"Save the poetry for when I'm better," he manages, though it's becoming more difficult to speak as sleep is starting to take him, and he draws a slow breath, feeling some tension leak out as he exhales. The heaviness of his eyelids is pressing in on him again.

"Read," he murmurs, more of a mumble, and he doesn't really care what Watson says so long as he keeps talking. As he slips into sleep, the dreams are still there, are still twisted, full of soldiers and foggy streets and snakes, slithering around alleys. But Watson's voice is solid, through it all, and Holmes isn't alone through the dreams.