Characters: John, Sherlock

POV: Sherlock

Prompt: Sherlock suffers a severe illness and subsequently develops an obsession with John's stethoscope.

Submitted by: kink meme

Author's note: Friendship, but can be interpreted as pre-slash if you wish.

Sherlock falls severely ill one gusty October. He doesn't realise what it is at first, of course, just that he feels a little feverish and his chest is congested. The coughing bothers him mainly at night in the beginning, and he assumes he's caught cold. He drugs it away for a few days, taking massive doses of cough suppressants, but it soon becomes clear that it isn't going to resolve itself any time soon.

He hides it from John, for a while. A self-administered sputum culture tells Sherlock what he was beginning to suspect already - pertussis - and he considers disclosing this to John, but then a particularly stressful case comes up involving the murder of a child by his nanny, and Sherlock can't be bothered with his own health.

However, the decision is eventually taken out of his hands.

It's early, too early even for John, and Sherlock is alone in the kitchen. Sleep is elusive, his breathing too laboured when lying down, but getting himself upright hasn't seemed to help much this morning. He's making tea when a particularly violent coughing fit takes him, and he finds himself clinging to the worktop just to stay standing as the edges of his vision darken with each subsequently harder spasm. He drags in a wheezing breath, only to have it taken away in another paroxysm, the cough rumbling through his chest and making an awful barking sound in his throat.

John's voice radiates from somewhere to the left: "You okay?" Then it comes around to the right: "Jesus."

When the spasm finally passes, Sherlock is breathless and dizzy, his lungs burning as though he's just run a marathon. He lets his head rest on the worktop, but John's guiding hands pull him away and he lets them. He allows himself to be steered into a chair and he knows without looking at John's face that he's being closely watched. He stares at the floor, forearms braced on knees, and wills the room to stop spinning.

John's bare feet step out of his line of sight and then back in again, murmuring something to him - instructions, but the rushing sound in his ears hasn't subsided yet and he can't focus on the words. He shakes his head silently and waits for his breath to come back. John steps away again.

When he returns, he drops a black bag on the floor next to Sherlock's chair, and the detective knows he's in trouble. He feels John's cool hands grasping one of his own. "What are you doing?" he asks roughly.

"Your nail beds are blue." He sighs in exasperation. "How long have you been sick, and what have you been taking to pretend you aren't?"

Sherlock drags in a breath. His vision is clearing at last, but the pain in his chest won't let up. "Better part of a week," he admits reluctantly. "Dextromethorphan." He nods toward the packet of Benylin DM sitting abandoned on the worktop.

John groans aloud. Sherlock can't bring himself to look up at him. Then John is releasing his hand, his touch alighting on the detective's neck, his face.

"What are you doing?" Sherlock asks again.

"Examining you."

Sherlock doesn't have it in him to protest, and submits himself for his flatmate's scrutiny. John is very thorough, which betrays his concern in spite of his calm demeanour. His hands feel for the lymph nodes in his throat and neck, slide downward to palpate his middle for any tender spots. He peers in his throat and eyes, takes his blood pressure, temperature, and pulse. Then he retrieves his stethoscope, and Sherlock looks up just long enough to make a deduction about John's furrowed brow and his barely-detectable hesitation: he knows that this is where most of the bad news will come from.

John places a bracing hand on Sherlock's shoulder and presses the head of the instrument against his back. Sherlock lets out a hiss of discomfort at the cold metal on his fevered skin, but after the initial shock, its coolness is a relief from the pyrexia.

"Sorry," John murmurs at his shoulder. His supporting hand slides to the detective's chest. "Take a deep breath," he instructs. "Slowly."

Exhausted, Sherlock breathes at approximately half his lung capacity in order to avoid another coughing fit.

Alarm is evident in John's voice, despite his efforts to quell it. "More," he urges.

"I can't," rasps Sherlock.

"Can't because you can't, or can't because you won't?"

Annoyed, Sherlock redoubles his effort and drags in a full breath, with exactly the result he expects: he quickly dissolves into a coughing fit, and part of him hopes John feels badly. Indeed, his flatmate packs the offending instrument away and braces him up with a hand on his shoulder, talking him through the paroxysm in words Sherlock doesn't hear over his own coughing and the rushing in his ears.

When it's finally over, John releases his shoulder, hands back his shirt, and pulls a chair up in front of him. "I need to take a culture," he says, "but I think you have whooping cough." He sounds puzzled.

Sherlock pulls his t-shirt back on, shivering. "Correct. A sample taken three days ago confirmed Bordetella pertussis bacterium."

John sighs, but doesn't seem surprised that Sherlock has swabbed himself. Good, he should be used to this type of thing by now. He frowns. "Weren't you vaccinated for pertussis?"

The detective shrugs and gets to his feet, stepping away to retrieve his now-lukewarm cup of tea from the worktop. "At some point." He doesn't see how it is relevant now - he's already ill, so his vaccination status has no bearing on his current illness. While it's true that vaccinated individuals who become sick will usually have a milder form of the disease, the trajectory of his particular case has already begun and won't be predicted from that piece of his history alone.

