Yes, this is yet another Fragile Ficlet. I can't get enough of them. This one's a bit longer than last, it will have two chapters. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1: Broken
Sherlock was well aware of the lasting discomfort in his right forearm, and had been for quite a while. With everything else that had gone on during the last leg of his hospital stay, it was easy to ignore. But now that he was home and not in immediate danger of dying, the ache was much more noticeable. He didn't know for sure what caused it, but he assumed it was somehow related to the loss of his fingers. He was forced to use his hand differently than before, and maybe that stressed the muscles and tendons in his forearm. At least, that's what he chose to conclude.
Maybe he should've told John about it, but it just didn't seem necessary. The pain didn't inhibit him from going about his daily life, and sometimes it was barely even noticeable. It never occurred to him that it could be a sign of something more until one day at Baker Street. Stupidly, he tripped over a book he'd left in the floor and was forced to put his hands out to stop himself from falling flat on his face. The instant his palm met the floor, a jolt of pain shot through his right arm, resonating all the way up to his shoulder. A small scream escaped his lips and he cradled the offending arm against his chest.
Of course, John heard his outburst and came running into the room in full combat mode. He knelt down in front of Sherlock, who now had his eyes scrunched closed to quell the agony, and immediately asked him what was wrong.
"Sherlock? Are you okay? Did you fall?" John asked, attempting to look the detective in the eye.
Through the pain, Sherlock managed to stutter, "Tripped. Right arm. Hurts." John gently coaxed him to release the limb so he could look at it. He didn't notice anything immediately alarming, just a slight swelling, but he wasn't an orthopedist. He knew it should probably be x-rayed to check for a break. "Never this painful before," John heard Sherlock mutter. The comment piqued his interest; Sherlock had just hinted at a chronic issue he'd been hiding from John.
"Sherlock, what do you mean before? Has it been hurting a long time?"
"Never like this," the detective grunted. "Just an ache."
"And you didn't think to tell me about it until it had you rolling on the floor in anguish?"
"Thought it was just… b'cause of the fingers. Was bearable."
"God, you are an idiot sometimes," John shook his head and helped Sherlock to his feet. "We're going to get that x-rayed." He grabbed Sherlock's left hand and attempted to lead him towards the front door, but Sherlock stolidly planted his feet.
"Don't wanna go," he whined.
"That's too bad, because we're going. This cannot go unaddressed." Sherlock reluctantly followed, but he made it very clear how much he didn't want to go for the entirety of the ride to hospital. If John so much as tried to start a conversation, he was met with sullen silence. John had a sneaking suspicion as to what was going on with Sherlock's forearm, but he desperately wanted to be wrong. The last thing his poor friend needed was another injury.
When they reached the hospital, John asked for Dr. Janssen. He wasn't an orthopedist, but Sherlock had actually seemed to like him as his doctor, and John wanted this experience to go as smoothly as possible. Janssen hadn't seen Sherlock since the pneumonia instance a few months ago, and he appeared somewhat dejected to learn his patient had yet another complication requiring him to return to his care.
"How have you been, Mr. Holmes?" Dr. Janssen asked. Sherlock shrugged and refused to meet his gaze. John figured he was somewhat embarrassed to have landed himself back here so soon. "That good, huh? Well, I'm going to get Dr. Daniels in here to take a look at you, is that okay? She's the orthopedist who took care of you last time." Sherlock didn't answer, just continued to stare at the ground as if it contained the answers to the universe. Dr. Janssen nodded curtly at John and left them be.
"Sherlock, why are you acting like this?" John inquired. "I know it sucks to be back here, but you can't just tune everything out."
"Watch me," the detective countered. However, his retort lacked its usual venom. He just sounded defeated, and ignoring everything going on around him was his last display of control.
John knelt down in front of Sherlock and attempted to look him in the eye. "Sherlock, talk to me. Why are you determined to zone out?"
