A Heart Made of Glass

Healing Factor Pt. 2

Three Days Later

Sherlock was still fast asleep when I awoke. He was pressed against me, for warmth, his face buried into my chest. One arm of mine was thrown haphazardly around his middle, the other cast out to the side. I slid my arm slowly over so that it was around him.

I willed myself to calm, it was just for warmth, so he wouldn't get cold while he slept. So he could sleep as peacefully as he was capable of.

Goddammit. I wasn't even convincing myself. 

I didn't even know why he wanted me in his bed, was it for warmth, or for a different reason. A reason that was given to me in his letter.

I could feel my own heartbeat in my ears, it was beating so hard. I took a couple of deep breaths to calm it.

I took to drawing small circles on his back, gentle enough that he wouldn't wake up, but perhaps enough to keep the nightmares away.

He'd had two last night. Two separate times he'd woken up screaming. The first one he'd had the same glazed reaction as a couple of nights ago, but something shook him back to reality in the second one.

He'd clung to me, crying so hard he'd gagged. There was nothing I could do but whisper comfort to him, to try and calm him down. That last nightmare, right before he'd gone back to sleep, he'd looked at me, something unreadable in his eyes. I wanted to say that there was love there, that I could see it, but I couldn't give myself that hope.

He was my friend, I was helping my friend. When did that help end, and romance begin? I... didn't know. That would be a distinction he had to make.

Sherlock stirred in his sleep, hands curling into my t-shirt.

Fuck. I was so in love with him.

How long could I keep doing this? Pretending that I felt nothing when I held him, pretending none of it affected me.

I sighed, letting one arm drop to the side. I'd do whatever he needed, be whatever he needed. It didn't matter what I felt anymore, I just needed him to be okay.

It had barely been 10 days since he'd come back here, and I'd already grown so attached again. Sometimes it still didn't feel real, like I'd wake up and he'd be gone and will have been nothing more than a dream.

But sometimes, it felt more like the three years he'd been gone had been a dream. Just some bad dream, and I'd finally woken up. I didn't like letting him out of my sight, even just to shower or if I was making food.

My eyelids began to grow heavy, thoughts becoming less coherent. I drifted back off, not totally asleep, nor awake.

Sherlock stirred again, this time beginning to wake. I kept my breathing as even as I could, each time we'd slept like this, one of us had gotten up first and left. I hadn't, and I didn't know what I was going to say if he asked me about it. Of course, he did notice I was awake.

"You're awake," he murmured, sleepily. He didn't move away, or even attempt to get far enough away to look at my face. "Your pulse gave it away."

I opened my eyes, sighing. "I didn't want to wake you, this is the latest you've been able to sleep in since you got back." Something about this felt incredibly intimate, we weren't together, but the way we were pressed together, his hands curled into my shirt, my hand on his waist...

He nodded against my chest as if he'd found its reasonableness was sufficient. After another moment, he sat up, immediately beginning to shiver from the flat's cool air. I rolled away, slipping out of the other side of the bed. I padded across the room, grabbing the blanket from the cot still on the floor. I came back over to him, draping it around his shoulders. His fingers brushed across my own as he grabbed the edges of the blanket to pull it closer.