John goes straight up to his room.
How odd.
He never does that.
He is also never found lying limp across his bed over the duvet with a crumpled wad of paper in his clenching right fist and his left arm draped over his eyes. The shuddery sounds of his breath are all wrong, too.
He's been strange for more than a month now. He fatigues easily. He doesn't sleep well. He doesn't eat well either.
There have been the random appointments that leave him smelling of disinfectant and iodine. Some days have John coming home from work late for no apparent reason. John hasn't been on a date in 3 and ½ weeks.
Sherlock cannot wait any longer to puzzle it out. John has been frustratingly cryptic and unusually good at hiding what exactly may be going on.
"John?" There is more that Sherlock wants to say, but this, even to him, smacks of needing a more delicate touch. The sort of touch Sherlock is pretty sure he cannot provide. The thought of his own inadequacies causes a twinge of, well, something he hasn't a name for, but is shoved aside because there isn't time to think of that now.
"John?" He vacillates in the doorway, afraid to go in.
"Sherlock." The tone is even. Flat, really.
"Something is wrong."
The answering laugh is more of a humourless bark. "Brilliant deduction."
Sherlock can see just enough of the print on the crumpled bit of paper in John's hand to know it's a lab report. The first real clue in all this mess! He needs to read it, but instead he merely says, "You're ill." It's the only explanation for all of the facts.
"Very ill." John's face creases into a pained grimace that was clearly supposed to be a smile. Sherlock doesn't have to see his eyes to know that their edges don't crinkle in the way they should for a smile. "Don't worry. I'm not going to inconvenience you with it. I just have to give Harry a ring first. I'll be out of your hair within the week. Sorry about the rent."
Despite knowing that John isn't nearly as clever as he is and only marginally more clever than other people, Sherlock doesn't understand how John could make such an error in logic. Leaving 221B doesn't make sense; even Sherlock's care has to be better than a drunk's. He just has to convince John of that. "I'm not inconvenienced by your illness."
That was not what he intended to say.
"I know. I'll ring Harry when I've got what I'm going to say down."
His frustration makes him brusque, "No need. What do you have?" He finds his memory is sorely lacking. It gives him nothing to base a diagnosis on. This is why he needs John. John knows things he doesn't.
"Cancer. Lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin's. Stage 4b." The recital ends with a resigned sigh.
Something else he doesn't know.
"Is there a Stage 5?" He hopes that the first thing his gut has ever known is wrong.
John's giggle is hysterical and sharp. It hurts Sherlock's ears. "Yeah, death."
Sherlock's mind whirs. Clicks. Spins. It comes up with nothing to say other than 'how long', but the air is trapped in his lungs and he doesn't say it. He cannot bear thinking it. He tries to delete it.
The silence seems to clue John in. He sits up and his face takes on a soft reassuring look. "It's not as bad as it sounds. Just a bit of self-pity. Non-Hodgkin's is very treatable. Nice regular growth cycle, so chemo works. Works well."
Wrong. Again.
Sherlock should be the reassuring one.
Oh, this is why John thinks he should leave.
"You don't have to leave. You can stay here. Harry's can't be safe."
John makes no response to that, but pushes himself up off the bed. "I need a cuppa and then I'll deal with Harry. Want one?"
"No." Sherlock, again, needs to say more but doesn't trust his own mouth. It's all his mind can handle to take the step backwards out of the door way to let John pass. Though, it can process that John is back to his upright, shoulders-back posture. The brave soldier is the man who walks evenly down the stairs, a different man than the one who walked up those same steps earlier.
The sounds of John turning the tap to fill the kettle and gathering mugs out of the cupboard float into the living room as Sherlock flops without his usual dramatic grace into what is now his chair. They both started off as his chairs, but he finds he cannot resent John's claim on the one nearest the kitchen. John belongs there. Here.
The rattle of a spoon in a mug draws Sherlock's attention back to the kitchen and, suddenly, John is back in the doorway walking to his chair. Now is the time for finding out exactly what John thinks he needs. Later, he'll research what John will, invariably, neglect to ask for.
"Chemo works?"
A small huff of not-laughter escapes John. "Yeah, non-Hodgkin's has a 14 day cycle, so as long as we get the right day for its mitosis phase, we just might win."
"Might?" Damn. That was hard to say around the lump in his throat.
"Nothing's certain in medicine. Or life for that matter. Didn't even know I was at risk." John lifts his hips to stick his hand down in his pocket to retrieve his phone. "I guess I can't put this off much longer. I'm sure that it won't get easier to say."
Then something unexpected happens as Sherlock starts to shift out of his chair, John catches Sherlock's eye for the first time since he tried to reassure him earlier. Sherlock doesn't know what it means, but it pins him in his chair. He can't leave the room as he intended because even he knows that you should give a man his privacy to break bad news to his sister.
The easing of the muscles in John's forehead when he nods that yes, he'll stay doesn't make sense.
"Harry. Hey, I—" John pauses.
"Oh, that's great to hear. I—"
After that, it's clear that John is just listening to a story. He smiles and nods and hums at the appropriate times, but doesn't actually add anything. Then, it's over.
"Hey, Harry, I'm glad we talked. I love you." John smiles softly and Sherlock can even hear it in his voice. "Good to hear. 'Bye."
