~1~

"Are you dead, John?" Sherlock asked from John's bedroom doorway.

John sighed. Sherlock never voiced questions he deemed redundant, so either he was breaking his own rules –highly unlikely – or he really thought there was at least a slim chance that John had, in fact, expired some time during the night.

Yes, John wanted to answer. He felt miserable enough that death might be preferable. His whole body ached, his sinuses were packed with something that felt like cement, and he must have swallowed all the scalding desert sands that plagued his dreams if the burn in his throat was anything to go by.

Maybe if Sherlock believed he was dead, the detective would go gallivanting around London on his own today, and John could get back to the very important business of sleeping.

But no. Who was John trying to kid? This was his lunatic flatmate at the door; the one with a predilection for experimenting on human flesh. If John actually had the bad manners to die in the flat, Sherlock would, no doubt, appropriate his remains for science. Then he'd end up another head in the fridge next to poor Mr. Nelson, who Sherlock had apparently managed to at least partially mummify. Or maybe, if John was really lucky, he'd be the next Skull.

"Not dead," John rasped, self-preservation instincts kicking in. He winced and swallowed thickly against the raw scrape in his throat. It had only been a tickle last night, and he had foolishly hoped some vitamin C and a good eight hours of sleep would make it go away. Damned wishful thinking.

Sherlock strode into John's bedroom without waiting for an invitation, trampling right over the line of normal human propriety and into John's personal space.

Boundaries, John thought vaguely. Someday I really am going to have to have a talk with him about boundaries.

The detective regarded John with probing eyes, doubtless cataloging more details than a supercomputer. As though to prove the point, Sherlock cocked his head to the side and started speaking. "Your voice is hoarse and you winced after you spoke, indicating a sore throat. Red rimmed eyes shows inflammation of the mucus membranes. Drool on your pillow," John glanced down at the little dark patch under his cheek and felt a flash of embarrassment, "Suggests you were breathing through your mouth, so, clogged sinuses as well. Your brow is furrowed, and you're squinting, clear signs of a headache. And" Sherlock said, coming to a stop directly beside John's bed, "You didn't answer my texts." From the tone of his voice, that last was the most telling sign of all. "You're sick." He spoke the words like an accusation.

John pursed his lips and leveled a gaze at Sherlock that he hoped conveyed at least a little bit of the exasperation he was feeling. "Very observant," he croaked, then sneezed.

Sherlock frowned, the corners of his mouth quirking down minutely. "You can't be sick now. We don't have time."

"Time?" John asked, confused.

Sherlock drew his phone out of a jacket pocket and brandished it at John. "Lestrade texted. We have a case. Finally, a case! A triple murder with midgets, John. Tightrope walking midgets. Get up." Predictably, he sounded indecently excited about the carnage.

"Sherlock," John's voice caught in his throat and he had to cough to clear it. He looked balefully up at his flatmate. "I probably won't be getting out of bed today, let alone going to a crime scene." He rubbed at his eyes with the back of one hand and swallowed against the bitter taste in his mouth. God, he hated being sick.

"Don't be ridiculous," the detective said in the same acerbic tone he used when John failed to grasp a supposedly self-evident fact. "This is our first case in a week. A week, John. I know you've been bored. Not as bored as I've been, of course. Superior minds find tedium far more trying than average intellects. Oh, stop glaring at me. You know it's true. We've both been bored, and now there's a case. How can you lay in bed at a time like this? We have a case, John. A triple murder with tightrope walking midgets."

John sighed then sneezed again. "You have a case," he said as clearly as he could when his throat felt like he'd been gargling gravel. "I have the flu. And I think the politically correct term is 'small people.'"

"Triple murder," Sherlock insisted, still brandishing his mobile with the picture of brightly striped carnival tents wrapped in yellow crime scene tape. "Tightropes. Midgets."

John sighed. For just a moment, he contemplated pulling the blankets over his head and hiding away. Then, he could fall back into the blissful, undisturbed oblivion of unconsciousness. Unfortunately, his arms were lead-heavy and, Christ, even the thought of moving made his joints ache. Besides, a blanket over the head was unlikely to deter Sherlock. The insufferable man would probably see it as some sort of challenge.

No, clearly the best course of action was to wait. Eventually Sherlock would deduce that John was in no fit state to go dashing through carnival tents or across tightropes to chase after any unscrupulous characters today. When he did, the detective would be off and running on his own, and John could go back to being miserable in peace. Sick people were boring after all, lacking as they were in blood and gore and ransom notes, and Sherlock hated being bored. John had no doubt that in half a second he'd be whipping out the door in a flurry of designer coattails and frantic text messages, in all likelihood rushing headlong into disaster. Again.

The worst part, the part that really worried John, was that despite the aches and pains and ridiculously draining exhaustion of illness, John wanted, almost desperately, to go with him.

I've gone mental, John thought, and wondered when exactly he'd cracked.

Sherlock's face suddenly loomed large in front of him as the detective leaned over the bed.