"At some point," John mutters under his breath. "You need boosters. Have you received any jabs as an adult?"

"I don't know."

Thankfully, John chooses now to stop pushing the issue.

Sherlock sips his tea in silence.

"You'll need antibiotics," John says after a time. Sherlock can tell he is laying down ground rules now. This isn't a briefing, it's a warning. "You'll need to stop working for a while. I'll have no argument to that - until the antibiotics do their job, you are extremely contagious." The doctor exhales and pulls out his mobile, punching in a phone number. "Whooping cough can last for months, I hope you realise that."

It takes three rounds of antibiotics, thanks to the bacteria's unchecked residence in Sherlock's lungs and the detective's on-again-off-again smoking habit. The two of them fall into a rhythm in the first week. Antibiotics first thing in the morning; John sets an alarm and wakes Sherlock if he needs to at precisely 8am. Then antipyretics and a quick listen to his lungs. This ritual is repeated again at 8pm. Sherlock takes to hiding John's kit for amusement, because he doesn't particularly wish to be examined twice daily by his mother-henning flatmate, but after a while even that becomes boring and the steps that John has insisted upon become routine. By the third week, Sherlock is willingly submitting himself for John's listening ear each morning and night, without being asked, so that it's gotten out of the way and he can get on with things. He obeys his flatmate's isolation rules and stays in the flat - less because he's concerned about breathing on other people and more because he simply hasn't the energy.

After six weeks, his lungs are finally clearing. He can get up and down the stairs without his lips turning blue, at least. His cultures are free of bacteria. The residual cough is expected to continue, but doesn't cause him much bother. Now all that's left is to recoup his losses - lost weight, lost lung strength, lost time.

"Good," John says one evening, listening intently to Sherlock's deep breathing. He presses the stethoscope to his left side one last time and nods in apparent satisfaction. "Good. I'm impressed - you actually listened to me for once."

It was scary not being able to breathe, but Sherlock doesn't mention that bit. He shrugs in response and pulls his shirt back down before settling into his chair to commence with his nightly routine of snarking at the telly.

The next morning, John doesn't wake him. At first, Sherlock is confused, but then he remembers that he's finished his antibiotics, so there's no need. He stretches, coughs his lungs clear, and pads downstairs. He spots John seated on the sofa reading the paper, and helpfully brings him his kit before dropping down next to him.

Blinking, John looks to the bag and then to Sherlock. "Oh. S'alright, Sherlock. You sounded clear enough the past few days, I don't think it's necessary anymore." He flips the page in his newspaper and goes on reading. "Congratulations - you're free."

Sherlock feels strangely disappointed. John's undivided attention lavished on him twice a day every day had become a custom. It was so built into their daily life that, now, Sherlock isn't even sure how to start his day without it.

Coffee, he thinks. Start with coffee. He glances at the front page of the paper his flatmate is reading. With a side of murder.

That consoles him for now.

Two days and one solved murder later (gardener, simple), Sherlock still feels strange. Mornings are an odd time. John barely looks at him, usually absorbed in tea and toast and the daily news. Nothing he says seems fascinating enough to get his full attention. This isn't new, per se, but it's different from the status quo that the detective became used to while he was ill.

He conducts an experiment.

Six days after John declares him well, Sherlock starts rubbing at his chest intermittently. He clears his throat a few times. Shakes his head to himself now and then. As expected, he feels John watching him when he thinks he isn't looking.

After lunch, John beckons Sherlock to the sofa, sighing, kit in hand. "C'mere, I want to have a look at you."

Feigning indifference, Sherlock looks up briefly and then returns his attention to the microscope. "I'm fine," he says. He pretends to rub his chest absent-mindedly.

"No. You've been doing that all day. If your chest is hurting, it could be a secondary infection from leftover fluid in your lungs." John's stethoscope is hanging round his neck now.

"It doesn't."

"Doesn't what?"

"Hurt." He fiddles with the focus dials.

John exhales noisily. "Humour me."

Sherlock feels a little thrill from tricking John. This is almost as good as making a show out of detective work, except so much easier. No, John isn't calling him brilliant or admiring his deductive reasoning, but he is completely focused on him in a different way and for the moment it is satisfying enough. He rolls his eyes dramatically and crosses the room to sit on the sofa.

Humming gratefully, John sits beside him and slides the head of the instrument up the back of his shirt. Sherlock shivers slightly as its comforting coolness touches his skin. "Breathe," orders John.

Sherlock knows he won't hear anything, so he simply obeys and lets John listen to several deep breaths, before the doctor removes the earpieces and frowns.

"What kind of a pain is it?" John questions. He pauses, fits the plugs back in, and listens to his heartbeat.

