FIC: All Through the Night (BBC Sherlock)

[mithen]

Title: All Through the Night
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, Greg Lestrade
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2400
Summary: When John gets the flu and Mrs. Hudson is out of town, Sherlock ends up having to care for him.



John Watson clawed his way up out of a nightmare of heat and dust to find himself huddled under a pile of blankets in bed, sweating and shaking with chills. His whole body ached, and his head felt like it had been filled with cement that wasn't quite set yet.

Also, there were two people talking in his bedroom.

"But couldn't Mrs. Hudson--"

"--She's out of town for the week, Mycroft. Of course John would get sick now."

"He didn't do it to spite you, Sherlock."

John's lungs chose this moment to attempt to crawl out of his throat; he curled up deeper in his blankets until the coughing fit passed.

Somewhere in his bedroom, he heard Mycroft chuckle. "Oh, you should see your face, Sherlock."

"What? Is there something wrong with it?"

"Never mind, the moment has passed."

"I'll just go downstairs and--" Sherlock broke off and there was a shuffling noise. "Let me by, Mycroft."

"Oh no you don't," said his brother. "I know you. If I let you leave me up here with John, you'll make a break for it and disappear and I'll have to stay and take care of him."

"You think I'd abandon John?" Sherlock's voice was sulky.

Mycroft let the silence go just a beat too long before answering. "I think I'm not letting you by."

"Mycroft." Sherlock sounded very young for a second. "I don't know what to do."

Mycroft sighed. "Have you called Mummy?"

"...Yes."

"Did she give you the recipe?"

"Mycroft, there's absolutely no scientific basis for the superstitious belief in the healing power of soup."

"But you have the recipe?" Another silence. "Sherlock, you'll do fine."

"But Mycroft--" Sherlock broke off and John could hear footsteps going down the stairs and away.

Cautiously, he made a tunnel in the blankets until he could see out into the room. Sherlock was looking at the door and chewing on his lower lip, fingers drumming on his thighs.

"Sherlock?" Sherlock's head snapped around to peer down him. "What's going on?"

Sherlock crouched down until he could look John in the eye in his cocooned state. "I'm...taking care of you," he said. "Mrs. Hudson had to leave for her trip and she made me promise I'd take care of you, so I'm taking care of you." He nodded a few times, rapidly. "What do you need?"

"Something to drink would be nice," John said.

"Right. Right." Sherlock cleared his throat and disappeared downstairs. John could hear the refrigerator opening. Then he heard Sherlock's voice, as if on the phone: John couldn't make out the words, but he sounded agitated. There was silence for a long time, long enough that John began to wonder if maybe he'd been forgotten completely. Then Sherlock re-appeared in the door with a tray.

"I wasn't sure which would be best," Sherlock said, nodding at the tray as he put it down. On it were a glass of water, a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, a glass of tomato juice, and a glass of lemonade. "I called Molly, but she said anything cold and liquid was fine. I couldn't get her to be any less vague, and then she started--well, she started laughing at me, and was generally unhelpful. So I just got a glass of each of our cold liquids."

John chose the orange juice. "You called Molly to get advice on what liquid to give me?"

"Mycroft wouldn't pick up," Sherlock said as if that explained everything.

Looking around the room, John realized for the first time that every available space was covered with Sherlock's paraphernalia: pens, test tubes, a couple of daggers in ornate scabbards, a small jade statue. "Are you working up here? In my bedroom?"

"I need to observe your condition," Sherlock said shortly. He peered at John's face as he finished the orange juice. "Based on your flushed condition and the sweat on your brow, as well as your slight shivering, you seem to have a fever."

John held his thermometer up between them. "Yes, Sherlock. Brilliant."

"A fever." Sherlock cast his eyes upward as if rummaging through his mind. "It could be a symptom of visceral leishmaniasis. Or schistosomiasis. Yellow fever, dengue fever--"

"--It's just the flu, Sherlock."

"--Encephalitis, meningitis, it could be a huge assortment of very fascinating diseases with a high mortality rate--"

"--It's just the flu," John repeated firmly. "I'm a doctor, Sherlock, and it's just a bad case of the flu." He looked at Sherlock's face. "I almost think you'd be happier if it was something exotic and...not boring."