John blinked. Being the sole focus of Sherlock's formidable attention wasn't exactly an unfamiliar sensation, but it was intense enough that it still caused a few of the hairs to rise on the back of John's neck. John glowered. "Stop staring," he said weakly. "I feel like a corpse at a crime scene."

Sherlock, of course, ignored the order. He squinted at John, somehow making that razor sharp gaze even sharper.

"How can you be sick?" he asked, sounding half vexed and half curious, as though John had done it on purpose. Maybe he really did think falling ill was just another one of John's perfectly ordinary – and therefore completely incomprehensible – personality quirks.

"Dunno," John shrugged against the bed, regretting it instantly when his whole body throbbed in protest. "Like I said, I must've caught the flu." He sniffled a little. Where had his tissue box got to?

"Which one?" Sherlock asked, straightening up and starting to pace in the small slice of floor available between John's dresser and his bed. "Bird flu? Swine flu? Damned those animals and their infernal diseases! Why can't they keep their germs to themselves?"

"I doubt it's either, actually," John sighed, moving one arm just enough to pinch the bridge of his nose. It did nothing to still the pounding behind his eyes, "Just an ordinary respiratory flu, I'd guess."

"An ordinary respiratory flu?" Sherlock drew to a stop, pale eyes narrowed to slits.

There had been a time when John first met Sherlock that he'd found the man nearly unreadable. He seemed to be an enigma of emotional maelstroms and doldrums, lurching from frantic action into stalled silences at completely unpredictable intervals. But after nearly a year living with the world's only consulting detective, John knew better.

The uninitiated observer might confuse Sherlock's current expression with his Brooding Face, the mask that slipped over his features seconds before his most vehement pouts. Early on in their acquaintance, John had even confused it with his Pensive Face, which signaled the onset of a bout of silent contemplation as Sherlock turned inward to unravel a problem somewhere deep in his own tangled psyche.

But John was no longer a novice at Sherlock watching. He recognized that intensity in Sherlock's gaze, the slightly manic glint of his eyes and the small crease between his brows. This was the most dangerous and fascinating expression of all; the face that meant Sherlock was on point, that he'd scented a mystery and was closing in on the answer. The face that meant someone was going to pay for whatever misdeed Sherlock believed they had done.

It was Sherlock's Deduction Face.

John settled back, ready to be awed once again by the completely insane workings of an incurably brilliant mind.

Sherlock took a deep breath, brow knitted in concentration. "The most common strain of flu has an incubation period of between one and four days, with the average person showing symptoms after two days. Physically you are quite average, so two days it is."

John glared indignantly, but Sherlock was already plowing ahead.

"Who could have given it to you? Two days ago we visited the Yard to review the notes from the Underwood case with Lestrade. He seemed healthy enough, though the virus can be passed on the day before symptoms appear. But, no, I saw him yesterday afternoon at the morgue and he was still healthy. Anderson was at the Yard that day, too, and…Ah, yes! He had chapped skin under his nose, a sure sign of recent frequent tissue use. At the time, I attributed it to his recurring pollen allergy, but it could just as easily have been the beginnings of a bout of the flu. And Donavan's voice was rather rougher than normal, nearly an eighth lower than her usual speaking tone. Naturally, I assumed she had been servicing Anderson again since his wife is in Edinburgh on business this week..."

"Sherlock," John interrupted, trying for urgent, but mostly sounding weak and pathetic like he felt. Sherlock talking about sex was a bit more than his flu-ridden brain could handle at the moment. Sherlock talking about Anderson and Donavan together…well, John hadn't thought it was the stomach flu, but he was suddenly feeling a bit queasy.

"Considering how much the Sergeant tends to talk," the detective continued, apparently oblivious to John's distress.

"Sherlock," John tried again.

"I assume she would also be the type to scream herself hoarse in bed…"

"Sherlock!" Desperation, it turned out, was a good motivator, and John's voice finally came out as an actual word instead of a throaty wheeze.

Sherlock broke off with a start and blinked down at John. "What?"

John took a steadying breath. "You know deducing who infected me isn't actually going to help anything, right? And anyway, we've had a rash of cases at the clinic in the past couple weeks, so I doubt even you would be able to pinpoint the culprit this time." Sherlock made an indignant noise, but John plowed on, ignoring the burn in his throat. "What I really need is plenty of fluids and sleep and some flu medicine. Can you ring Sarah and ask her to drop by after work? Just tell her I've caught the flu, and she'll know what to bring."

Sherlock crossed his arms, all long limbs and ridiculous angles, and glowered mutinously at John. "No." At John's raised eyebrow, Sherlock stuck his chin out defiantly and huffed. "You know I despise having her in the flat. She disrupts my experiments. Why should I call her?"

John rolled his eyes. "She's a doctor and I'm sick. If you can't puzzle that one out, you're really losing your touch."

"You're a doctor, too," Sherlock pointed out obstinately. "Surely you haven't forgotten the years of medical school."

"Self medicating is more than a little frowned upon," John sniffed again, finally locating the box of tissues on the dresser by the wall. Just out of reach. Naturally. He ran a weary hand over his face. "I need a prescription from the clinic. Sarah can prescribe it and bring it by."

