It hadn't been a great surprise, really. I mean, he was a doctor, after all, he was more than capable of recognising the symptoms of Corticobasal Degeneration. It was the shock, he found, that hit him the hardest. Of course, he'd had his suspicions, but CBD was rare, especially for someone his age, he'd have thought it wouldn't have hit for at least ten more years, but fate, it seemed, had chosen for it to be this way. He couldn't escape. Trapped. In his own body.
Sherlock knew. Of course he bloody did, he never missed a trick. At least it saved John the trouble of explaining it to him. And that, he assured himself, was the reason he had ran staright to that familiar black door with the slightly askew doorknocker straight after he had recieved the news. Common sense dictated he should tell Mary first, she was his wife, and pregnant, at that, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to face her. He knew it was a pointless venture, seeking comfort in the cold hearted detective, but he was his best friend, and despite his attempts to make himself believe otherwise, Baker Street was his home.
It hadn't been a great surprise, really. I mean, he was John, after all. He sought out danger the way Sherlock had once sought after drugs. He had not yet fully gotten over Mary's betrayal. It was only natural that he return to Baker Street. That didn't stop Sherlock from jumping slightly when the door creaked open, and those labored footsteps that were so inherently John thudded across the carpet.
They didn't speak. They had no need. The truth was well known to both of them, and hung, unspoken in the air between the two men, now standing, facing eachother, before the fireplace. John felt the need to explain why he was there, but Sherlock shocked him into silence when he pulled the shorter man in for a brief hug. John almost laughed at the awkward expression on Sherlock's face as he pulled away, looking knowingly into John's eyes, before shuffling away to his room.
The didn't mention it. Three days passed the way they had before everything got so complicated. Sherlock would throw tantrums, almost blow up the kitchen with his ridiculous experiments, and walk all over the furtniture, and John would make tea, and blog and tell Sherlock when he did something a bit not good. But Sherlock had seen the way his hand was not so steady as once it had been, the way he took particular care climbing the stairs.
And it scared him. He had often awoke as a child, crying and afraid, from dreams of something like this ever happening to him. The thought of losing his ability to move, to speak, to deduce... Even his memory... He had so often fretted that he would lose that brilliant mind of his, but only now did he realise that there was one thing in all of the world he treasured more than his own mind; the mind of John Watson. A mind that never once judged him, never once feared him. That man's mind. Though it could not deduce, that mind outshined Sherlock's in far more brilliant ways than mere knowledge. In the end, what was it all for? All the things Sherlock had learned, memorised, stored away? It was nothing. Data. Pointless data that couldn't save John's mind, or his life. Just the thought of John, lying in a hospital bed, unable to move, to speak... Would he recognise Sherlock? Would he recognise her?
It was on the fourth day that John decided to return to Mary. She had been oddly calm about his staying at 221B, but he didn't like to push it, and was more than eager to escape the silence.
No, that wasn't it- it wasn't the silence that bothered him. It was the way they both tiptoed around the subject. More than all else, it was the cursory glances from Sherlock. Like the one he was giving him now. Why did he look at him like that? For a brief second, he swear he caught something in that gaze. Sadness? No, pity. Pity. Sherlock Holmes, outcast that he was, pitied John. Sherlock had never looked at him like that before. He'd been the only person who didn't give him that damned look when they saw his cane, or heard about his shoulder. And now, there he was, looking at him like he was some kind of charity case. Well, screw his pity, he was Captain John Hamish Watson, of the British Army, and you can bet your ass he wasn't about to take that sitting down.
"What?" He said, his outburst breaking the silence.
"Yes, John?" Sherlock turned to face him, that damned look still in his eyes, his voice too polite.
"Why the hell do you keep looking at me like that?!"
Sherlock looked confused. (Now that was a first) "Like what?"
"All bloody gooey-eyed and 'Isn't he brave?'. Like you fucking pity me. And don't even tell me you don't because I've seen it! On more than one occasion! Will you just stop? I'm not some fragile little snowflake, Sherlock! I'm not gonna fucking break! I'm ill, that's all. I'm not any different than I was before. You were the only one after the... You never..." John bit his tongue, his voice threatening to betray him. "I'm me, Sherlock. I'm still me." His voice broke.
Sherlock looked down. "I never said that you weren't." And with that, he slunk off to his room.
'Bloody brilliant, now I'm the bad guy'. John sighed, snatched his coat from it's perch on the sofa and stormed out onto the dreary London street.