"I don't wanna be here. I don't want something else wrong with me on top of everything else."
"Unfortunately, you can't help that. But if you don't get treatment, it'll only get worse, then you'll really feel horrid."
"I just… I wish things would stop going wrong," Sherlock admitted. "I wish I could at least pretend to be healthy for a little while, but the complications just won't stop."
"Sherlock, I know it's hard and it seems like it's never going to improve, but I promise you it will. You will eventually break out of this cycle."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're too stubborn to let yourself fall permanently into a rut like that. Anderson will singlehandedly solve a case before you let yourself get stuck." This remark earned a brief chortle, and their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Daniels. Sherlock vaguely remembered her from the incident in the bathroom over a year ago. That time, he hadn't even been able to feel his arm at all during her examination, and he was not looking forward to another one with pain included.
"Hello," she greeted. "Do you remember me at all, Mr. Holmes?" Sherlock nodded meekly. "So, you've been having trouble with this arm again?" she asked, moving forward for a closer look at his injured limb. Sherlock nodded again, and John offered a verbal explanation.
"He told me it's been aching for a long time. He had to use the arm to break a fall earlier this morning, and that spiked his pain."
"Is this true, Mr. Holmes?" Dr. Daniels inquired. Another nod. She gently picked up the arm and felt around for the source of the problem. When she reached a spot about halfway up his forearm, Sherlock yelped and involuntarily tried to pull away. Dr. Daniels frowned and continued up to his elbow. Fortunately, she encountered no more sensitive areas. John hated seeing Sherlock in pain, and he was glad when she put the limb down. "We won't know for sure until we get an x-ray, but I think this is just the previous break having failed to heal properly. His body was under a lot of stress while simultaneously trying to piece the bone back together; it may have failed to do a proper job of it."
John was somewhat shocked that this had been allowed to happen. So many doctors and nurses had been in and out while Sherlock was in hospital, and none of them realized his broken arm hadn't properly healed itself? He'd been so distracted by the radiation, chemo, and infection that John barely even remembered how long the cast had stayed on before they sawed it off. Well, in the doctors' defense, there had been more life-threatening issues to address. He'd much rather Sherlock lived with a broken arm than died with an intact one.
Soon after, Sherlock was taken to have the arm x-rayed down in the radiology department. John asked if he should come with, but Sherlock insisted he stay behind. Even though he knew it was nothing serious, John couldn't help but worry until Sherlock was returned to him in one piece. Dr. Daniels returned with the x-rays and displayed them on the viewing box. The problem was obvious even to John: a complete fracture of his ulna. Sherlock could obviously see it too, and he almost seemed to shrink a few inches.
"I think it was kept mostly aligned for a while, which is why it didn't cause you too much pain, but when you fell it jarred the severed ends back out of place," Daniels explained.
"What do we do?" John asked.
"I think our best bet is an open reduction internal fixation. We want that bone back in line as soon as possible, and there's a good chance it wouldn't heal on its own if we just casted it, since the two ends have been apart so long." John knew this wasn't necessarily good news. He'd hoped it could be fixed without an invasive procedure—for Sherlock's sake—but he knew Dr. Daniels wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't the best option. He looked at Sherlock to gauge his reaction to this announcement. The detective had shrunk into himself even more, if that were possible. John hadn't seen him this vulnerable since he'd lain in a hospital bed on the edge of death. He knew it was a terrifying proposition; Sherlock hadn't even wanted to come for an x-ray, and now he found out he needed surgery.
"Sherlock, did you hear her?" John asked. When the detective didn't respond, John repeated, "Sherlock?"
"Yeah," the detective muttered resignedly.
"If the schedule allows, I'd like to fit you in this afternoon," Dr. Daniels announced.
"Okay," Sherlock sighed, his voice barely audible. With that, the orthopedist left the room. John turned to Sherlock and saw utter defeat reflected in his drawn features. John took his good hand and gave it a squeeze to reassure him.
