Setting a Dangerous Precedent
"No. No way in hell, Sherlock," Joan hisses flatly - she would be yelling, but with this stupid bug, her voice isn't quite up to the task.
"Watson," he says, in that over-enunciated, public-school-boy way that he gets when she's being extra plebeian and annoying. She doesn't understand how he makes her name sound so long - its all of two syllables.
"Watson, you are being ridiculous. You are obviously experiencing flu-like symptoms, along with half the God-forsaken populous, and need to be evaluated at periodic intervals in order to determine the rate at which your health is deteriorating. This should not be new information to you, seeing as you are the doctor, but I am attempting to be overly-solicitous in deference to your - no doubt - addled state."
"You're still not getting anywhere near me with that thing," she refuses point blank, flopping back down into her pillow-mountain and burying herself in goose-down and satin. Its almost worth feeling like death for the moments of decadent indulgence she allows herself.
Sherlock does that lip twist - the one with the nose-wrinkle, which means "You are infuriating, why do I put up with you?", not the one with the eye-twitch, which means "I hate everything because the world is stupid", which is much more serious - and plops himself down at the edge of her bed, surprising Joan. No one in the world would believe her if she said that Sherlock has boundaries, and for good reason. He has no qualms about sitting in her room while she sleeps - or about being in her room at all, really. He has on more than one occasion entered the bathroom while she is using the shower. He considers clothing optional, and shares far too much about his sexual proclivities for Joan's peace of mind.
Even so, he treats the things that are unequivocally hers - her glasses, her red cardigan, her bed - with the kind of deference one usually gives to sleeping babies and bombs. She tested it once, during one of their slow periods, when all Sherlock had to work on was a cold case from Ukraine and a lost diamond. She tossed her sweater over the file he had spread on the couch cushions, seemingly by accident, and then slunk into the dining room to sip a mug of tea and 'read' one of her medical journals.
She watched for hours as Sherlock minced around the sweater, tugging the edges of his papers out from under tentatively, and staring at it as though he could read the notes and see the pictures with the force of his x-ray vision, before finally daring to nudge it with the very tip of one finger. He stalks away from it like an angry cat, and circles it restlessly. She finally takes pity on him, going to re-collect her sweater. Joan stays and lets him talk over the case (read: insult her for not making the right connections fast enough) with her to make up for it.
So, this uninvited bed-sitting is unprecedented, and finally communicates to Joan's (admittedly) fever-addled brain that Sherlock is experiencing concern for her welfare. Interesting. Still, she's -
"Really, really not letting you stick that in me," Joan says again. She will keep saying it again.
"Watson, I need to take your temperature, because the most dangerous symptom of any infection is a fever, and so you must allow me to determine whether yours is severe enough to warrant a trip to A&E-"
"Emergency," she mutters into the pillow, amused by his unwitting Briticisms - it's unlike him to slip.
"So let me," he continues as though she hasn't interrupted (it's possible he didn't hear her, her voice is very weak), "Take. Your. Temperature!" He whisper-yells that last bit, and she could tell he would like to be shouting right now, but he doesn't, because it would distress her. The tingly, squishy feeling in her chest is almost enough to convince her to do whatever he would like, except…
"I know what you did to that thermometer, Holmes. Let me say again, it is not getting anywhere near me."
Sherlock sighs, bitterly aggrieved, so massively misunderstood. "I sanitized it, Watson, I assure you, it's perfectly safe."
"You last used it to determine the temperature of fecal matter for one of your experiments. I don't care how much you washed it, it's soul has been sullied, and it's not going in me."
He sets the offensive object aside so that he can flail his arms with suitable melodrama. "Watson, you are being deliberately infuriating! You would not stand for these sorts of protestations were I in your position, nor would I even voice them in the first place! You are being needlessly belligerent, and I will not stand for it! You will allow me to-"
Sherlock blusters on, as though she's the least bit intimidated by the ultimatum he's delivering. Joan allows him his small delusions. Eventually, however, his long-windedness begins to exceed even her infinite patience - she really would like to be asleep now. She has to convince him to leave first though, because she doesn't trust him not to stick her with the defiled thermometer as she sleeps in order to assuage his fears.
