The men awoke at seven the next morning. John, who was a morning person, cautiously rolled out of bed and put the kettle on, while he let Sherlock have an extra fifteen minutes to prepare himself for the day.
"John, you're not supposed to be out of bed until tomorrow. Come back," Sherlock, in his half-asleep state, muttered into his pillow.
"Sherlock, come here," John beckoned.
"No, you come here." Sherlock insisted.
"Sherlock, you want to see this." John said sternly.
Sherlock begrudgingly left bed, and wrapped himself in the bed sheet for warmth. John had been interrupted by whatever this important thing was and had not yet found his dressing gown, and was stark naked, standing as though he were interrogating someone, by one of the surprisingly clean (thanks, Mrs Hudson) coffee tables. Other than being de-cluttered, it appeared perfectly normal. Over on the other side of the room, on Sherlock's favourite chair was his coat, with a note scrawled on top, in messy handwriting – 'Call me when you get this – Lestrade'. 'Excellent.' Sherlock thought to himself.

"Sherlock!" John shouted at the other man's inherent casual inspection of less important things.
"John, don't shout; you'll hurt your ribs. What is it?" Sherlock inquired tensely.
"Well come and have a bloody look." John raised his voice.
Sherlock could see John's bounding pulse at the base of his throat. It was far too fast.
"John, what is it?" Consulting Detective Sherlock asked.
"A letter. To you." John anxiously pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows, just as he did when he expected something of Sherlock.
As Sherlock read down the letter, his face turned from harsh and intellectual, to showing his vulnerability.
"John, did you read this?" Sherlock almost whispered.
"Of course I bloody well didn't! It's a federal offence to read another person's mail." John stressed.
"Technically this isn't mail, and you yourself admitted that this was suspicious." Sherlock mused absent mindedly.
"I never admitted… What?" John was getting irritated.
"Surely you can feel your own heart trying to forcibly liberate itself from your chest, John. Now, please get back into bed and calm down." Sherlock stared his shorter counterpart in the eye. John didn't move.
"You've got the sodding bed sheet, Sherlock." John retorted and self-consciously crossed his arms. Sherlock untangled himself from it and handed it to John.
"Now you've got the bed sheet, I'm cold, and somehow we're still in this predicament." Sherlock stated.
John remained unmoving and tried to stare Sherlock down, so a nude Sherlock went behind John and placed one hand on John's shoulder, and one lovingly on his elbow, and steered him back to bed.
"Come on." Sherlock said as he gently pushed John in bed, and tucked him in. Sherlock placed the letter (where'd he put that? John thought to himself) on the bedside table and he lay with his head on John's chest. Sherlock hadn't realised how anxious he was to hear John's heart until he finally placed his head on John's chest, in which case, Sherlock's body released a great swell of relief and comfort which came as a surge of endorphins , which stared like a firework blooming out from inside his chest and saturating even the furthest parts of his body. This feeling was intoxicating. This was worth living for. This was that which Sherlock would have to chase.

John's heart began to decrease in rate as the men simply lay breathing.
"Sherlock, I want to see the note." John said softly. Sherlock rolled over and fetched the note from where he left it and handed it to John. John's face fell further the more he read.
"Sher, we can't, I, what are we going to do?" John muttered softly. "Default font and margin settings for the latest version of, well, the world's most popular word processing program, precise wording, but in little detail, so probably a male… Well of course it's a male; we've met him." John continued abruptly.
"I've taught you well, it seems." Sherlock's offhand comment caused John to look up at the taller man.
"When the man I love is threatened, there is no room for error, no time for delay and certainly nothing on this god forsaken planet that can stop me, Sherlock." John said darkly.
"You needn't stress, John; we'll handle this like we do every other case." Sherlock said.
"You mean in a way that puts your life in danger? We've done nothing and we're already there! I won't let you be so bloody reckless with your life this time, Sherlock. I can't handle losing you again." John became enraged.
"John, I literally felt your heart stop bloody well beating. You died in my arms, and it terrifies me that I will lose you again. I could exist without you, but by no means would I want to, nor would it be any semblance of a life." Sherlock revealed, shocked by his own candid confession of vulnerability.
"Well, let's get this sorted, shall we?" John asked in reference to the letter.
"Later," Sherlock harrumphed as he curled up, once again with his head on John's chest.

