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In spite of his flatmate's continued assertions of the contrary, Dr. John Hamish Watson was not an idiot. He'd taken his flu vaccine as soon as it became available; he always washed his hands or used the hand sanitizer between patients; and he was careful to avoid touching his face, especially his eyes, when seeing sick patients. He'd taken every reasonable precaution to prevent seasonal flu and of course he'd gotten it anyway.
Headache: check. Fever: check. Muscle aches: check. Exhaustion: check. All he wanted to do was have a hot cuppa, some paracetamol, and to sleep for the next 24 hours. John trudged down to the kitchen in sweats and a t-shirt. He was hot, too damned hot, and just walking down the flight of stairs to the living room had him leaning against the the wall, eyes shut, chest aching as if he'd run a half a kilometre with weights on his arms and legs. John closed his eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass. Bollocks.
“John?” Of course Sherlock was home. Was it too much to ask that Molly had found Sherlock a nicely impaled corpse to get him out of the flat for the morning?
“I'm fine,” John said. His voice sounded rougher than he'd like, and he could barely breathe through the congestion, but hopefully Sherlock would be too involved with his own boredom to notice. John wiped his wrist over his brow, a futile gesture as he was damp everywhere. Of all the idiot things, he'd fought a war, survived being shot and then a year with Sherlock (which was arguably more perilous than the first two combined), a stupid flu (the shot only protected against the three most likely strains, but he'd been careful, dammit; and he'd taken all reasonable precautions) wasn't going to take him out now. John squared his shoulders and walked with measured steps towards the kitchen.
Sherlock leaned over the kitchen table, looking at something under the microscope.“You're ill,” he said as John passed.
“I'm fine,” John said.
“That's why you took thirty seconds to recover from the strenuous descent from your bedroom.”
“It's a cold,” John said, opening the refrigerator. The rush of cool air was heaven on his skin. “I think I'll live,” no matter that he felt like he was going to die. Letting his gaze sweep over the shelves in increasing dismay, John asked, “What happened to the milk? We had half a carton yesterday.”
“It was expired.”
“Did you taste it? It tasted fine yesterday.”
“It was expired.” And of course Sherlock wouldn't be arsed to replace it. If he even knew how. In John's more charitable moments, he wondered if Sherlock's unwillingness to take on the 'tedium' of the market, laundry, or any cleaning task beyond drying dishes had more to do with a posh upbringing that had never familiarized him with those skills rather than simply being a lazy prat, which considering how uncharitable John was feeling currently, seemed the most obvious answer.
“I'm going to Tesco,” John said. The anger at least had cleared his head, though his body felt cold and vaguely diffuse, like a tissue made of fog. Foggy tissue, now that was hilarious.
“No, you're not,” Sherlock said. There was a rustle of fabric and Sherlock was moving to intercept, his long strides overtaking John's to place himself between the coat hook and the door. “You're going back to bed.”
Why did Sherlock have to make things difficult? John didn't have the strength to move Sherlock or the quickness to evade, so John would have to appeal to his flatmate's reason. Offer a clear logical argument given without sentiment, and Sherlock would surely move his arse. And the rest of him. Of course he'd need to move his arse with the rest of him. Right, that's the logic that would have Sherlock convinced right away. “I need tea and for tea I need milk,” John explained. “And stop blocking the door. How'd you even move so fast?” He pulled his jacket from the hanger.
“John, are you delirious?”
“Oh course not. Well, no more than usual,” he added, in the interest of honesty. “Are you going to move or what?”
“You're pale and shivering. Go lay down. I'll do the shopping.”
“You?! You're right. I am delirious.” John shoved his arm into his jacket sleeve and slung it over his wounded shoulder. “I know Lestrade made us sit through that course on sensitivity training last month, you know, the one where you made the lecturer cry, but there's no need to try it out now. I'm a doctor. I can handle a quick trip to the shops. The fresh air will do me good.”
“And the sleet?”
Was it sleeting? “I'll take an umbrella. Mycroft's always leaving them in the rack.”
“John, you're being an idiot.”
“I'm not--”
“And it doesn't become you. Just sit down, please.”
“Did you just say please? I'm hallucinating. I must be.”
“Of course you are. That's why you'd do best to stay on the sofa. I'll get you a glass of water. And some paracetamol before I go...shopping.” Sherlock wrinkled his nose in clear distaste. “Milk, you said. And you'll need tissues. And orange juice and toast.”
“If you're a hallucination, how are you going to get me toast?”
“I'm a genius hallucination. I'll manage.” Sherlock pointed to the sofa. “Sit.”
“I'm not a dog.”
“No, you're my idiot flatmate. Now sit down and sleep through some crap telly. I'll be back in,” he glanced at his watch, “a half hour.”
“Forty minutes. Lines are always awful in the afternoons,” John said. The jacket was too damned hot, so John shed it as he walked. Tidiness nagged him to pick it up, but as he was likely dreaming, what with Sherlock saying he'd do the shopping just because John had a bit, not even a full case (he'd taken all the proper precautions), but the barest hint of a flu, so why exert himself more than necessary. There was rattling in the kitchen as Sherlock turned on the tap and rinsed out John's mug. Dreaming, definitely dreaming. John curled up on the sofa, sinking into the cushions as the pure bullheaded stubbornness that had been holding him upright faded. Doctors shouldn't be allowed to fall ill. That should be a rule. Or a commandment.
Sometime later, Sherlock said, “Sit up and drink this,” holding a glass to John's lips.
John grabbed the glass, and the pills, he wasn't an invalid, and sucked them down, the water cooling a trail down his oesophagus that felt so good as to be almost obscene. That's when John realized he was actually leaning on his flatmate, back against Sherlock's chest, held tight under Sherlock's left arm. John said, “You should stay away from me. You'll get sick.”
