opened up a new question of, what else had Mycroft been lying about?

"Which is good, at least you had someone to talk to while I was away..."

Raising his face from his hands John cocked his head to the side, “Lestrade and I?” They had been friends before the fall, went out for a pint or two occasionally after harder cases. Shared the wonder and burden that had been Sherlock’s friendship, but since the fake suicide the friendship had been very one sided. The things that they had once bonded over, the cases, Sherlock, were gone and as John spiraled into depression he hadn’t seen a need for friends.

Lestrade had stuck by him, calling every few days, stopping in at random times and stealthily checking that there was actually food in the fridge, other than beer he had even forced him to go out on a few occasions, and John had appreciated the gesture. Though he often told Lestrade the care was unnecessary, when what he had meant was unwanted. Surprisingly even after three years the Detective Inspector still regularly checked in on him. John made a note in his mind to thank and apologize to him as soon as possible.

“Did Mycroft say that?” John wasn’t sure why Mycroft would have exaggerated the friendship between himself and Lestrade, but he didn’t want to flat out deny the fact until he understood why Sherlock thought so.

Sherlock raised one eyebrow at the question. "Yes John. I could hardly pop in myself for a chinwag.” However his sarcasm was overshadowed by the fact Mycroft had lied to him. It was obvious from John’s reaction.

The doctor had been worse off than he had expected when he returned. Perhaps Mycroft had been feeding him false information to keep him on task. It sounded like something he would do. And Sherlock knew that if he had known half of what he knew about John’s predicament then that he knew now, he would have come home running, coattails flailing as usual.

“No matter.” he said waving everything about it away, “Mycroft will no doubt be able to have me reinstated as alive with no one really noticing. I can be sworn alive in front of a judge that will keep quiet, and then I can actually start solving cases again. Of course we’ll have to be discreet, but I’m sure we can come up with something to tell the press if and when they figure it out. For now I think they’re quite bored with my story...”

“Quite.” John agreed quietly, his lips quirked to the side, contemplating the likelihood of everything going according to plan so Sherlock could return to the cases. It was unbelievably important that Sherlock be able to get back to work, and soon. John couldn’t help but look Sherlock over, he was doing well for how strung out he had seemed the previous night.

“We’ll just have to start out with some smaller cases, we don’t need to get our name in lights like last time. You got too big Sherlock.” Plus starting with smaller cases John could dog Sherlock a bit easier, make sure he was sticking to the plan, staying clean. Larger cases often lead to the detective disappearing after a perp that should be left to the Yard. John couldn’t have him getting hurt or worse. Not again, and not so soon.

Standing John moved to clear off the table. “I’ll reactivate the blog, but it’ll take some time to rebuild readership. When do you plan on telling Lestrade?”

“It’s not like it was intentional to get famous John...” it hadn’t been. It was always about the cases, never about the fame. He couldn’t have cared less about being famous. He frowned as he thought, “Perhaps we should have some kind of contract where they’re not allowed to talk to the media about us...Think on that John. And I’ll need to tell Lestrade soon. I figure I’ll give it a few days to get settled back in here, give myself some time to recover, and then we can invite him over or something of the like..”

Sherlock ate the rest of his toast and finished off his tea. “Are you done with that?” he asked pointing to John’s forgotten tea and toast. “If so let me have them.” He intended to take them to the sink for the man. Now that he had gotten some food and tea in his stomach, he was getting drowsy again, and he figured taking a nap on the couch sounded like an excellent idea.

Slightly startled by Sherlock’s offer John nodded mutely, pushing the dishes toward Sherlock. “We can write up a contract, but you will have to contain yourself then. It would mean you wouldn’t be able to do anything on the case until they agreed to our terms.” John thought back to the many cases in which Sherlock had begun investigating official cases without even getting the go ahead from Lestrade. “Plus it won’t stop all the talk.” Letting out a sigh John shrugged, “I’ll look into it, maybe the fact that we have such a contract will be enough to encourage some people into minding their own business.”

John stood leaning against the counter as Sherlock cleared their breakfast. He couldn’t help but smile at the offer. Walking around to the fridge John peered in again, the evidence that he hadn’t been caring for himself was staggering as the empty fridge stared back at him. At least for the moment it was void of body parts. “You know I do need to run to the shop for some groceries, if you want to get out of the flat later?” John didn’t move from the fridge, waiting for the answer. Just how much had Sherlock changed?