Sherlock reached back, snagged the box of tissues off the dresser with one impossibly long arm and set it down on John's nightstand within easy reach. The rest of his body remained preternaturally still, and his expression stayed stubbornly defiant. "If you want that woman in the flat, you'll have to call her yourself. I can't be bothered."

That woman.

John winced internally at that. Sherlock rarely used Sarah's name, and when he did, he usually spat it out like a curse. The vehemence he directed at John's one-time girl friend had surprised John at first. She was a perfectly lovely woman, after all.

John wondered, not for the first time, if Sherlock might possibly fancy Sarah. The man threw temper tantrums like a three-year-old, so it made an odd kind of sense that he would approach romance with the same level of tug-on-her-ponytails maturity. He had seemed to take an unholy amount of pleasure in spoiling John and Sarah's dates, always popping up at the most inopportune moments, dragging explosions, mad gunmen or, on one memorable Tuesday evening, a whole swarm of angry Africanized honeybees in his wake. It certainly seemed plausible that Sherlock had been trying to drive a wedge between the two of them. At the very least, John had begun to suspect that he was the unwitting subject in some kind of mad social experiment on cockblocking.

But the more John puzzled over it, the less sense it made.

Sherlock was blunt to a fault, and John was under no illusions that the man would pay any attention to social niceties like not stealing a mate's girl. Surely if he had feelings for Sarah, he would have said something. But, even after that terrible incident with the Dutch elephant trainer where Sarah had ended up tied to a chair for the third date running, in imminent danger of being trampled by seven enraged pachyderms, and had only been saved by Sherlock's timely intervention, the detective hadn't pressed his advantage. She'd given Sherlock a grateful hug for saving her life, a clear opportunity if he'd been waiting for one, but Sherlock had only stiffened and pulled away.

It was a few dates – or to be more precise, two mad car chases, one hostage rescue and a knife fight with a gang of Russian spies – later that Sarah had smacked John upside the head for nearly getting her killed – again, damn it – and told him that she wasn't actually interested in dinner and a death threat for every date, thank you very much. They were still friends at work, but Sarah rarely came by the flat these days, and Sherlock seemed more than a little pleased by her absence.

So, no, clearly Sherlock did not fancy John's ex.

Once, in a bout of sheer insanity, John had even entertained a brief fantasy that Sherlock was interested in him. But that, of course, was pure folly.

John knew himself well enough to accept that he wasn't one hundred percent straight. If the one night stand with the Italian bloke in uni hadn't been enough to convince him, his time in the army had. So the fact that he found his flatmate attractive didn't come as a complete surprise. Sherlock was striking and brilliant and never ever boring, so John had, almost immediately, suggested the possibility that he might like to be more than friends. He'd been flatly refused. Ensconced in Angelo's cozy little restaurant with a bloody candle flickering on the table of all things, the detective had resolutely proclaimed himself "married to his work."

John was of the firm opinion that being shot down once by any potential partner was more than enough (an idea reinforced by the humiliation of not-Anthea's double burn), so he'd placed Sherlock firmly in the little box in his head labeled 'PLATONIC,' and resolutely locked the lid.

"John?"

John blinked, refocusing on the man in front of him. He realized with a start that he'd been staring silently at Sherlock for a possibly incriminating length of time.

"Sorry," He said quickly, reaching out to grab a tissue from the now conveniently placed box. He rubbed at his nose. Rehashing that particular issue was never a very safe pastime, and he suspected it might be even more pitted and dangerous in his current half-fevered state. "Got lost in thought."

"Yes, I can see how that would be unfamiliar territory for you," Sherlock replied dryly, though his voice lacked some of its usual scathing bite.

John closed his eyes and forced his attention back to their current conversation. "Right. So you won't call Sarah? Fine. I'll call her myself. Where's my phone?"

"No idea." Sherlock answered flatly, striding into John's bathroom.

"What've you done with it? You had it last night," John insisted, gravelly voice barely loud enough to be heard over the running tap.

The detective stepped back into the bedroom, holding out a glass. "Water," he declared, like he'd invented the substance himself. Maybe he thought he had.

"My phone, Sherlock." The throbbing behind John's eyes was getting sharper, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose, though it did little good.

"Drink," Sherlock ordered, pressing the water into John's hand.

John sighed. He should have known better. Sherlock couldn't even be bothered to get his own mobile out of his jacket pocket. Of course he wasn't going to go looking for John's. John would just have to track down his phone by himself…if he ever found the energy to stand again. Maybe in an hour or two. Or a week. Or possibly a year.

John levered himself up far enough to drink without sloshing water everywhere. The effort cost most of his remaining stamina. "You probably shouldn't stay in here," he said finally, after taking a few sips. "I'm still contagious."

"Really, John," Sherlock drawled, "As though I would catch the flu from you."

John sputtered, halfway through another mouthful of water, choking as he inhaled most of it. Sherlock stared at him with raised eyebrows. "I really don't think the flu is one of the things your genius intellect protects you from," he said, struggling to breathe normally as he slid the half-empty glass onto his nightstand next to the tissues.