Sherlock shrugs. "Dull, intermittent. I suspect just leftover muscle strain from the pertussis." It's half rooted in truth. He does have intermittent muscle pain - but it's hardly bothersome.

"Hmm." John puts the stethoscope away. "Keep an eye on it, anyway. But your lungs sound good."

The detective retreats back to his microscope.

Another experiment yields similar results. A string of exaggerated coughs throughout the course of a day results in John dragging him to the living room to check his lungs again. Sherlock protests just enough to seem normal, and allows himself to be steered to the sofa when he's taken by an actual coughing fit and can't do much else anyway.

When he's recovered, John fits the stethoscope and listens through Sherlock's Oxford shirt for a few breaths.

"I'm fine," the detective offers, shivering under the chilly weight on his back.

John looks unconvinced. "You're shivering," he observes. "Deep breath."

Sherlock sighs obediently. "It's the dead of winter and you've made me take off my dressing gown," he points out.

"Mm," John hums. "Fair point."

The detective kneads his chest absently, which prompts John to listen there, too. Sherlock feels he's won a little game.

Sherlock's final experiment is rather bold. There's a snowstorm outside and, predictably, the detective is bored to tears. John is reading a book beside the fire when Sherlock stalks over to him, stethoscope in hand, and sits beside him, holding the instrument out to his flatmate.

Lowering his book, John frowns at Sherlock. "What's wrong?"

The detective is silent for a moment. "Would you…"

John takes the stethoscope out of his hands and his frown deepens. "Er - are you not feeling well?" He sets his book aside and leans forward, eyes scanning the detective's face. "Listen, if you're worried about getting sick again, you should know that I've only been trying to be cautious…"

Sherlock gives him a pleading look.

Shaking his head, John fits the stethoscope's plugs into his ears and leans forward, pressing the disc against his friend's back and listening attentively. He still wears the same frown, his eyes darting to Sherlock's face a few times, furtively.

They are silent aside from John's quiet instructions.

After a few minutes, John sets the instrument aside and fixes Sherlock with a level gaze. "All fine," he announces. "Unless there's something you'd like to tell me."

The detective meets the doctor's eyes. He wonders what John thinks he knows, but he can't read him. John is doing fairly well at controlling his features. Maybe that's because he started playing poker with Stamford twice a week - a fact Sherlock deduces from his shirt cuff.

John gives him a long look, his poker face slips slightly, and Sherlock detects suspicion.

Sherlock realises it's rather unfair to be tricking John into auscultating him all the time, and he's thinking about stopping, when an accidental plunge into an icy lake during a suspect chase causes him to become ill for real. His immune system is still weak from the pertussis; the exposure to all the bacteria in the lake, as well as the extremely chilly weather, cause Sherlock to develop a terrible cold. The residual cough from his previous illness ramps up uncomfortably and brings a raging fever with it, and Sherlock is laid out flat within twenty-four hours of his little swim.

Through the delirium of a forty-degree fever, Sherlock feels the press of a body against him where he lies on the sofa and knows that John is there. He doesn't open his eyes, however, because the light from the fire will only worsen his headache, and he simply can't abide any more pain than he's already in. From above, John's voice asks in quiet tones if he can sit up, and Sherlock only shakes his head and buries his face deeper into the cushions.

John's hands are nice and cool. Sherlock can feel them pressing gently at his abdomen, and then the lymph nodes in his throat. Shockingly, he doesn't balk at this invasion of his privacy - not this time, because any relief from the fire of the fever is good. Shortly, John's hands leave him, and then he feels his sweat-dampened t-shirt being tugged on. A moment later, the cool, taut diaphragm of the stethoscope touches his back, so cold it hurts despite that John was just rubbing it between his palms a moment ago.

"Easy," John whispers.

Sherlock relaxes and allows his flatmate to listen to his ragged breathing, eyes still shut tightly, one arm thrown up over his eyes. He focuses on the sensation of the cold disc moving over his back for a few moments, and it's a welcome distraction from the body aches and the chills. Then it's over and John is starting to move away, but Sherlock's arm shoots out and his fingers curl around his wrist, pulling him back in until the head of the stethoscope rests against his ribcage again. He sighs and relaxes beneath it.

The chest infection has Sherlock laid up for a solid week. He and John haven't talked about what's gone on these last several weeks, and he thinks that's probably for the best, but one morning Sherlock walks in from an errand (case, theft, probably the maid) to John saying, "Oh, hey. Before I forget - I left something on your bed for you." He's getting on his coat as Sherlock is stepping out of his own. "And I'm going to Tesco to get the milk since you clearly didn't. Do you need anything?"

Frowning, Sherlock shakes his head, wondering what John could possibly want to give him that he couldn't have just handed him here.

"Right then. I'll just be a minute."

The door shuts behind John and curiosity propels Sherlock to his room.

There's a book-sized gift-wrapped box sitting on his bed, and Sherlock rips the paper open.

Inside, curled inside a clear plastic box, is a dark sapphire-coloured stethoscope.