Fic for Tartancravat: Dream Soup
Title: Dream Soup
Recipient: tartancravat
Author: unovis_lj
Characters/Pairings: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Awakened by dreams in the middle of the night.
***
To begin with, he’d once told John he didn’t dream. That was a lie. He told John most things more than once, irritatingly.
And he did dream, in ways that would challenge description and John’s comprehension. If he allowed himself to think of it any longer, he’d be tempted to try: to pass himself, inject himself, any element of himself into John was appealing. Possibly pointless. Possibly impossible. John as John was an egg in its shell.
And having lied, once or more than once, that he didn’t dream, the experiment in injection, in passage through the eggshell of John’s self containment, would begin with dismissing the lie, which would be unpleasant. Seven, eight, twelve variations on unpleasant that he could foresee. John was different to anyone else to whom he lied. John had access denied to anyone else to whom he lied. Lying to John…
It was a little lie.
***
Sherlock dreamt of Molly as a liquid equation; as a soup of numbers encapsulated in membranes, circulating and connecting and combining, with unidentified globules of symbols drifting free. The soup was pink and pleasantly organic and roundly rightly logical. He woke smiling, alone on the sofa, with his laptop digging into his stomach. It was closed running and warm. His bladder was full, his tea mug lay empty on the floor. Molly rarely made him smile.
He thought briefly, fuzzily, of describing this to John. He felt the smile reappear, involuntary and spontaneous, unfurling like a skin sample in saline. The dream sense lingered. He wanted to sink back under, to solve the curious soup puzzle. His stomach was warm from the laptop. Dawn was an hour away. He closed his eyes. The internal pressure above his groin, the heaviness below, the annoying importunities of the flesh, the awful suggestiveness of immersion in that tantalizing liquid intruded. He frowned. He kept his eyes screwed shut. The way to the toilet was familiar, navigable without sight; if he could accomplish this mundanity of mundanities without visual distraction, the dream might remain within his grasp.
***
He dreamt once, slumped on the lab bench, in Molly’s company. He dreamt of making insufficient payment from unfamiliar currency, bright coins in odd shapes falling from his hands. He smelled lilacs and brass. He woke embarrassed and safe, with a crease across his cheek. She passed him a tissue and looked away, preparing his wet slides.
***
He dreamt more than once of words as insects, dropping from walls, brushing his face, chittering in drifts up to his knees.
***
He dreamt of an adder with Moriarty’s eyes.
***
He dreamt of dreaming and woke, eyes shut, swaying on his feet. Toilet, bladder, soup. He stepped forward and stubbed his toes on a book; stumbled over the book onto sharply crumpled paper, onto something tubular that rolled (pipestem), onto something soft and sliding (sock), and banged his shin on a wooden table leg. “Oh, Hell!” he growled and opened his eyes. He heard a click upstairs as he crossed the carpet. He heard John’s feet hit the floor as he passed through the bathroom door. Hell and damn, as he emptied himself into the bowl, as the sound and smell of himself curled around him, he heard the creak of John’s bedroom door. His mouth twitched as he washed his hands; he heard the water running through the pipes upstairs, of John in the bathroom above. Had he pulled him awake in bodily sympathy? His John.
He leaned in the doorway, wiping his hands, and heard John hesitate, bare feet on the floor above Sherlock’s head, before turning to the stairs and walking slowly down. The limp was back. He’d never lost it after Sherlock’s return. It was genuine, this time, if much slighter than before, and Sherlock had never asked about its cause. He was waiting, unusually, in his sort of courtesy, for John to tell him.
The footsteps on the stair paused. His John, only just awake, aware. “Sherlock?”
“Milk, two sugars.”
“Why are you in the dark?” The hall light flared on. Sensible John, conning the way to the kitchen. The kitchen lighted. The kettle filled. Tremor in the left hand. Hair on end.
“Nature calling. You?”
“Tea.” Mugs gathered, teabags dropped, water poured. Tea at four in the morning, bend of the night, with tightened eyes and drooping mouth.
***
He dreamt once of mud and fire and the ground swallowing him in waves. It was slow and silent and horrid; John had told him that war was loud and crowded, explosive and dull and smelled vile.