Sherlock snatched up the cup and turned back towards the bathroom. "You said that about the mustard gas, too, and yet here I stand."

"Dumb luck," John croaked, paling at the memory.

"Not luck," Sherlock corrected casually over the sound of the running tap. "With a little observation and the application of simple arithmetic, it was really quite straightforward. Elementary, even."

"That was stupid, idiotic, dumb luck, Sherlock. And you're never doing that again." John could hear the edge of panic in his own voice, but couldn't bring himself to care. The memory of Sherlock standing statuesque before the loaded canister of gas, with the bomb squad still seven minutes away, and the last five seconds ticking off on the screen before him, was enough to send a spike of adrenaline through his already taxed body. "Never again," he rasped. "You promised."

"Right," Sherlock agreed, though he sounded more placating than sincere. Then he stepped out of the bathroom and caught sight of John's bloodless face. Something like concern passed over his features. "Are you going to be sick?"

"What?" John blinked, more thrown by the concern than the change of topic. "I already am."

"Are you going to vomit, John," Sherlock asked with a surprising amount of patience. "Do you need a bucket?" He rested a hand gently against John's shoulder, peering into his eyes with unsettling intensity.

The box in John's head – the one he'd originally marked "PLATONIC" and chucked Sherlock into almost a year ago – gave a threatening lurch.

What the buggering hell?

John reeled. Sherlock didn't do concern; at least, not in the normal way. John had seen real worry crease that marble brow before, but it had taken a vest of semtex strapped to John's chest and the haunting red glow of a sniper's laser sight dancing over his heart to put it there. This kind of normal concern, this mundane every day worry wasn't something John had ever expected to see grace the detective's features. His mind shuffled and flailed wildly, trying to process this impossible new bit of information.

When had John's world become a place where bomb threats and gunshots and severed body parts in the fridge were business as usual, and a pat on the back and a look of concern were cause enough for a minor mental meltdown?

He slapped some extra reinforcements on his mental Sherlock-box, and pasted yet another warning label on the outside. He'd had to do this alarmingly often over the past year, whenever Sherlock did something unexpectedly brilliant or - far more rarely - unintentionally sweet. Considering the number of times he'd refortified the walls, his Sherlock-box should have been as strong as a nuclear bomb shelter. And yet, it still trembled with worrying frequency. Signs that read "JUST A FRIEND," "DO NOT TOUCH" and "NOT SHAGGABLE" had joined the original, slightly faded "PLATONIC" warning, like souvenir stickers on a well traveled suitcase. This last one declared, in angry, bright red letters: "MENTAL HEALTH HAZARD."

"John?" Sherlock prompted, and belatedly, John realized he'd been staring again.

He closed his eyes and shook his head carefully, sinking farther down into the pillows, all of his strength used up. "No. I'm fine," He sighed. "I don't think it's the stomach flu."

"If you aren't coming to the crime scene, then you should sleep," Sherlock decided, settling the refilled glass within easy reaching distance.

"Yeah," John agreed, "You're probably right."

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock said as John stopped fighting and let the illness induced exhaustion sweep over him. "I am definitely right."

John was asleep before Sherlock left the room.

~2~

The next time John woke up, there was a delicate silver tray balanced precariously on his nightstand. John blinked at it blearily. It held a steaming cup of tea, a bowl of chicken soup and a quaint little hand bell. A folded piece of paper was tucked neatly under one corner.

Bemused, John hauled himself laboriously into a half sitting position against the pillows and picked up the note.

John dear,

Sherlock informed me that you're feeling under the weather. He asked me to keep an eye on you while he's out. Ring if you need anything, I'm just downstairs.

Mrs. Hudson

He smiled faintly, set the note down and picked up the delicate teacup. The hot, honeyed liquid soothed his throat like a balm. Tea, John thought happily, infusing the single word with all the gratitude and reverence of his truly British soul.

He didn't notice Sherlock's contribution to his welfare until after he finished the tea, forced down a few spoonfuls of soup, and was hauling himself painfully to his feet to go to the loo. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and promptly kicked something hard and shockingly cold. John yelped and yanked his feet up, a reflex honed by months of sharing a flat with a madman.

He squinted down at the offending object suspiciously. It was a bucket. A large, metal, thankfully empty bucket. Confused, John reached down gingerly and picked it up. He blinked at it dubiously a few times, then noticed the small prescription bottle and cell phone that had been lying next to it on the ground.

He read the prescription. Flu medicine. The right kind, even. Huh. Sherlock must have called Sarah after all. Then he unlocked his phone, and saw the mail alert envelope dancing frenetically in one corner. John thumbed the message open, half afraid it would be a death threat from one of the lunatics Sherlock regularly texted. But when he read the message, he couldn't suppress a smile.

Medicine for the flu.
Bucket just in case.
SH

The lid of the Sherlock-box in John's mind rattled ominously. John swallowed down a smile and firmly forced himself to add another heavy padlock and warning sign to his growing mental collection. Someday, his mind was going to be so full of Sherlock's box, with all its locks and warnings and reinforced walls, that there wouldn't be room for anything else.

