Sherlock stared at the ceiling of the hospital room, regulating his breathing the best that he could.
He hated hospitals. He hated hospitals even more when he was the one in the bed.
He took a deep breath, willing away nausea. He should have been used to this by now, shouldn't have he? He had spend a good deal of time in the hospital before, for this very same reason. He didn't understand why people insisted on putting him in this forsaken place for a drug addiction; there were drugs all around him! They put people on drugs all the time here! Morphine being one of the worst! One of the worst for him, anyway, but that was an addiction that he had, more or less, worked his way past. For now.
The pills were easier, quicker and more reliable. There was a sense of greater danger about them, even more since the day that the cabbie had tried to talk Sherlock into playing that ridiculous game. Sherlock had been sure that he was right. He had felt no harm in taking that pill. He didn't know why John had gotten so worked up about it in the first place.
John. This was all John's fault.
Stupid, sentimental John. He had gone and upset Sherlock all through his sickness. And then, Sherlock had gotten sick and John had upset him even more. Now, when Sherlock got better, John seemed to get worse, and Sherlock hadn't had the time to work past his brief interaction with sentiment. It was still there, fresh on the skin, and it had ensnared him again when John was taken to the hospital. He had been... nervous, scared, worried? He wasn't sure how he had felt. It hadn't been a good feeling. He'd hated it. He had been determined to get rid of the emotional cloudy haze that had been pervading his mind.
Oxycontin was the first thing that he had laid eyes on.
Oxycontin was bliss in a bottle. The initial pill was just a feel good. 30mg made an interesting trip. Push it to 70mg and his mind was flying. He was just happy, just plain happy. No emotions, besides bliss, could bother him.
The beeping of the heart monitor brought him back to the real world. He took another deep breath. Places likes this made him want to go back to the drugs even more. He couldn't stand the way that these places made him feel.
He had seen Mycroft brush past his room. He had been watching through his eyelashes, giving the impression of being asleep while maintaining his surveillance.
The fact that Sherlock was here at all was the proof that John had called an ambulance. He supposed it could have been Mrs. Hudson, too, but she wouldn't have found him so early, much less in the bathroom. So, John had to be here, too.
It had been almost an hour since he'd woken up. They still had him on oxygen. Actually, he was only on oxygen when they were looking. He removed it when they weren't. The heart monitor wasn't something that he could just evade. He was connected to that. He was trapped to that-
The beeping picked up once again.
Thankfully, John (as annoying and stupid as he could be) had the knack for timing. The doctor slid the door open and walked in, being closely followed by Lestrade. Sherlock felt his eyes roll of their own accord.
"Hey," John greeted.
"Morning," Sherlock replied, looking towards the ceiling again. He tried to tune out the beeping. It wasn't getting any better. He swallowed reflexively.
"Feeling better?"
"I felt fine."
"I'm sure you did." John didn't sound condenscending. It surprised Sherlock a little. He nodded in acknowledgement.
There was some silence. Sherlock eventually broke it by asking where Mycroft was.
"He's talking to the doctor."
"When can I leave?"
"I don't know."
"I'd wager soon. It's been an hour since I woke up, by the looks of that clock on the wall. The Naloxone that you injected me with took forty-five minutes, approximentally, to wear off, followed by the doctors pumping my stomach. I got into the bath around nine this morning, and, although I'm not sure when you found me, I'd reason around an hour later so-"
Lestrade spoke up. "Take it easy, Sherlock. Save deductions for crime."
Sherlock fell silent. It wasn't necessary to say how the deductions distracted him. It was at a time like this that he needed the distractions. He raised a hand to card his fingers through his hair, irritable, but found his fingers catching the wires of the cardiac monitor instead, on accident.
His breathing hitched. So did the cardiac monitor.
"Sherlock, you need to keep the oxygen on. And watch your fingers." John's doctoral training was taking over. He guided the wires away from Sherlock's fingers. Handed him back the oxygen tube.
Sherlock didn't take it. Instead, he let out a deep breath, that shook, squeezing his eyes shut.