The brunette’s nose wrinkled at the thought of something as mundane as grocery shopping, but he supposed he really had nothing better to do. “That sounds extremely tedious.” his words sounded annoyed, but his voice changed as he continued while absently doing the dishes up from breakfast, “I suppose I’ll go with you though, I don’t really fancy being left alone for now, and I don’t really trust myself alone either...” he trailed off, knowing he wouldn’t have to elaborate for John to understand.

He finished doing up the dishes and placed them on the drying rack to the left of the sink, and returned the slightly wet kettle back to it’s place at the rear of the stove. Doing these mundane things felt like therapy, like the small bit of normalcy could bring him flawlessly back into this world. He sighed as he finished and moved to the sitting room where the couch was calling to him. When he finally slid down into the softness of it,he rolled, putting his back to the room, and called out softly, “Wake me before you leave,” he snuggled down deeper into the cushions and tried to block out the sounds of the other man, moving about the kitchen and sitting room, going about daily business. He hoped that he would be able to drift off, but he knew just being close to John was enough to comfortably lull him into sleep.

Following Sherlock into the sitting room John grabbed an afghan that had been lying across the back of his armchair, and moved to the sofa, draping the blanket over Sherlock. It would probably be sometime before Sherlock stopped feeling tired, his body was completely spent and some things only time could fix. “Just get some rest,” he murmured as he moved to sit at the small writing desk where his laptop resided, “I won’t go anywhere without you, don’t worry.”

Powering on the laptop, which was now rarely used, John fiddled with the wireless mouse keeping an eye on Sherlock. Finally the log on screen appeared and John began the arduous process of reactivating his blog. It wasn’t really all that hard, he just had to recreate his account, and when prompted, say he did have a previous account and would like to restore all of the lost data. John wondered for a moment what the point of deleting it had been if there was still record of everything somewhere.

The process only took about ten minutes and then he found himself facing a blinking cursor, taunting John with the words that simply would not spill from his fingers. He wasn’t even sure they were going public yet, but at some point, soon, they would and John would have to post something here on the blog to reinstate their business.

John thought back to the headlines after the fall. Suicide of Fake Genius. Smiling he filled in the title of the blog, even if Sherlock found titles pointless they could be quite the attention getters.

Fake Suicide of Genius.

Sherlock probably wouldn’t approve, and he would most likely be forced to change it before actually publishing the post, but it made John smile none the less. Saving the post as a draft John closed the laptop with a resounding click. There was no point in trying to write the post until Sherlock had actually been declared living.

Grabbing his novel from the table John fell into his armchair, a newfound comfort in his whole presence. Settling into his chair and opening the book he finally managed to relax and read. He had considered lying down with Sherlock, make-up for his reaction that morning, but he was pretty sure Sherlock was actually asleep and he didn’t want to wake him. He’d fix things later that night, they wouldn’t have fit well on the couch together anyways.

John had barely made it five pages when the doorbell rang from down stairs, a short impatient press of the buzzer.

Sherlock had in fact been asleep. When the afghan had settled over him, he had almost felt like John had been tucking him in. He had been at that point where he was really about to drop off when the buzzer pierced through his mind jarring him into wakefulness. With a groan he covered his ears and curled up tighter before sitting up entirely.

“Who for God’s sake would be calling this early?” With a sniff he flung himself back down on the couch as another buzz filled the flat. “Someone very impatient apparently.” The detective peeked over his shoulder to see if John were going to answer the door.

“Obviously,” John muttered, slightly chuffed that whomever was calling had woken up the detective. Placing his open book face down on the armrest of his chair John headed down stairs quickly

Outside, Greg Lestrade was anxiously waiting for John to answer the door. Mycroft had said he’d had an intruder, but that it wasn’t an emergency. Whatever the hell that meant. His sunglasses were flipped up on top of his head now that he was standing on the stoop, but it was a bright and clear day. All of the rain and clouds from the day before had blown on and it looked like Britain would have a day to dry up a little before the rain came back.
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A Bit Not Good