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“Budge up, would you?”
John doesn’t even wait for Sherlock to not reply before scooting Sherlock’s feet out of his way on the sofa. Sherlock, for his part, doesn’t react other than to stay where he was placed. His bare toes and the balls of his feet press a bit against the outside of John’s thigh once he’s settled in, but John doesn’t much mind. He simply balances his plate of takeaway on the arm of the sofa and tucks in as he switches on the telly.
Sherlock has been in this strop for two solid days at this point, and John is tired of avoiding the lounge. He knows Sherlock will be back in the game soon, manic and demanding and brilliant, but the waiting is getting annoying. John worked a long shift at the surgery today. He’s bloody knackered, and now--there is a documentary on channel four that he’d been looking forward to, and—well. Sherlock can be in a strop, but he cannot hog the sofa. He can bloody well share the sofa.
“There’s a bit of sweet and sour pork in the kitchen if you’re hungry.”
Sherlock remains steadfastly staring at the ceiling.
“Suit yourself,” John says around a mouthful of food. “It’s pretty good.”
Sherlock dismisses the very notion of food with a halfhearted wave of two fingers.
John finds the right channel and settles in. The programme is interesting, and John comments through it from time to time. Sherlock does turn his head to watch after a while, occasionally grunting in agreement or derision in turns.
After it’s done, John takes his used plate to the kitchen and considers going on up to bed, but he’s not quite ready yet, so he puts the leftovers in the fridge and finishes his washing up. He hears the sound of the television cutting off and half expects Sherlock to be up and moving (finally), but when John returns to the lounge, Sherlock is back to his official strop position—taking up the whole of the sofa, toes near to pointed so as to occupy as much space as possible.
John takes a breath, ending with a long, deliberate exhale through his nose. Oh, that’s fine. He snatches his paperback from the table by his chair and takes it back with him to the sofa. This time, John wraps a hand around each of Sherlock’s bony ankles and lifts his feet, bends his knees, and plants each foot so that all of Sherlock’s stupid, too-long legs are on Sherlock’s side.
Pleased to once again have his spot open, John nods once, sits, and fits his thumb between the pages where he’d placed a post-it note to mark his place. Slowly, Sherlock’s feet come again to press against his thigh, and John does his level best to ignore it, flicking pages and focusing entirely on the words in front of him rather than the toes which are now kneading to the point of pinching his leg hairs under his trousers. He can stand his ground. He will.
A chapter passes, and then two. And then, with a growl, Sherlock stands.
“Loo,” Sherlock says as he walks toward the bathroom.
Not knowing how much time he’ll have, John rearranges himself. He shifts more toward the centre, stretching an arm across the back and letting his legs go wide before deciding it would be better to actually fit one of them across the middle cushion and bring the other up underneath him.
When Sherlock shuffles back to the sofa, he’s got his entire duvet wrapped around him. He looks—well, he looks absurd: disheveled hair flat on one side, insane on the other, two days of patchy stubble, skin freshly pink on his cheeks from scrubbing. He smells faintly of soap, and there is the tiniest bit of toothpaste caught in the corner of his lip.
“You look ridiculous, you know,” John says, raising an eyebrow. He makes a general gesture to Sherlock’s face and says, “Toothpaste,” not quite managing to fully stifle the upward quirk of his lips at this (albeit small) mark of progress in the state of Sherlock’s personal hygiene.
Sherlock eyes him sharply, glaring, but wipes at his face. Then, he plops back down, right in the centre of the far cushion—where he belongs. Progress indeed.
Sherlock sits very straight for about ten seconds before, apparently, officially acknowledging the continuance of the most passive territory battle in history. Abruptly, he shifts so that he is leaning against John, pressing soundly against him, shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip, using his heels against the seat to provide even more leverage. Sherlock thinks he can annoy John away to his armchair. Well—wrong.
John knows, he knows how silly this is becoming, but he has also chosen this battle. He does not yield his space in the slightest. He clears his throat and makes a show of turning a page of his novel even as he pushes back against Sherlock. He can hold his ground, and Sherlock can share the bloody sofa.