"Hey, it'll be okay. Over and done with before you know it."
"I don't wanna," Sherlock stated, finally looking John in the eye. Those piercing blue-green eyes started right through John, and he could barely resist the temptation to give in and bustle him back home where he'd be safe.
"I know you don't, but you have to. You can't go the rest of your life with a broken arm."
"I don't… I can't." Sherlock clenched his eyes shut and shook his head back and forth. "I hate going under."
"I know. This whole situation sucks, but you can't go in utterly hopeless, or you'll come out even worse."
"Of course I'll come out worse; no amount of hope will change that."
"Fair enough. But sometimes we need to get worse before we get better."
"I don't need better. I was fine before, I could deal with the pain."
"Yes, until you stumbled. It was only a matter of time. Once you get it fixed, it'll start to improve. Might even make your hand function better."
"As if this hand could ever do anything useful anymore," Sherlock grumbled, running his fingers over the scarred stumps. "All it ever does is hurt and fail me."
"Which is exactly what your arm's been doing. Maybe you can't fix your fingers, but this can be improved. Will you please let them help you?"
Sherlock pondered this for a moment before deciding that he'd do it for John's sake. If anything was worse than subjecting himself to another procedure, it was letting John down. If he wanted him to do it, he'd do it. Finally, he consented: "Alright."
~0~
Not long afterwards, an increasingly nervous Sherlock had been admitted to the hospital and scheduled for surgery. Of course he'd skipped breakfast this morning, even though John had told him not to, so there was no concern for aspiration under general anesthesia. John sat beside him, haunted by the all-too-familiar sight of his best friend in a hospital bed.
Sherlock sat up straight, too high-strung with nerves to even consider lying down. He glanced over at John, knowing the doctor would refuse to leave the hospital until after Sherlock came through the other side. A part of him wanted John to go home and stop worrying about him, but another part (the selfish part) desperately wanted him to stay until it was all over. On previous occasions, John had been the first person he saw after waking up, and it was immensely comforting. Even the times he'd been returned from the operating theater in a coma, he knew John had been there. If their situations were reversed, Sherlock didn't think he could handle the emotional strain.
As the clock ticked ever onward, his anxiety levels skyrocketed. He really didn't want to go through with this, but John had insisted, and Sherlock didn't want to disobey John. The doctor could evidently sense Sherlock's distress, and he approached the bed to calm him down. He grabbed Sherlock's left hand and entwined his fingers with Sherlock's, moving his thumb in gentle circles across the back of his hand. They remained like that until people arrived to move Sherlock to the OR. Reluctantly, John relinquished his grasp and watched helplessly as his best friend was carted away.
"See you soon," he said. John wished he could sleep through the whole thing like Sherlock got to, but anxiety would not allow him any shuteye until he saw Sherlock again in one piece. There were too many variables involved in any operation to allow him any sense of ease. He resigned himself to a long, stressful couple of hours ahead.
~0~
Sherlock wished he requested John come with him, at least until he passed out. His left hand felt cold and empty without John's rough grasp around it, and he felt desperately alone. So alone, he almost spoke up and asked they go and fetch John, but he managed to control himself. How disappointed would John be to learn he wasn't even mature enough to handle a simple surgery without someone holding his hand the entire time? He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was ahead.
Every fiber of his being wanted to leap off the table and run away, never to look back. The only thing keeping him there was a sense of duty to John; he promised him he'd go through with this. Despite this promise, he couldn't fend off the primal instinct that made him fight the breathing mask they attempted to put on him. He turned his head so violently his neck hurt.
"Mr. Holmes," the anesthesiologist addressed him. "You're going to have to cooperate." Instead, Sherlock started to panic. He felt like a caged animal about to be euthanized. In a way, it made sense that people would want to put him out of his misery. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Next thing he knew, two strong hands gripped either side of his head, pinning him in place. Something about them reminded him of John's hands. As his eyelids began to droop heavily, thoughts of the doctor swirled around in his head. Just before he lost consciousness, he heard John's voice reassuring him everything was going to be alright. And then everything was black.