The men spent their time silently exploring the endless possibilities of whom, where, and why behind the occurrences, but one thing was clear – whomever it was, was there that night, when they shot John; they had something to do with this.

John fell asleep. Sherlock's head rose with every breath the stout man took, which rather than calming him as usual, it caused Sherlock to panic, that John would simply stop and that there'd be nothing Sherlock could do, which triggered Sherlock to consider seeking comfort in some of his 'old acquaintances'. Sherlock carefully rolled off the bed, and wrapped the doona a bit tighter around John as to not arouse him. He hoped John would be free of nightmares in his nap. He pulled on a shirt, pants, a scarf, but no coat – he felt naked without it – but of course, Lestrade. He retrieved his coat and drove out to the industrial district. He didn't return to Baker Street for several hours, but when he did, he was several thousand pounds out of pocket, and he didn't mind in the slightest.

"Sherlock, where have you been? John and I have been worried sick!" Mrs Hudson fussed over him. He always adored Mrs Hudson – she put up with him and his antics, and she knew he and John were destined for each other before they did, and she made a cup of tea to rival even John's. She was also sharp, and trustworthy. She had previously assisted in cases, where she had been held hostage in her own home, and she had triumphed against her captors. Mrs Hudson was a brilliant human being, Sherlock decided.
"I'm fine, Mrs Hudson, I assure you." Sherlock insisted. "I'm great, actually, haven't felt this good in a long while. Anyway, John and I have a case to which we had better attend, and you know John, he probably won't get too far by himself. Bye!" Sherlock ranted as he started to jog upstairs, but he was stopped. Mrs Hudson had gripped his arm firmly.
"I know, Sherlock. I've known you long enough. Don't let John see you this way; it'll break his heart." She implored.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mrs Hudson," Sherlock began casually. As he turned to go up the stairs, John stood on the landing, in one of his grandpa jumpers; a most forlorn expression clouded his face. Sherlock jogged up the stairs, past John, who didn't move out of his road, and into their apartment. He opened John's laptop and started to compile data related to the letter, before John burst in.
"Sherlock, come here." John spat angrily.
"What? No. I'm busy working on solving the letter. I'll solve it by this afternoon and we can go to the pictures or dinner or something, alright, John? Excellent." Sherlock replied. John had little patience for such nonsense, and so he pulled Sherlock away from the laptop, sat him down on the edge of their bed, and he pulled out his mostly dormant 'doctory things' as Sherlock had called them on occasion.
"Sherlock, take off your coat, please." John instructed sternly.
Sherlock's gaze fell various places around the room before settling on John. He didn't remove his coat, and out of irritation and defiance, he started reciting the Periodic Table of Elements, as loud as he could.
"Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron," Sherlock began. "How thoroughly uninteresting this is. If I take off my coat, can I go back to doing my job?" He bellowed.
"Perhaps." John bellowed back. It was so unlike John, it caught Sherlock's attention. John pulled Sherlock up to standing, removed the coat himself, placed it out of Sherlock's reach and sat him back down, and John kneeled in front of him.
"John, I have little time for games at this point, if you don't mind. If I wasn't fine, I'd still be in hospital, you're being ridiculous." Sherlock said in a monotone voice.
"Sherlock, look at me." John said. Sherlock did not comply. "Look at me." John bellowed. Sherlock did comply the second time around.
"What?" He spat at John.
"Your pupils are dilated, you can't hold attention, you're speaking nonsense and you're speaking it very quickly. Have you had any hallucinations? Auditory? Visual?" John reeled off rather quickly. John didn't need to feel Sherlock's pulse, as it was clearly visible at the base of his throat. He pulled out a blood pressure cuff, and dug around in his case for the rest of the sphygmomanometer.
"What? I'm not high, John, I gave that up long ago! Don't be absurd!" Sherlock said as John wrapped the cuff around his arm. He found his stethoscope – "Of course you measure it manually, John. So predictable." Sherlock interrupted. John inflated the cuff, and placed the stethoscope over Sherlock's brachial artery.
"Shit. Sherlock, we need to get you to a hospital. Now." John said as he dragged the cocaine addled man out of their apartment, which is when it occurred to John that he couldn't drive.
"You're a doctor John, one who basically specialised in trauma. Can't you invent something here to fix me?" Sherlock asked.
"I'm not a bloody chemist, Sherlock. Shit, I'm calling Lestrade." John said as he pulled his phone out.

