This was surprisingly painful to write.
They were in the waiting room, and John noticed that Sherlock was tense. It didn't take a genius to know that the detective didn't want to be here.
"Mr. Holmes?" They both perked up at the nurse. "The room is ready for you." She said and pointed to one of the two doors on the right, that was open.
Sherlock sighed as he got up and went after her.
"Want me to come with you?" John asked him. Partially because he wanted to learn something new. And partly because he wanted to be moral support for his friend.
"Do whatever pleases you." Sherlock said and just kept walking. John followed in after him.
The room wasn't very big. And in the middle at the wall opposite of the door was a small, see-through plastic cabin with a stool and a pipe contraption.
Sherlock still knew the drill and went into the cabin. The nurse who was already in the room at the computer gave him a mouth piece and a nose clip.
Once she installed the mouth piece for him and he had taken place on the stool she closed the door, clicked on the computer and then told him to put on the nose clip.
"Now take the piece in your mouth and breathe normally." She told him through a microphone and John figured that there was a little amplifier in the cabin.
"Alright, there will be resistance for a few seconds but just continue to breathe normally." She told him next.
Inside the cabin, Sherlock felt ridiculous with John watching. He just followed the instructions and soon the nasty 'click!' closed something inside the contraption and he couldn't breathe in or out for around five seconds. "You're doing great." The nurse commented. Sherlock just wanted her to shut up. "Okay, resistance one more time. Just keep breathing like before."
Sherlock rolled his eyes but just kept on breathing, just to keep her happy.
"Okay, now breathe in deep fast, and then push the air back out for as long as you can."
And this was the part that Sherlock hated the most. Because the nurses always wanted him to keep going even though he didn't have any more air to breathe out, and with the nose clip he couldn't breathe unless he let go of the mouth piece and gasp for air while he ripped off the nose clip.
He still did the best to his abilities. "Come on, longer! Try again."
He mentally sighed. But he figured he didn't have much of a choice.
After the third try the nurse told him to come back out.
He had to keep the mouth piece, because they will repeat the test after he'll get asthma inducing chemicals. "You can go over to the next room." The nurse told him and went back to the computer.
Neither John nor Sherlock said a word on their short way to the other room.
This room had a scale, a measuring device on the wall, and a table stood in the middle of the room.
On the table was another machine, and it had a bag on the top, and a tube.
Another nurse came to them and asked Sherlock about his height, weight and age.
Then she asked him to take the seat on the other side of the machine - the one with the tube.
She explained that there will be chemicals filled into the bag and he'll have to breathe it in. First for 10 seconds, then 20 and then 30.
Sherlock remembers how the nurse had canceled the test after the second treatment because he couldn't catch his breath after a nasty coughing attack.
He nodded and waited for the machine to fill up the bag.
"Alright, first dose is ready." She told him. Sherlock took the end of the tube into his mouth and breathed the stuff into his lungs until the timer was at zero.
"Alright?" The nurse asked, even though the first dosage barely does anything. He nodded.
"Okay. Number two." She said and pressed a button, and the bag filled with the almost milky air.
"Okay, you can." And so he did.
Near the last five seconds he was getting the urge to cough and the second it hit zero he took the piece out of his mouth, turned away and coughed for a few moments.
"Can we continue?" The nurse asked after giving him a moment to catch his breath.
Reluctantly he nodded, and she told the computer to start up number three.
"Okay, last time." She told him and Sherlock took the tube with dread up to his face.
It hurt the second he breathed in the first time and couldn't stop himself from wincing. But he kept breathing the stuff in, even thought every fibre in his body was screaming at him to stop.
He still had four seconds left when he gave up. His lungs had had enough of the abuse and wanted to get rid of everything that didn't belong there. Though by the painful sound of it that had both John and the nurse wincing, he may as well be coughing up his insides.
"Alright, when you're ready we'll go back to the other room and once we're done you get the antidote." The nurse told him gently.
It took two minutes until he could finally stop his coughing. His lungs hurt. They burned like a blue fire was burning in them, and stabbing like a dozen of little scalpels each time he took a breath - or had air moving through them in general.
They repeated the tests from earlier, and the nurse seemed to have taken pity on him because she didn't make him repeat the last one.
