Coughing in the kitchen.

"John ..."

More coughing.

"John!"

"Sherlock, damn it!" Hoarse voice. "I can't just turn this off!"

"You're a doctor! Aren't you capable of treating yourself? You've been interrupting my thinking for weeks now with that coughing!"

"I think I've caught the flu ..."

"I don't care! Make it stop!"

Shortness of breath.

Night sweats.

Panic.

Gasping.

The sink.

Coughing.

Blood.

"Oh shit ..."

Fear.

Ringing ears.

"Oh shit …"

Footfalls on wooden steps.

"I said I need some of your gauze."

"Huh?"

"For my experiment."

"I wasn't home, Sherlock."

"Oh ... and where were you?"

" ..."

"John!"

"What?"

"Where were you!"

" I ... I was in ... shopping."

"What's this letter?"

Paper rustling. "I'm upstairs."

"John ... the gauze!"

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock could barely tear his gaze away from the piece of paper with the St. Bart Hospital logo in the corner, which he held in his clenched hand. He had only just begun to read when John interrupted him. He hadn't immediately understood all the medical terminology that had jumped out at him as he had skimmed the letter, but he understood enough to know that this was something serious.

"What ... Sherlock, what are you doing in my room?"

Instead of answering, he turned to him with a dark look and countered his question with one of his own. "What is this?"

John glanced at the letter and his features slipped. "Sherlock, have you- ... why are you rummaging through my things?!" With long strides, he approached his roommate and tried to snatch the letter from his hand, but Sherlock stretched his arm so it was out of John's reach.

"Give me the letter, Sherlock!" the doctor growled. He got hold of a corner of the sheet and tugged at it. "Sherlock, damn it, let go!"

Reluctantly, Sherlock did so and fixated the doctor with a look as if he wanted to suck the answers right out of his brain. He needed answers. Now. "John," he murmured almost warningly. "What. Is. This?"

John lowered his eyes - and said nothing. He just stared at the floor. Impatience rose in Sherlock, whipped up by the horror of this terrible premonition, by the scraps of words he had picked up while skimming the report. Without an explanation, it would remain only a premonition, nothing confirmed, nothing definitive, and that drove him mad.

John now seemed to be lost in his own head, standing before him with a blank stare and drooping shoulders, fixating on an imaginary point on the dark wooden floorboards. Sherlock realized that he had to make the first move, but just voicing this question, presenting his assumption as truth, made him taste bitter bile.
"What is it?" The question came out of his mouth calmer and more composed than he himself would have thought possible. But it was a good thing, because it snapped John out of his trance.

"W-what do you mean wh-"

"What kind of cancer, John!"

"Lung cancer." A breathed reply, but to Sherlock it sounded so unbearably jarring that he almost wanted to cover his ears. He barely dared ask the next question. "What ... what specification?"

John swallowed hard. "A small cell bronchial carcinoma."

Sherlock caught John's glance when he did look up at him fleetingly. And he wished he hadn't seen what was now showing on his friend's face - horror and pure fear.

" ... Chances of a cure?" Sherlock was unable to phrase complete sentences at the moment, the importance of the answer to this question choking him. He took a few deep breaths to make sure enough air still reached his respiratory organs.

John shook his head and his voice was little more than a whisper when he answered. "It's already metastasized. In the kidney and ... in the brain. They said they couldn't cure it ... only delay it."

Goosebumps of horror spread over Sherlock's body, and just like the little skin cells, his insides contracted as violently as if trying to turn themselves inside out. He blinked several times and took a shaky breath, trying with all the strength he had left to fight down the rising tears that burned in his eyes like corrosive acid. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyelids as hard as he could until he saw stars. "How long have you known?"

"For two weeks."

"For two- ... Two weeks? And when were you planning on telling me about this?!"

With clenched fists, his friend suddenly glared at him just as angrily. "What are you getting upset about anyway! This is my business and it's my damn decision if and who I tell about this!"

"You're tellimg me not to get upset? So I'm supposed to just not care that you're going to die of an incurable disease?!"

"Oh, now you care? Wasn't it you who said to me to go and cry at the bedside of the dying and see what good it does them? I'm a dying man too, Sherlock, why- ..." John's voice failed unexpectedly and tears glistened in his red eyes. He turned away, wiping his face with his hand.

John's words hit Sherlock like a punch to the pit of his stomach. No, John was an exception, John was the exception. John was the good that supposedly existed in everyone. What was left of him without John?
As if approaching a timid animal, he walked slowly toward him. Carefully, as if his sick friend might vanish into thin air if he touched him too quickly, he raised his hand and placed it on John's shoulder, involuntarily closing his eyes at the contact. He felt the soft texture of the sweater, the subtle warmth caused by the body underneath; he felt John. How long he stood there, eyes closed and mouth open to speak, he didn't know. His thoughts were scattered, pushing and shoving each other to be voiced first.

I do care about you.

I feel so helpless, John.

I don't want you to die.

Please stay with me.

I'm scared.

There is nothing I can do.

"John, I- ... I'm sorry."

At the sound of the trembling, broken voice, John lifted his gaze. "Sherlock ..."

"Please forgive me."

Without waiting for any response, Sherlock pushed past John and ran down the stairs. He could hear John calling after him before the front door slammed shut behind him.