"John."
The man in question kept his eyes closed, his breathing slow and even, doing everything he could to block out the persistent voice.
"I know you're awake."
Again, taking deep breaths to keep himself from shouting, John turned his head away from the door and curled around himself. There was no reason for him to be bothered, and he sure as hell wasn't going to respond just because Sherlock bloody Holmes demanded him to. An irritated sigh from the doorway and a mumbling he couldn't quite make clear, it seemed like his friend had finally left him alone. Turning on his back again, he uncurled himself and winced at the pain so much movement caused. The pain was better than having to answer Sherlock's every damn question.
Two days after being holed up in his private room, John had began refusing visitors. Mrs. Hudson had only seen him once over the past week, and Greg not at all. Sherlock had stopped by every day but one, insisting that he needed to talk with John. He threatened to use Mycroft, but either never followed through with it, or Mycroft had denied Sherlock the opportunity to override John's request.
Either way, after four days of being ignored and told off, the detective was getting angry.
John sighed, rubbing at his eyes and blinking up at the white ceiling. He had counted every tile, noticed every knick, and watched every program on the telly, and his boredom was getting to him. There was the attempt at reading, but focusing like that had made his head spin, so he quickly gave up on that venture.
He took up card games after one of his doctor's brought him a deck. Doctor Burke didn't even say anything when she delivered the small parcel, just flashed him a small smile and retreated. John had said thank you, but she was out of the room before he realised what was going on.
It's not that he didn't want to see anyone, really. It's that he didn't want anyone to see him. He was more fragile now than ever before, even after a month of chemotherapy. Now, he wasn't just bald and frail and ghostly pale, he wasn't able to move more than just to sit up and occasionally go to the loo. This was worst than the cane ever was.
Sherlock's constant presence was reassuring that it didn't matter how weak and close to death he got, he still had friends, but it was also a grinding reminder that he shouldn't be in this bed. He was no use to anyone; there was no ability to make tea or go to crime scenes, and he couldn't even focus long enough to read reports anymore. The drugs made him sedate and pain free, but they also made him dizzy.
Sighing and closing his eyes again, John slid down the bed until his head was resting on the small stack of pillows. Humming quietly, he picked at his nails, frowning as he looked around his empty room.
"Now I know how Sherlock feels all the time," He muttered, biting at his nail and glancing towards the door, worried that someone would hear him talking to himself. "Bored and ready to shoot the wall." John chuckled softly, making his fingers into a gun and pretending to shoot at the wall.
The moment he saw a familiar face though, he dropped his hand and turned back to facing the ceiling. Sherlock stood at the door, hesitating and watching his friend through the little window. Eventually, he made his silent choice though, and slid into the room, letting out a small breath when John didn't yell at him to leave. The 'click' of the door caught the doctor's attention, and he slowly turned his head. John's eyes were sallow, questioning why Sherlock continued to try and talk to the stubborn sick man. He hadn't gotten more than a sentence out of him the whole week; it made no sense for him to keep coming back.
"Why are you here?" John asked after a few minutes of palpable silence. His friend hadn't moved an inch, hadn't said a word and hadn't seemed to even deduce too much in his head yet.
"You are my friend, John," He started, taking a few steps towards the hospital bed, but hesitating before he got in reaching distance. "I don't want you to be stuck alone. You'll go crazy if you're in this room for too long with no one to talk to."
John motioned for Sherlock to take the chair beside his bed. He knew Sherlock was right, he could already feel himself going off the ledge. The two of them caught up on the basics: John's condition and Mrs. Hudson's fussing over Sherlock's eating habits. There were a couple of cases in the time between his hospital visits, but nothing that he didn't solve in half an hour. He claimed to be eating and sleeping on a more regular basis so he could attend to John's needs better, knowing it would do the sick doctor no good if his flatmate fainted from sleep deprivation when he couldn't help him.
Curling up and watching Sherlock's hands move as the detective talked about his newest experiment (something smelly that John wouldn't approve of had he been home), John sighed and began to chew on his nail again. Things didn't stay comfortable for long, seeing as John began to withdraw back into himself. It started with him not telling stories anymore to not even replying to Sherlock's. It was such a slow moving recoil that it took Sherlock a minute to even realise that John had gone back to staring at the ceiling.
Sherlock took a moment to evaluate him before sliding the chair closer, frowning down at his friend. Squinting his eyes and obviously gathering up as much information as possible, John pointedly ignored his looks and sighed quietly.
"You're-" He started, cutting himself off to re-evaluate his approach. "Are you all right, John?"
The doctor didn't answer for a minute, and Sherlock almost believed that he didn't hear his question.
"No." John whispered, rubbing at his eyes with the hand not weighed down with the IV. They sat in the quiet again, Sherlock figuring a way to approach the subject while John prayed that his friend would ignore it. John was the unlucky one.
"You're upset," Sherlock started softly, his eyes wondering over his flatmate's face. "Sad. Not because you're injured, necessarily, but... Because of your condition? You don't like being seen like this, fragile and broken, do you?"
John shook his head, covering his face still and willing himself to stay like that until he gathered his composure. Surely it would do him no good to burst into tears and throw a fit. Taking three deep breaths and counting to ten, John shook himself a little and forced himself to look over at Sherlock. The detective was watching him with a curious expression, knowing the emotions but not completely understanding them. John didn't think he could explain, it was difficult enough for him to tell himself the answers, let alone tell another person. Especially when that other person was often oblivious to the most common of feelings.
