"Nine days."
"Huh?" John jumped out of his thoughts; surprised to hear Sherlock's voice so close to his head. The detective was leaning over the doctor, eying him and frowning slightly.
"You've been short of breath and persistently coughing over the past nine days." Came the reply, casual as if they were talking about the weather.
"So? I'm not so young anymore, Sherlock. Wait, didn't we already talk about this?" He sighed, scrubbing his hand through his hair and sending a withering look towards his flatmate. Standing up, John just shook his head and headed towards the stairs. Sherlock watched him, throwing himself onto the couch and steepling his fingers under his chin in thought.
When the doctor returned downstairs twenty minutes later, showered and changed into his favorite oatmeal jumper, Sherlock merely glanced at him, giving him a once over before rolling his eyes.
"Surely going to the pub with Lestrade will not help your health." He commented, raising an eyebrow.
"Oi, there's nothing wrong with getting a pint with a mate, not that you would know," John added the last part under his breath, but he knew Sherlock would catch it either way. "Off out, try not to destroy the flat." He finished, tugging on his coat and leaving 221B.
Sherlock huffed at the comments, both the social commentary and the insinuation that he would ruin his place of residence. Digging beneath a stack of cold case files, he pulled out John's laptop and paused for a mere two seconds before typing in the new pass code. He smirked in defiance, ignoring the fact that his computer was closer than the other had been, and there was no need for him to deduce the password from John's newest girlfriend (naming the password Amelia after her wasn't the smartest idea).
While Sherlock was busy pouting and doing research on how to set jam on fire, John was walking to the pub nearest Scotland Yard.
Sighing and sidestepping a group of smokers outside the pub, John was greeted by loud cheers. Glancing over his shoulder, he grinned as he saw the football match on. John looked around for a minute, eventually spotting a group of familiar faces towards the back, in a booth.
"Hey, Watson!" One of the off-duty officers greeting, clapping a hand on his back and waving for the bartender to bring over another pint of beer. He grinned, sliding into the half-round bench seat next to Lestrade.
"How's the game, mate?" John asked, stealing a chip from the plate in the middle of the table. The crowd roared up again, this time with far less joy as Brazil's team scored.
Time and beer flowed easy and fast, the group chatting about everything from girls ("all nice in practice, no good when you get a ring on 'em!"), to the match ("Brazil cheated!"), to work ("then that Sherlock bloke came, called everyone idiots and pointed at the paint on the wall, saying that the murderer painted it!").
John laughed and shared stories at the appropriate times, downing shots of tequila when he needed to during their speed game of "Never have I ever". Half through the game, after slamming a drink to the claim that Lestrade never slept with a flatmate, he began to cough as if he were choking. Really, it felt like he was, because he realised a little too late what that drink would look like to the blokes around the table. They all laughed at him, a few smirking, Lestrade clapping at his back to get him to stop coughing up a lung.
"I was in the army!" He laughed, shaking his head and slapping his head in mock shame. "Do any of you really think Sherlock could manage to get off with anyone?" John rolled his eyes, his lips quirking into a side-grin as he tried to get the game to move on from himself.
Eventually the subject of their conversation moved on to the best lay they ever got (everyone was somewhat surprised to hear that Lestrade's best wasn't the wife he wasn't finished divorcing, but a man he met at the courthouse).
As time wore on, the men were going from buzzed to tipsy to drunk in quite a rapid succession. John's laughter slid seamlessly into pure giggles, while Dimmock barely managed to keep his words from slipping into one long word. Lestrade was stumbling over his words, repeating them a few times until he managed to get them right or give up. The doctor's coughing came more frequently, and went from the clearing-the-throat kind to the god-my-chest-is-going-to-explode kind.
"Oi, Johnny, watch yourself." Sergeant Samuels said, watching the man cough even after the group got up and headed outside. John just shook his head and nodded over towards the group of chain smokers as if they were the reason for his sudden cough attack.
Waving off and staggering his way back towards Baker Street, John wasn't necessarily drunk, but he certainly was far from sober. Especially because he couldn't tell if he was seeing two cabs, or one.
As he sauntered down the block, John's mobile vibrated twice with text messages, but his vision was blurry enough that he couldn't read them properly. All he knew was Sherlock had been on his laptop again, and had looked at his internet history. Again.
"Sh-Sherlock," John started as he marched up the stairs of 221B towards the living space, knowing his flatmate would still be awake. "How many times have I told you to use your own computer?" He groaned, heavily settling himself down into his chair and throwing a withering look at his friend over on the couch, exactly where he left him.
"Yours was closer." Sherlock simply answered, the lie so obvious that John would have seen it if he had not been so inebriated.
"That doesn't mean you can use mine!" The doctor argued, frowning and sighing softly. He just shook his head, knowing that it was completely pointless to once again ban Sherlock from using his things.
The two stayed in silence for a while, John watching the mindless banter on the telly while Sherlock continued to mess with his laptop, typing at an impossible speed. He only stopped when he heard John's slow, even breathing, grunting impatiently and closing the lid of the computer.
"Doesn't he know better than to sit out here after he drinks?" The detective asked himself, shoving himself up off the couch so he could grab a blanket to toss over his sleeping friend. Continuing to mutter to himself, Sherlock eyed the doctor for a minute before huffing and turning to the kitchen, deciding it was the perfect time for an experiment with fish eggs and Mexican salsa.