~0~
John was hurled back in time to Sherlock's first surgery at this hospital. He'd sat in the waiting room with Mycroft while someone shaved his best friend's head and drilled a hole in his skull. He remembered pacing back and forth until he was dizzy and nauseous while Mycroft deduced the other patrons. With nothing else to quell his nerves, he stood and began pacing again. Five paces, turn. Five paces, turn. Five paces, turn. So what if he looked like a maniac? He felt manic. His best friend was in surgery yet again for a problem John should have noticed earlier. If it truly had never healed in the first place, that meant Sherlock's arm had been chronically broken for a year and John had been none the wiser.
He'd thought his sense had improved enough to tell when something was bothering Sherlock, but obviously the man was a good enough actor to fool John. But why he felt like he needed to conceal his pain was a mystery to John. Sherlock was entitled to be miserable—he had cancer, for God's sake—yet he still found it necessary to put on a brave face. Why? John had already seen him at rock bottom, so he shouldn't be embarrassed to admit he was suffering.
Possibly he was just trying to shield John from his own misery, ensure John didn't worry excessively. It was a noble gesture, but John would much prefer if he just allowed himself to be taken care of. John wanted him to be okay, he didn't want to watch him suffer and attempt to hide it with varying degrees of success. The arm had John totally fooled until today, but there were countless other things that bothered Sherlock that John had successfully identified and attempted to fix.
The first time Sherlock had been allowed to shower after the head wound healed, John expected him to return refreshed and content. He'd been deprived of the simple pleasure for a very long time, waiting for the skin to strengthen enough to withstand pouring water. As soon as he was cleared, Sherlock was immensely excited to finally get properly clean. However, that first time, he came out from the bathroom in his pyjamas looking absolutely dejected. At the first opportunity, John went into the shower and poured all of Sherlock's expensive shampoos down the drain, tossing the empty bottles in the trash. He was a little daunted by how many different things Sherlock had actually used. Apparently, he used to spend a lot more time on his hair than John would ever consider doing with his own. Afterwards, all that remained was one lone bottle for John. The next time Sherlock finished a shower, John watched his expression closely and detected the faintest hint of gratitude and contentment. Sherlock obviously deduced that it had been John to fix the issue.
Another example was the thermostat incident. Ever since they moved in together, the temperature at 221B Baker Street had barely been adjusted a single degree. But starting not too long ago, John would wake up every morning drenched in sweat, only to find someone had raised the temperature to nearly sweltering. Each time, he turned it back down to the temperature he and Sherlock had agreed on. It didn't occur to him until the fourth or fifth time that somebody in the flat clearly wanted it warmer but didn't want to say so. There were only two possible suspects: Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock, and John knew Mrs. Hudson didn't touch their thermostat. He could have kicked himself for missing something so obvious. In his defense, he'd always been hot and grumpy when he looked at the temperature, and the connection had evaded him. Once he made up his mind, John had been direct about it, approaching Sherlock and asking up front if he had a problem with climate control.
Sherlock looked down at the floor and murmured, "I'm always cold."
"That's fine, I understand that. But you could've just told me instead of surreptitiously altering the temperature in the middle of the night."
"I thought you'd be mad. You and I decided on the setting together, and it's not right to go back on an agreement." John could have punched Sherlock for being so thick.
"Circumstances change, okay? Agreements are meant to be adapted as time goes on. I'm not mad. I just want you to talk to me when something like this comes up instead of trying to handle it all by yourself."
"Okay."
"I would recommend just putting on another layer of clothing. We can up the temperature a little bit, but not so much that my room becomes the Saharan desert. Deal?"
"Deal."
