A/N: Thank you to Phish Tacko for her help beta'ing this! Go read her stuff!

Ch. 2

At first it appeared that Sherlock was right. He seemed fine once the burns were cleaned with cool water and dressed with gauze.

For several hours he wallowed in anger, knowing that he would have a hard time getting another blood sample from the victim. John ignored him during this. He didn't feel like dealing with Sherlock's mood swings that day.

Then, around suppertime, the pain started.

Sherlock tried to hide it at first, but his silence and reluctance to eat anything soon caused John to become concerned.

"Are you alright?" John asked, as he put Sherlock's portion of their meal away for later. "Usually you like the meatloaf I make."

"…Fine," Sherlock replied. He subconsciously rested a hand on his stomach.

John noticed this quickly.

"Does your stomach hurt?"

"No," Sherlock glared at him. "As I said, I'm fine."

"But you won't eat and you're holding your stomach."

With that, Sherlock drew his hand away, mentally berating himself for not catching himself doing that.

"Stop it, John," Sherlock growled. "I'm fine. Leave it at that."

Then he stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"To my room. I need to think."

With that, Sherlock stormed out. John scratched his head, trying to figure out what was going on. Sherlock was clearly in some type of pain, but as always, he didn't want to let anyone know. Well, he figured, when it got bad enough Sherlock would have to let him in. He only hoped that the detective hadn't managed to poison himself.

00

Once in his bedroom, Sherlock closed the door. He was currently experiencing stomach cramps. He had never felt anything like it before. The best course of action, he figured, was to lie down and wait for it to pass. Surely things would be fine after he rested.

00

John stayed up late typing up a draft of a blog entry about their most recent case. It was one of the more odd ones, that was for sure. It was the one about the man who'd had a child – who'd carried a child, more accurately. Now, though, he was tired. He'd review the draft in the morning before publishing it.

As he walked towards his bedroom, he heard a noise. It stopped him in his tracks. It sounded like someone was moaning.

Actually, it sounded like Sherlock was moaning.

'Shit...' John thought to himself. Leave it to Sherlock to end up with some type of chemical poisoning because he wouldn't treat his burns properly.

Another moan sounded and John frowned. He decided to go check on his flatmate. Sherlock never complained about sickness, so whatever he was feeling must have been pretty bad.

John headed over to Sherlock's room and knocked on the door.

"Sherlock?" John called out. "You alright in there?"

There was no answer besides another moan.

Taking that as a "No, I'm not alright", John spoke up again.

"Clearly you're in pain. I'm opening the door now."

With that, he pushed the door open and walked into the room.

Sherlock was on his bed, curled up in a fetal position, eyes closed. He was moaning in agony.

"Sherlock?!" John raced to his bedside. "Sherlock, what's wrong? Where does it hurt?"

Sherlock struggled to turn to see John, but the movement was too painful. He'd never felt anything like this before in his life. It was agonizing.

Realizing that Sherlock couldn't move, John made his way to the other side of the bed.

"Sherlock, tell me what hurts."

Now that he could see the detective's face up close, it was clear that Sherlock was sweating profusely. John reached out and touched his head, feeling for a fever. His skin was cool.

"Can you talk?"

"Stomach… It hurts..." Sherlock choked out. His eyes began to water.

If Sherlock was actually crying because of pain, John knew he had to call for help. He pulled out his mobile phone and dialed 999. Just as he hung up with emergency services, Sherlock's eyes rolled back and he passed out.