He sighed and pushed himself painfully to his feet.

After the arduous journey to the bathroom and back, John rang Sara at the clinic and asked her to take him off the rotation for a week. "And thanks for giving Sherlock the prescription," He added as an afterthought.

"Sherlock?" Sarah asked, sounding confused. "I haven't seen him. Did he come by?"

John paused, considered, and decided he really didn't want to know how Sherlock had gotten the prescription if he hadn't gone over to the clinic. "Never mind," he said wearily. "See you next week."

~3~

The next time John awoke, it felt like someone was trying to remove his tonsils with a spoon. He swallowed thickly and blinked to clear the gum from his eyes. Sunlight slanted through the window, casting broad ruddy squares on the horrible patterned wallpaper.

Sunset, John wondered, or sunrise? How long had he slept? He turned his head to look at his clock, and found himself staring at Sherlock's back instead.

The man stood before John's dresser, shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows and hair a tousled mess. He held an electrode in each hand.

Not exactly a comforting sight, John thought. Perhaps this was some sort of bizarre fever dream.

As John watched, Sherlock bent over the dresser and pressed the wires carefully against something that looked suspiciously like a…

"That had better not be a human foot, Sherlock," John rasped, voice barely audible even in the near silence of the room.

"Why hadn't it?" Sherlock asked, sounding only mildly curious as the dismembered limb's toes began to twitch. Sherlock hmmed under his breath and set the electrodes aside, picking up a pen and notepad and scribbling frantically.

"Because," John said, brows furrowed - it hurt to talk, but this was an important point to make, "This is my bedroom, and I'm sick. So this is currently a sick room. Experiments on random, mutilated appendages don't belong in sick rooms, Sherlock."

Sherlock huffed out an irritated breath, and shot a narrow-eyed look at John over his shoulder. "It's not mutilated," He said, entirely missing the point, or, more likely, avoiding it. Sherlock was a master at avoidance.

He wasn't wrong, though. From what John could see, the foot itself appeared perfectly lovely, with a gracefully curved arch and five nicely shaped toes. The only problem, really, was that it also appeared to be missing about ninety percent of the person that ought to have been attached to it.

"Besides," Sherlock continued, "I'm only testing for nerve reactivity, not blood contamination or viral infection. Your illness will have no effect on the results of the experiment."

"As your flatmate," John said, gaze steady on Sherlock's back, "I feel obligated to warn you that there's a lunatic in our house."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Sociopath," he corrected automatically.

John pursed his lips and glared at the twitching foot on his dresser. Boundaries, he thought again, and sighed. This is probably one of those times when I should be putting my foot down.

Instead, he propped himself up a little against the pillows, and grabbed the cup of water off his night stand. He squinted at it, carefully inspecting the glass to make sure it really was still water and not some foul concoction used for sterilizing toenails or something equally vile. It looked safe enough, but John had learned that trusting appearances could lead to truly dire consequences. Unfortunately, his nose was currently more congested than a London tube station during rush hour, so his usual sniff test was unavailable. He could, of course, just ask Sherlock – the man was standing right there and, God, still sticking the foot with electrodes, making various bits of it fidget and twitch – but somehow asking felt like admitting defeat. Instead, John settled for taking a tiny, suspicious sip. If it proved to be anything disagreeable, he'd just spit it out. Preferably at Sherlock.

"Don't worry." Sherlock said, eyes not moving from the foot which, by now, had started tapping out an almost familiar staccato rhythm against the wood of the dresser. "It's water."

John took another mouthful and decided Sherlock was probably telling the truth. Swallowing hurt, but the cool liquid soothed his throat. He knew he needed the hydration so he forced himself to drink the whole glass.

It wasn't until after he'd resettled the empty cup on his nightstand that he actually processed why the foot's tapping sounded familiar. He might not have recognized it, but Sherlock was humming – actually humming under his breath – and even an octave lower than usual, that tune was completely unmistakable. John blinked at the detective incredulously. He knew Sherlock was a supremely capable musician, but using a severed limb to beat out the basic cadence of Bad Romance on John's dresser was going a little too far.

"Can't you put that somewhere else?" he asked, voice slightly strangled.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock said, once again setting the electrodes aside in favor of his pen and paper. "This experiment is vital to my research, and it requires constant monitoring."

"Right," John said with a sniff, grabbing another tissue and rubbing his nose. "I can see how making your very own orchestra out of people bits is important scientific work, but why are you monitoring it here?"

"You're ill," Sherlock stated, finally putting down the pen and notepad and turning his full attention on John. "You require constant monitoring too."

Something in John's chest tightened a little. The flu, John told himself firmly. It's just the flu. But he slapped another warning label on his Sherlock-box, just to be safe.

"How was the case?" John asked, trying to distract Sherlock before he could read anything in his expression. Not that there was anything to read. It was just wise to be cautious around a man who could sometimes know what you were thinking before you thought it. Not that John was thinking anything. Not really. He felt his cheeks reddening and cursed silently.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and regarded John for a long moment before turning back to his severed limb. "Dull," he answered finally, prodding the foot with an electrode.