The other nurse who had filled his lungs with this dreadful poison had already readied an inhaler and a middle piece for him, and all he had to do was put his mouth piece on the other end again and he finally got the medicine his lungs had been begging for the last ten minutes. He actually had to hold his nose closed and forced down the coughs that wracked his chest in painful spasms.
After the second dosage it finally opened his airways again. He threw the mouth piece in the trash in the room and they were sent back to the waiting room, to wait until the doctor was ready for them to discuss the results.
As they waited Sherlock kept sporadically coughing up the mucus that had formed and gotten loose from the medication. His hands were shaking horribly from the medicine.
John kept giving him sympathetic glances. He could completely understand why Sherlock hated going here.
As they waited, Sherlock's mind wandered back to the first time he had been here.
He was just a teen when he was having almost constant chest pains. He didn't tell anyone of his family, not until he could figure out what was wrong with him.
But after weeks of looking through medical books and searching through the internet, he came up with nothing regarding his current condition.
It all happened so quickly. It was a very hot summer day. The air was bone dry and wind-still. He was at school and had PE, or sports class, and him and the rest of the boys from his class just got back to the changing rooms, after an hour of jogging around a giant circle like path.
He was never a fan of sports, and as his lungs had started to burn and he had told his teacher, they dismissed him for just having stitches in the sides. He tried to tell them that this was a lot different, and that he was feeling like he might pass out, but his cruel teacher told him to go back to his rounds, that he was losing time standing here.
And so when they got back to their changing room, Sherlock just slumped down on the bench. Sadly he was the victim of the class' bullying, and instead of anyone asking if he was alright, or fetching the school nurse for him, they made fun of him. Most didn't care and just went about their business, spraying way too much deodorant on their bodies and some even spraying it around in the air because they were stinking everything up with their sweaty bodies.
Sherlock had no other choice than to breathe the deodorant into his spasming lungs. It only got worse. And to his horror he felt his eyes watering from the pain and desperation for actual air.
He didn't remember much after the first guys left for the next class. He remembers waking up in a hospital bed with machines hooked up to him, and a mask over most of his face.
He found that his chest was hurting him more than ever. He felt a fire burning inside of his entire chest and realized that tears were trickling down his face. To his surprise his whole family sat around him, his mother holding his hand and telling him with a gentle smile that everything will be alright.
Mycroft explained to him that he had been in biology class when it happened. Since Sherlock had a higher IQ than him - even though the elder would never admit it - Sherlock had skipped three years and so they only had four between them. He got immediately called away from his class and to the nurses office, being told that an ambulance was on its way. He stayed at his side the whole time, even though they were equally panicked. Sherlock because he was sure he was going to die, and Mycroft because he didn't want to lose his brother.
Their parents had been notified, and when they arrived at the hospital a nurse told them that they weren't sure if he would make it through the night.
But there he was, a day later and on his way to recovery.
After he was released two days later, he was sent to this specialist and had to endure these tests for the first time. But at least he had finally gotten a diagnose and his first inhalers.
Sherlock was brought back to reality when his throat was tickling him, forcing him into another coughing attack. At least he could cough up most of the mucus easily now.
"Oh you're back." John said. After Sherlock gave him a raised eyebrow, he explained "you were gone for a few minutes, like, Mind Palace gone. What were you thinking about?"
Sherlock gave a sigh. He made to speak but the first word was only a painful wheeze, followed by a few coughs. It was always so nasty. First you're in pain and then after the attacks everything is so out of control and you have to clean everything up. "First time I was here." He finally managed to say.
"I'm guessing you wouldn't have just gone to a lung specialist unless you had a very good reason, or were forced to." Sherlock smiled, John knew him so well.
"Bit of both."
"Mr Holmes?" They looked up at a big man. He wasn't wearing anything that may have indicated that he was a doctor. But Sherlock seemed to know him. Maybe he was even his doctor back then? It would make sense to be with the same doctor, after all.
They followed him into his office. The doctor asked him a bit about how his condition has been treating him - John giggled at the wording because it was just so true.
He then told them the results, and asked what his current medication is.
"I am prescribing you a stronger preventer. It should do the trick."
From that day he took a brown preventer over the whole allergy season, and Mycroft had another paper for his file that said his little brother was alive and taking care of himself.