"Get away from me," John hissed, swiping at the hand that grabbed at his arm. "I'm not a bloody cripple."
Which, of course, was a bit of a lie. He was struggling to get off the hospital bed, putting too much of his weight on his right side. Between the stabbing pains in his chest cavity, the ache of his barely-used shoulder, and the phantom pains of his leg returning, John was hardly able to make it to the loo to change himself into street clothes.
Sherlock was there, standing in the doorway, watching the nurse coddle John. The detective had stayed away from the interaction, knowing full well that his friend would lash out even more at him if he were to try and assist him in moving.
"Sherlock, did you bring my gun?" He asked, growling the words while glaring at the nurse. "Because if she tries to put me in a wheelchair one more time, I'm going to need it."
"I'm sure Detective Inspector Lestrade will be pleased to hear of your willingness to use your military issued firearm on a helpful civilian." Sherlock drawled, holding his hands behind his back and poorly concealing the smirk that fought to take over his features. It was no secret that he was pleased every time John got angry like that. John flashed a weak grin, knowing he was only adding in all the little details like 'DI' and 'military issued' to frighten the woman. It worked, apparently, seeing how quickly she fled from the room.
Huffing out a quiet laugh, John grabbed his cane and slowly limped towards the door, turning to glance around only to make sure he hadn't left anything behind. With a sigh, the doctor flashed a quick smile up at his friend before leaving the silent white room. John winced, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. Sherlock raised an eyebrow in his direction, but stayed his ground, knowing John would lash out again if he offered his hand.
"Tell me about the new case." John insisted, catching his breath when they stepped into the lift.
"Ah, yes, well, it's quite simple really." Sherlock smirked a little, using his hands to explain the height difference between the CCTV footage and the criminal Lestrade had suspected. Not to mention how the proper suspect was a woman, with a spectacular skill for convincing men to empty their cash registers into her backpack. He went on to insult the team he had been forced to work with at the Yard, grumbling about being stuck with Donovan without the peace of John or Lestrade around.
John didn't say much, just nodded and made encouraging noises of 'brilliant' through his clenched teeth. Two weeks in the hospital hadn't done too much in the healing department, and he was out of breath by the time they made it out front to catch a taxi. He should have stayed longer, his doctors told him that, hell, even his own instincts told him that, but he was going stir crazy in that white room with the insistent beeping of his monitors and the constant interruptions from the bloody nurses. There was a hesitance it leaving, though, because he knew he would be snapping at all the little idiosyncrasies Sherlock provided him with. Even knowing he wouldn't be able to clean up after his messes and he'd absolutely struggle climbing up the stairs to get to his room every night, it would be a million times better than shuffling around a busy hospital in a backless gown.
Muttering a 'thanks' to his friend as Sherlock helped him into a taxi, John closed his eyes and leaned back into the seat, waving his hand in the hopes that the detective would continue with the details of his most recent cases. John hadn't been able to help on a single one of them, confined to his hospital bed and doped up on drugs that made him exhausted and dizzy. The pain wouldn't be so bad if he could work.
"The DI will be coming over this evening," Sherlock told him, sneering a little as he typed away on his phone. "Along with a few of your 'buddies' from the Yard. Apparently they felt it fit that you need a welcome home party."
John chuckled, hearing the distaste mold around each word. Nodding and elbowing his friend lightly, he flashed a small smile, relaxing into the cab as it wove through the streets of London.
"It'll be fun," He insisted, giving Sherlock a pointed look that he needed it to be fun. "I'll make sure no one messes with your experiments." John offered, knowing the detective would turn vicious on any of the guests if they dared to mess with any of the mould-growing subjects that were probably sitting on the windowsill still.
"Well," Sherlock cleared his throat, avoiding John's eyes in favor of watching the streets pass by out the window. "That will be easy. I currently have no experiments out."
That certainly threw John through a loop. He always had things lying about, absorbing acid or disintegrating in the sunlight or something.
Before he could ask, the taxi was stopping on Baker Street and obviously waiting impatiently for his fare. With a grunt, Sherlock helped John out of the cab before paying the driver and scolding him for cheating on his wife with a younger woman. The two of them snickered, watching the fuming man speed off. It wasn't so bad, walking into 221B. The rough part was those damn bloody stairs. He counted the seconds it took him to count each one. It took him longer and longer after each step, straining his body to push him up the seventeen steps without help from Sherlock. If he were going to get better, he'd have to do it on his own. There was no relying on others, at this point.
Mrs. Hudson hurried up the stairs the second she realised John had returned to the flat. Her tea tray was precariously perched on top of a messy pile of newspapers, but it didn't fall over as she bustled about to make John as comfortable as he could possibly be.
"Thanks." John smiled softly, squeezing her hand and sipping at the perfectly made cuppa. God, how he had missed well made tea.
It was more than just pleasant to hear her bustle around, complaining about the messes Sherlock had made, fussing over John and muttering about not being their housekeeper. Sherlock grumbled and pouted, glaring at John every time he agreed with their landlady about the mess.
Before long, Lestrade was bounding up the stairs, Chinese food and a few fellow officers in tow. Dimmock and Samuels greeted him with a slap to the shoulder, telling how good he looked for looking like shit. John laughed and grinned with the rest of them, raising an eyebrow at Sherlock when he slumped into his chair and watched the guys mill around, stealing each others take out containers and tossing insults at each other. He had expected the detective to retreat to his bedroom, but it seemed as if he was making an honest attempt to connect with other human beings.
