John can always tell what sort of state the day has left Sherlock in. If it's not obvious by the furrow of the detective's brow or the anxious flicker of the detective's eyes, it's how he sleeps. On the bad days Sherlock twists and curls himself into the tiniest ball conceivable, breath slow and shallow and once or twice John had to shake the younger man awake just to make sure he was still alive at all.

On the good days, though... John might wake up in the middle of the night with no blankets except for the pale man himself. One day, after a particularly satisfying case and also particularly satisfying fuck, John woke up to Sherlock wrapping himself so fully around him, John felt like a baby in swaddling. John remembers thinking that it was impossible, at the time, for a man so composed of sharp angles and corners to feel so... Melted against his side and across his front.

Tonight is a bad night. Sherlock is on his side, back to the door (and, consequently, John), breath barely moving his shoulders and back. John, just home from the pub with Stamford, has already hung his coat and drunk a cuppa, and now is ready for bed. He stops suddenly, though, when he sees Sherlock. He sighs deeply and sadly, peeling off his clothes and dropping them as he walks to the bed. He curls in around Sherlock's back, right arm sneaking around to worm in between Sherlock's pulled-up thighs and chest. A rumble goes through Sherlock, so unconsciously bereft that his makes John's throat hurt.

"John?" Sherlock asks, voice hoarse with sleep.

"Yeah, love, I'm here," says John quietly into the raven curls. Sherlock's own right hand grips John's tighter to his chest even as he moves backward into his doctor's embrace.

Nothing more is said. Nothing more ever needs to be said.