A/N: Warning: long deductions are long (324 words, to be exact). Hope it makes sense/seems plausible. Enjoy!
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"Oh, my head," Harry moaned the next morning, clutching at the offending body part.
"You have a hangover, Harry," Sherlock informed her unhelpfully, still sitting exactly where he had the night before.
She flinched away from the sound of his voice - not only because his words jack hammered through her aching skull, but because "Hangover Harry" was the not-so-affectionate nickname given to her by the people in her run-down apartment complex.
"Do you have any aspirin?"
"Yes," he answered, not moving an inch, and not deigning to tell her where to find the painkillers. She groaned and stumbled to the bathroom, assuming - correctly - that the medicine cabinet was located within.
Water splashed into the sink and she stuck her face into the stream, washing the grit from her eyes and the furriness from her tongue. One hand gripping the basin for support, she fumbled through the shelves of pills and band-aids until she snagged the half-empty bottle of aspirin. She shook out two capsules, popping them on her tongue and sucking a mouthful of water from the tap. Cramming the lid back on the jar and leaving the cabinet door agape, she tottered over to sit on the lid of the toilet, leaning her head against the cool tiles. It was several minutes before her splitting headache subsided into a dull throb. At that point, she got up and lurched back towards John's room.
Harry had some questions for Sherlock.
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"The other day… How did you know about our parents?" she asked him, leaning on the doorframe as Sherlock had not offered his chair. "John never talks about it with anyone."
"I deduced it," Sherlock replied.
"You what?" Harry asked him blankly.
He needed no further invitation - he never was able to pass up an opportunity to show off.
"John keeps a photograph of his mother in his dresser draw. They were quite close at some point, but she died, obviously, otherwise he'd have the photo in more obvious view - it would sadden him to be constantly reminded of her passing. There's a part of the photo that's been cut off - the picture is far too small to be a standard sized print, at least not a whole one. The right hand side edge of the photograph isn't exactly straight, either, where the scissors have veered slightly off course. There's a man in the picture, or rather, there was. He's on the part that's been removed, only some of his arm still visible - too hairy and muscular to be a woman's. Extremely likely it's the husband. So why would John not want to keep a photo of his father? Obviously, John hated him for whatever reason, and the most probable scenario by far is that he left the family.
"Now, the photograph is faded, suggesting her death was some time ago, but there are a number of white marks where the photographic paper has stuck to something on top of it, as if it had been in a stack of older photos. The spots are clean, with sharp edges that show only slight wearing. It was only recently removed from the stack, then, marking the death itself as recent.
"Why did John choose an older photograph, when there should have been more current ones? Because this was the latest picture of her that she actually looked happy. Many women suffer from depression when their husbands leave them, especially if it's for no apparent reason or for someone else. With one of her children risking being shot or blown up or otherwise killed in the war, and the other slowly poisoning herself to death with alcohol, it's no small wonder that her depression and death were cause and effect - she committed suicide."
Harry had listened to him with a horrified expression on her face, tears staining her cheeks. "Mum's death… was my fault?"
"In combination with a number of other factors, yes."
"Oh god," she wailed, staggering out of the room.
You should've known that would make her leave, you could have told her sooner! Sherlock berated himself mentally. He didn't care about the psychological impact his words had had on her - he didn't even understand it, not really. So, like most emotional reactions, he dismissed it.
Mrs Hudson bustled into the flat with John's chamomile tea, only to be almost swept off her feet as Harry stumbled past her and out the door. "I thought she was giving up the drink?" she asked Sherlock, who had been watching to make sure she left. "Goodness, she must have really taken John's condition hard."
Sherlock's gaze whipped to Mrs Hudson. "You told her? You're the reason I had to deal with her drunken antics?"
Her lips parted slightly as she took a step back. "Of course I told her, she's John's sister. Poor John's been out for three days, I thought she should know, just in case…" she petered off.
"He's not going to wake up? He's dying?" Sherlock substituted harshly.
Shocked tears sprung to her eyes. "...Yes," she managed eventually. "I thought she should have the chance to say goodbye before ...that… if it does even happen."
"Why? It would make no difference if he was unconscious or dead. He wouldn't hear her either way."
She looked at him as if he were an alien. "I don't understand how you can just seem to have no feelings about his condition at all, I really don't!" She practically dropped the tea tray on the table and hurried out of the room, dissolving into quiet tears.
He ignored her, mulling over his own words. Dying. There. He'd said it out loud now.
John was dying.
Sherlock took a shaky breath, running his hands through his unruly dark hair. Steeping his fingers and tucking them securely against his lips and nose, he attempted to analyse his own emotions. He'd been (mostly) ignoring them up until that point, but being confronted by two crying females in as many minutes was making him wonder if there was something wrong in that.
It was painful to delve into them, far more so than Sherlock could have thought possible. He didn't know how to deal with feelings of this magnitude, having never really felt anything on a similar scale. After a few moments' deliberation, he decided to make an emotional equivalent to his mind palace, to leave the feelings there and deal with them later, if at all. It wasn't the same as ignoring them - that entailed acknowledging their existence, and deliberately not paying attention to them. This kept the emotions completely out of view.