Lestrade arrived at Baker Street only seconds before the ambulance did. Sherlock was loaded in as John followed and kept shouting numbers and details about Sherlock's health to the ambulance staff. Lestrade jumped in the ambulance alongside John. As an EMT began to protest, he flashed his badge and was permitted to ride along. Upon reaching the hospital, Lestrade and John were left to their own devices while Sherlock was taken to the ICU. John marched into one of the waiting rooms with Greg in tow.
"Oh, fuck Sherlock, and fuck the last week or so, and fuck his fucking habit, which hasn't actually been a habit in three whole fucking years! He was clean! What the fuck was he thinking? John started to self-destruct rather quickly.
"John, maybe-" Greg began before John cut him off.
"Don't tell me to calm down! I'm not unreasonably angry!"
"I know, but maybe we should take our yelling outside." Greg gestured to a family on the other side of the room that John hadn't noticed, who after the doctor in scrubs stopped talking, started to wail inconsolably.

Greg led John outside, where it had started to rain gently. The afternoon sky was cloudy, and still bright, emitting a gorgeous atmospheric glow across the otherwise plain surroundings. John started pacing and shouting indiscriminately. Greg leaned against a concrete wall, lit a cigarette and watched John decompress. His gait demonstrated his history with military service, and it spontaneously occurred to Greg that he'd never seen John's face relax; John's brow was perpetually furrowed, even in sleep.

"John, do you need anything?" Greg asked as he dropped his cigarette and stood on it to put it out. John stopped pacing suddenly, took a deep breath and marched up to Lestrade. John grasped his face, kissed him on the cheek and he gaze ferociously into Greg's eyes.
"You've done so much for the both of us, not only throughout this whole ordeal, but throughout everything. You're part of my family, Greg, and I don't know how to thank you." John confessed.
"Family doesn't keep 'I owe you's on family, John." Greg smiled. "Now let's go see Sherlock."

By the time Greg and John found Sherlock's room, Sherlock was in a hospital gown, surrounded by cooling blankets and he was drenched in sweat.
"He's fine. He's just on the verge of an overdose – he hasn't done this in a while, right? – and you were right to bring him in." Doctor Wittner said as she shook John's hand.
"Exactly what drugs did you give him?" John asked as he searched for a chart.
"First, we sedated him with diazepam, which also helped lower his heart rate and blood pressure; we gave him Labetalol, started as 20 milligrams over two minutes, with additional doses of 40 milligrams, which as you can see, have effectively lowered his blood pressure to a safer level. We need him to cool down, hence the cooling blankets. He's coming down, and all we can do now is monitor him. He'll be fine in a few hours." Wittner finished.
John pulled up a chair next to Sherlock's bed and grasped his hand with both of his own. Greg thanked Doctor Wittner who left the men to their devices.

"Sherlock Holmes, I need you to live, for starters. I need you to be clean, I need you to be okay in every way possible, I need you to be, well, you." John was whispering with his lips pressed against the back of Sherlock's hand. His eyes were closed, of course his brow creased; it was almost as though he were praying. Greg, feeling as though he was intruding on a very personal exchange, silently left the room. Completely forgetting about the letter, John remained stationed at Sherlock's side, while the cooling blankets were gradually taken away, while his blood pressure normalised, and until he came to.

"John, I-" Sherlock began. He felt so guilty; the look on John's face betrayed the myriad of emotions he was feeling. Sherlock could read John like a book; a warm, fuzzy, loving, kind, perfect, smart, intoxicating, simply glorious book. Of all the things John was feeling, disappointment was one of the more evident ones, colouring his face a shade that didn't sit well, in Sherlock's mind.

"Sherlock, why?" John asked darkly.
"Everything was; I couldn't, just…" Sherlock began.
"Okay, we're talking about this later." John inhaled deeply, pursed his lips, as he often did. "I love you, Sherlock Holmes."
"I love you too, Doctor John Hamish Watson." Sherlock squeezed John's hand. John removed his jacket and one of his shirts, leaving his horizontally striped crew neck visible (one of Sherlock's favourites) and he collapsed the bed rail and climbed onto the bed with Sherlock. He rested his head on the centre of Sherlock's chest for a short while, with Sherlock's now at homeostasis heart a great comfort to John, before snuggling into his usual place on his shoulder and falling asleep.