"I'm not this," He mumbled, sighing and running his fingers through his short hair. "I'm a military man. I'm a doctor. I'm a detective's assistant," A raw chuckle broke through his throat. "I'm a shell."
He sounded resigned, like he had come to terms with being half the man he was before. His breathing stuttered, like he was laughing. Maybe he was crying, Sherlock couldn't tell.
"You're still a doctor, and you're still my partner," Sherlock reminded him, resisting the urge just barely to roll his eyes at John's negative demeanor. "Just because you're currently indisposed doesn't mean you're going to be thrown to the curb."
John was definitely crying, now.
"I can't help! I can't diagnose people; I can't cure colds or broken arms anymore. I can't jump on the backs of murderers when you don't want to get your coat dirty in the mud, and I can't even read bloody reports without wanting to puke!" John covered his face again, tugging his knees up to his chest with his spare hand, wincing a little at the tug of strain it put on his side. "I'm a shell." He repeated with more conviction, shaking his head and choking out another rough laugh.
Sherlock stuck his hands under his thighs to keep from grabbing John and shaking the nonsense out of him. It was difficult to watch his friend put himself down when he was so obviously an asset. The detective just wanted to tell him that much.
"John, shut up," He started, frowning and pausing, knowing he had started off wrong. "Look, look at me Watson. You're here, in the hospital, crying and unable to be of any assistance, and yet I have come to visit nearly every day. Why? You're just a flatmate, a friend, granted my only one. Is this what normally happens in friendships? Certainly none that I have ever had. The only person to ever visit me in the hospital before you came along was Mycroft, and that was because Mummy forced him to see me. But here I am, sitting by your bedside with the uncontrollable urge to hug you because it bothers me to see you crying like this. I have come to terms with the fact that you may never come along running through London without me again, but there are ways we can keep you involved and busy. You shouldn't feel useless, John, because you are anything but."
Sitting there, absorbing the rant Sherlock spewed, John just nodded along slowly. He had no idea what plans Sherlock had to keep him involved and feeling important, but it was likely something that would insult his intelligence and push his buttons. At least that would feel like home more than this hospital, and the mushy feelings it brought out in the two of them.
Reaching out, their hands connected briefly, tightly reassuring each other that things would turn out all right, in the end.
Sherlock stood, fixing his scarf before grabbing John's shoulder and squeezing it. The shared a brief smile, silently acknowledging that Sherlock still had work to do, even if John wasn't there to help. Hopefully the look he shot him was enough to say 'play nice because I wont be there to put a good word to your name'.
As soon as he was gone, the tears were back. Half were tears of relief. Half were still tears of denial.
John felt empty; like he said, he was just a shell of his old self. His chest was tight, and not with the urge to cough. His head was light, his eyes burning with the need to close them against the world's light. Choking and gasping for breath, John clutched at the bedding and sobbed, chin on his chest, knees to his stomach. He tried to hide himself in a ball, glad that his friend had closed the door behind him on his way out.
It felt like his insides were trying to claw their way out through every pore. His stomach growled with the need to be fed, but he knew that if he tried to eat it would all end up right back where it came from. John's entire body was prickled with goose pimples, shivers running under the fabric of his skin with every breath he took.
Taking great, heaving breaths, he closed his eyes and began counting again, trying to pull himself together and away from the corners of a panic attack.
Soon enough, he was getting himself back in check, his chest rattling with the gulps of air. John ran his hand through his hair and over his face, watching the way it shook more than it had when he had his normal tremor. Managing to calm himself down to the point that he was able to breath perfectly fine and sit up without wanting to pass out from the lack of oxygen to his brain, John covered his mouth to hold back the sobs that wanting to escape.
"I'm okay," He whispered to no one, shaking his head and clutching at the bandages on his side. "Depression can't take hold of me." He demanded, repeating the words Sherlock had told him not but ten minutes earlier.
He surprised himself with the conviction, and the self-diagnosis. The doctors had warned him that he might feel down and out, but the word 'depression' hadn't come up once. And he had dealt with it enough to know the familiar feeling raging through his veins. It wasn't his first time through the memorable ringer, and he knew that if he didn't shove his way threw, it would eat him alive. Last time, he had met Sherlock, and the feelings of despair and hopelessness had slowly but surely dissipated. He had Sherlock this time; there were undoubtedly no new friends of that caliber to be made to pull him from the clutches of depression.
A mantra of 'it will be all right, I've got all I need in my life', started up in the back of his mind, and he rocked himself in the bed, nodding and repeating the words under his breath until be believed them.
The pressure was still there, in his chest, hot and tight and heavy, but it wasn't as bad. His head was clear enough for his eyes not to burn when they reopened to the room, and his stomach didn't feel so profoundly nauseous.
Cancer was a sickness that he had been able to remove. Cancer was treatable and (mostly) fixable and it wasn't going to be the end of him just yet. And neither would this bloody misery. If he could handle one sickness, he was more than strong enough to handle another. He wasn't alone to do it, either, which was greatly reassuring. No matter how alone he felt, there was always going to be people at his side, holding his hand through the hardships and helping his grow through each trial and error.
"I've got Sherlock, and Mrs. Hudson, and Greg," He told himself, a flicker of a smile crossing his face at the thought of his friends. "There's Sarah and Mike and the boys from the Yard. I will always have the cases and the shopping and my blog. I may not have much, but I have enough to last me ten lifetimes."
A/N - I had a little bit of trouble with this chapter because it's so difficult to put into words the feelings of depression. Either way, thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I really am so happy that you can tell I've done research for this. Please keep favoriting/alerting/reviewing! The next chapter may be the last, with only an epilogue after.