Those familiar frown wrinkles appeared between Sherlock's eyes. "If it were, at least you'd be taken to a hospital and cared for properly."

"You mean not by you," John huffed, rolling away from him.

"Well, yes," he heard Sherlock say. There was a short silence. "Can I...get you anything, John? More juice? A cold compress? Another blanket?"

"It's the flu," John snapped, not turning over. "I just need to rest and drink liquids and wait. It's tedious and boring, but there's not much you can do beyond be quiet and let me sleep."

"All right," Sherlock said, and silence fell in the room. John shivered and ached and drifted in and out of sleep. One time he heard Sherlock say, "Could you hand me my pen?" Then, after a short silence, "Oh, right. Sorry."

John finally fell asleep, but it was a restless sleep, shot through with nightmares of being needed somewhere, of trying to run to get to someone in time and not being able to move his legs. He woke up soaked in sweat, his heart pounding, and realized that once more there was another person standing in his door and talking with Sherlock.

"Honestly, Sherlock, what do you want me to do?" Lestrade's voice was annoyed. "I'm sorry John's sick, but he just needs to rest."

"I just want to know what you do, when your friends are sick."

"I don't usually hover at their bedside as if they're about to die," Lestrade said. "So I think we're starting from two different places right off the bat."

"Mycroft said I should make him my mother's soup, but that's absurd," said Sherlock. "There's nothing the least bit scientific about that."

Lestrade sounded amused. "And you're being so very rational about John being sick."

"Thank you," said Sherlock, "I'm glad you understand that getting emotional would not help John in the least. Now if you'll just let me by, I'll get you my notes--"

"--No way," said Lestrade.

"What?"

"I said there is no way I am letting you go downstairs. You'll vanish and leave me here to take care of John, and I have to get back to work, Sherlock, maybe you've heard of it? That boring thing normal people do to pay the bills?"

"Why does everyone think I'm going to abandon John?" said Sherlock.

"Sherlock--" Lestrade's voice broke off. When he spoke again, both the exasperation and the amusement were gone from it. "Sherlock, it's not that we think you'd neglect him. It's just rather obvious that you don't think you'll take good enough care of him, and you would rather have someone you trust doing it."

"Oh," said Sherlock.

"You're doing fine," said Lestrade. There was a gentle patting sound, a hand on cloth. "Don't worry about it so much. Make him the damn soup. It'll probably make you feel better, at least."

John heard footsteps descending the stairs once more. Then he heard Sherlock sniff once, sharply. "I'm not the one who needs to feel better," Sherlock muttered to himself.

John peered out at the nightstand. There were five glasses of orange juice on it. He groped for one and drank from it.

"Oh, you're awake," Sherlock said, turning from the door. "Lestrade sends his regards. Hopes you'll be well soon."

"I do too," croaked John. "I think the fever's worse." Indeed, everything in the room seemed preternaturally sharp, edged with terrible meaning somehow. "When I try to sleep, it...there are people who need me and I can't get to them." A chill shook him and he curled up for a moment, waiting for it to pass, shuddering. When he looked up again Sherlock's face looked bone-white in his fevered vision. "I'm sorry, you don't need to sit around here with me," he said, the words slow and heavy in his mouth. "Even more boring than usual."

"Shut up," said Sherlock. "Just--I mean, rest." He reached out and smoothed the hair from John's forehead with long, cool fingers. "I'm keeping busy, don't worry."

John tried to say something else, but a wave of dizzy sleep rolled over him and carried him away.

Sherlock's voice roused him from a half-sleep. John could hear fragments of conversation: Sherlock was on the phone with someone. "No, I haven't made Mummy's soup," he snapped. "And I'm not going to. It's entirely--" He broke off. "And no, I am not singing that silly song to him. Honestly, Mycroft, I would expect you of all people to understand how ridiculous all of these suggestions are." A pause. "The fact that I felt better after she sang it is entirely a coincidence. Of course I felt better eventually, all illnesses end. Correlation does not equal causation, Mycroft." Another long pause. "I don't know why I called you, if all you're going to do is make irrational suggestions. And laugh at me." He dropped the phone on the desk and sighed, and John slipped back into sleep.