***
Milk, two sugars. John made a good cup of tea, the way he liked it, without question or thought. John slid a look at the table, heaped with papers, his preferred perch for a quick cuppa. An eyebrow flexed--considering taking his drink back to bed. Sherlock leaned across to pick up his mug, touching John’s arm on the return. He walked away to the sofa in the dark sitting room, drawing John in his wake. His gravitational pull. His John. Molly skated around his edges, Lestrade planted himself close, Mrs. Hudson tacked and sailed through their rooms, bumping alongside on occasion for a hug. John...\
“Leave it off,” he said, as John reached for the lamp. The darkness was mitigated by the kitchen overhead.
“Eyes tired?”
“I had an interesting dream,” Sherlock said, cautiously. He settled in the sofa’s corner, willing John to sit beside him. They did, watching telly, some nights. It was an excuse for proximity. Sherlock liked John’s warmth and weight close by. He’d been chilled and starved away from home, been cruelly informed of the fragility of “transport” unattended. He’d been deprived, robbed, of familiar faces and streets. He’d never believed such losses could affect him.
John sat, did sit, at the sofa’s other end. His customary chair was piled with books. He never, now, sat in Sherlock’s chair. Sherlock looked approvingly into the shadows. John hunched over his tea. He was wearing pajama bottoms (shapeless gray) and a white T-shirt. He pressed his bare feet together, sole to sole. The window opposite was open, admitting the mild June air. The curtains swelled. A bird woke and warbled from a rooftop.
Sherlock pushed the laptop between them off the cushions. None of his twelve scenarios included silence. “I imagined,” he ventured, and John’s left hand dropped from his mug to his knee, curling there.
“I’d rather not hear just now.” John’s head leaned back against the sofa. His eyes closed.
“I lied,” said Sherlock. He slid closer, onto the warm spot left by the laptop, inches from John’s shoulder and thigh.
“Well, that’s you, isn’t it?” said John. It sounded worn, not bitter. The mug tilted. Sherlock reached across his lap to rescue it. John’s hand opened and released it into Sherlock’s grip.
“Not always,” said Sherlock.
John shrugged, or moved, or nudged back against Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock spread his arm across the sofa back, behind John’s head, and took his warmth and weight against his body. “Tell me tomorrow,” murmured John. If Sherlock bent his head forward his nose would touch John’s hair. He felt John soften and relax, breathing slowed. He closed his eyes. He searched after soup. He dreamt of John, sleeping on his arm.
Recipient: tartancravat
Author: unovis_lj
Characters/Pairings: John Watson/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Awakened by dreams in the middle of the night.
***
To begin with, he’d once told John he didn’t dream. That was a lie. He told John most things more than once, irritatingly.
And he did dream, in ways that would challenge description and John’s comprehension. If he allowed himself to think of it any longer, he’d be tempted to try: to pass himself, inject himself, any element of himself into John was appealing. Possibly pointless. Possibly impossible. John as John was an egg in its shell.
And having lied, once or more than once, that he didn’t dream, the experiment in injection, in passage through the eggshell of John’s self containment, would begin with dismissing the lie, which would be unpleasant. Seven, eight, twelve variations on unpleasant that he could foresee. John was different to anyone else to whom he lied. John had access denied to anyone else to whom he lied. Lying to John…
It was a little lie.
***
Sherlock dreamt of Molly as a liquid equation; as a soup of numbers encapsulated in membranes, circulating and connecting and combining, with unidentified globules of symbols drifting free. The soup was pink and pleasantly organic and roundly rightly logical. He woke smiling, alone on the sofa, with his laptop digging into his stomach. It was closed running and warm. His bladder was full, his tea mug lay empty on the floor. Molly rarely made him smile.
He thought briefly, fuzzily, of describing this to John. He felt the smile reappear, involuntary and spontaneous, unfurling like a skin sample in saline. The dream sense lingered. He wanted to sink back under, to solve the curious soup puzzle. His stomach was warm from the laptop. Dawn was an hour away. He closed his eyes. The internal pressure above his groin, the heaviness below, the annoying importunities of the flesh, the awful suggestiveness of immersion in that tantalizing liquid intruded. He frowned. He kept his eyes screwed shut. The way to the toilet was familiar, navigable without sight; if he could accomplish this mundanity of mundanities without visual distraction, the dream might remain within his grasp.
***
He dreamt once, slumped on the lab bench, in Molly’s company. He dreamt of making insufficient payment from unfamiliar currency, bright coins in odd shapes falling from his hands. He smelled lilacs and brass. He woke embarrassed and safe, with a crease across his cheek. She passed him a tissue and looked away, preparing his wet slides.
