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There’s almost a laugh to his voice. “You wanted some magical adventure, for us to discover some folk legend, but nope,” John says. “Jellyfish.”
“Dammit,” Mariana sighs. “I mean, it would have been so cool.”
“Yeah… Yeah. But– hey, wait,” John begins.
“What?” Mariana asks.
“What’s that,” he says, shifting to sit up in bed, vaguely gesturing out the train window, sticking his arm out far enough so that it’s within Mariana’s view. “Out the window?”
Mariana squints, feeling herself lost on whatever John happened to be seeing without her glasses. “Where?”
“There in the distance…”
She blinks in the struggle to get her eyes to focus. “There?” Mariana points off in the distance.
John nods. “Yeah, just over there. I… Oh my goodness. It’s Hogwarts.”
“Oh, I hate you,” Mariana blurts, though there's not much bite behind it. John immediately starts laughing, leaning back in bed, shoulders shaking. She can’t help but laugh with him.
They’re on their way on the Caledonian Sleeper, another case solved and to be written down once they’re home, from Fjara, to Inverness, all the way to Baker Street. John is still processing the sheer brilliance of an overactive bloom–yes, that’s probably what a group of jellyfish is called, John finds it rather fitting–of lion’s mane jellyfish. Not only that, but he’s still spinning Sherlock’s words around in his mind. Plenty of it fell through his comprehension, all of that rambling about nitrogen, but he’s sure he’ll understand it more when he goes back to listen to his collected audio.
John is also positive he’ll be left wondering about just how much knowledge Sherlock has, as he always is. As he always has been. The mind of Sherlock Holmes is an enigma.
The mind of his detective.
Just as John is Sherlock’s doctor.
John doesn’t stop to wonder when he began considering Sherlock in that manner, or if Sherlock thinks the same way. He doesn’t need to. Things are nice as they are. He makes sure his microphone has stopped recording before setting it aside, somewhere safe.
“God, it’s gorgeous,” Mariana murmurs, interrupting John’s train of thought.
John sighs. “It really is.”
“I can’t wait to log this whole trip under a business expense,” Mariana remarks.
John groans and rolls onto his side, clutching his hands to his torso as though wounded. “Oh, God, Mariana, don’t talk about work right now.”
“But–”
“No, no, please, I’ll die, the scenery is too gorgeous,” John continues on.
Mariana laughs quietly. “We were just speaking about work a couple of hours ago,” she argues.
“Yeah, before we got in and settled into bed,” John retorts.
“Fine.” John can hear the way Mariana shifts and rolls over, and he can vividly imagine the way she crosses her arms over her chest in agitated, amused resignation, the way she always does in these little bickering sort of arguments. “Fine. Alright. Enjoy your scenery.”
“I will!” John says, through a laugh. “I absolutely will.”
A brief, comfortable silence lapses between the two of them. The two of them still left in the waking world, anyway. Sherlock is completely knocked out in the top bunk at the other end–yet still very close–of the train car. He doesn’t even have the courtesy of snoring, he’s just completely out like a light. He’s always that way after particularly taxing cases, and John knows him well enough by now to know Sherlock will be moderately cranky and slightly dazed tomorrow morning. Probably well on his way to another drug-induced coma once he can be alone in his bedroom. It makes John a little upset to know that he’ll have to wait a day or so before he can stop tiptoeing in Sherlock’s space, even though he doesn’t really have to. Sherlock might be a little more sensitive during that time, but it doesn’t stop him from enjoying John’s company.
But still. “It’s a shame Sherlock isn’t awake to see it with us,” John adds in.
“I didn’t think he was the type of person to enjoy views,” says Mariana.
John hums. “Maybe not…” He takes a deep breath, then sighs again. “He liked the jellyfish, though.”
Mariana’s smile is almost audible. “He must’ve. What were they called?”
“Wha- What were what called?”
“The jellyfish. The, um… Oh, what were they… Lion fur?”
