Chapter 9
He had offered to stay up with Sherlock and keep him company while the detective did, whatever he usually did in the dead of the night.
The other man waved him off absently.
John was relieved though, because the stress of the day was starting to catch up with him, and he was swaying on his feet. Fifteen minutes later John had pulled on his pyjamas and was gratefully turning over the covers, when he heard an odd strangled noise through the door he had left open, just in case.
Instinctively he froze in midair to listen and sure enough, soft bare footfalls pattered across the floor coming closer and closer. John dropped his pillow as he hastily moved to the bedroom door, where he almost collided with a speeding Sherlock in the process.
'What happened?' he asked sharply; grabbing the young man by the biceps to keep him still and in one place. Had Sherlock remembered something else?
Because of the violence they encountered in their line of work, John had no trouble imagining that another memory flash without context could be quite scary. Sherlock did look quite upset but after a moment, a familiar mask of haughty indifference descended over his features.
'You want to talk about it?' John inquired more gently this time, as he released his tight grip. Sherlock walked into his room and looked around, carefully keeping his back to him.
In the meantime John sat on the edge of his bed, waiting patiently.
'Your room is quite small,' Sherlock commented oddly, still not turning around. Clearly he was going for the let's-talk-about-this-maybe-never approach.
The doctor looked around his space absently, 'I am content. You pay the bigger share of the rent in any case.'
The silence stretched on and John sighed quietly, 'You can trust me, you know.'
'Can I?' Sherlock hissed unexpectedly into the gloom.
'You already do!' John replied so insistently, that it made Sherlock turn his head slightly to look over his shoulder in surprise.
'Something startled you and the first thing you do is come to me,' the doctor explained as he touched his chest with his fingers, 'You trust me in your heart, even if you don't remember how to do so in your head.'
Sherlock seemed to consider this and eventually he turned all the way around. 'Perhaps it's me you don't trust?'
John frowned at such an absurd notion.'What are you going on about?'
The young man picked up a hairbrush and pretended to examine it. 'Should I speak plainly?'
'You always do,' John remarked softly but he was startled when the detective suddenly pointed the hairbrush at him.
'Then I ask you this,' Sherlock shouted, 'is it coincidence that my flatmate is a doctor?!'
Totally ignoring his aggressive manner, John gently guided the brush out his face, 'You will have to tell me when you come back to yourself. Being a doctor is not something I can separate from my person, but I am your friend first, and your doctor second. Actually, I am not your doctor at all, even though everyone thinks that I am.'
Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
'Well of course I take care of you when you have a headache, or a tummy upset,' John added on, carefully making his verbal way forward as Sherlock didn't react, 'and over the last couple of months I have accumulated a file.'
Sherlock stepped closer and John picked up his phone to open the encrypted document. The detective then sat on the edge of the bed as he anxiously scrolled through the file.
'Who is Dr. Thompson?' he asked.
'He is the doctor that I have selected, if you ever have to go into emergency.'
Sherlock raised an inquiring eyebrow.
'You decided to go with my selection, instead of your brother's.'
'No, you misunderstand, ' Sherlock interjected,'why another doctor? why don't you do it, if we are friends?'
John scooted backwards and lounged against the wall to think. 'It's dangerous, Sherlock. In an emergency, you need a doctor who is cool and objective. If something happened to you that meant you had to go to the hospital, I would be a mess. It is better this way.'
'I would prefer you,' Sherlock said stubbornly but quietly as John's voice cracked under the strain, betraying how the conversation was affecting him. 'And now that I know about the vile Dr. Thompson waiting to poke around my innards, I realise that I am glad that you are a doctor.'
'Sherlock, what brought this on? Where are you going with this?'
The detective proceeded to scroll through the rest of his unofficial medical file in silence, before he closed it off. 'Only one paragraph on my drug usage.'
There was no way Sherlock could mistake the way John flinched suddenly, given that they were sitting on the same bed, 'I found some paraphernalia in my underwear drawer; syringes and the like.'
The detective bowed his head and looked down despairingly at the palms of his hands, 'I have made a mess of things, haven't I? It's a wonder you stay with me.'
With a compassionate sigh, John crept closer and looped a supportive arm across the man's shoulders, 'You should have said something right away. You're not using, not since we have been together. It's alright.'
Sherlock nodded his head and sucked in a huge gulp of air trying to calm himself. God, what a relief!
'You're a bit addicted to nicotine patches in a way I don't like,' John continued, rubbing soothing circles across his back, 'but its not too bad. At least you don't drink.'
Now it was John's turn to look down sadly at his hands.
Sherlock's eyes cut sideways to his face, as John's voice trailed off in embarrassment. Either the doctor had or has a drinking problem, one that was he heartily ashamed of. Now Sherlock felt like a heel for being so self centered and uncaring. They were both a mess in some way or the other.
He reached over and took John's hand, squeezing it supportively in the silence.