John slept through the night in that chair, and woke with a pain in his shoulder, tingling all the way down to his fingertips. His hair was stuck up in every direction, and the dull throb in his head reminded him that he had enjoyed his night at the pub a little too much. Groaning and scrubbing his palms over his eyes, he blinked and stared around, rolling his shoulders and wincing slightly at the pain that shot through his arm.
"The chair is a bad position for your wounded shoulder." Sherlock's voice spoke up from behind him. John turned and glared, unhappy with the way Sherlock looked so impeccable, even when he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the night before, and probably hadn't eaten since they went to Angelo's the other day.
"No shit, Sherlock," John grumbled, stretching and getting to his feet, rocking slightly and coughing to clear his throat. "Bloody hell, my arm is killing me, and I think I'm getting a bloody cold."
He kept on mumbling angrily under his breath, huffing and puffing his way all the way up to his room. Leaning against the wall, John sighed and caught his breath, heading for the shower after the moment of odd weakness after climbing the stairs.
While scrubbing his hair and coughing into his soap-y hand, John had made up his mind. Sherlock had a point when he noticed how long this cough had been lasting, and it was really starting to get on John's nerves. He knew it was probably just a virus, there had been a handful of sick kids at the surgery and he just caught something from one of them, no doubt, but either way, he wanted it confirmed by a second source.
Dressing quickly and heading down the stairs (poorly covering up his shortness of breath with a small cough), the man watched his flatmate for a moment before grabbing his jacket.
"I'm off to the surgery," John told him, tugging on the coat and sighing when Sherlock didn't make a move to show that he had heard him. "I won't be long. How about you get some of those cold cases taken care of?" He suggested, smiling a little. When Sherlock didn't reply still, the smile fell off his face and he simply rolled his eyes before walking out to the street.
He caught a cab and directed them in the way of his own workplace, knowing that Sarah could help him figure out which strain of cold he had so he could figure out what to do to battle it. The drive was excruciatingly long; John hadn't realised it was the busiest time of the morning and the roads were full of travelers.
Finally making it to the surgery, John paid the cabbie and didn't bother waiting in line to see Sarah. She looked up at him with confusion, motioning for him to step to the side and out of the way of the other patients.
"John, what are you doing here?" She asked, frowning. "It's your day off, isn't it? Elisabeth didn't call you to take her place, did she? Because she's already used all of her days off-"
"No, no, Sarah, no one called me. I have a favor to ask real quickly." He flashed her a small smile, waiting for her to tell Mary to take over her spot at the desk before following her back to her small office.
"What is it John?" Sarah started, her eyes traveling over his body to look for any signs of injury, finding nothing obvious.
"I've got this bloody annoying cough that's been getting worse this past week, and every time I'm off running with Sherlock, I tend to run out of breath faster than normal," Leaning against the patient's table, he sighed and scrubbed at his hair. "And, on another hand, my shoulder is bugging me. I know I slept on it funny, but it usually is better after a bit."
They got down to business, Sarah making him take off his jumper so she could listen to this breathing and his heart. She frowned, taking a little more time than normal. John noticed everything she did that wasn't the most common method, making sure to keep a stack of questions for her in the front of his mind.
After doing a quick set of twenty jumping jacks in the middle of her office, and having to stop two short to bend over and cough, Sarah was making notes on her little clipboard, worriedly watching her friend.
"John, I'm going to send you to the back room to Marty." She announced, making more notes and motioning for him to take his jumper back.
"You want me to get an x-ray?" He asked, completely thrown off by the request.
"I'm worried you have more than just a cold," Sarah nodded, sighing and leaning against her desk. "It might be the beginnings of pneumonia, and you know that's best found with a quick chest scan."
John frowned and nodded, taking her taking the slip she held out for him and strolling towards the backside of the surgery where Marty Steinbrook worked on his own. After a quick explanation and a small amount of confusion on Sarah's use of 'urgency' on her x-ray request, he was stripping down to his pants and putting on the uncomfortable, heavy vest.
The x-ray scan itself didn't take very long, but the bloody wait for the results seemed to take ages.
Sarah felt bad for making him wait, so the two of them ended up going down the street for Mexican food while Marty examined and prepared his scans.
"Why did you have me get the x-ray?" John asked, watching Sarah's reaction carefully. He knew as well as she did that the beginnings of pneumonia was nothing but a cold, and that could easily be found without having to do the x-ray.
Sarah beat around the bush, taking her time to order her food and purposefully dropping her fork on the floor in order to put off telling him the truth.
"I don't suspect pneumonia." She replied, keeping her eyes down on the table, picking at the tablecloth.
"That much is obvious," He said, narrowing his eyes and trying to get her to make eye contact properly. It took him another three minutes before he finally got her to look him in the face. "Why, Sarah?"
"Oh," The buzzing of her phone interrupted her hesitation. "Marty's ready with the x-rays." They had only eaten half of their food by that time, but Sarah hurried the two of them back to the surgery and into her office, where Marty was waiting at the light board with a grim look on his face.
"John, I have bad news." The man said in his slow voice, looking at his with dark eyes from over his small round glasses.
"Yeah? What's so bad?" He asked, glancing from Sarah to Marty, frowning at the heavy weight that was in the room.
"Doctor Watson, you don't have a cold or pneumonia. You've got stage 3 NSCLC," Marty answered glumly. "Lung cancer."
A/N - There was lots of positive feedback to the first chapter, so I ended up writing a second chapter a lot faster than I had planned. I can't promise they'll all come so quickly, but I can promise that this is not a death fic. Favorites, alerts and reviews make me write faster