“Lion’s mane,” John corrects.
“Lion’s mane. Lion’s mane jellyfish,” Mariana says. “Very pretty. Very bright.”
John nods in agreement, even if she can’t see it. “Mm. That would make a good episode title. The Lion’s Mane.”
Mariana huffs. “You just told me we can’t talk about work!”
“This is different!” John insists. “Yours is boring accounting business! Mine’s show business! You know, the stuff the audience actually cares about?”
Mariana aggressively rolls over, her upper bunk jostling on the frame with her movement. John can just barely see the edge of her scowling face. “Boring? I hold your show business together!”
“Still boring.”
“Shut up. I’ll die. The scenery is too pretty.” Mariana rolls over again.
“Mariana–”
“Shut. Your mouth. Stop it.”
John can’t help but laugh, trying first to muffle it in his pillow by turning his head to the side, then turning his head back to stifle it in the crook of his elbow. Mariana laughs with him after a moment.
Once they catch their breaths, silence continues on, pooling comfortably between them. The train rattling slowly fades away. The sky outside the train window has gone from bruise-colored to black in a relatively short time, and the scenery has just become a deep green and blue smear.
Nine hours to go.
Mariana rolls over again, and her breath catches. “Aww… Oh, John, you’ve got to look.”
John is shaken out of his dozing. “Wh– What am I– Sorry, what am I looking at?”
Mariana drops to a fond whisper. “Look at Sherlock. Oh my goodness.”
He sighs and scooches himself on his back, right up to the edge of his bottom bunk to be able to look up to the neighboring top bunk at the other end. The bunks have just enough space between to get out and have enough room, but if all three of them get up at once, they have to sort of awkwardly shuffle around one another.
John can’t see much of Sherlock from this angle. At least, not much more than his mess of short, inky black curls, but sure enough– he can see the way Sherlock’s arm has slid off the edge of his bunk and is now listlessly dangling down into the space of the bunk below.
It's… Okay, it's really sweet.
John undercuts the sight anyway with a grimace. “He's gonna lose circulation like that.”
“How is such a wild man such a peaceful sleeper?” Mariana asks, through a soft laugh.
“The world may never know,” John responds, raising his brows just slightly. He waits a couple more moments, just to see if Sherlock will pull his arm back up on his own, before John sighs and quietly gets up.
John leans to the side just a bit, trying to figure how he should position himself to move Sherlock's arm without jostling him too much. “I wonder if I can just–” He taps the back of Sherlock's wrist, and the detective doesn't stir at all. His arm only budges enough to gently swing.
Dead weight.
John reaches up and gently puts one hand on Sherlock's bicep, and his other lowers to place against Sherlock’s hand for extra stability.
Sherlock unconsciously grips John's hand like some sort of affectionate reflex. John stops dead in his tracks.
Sherlock’s pulse can faintly be felt. That steady, peaceful metronome. His skin is sleep-warm, a contrast to how cold he usually feels to the touch.
“Aww…” Mariana cooes again, a higher pitch this time. Even John has to huff and smile fondly.
John carefully wiggles out of Sherlock's gentle grasp and folds his delicate fingers into a loose fist, before pushing Sherlock's arm up and setting it back up into his bunk.
John checks one last time to make sure he hasn't stirred, before stepping backwards and crawling back under the blankets in his own bunk.
“You're so gentle with each other,” Mariana comments. “You have a good, um. Rapport.”
“I wasn't being gentle, I was being normal,” John claims.
Mariana huffs a laugh. “That looked very gentle.”
John shushes her.
“Sherlock has his ear defenders on, he can't hear us–!”
“Shhh!”
“Okay, okay, fine,” Mariana sighs, then gives a great yawn. “It's… It's bedtime. I'm tired.”
“You go ahead,” John says, smiling a bit. “Goodnight, Mariana.”
“Goodnight, John.”
And so, they drift off.
Though, John may never get over that unconscious little reflex of Sherlock's.
Not until morning, anyway.