"So you solved it then?" John asked, truly curious now. He would never get tired of hearing Sherlock run through his deduction process.

"It was the bearded lady. One of the mimes dumped her to chase after the lion tamer a few days ago. It was a simple case of lover's revenge."

"So where did the midgets come in?" John asked, then winced. Apparently, Sherlock's bad manners were catching.

The insufferable man shot John a knowing grin.

"The mime rode a unicycle on the tightrope as part of his act. Mildred, the bearded lady, sabotaged the safety net, then sliced through enough fibers on the tightrope that it would fray during his performance. It was easy enough to see the damage when I inspected the rope and the net. The show schedule was changed and the three small people" he emphasized the term, "were the first on the rope. An unfortunate accident." He put the electrode down and picked up his notes again, turning back towards the bed.

John winced. "Lucky for the mime, though, I guess."

"Not really," Sherlock's lip quirked up in a sardonic smile. "Apparently he got himself mauled by one of the lions last night after he climbed into the practice ring in an ill-advised attempt to catch the lion tamer's eye. The lion mauled his left leg and got a decent swipe at his neck before the woman was able to calm the beast down. The mime was taken to the hospital for treatment, but there's apparently some serious damage to his larynx. They said with time he'll probably be able to walk without assistance, but there're not sure if he'll ever speak again."

John choked, voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a curse. "That's terrible," he said roughly when he could speak again. His throat was going to be even more sore than before after all this talking.

"At least he's already well versed in wordless communication," Sherlock replied in a level tone.

John shook his head in disbelief. "It's all a bit weird, though, isn't it?"

"What?" Sherlock asked, turning to look over his shoulder at John from where he'd once again resumed his prodding of the severed foot.

"Bearded ladies. Mimes. Small people. I don't see why people pay to see that stuff. I definitely can't understand why people would sign up to be one of the acts. It's just…weird."

To John's surprise, Sherlock shook his head. "It's not weird. It's one of the most natural things in the world."

At John's raised eyebrow, Sherlock sighed and put down his electrodes. He pressed his hands together and regarded John over his steepled fingers. "It's human nature to be curious. We see a pile of ten black balls and one red ball, and the red ball draws our eye. We see ten red balls and one black, and it's the black ball we focus on. As a species, humans are fascinated by differences because they represent something new; because by seeing, feeling and experiencing those differences, we can come to understand more about our world. Circuses, or 'freak shows' as they're known colloquially, are just an industry that capitalizes on that curiosity."

"Alright," John said slowly, taking another swallow of water to soothe his throat before continuing. "That explains the people attending the shows, but why would anyone join them and become one of the acts?"

"Another basic human instinct," Sherlock answered, his tone making it clear that it should be obvious to anyone who wasn't a blind toddler still in swaddling. "The desire to belong."

John blinked. Either the flu was seriously impairing his logic circuits, or something about that sentiment seemed more than a little counter-intuitive. He rubbed at his temple with two fingers and gazed blearily at the detective. "I may be missing something," He admitted, "But how is putting yourself on display for people to point and laugh at evidence of a desire to belong?"

"Belonging doesn't come easily to everyone," Sherlock's voice had gone quiet, his usually sharp eyes a little unfocused as he stared past John, like he was looking right through him. "Sometimes it's easier to change the world to suit yourself than to change yourself to suit the world. The circus folk have created an environment where their oddities are necessary talents. It doesn't matter if they're midgets or bearded ladies or strongmen who can bend iron bare handed and bite through nails. Within those canvas walls, they're part of something bigger. They've found a place where they belong."

And what about a brilliantly insane detective with dubious morals, terrible manners and a flair for the dramatic? John wondered. Or a damaged war vet with an adrenaline habit, a lousy sense of self preservation and questionable taste in roommates? Are there niches for them somewhere too?

The thought made him pause.

What would happen if Sherlock found his niche? For as long as John had known him, the detective had always been a stubbornly square peg refusing to fit into a round hole. He grated against the constraints of society, flagrantly disregarding rules and trampling the opinions of the people around him. What if there was a place where his personal brand of cutting intellect and brutal honesty was valued rather than mocked? A place that gave him free reign to dash off after new leads and solve cases without interference? Would Sherlock leave?

John's heart clenched at the thought.

He closed his eyes and rested his head back against his pillows, afraid to examine the swirling emotions that welled up around that possibility. He'd survived adolescence, medical school, and invading Afghanistan before he'd met Sherlock Holmes, damn it. It wouldn't be that hard to go back to his normal life, would it? If Sherlock ever did leave, John would be able to find his footing again. Surely he would. Somehow. It wasn't as though John actually liked finding random people parts in the fridge when he wanted a spot of milk for his morning cupper. And it might be nice to have a working bathtub again someday instead of the current large scale model of the River Thames' flood patterns that occupied their main bathroom.

Still, for some inexplicable reason, the tightness in his chest wasn't going away.

