Eventually it stopped.
John could only lie there breathing, his eyes tightly shut as he just lay. Still and unmoving. Finally.
No-one said a word.
Lestrade stared on stunned silence, his head moving slowly between his friend on the floor and the two Holmes brothers.
Sherlock had stretched himself out in the hard police-standard office chair, his fingers brought together and pointed under his chin, eyes closed as he did when thinking. When John had fallen, Sherlock had stood to help his flatmate, called his name but when no response came, he'd donated his coat to the doctor's rolling head, and, without a backwards glance, sat back down again before assuming the position he still sat in.
Mycroft had himself turned his eyes to the ceiling and stood, almost to the point of indifference, just inside the closed doorway. Without looking down from his study of the white panels, he had assertively ordered Lestrade to move chairs out the way and shift his desk away from the flaying doctor. Once this was done, he had fallen into a characteristic silence, head turned upwards and leaning on his customary black umbrella.
This had left Lestrade standing in the middle of his own office watching one man convulse and two others completely ignore it. Confused, outraged at the lack of actually action on anyone's part - including his own - and very much scared, when John had stopped, he had let out the breath he had been unknowingly holding and continued to stand, dumbstruck with relief, by his filing cabinets.
"Three?" John suddenly broke the silence, his eyes still shut, confusion plastered on his face. Mycroft impatiently clicked his umbrella once on the laminate floor.
"Eight." Sherlock replied without moving.
"Really?" John opened his eyes but didn't move from the floor.
The consulting detective didn't grace the question with a reply.
After a pause, John pushed himself upwards to his feet. Shaking himself, he purposefully stepped over to the desk where Sherlock (eyes still shut) unfurled one slender arm and pushed his cup of tea towards his flatmate. Taking a mouthful of the sugary liquid without question, John turned to the elder Holmes.
"Mycroft?" The man was obviously going to ignore his recent episode and continue with the business in Mycroft's hand.
This complete disregard shocked Lestrade out of his dumbstricken state as he found himself. "Hang on! Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?"
Three faces turned to him.
"I'm…" John's paused, his face blank.
"Nine" Sherlock counted, still facing Lestrade.
"…fine!" John finished.
"Come Doctor Watson, you don't expect us to believe that when you can't even complete the sentence." Mycroft purred.
Confusion to mirror that of Lestrade's, paused on John's face before realisation dawned.
"I'll go see a doctor as soon as I can," he said, finally resigning himself to the mercies of the medical system.
Mycroft was about to reply when Sherlock cut across him. "My dear brother has already emptied a hospital room and called an ambulance here – it should be arriving in -" he glanced at his watch before moving his glare to the said brother, "- about thirty seconds."
"Oh Sherlock, you forgot the specialist," Mycroft replied in all seriousness, while John could only laugh. Both brothers turned to stare at him with almost identical looks of bemusement, which only caused John to laugh more. The idea of him, a simple idiot, managing to bewilder these two brothers was so unlikely that he could only laugh.
Finally, John forced himself to stop if only to breathe, before managing to speak.
"Why?" he asked as he stamped his foot absently.
"For the same reason I came to talk to you today." Mycroft's cryptic reply did nothing to help John but before more could be said, three paramedics burst into the room and looked between the four men.
"Who…?" they began.
"It's him you want," Lestrade, who still didn't understanding what was going on to any degree, pointed them towards John as the three men, turned to the doctor together.
"I am fine!" John stated causing the three paramedics to pause and look questioning between John and the other three men in the room.
"You're up to at least eleven, John," Sherlock said as he stood, gathering up his coat. "This one time, I think Mycroft may just be right. If it were me, you would have had me in a hospital about two hours ago. As it is, even I think eleven is too far; especially considering the nature of some of them." If the detective's words left any doubt about John's fate, his face did not.
Resigned, John let himself be led out. Sherlock was about to follow with Lestrade, when Mycroft coughed his little official cough and without words, the elder brother gave his warning and the younger nodded in response.
The Scotland Yard detective was seeing John into the back of the ambulance when Sherlock caught up.
"What did Mycroft want?" John asked as the paramedics pushed him down onto the bed.
"Nothing much. He wanted to annoy me more than anything. If it's really important he'll find a way of telling you."
John did not respond as Sherlock silently added another count to his internal tally.
Just before they sped off, the detective watched his brother climb into his customary black car and disappear in the opposite direction.