Time passed in a flash, and pain eased away with each moment. He didn't need painkillers; he could work again and get back to his usual routine. Sure, he'd never get back to his old self, and there was a very slim chance that he would be able to chase criminals as well as he used to be, but that didn't mean he wouldn't get back on his feet, eventually. The depression would linger on the edges of his vision, certainly, but it was controllable. His doctor told him that the surgery had gotten rid of almost all the cancer, if not all of it. John decided that it didn't matter, if it gave him an extra month or an extra year, that's all he could ask for.
John yawned, leaning against the doorframe and grinning as Lestrade shoved Dimmock out the front door. They said their goodbyes, but the young officer had a little too much to drink, and was insistent that it was his flat, not Watson's.
He made his way up the second flight of stairs, heading to his room to crash. Getting used to a normal schedule and lots of movement was going to be exhausting. Halfway up the stairs, John bent in half with the taste of bile rising in his throat. He had been walking too fast, putting too much strain on his body so soon. Before he could blink or vomit, though, Sherlock was at his side, grabbing him gently around his back and helping him up to the bedroom at the top of the stairs.
Rushing to the connected bathroom, he lurched over the toilet and winced when he tasted the Chinese from earlier. Sherlock hovered, a glass of water waiting in his hand, frowning down at his flatmate.
"T-thanks," John mumbled quietly, rinsing out his mouth with the water before shakily getting to his feet. "Too much strain, I guess."
Sherlock made a sound like he already knew that, but didn't comment on how stupid John was for doing that.
John didn't sleep well, a mix of acid on his tongue and heat burning his chest. He knew how to sleep without hurting his side, but that knowledge apparently didn't make any difference to him the moment he fell asleep, considering he woke up ten minutes later on his side, curled up and groaning in pain. Swelling with more emotions than he could count, he let out a choked cough hiding his emotional pain in his physical. He felt bipolar, flipping so easily between laughing and having a right good time with his friends, to having trouble keeping himself from puking and crying all at once.
"God," He strangled a sigh, rubbing his hands over his face and wincing with the movement. "Recovering is going to be the death of me."
More than likely, though, Sherlock would be the death of him. Especially seeing as how he so easily convinced John to attend a crime scene with him, just the day after he had returned from the hospital. It wasn't all bad; he enjoyed getting back to work and being readily involved with cases, rather than reading reports and looking at photos. Lestrade welcomed him heartily while Donovan seemed to praise the ground he walked on. Sherlock really was better off with him tagging along, because according to the stories, he had been hell to Sally and Anderson and the other officers while the doctor was in the hospital.
"I'm not running." John growled, stabbing his cane into the ground and glaring at his flatmate, who was eager to go on foot to the flat where the suspect was likely to be. Before Sherlock could insult him and force him into something that would only end up being worse for him, Sally had grabbed John's arm and tugged him to the waiting police car. Sherlock, of course, refused to get in it, instead opting for the charge by using his mental map and twenty foot long legs to outrace the police.
Donovan managed to go the whole ride without a snide comment in the consulting detective's way, even going as far as to commend John for standing up for himself. Time made her heart grow fonder, apparently.
Or Sherlock was just a terror without him, and she was glad to have him back to shut him up.
(That was more likely).
Sherlock ended up being right about the murderer hiding away in his sister's flat, but there was no need to run there, because the man had gotten high after stabbing the drug dealer that he was barely moving even when a few cops burst into the flat, guns drawn.
John stayed at the edges of the room, watching the officer with Donovan handcuff the guy and drag him (literally) to his feet. Sherlock slid his way across the living space, sidling up next to his friends. They exchanged silent glances, curious and cautious eyes boring into hard ones. The man was high on cocaine, which was obvious from the lines on the table and the nosebleed that Sally asked him to check before they tossed him into the police car and headed to the hospital.
The detective left without even a backwards glance at the stash leftover on the table.
John huffed to catch up, groaning a little and leaning heavily on his cane while Sherlock waved for a cab. At least he had gotten the sense not to injure his friend anymore.
By the time they got back to 221B and settled into their respective chairs with hot tea and Mrs. Hudson's homemade scones, they settled into routine and chatted idly about the case. John was ever impressed with his friend's abilities, complimenting him on the way he had figured out where the man would go, all based off the fact that the knife had a purple stripe on the black handle. Sherlock didn't even go on a fifteen-minute rant about how useless the Scotland Yard detective's were.
It was extraordinarily relaxing knowing that it was so easy to slide back into their normal lives. The more he walked, the easier it was becoming. He'd still be out of breath and clutching the cane with white knuckles after climbing the stairs, but there were no more spells of pain-induced vomiting, which they were both grateful for.
Kicking his feet out and leaning back against the Union flag pillow, John smirked as Sherlock flicked the telly onto mindless talk show crap. Getting him into bad shows was probably one of the worst and one of the best things he had ever done. The detective would curl up and yell at the telly, complaining about how ridiculous the shows were before muttering about how ridiculous he was for not being able to turn it off.
John's coughing caught his attention, but that didn't last for long. The doctor was no longer ending his fits with sobs, grasping at the chair as if it held the oxygen he desperately needed, or ended up with blood on the cuffs of his jumpers.
Feeling better than he had in weeks, John got up to make himself a snack, promising his flatmate more tea. He was able to flit around the small kitchen without his cane, using the counter tops to hold himself steady while he made toast, grumbling about the very tiny amount of jam left in his jar.
Surgery wasn't going to hold him back. Coughing and losing his breath and hardly being able to take the stairs? That was nothing. Chemotherapy was no longer breathing down his neck and weakening him and turning him gray. John had refused to let lung cancer beat him down.
A/N - Welp, only the epilogue left. I can't believe this is so close to being finished. Thanks to all the reviews/favorites/alerts for the last chapter, folks! Keep those coming, please!