2

Something woke him up. He wasn't sure what had woken him up, but he wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps it had been John...? But, no, Sherlock was always up before John was.

He raised his head slightly, flinching a bit at the pain in his head. Pain. Pounding. That wasn't good. That couldn't be good. He didn't get headaches, not the normal kind, not just from... whatever. From normal humanesque reasons. He just didn't.

He squeezed his eyes tightly before opening them, blinking a few times when he found the room to be too bright. His curtains were drawn; they were almost always drawn on a normal day, but it was still brighter than it should have been for the morning. Conclusion: it was later than his normal time to wake up, much later, probably rounding noon if he were to guess.

Nonetheless. It was too bright.

He closed his eyes again, swallowing. It led to a new discovery: his throat hurt. His throat hurt-

He paused, reopening his eyes. His head was pounding. His eyes hurt from the light of the room, the muted light. His throat was hurting, when he swallowed. All of that added up to one solution, really, but-

No. No, he did not just get sick. He couldn't be sick. Not him. No. There was no way.

His throat tickled. He swallowed again, but the feeling didn't go away. Ignoring it, then. He'd just ignore it. Ignoring it...

He twisted his face to cough into his pillow, flinching afterwards.

It was just a fluke. There was absolutely no way-

"Sherlock, your phone, it keeps going off. You've got texts from Lestrade-" John pushed open Sherlock's bedroom door without so much as knocking. Normally, that would have irritated Sherlock, but he was suddenly more preoccupied by the crack of the door against the wall that was entirely too loud to his own ears.

He couldn't stop from flinching. Unconsciously, he seized the edge of his blankets and wrenched them over his head, but not before he caught John's gaze turning to one of concern.

"Sherlock? Are you okay?"

There were footsteps; John crossing the room to stand next to the bed.

Sherlock tightened his grip on the blankets, keeping his eyes closed. He was still trying to get over the door hitting the wall; his ears were ringing still and his head pain had intensified. "Perfectly fine."

"You flinched when the door hit the wall and now you're hiding under the blankets. You do weird things but that's not normal behaviour, Sherlock."

"Don't be ridiculous," he replied, swallowing again. He wondered, vaguely, if he was going to lose his voice. "I'm not hiding."

He felt the blankets pull and he had a half second before he was subjected to the light of the room. He gave John a brief but hateful look before he placed his arm over his eyes.

"Do you have sensitivity to light and sound or something? Are you running a fever?"

"I am fine," he said stubbornly.

There was pressure on his forehead. Probably the back of John's hand.

Sherlock glanced over his own arm, frowning. "What are you doing?"

"You're warm..." John murmured, removing his hand. "Probably from all your terrible habits like not sleeping... I'll get you some paracetamol."

There was the creaking of a door, the door that connected his room to the bathroom. Going through with the getting medicine thing, then.

He didn't want medicine. He wanted to sleep. Well, no, he didn't want to sleep, but the bed was warm and inviting and the darkness was peaceful and calling to him...

He pulled the blankets closer, ducking his head under the blankets.

"Sherlock- hey, don't be going back to sleep yet! You need medicine!"

Sherlock studiously ignored him. Until John started shaking his shoulder.

He barely bit back the groan that threatened to bring a voice to his pain. "What do you want, John?" he muttered, anger leaking into his voice. He was starting to feel worse the longer he stayed awake. His head was pounding worse. His throat was hurting even when he didn't swallow. His stomach was starting to feel unpleasant as well. John pulling the blankets away from him only made him shiver harder.

"Take the paracetamol and then go back to sleep."

He sighed heavily, almost huffed, partially coughed, as he sat up and swiped the medication from John. "Much obliged," he said sarcastically, placing the pills on his tongue and swallowing them back. He left John standing by the bedside, with the untouched glass of water as he turned back over and nuzzled under the blankets away.

"Bloody take water with your pills, Sherlock!" John complained hotly after a moment. There was some more grumbling as well as a light tap; presumably John placing the glass onto the nightstand. Sherlock couldn't exactly tell... things were somehow hazy. Hazy and covered with a listless sleep-induced haze.

"Get some sleep," John was saying. "I'll check back on you later and make sure that the fever's going..."

Sherlock had stopped listening. He didn't exactly know if it was a conscious decision or not, but it was just John's inane prattle about sicknesses and such. He wasn't missing much.

Sherlock hated being sick. It messed with his mind. It made him mind send different messages, wrong messages to the rest of his body. See, he wasn't cold. He knew he wasn't cold. He knew his body was hot. John had ascertained that fact. But, he was shivering. And there was the illness coming into play. Telling him the wrong thing.