"I'm... going to talk with Mycroft. I'll visit back," Lestrade said after a moment, the door opening and closing again as he left.
"Sherlock..."
"I'm fine, John." Too quick of a response. He knew he responded too quickly after he had responded.
"Sherlock, look at me. Look at me."
Sherlock opened his eyes, staring at John. "What?"
"You're fine. Okay?"
"Of course I'm fine," Sherlock responded stubbornly. "Why wouldn't I be fine?"
John gave him a look that reminded him spectacularly of Mycroft. Sherlock almost smirked.
He was supposed to be terribly annoyed with John right now. John's sentiment had caused all of this. But Sherlock couldn't stay irritated with John. He wondered why.
Maybe because he's your friend? nagged a little voice in the back of his head. He ignored it.
John coughed. Sherlock felt his face crumple again. Just when he worked past concern-
He is your friend, Sherlock Holmes! John Watson is your friend!
If he let himself think that John was his friend... would it change things that much?
He flinched when he realized John was still coughing.
"John, I think you are the one who needs to be in this bed, not me."
John waved the statement away, his hand clutching at Sherlock's bed afterwards. Sherlock watched him, frowning. That wasn't hypotension. There was something else...
"Oh... jeez," John breathed, when he could speak.
"What? What's wrong?" Sherlock demanded, sitting up against the pillows.
"Blood," John replied. "Mucus and blood..." He sank weakly into the nearby chair. "Wonderful."
"If you would just stop relapsing, we might be able to-" He stopped suddenly.
Relapse. Harsh cough. Mucus. Blood. Exhaustion. Fainting. Nausea. Vomiting. The quick onset of symptoms. The stress. The worry, the panic, the care of a sick patient. Lack of sleep, lack of appetite. When he factored in that John had been sick, almost a week ago now, for a period of time with a terrible illness... Idiots! That wasn't hypotension!
"You have pneumonia!" John flinched at his sudden outburst. "You're suffering from a relapse of pneumonia! Go check in, now."
"What?" John just looked bemused.
"You had pneumonia, or, at the very least, a case of walking pneumonia. The symptoms got better, but then the stress of taking care of me," he inserted a dirty look, "probably caused a relapse of the symptoms and now you're where you are now. If you don't get it checked out soon, you'll end up in ICU rather quickly because the second onslaught of symptoms can progress quite quickly. Hypotension, how stupid, how could they make such a stupid mistake; John, you had to have noticed that their diagnosis was wrong."
"Well, I thought something was... Hang on, what are you doing?"
Sherlock had forced himself into a sitting position, determined to get out of the bed if it killed him. He was fine, and John wasn't.
"Got to get you checked in."
"Sherlock, lay down. You're working yourself up."
"You've already worked yourself up," Sherlock replied.
"Not really," John started, but coughing took him again.
Sherlock watched John's face turn three shades paler. He was out of bed in the next second, efficiently dislodging the sensors. The cardiac monitor flatlined.
"Oh, distressing," Sherlock muttered, catching John before the doctor could collapse to the floor.
Three different nurses rushed into the room. Mycroft, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson were clustered at the door. Sherlock waved at them briefly as he shouted at the nurses, going on about pneumonia and fixing John and getting those sensors the hell away from him.
One thing was for sure: this was probably the hospital's busiest day yet.
I don't think people were thrilled with last chapter. Not many people reviewed. Maybe they were in shock. xD I still have you all, right?
Anyway, for those that asked, there's the reason Sherlock overdosed. Sherlock's -somewhat- afraid of hospitals, when he's the one tied down. I also know nothing about overdose, so I don't know if an OD victim would really need a cardiac monitor, but I figure if his pulse was irregular... Whatever, the point here, be open-minded. (Because I know nothing about this, haha.) John's symptoms are added up to a diagnosis while he relapses, Sherlock's still his normal self, although he reaches a somewhat shocking conclusion about his partnership with John.
Reviews help John get better quicker... ;D Haha. Come on, guys! Almost to 110! You can help me beat my record! Let's make this a hit for the (my) Summer of Sherlock!