Based off a post reblogged on my tumblr (themadkatter13-fanfiction).

There was an ache in John's side, like the ache he'd had when he'd taken the bullet to the shoulder. His brain felt fuzzy, and he felt overall loopy, a side-effect of the morphine coursing through his system. There was a beeping somewhere off to his side, bright lights above him, all familiar hospital surroundings. He opened his eyes slowly, letting them adjust as easy as he could to the harsh fluorescence.

"John?" He let his head loll towards the deep baritone to find a beautiful man sitting at his bedside, all dark curly hair and pale skin and sharp cheekbones and sharp grey eyes.

"Why hello there, gorgeous," he greeted with all the charm of 'Three Continents' Watson. "Am I the lucky recipient of your nursely care?" Bright pink spread across the man's face and his eyes went wide, his jaw slack. John's smile brightened at the flush. "Pretty thing like you, and you're not used to compliments. You must usually work the coma ward then. Only have to deal with patients who can't see you."

The man seemed to have no idea how to respond to him, just kept staring at him with that adorable stunned look. Good to know he still had it even after all that had happened to him. While the nurse tried to compose himself, John shifted against the reclined bedding, working on pushing himself into a sitting position. Instantly, Nurse Sexy jumped into action, long, fluttering fingers grasping his shoulders, helping him up.

"Gorgeous face and gorgeous hands? I really did luck out." Instantly, the hands released him as if burned and he might've been offended if not for the darkening blush. "What else can you do with those fingers?" he teased. "I bet they can get into all sorts of places."

"Violin," the man blurted, looking startled that he'd answered.

"Really?" John replied, interest increasing. "I've always enjoyed listening to classical music. It suits you." His nurse's mouth gaped for a moment before snapping shut with a small shake of his hand. "So, you have a girlfriend at home to play for?"

"Girlfriend? No, not really my area." Finally, a full response, more of that baritone for him to soak in.

"Oh?" Not his area... "Boyfriend then?" he prompted slowly, sly smile sliding across his face.

"Oh, um... I uhh..." John had the impression that this man was normally a great deal more intelligent with his words, and the feeling that he was flustering him this much was its own compliment. "I would consider myself married to my work but there is... there is someone..." Well, it might be a lost cause but there was always fun to be had with flirting just for the sake of flirting.

"Someone special?" he asked gently. Curiously, a sad but fond expression crosses that gorgeous face.

"Yes. But he... I don't believe I am to him what he is to me," the man admitted haltingly. John scoffed.

"With a face like yours, a bit hard to believe, that," he pointed out. Opposite to his intentions, the sad-but-fond expression lost its fondness, becoming entirely sad.

"I had believed my gender more an issue." John's mouth made a small 'o' in understanding. He himself swung every which way, something he hadn't been as open with before the military, but he knew heterosexuality was predominant in the general population, and a bit of hassle when falling in love. "Even if he were to overlook that, my personality is... difficult." He also had a decent familiarity with understatements.

"Well, how long has he stuck around for?" May as well play a bit of a matchmaker while he was at it. Everyone deserved their special someone and when John wasn't endeavouring to be that special someone, he was endeavouring to help everyone around him find that special someone.

"We were flatmates for 18 months. Then I did something... not good and... disappeared for two years. When I returned, he was engaged and I didn't know how to fix things." The sadness morphed to despair and without hesitation, John reached out to close his fingers over his nurse's and the man jumped at the contact but did not withdraw.

"Did you figure it out?" he asked softly. "Did you fix things?" Gorgeous took a deep breath, now very carefully not looking at him.

"For a time, no. Eventually he forgave me, but it wasn't quite the same: he was living with his fiancée , and then they married and she was pregnant." John sucked in a harsh breath.

"I'm sorry." Grey eyes darted up to his and Cupid's bow lips quirked in a sardonic smirk.

"She miscarried," the nurse said after a moment. "She miscarried and divorced him. She didn't blame him but he took it hard. It was difficult to watch." Offering the only comfort he could to the beautiful stranger, John silently rubbed his thumb across the back of one pale hand. "He moved back in with me and it took some time..." The pause in his voice told John that he was understating things again but he didn't comment. "We are as we were in the beginning and it is all I can ask for of him."

The machines must have kicked in an automatic shot of morphine because he was getting fuzzy again and he was having trouble staying upright.

"All I can tell you, gorgeous, is that if I were him, if you had done something truly terrible, and I still stayed with you, then I must love you something fierce." The man's face flamed back up again and John gave him a soft smile. "Now, I've enjoyed speaking with you, but morphine calls and I'm afraid I won't be awake much longer, whether I chose to be or not. If you're still on shift when I wake up again, I'll be right here if you want to talk some more, okay?"

Nurse Sexy nodded and John lifted the hand in his to press a kiss to the delicate skin on the back of it.

"It'll work out," he reassured as he dropped the hand back to the sheets. "'Night, gorgeous," he mumbled as the pain-reliever pulled him back into her sweet arms.

.oOo.

There was an ache in John's side, like the ache he'd had when he'd taken the bullet to the shoulder. His brain felt fuzzy, and he felt a lingering loopiness, a side-effect of the fading morphine in his system. There was a beeping somewhere off to his side, bright lights above him, all familiar hospital surroundings. He opened his eyes slowly, letting them adjust as easy as he could to the harsh fluorescence.

