AN: We're coming to the end of out journey, guys. Only two chapters left after this.
Paraesthesia. That was the word for it. That prickling, tickling, burning, numb-but-not-numb, painful-but-not-painful, that tingling. The pins and needles that let you know you had slept on your arm wrong. But he hadn't slept wrong, hadn't slept at all, because of that prickling in his extremities. All of his skin felt strange, sort of slow and doughy, but his feet and his hands and tongue and about a square foot of skin on his abdomen tingled intermittently with paraesthesia.
Jaw tightly clenched, he had wiggled his fingers until they ached in an attempt to get rid of it, but it persisted. Never mind the second-degree electrical burns on his stomach and the severe migraine, the pain medication was handling most of that, it was the annoyance of that little discomfort that was driving him up the wall. He would have given just about anything for a half-decent distraction. He was ashamed for thinking it, but he rather wished something would explode or break or that there would be a power outage or something. Nothing harmful, the place had back-up generators, he didn't want anyone hurt, but Christ, he was going barking mad lying here staring at the ceiling with the itty-bitty telly on the wall yammering away. This must be what it was like to be Sherlock; this bored, all the goddamn time. No wonder he could get so snippy.
He sighed quietly and began to do something that he hadn't done in years; he ground his back teeth. Because he heard footsteps in the hallway, and if there was one thing worse than boredom, it was being annoyed by someone with good intentions. He turned his head away from the door and closed his eyes. He had pretended to be asleep the last time a nurse had come in, and she had been courteous enough to just check his IV and leave. Hopefully this one would be so considerate.
The quiet chattering on the telly and the click of his teeth in his skull covered the quiet scuffle of bare feet on the floor, but he could hardly keep from noticing the slight jolt against his bed and the pained growl that followed it. He peered out dubiously from beneath his eyelids.
"Christ. Oh...Christ, no." It was difficult, slurred. He had bitten his tongue rather severely hours ago and it was still swollen and painful, but he wasn't about to let a little pain stop him. It never had before. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and regarded Sherlock's pale, trembling visage with unabashed astonishment. "How the hell...? What are you doing?"
Sherlock swallowed thickly and didn't bother to hide how heavily he was leaning on John's bed frame. "Good to know how pleased you are to see me, John." He panted, blinking away a stinging droplet of sweat that had crept into the corner of his eye.
In spite of John's shock and alarm, some small part of him was positively wriggling with elation, because let's face it, "trust issues" was not obscure psychology jargon. He scolded himself and promptly labelled that gleeful little stirring an irresponsible emotion, because it was clear that Sherlock was in no way fit to be wandering about a hospital in the middle of the night. "How did you get up here? You're not even dressed. Didn't someone notice you wandering around?"
"You'd be surprised how little people notice," he brushed his hair from his damp forehead and put a great deal of his limited strength into regaining his composure. "And I've still got pants." He added indignantly.
"Well, that's a relief," John grumbled sarcastically, tipping his head back and shifting his throbbing tongue in his mouth. "Seriously, you can't be here. They really didn't notice you? What about the heart rate monitor, what about –" He looked down at Sherlock's hands and sure enough, there was a pink, swollen square where he had torn away the skin tape and pulled out the IV lead. He even had a little smear of blood to show for it. "That's how they administer the pain meds, you know," John reminded him dubiously.
Sherlock shrugged. "Oh, it's not so bad." He couldn't stand up properly, but comparatively, it wasn't the absolute worst pain he'd ever been in. "I reset the heart rate monitor, it's not even turned on anymore, and trust me, as long as you saunter like you own the place, a few half-asleep skeleton crew nurses aren't going to stop you."
The man was impossible. "Well...fuck it, but I'm glad to see you. Regardless of the irresponsibility of your personal choices." He almost laughed. "God, am I glad to see you."
Sherlock smiled, but the sudden twinge that shot through his midsection stifled whatever response he might have offered. John's face paled and he glanced tentatively at the call button.
"Don't." Sherlock panted, but the way he was standing, bent slightly, hand pressed to his bandaged stomach, was carving John's heart out with a spade. "I'm fine," he insisted, recomposing himself.
"You need medical attention," John insisted bluntly, even his voice tense, "you're not fit for this, you're nowhere near recovered."