John shook his head. It probably didn't matter anyways. What was the likelihood such a Sherlock-haven existed? A million to one? A billion? Had there ever been anyone like Sherlock before – a genius crime solver who considered himself outside society's constraints? A mad scientist with a strange fondness for bits of corpses and a knack for experimentation?

The terrifying realization slammed into John like a hammer. He whipped around and stared wide eyed at Sherlock's back, watching with dawning horror as the dismembered foot's toes twitched one by one in a morbid imitation of life.

"Jesus," he gasped, "Is this why we still have Mr. Nelson in the fridge?"

"Mr. Nelson?" Sherlock asked, shooting John a quizzical look over his shoulder.

"The head," John explained, realizing belatedly that Sherlock probably didn't know about his tendency to nickname the identifiable body parts he found laying around the flat. His therapist told him it was a coping mechanism. John wasn't sure it was working. "The bloody head in the fridge, Sherlock. Is this why you've been holding onto it? Are you trying to be a real life Dr. Frankenstein?"

Here Donavan had been wasting her time worrying that Sherlock was eventually going to kill someone. Clearly she should have been more concerned about him bringing them back to life.

"Dr. who?" Sherlock asked without the slightest hint of irony.

"No, not Dr. Who. Dr. Frankenstein. Though, come to think of it, you would make a pretty interesting Dr. Who. It would explain a few things if you were actually an alien shamming at being human."

"You're not making any sense, John. Is it the fever?" Sherlock asked, reaching out one long fingered hand to place a cool palm against John's forehead. The gesture was so natural that it took a second for John to register that this was Sherlock, Sherlock bloody Holmes feeling his forehead like a worried mother.

Oh, God.

John's mental Sherlock-box shuddered and groaned as something inside it, something wild and huge and determined threw itself at the walls, clawing its way towards freedom.

John slammed the lid of the Sherlock-box down tight and jerked his head back, skull connecting loudly with the hard wood of his headboard.

"Christ, oww," he said, wincing and probing his scalp with careful fingers. A small bump was already forming under his hair. "It's not the fever. It's…Jesus. It's Dr. Who and Frankenstein! What kind of crap telly have you been watching that you don't even know about Dr. Who? And Frankenstein's a classic. Everyone knows Frankenstein. It's required reading at school."

Sherlock steepled his fingers against his lips and contemplated John carefully.

John resisted the urge to squirm under that piercing gaze, and tried hard not to think about what Sherlock might be deducing from his overreaction to the casual touch, from the hot flush he could already feel stealing its way across his cheeks. Maybe he would put it down to the fever. Probably not. Sherlock was rarely wrong.

"Explain," Sherlock said in the same irritatingly imperious tone he usually reserved for demands like "Tea" and "Laptop."

John wasn't sure if he meant 'explain who Dr. Frankenstein is' or 'explain why you just jerked away from me and blushed redder than an embarrassed tomato.'

He decided to address the safer of the two topics.

"How can you not know about Dr. Frankenstein? What kind of education did you get as a child? First the solar system, then dinosaurs, and now Frankenstein?"

"I told you," Sherlock interrupted with an edge of thinning patience, "I delete irrelevant information. If you're to be believed, Dinosaurs died off millions of years ago. They aren't here. They never will be again, so clearly they don't matter."

"Right," John said, not wanting to start yet another row about the importance of basic, primary school knowledge, "But I can't believe you deleted Frankenstein. It's right up your alley. Blood and gore and experimentation on human flesh…" John trailed off as Sherlock straightened up, one eyebrow quirked in renewed interest. He felt his stomach drop. "And kittens," John said, backpeddling quickly. "And bunnies...lots of fuzzy little creatures, actually. And princes and princesses, and epic poetry dedicated to their magnificent romances. And unicorns. Did I mention the unicorns? Frankenstein's one of the best romantic comedies ever. You should really read it." If Sherlock hadn't come up with the idea of reanimating corpses on his own, John did not want to be responsible for introducing him to the concept.

"Try not to be so obvious, John. Reverse psychology stopped working on me when I was three." He turned back to the severed foot and picked up the electrodes again, prodding at it with an indecent amount of enthusiasm. "Frankenstein," he muttered as the foot started up a new rhythm. He hummed a few notes in time with the beat. "Sounds…intriguing."

John sighed and slumped against his pillows in defeat. His already aching head now throbbed even more painfully where he'd thwacked it against the headboard. His nose was still completely clogged and his throat felt like sandpaper. And it was no comfort at all that, if he ever did come home from the clinic to find a patchwork monster made of bits from Bart's mortuary, he'd only have himself to blame.

To add insult to injury, the lyrics matching Sherlock's rich baritone melody marched into John's consciousness like an invading army.

Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha…

John shuddered involuntarily. He honestly wasn't sure which was worse, the thought of Sherlock resurrecting stolen corpses or the detective's new and frankly terrifying penchant for American pop music.

"Sick room, Sherlock," he tried again without much hope, straining against the burn in his throat.

