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John was someone who rarely, if ever, got ill. Injured? Sure, that was a common enough thing in his life, even discounting being blown up and being shot. But sick?
The last time John could remember getting ill was before he set off for Ukraine, and even then it had been a slightly-worse-than-normal head cold. He didn’t meet the stereotype of doctors making the worst patients simply because he was never a patient to start with.
His flatmates, on the other hand? Both had been sick multiple times over the past few years. Mariana seemed to catch the flu every season, and suffer through it for a solid week each time. And Sherlock was so awful at remembering to take care of himself when buried deep in a case that he was more susceptible to catching colds or fainting. Add in his sensory issues making the feeling of sickness worse, and it was an ordeal every time the detective was under the weather.
They were approaching the tail end of Autumn and it had happened once again: Mariana had started sniffling, and within days sounded like she’d been gargling iron nails. As soon as they’d realised she’d succumbed once more to illness she’d started to quarantine in 221A and John had used up an entire pack of antibacterial wipes across the common areas to try and minimise the spread. But it had been too little, too late, as he’d woken up the following morning to the sound of hacking coughs emanating from Sherlock’s bedroom.
He allowed himself a moment to lie still and curse the general public and their lack of hand-washing, before getting up with a groan and heading for the kettle.
A few minutes later had him knocking on Sherlock’s bedroom door, opening it as he heard the detective call out a hoarse greeting. He carried the tea – complete with marshmallows – over to Sherlock’s bedside table, alongside a packet of unscented tissues and Sherlock’s preferred brand of throat sweets.”How bad is it?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed.
Sherlock groaned in response, covering his eyes with one arm as the other hand gripped his bedsheets.
“Aw, mate, I’m sorry. Hopefully it won’t be too bad this time around – and at least it happened between cases, and not partway through like last time, yeah?” he consoled, earning a tired nod and another cough.
“Hurts, John.” Sherlock whispered, sounding so pitiful that the doctor felt his heart clench in sympathy. He reached across, brushing the back of his hand over Sherlock’s forehead to check his temperature, before carding his fingers gently through his mussed hair. He smiled as Sherlock pressed into the touch, like a cat accepting affection from a trusted human.
“I know, Sherls. It’ll be OK, you just need to rest and have plenty of liquids, yeah?” he soothed, “Is there anything else you need me to grab for you? Do you want your weighted blanket from the sofa or would that be too much right now?”
Sherlock shook his head slightly. “Too much.” he confirmed, moving his arm just enough to stare at John with one bleary eye. “Heating pad?”
Usually, John would have – teasingly – chided Sherlock about manners, but the poor detective was clearly having a rough time already. “’Course, I’ll grab it in a minute for you. I’m going to make a run to the shop afterwards to grab Mariana the spiced butternut soup she likes, did you want soup too?”
Sherlock pulled a face. “Not hungry.” he muttered, earning a laugh.
“Well you will be later, matey, and even if you aren’t you need to eat something if you want to stand a chance at getting better quickly. Chicken soup? Or penne pasta?”
After pouting about it for a long moment, the detective acquiesced. “Penne pas-” he was cut off by a wracking cough that left him with tears in his eyes, whining and burying his face in his pillow.
Alright, Sherls, Ok, shhhh.” John comforted, getting up. He rubbed between Sherlock’s shoulders for a minute, before heading towards the door. “Penne pasta it is. Now drink your tea and rest up, OK? We’ll get you back to normal in no time.”
He retrieved and heated the pad, carrying it back through and placing it at Sherlock’s back, before washing his hands and heading down to 221A to check in on his other patient. Knocking before entering, he was unsurprised to see Mariana curled up miserably on her sofa, an episode of Star Trek on the TV in front of her.
“How’s patient zero doing this morning?” he joked, earning a groan from Mariana.
“Life is suffering, John.” she replied, before blinking and looking worried. “Sherlock ill too, then?”
“Afraid so,” he replied, “he’s coughing up half a lunch upstairs. But don’t you worry, Dr Watson is in the building and will have both of you up and running in no time!” He wandered into her kitchen, flicking on the kettle and grabbing a mug. “Tea? Or Lemsip?”
“One of my ginger teas, please, with some honey in it.” she croaked, “I can’t have another Lemsip for a few hours.”
“Coming right up!”
He tidied up the kitchen a bit whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, wincing at the sound of harsh coughing coming from the living room. Mentally, he made a note to grab some jelly pots whilst at the shop, knowing they’d be soothing to both of his friends.
Carrying the tea through after it was done steeping, he placed it on the table with a flourish. “Your weird herbal tea, madame.” he said, smiling as she reluctantly laughed at his antics. “I’m off to Tesco in a sec, and will return laden with soup and other necessities for a plague house. Is there anything else you’d like me to grab?”
“No, thank you John.” she replied, picking up her mug of tea. She took a sip and sighed, wrapping her hands around the mug. “I’ll look forward to my soup delivery later.”
John nodded, washing his hands again before heading out to the shop. The routine was somewhat familiar now, and once again the doctor was grateful that he wasn’t someone who gets ill.