***
He dreamt more than once of words as insects, dropping from walls, brushing his face, chittering in drifts up to his knees.
***
He dreamt of an adder with Moriarty’s eyes.
***
He dreamt of dreaming and woke, eyes shut, swaying on his feet. Toilet, bladder, soup. He stepped forward and stubbed his toes on a book; stumbled over the book onto sharply crumpled paper, onto something tubular that rolled (pipestem), onto something soft and sliding (sock), and banged his shin on a wooden table leg. “Oh, Hell!” he growled and opened his eyes. He heard a click upstairs as he crossed the carpet. He heard John’s feet hit the floor as he passed through the bathroom door. Hell and damn, as he emptied himself into the bowl, as the sound and smell of himself curled around him, he heard the creak of John’s bedroom door. His mouth twitched as he washed his hands; he heard the water running through the pipes upstairs, of John in the bathroom above. Had he pulled him awake in bodily sympathy? His John.
He leaned in the doorway, wiping his hands, and heard John hesitate, bare feet on the floor above Sherlock’s head, before turning to the stairs and walking slowly down. The limp was back. He’d never lost it after Sherlock’s return. It was genuine, this time, if much slighter than before, and Sherlock had never asked about its cause. He was waiting, unusually, in his sort of courtesy, for John to tell him.
The footsteps on the stair paused. His John, only just awake, aware. “Sherlock?”
“Milk, two sugars.”
“Why are you in the dark?” The hall light flared on. Sensible John, conning the way to the kitchen. The kitchen lighted. The kettle filled. Tremor in the left hand. Hair on end.
“Nature calling. You?”
“Tea.” Mugs gathered, teabags dropped, water poured. Tea at four in the morning, bend of the night, with tightened eyes and drooping mouth.
***
He dreamt once of mud and fire and the ground swallowing him in waves. It was slow and silent and horrid; John had told him that war was loud and crowded, explosive and dull and smelled vile.
***
Milk, two sugars. John made a good cup of tea, the way he liked it, without question or thought. John slid a look at the table, heaped with papers, his preferred perch for a quick cuppa. An eyebrow flexed--considering taking his drink back to bed. Sherlock leaned across to pick up his mug, touching John’s arm on the return. He walked away to the sofa in the dark sitting room, drawing John in his wake. His gravitational pull. His John. Molly skated around his edges, Lestrade planted himself close, Mrs. Hudson tacked and sailed through their rooms, bumping alongside on occasion for a hug. John...\
“Leave it off,” he said, as John reached for the lamp. The darkness was mitigated by the kitchen overhead.
“Eyes tired?”
“I had an interesting dream,” Sherlock said, cautiously. He settled in the sofa’s corner, willing John to sit beside him. They did, watching telly, some nights. It was an excuse for proximity. Sherlock liked John’s warmth and weight close by. He’d been chilled and starved away from home, been cruelly informed of the fragility of “transport” unattended. He’d been deprived, robbed, of familiar faces and streets. He’d never believed such losses could affect him.
John sat, did sit, at the sofa’s other end. His customary chair was piled with books. He never, now, sat in Sherlock’s chair. Sherlock looked approvingly into the shadows. John hunched over his tea. He was wearing pajama bottoms (shapeless gray) and a white T-shirt. He pressed his bare feet together, sole to sole. The window opposite was open, admitting the mild June air. The curtains swelled. A bird woke and warbled from a rooftop.
Sherlock pushed the laptop between them off the cushions. None of his twelve scenarios included silence. “I imagined,” he ventured, and John’s left hand dropped from his mug to his knee, curling there.
“I’d rather not hear just now.” John’s head leaned back against the sofa. His eyes closed.
“I lied,” said Sherlock. He slid closer, onto the warm spot left by the laptop, inches from John’s shoulder and thigh.
“Well, that’s you, isn’t it?” said John. It sounded worn, not bitter. The mug tilted. Sherlock reached across his lap to rescue it. John’s hand opened and released it into Sherlock’s grip.
“Not always,” said Sherlock.
John shrugged, or moved, or nudged back against Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock spread his arm across the sofa back, behind John’s head, and took his warmth and weight against his body. “Tell me tomorrow,” murmured John. If Sherlock bent his head forward his nose would touch John’s hair. He felt John soften and relax, breathing slowed. He closed his eyes. He searched after soup. He dreamt of John, sleeping on his arm.