John reads another chapter like this—bodily pressing against his mad flatmate and pretending not to be bothered in the slightest as Sherlock tests varying tactics of reclaiming the sofa to (John is pleased to note) no success. First, he huffs and flails, bouncing his backside as much as possible as he feigns getting comfortable. Next, he does a drop-and-smoosh, where he gets half to standing before falling against John like a very warm, duvet-wrapped log. John stops this after the second attempt with a hand braced against the space between Sherlock’s shoulder blades.
Sherlock eventually goes for a cartoon version of stealth, sliding in from the other side of the sofa, butting his head against John while he stretches out his legs for leverage against the far arm. He doesn’t really fit like that, though. Sherlock pushes and stretches for more space, ramming his head first into John’s shoulder, then his arm, and finally against the top of John’s thigh. He bounces it a few times before a measured and impressive grinding of the back of his skull into the space between John’s quadricep and femur. It hurts which, John is sure, is the intention.
“Stop that,” John says, keeping his voice even. “Be still,” and without thinking, he fits his hand into Sherlock’s fringe, spanning the length of his forehead to stop him squirming. Sherlock stops immediately. Pleased with the new calm, John finds his place on the page again and continues reading.
He doesn’t really notice Sherlock’s soft sigh as John’s fingers absently stroke through his hair. He also doesn’t notice the drooping of his own eyelids, nor, after only a few minutes more, the book slipping from his fingers.
-----
John wakes up slowly as the light and sounds of morning begin to filter in through the windows. With eyes still closed, he first registers that he is very warm. He scrubs a cheek against a pillow and remembers that he is on the sofa—not in his bed. He tries stretching a bit, fitting a hand behind his head, attempting to relieve the dull ache in his hip where it has pressed against a too-soft cushion for too long and where the thick seam of his waistband is biting into the skin there. He can’t move much though, because he also realises, he is completely blanketed by his mad flatmate.
Eyes open, he looks down to see that he has shifted at some point in the night so that he is lying across the whole of the sofa, and Sherlock, not giving up one petty inch of territory, even in sleep, has followed suit. Sherlock is lying mostly on his front, head tucked in just below John’s shoulder, cheek against chest, belly soft and solid against John’s hip. He’s managed to get his legs tangled with John’s and the duvet and has one hand sandwiched between the sofa and John’s back while the other arm drapes across John and onto the floor.
John feels his heart rate increase a bit as he feels an initial urge to bolt away—but he stops himself. There are definite points of pressure and discomfort, but he is also surprised by how generally pleasant he feels, surrounded by the weight and scent of Sherlock. He finds himself intrigued by the rhythm of Sherlock’s breath warming the fabric covering his heart, and so he stays. Tentatively, he reaches out to brush Sherlock’s fringe as he remembers doing last night.
Sherlock shifts a bit, hand twitching against John’s back before stilling completely. Then, his fingers move slowly and deliberately against John’s shirt. John feels himself tilt his head and cannot stop the sleepy smile that comes to his face. He likes it. He likes the feel of Sherlock’s hands on him.
Now fully aware that Sherlock is awake, John brushes his thumb across Sherlock’s brow, and Sherlock looks up at him, turning his head just a little so that his chin is against John’s chest and he can see him properly. John finds his eyes, waits a moment, and then brushes his brow again, back and forth over warm skin and soft hair.
Sherlock turns his face into John’s hand, rasping stubble against his palm before his lips, dry and flat, press against his wrist. John hums. Sherlock turns his head back, nuzzling into John’s chest before dragging himself up, aligning their bodies, shifting so his face hovers just above John’s. They share space and breath for a few heartbeats before Sherlock’s thumb is on John’s temple, fingernails lightly scraping through the short hair at his nape. John brings a hand to rest against Sherlock’s chest.
There is a question, too long unspoken and unanswered, filling the space between them, and now there is nothing else to do but to answer. John leans up and presses his lips to Sherlock’s, and it is exactly right. They kiss like they have done this for years, like it has always been this way. They kiss like it is brand new, warm and wet and promising.
They kiss like they might never leave the sofa again.
-End-