He hated it. He hated not being able to trust his own mind.

He swallowed again, opening his eyes again. John had left the room. It was all silence again, his door closed and just the quiet ticking of the clock breaking it. It was... so peaceful.

Except for the pounding in his head. Except for that.

He rolled over again, reaching clumsily for the glass of water on the nightstand. His perception was skewed, however, and his fingers uncoordinated.

He knew the outcome before it happened.

He watched the glass fall, almost in slow motion. It was going to hit the floor, going to shatter into little pieces, water was going to spread all over the floor, John was going to come barging back, and-

Sherlock flinched when the glass hit the ground, shattered. The noise echoed in his ears and made him want to press his hands against them.

"Sherlock?"

And there was John, right on cue- the door creaking open again as the doctor peered in. Sherlock waved his hand absently towards the glass on the floor, muttering "Fine" under his breath. He was fine. Just... thirsty. And now he didn't have water, because it was on the floor, because he was uncoordinated, because he was sick-

"I'll clean it up... Did you want something, then? Tea, maybe? If your throat's hurting, tea with honey would help..."

"That would be... good," Sherlock replied, his voice giving out. He mentally flinched. Control, Sherlock. Control. You have control over your own body, so act like it.

"Just stay there," John said, vanishing from the room a moment later.

Where would I go? he mentally wondered, leaning back against the headboard to stare at the far wall. When John came back, he voiced the question out loud, continuing the conversation as if John hadn't just left, made tea, and come back.

"What?" John said absently, handing Sherlock a mug. Sherlock quickly found that it was tea, likely containing honey as well.

"I said," Sherlock repeated, after taking a sip of the tea (it was good; very good, actually), "Where would I go? You told me to stay here, so-" He had just taken another sip of tea when a jolt of sickening malaise travelled throughout his body, settling somewhere deep in his stomach. He removed the mug from his lips, closing his eyes.

"Sherlock?" John's voice sounded far away, distant and almost tunnel-like. "Sherlock, you okay?"

Sherlock opened his eyes again and swallowed hard, licking his lips, before moving to place his mug down. John took it from him, although his eyes were concerned, worried. It made Sherlock feel even more sick.

"Are you okay?" John repeated, returning to Sherlock's side. "You're nauseous?"

"I'm fine," he said after a moment, frowning at the window. It was too bright. (He just needed to keep his mind on something else, anything else, than the churning in his stomach. It was a self-control issue, and he wouldn't give into it.)

"Look, you- were you feeling ill last night?" John once again pressed the back of his hand against Sherlock's forehead.

Sherlock moved out of the way, dislodging John's hand. "I was cold and tired, although I didn't think of it. Otherwise, no, I was fine."

John's fingers looped around Sherlock's wrist, resting gently to take his pulse. "What time did you go to bed?"

"Roughly twenty 'til four."

The disapproval was clear in John's voice when he responded. "What was so important that kept you awake that late when we don't have a case?"

Sherlock shrugged a shoulder. "This and that."

John released Sherlock's wrist, producing a stethoscope. Sherlock frowned; where (and why) did he keep that here? It was medical equipment and, it was therefore meant to stay at the clinic. John didn't seem to notice the look. "I'm serious, Sherlock, what were you doing?" His fingers hooked around the blankets and removed them, only enough to get at Sherlock's bare chest with the cold metal.

"John!" Sherlock protested, flinching backwards as much as he could when the metal of the stethoscope touched his skin. A hard shiver rocked his frame and he groped for the blankets again, but John pushed his hand away.

"You're the one who insists on sleeping in the nude so," John replied. "Deep breaths, if you want me to remove it anytime soon."

"I-It's cold," he complained, raising his hand to force the thing away from his chest.

John caught his hand and forced it back down, holding it there. "I said, take a deep breath. I want to listen to your breathing. And preferably your heart, if you would cooperate."

"You just took my pulse; that's good enough."

"Sherlock."

It was that voice. That tone. That slightly exasperated but still containing poorly disguised concern voice. John's 'doctor' voice. The 'please, will you do what I say?' voice. The voice that was designated for saying Sherlock's name alone, and only when John thought that Sherlock needed something. The voice that Sherlock... couldn't bring himself to say 'no' to.

Just because it was John's equivalent of 'please'.

He took a deep breath.

"Thank you," John muttered.

Sherlock stared at the far wall stonily. He flinched every time that John placed the disc against a different part of his chest.

"So, are you going to tell me? Or is it such a big secret?" John asked, placing a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. His hands were warm. Sherlock was mildly jealous. "Sit up."

