Characters: Sherlock & John

POV: Alternating

Prompt: Do doctors really make the worst patients? Sherlock tries to take care of John when he's suddenly taken ill from caring for a sick child.

Submitted by: Arowen 13

John wakes at six o'clock on the dot and feels much too tired for someone who just got a full night's rest. He sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and thinks that on the other hand, maybe he feels just the appropriate amount of tired for someone who hasn't had a day off in eight bloody months. Between Sherlock and his real job, there's never a dull moment.

His joints pop as he stretches, reminding him that he's not twenty anymore, not even thirty anymore. He shrugs his dressing gown on over his pyjamas and pads downstairs.

Their flat is bathed in warm morning light. It pours in through the tall windows facing the street and illuminates the spread of experiments covering the breakfast table, refracted in a tall Erlenmeyer flask filled with some sort of blue-green liquid. It's all too bright and sparkly and it gives John a headache. He walks over and draws the drapes.

Sherlock isn't up yet - won't be for another hour at least, as they're in between cases - and John more or less has the flat to himself. He basks in the silence and moves quietly to the kitchen to put on coffee and butter some toast. Once that's all arranged, he goes to the sofa and settles himself with his mug and his breakfast and the newspaper that is waiting for him on the coffee table.

An hour and a half later, Sherlock emerges from his bedroom. Shockingly, he's dressed already - Dolce & Gabbana small-collar button up, tailored slacks, obviously going somewhere. John notes that he has a suit jacket hanging over his arm and deduces that where he's going is work. Private client, surely, as he'd never get up this early for Lestrade, unless it was urgent, and there hasn't been anything in the paper. John is proud of himself for putting all this together. He asks anyway, "Where are you going?"

Sherlock answers predictably, "Client." Then he adds, unpredictably, "Agoraphobe," as he slips his phone into his pocket and puts on his jacket and coat.

Quickly, John folds the newspaper and gets to his feet. "Let me just get dressed."

"No." Sherlock holds up a hand to stop him. "You're not coming."

"What? Why?"

"You're ill."

"I'm - what? No, I'm not. Just hang on a tick, I'll come with you." John makes to round the coffee table and dash upstairs, but Sherlock places himself in front of him.

"You're flushed and sweating and there are dark circles around your eyes, even though you got approximately seven-point-six hours of sleep last night. You haven't dressed or showered yet, not because you just felt like being lazy, but because you didn't have the energy. You thought the coffee might help, but it didn't, so you've just been sitting here quietly reading the paper instead of taking your usual shower at eight-fifteen. And the headache is fairly obvious, considering the darkness of the flat. You're coming down with a virus, John, and I won't have you contaminating my clients or evidence." Sherlock knots his scarf around his throat with an air of finality and steps toward the door. "I'll be back in a few hours."

"Wait - Sherlock - dammit!" John stands in the doorway and watches helplessly as his flatmate hurries down the stairs and out into the street. "I'm not sick!" he calls as the door slams.

Sometime around noon, Sherlock is in a cab on his way home, staring at the unanswered text he sent to John over an hour ago. Well, texts, to be precise. The first one said, What colour is the beaver liver in the refrigerator? and that one went out at ten AM. The second one said, Headed home and was sent at eleven. John hasn't answered either of them, which is strange, because John always answers, even when it has to do with beaver livers.

Sherlock arrives at 221, pays the driver, and climbs the seventeen stairs to his flat. He is mildly curious as to what ailment has incapacitated John past the point of answering texts, and just slightly hopeful that he will be able to conduct an experiment on him before his condition becomes emergent. Needless to say, he's surprised when he steps through the threshold and sees John, fully dressed, standing in the middle of the living room talking on the phone.

"Yeah, okay," John says into the phone as Sherlock hangs up his coat and scarf. "Got it. Brilliant. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Right, bye then."

"Cancelling all your appointments for tomorrow," Sherlock observes as he kicks the door shut and unbuttons his suit jacket.

John blinks. "How…?"

"Two thank you's," says the detective, by way of explanation. He can tell that it's lost on John, and he doesn't try to help him catch up. He angles an elegant dark brow upward and glides past his flatmate toward the table, simultaneously producing a thick file from inside his jacket. "How are you feeling, then?" he asks with limited interest. He already has a pretty good idea.

"Fine," John insists. "I don't know why you're so convinced I'm coming down with something."