Which is why he didn’t notice the symptoms to begin with.
It started with a runny nose. He attributed it to the freezing winds outside, and made sure to keep a stash of tissues in one of his pockets. It was annoying, but nothing to worry about. Half of London were suffering the same, anyway, a chorus of sniffling heard on every street and inside every shop.
Next were the headaches. He woke up a few days after Sherlock got ill, grimacing as the sunlight streaming through his window hurt to look at. He’d been up late the night before, though, between editing the most recent adventure and running up and down stairs looking after the other two. He probably just needed a few more hours, and perhaps less caffeine. Or was it more caffeine?
It was as his throat started to tickle that he began to realise what was going on. By that point, though, Mariana was finally on the upswing but Sherlock was deep in the heart of his illness, running through cough sweets and hot drinks at breakneck speed whilst also starting to get restless by the lack of enrichment. The last thing the detective needed was to be left alone, and they couldn’t risk Mariana getting hit with a second round of whatever-this-was.
So he pushed through, doing his best to swallow instead of coughing, to sip at honey and lemon drinks between care-taking tasks, to continue to be there for his friends.
He should have realised that pretending to be healthy would never work when one of his patients was the world’s only consulting detective.
“You’re unwell, Watson.” Sherlock stated out of the blue one morning, eyes – far less glassy than before – squinting at him almost accusingly.
“What? Nah, mate, I’m fine. Bit of a sniffle is all.” he downplayed, continuing his current task of putting the detective’s recently-washed clothes away.
“It’s far more than a ‘sniffle’, and you know it.” the detective insisted, shifting to sit upright. “Your cheeks are flushed, your nose is especially red – from repeatedly blowing it, I imagine – and there’s a slight wheeze audible when you inhale. Not to mention the number of times you’ve swallowed since entering my room four minutes ago.”
John sighed, swallowing again as he felt a familiar twinge in his lungs. “It’s fine, Sherls. Don’t worry about me, focus on getting better, yeah? Anyway, we all know I never get sick.”
Sherlock glared, unimpressed. “It’s physically impossible for someone to simply ‘never get sick’, Watson, and in your case it is patently untrue.”
The detective had a point, but John was determined to get through this head cold by pure stubbornness alone. “Yeah, yeah, alright. It’s just a light cold though, mate, I’ll probably be absolutely fine by tomorrow. As will you I imagine, you’re sounding way better already!”
He really should have known better than to tempt fate.
The next morning, he woke up trembling with how hard he was shivering. His head felt like he’d been smacked with a cricket bat, and it hurt to breathe too deeply. Still, he powered through, getting himself up and heading to the kitchen slowly. He stuck the kettle on to boil, fed Archie, and was heading towards the bathroom to brush his teeth where the world tilted at a strange angle.
He wasn’t really sure what happened next, but he heard a crashing noise just as his shoulder slammed into the floorboards beneath him. He blinked, dazed, and blearily registered that he was no longer vertical and that he could see the feet of the sofa. He was fairly certain they shouldn’t be visible usually.
Before he could try and think any harder on it, he felt the floor vibrate with incoming footsteps, and the sound of a door opening downstairs.
“John!” Sherlock’s voice cried out, and suddenly there were hands on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. A moment later their front door opened and Mariana appeared, looking worried.
“Hey, Mariana, you OK?” he tried to ask, concerned, but he found himself cut off after the first syllable as something tickled in his throat and he started to cough wetly. His lungs burned, and any thought of checking in on his friend went out the window in favour of trying to breathe.
He felt another pair of hands join Sherlock’s, and a disorientating sway as he was apparently moving, before he found himself sprawled over their sofa. A moment later – or perhaps a minute, he was struggling to tell – and his duvet was being thrown over him. He didn’t question its sudden appearance, burrowing into it gratefully to try and fight the shivers wracking his frame. There was movement going on in the room, but he was too tired to keep track of what was happening. He was warming up, and everything hurt but at least the sofa was more comfortable than their wooden flooring.
He blinked his eyes opened as he felt something press against his forehead, and glanced up to see Mariana perched in front of his on the sofa cushion, looking concerned but offering a smile. Behind her, looking somewhere between frustrated and worried, Sherlock was staring at him.
“Mmk,” he murmured, resigned, “maybe I am sick.”
“I’d say so,” Mariana agreed, running her fingers through his hair before moving to his shoulder and rubbing it gently, “you should have taken care of yourself, cariño. Sherlock and I are OK, now.”
John frowned. “Didn’t want you getting worse. Wanted to take care of you both.” he admitted, eyes closing again as Mariana’s other hand moved to his hair and petted it gently.
“Well now it’s our turn, John.” Sherlock’s voice replied, gently but firmly. “We’ll help you recover, just as you did for us. Now, I’m going to purchase soup. Chicken and vegetable, I believe, to help. And jelly – do you have a preference for flavour? I noted you generally prefer the berry-flavoured jelly pots over more citrus-y varieties, but it may be better for you to have orange jelly to provide additional vitamin C.”
Despite the ache of illness, between his two best friends and their versions of nursing, John felt warm.