Then, of course, there were the many times Sherlock had gotten sick and attempted to hide his symptoms from John. However, these were the occasions where John most easily saw through him. Try as he might, he could not hide a fever. Not just his face, but his whole head flushed red when he had a temperature. John lost count of the number of times he'd dragged a grumpy, stuffed-up detective to the hospital to be monitored. No matter how many times Sherlock was told he needed to report a fever immediately, his first instinct was always to disguise it and pretend nothing was wrong. However, a particularly nasty bout of flu had changed his mind to some degree. He only hid the small stuff nowadays. Like he hid a fucking broken arm, John thought.
John wondered how much time had elapsed while he reminisced, and glanced at the clock. It had been only an hour since they'd taken Sherlock away from him. Only one hour into an operation that usually lasted several. John could have torn his hair out in frustration. He should have requested to scrub in, just so he didn't have to face this separation anxiety. It was unbearable, wondering what exactly they were doing to his best friend in any given moment. He'd never performed orthopedic surgery, but it was a running joke that they were more like carpentry projects than medical operations. Hammers and screwdrivers along with typical scalpels and sponges.
That's all it is, John tried to reassure himself. As simple as screwing two wooden planks together. Two planks that made up a crucial part of his friend's body, that could shatter into bits if a screw was tightened too much. John forced himself to sit down and buried his face in his hands, breathing heavily. The more he thought about what was going on just a few hallways away, the more he panicked. He could do literally nothing other than theorize and cower in fear. He needed a distraction. He pulled out his phone and texted Lestrade, realizing in the same moment that he hadn't told anybody else what was going on.
"How thick is the current stack of cold cases?" John asked Lestrade. He hoped desperately that the DI would respond quickly and offer John some respite from his own brain.
"They take up a whole drawer of a filing cabinet. Why?" came Lestrade's reply.
"Sherlock's going to need the entertainment." John typed out reluctantly. He didn't want to remind himself of the situation, but the DI deserved to know why his consulting detective would be out of commission for a while.
"Why? What happened?"
"Remember that broken arm from a year or so ago? It never healed."
"What? Shouldn't they have noticed something like that?"
"Idiot decided to hide it. Until he fell this morning and messed it up even more."
"What are they going to do?"
"In surgery now. It's been about an hour."
"And you're there by yourself?"
"Yes. I'm fine." John lied. He didn't want Lestrade fretting as well.
"Like hell you are. Be there in half hour."
John couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief knowing that reinforcements were on their way. Lestrade had been an immensely comforting presence in the midst of Sherlock's battle against leukaemia. John would never forget how the DI literally talked him down from the edge of mania that first time Sherlock's heart stopped. He resumed his pacing until he heard footsteps approach him from behind. He turned around, and his expression must have revealed everything. Lestrade didn't hesitate to envelope him in a hug, which John wholeheartedly returned.
"Thank you. I didn't realize how much I needed company until you arrived," John admitted.
"Any time, mate," the DI replied, releasing John. They sat down next to each other and worried silently for a few minutes. Lestrade eventually spoke up again, "You said he hid it from you? How exactly do you hide a broken arm for a year?"
"He said it only ached a bit. He thought the pain was a result of being forced to use his hand differently. Of course it turns out to be ten times worse."
"Poor lad can't catch a break."
"It's just been one thing after another," John sighed. "I can tell he's desperate for it all to be over, but unfortunately I can't tell him when that will be, if it ever happens."
"It's a tough situation. What exactly are they doing right now to fix his arm?"
"They're connecting the two pieces of bone with a plate and screwing it in."
"Sounds painful."
"It undoubtedly will be."
"Does that stay in permanently, or will they have to go back in and take it out?"
"Most likely it'll stay there forever, unless it causes some sort of complication."
"Let's pray that doesn't happen," Lestrade said. They both knew how Sherlock would react to being told they had to go back in. It would not end well for any party involved. For the next two hours, the two men could do nothing but sit together and try not to let their imaginations run wild.