Closing his eyes for a few moments, Sherlock gathered up all his concern and distress - both at John's condition and his own ineptitude in taking care of him - and shut them tightly out of sight (thought?), instantly feeling better. He wondered at the outbursts of emotion that everyone else seemed to have in these situations, like Harry and Mrs Hudson had demonstrated. Why didn't normal people just push it away, like he just had? He shrugged to himself, figuring that they didn't have the mental capabilities to do so.
It wasn't as if he ever found that limitation in others a surprising one.
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Quietly, and obviously still mad at Sherlock for what he'd said the day before, Mrs Hudson set down the tea tray on John's bedside table.
"Thank you, Mrs Hudson." The words sounded very hollow.
"Oh, don't bother yourself thanking me," she replied, casting just one of many concerned looks at the sickening figure tossing listlessly in his bed. He was nowhere near being the wasted form he had been in his first bout of sickness, but that did little to console either of them. "…He's really not looking all that good, is he?" Despite still being angry with him for his cold reaction to John's condition, she instantly regretted the words when she saw the look on Sherlock's face.
He took a breath and carefully stowed away the emotion. "I think you should administer the tea now, Mrs Hudson. You're letting it get cold."
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Sally was fuming.
What did Lestrade think he was getting at? They didn't need Sherlock to help solve every single case! Granted, things got done much quicker that way, but it came at the price of their dignity and having to see Sherlock's smug, self-assured expression as he explained to the peons the deductions that came to him without any apparent effort.
She muttered darkly to herself as she marched from the precinct to her car. "...'But he's better than them, he gets it done faster'," she mimicked Lestrade bitterly as she turned the key in the ignition, pulling out of the parking lot with a bit more speed and ferocity than really necessary. "Bloody ridiculous, might as well just fire us all, seeing as the great Sherlock Holmes is basically doing our jobs for us anyway... And now we have to go crawling back to him because some idiot got himself murdered without any leads that anyone normal can find, and we're understaffed as it is with new reports just piling up every day..."
Even when she rapped her knuckles against the door of 221B, she was still glowering. She tapped her toe impatiently against the ground as she waited for Mrs Hudson to open the door.
"Oh, Sergeant Donovan!" The elderly landlady twittered, surprised by the unexpected visitor. "John's not well, I don't think-"
"I'm not here for John. Lestrade wants Sherlock for a case."
Mrs Hudson glanced up the stairs, hands on the edge of the door. "Sherlock's taking care of John," she said eventually. "I'll go see if he won't let me replace him for a few hours so he can help you."
"No need to bother yourself," Sally assured her, forcing a smile onto her face. "I'll go up."
Again, Mrs Hudson hesitated before yielding, opening the door wider and stepping behind it so Sally had enough room to move into the small entryway. Sally's strained smile dropped as soon as she'd passed the older lady, and she stomped irritably up the stairs, and continued to stomp her way to the door of John's room.
"Hello, Freak." Sally leant against the doorway, arms folded.
"Donovan," Sherlock replied flatly. His eyes stayed focused on the sleeping John, trapped in a feverish dream.
"Lestrade wants you down at Scotland Yard. I tried to convince him we can actually do our jobs without you, but he's been insistent." She raised an eyebrow and added, "Heard you haven't left John alone in his bed in days."
"Hilarious, making innuendos about him whilst he lies there dying," Sherlock spat acerbically. A quick flash of guilt flickered in her eyes as she realised she'd gone way over the line. She stared at her high heels, swallowed and turned to leave.
"...I'll tell Lestrade you're not coming."
Sherlock sighed heavily, shakily. The door clicked shut and he was alone.
"What do I do, John?" he asked softly. He had never been so unsure of himself in his life.
An aggravated growl built up in his chest and he slid his head into his hands, palms grinding his eyes. John had only been in his life for just over a year, but he'd made far more of an impact than anyone else he had ever known. The two of them were like brothers - John felt more like his brother than Mycroft, at least, although that never really was saying much. John had had no idea how bad Sherlock had been before they met. Drugs, (barely) controlled explosions, no small number of arrests – he didn't have an aversion to riding in the back of police cars for no reason, after all. Sherlock had often resorted to drastic measures in the past to alleviate his boredom, and the only reason he hadn't ever been incarcerated was because of Mycroft's intervention. His older brother had even, on several occasions, threatened to turn a blind eye when he committed some small felony and let him serve time as a means of forcing him to behave, but Mycroft had never carried through.
But for all the times that Sherlock ignored John's pleas - orders, really - to get his act together, there were twice as many times that he had listened. Much as he hated to admit that he couldn't function at optimum levels without outside help, having a flatmate that could put up with his antics had done a world of good for Sherlock.
And now it seemed that would all be ripped away.
He snapped out of his thoughts as John spasmed violently, eyes flying open. "...What…?" John jerked a few more times then was still, eyes staring glassily at the ceiling. Swiftly picking up the wrist closest to him, Sherlock felt for a pulse, and when he didn't find one, held his cheek next to John's nose, then his chest, searching for some breath or beat of life.
There was nothing.
John was dead.
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A/N: *blinks* Um, wow. That... that didn't end up where I expected it to at all. Um... Yeah, I'll post an epilogue in a day or two, just a few hundred words, of how Sherlock deals with this. I seriously didn't mean for things to go in this direction, they just kind of... did. If you're not quite as shocked as I am, would you be so kind as to leave a review? Feel free to yell at me or pound ineffectually at your keyboard. I'm just going to go lie down and think about what I've done.
-pixie.