"Big secret? What big secret?" Sherlock muttered, placing a hand against the wall to push away from the headboard.

"What you were doing last night?" John replied impatiently, pressing the disc against Sherlock's back.

Sherlock flinched again. "Are you done with that yet?" he hissed, coughing afterwards.

"Deep breath."

He gripped the blankets and pulled them up to his chest. "You are inhumanly slow," he said, returning to taking deep breaths afterwards.

He was infinitely more relaxed after John had removed the stethoscope from his ears a moment later, folding it up.

"Well, it sounds fine. Since you haven't touched that tea for a few minutes, I'm going to get your temp."

Sherlock leaned back against the headboard as John walked back into the bathroom. "I-" he coughed again. "I was tackling correspondences and, you know, the website and looking through your blog and such. Noticed it was snowing. It got cold, I took a shower, went to bed."

John's head peered around the corner of the room. "Wait, you took a shower? Hot shower?"

"What other kind of shower would I take?" he replied insolently.

"Well, that probably did more harm than good."

"I didn't know that I was sick," Sherlock retorted. "I never get sick."

John's head once again peered around the doorway. "I'm really worried now. You just said that you didn't know something." He vanished around the door frame again. "Although, you do consider your body to be transport, after all..." He walked back into the room. "Here we are. Put this under your tongue."

Sherlock took the thermometer, twirling it between his fingers. His fever wasn't that high yet- probably around thirty-eight, thirty-eight and a half. Of course, that shower from before hadn't helped, but he hadn't known that then...

"Under your tongue."

Sherlock looked back to John, frowning. "I heard you the first time." He placed the thermometer under his tongue, staring up at John.

John returned his gaze stonily for a moment before a carefree smile lifted his lips, and he was laughing then.

John was utterly different when he wasn't serious. He was carefree and laughing and the entire world couldn't touch him, for a moment, when he didn't have any qualms, and it was nice. It was a nice change from the usual, serious, overworked, tired John. Not that Sherlock didn't have a hand in that- he did run the doctor ragged but he had warned him, to be fair.

It was nice, he supposed. When John was laughing, he wanted to smile, too.

The thermometer beeped and he removed it, finally able to open his mouth and voice "What's so funny?"

"That look on your face was funny. What's the reading?"

"What?" he asked, absently, looking down at the thermometer. "What did my face look like?"

"Very, uhm, displeased," John replied, amusement still in his tone. "Now, what's the reading?"

Sherlock hit the thermometer's 'off' button, it powering down with a single beep.

"Sherlock!"

"Thirty-eight point six," Sherlock stated, handing the thermometer back to John. He then slid down, carefully, between the covers, stretching out. His back was hurting from the awkward sitting arrangement and he really just wanted to go back to sleep.

"How do I know you're telling me the truth!" was John's response. He was annoyed. His voice was louder than before. Not happy now, obviously, his voice grating on Sherlock's eardrums...

He pulled the blankets over his head again. "If I were lying, would I bother to actually admit that I had a fever in the first place?"

Some silence. "Good point," John finally said. "Well, I'll be in the sitting room if you need me. Just yell."

Sherlock didn't bother to point out to John that he couldn't have yelled if he wanted to, considering the state of his throat and the ever-worsening pain in his head. He just nodded slightly, remembering that John couldn't see his head under the blankets after the fact.

There was silence again, and Sherlock thought that maybe John had left without him hearing him, but the blankets were then pulled away from his head. He gave John a sharp glare, reaching to take the blankets back- it was warmer with his head covered up, thank you very much, John- but John interrupted.

"Don't sleep with your head covered up. I know you're cold but trying to retain body heat isn't a good idea."

Sherlock stared at him lividly for a moment. He didn't need John to tell him what to do. He knew what he wanted. He did what he wanted, good or not...

But, John was right. It was the fever, it was the sickness, it was his brain playing tricks on him...

He sighed heavily, the exhale of breath trembling for reasons he couldn't place at the moment. Probably the pain, maybe the cold. Combination of both-

John placed his hand against Sherlock's forehead again, briefly. Sherlock, resisting the urge to snap at John for things that were embedded in his hard drive, let his eyes flutter shut.


Half of this chapter closely replicates my story, He's Only Ever Human, dialogue included, so if you read the Unwell chapter in that, you'll recognize some of it. Otherwise, there's new stuff.

Skewing Sherlock's mind is difficult, considering his mind doesn't get skewed. Hopefully I'm staying pretty much IC.

Thanks for your support and I would love to see more thoughts!