A sharp smell woke him, rich and somehow pungent at the same time. He emerged from the blankets feeling shaky and weak, the room still swimming with fever haze, to see Sherlock standing with a blue bowl in his hands. "I made you soup," Sherlock said.

John managed to sit up and took a mouthful. "Sherlock!" he gasped as it hit his tongue. "What--what is this?"

"Well, the recipe called for ginger. That's the only ingredient that there's any proof of medicinal benefit for, so I decided to...add more."

"How much more?"

"I quadrupled it." Sherlock was eyeing his face. "Is it okay?"

"It's...it's fine." John took another bite. It actually wasn't bad. At least not that bad. "You made this?" He couldn't quite imagine Sherlock cooking and was rather sorry he had missed it.

"I am capable of following a recipe," Sherlock said.

"Of course you are." John finished the soup slowly, taking time to let the bite of ginger cool before taking another mouthful. Sherlock watched him so carefully it made him rather nervous. "Thank you," he said at last, handing the bowl back to him.

"You still have a fever," Sherlock said.

"It should break soon," John muttered, rolling back up in his blankets. "Just let me sleep."

He heard Sherlock go back to his chair, heard the keyboard start clicking once more, and drifted off to sleep to the rapid tapping noises.

There was a long time where he would come out of dark dreams to find the sun had jerked forward a few hours, turning from afternoon gold to sunset crimson to the shadows of dusk. He fought against a strange certainty that he was in the mountains, the air thin and cold, in caves that echoed his voice in eerie ways. Someone was calling his name, someone needed him, and he was never going to get there in time, he was lost in the darkness and--oh God, the floor of the cave was wet with blood, he was wading in blood, and he was too late, and--

"John. John." Sherlock's voice came to him as if from far away. "It's okay, you're here with me, you're safe."

He heard someone whimpering as if in terror. He swallowed, and the whimpering stopped. "Too late," he muttered. "Couldn't help them. Failed."

"It's just a dream," Sherlock said. "Just a stupid dream. You couldn't fail someone if you tried, John Watson."

John considered that statement. "That doesn't make any sense," he said muzzily. He sighed as Sherlock laid a cool hand on his forehead again. "Mmm. Nice."

There was a pause, and then the bed dipped slightly as Sherlock sat down next to him. "Can you go back to sleep?" said Sherlock.

"I keep having nightmares," John muttered. "They won't go away."

There was a silence as Sherlock's fingers ran through his hair. Then Sherlock sang--sang!--his voice as low and dark as the dusk itself:

"Angels watching, e'er around thee,
All through the night.
Midnight slumber close surround thee,
All through the night.
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping..."

There was a pause, and then Sherlock's voice picked back up, slightly hoarse:

"...I my loved one's watch am keeping,
All through the night."

John listened to Sherlock's voice falter through the last notes, as though he wasn't quite certain of himself. "Thank you," he murmured. "For the song, and the soup. And everything."

Sherlock cleared his throat. "I'm...not very good at caring for people," he said.

John felt himself smile. "Sure, you keep telling yourself that." He heard Sherlock swallow, and felt the fingers on from his brow trail down the side of his cheek, lightly. "This is crazy, Sherlock, but you know what I'd like? I'd rather like it if you laid down next to me for a little while. I think--" He broke off, then barged ahead, "--I think I could sleep better if you did."

"You're right, that is crazy," Sherlock agreed. But he maneuvered his body over John's and folded himself onto the bed, curled spoon-fashion but not touching John. John moved backward maybe an inch, closing the gap just slightly, and Sherlock suddenly put an arm around him and pulled him against his chest. He felt Sherlock's breath stir the hair at the nape of his neck and closed his eyes.

"You're almost certainly going to get sick yourself, you know," he murmured.

Sherlock chuckled against the back of his neck. "I'm not worried," he said. "After all, I know a good doctor."