"John?" He let his head loll towards the deep baritone to find Sherlock sitting at his bedside, all dark curly hair and pale skin and sharp cheekbones and sharp grey eyes. He smiled.

"Hey, Sherlock," he rasped, throat dry. The intense look of relief over his friend's face worried him and he frowned. "What happened?"

"You were shot," came the short reply. Feeling a wave of annoyed fondness wash over him, he snorted.

"Yes, thank you, genius. Are further details perhaps forthcoming?" he prodded with a raised eyebrow. By God he loved the man but getting answers from him was like pulling teeth sometimes.

"You were pierced by a 9mm bullet on your right side. You required surgery to have it removed. You have a new liver." That's not bad. As long as he wasn't invalidated from Sherlock's work, everything would be fine. He survived being removed from his first love as a military doctor, but what he felt for Sherlock and what they did together went so far beyond that, and being excluded from it was a pain he wasn't sure he would live through.

"Oh good, I thought the last one was getting a bit old," he tried to joke. The detective just stared at him, an unreadable expression across his face. "What? What else happened?"

"You... This is not the first time you have woken," Sherlock told him haltingly and he groaned.

"Yeah, morphine will do that to a guy," he said with a grimace. "What did I say to you?" To his surprise, the detective's face turned bright red and John tilted his head curiously. For always seeing the man so composed and expressionless, in a way, this was a treat. But it was also confusing and he also wasn't answering. "Sherlock, what did I say?"

The lanky man began to fidget and then, without warning, shot forward to press his lips to John's. Too surprised to respond, John just sat there, eyes wide as the lips departed and Sherlock regained his seat, expression closed off and posture stiff. John just blinked.

"This is a mistake. I'm going home," his flatmate said suddenly, standing in a rush.

"Oh no you don't," he replied, the words and movement breaking him from his stupor. He reached out to snag the skinny wrist as it started to move away and tugged firmly, toppling the lanky git onto him and his bed. An elbow landed directly on his wound and his body seized with pain, vision going white. When everything returned, Sherlock was hovering, looking anxious.

"I'm so sorry, John," he was saying, mouth turned down in despair. John groaned and reached out to wrap around a wrist again.

"Get the fuck up here," he growled, willing the pain to recede quicker. Looking entirely unsure of himself, the taller man put one knee on the bed and then the other, perching there like some uncomfortable gargoyle. Snorting, the doctor wrapped a hand around one thigh and yanked it up and over until Sherlock was straddling him with a flaming face. "Now, you can't take a bloke by surprise like that and expect an automatic reaction." He relaxed against the reclined bedding, reaching the hand not on Sherlock's thigh to curl around the back of a pale neck, tugging gently. "Let's give that another go, yeah?"

At first, the detective resisted him, neck hard under his palm, wary grey eyes frantically searching blue. Then he was swooping down, pressing his lips against John's firmly. Slowly, gently, afraid of scaring the man away a second time, John slid the tip of his tongue through his lips to touch on the seam of Sherlock's. The detective jumped but the ex-soldier's hand on his neck was firm, allowing no give for him to move away. As soon as he got over his surprise, Sherlock's tongue returned the favour and John opened his mouth slowly, inviting his flatmate inside.

There was a pause, then a moan, and then the tip of a tongue against his lips was invading him, dominating his own mouth with curious, exploratory licks against his tongue, his teeth, his palet. Before he could remind himself to go slow, he was returning in kind, humming at the warm taste of Sherlock completely filling him. The hips over his suddenly shifted with a strange sound as Sherlock tried to pull away.

"John, erm, I don't think-" he cut off suddenly when John finally released his neck only for both hands to grasp his waist and pull down as John thrust up, grinding their swelling erections together. Sherlock cut off with a moan as his hips started to move, almost involuntarily it seemed, against the ones below him. Their frotting was frantic, edging on desperate and Sherlock's arms wrapped around his shoulders, his lips mouthing against John's neck and vibrating it with his shattered moans.

For his part, the injured man couldn't stop, could barely think with the way Sherlock's cock ground up against his, the friction of his hospital gown a strange, unanticipated bonus.

"John, John, I think I'm going to come," Sherlock whispered against his neck, the pace of his hips picking up and he moaned in response, speeding up his own hips, clutching his detective's down to him even tighter, frotting together desperately. His orgasm came up on him sharp and quick and he muffled his shout in dark curls as it washed over him, Sherlock's hips stuttering against him, his own release moaned into the skin of John's neck.

It was a lazy afterglow, the two of them collapsed in a heap against John's reclined hospital bed and John just hummed in satisfaction, raising his arms the little bit it took to wrap them around Sherlock's waist.

"So I'm going to throw a guess out there and say I said something rather nice?" he finally asked, voice teasing. Sherlock didn't answer for a long time and he tightened his arms, suddenly just a little afraid that the man would up and leave after something so intimate as that.

"You said you loved me." The heart monitor gave an angry sound as his heart skipped and then he relaxed, stroking his hand slowly up and down the back of the man he well and truly did love.

"Would you look at that. I was right for once," he replied, quietly. There was another pause from Sherlock followed by a huff of laughter against his neck that made him shiver. He didn't expect a response from the man, after all, it was sentiment, and he was beginning to feel sleepy from the lingering drugs in his system and the pain in his side and the flood of chemicals his brain had released when Sherlock finally did speak.

"I love you too," he whispered and John's arms tightened, even as he smiled.

"Good."

FIN

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