I don't own BBC Sherlock, they are the creative works of Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and of course the wonderful Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
This is my first time in writing Sherlock Fanfiction, so I do hope that you will be kind to me as I make my way and learn the ropes of the characters that are Sherlock Holmes, Dr John H Watson and those that join them on their many cases and adventures through the streets of London.
No Pain, No Gain
Chapter Eleven
John woke up slowly after a few hours of sleep, he looked around the room, and couldn't help as he shivered violently, moving towards something warm. He blearily looked around towards the warmth and saw Sherlock relining on the bed with him, reading. He puzzle for a few moment, wondering what the other was doing there, and remembered that the other said he wouldn't have chance to go to his own room, John guessed this would be why he wouldn't.
"Boys!" came a call as someone walked into the flat.
"In my room Mrs Hudson," Sherlock called back as he smiled down to John for a small moment, and then looked to the door.
"Hello, I brought you both some lunch, nothing to heavy for you though John," she smiled softly as she walked in with a full tray of food for the both of them.
Sherlock helped John sit up and said to her, "Thank you Mrs Hudson, I don't know what we would do with out you," causing her to blush a little at the praise. He then looked over to John and told him, "There is some water on the side along with some paracetamol, take them."
John nodded a little dumbly as he reached over to them and took the tablets, taking a nice long drink of the water while he could. Mrs Hudson looked him over and sighed softly as she settled the tray onto the bedside table and straightened the blankets out over him.
"There," she said softly as she put the tray on John's lap, before taking one of the plates off it, and handing it over to Sherlock, "Now, eat up and I'll being dinner up later on." She told them, and then left the room, leaving the to eat in silence.
John felt a little better with something in his stomach, "Why are you on the bed?" he asked as he added, "I thought you would have gone back tot he living room."
"I can't watch over you from in there, I need to be able to be with you to make sure you don't need anything," was his simple answer as he ate the turkey salad sandwich, looking forward to eating the scone that Mrs Hudson had added to his place. She knew that he loved her scones, and would bake them for him whenever she had the chance to.
"I can call you if I need something," John told him with a slight shake of his head.
"I might not have heard you from in there," he said as he looked to him and then carried on eating. "You have a slight sore throat, and I can tell that the level of your voice has gone down a little." He added as he watched John eat slowly.
They could hear as Mrs Hudson cleaning up around the flat as they ate. Twenty minutes later she was back in the room, taking the places and tray away as she said softly, "I want to check your temperature John," she gave him a look as son as he opened his mouth to protests, "No arguments, I want to make sure it's not too high."
"Okay," he gave in, knowing that he would have to, he could already see the look of hurt and disappointment starting to form in her warm eyes as soon as he had opened his mouth to protest. John didn't want to do anything that would upset the motherly woman.
She smiled and nodded her head, as she quickly left the room, and then returned a few minutes later. She put the thermometer into his mouth and waited for it to beep, she pulled it out and read it, saying, "It's a little high, 38.8°C," she told him as she could see the questioning look n his face.
"Okay, a low grade fever," he nodded, it wasn't that high to worry about, as long as they kept it like hat, "Thank you for checking Mrs Hudson, and that you for lunch as well, it was loverly." He smiled to her warmly.
"You're welcome," she smiled back as she then told him, "now you lay back down," he did as he was told and settled back down, as he saw Sherlock watching him intently. He frowned as he wondered what the other was thinking this time. Mrs Hudson smoothed the blanket down once again and said, "There, now you get some rest dear, Sherlock you make sure you watch over him."
Sherlock nodded to her and said, "Of course."
She nodded and smiled to them once more as she left the room. John looked up to Sherlock and shook his head a little, knowing that Sherlock wont be leaving him along anytime soon. Sherlock picked up his book and began to read again, ignoring the look that John was sending his way. He was about to say something when John's phone began to ring. He reached over him and picked it up, thinking to himself that he should have put it on silence and left it in the living room. He sighed a little when he saw the name.
"It's your sister," he said as he handed it over to the ill man.
"Hello Harry," he said softly as he answered the phone as soon as he took it from Sherlock.
"Hello Johnny," Harry almost yelled into the phone, the doctor could tell that she was already drink, and a quick glance at the clock in his room told him that it was only two in the afternoon.
"What do you want?" he asked, giving a small cough as he wondered what she wanted this time.
"Can't I talk to my little brother these days?" she asked him, her voice taking on a bitter tone as she did so.
"Of course you can, but you know I don't like talking to you when you are drunk." He sighed a little as he closed his eyes, he really didn't want to deal with her at all at the moment.
"What, my perfect little brother, wanting nothing to do with his loving sister. Typical of you isn't it." She said scornfully as she snorted down the line.
"It has nothing to do with that, all you want one again is to talk and pick a fight, as you always do when you're drink. It's your life, you need to decide what to do with I, and as far as I, and I have no doubt, other can see is that you drink it away," he told her, his voice going hard.
"Well, at least I'm not a washed up old soldier and doctor that can't even get a proper job," she snored as she added, "Washed up, used and nothing to do anymore since you've been shot, liming around like a cripple." Her mean words cutting John like a knife.
