Sherlock could feel himself slipping down further in the chair and couldn't be bothered to stop himself. What did it matter if he ended up on the floor? What did it matter if he stayed there for all of eternity until he dried up and turned to dust?
"Sherlock, it's just surgery," he'd said, grinning and patting his hand to reassure him. "I'll be fine."
Sherlock knew that was wrong. He was supposed to be reassuring John, not the other way around.
"Of course it is. I know that. And you're going to be fine. Better than fine in fact, because you won't be bleeding internally after."
John smiled at him. "Exactly. You behave, alright? No annoying the doctors or anything. In fact, go home, but don't drive Mrs Hudson crazy. Come back in few hours."
Sherlock frowned. "Alright." Only because you said so.
So he went home. Did an experiment that didn't explode. Cleaned up. Went back to the hospital. Just like John requested. He did everything like John requested.
But John hadn't listened to Sherlock.
Sherlock was the dangerous one. He was supposed to be the one getting grazed by bullets, tumbling off of balconies, and being tossed like a rag-doll in explosions. Not John. John was the doctor, he was supposed to be the one to fix things after they went wrong. Sherlock was awful at fixing things. He could see where they went wrong, explain how, but could never put them back together to be the way they were supposed to be.
"Dammit John, you had one job," he told his knee.
He was still slipping.