John found the bottle of pills on the kitchen counter the next morning. Apparently Sherlock no longer felt the need to hide them in his room.

He took note of the doctor's name, knowing that he was going to be looking into all aspects of Sherlock's treatment, despite what the man himself may say.

Speaking of the man, he was perched on the couch in classic thinking position, bandage on his hand still in place.

He had managed to get himself changed at least, into pyjamas and his housecoat, which John counted as a success. Often, he'd forget that he was wearing dirty clothes, or even worse, would forget he wasn't wearing anything else at all.

"Got printouts of my lab results for you," he muttered.

Startled, John looked up at him. "What?"

Sherlock cracked open an eye and looked at John. "My lab results," he enunciated. "I got printouts for you. Figured you'd want to see them. Start a file or something." He gestured towards one of the stacks of books, and sure enough, John could make out lab values.

"Oh, yeah. Thanks."

Sherlock closed his eyes again, replacing his fingers under his chin.

"So how did Lestrade find out?" John asked conversationally.

Sherlock groaned. "Really?"

"Either you can tell me, or I'll ask him."

Sherlock huffed, but rolled onto his side to face John, who had taken a seat in his armchair.

"So what was this... unfortunate way?" John asked, when it seemed like Sherlock wasn't going to say anything.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Any way of him finding out would be unfortunate," he huffed.

John levelled a glare at him.

Sherlock sighed, and continued. "As you know, I did use drugs for a period of time."

"Did you use a dirty needle?" John offered, not wanting to think of the other option. Most infections were acquired through sex, and considering Sherlock's addiction, John didn't want to consider what that meant.

Sherlock glared at him. "It wasn't an infected needle. I made sure I only used clean needles." He shook his head. "No, it was later. I had an open wound... Some junkie bled all over me. He was the one who was using dirty needles, not me. Never."

He sighed. "I went into the acute stage three weeks later, ended up in hospital. When you combine acute retroviral syndrome, withdrawal, malnutrition, and dehydration, it's really not a pleasant time."

John shivered. "I can imagine." He'd seen all of those, but only one at a time, and to have them all at the same time... he could hardly imagine what Sherlock must have felt. "Where does Lestrade come into this?"

Sherlock scowled. "He was the one who found me and hauled me into A&E. When they found out I was positive, they had to make sure he hadn't come in to contact with any sources of infection. He hadn't, by the way," Sherlock added.

"Of course, I'd already deduced his marriage was falling apart, that the suspect he was looking for was a young female, not an older male, and that he'd already met Mycroft, who advised him against coming to see me."

He paused.

"Of course, he didn't listen." He smirked. "I helped him solve two more cases that day. Then he invited me to crime scenes. He didn't care about my status. It wasn't going to hurt anyone. So of course he knows."

"Nobody else?" John asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sherlock frowned, and ticked people off on his fingers. "Mycroft, Lestrade, you. Nope. If anyone else knows I've deleted them."

John shrugged. "Alright."

It was probably for the best. Even with increased public awareness, HIV and AIDS were still heavily stigmatized, and Sherlock really didn't need any more reasons for people to poke fun at him.

Being an arrogant know-it-all, or as he preferred to call it, 'the world's only consulting detective' was enough.

"You will tell me though, won't you?"

Sherlock frowned. "Tell you what?"

"If you're ever not well. If you're sick. If your counts change, or your doctor decides to change your meds or something."

"Well, I'm not going to do the last two."

John frowned. "Why not?"

"If you want to know you can come to the appointments," Sherlock replied flippantly.

John smiled. "Only if you want me to."

"If it means I won't have to regurgitate everything afterwards, then yes."

He resumed his position, and closed his eyes, indicating the conversation was well and truly over for the time being.

John gathered the lab results and headed upstairs to make a file.