Sherlock was taking the 'healthy eating is the key' aspect of the situation far too seriously.
There was no junk food in the entire flat. No biscuits, no ice cream, no booze, nothing. John wants his bacon and tatties and pancakes and food. What he gets is decaf tea, egg whites – bloody egg whites! – and plain oatmeal.
"Research says changing your diet can help," Sherlock explains to him levelly.
John fights the urge to shout at him because, in his own strange way, Sherlock is trying to help. "Not…really that hungry, thanks," he says instead.
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say.
Sherlock is out of his chair and around the table in the blink of an eye. "Are you alright?" he asks, pressing a hand against John's good shoulder. "Are there any other symptoms?"
"What the hell are you on about?"
"You lost your appetite," he tells him. "Before you…fell."
John lets out a small huff of laughter and places his hand on top of Sherlock's. A small jolt of electricity shoots through his arm and skitters its way down his spine. He looks up at his friend and sees that wild eyed calculating look cross his face. He felt it too.
John clears his throat. "I'm fine, Sherlock. Just…trying to get used to all this, you know?"
Sherlock pulls his hand away and John watches him retreat to the other side of the flat. He wants to say something. He really does, but the words turn to tar in his mouth and his tongue becomes heavy.
What would he say, anyway? 'Don't worry, mate. I'm not planning on stuffing it just yet.' Or maybe 'You were fine without me before. You'll be fine when I'm gone.' Or he could tell the truth and say 'I'm afraid, Sherlock. I'm so, so very afraid.'
The violin strikes up a funeral dirge.
John heads off to surgery
The staff treats him like he's made of glass. Sarah takes all the difficult patients and saddles him with snotty three year olds and abdominal pain cases.
They (the staff) think he's back too soon but what can he do? There are no cases and, therefore, no other means of income beyond his own. It would be a fine fix indeed if Mrs. Hudson had to put them out because they didn't pay the rent.
Besides, he thinks, the world isn't going to stop turning just because I've an off ticker.
Sherlock is still sitting in the same position when John gets home. He would have thought Sherlock hadn't moved one fraction of an inch if his laptop wasn't sitting in front of his silent friend.
Sherlock's eyes flicker up when he enters the room. John smiles at him. "Blimey, Surgery takes it out of me," he says conversationally.
"Hm."
That went well, he thinks, and he shuffles off to the kitchen. There are thumbs in the blender – "An experiment, John." – and feet in the freezer. Sherlock's foray into living like a proper human being was short lived, apparently.
"John."
John stops mixing honey into his tea and lifts his head. Sherlock is standing next to him, eyes bright and feverish, and John in immediately worried. "…Yes?"
"I've spoken with Mycroft –
"Christ in heaven…"
"I've had to take on two cases but I think it's well worth it."
"What did you do?"
"He's agreed to take you on as a private physician," Sherlock says simply. "I'll place a call to St. Bart's this afternoon and let them know you won't be coming back."
His blood pressure sky rockets and his hand begins to shake. "No," he snaps. "No, no, no, no, Sherlock!"
His friend looks puzzled. "Why?"
He slams his fist down on the counter and sends his cup flying. "Because, Sherlock, you can't just take this out of my hands! This is my life, my body, my heart that is failing and I will not have my whole life turned upside down because of it! And I'm certainly not going to work for your brother!"
Sherlock surveys him. "He said you'd say that."
"Well apparently he knows me a lot better than you do!" his knees suddenly buckle.
Sherlock grabs him under his arms and hauls him to his feel. He's not gentle by any stretch of the imagination but he reaches around behind him, one arm encircling John, and pulls a chair close. "Sit," he commands.
John sits, resting his elbows on his knees, concentrating on his breathing.
"Do you honestly think I want you to work for him?" Sherlock asks. "I don't. In fact, I would recommend staying as far away from him as possible, but you can't go back to St. Bart's. Your body can't handle it, John. What if you have to run? What if someone comes in with heart failure? Can you honestly tell me you could perform chest compression on them while still being objective? Or worse, endangering yourself by trying to save them? What if your heart gives out in the middle of an operation? What then?"
"Sherlock…"
"Go to Mycroft. The job is easy and he's willing to pay twice what Bart's offers."
John sighs. "I can't," he says. "I just can't. This life, Sherlock, this is the life I want. I don't want it to change. I want…I want this. Us. The cases and the running and catching a cab from a crime scene to try and make it to Surgery on time and you and your bloody violin at three in the morning. I don't want to be shut up in an office somewhere, taking Mycroft's blood pressure when some idiot nearly blows up a nuclear power plant."
Sherlock huffs and mutters, "That was one time."
John reaches out and takes the Detective's hand. "If I drop dead in the middle of this life, Sherlock, I will die a happy man. But this life. No other."
Sherlock curls his fingers around John's hand and closes his eyes. His heart leaps and begins to thump a bit faster.
Sherlock's eyes snap open, they've changed colors again, and his nostrils flair. He's bloody deducing me!
"You did not just take my pulse!"
Sherlock steps closer. "Should I not have?"
I really need to get this under control, he thinks. This is getting bloody ridiculous.
"You cant do that! You can't just –
"Can't what? Do speak up, John. You're beginning to remind me of Anderson."
He leaps to his feet. "You can't just deduce me, Sherlock! It isn't fair!"
"Deduce you, John? I haven't even begun to deduce you," he steps towards his friend. "Would you like me to try?"
John strides across the room, desperate to put distance between them. How do they get into these situations? They'd only finished one argument before flinging headlong into a new one! "Don't –
"Why not?" he asks. "After all, it would take a blind man to miss the signs. Did you think I wouldn't notice you looking at me when I wasn't paying attention? I'm always paying attention, John. Always. Or perhaps you thought I couldn't hear you? That spring mattress of your creaks in the most annoying manner on a day to day basis, but on occasion the squeaking is drowned out by you moaning out my name. Or it could have been the fake girlfriends whom you never slept with that gave you away."
He's stalking forward now and John barely registers the fact that he's backed himself into a corner, literally. He's caught between the fridge and Sherlock's body and he's not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing but God he never thought it would happen like this. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, if it happened at all!
"I ignored it because you ignored it," he's hardly a hairsbreadth from John's face. "I didn't want you at first. You remember, don't you? The night at Angelo's? But you killed a man for me, John. You stayed with me through everything. You never doubted me, not once, and that made me want you."
"But because you persisted in maintaining your labels and your neat little definitions of sexuality I kept my mouth shut. I remained silent and we lost so much time. But tell me John, if you knew then what you know now, if you knew your time was nearly up and that this would be over, would you have made the same choice?"
"No," the word tumbles from his mouth. "God, no. I thought – I thought –
Sherlock shoves John flat against the fridge and covers his mouth with his own. He can smell the scent of Sherlock's shampoo and taste the last remnants of his morning coffee and the cigarette he must have smoked while John was out. He bunches Sherlock's blazer in his fists and kisses him back because God I don't want to die without having felt this.
Sherlock breaks the kiss a few moments later and buries his face in the side of John's neck. "I won't let you die," he whispers. "I can't. I need you, John. You can't die."
So much for not letting it change his life.