"Pity I don't know any good doctors."
John regarded him in the way a parent might regard a particularly snarky child. "I'm calling a nurse." He never would have admitted it, not in a million years, but if he had really wanted Sherlock gone, if he had really wanted to hit that button, he wouldn't have announced it first, just as he wouldn't have hesitated for several seconds before raising his hand, knowing and expecting the firm grip of Sherlock's cool fingers on his wrist, stopping him. If you had asked he would have chalked it up to the morphine. Slow reflexes.
"Don't." He repeated. And John didn't.
For a long while they stared at one another in silence, and John didn't even pretend not to notice the way Sherlock was eyeing the few spare inches of bed to his left. Finally, the good doctor sighed. "Alright, lie your arse down then, you prat, or you're going to keel over in a minute."
Sherlock, much like a cat, pretended for a moment that he was perfectly fine where he was thank-you-very-much. Allowing just enough of a delay to make it clear that it was entirely his idea, and not the answer to a command, he climbed gingerly into the entirely-too-narrow bed with his prickly flatmate. It wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as he would have expected, but then, he was in a substantial amount of pain, and just lying down was a relief.
John wriggled until his and Sherlock's shoulders were scrunched tightly but comfortably together, and moved his pillow so they could share it more easily.
"Sherlock?"
"Hmm?"
"Remember that night we moved in at the flat? When we chased the cabbie through central London and I told you that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever done?"
Sherlock made a soft sound to the affirmative.
"Yeah, I've changed my mind. Sharing a hospital bed with my flatmate after we've broken into a stranger's house to steal semen, only to be stabbed and electrocuted by an eleven-year-old is definitely the most ridiculous thing I've ever done. Including invading Afghanistan."
Sherlock began to laugh, but suppressed it almost immediately. He was missing that morphine, there was no sense denying it, but he'd be damned if he was going back downstairs. He could cope.
"I'm sorry, John." He murmured, and John turned to glance at him, for how often did Sherlock Homes apologize? The detective sighed deeply and tapped his fingers pensively against his sternum. "I miscalculated. It's because of my lack of foresight that you've been wounded, that your life was put in danger, and I just want you to know that - "
"It was worth it."
Sherlock's brows knit together as he turned his head toward his slightly squished friend.
"You've chosen your suicidal bent," John sighed, and to Sherlock's surprise, he was smiling slightly, "and I've chosen to follow you, god help me, but it's been worth it. Every minute and every case and every bloody...electrocution, I would suffer it all again."
In the way that only John could, he had silenced Sherlock rather soundly, and the two of them lay still for a few slow breaths, staring at the ceiling and simply marvelling at the fact that the universe could have spun into existence two people so entirely dissimilar and then – by some cosmic fluke – bound them inseparably together. The fact that those same two people were currently both in one hospital bed in their skivvies was just icing on the metaphysical, metaphorical cake.
"John?"
"Yeah?"
"You're an idiot."
John laughed. "I don't doubt it."
"But I'm glad that you're my idiot."
"Yeah, and I suppose I'm glad you're my idiot as well."
They both laughed softly, and Sherlock felt a small patch of blood seeping through the bandage, but he didn't care. He'd had plenty transfused, he knew he could spare a few drops for the sake of keeping John smiling.
"This is going to be difficult to explain when the next nurse comes in," John added with a sigh.
"Yeah, but at least that twitch in your fingers is gone," Sherlock smirked.
John looked down at his still-slightly-numb hands in surprise and tapped his fingers just to be sure, but Sherlock was right. The tingling was gone, even from the electrical burn on his stomach. Remarkable. Really, it was. Incredible.
John had allowed Sherlock to wriggle under the blanket but not (absolutely not) under the sheet, because unlike someone he could mention, John had not been allowed to retain his pants, and this situation did not need to be one iota more awkward or compromising than it already was.
His paraesthesia subsided and the morphine working its magic, the good doctor had drifted easily into a deep and needed sleep in spite of being slightly squashed by his incorrigible flatmate, but Sherlock had remained awake. The pain in his side was making him clammy and nauseous, but he had chosen his doctor over his morphine, and while he made no illusions about suffering being an easy thing to bear, he knew that he wasn't going back. Not for anything.