“I'm a hallucination, remember?”
“Right,” Obviously. John had never bought Sherlock's assertion of being a sociopath, the terminology wasn't even accurate to modern standards, but not having anti-social personality disorder didn't automatically translate to cradling your fevered flatmate in your arms because he'd stupidly allowed himself to succumb to the barest hint of seasonal flu. “'S nice though. Thanks.”
“Go to sleep.”
XYX
John should not fall ill. If the universe had any sense of fairness (which of course it didn't. Sherlock knew enough of natural law to know that the universe didn't lower itself to sentiment) John Watson couldn't be reduced to a shivering, sweaty mess of flesh and misery by a simple virus. And John wouldn't, if he hadn't insisted on spending significant and unnecessarily time at that cesspool of a surgery, where disease ridden idiots coughed and hacked all over him with negligent disregard. It was frankly intolerable.
John was burning up when Sherlock managed to get some water and two paracetamol tablets into him. 39.5 degrees. Wasn't it 40 that required hospitalization? A simple check on his phone verified this. It was a miracle that John had made it to the refrigerator. He'd have likely passed out on the way to the shops; sheer stubbornness could only carry a body so far, Sherlock knew.
Five months ago, when Sherlock had chased a thief into the Thames and come up choking putrid water and from that been ill and feverish for three days, John had cared for him. He'd given Sherlock puzzles and made up ridiculous experiments to make him laugh, as Mummy had done through Sherlock's childhood illnesses until Father sent Sherlock away to school. He'd deleted that, as he'd deleted the other foolish sentiments that made weak in the focus of the other boys' stupidity and hatred. He'd never had Mycroft's talent for turning swine into minions. Instead, he'd had to rise above it through precise control of his mind. Purge the unnecessary before it had chance to take root, or if it had sunk too deep, partition it away so that it did not interfere with his work. Which was all that mattered, ultimately, all of value that he truly had to give. But somehow, John had accessed those memories, and Sherlock for he despised the aching misery of his transport gone awry, had found those moments too precious too delete. A small weakness, and one he couldn't quite bring himself to resent.
Sherlock set another mug full of water on the coffee table and left John hugging a pack of frozen peas, the duvet kicked to his feet. John would be asleep for an hour at least, until the drugs brought his fever down, more than enough time to get the basics and have some soup going when John woke. If Sherlock rested his palm on John's forehead a few moments longer than strictly necessary to check his temperature before going to the shops, well, it was an issue of caution, not sentiment.
XYX
John's dreams were flashes of Sherlock's voice, tea, someone rubbing frozen vegetables over his head and crayons. When he woke again, the smell of tomato soup and cheese on toast drifted through the flat. The headache had eased back some, and he didn't feel quite so flattened. “Sherlock?”
“I made more tea.” Sherlock's voice sounded from the kitchen. “It's cold though. I'll heat it again.”
A small waste-bin full of used tissues sat next to the sofa close to John's head, and someone, presumably Sherlock, had brought the duvet and pillow down from John's bed. John pushed the duvet down, and propped himself up on one elbow. No dizziness. Just a touch of the flu; he'd hardly been sick at all. Sherlock was in the kitchen, stirring a pot. The sun had set, only the dim bulb of an outside street-light visible through the front windows. Hadn't it been morning when John had come down earlier. “Am I still dreaming?” John asked. If so, this was far better than the tangle of pain, blood and screaming that had the fever had ripped through his dreams after he was shot. “What time is it?”
“Half four. In the morning. I've already called you out of work for tomorrow, you'll be no good to your patients.”
How had John lost the whole day? He was barely sick. “You're cooking? Like food. Where did you find the tomato soup?”
“In the soup aisle, at the Tesco,” Sherlock said, “Obviously.”
“Are you saying you did the shopping?”
Sherlock turned, and leaning his arse against the counter said, “No, it was Leprechauns. They also got you some crosswords and puzzles, and a colouring book of classic cars. You were rather fond of the Shelby Cobra, though the leprechauns would have preferred you'd done the detailing in green instead of purple.”
“Colouring book?” The inside of John's mouth was pasty, his lips chapped, but he couldn't help a smile. “You bought me a colouring book?”
Sherlock turned back to the soup, stirring it again and then pulling a pair of mismatched bowls from the cupboard began to ladle it out. “The leprechauns thought it might help, to have something to occupy your mind. And too much television can make the headache worse when you're feverish, I've been reliably informed.”
“I didn't think you'd remember that.” After that dunk in the Thames, Sherlock's fevers had been frankly alarming, and John had even had to put him on a drip for a bit, but the games had been the only thing to truly calm him down. Sherlock had certainly never mentioned it, but of course that might have been admitting to sentiment, which Sherlock despised. John said, “You were pretty far gone.”
“I remember everything of importance.”
“You coloured with me. Today.” It was hazy, the press of Sherlock's fingers around his own, his voice sardonically stating that orange tyres clashed horribly with purple hubcaps, but John remembered.
“Leprechauns, John, you know how I despise repetition.” The toaster dinged, and Sherlock pulled two slices onto a plate.
“Well umm...thank them for me. The leprechauns.” John sat up and pushed the duvet down onto his lap. “They were very...good...”
Sherlock walked two bowls of tomato soup and a place to cheesy toast on a tray in front of John. “You realize talking to leprechauns is a bit suspect.”
“Yes, well, we're both as mad as hatters. Ask anyone.” John sat himself up fully. “You may was well take half the sofa, if you're going to share this soup with me. I'm too sick to eat all of this and leprechauns or no, you've been exposed to whatever I've got. You'll need energy to fight it off.”
“Please, John, I took my flu shot.”
“Yeah, didn't we all.”