"Harry…" he said as he couldn't think of anything to say his heart frozen at the tone of voice that his own sister was using, he tried again to say something, only for his words to be taken away when he started coughing. He rolled over onto his side, barely keeping a hold of the phone in his hands, he could hear his sister as she called him a cripple once again.
Sherlock could see the hurt look on his friends face and snatched the phone from his limp hands, "Once again the sister knowns nothing of what she speaks." He said to the woman on the line, easily keeping John's hand from reaching for the phone.
"Wat would you know," she snorted as she added, "As soon as he's finished dying tell me."
"At this moment, John is ill, so please don't call again, and stop spreading your self-loathing as nor one needs, or even wants to hear it." Sherlock said as he looked to John who was still coughing, he reached over and started to rub his back, hoping to help, and feeling a little lost on what he should do, "You need to sober up. You constantly pick fights with John, when ever you drink and feel sorry for yourself, and you only have yourself to blame. Your drinking is a crutch, and I know all about that. You need to grow up and find out what is important, your drinking or actually living a life that is worth something. Because as far as I can see you do nothing but drink yourself into a stupor each day and rant to John about how you are better," he added as John finished coughing and reached a little weakly for the phone. Sherlock held it out of reach as he shook his head and then said to Harry, "you need to get over yourself, because there is no one out there that is better than John, and you have no right to even think of his as a lesser being, he is more than you will ever be." And with those last words he hung up the phone to the sputtering of Harry.
"You shouldn't have done that," John wheezed as he lay on his side looking up to his friend.
"She calls you up for one reason, and that is to try and make you feel as though you are worthless, and I know that she made you feel like that," he told him as he looked down to him.
"And how did you figure that out?" he asked, wondering what it was hat gave him away. He knew that his friend was no doubt watching him and deducing him all the time, even though he had told him not to on more than one occasion.
"Your limp returns a little, just enough to put off your normal stride. You tense up and remain that way for most of the day, your hand also tends to shake a little more that it normally does, even wile we are on a case or in a high stress situation, where normally it would fade away." Sherlock deduced as he looked o his friend, his voice was soft and warm, instead of its normally harsh quality when h was deducing something, "you shouldn't have to put up with the abuse that she hurls at you," he added quietly.
"She's the only family I have left Sherlock, and while I don't like the choices she has made in her life. I still care about her and want her to do better with her life." He said softly as he winded at what Sherlock had told him. He knew that he limped a little after one of Harry's drunk rants to hi, how she had often called him a cripple since he came back from Afghanistan, he had ignored them and her as much as he could.
"She needs to group up ad you know that John. It's time for her to take responsibility for herself. You have helped her get sober on a number of occasions, including a few months ago, and here she is once again calling you drunk, you help and she throws it back at you and blames you once again for something that she has done to herself. I do know what it is like John, and at one point I was as low as she was and I did my best to keep clean, and I still fight it day in and day out. But she had just given up on everything. And I know how hard it can be to admit that you need help. I didn't want help, I refused Mycroft's help over and over again. It was Lestrade that helped me in the end, and I wont put his efforts of getting me clean to waste again." He told him, his voice strong and sure as he spoke of things he normally avoided.
"Lestrade helped you?" he asked, curiously. Sherlock had never told him what had gotten him clean, and what had made him stay that way, he wasn't one to talk and John wasn't one to ask.
"Yes, he did," Sherlock nodded slightly, still holding John's phone. "It was one of the most hardest things I have even done in my life," he began quietly, "and it will always be there in the back of my mind, even now, five years after becoming clean." He told him softly, "She needs to take over now, you've done all you can to help her, she just doesn't want to help herself. She has to admit to herself first that she needs help, and only then will you be able to help her." He spoke firmly, knowledge in his eyes of what he was talking about.
"I know, I know that she needs to try and do something herself, but…" John tailed off as he struggled to sit up and leaned tiredly against the head-board. "I've always done my best, had to. Mum died when I was 16, and then dad passed away a few months before I join up, Harry fell apart and drank even more," he said softly, "I was the only one let and I tried. I got her into rehab a few times, but each time she would come out and go straight back to the booze, and then her and Clara would start fighting and I would have them call me when I was on leave. And when I was on tour, they would leave messages for me all the time. I just didn't know how to help, or what I could do. She asked for help, and I'd do what ever I could from where I was and then she would go right back to it when it was over." He sighed, giving a small cough, thankful that he didn't start coughing like he had done moments before.
"I know you think I shouldn't have said anything, but I will say this. It needed to be said, because one of these days I can see you getting a call and it wont be a nice one." He told him as he stood up from the bed, "You're just too kind, you help everyone that you can, no matter who they are." He said a soft smile on his face, "I think that is what truly intrigues me about you," he walked around the bed and made John lay down once again, "get some sleep John, rest and I will wake you when dinner arrives."
"Sherlock…" John frowned as the other shook his head. He lay back and relaxed as best as he could, as he thought of his elder sister and her drinking habits. He was worried about what Sherlock had told him, and he had often panicked when he got a call in the middle of the night, hoping that it was is sister and not someone else to tell him bad news and that something had happened to her. It was something he didn't wish to think about, though in the end he often found he thought just that. He slowly closed his eyes as he heard Sherlock leave the room, closing the door a little behind him.
Thank you all for the reviews, I'm happy that you are all enjoying this so far.