"Oh, for God's sake!" she finally shouts, surging up out of her nest in a shower of blankets and tangled hair. She seizes Sherlock's face, tugging him towards her, but with the momentum of both her leap and his flailing, and her currently-abysmal balance, their collision course ends up slightly off center - she'd meant to touch his lips with her forehead. Not, perhaps, the most scientifically precise method of measuring her temperature, but hopefully enough that Sherlock will consent to leave her to die in peace once he's ascertained that her brain is not in immediate danger of melting out her ears.
Instead of the innocent, entirely platonic, meeting of lips and forehead, however, Joan somehow manages to mash their mouths together, and, well. Sherlock's got a very nice mouth, and it's still slightly parted from his interrupted diatribe, and she doesn't feel the least bit guilty about making him sick as punishment for even suggesting that thermometer continue to serve its God-given purpose. She sweeps her tongue out delicately, tasting the soft inner curve of his lower lip. Sherlock makes a broken sort of sound into her mouth, but remains frozen. Joan dares to intrude just a little further, nothing more than the gentlest, inquisitive touch of the very tip of her tongue to his before curling back, this time tasting the edge of his upper lip. He's gasping rather harshly, sharp breaths painting her cheekbones, and she grins, unbelievably smug. One last journey, this time circling the tip of her tongue around the tip of his, drawing the muscle helplessly out of his mouth, until it is just pillowed against the swell of her lower lip-
And then she pulls away. This is really not the kind of relationship she and Sherlock have, and it isn't nice of her to ambush him like this, it's just… He's got a very nice mouth, and this isn't the first time she'd wondered if making out would make him shut up.
He pulls back further to stare at her, and she feels a blush she can't entirely blame on her fever crawling up her neck. She should probably apologize for her appalling imposition of boundaries - boundaries are important, she likes boundaries, she has composed monologues to rival Sherlock's on the subject of boundaries - but all the half-sentences spiraling through her brain make it sound like she didn't like kissing Sherlock (she did), that kissing Sherlock is a bad idea (in context: yes; in perpetuity: not at all), that it was a mistake (yes, but not the kind he'll assume it was). Joan knows better than anyone that Sherlock has feelings to hurt, and nothing brings out the mama bear in her like someone threatening to stomp all over those feelings, even herself.
So she settles for blushing furiously and fidgeting; Sherlock will read her anxiety as 'I made a mistake, woops', and her lack-of-apology as 'I'm kind of glad I did'. The idea of verbalizing either of those thoughts is mortifying.
Sherlock stares at her, wide-eyed and adorable, and Joan's heart throbs, because of-freaking-course Sherlock is using the kicked-puppy eyes on her right now. Again, he almost succeeds in guilting her into accepting the desecrated thing into her body, but Joan holds firm.
"Just, please, give me your hands?" she finally sighs, extending her own for him to place his in. When he does, she lifts both, one to her forehead, and one to his. "Warmer than you?" she asks softly. He nods silently. She shifts both of their hands to their stomachs, maneuvering the one on hers underneath her shirt, and waiting until he follows suit. "Still warmer?"
He swallows a bit thickly. "Yes, but not by much."
"And my hands?" she asks finally, pulling his hands away from bellies, but not releasing his wrists just yet. He swallows again.
"Significantly warmer than mine, but they always are." His voice is very husky, and if Joan were healthy, she would be all over him like white on rice.
"Then I'm not worried," she whispers, smiling at him, holding his gaze, and hands, until he nods. She lets him go, lying back down.
Sherlock clears his throat, and rises, shuffling around a bit, but never moving farther than three feet from her bed, clearly unwilling to leave her vicinity. This doesn't surprise Joan either - the more unwell she is, the more gravity she exerts on Sherlock. She hates shortening his tether, but she can't in good conscience banish him from her sight.
Joan invites him to sit, and Sherlock does (but in his chair).
Joan invites him to stay, and can only hope that Sherlock does, because she is asleep almost immediately.
In fact, she will look back on the entire thing after her fever breaks, and wonder if she really woke up at all.