A Study In Love - A Johnlock Fanfiction

Chapter Sixteen

Okay, so I am terribly sorry that this update is so late, but I've been busy with college visits and senior pictures and other crap you guys don't care about. I hope you'll forgive me!!

Also, I had an idea, and I was wondering if I could get some feedback for it.I figured that since this story is sort of told from John's point of view, that when I finished this I would rewrite a few chapters from Sherlock's POV and post them as a separate series of one-shots. If this seems like something I should do please tell me, and if there's a chapter you'd like to be rewritten tell me that too. I won't do every chapter, but I figured I could do a few, if anyone's interested in that. Let me know, and thanks for reading!

(EDIT: The Sherlock POV story is complete and has been uploaded, btw.)

Here's chapter sixteen!

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On the day of Matthew's funeral, Sherlock sent a sympathy card to Lucy, and in that card he gave an excuse as to why he couldn't make it and apologized for not being at the funeral. That night, John had fallen asleep in the living room watching a movie, and was roused from his slumber by shouting coming from Sherlock's room.

He'd gotten up from his chair as quickly as he could and ran into Sherlock's room to find the detective sitting up in his bed, his eyes wild and his hair a mess of curls sitting atop his head. He was looking around the room with a strange look on his face, and when his eyes finally landed on John standing in the doorway he seemed to relax.

"Are you okay?" John asked, taking a few steps into the room. "I heard shouting."

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Sherlock said, running a hand through his hair. John watched him and noticed how heavy his breathing was.

"Another nightmare," John said to himself. Sherlock must've heard him though, as he nodded his head and sighed. John walked over to the bed and sat down next to where he guessed Sherlock's feet were. Sherlock stared at him, as if he were expecting John to say something, so John wracked his brain for something to say.

"Was it the same nightmare as last time?" Sherlock shook his head.

"Similar though." He shrugged. "Well, sort of similar."

"Care to explain?"

"Not really." John sighed and nodded his head, then reached over and patted Sherlock's foot.

"Would you like for me to stay for a bit?" he asked, offering a smile. Sherlock nodded his head, then fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes. John watched him as he tried to fall back to sleep, and for some reason he found that the longer he stared at Sherlock, the more he wanted to reach over and smooth down his hair or wipe away the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead. He resisted the urge to do so, however, and instead sat still at the foot of Sherlock's bed and waited for him to fall asleep. When John saw his breathing slow down he removed his hand from Sherlock's foot and placed it in his lap on top of his other one. He sat there for a moment longer, watching Sherlock drift off to sleep, then stood up and left the room.

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As days turned into weeks, Sherlock's nightmares became more frequent and more intense. After a while it got to the point where it wasn't uncommon for John to go with Sherlock into his room when he was tired and would sit with him until he'd fallen asleep, only leaving to go to his own bed after Sherlock had been asleep for a decent amount of time. For some reason it seemed Sherlock slept perfectly fine whenever John was there with him, but whenever he slept alone the nightmares would come. John had begged for Sherlock to talk to him about his terrible dreams, but he always refused, telling John that he was perfectly fine and there was nothing to worry about.