God, John can be so slow sometimes. It's so very tedious. "I already told you how I know," he states. "Now you've confirmed my suspicions by calling out of work tomorrow."

"Does it occur to you that perhaps I just wanted a bloody day off? I've been working seven days a week for months, between you and the surgery - I need a break!"

"I imagine you'll get one, of a sort."

"What does that mean?"

Sherlock decides that now is a good time to start ignoring John.

John feels like death warmed over. An unpleasant and telling ache has settled into his back, he spent some time vomiting while Sherlock was gone, and he feels hot and cold by turns. But he sure as hell isn't going to let on that he's ill. He's going to quietly ride this out, because Sherlock bloody Holmes doesn't get to be right every single time. So he's going to put on a stoic face, he's going to let Sherlock exclude him from this newest case, and he's going to get through this without so much as a whimper. And when it's over, he'll gloat about how Sherlock was wrong and he was never ill, and he won't feel bad for lying because he'll have earned it.

Luckily, his flatmate isn't making it difficult. Sherlock is now absorbed in whatever he's got in glass slides under the microscope and pretending John doesn't exist, so that makes it easy for John to walk away and go pretend to read a book.

John carries on pretending to read his book for a few hours, then when he realises that the words are swimming before his eyes, he turns on the telly and stretches out on the sofa, casual as you like. But even that he's not really seeing, because his body is screaming for rest, and the unpleasant coil of nausea is curling around his belly again. He looks at the clock. It's only four in the afternoon. He has to make it to ten, at least, to be convincing. Steeling himself for a difficult six hours, he takes the TV remote in hand and tells himself that this will all be worth it in the end.

Sherlock is surprised that John has held out for this long. He is more stubborn than Sherlock gave him credit for. The detective makes a note of this.

It's about six in the evening. Mrs. Hudson brought up a baked hen a little while ago to share with the boys, but John only nibbled at his portion. He's pretending to watch television, but Sherlock knows he's not really paying attention. He keeps squirming, which speaks to his physical discomfort - body aches, probably, to go along with the nausea. His eyes are unfocussed and once or twice he's nodded off a little. Sherlock feels quite proud of himself. He's never been adept at deducing medical facts - that's John's area. But it seems all his time spent observing John has paid off.

Still, despite all this, John is doing a bang-up job of hiding his condition. Sherlock has the sense that the soldier in him hasn't forgotten his military bearing, and that he's actually even worse off than he seems. But why hide it? On this point, Sherlock doesn't know. What he does know is that two can play this game.

He waits until seven, and then stands up abruptly, pocketing his phone and scooping his suit jacket up off a nearby chair. "Come on, John," he says crisply. "We need to track down a Turkish carpenter."

John scowls at him from the sofa. The light of the telly plays over his face in harsh angles. "I thought I wasn't allowed," he grates.

"That was when I thought you were ill," the detective points out as he slips into his coat. "But you clearly aren't, after all. You haven't been vomiting, and you've been eating and drinking normally… and watching your rubbish television programmes. By all counts, you're perfectly healthy, and I need a second set of eyes on this case."

"Are you admitting you were wrong?"

Sherlock tosses John his coat. "I'm admitting that I need your help, or someone might die." That isn't precisely true. The case is that of a missing person that the police have taken less than seriously up to this point, but Sherlock is reasonably certain that the girl is with her Internet boyfriend in Aberdeen. He is also reasonably certain that John will think up some excuse not to come unless he thinks that his being there will save a life, so Sherlock stretches the truth. Though, technically, anyone might die at any time, so he isn't really lying.

And true to form, John sighs heavily and puts on his coat.

John knows that he is flagging. He can sense his own pyrexia mounting. The nausea is pretty insistent, too, and he's not sure that chicken was such a good idea. To make it all worse, his head started pounding some time ago and hasn't stopped.

And now they're on their way to… to do something, John isn't even sure what anymore. Something to do with a Turkish carpenter and a missing teenager and… that's all he can remember.

They get out of the cab on the other side of Hyde Park, and John pulls his coat more tightly around himself. "The Turkish carpenter lives in Kensington?"

"No, his sister-in-law does. Weren't you paying attention when I explained all this in the taxi?" Sherlock's tone is impatient.

John makes a valiant attempt at listening as Sherlock launches into another long-winded explanation about trace evidence and the honesty of the Turkish people as a whole, but the sheer effort causes him to break out in a cold sweat from head to toe, so he abandons it and instead settles for interjecting neutral listening noises whenever the detective pauses for breath. Which, as it turns out, doesn't happen very often, and that suits John just fine.

