Just a silly thing. Set shortly after Study In Scarlet. Poor Watson never gets to sleep.

"Doctor Watson!"

Oh, how I had come to loathe that tone. I had only lived with the man for all of three months, but I had come to associate that sing-song voice with a task I was loathe to do. Particularly when my body ached from a night spent bending over patients suffering every odd disease imaginable. For the life of me I don't know why, but something compelled me to acknowledge Holmes, though I had yet to deign him with opened eyes. "What could it possibly be this time? And what time is it?"

"Well," I could hear him shuffle, which was quite unusual in and of itself; from what I had seen, Sherlock Holmes was not the sort of man to fidget his feet. In fact, he was almost inhuman in his stillness of body sometimes. "It's most imperative that you get up, Doctor. It's just after six, and I'm afraid I've been awake for quite some time—"

I was quite convinced at that point that he was insane, and so I rolled over with a noncommittal grunt. "Holmes, I have not slept two hours yet, I'm sure it can wait."

"What if I suggested the house is ablaze and our chances of escaping unharmed are being greatly reduced for every minute you lay there splayed upon your bed?"

"Strange that you should forsake calling a fire engine in that case, Holmes."

"And leave you, my trusted roommate, to die in such agony? Why Watson, it's as if you hardly know me!"

"Of course… whoever would pay half the rent then?"

"Precisely, my good fellow! Now up you get!"

I groaned again when he seized my foot in an enthusiastic attempt to rouse me. It was extremely unlike him to be so animated, and for him to cross his own personal boundaries of space to grab my ankle was most unusual. Had I been in my senses, I would have seen that something was amiss about the situation. As it were, I felt very much like a bear being stirred from hibernation in February, and I hauled my foot away with a huff of frustration. "Holmes, if there is no immediate threat upon my life, I would appreciate it if you returned in several hours' time. I'll be happy to help then."

He sighed, sending a gust of air onto my toes, which curled in reply. "If not for your life, old fellow, perhaps for mine?" I was compelled to open my eyes then, and give him a quick glance.

Perhaps had I known him as I do now, so many years later, I would have felt amusement at the clear distress shining upon his features. His brow was knit with frustration, and his slate-colored eyes positively gleamed with discontentment. His lips were curled into a thoroughly unpleasant frown, which cemented his expression as one of the greatest vexation. Holmes resembled a man tried by forces unnatural.

I noticed, even in my sleep drunk state, that one of his shoulders seemed to have been rained upon recently, a fact he abruptly made to amend with his handkerchief. "Well, you've got my curiosity if nothing more, Holmes." I offered, hoping it would be enough to convince the solitary man to share whatever peculiar situation he had gotten himself into. In my short months knowing the fellow, I had come to discover that he was even stranger than Stamford had warned me. Those whose company he seemed to tolerate on a regular basis were of a decidedly deplorable nature, he hid his odd ends and baubles in the most confounded spots(I have found teeth in some of my socks.), and he was prone to playing his violin(which I have felt compelled to break over my knee on several occasions) at odd hours of the night and day.

Yet following the occasion of what would eventually become A Study In Scarlet, I found my strange friend to be of great interest to me; for all his shortcomings, he drew me in with the mysteries he played with, and his peculiar, yet appealing nature.

"At a quarter to three this morning a murder took place in Kensington, Watson." Holmes explained with great impatience, striking a match to light a cigarette which had appeared as if by magic between his lips.

"Murder? Of whom? And in Kensington of all places?" All sleep had vanished from my mind and I sat up as he paced as far as my small room would allow.

"Charles Reginald Blake, a retired doctor. A rich man, though not extremely so."

"But how could the killer do it? Surely someone ought to have been able to catch the blackguard! Were there any witnesses?"

"That is the very grounds for my distress!" Holmes cried despairingly. "The man's daughter is in the sitting room and for the life of me I simply cannot get the fool of a woman to stop weeping!" He turned to me then with an expression of deepest hope. "The fair sex has never been my strongest suit, Doctor. I find it impossible to work with such flighty and capricious creatures. Give me the most villainous wretch London has to offer and I shall make my way, but a sobbing female…" He made a noise of disgust such I had never heard before.

I knew now what my purpose in all this was to be, and I was already climbing out of my warm and inviting bed. "I suppose you think I should have better luck calming the poor woman down?" I suggested, unwilling to force myself onto the situation without his express permission.

The look of wide-eyed relief spoke for itself, and Holmes laid a hand dramatically upon his brow. "I beg you, Doctor. I cannot allow her to dampen my shoulder any further, lest I catch cold from the chill." He waited impatiently as I changed into an appropriate suit. He tapped his foot against the floor in a harried manner when I fiddled with my cufflinks, and seemed to be ready to drag me out by my ear when I checked my collar. At last I headed towards the door. "At last, I feared you would feel compelled to shine your shoes next."

I felt obligated then to look at my footwear. It wouldn't do to walk around with a scuffed toe. Holmes, however, seemed content to give me a shove that almost sent me plummeting head over heels down the stairs. "Come along Watson, we mustn't keep Miss Blake waiting!"

So it came that I spent all of half an hour comforting young Laura Blake while Holmes stamped and snorted nearby. For a petite girl she had quite a proficiency at wailing, and for all my not-so-insufficient abilities at comforting the fairer sex, it was not until she had drunk three cups of Mrs. Hudson's tea that she regained any composure at all.

By this point, Holmes had been sitting on the settee vehemently stabbing a piece of paper with a dull pen to relieve his frustration. Miss Blake took one long look at his ministrations and promptly dissolved into more hysterics. Holmes, forever oblivious to the emotional plights of others, gave a tremendous shout of delight.

"Her father was stabbed, Watson! Quite brutally, I believe! Am I wrong, Miss Blake?" She only howled on, and I feared for my eardrums. To this day I'm unsure if Holmes saw my thoroughly peevish glare, for at that moment he leaped to his feet with all the dexterity of an athlete and bolted to the door.

"This is absolutely useless, Watson. I shall go investigate for myself and return in due time. Do keep plying her with tea, old boy. Perhaps she shall be composed by the time I return."

"Holmes, you can't just leave—"

"I shan't be more than several hours!"

"—she's your client, this—"

"Tally ho, Watson! I'm off!"

"—is preposterous!"

"Mrs Hudson!"

The door slammed and I could imagine him darting off down the street like a hound on the trail while Miss Blake sobbed with renewed vigor. My shoulder ached as her tears soaked through my suit, and I wondered if I would catch cold from the chill. If I did, I had every intention of sneezing in Holmes's tea, propriety be damned.

"What an intolerable man!" Miss Blake sobbed passionately.

I looked out upon London and sighed.

"Perfectly insufferable, I assure you. Now, would you like some more tea, my dear?"

As she drank I looked out the window again and sniffed indignantly.

The beginning of a beautiful partnership indeed.