He Meant It - Chapter 2
A BBC Sherlock fanfiction by Linda/Linables
Rated: M for a later chapter, Johnlock everywhere
The next morning, John was jolted out of sleep before his alarm clock rang by a series of loud, sharp coughs. Rubbing his eyes, John sat up in bed and turned his ear towards the door, in the direction of the sound. It was definitely coming from down in the living room or kitchen, and the coughs repeated every couple of minutes in short fits. John sighed, pulling himself out of bed. He had been afraid of this, but Sherlock hadn't been willing to rest, insisting all the while that he would be fine. And Sherlock's stubbornness when he'd made up his mind was not something to be trifled with.
John wearily made his way down the stairs to the living room, finding his flatmate sitting at the kitchen table working on the same experiment from last night. Every now and again he quickly turned to the side and coughed into the sleeve of his dressing gown. John could also see a pile of used tissues in the trash bin, which Sherlock had dragged beside the table. As if to give him more proof of the detective's illness, John then heard a loud sniffle come from his direction.
"Sherlock!" John called out, exasperation showing through his creaking morning voice. "What did I tell you about resting? I was afraid you'd come down with something!"
Sherlock finally turned around to face John, and the doctor could see that his friend's face was tainted with splotches of red around his nose and eyes.
"What are talking about, John? I'm fine, I'm doing fine..."
"Like hell you are!" John said, crossing the short distance to the chair that Sherlock was sitting in. He immediately put a palm flat against the detective's forehead and frowned.
"Sherlock, you're burning up. You need to get some rest, now. I'm serious."
The frustration in the doctor's face ebbed away a bit as he looked at his friend, taking in the condition he was in. Despite his irritation, John was above all concerned. The last thing the world's only consulting detective needed was to be sick. Sherlock's eyes flicked from John's face to his microscope, back to John's face, to the door of his bedroom, back to his microscope. He was obviously fighting some kind of internal battle over whether to follow his friend's orders (alright, he was a doctor, he was to be trusted in these kinds of situations) or to continue going about his day as if nothing was wrong. Finally, a twinge of consent flickered across his face and Sherlock slowly got up, nodding at John as he made his way to his bedroom.
"Please try to sleep some, Sherlock!" John called after him. "I'll bring you some medicine when I come back from work."
A noise of acknowledgement came from Sherlock's open doorway, and John returned upstairs to get started on his morning routine. He wasn't completely convinced the detective would do as he asked, but he had done all he could. There were too many appointments today, he couldn't afford staying home from work. All John could do was hope that Sherlock heeded his advice.
In his bedroom, said consulting detective lay on his bed but didn't close his eyes. He supposed he would take a short nap, to make John happy and because he admittedly did feel awful. Still, Sherlock knew perfectly well what happened when he was forced to be idle, and he avoided it at all costs. Staying in the bedroom all day would drive him crazy. His eyelids drifted shut though, and remained that way until he heard the distinct sound of the flat's door closing as John left for work. He opened his eyes, glancing through the open door at the kitchen table with his abandoned experiment. He closed his eyes again. The insides of his eyelids were dreadfully boring. Open again. He sighed. Sherlock silently cursed and swore that the next time he interrogated people at a medical centre, he would wear a damn mask.
When John opened the door to the flat that evening, he was hoping very hard that he would find the living room and kitchen empty, with his sick flatmate sleeping in his own bedroom. He had known all the while that this was rather a futile hope, but he clung onto it until the last second. As he stepped into the flat, he noted that it was quiet. All except for a low hum that came from the direction of the kitchen. Raising an eyebrow, John took a few steps, turned towards the kitchen, and immediately sighed in defeat.
Sherlock, dressed in his night clothes and dressing gown, was in front of the refrigerator, the open door causing the humming sound that John had first heard. When he didn't move for several long moment, the army doctor pointedly cleared his throat to alert the detective of his presence. Immediately Sherlock's head popped back out of the icebox, his hands quickly shutting the door. He looked terrible.
"What exactly are you doing, Sherlock?" John asked, not even sure he wanted to know.
The taller man took a few moments to consider his answer, coughing into his fist before looking up at John with watery eyes.
"I...well, I was putting something...something I was working on in the fridge. The chemicals need to be cold, you see. Then I just felt that the cold was so refreshing, I couldn't help staying there for a bit."
John rubbed his temples, eyes squeezing shut and head shaking. He considered that A) Sherlock was once again putting his experiments in the fridge – with the food, for heaven's sake! – and B) Sherlock was so feverish that he had resorted to cooling himself down by jamming his head into the refrigerator. John took a deep breath. He placed the bottle of medicine he had bought from the pharmacy on the counter beside him.
"Okay. Okay, I'm not even going to ask for an explanation because it doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you take some of this medicine and get the hell to bed, because seriously, Sherlock, look at yourself. It's a wonder you're standing. What was so important that you couldn't just stay in bed like I asked?!"
"Well I got some new samples from the mortuary and they'll be useless if they rot, so I had to–"
John cut him off, apparently reconsidering his choice of asking that question, and focused solely on dosing out the medicine into the little cup that came with the bottle.
Sherlock had to fight off a small smile. Somewhere in his foggy, illness burdened mind, he couldn't help but marvel at how much fuss the army doctor made over his well being, and him in general really. Sherlock realized long ago that he appreciated it more than he cared to admit...he was glad to have a friend. A real, true, honest friend. Up until the point when he met John Watson, Sherlock had done very well to function without any sort of sentiment clouding up his sense of reason and logic. His mind palace had been free of family rooms and doors with "do not disturb" signs hanging from the handle. It had been just him and his facts. But after John became his flatmate, cracks started appearing in his perfect machine of a mind. It was no longer pristine and clinical and calculating, something was tainting it. Sentiment. It had shocked him at first, but over time he had learned to not mind so much.
He had crossed into dangerous territory only when that sentiment had started to bubble up and evolve and expand, all of a sudden becoming a whole different animal. This alarmed Sherlock greatly. Suddenly he was noticing things like how gracefully John's muscles moved when he pulled his jumper off during a hot day, or how his lips looked when they were pressed around the rim of a teacup. He started to feel a burning ache somewhere in his chest when John brought women to the flat. This ache – he couldn't name it, new as it was – had flared up harder than ever before when his friend had come home with a purplish, reddish mark on the place where his neck meets his shoulder. Sherlock had done a quick analysis. Skin pinched, broken capillaries, bruise forming, caused by what looked like teeth, possibly human teeth. Hickey. Sherlock had clicked his own teeth together and left the flat for the rest of the evening.
Back in the here and now, Sherlock felt something being shoved into his hand and looked down to see the small cup of medicine that John had been preparing. Said man was staring daggers at him right then, so the detective quickly downed the bitter tasting liquid. John then produced a capsule and a glass of water, letting Sherlock know that it was a sleeping pill since god knows he needed it, and he took that too.
The next thing he knew he was being dragged by the army doctor towards his room, and then he was getting into bed, and John was closing the door behind him and saying he'd be back to check on him later. When he followed through on that promise, Sherlock was floating on a precipice between consciousness and sleep, a soft smile on his face. Satisfied at seeing his icy blue eyes closed, John had begun to retreat from the room. That's when he heard something tumble from the detective's lips that froze him to the spot. John grabbed the doorframe, eyes wide.
"I love you, John..."
Now we're getting somewhere!
I apologize if you guys were expecting a long epic of a story, that's not something that I really do...I'm thinking one or two chapters after this. I hope I'm doing this amazing series and beautiful pairing some justice with this little story though. Once again, let me know what you think and I'll keep going. :)