All the while, they continue walking. And walking, and walking. Past shops and tourists and nannies pushing prams and families all bundled up against the evening chill. After some time, Sherlock leads John left into a quieter residential street, and John is completely disoriented by this point.

Without warning, Sherlock is pushing John back against a brick wall, and ducking his head to peer into his eyes, and pressing an insistent hand into his good shoulder. "Are you alright?" the detective is demanding, and the tone of his voice implies that he's asked it once or twice already with no answer.

John realises that his breaths are ragged and wheezy and he's exhausted, so bloody exhausted that he can hardly see straight, and that headache has become an EF-5 tornado ripping his brain to shreds and splattering it across the insides of his skull. Suddenly, this whole pretending not to be sick thing feels very stupid. "No," he rasps, giving in at last. "No, Sherlock, I'm not bloody alright, I'm not and you know damn well… get off me." He shakes him off and claws his coat open, suddenly hot. Then his knees are giving and he's sliding down the wall to sit on the pavement. He can feel the cold of the concrete through his trousers.

"I tried to tell you," Sherlock says, kneeling in front of him.

"Get a cab," John growls irritably.

Sherlock is unprepared for how much walking is necessary to wear John out. He holds up surprisingly well until they turn down Montpelier Street, and then his body seems to give up all at once. His breathing becomes labored and he starts listing to the side, and Sherlock grabs him by the arm and asks if he's okay, but John doesn't seem to hear. That's when he stops him, pushes him against the wall of a nearby flat, and demands an answer. Finally, finally, John admits defeat.

Sherlock is also unprepared for how sick John really is. In the cab, he shivers incessantly and makes small, half-stifled sounds of discomfort every time the car lurches over a bump in the road. Even in the fading evening light, his pallor is unmistakable. Sherlock feels a pang of guilt and thinks he should have just let John have his way instead of dragging him out into the cold. But he had to prove a point, and now that John had admitted that he was unwell, he could concentrate on getting better, and Sherlock could help.

Wait, could he? What was involved in such a task? Sherlock frowns into the middle distance and wracks his brain. John has been sick before, of course… hasn't he? Well… maybe? He can't remember now. If he knew about a time that John was ill, he's deleted it. But he wouldn't delete something so interesting and relevant, so maybe John really hasn't ever been ill in all the time Sherlock has known him. This makes a certain amount of sense, Sherlock realises. Having been exposed to probably every common illness under the sun, John has undoubtedly built up an immune resistance to most everyday diseases. Does that mean this isn't an everyday disease?

"What's wrong with you?" Sherlock asks as the cab pulls up to their flat. He pays the driver out of John's wallet and meets his flatmate round the other side of the car.

John looks less than pleased by Sherlock's scrutiny. "What?"

"What's wrong with you?" he asks again. He leaves out the impatience this time.

"Sherlock!" John shakes his head and pushes past the detective.

Sherlock follows him up the stairs and unlocks the door, since John's hands are shaking so badly. "No, really - you're a doctor. Make a diagnosis."

"Why? So you can run an experiment?"

As tempting as that was… "No. So I can help."

John barks hoarsely. "Ha. Right." He stumbles inside and goes straight to the sofa and collapses, coat and shoes and all.

Sherlock has never taken much time to study medicine lately. He has John for that, most of the time. "Could it be flu?"

The doctor groans and covers his eyes with his arm. "It's a stomach bug, Sherlock, probably norovirus. There were two cases in the surgery this week."

"What do you need?"

"I need you to shut up."

Sherlock hangs up his coat and scarf and toes off his shoes. He waits.

John must eventually sense that he's still standing there, because after a time he peeks out from under his arm and says, "What, Sherlock?"

"What do you need?" Sherlock says again.

"Seriously?"

Sherlock doesn't bother replying.

Laboriously, John sighs. "Fluids. Warmth. Rest. For you not to be crowing about how you were right."

Swiftly, Sherlock strides to the kitchen, fills a glass with water, and returns to the sitting room, where he pushes the glass into John's limp hand. John accepts it with some amount of surprise and sits up to sip.

"And you need to be washing your hands a lot," John adds. "Norovirus is extremely contagious. Actually, you'll be very lucky if you don't have it already."

Clearly, John hasn't heard that Sherlock never gets sick. "What else?" he asks.