John drops his phone in his lap where it bounces once into the crease between his hip and the arm of the chair. A wry smile shapes John's mouth as he says to himself and maybe a little bit to Sherlock, "Well, that went well."
"You can stay here. Harry's isn't your only option."
If he was a betting man, he'd say that Harry told John about new-found sobriety and/or a new-found girl. He doesn't really care which, but he is going to use this to keep John where he belongs.
"Harry's isn't really an option at the moment, anyway. I'll just contact the SPVA tomorrow; I'm sure they have services available or know who I should see."
"You're staying here. Stop ignoring the fact that you live here." It comes out harsh and John's forehead crinkles as his eyebrows rise in surprise.
"I can't stay here, Sherlock." His voice is gentle. "Having a cancer patient mucking around here will interfere with your work."
"You're an important part of my work." It's true, but it's not really the whole truth.
"Still can't stay. I have lymphoma." John pauses like that's supposed to mean something to Sherlock, but before he can figure it out, John sighs and says, "My immune system will be heavily compromised and this flat is somewhat of a biohazard on a good day."
Oh. "Well, I could tidy in here a bit." A quick scan and Sherlock has a plan for that dust on the mantle.
John's tone is faintly amused. "It has to be a bit more sterile than that."
"Hmm, what?" That amusement pulls Sherlock out of his plan to finagle Mrs Hudson into doing the actual work because cleaning is boring. He replays the conversation in his head and can't remember saying anything remotely funny.
"You tricking Mrs Hudson into dusting in here won't be enough." John's eye contact with him breaks off to stare at something above Sherlock's left shoulder. "I won't be able to eat in a kitchen with a mould spore experiment on the counter or out of a fridge with dead human bits in various stages of decomposition in it." Now he's looking at the floor and he seems to be shrinking with each admission. "I won't be able to drink out of cup that may or may not have had body fluids in it last."
Sherlock waves away John's objections to their flat with a sweep of his right hand. "Is that all? All my experiments can be successfully run at Bart's."
There is a full out giggle at that. Sometimes, Sherlock thinks John does completely ridiculous things on purpose. It's almost as if he knows that the enigma of who he really is frustrates and fascinates Sherlock. John's voice breaks through his worry that he's as transparent to John as everyone else is to him.
"D'you think you could handle that? And for how long? You're like a kid with ADD. You'd forget within the first week, swipe something from Molly and haul it home."
"You should know better than to give Lestrade's assertion that I'm a child any weight. I'm a fully adult male who can handle it as long as it is necessary." The tone came out sounding more wounded than Sherlock liked to hear in his own voice.
"I don't think you're a child. I just think you've had your own way too often. Besides, you hardly know what you're trying to sign up for."
"Because you won't tell me."
"Right now, the estimate is 16 rounds of a 14 day cycle of chemo and however long it takes for my immune system to recover."
Sherlock does the math in his head. 8 months. 32 weeks. 224 days. "How long is recovery?"
John slumps back into his chair, the weight of numbers that he cannot stand to calculate press him back. "It depends on what condition I'm in when chemo starts, how well I take care of myself during, complications and what not. But it's in the two to four months range."
10 months. 40 weeks. 280 days. If it goes well, which it should. John's in good condition and he'll get the best care imaginable; Sherlock will make sure of it. "I can do that." He knows he can.
John's surprised. One sandy brow is up and his blue stare is focused on Sherlock in some confusion. "Yes, well, it isn't the sort of thing you do for a flatmate, anyway."
"You would do it for me." How stupid does John think he is? No one as close to being a hero as John is could kill a man for a friend and then later abandon him when he was ill.
"Sorry. What?"
"You would do it for me."
Once John really listens to what Sherlock said, it draws a grin across his mouth. "Wouldn't have much chance of it. Your brother would sweep you away into the confines of some private hospital somewhere, with the best medical care healthcare money can buy. He'd probably get you your own private doctor. Doubt he'd let you languish on the NHS, relying on me to take care of you."
Horrid thought. "You're my doctor. He can't do that."
"I'm afraid I would think he should, Sherlock. My specialities are trauma and general remedial care. Not internal medicine or long-term care. And since when am I your doctor?"
Sherlock leaps out of his chair to scoop up his outerwear. "Dinner at Angelo's." As he sweeps his coat over his shoulders and hooks his scarf around his neck, he stops to stare at John. "Now. You'll feel better after you eat."
GOOGLE SEARCH: non-hodgkin's lymphoma staging
./health/Lymphoma-Non-Hodgkin%
Stage 1 - the lymphoma is confined to one group of lymph nodes only.
Stage 2 - the lymphoma affects two or more groups of lymph nodes. However, they are all on the same side of the diaphragm.
Stage 3 - the lymphoma affects nodes on both sides of the diaphragm.
Stage 4 - the lymphoma affects parts of the body outside of the lymphatic system.
Each stage is also divided into A or B. A means that you do not have symptoms of night sweats, fevers or weight loss. B means that you do have one or more of these symptoms. So, for example, if you have Stage 2B, it means that you have two or more groups of lymph nodes affected, but both are either above or below the diaphragm, and you also have one or more of night sweats, fevers or weight loss.