"Nothing," John replies. But then he amends, "Sick bucket." He sets the water glass down, kicks off his shoes, and hunkers down into the sofa cushions. His eyes are closed. His breathing slows, and after just a few minutes he starts to snore.

Being right hasn't been nearly as fun as it should have been, Sherlock reflects. It's usually a lot more satisfying than this. Now John's just sleeping and that's boring. The detective looks around for John's kit. He knows his flatmate keeps a nice big bag of doctorly equipment in the flat, and he wonders if there is something in it that might help John get better so that they can get on with things.

John drifts in and out of sleep for the best part of the night. He dreams that Sherlock's there the whole time. He dreams that he fetches water and blankets and cool cloths, but he has to be told to do these things because he hasn't got a damn clue how to take care of anyone. John realises at some point that that's not a dream. Sherlock's really there, and he really does need to be told how to handle a sick person. John tries to remember to tell him to wash his hands.

Sometime around four AM, John falls into a more sound sleep. He can hear the violin being played from somewhere distantly.

Around nine, he can sense rather than see the sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the curtains. It's quiet in the flat, and John notes with some relief that his headache is a lot better and the nausea not quite so bad. But his chest feels strange. Cold and heavy. He blinks his eyes open.

Sherlock is kneeling next to the sofa, studying him intently, with the plugs of John's stethoscope fitted into his ears. The cold heaviness on John's chest is the bell of the instrument, which Sherlock is pressing lightly against his chest.

"What are you doing?" asks John.

"Ah!" Sherlock jumps, startled by the sound of John's voice as it resonated through his chest and into the bell of the stethoscope. He drags out the plugs and paws at one of his ears.

Cautiously, John pushes himself upright. He expects the nausea to surge violently, but it doesn't. His stomach rolls uncomfortably, but that's about it. He's relieved. That's about all he can deal with right now, he thinks. He rubs the back of his neck and then pushes the blankets away. For the first time, he notices that he's been relieved of his coat and his jumper, and is down to his trousers and shirt. Parts of him are clammy with sweat. "Ugh."

"Your fever's down," Sherlock reports. He is consulting his phone. "It's been falling steadily since four-thirty-four. You were at 37.5 an hour ago. And you haven't vomited in several hours."

John isn't nearly as pleased as Sherlock to hear about his vomit. Or lack thereof. "What?" he questions dumbly.

"Hm, but you're obviously still disoriented." The detective looks down at John over the top of his phone. "Any pain?"

"Um… no?"

"No? Was that a question?"

"No?" John blinks. "Sorry, Sherlock, but - what are you doing?"

"I'm taking care of you. This is what you do, isn't it? Keep a log of signs and symptoms, and monitor your patients' progress while you provide treatment."

John's heart sinks a little. "What sort of treatment have you been providing?"

Sherlock consults his phone again. "Paracetamol, fluids, and bed-rest."

"Oh." That's not so bad. Actually, that's exactly what he needed. And, according to his 'chart,' he's on the mend, so apparently Sherlock even has this doctor thing down pat. John picks up his water glass from the coffee table and sips tentatively. "Thank you," he says afterward. He exhales audibly. "Though, y'know, most of it wasn't necessary. It's just a stomach bug. All I needed was rest, you didn't have to… chart me. Have you been washing your hands?"

Sherlock nods toward a bottle of hand gel sitting on the side table.

"Could I trouble you for tea?" asks John, after a moment.

Without a word, Sherlock disappears into the kitchen and returns quickly with a steaming mug. "I calculated what time you'd wake based on the trajectory of your illness and what time you finally settled down," he explains. "I started steeping your tea four minutes ago."

Sometimes, that great brain of his could be downright scary. "Uh… thanks, Sherlock. That was, um… kind, I think?"

Nodding, Sherlock sits at the other end of the sofa and picks up his own teacup from the coffee table.

For a few minutes, the two of them sip their tea in companionable silence. John is relieved to be feeling better. He's also relieved that Sherlock's idea of treatment hasn't maimed or killed him. Actually, truth be told, the detective did a fine job. He looks over at his flatmate, studying his profile, and wonders if he ought to compliment his passable work or if Sherlock would just be weird about it. Then he notices the odd ashen quality to his flatmate's features, and the thin film of perspiration that has begun to coat his brow.

"Sherlock," John says slowly. "Look at me."

Sherlock looks.

John frowns. "I think you're sick."

"No, I'm not!"