"Indeed" Sherlock agreed amicably, dropping the electrodes and picking up the notebook once more. He showed absolutely no signs of leaving.

John closed his eyes. He didn't have the energy or the higher brain function available to wade into the murky depths of yet another convoluted conversation, so he rolled over onto his side and tried to ignore the man. He really should go back to sleep.

The rough scratch of pencil against paper, the whispering swish of cloth and the faint sounds of Sherlock breathing invaded silence that usually reigned over John's bedroom. It was actually kind of comforting having another person in the room, John admitted reluctantly to himself. Well, another one and one tenth people, John amended groggily as the foot started tapping out another disturbingly familiar rhythm.

He was mostly asleep before he recognized the melody, and by then it was already too late.

When he sank, half unwilling, into sleep, his dreams were filled with terrifying visions of Sherlock's milkshake bringing all the boys to Scotland Yard.

John blamed it on the fever.

~4~

John blinked slowly, trying to focus his fuzzy eyes and clear his mind of sleep.

Sherlock stood beside his bed, violin tucked under his chin, and long, clever fingers wrapped elegantly around its delicate wooden neck. The achingly languorous notes of Clair de Lune hung heavy in the moonlit air, flowing smooth and slow like warm honey.

John closed his eyes again and let the melody wash over him, amazed as always at the many seemingly incongruous pieces that puzzled together to make this improbable man. When the last note faded, he let out his breath in one long sigh.

"That was beautiful," John said, managing a small smile despite the way his voice cracked painfully as he spoke.

Sherlock inclined his head, and turned to his violin case, carefully setting the delicate instrument within its velvet folds. He picked up a small cake of waxy rosin and started coating his bow in smooth, efficient strokes.

John waited until Sherlock finished the ritual before speaking. "It's late," he said quietly as Sherlock picked up his violin again and straightened. "Aren't you tired?"

"No," Sherlock replied simply.

"Why are you still here?" John wondered aloud, finally giving voice to the question that had plagued him throughout this cursed illness.

"Do you want me to leave?" The detective regarded John with one dark eyebrow arched.

"No," John said too quickly. He swallowed and looked out the window. Wispy clouds painted the moon in shades of gray. "I…I don't mind you being here. It's nice to have company." He glanced up at Sherlock and smiled a little wryly. "At least your choice of instruments has improved." The foot was nowhere to be seen, although there were several scattered pieces of electronic equipment and a few vague shapes dotting the various flat surfaces in John's room. John was careful not to look at any of them too closely. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what kinds of new gruesome carnage Sherlock had dredged up.

Boundaries, he thought again, and sighed.

An old, ever-present suspicion flared suddenly. "You're not using me for some kind of experiment, are you?" John asked. He'd been the involuntary subject of enough of Sherlock's random tests that the assumption was almost second nature by now. Mercifully, if the detective was taking tissue samples, he was at least doing it while John was unconscious.

"No," Sherlock laughed. "You're not part of any of my experiments today." His smile was wolfish as he resettled the violin against his shoulder.

John glanced at the clock and tried not to think about the fact that it had only been 'today' for two hours. "That's…I'm honestly not sure if that's comforting or alarming," he said finally, bringing an arm up to hide his eyes in the crook of his elbow.

"You still have a fever," Sherlock said by way of a response.

It was true. John could feel the bone-deep chill and the remnants of a clammy sweat slicking his skin, though he wondered how Sherlock could tell from where he was standing.

A snippet of memory floated up through the gauzy layers of his sleep fogged mind: the cool pressure of a long-fingered hand against his brow as he slept. But that was impossible. Sherlock didn't usually touch people. Not live ones anyway. Had John imagined it?

"It's late," Sherlock's deep baritone interrupted John's musings, "You should take your medicine and go back to sleep."

John ground his teeth. He was an adult, and old enough to decide his own bedtime, thank you very much. He opened his mouth to say that he'd been sleeping all day, and that really it was Sherlock who needed to get some rest. The man never seemed to get any sleep. Before he could voice his opinion, however, his jaw cracked around a yawn.

The detective raised his bow and drew the first soothing notes of Brahms' Lullaby from his violin. His fingers danced over the strings, long and graceful and far too sure in their movements. For a moment, John's internal barriers slipped, and he wondered what it would feel like to have those fingers play along his skin.

Christ, John thought, swallowing convulsively as he jerked his eyes away. Heat flooded his cheeks in a traitorous flush. Bad plan. Very bad plan.

He was careful. So careful. But apparently all it took was one bloody flu and the foundations of all his defenses crumbled like the brittle, sun dried walls of a child's sandcastle.

Sherlock regarded John with slightly narrowed eyes as Brahms' tender melody drifted through John's now-cluttered room.

John held his breath. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what was going on behind those ice-blue eyes.

"Take your medicine and try to get some sleep," Sherlock said finally, deep voice surprisingly gentle, blending easily with the subdued melody of the music.

John let his breath out in a long, silent sigh and did as he was told.

~5~

As his fever raged on, John continued to fade in and out of consciousness, seconds of blurry awareness bracketed by hours of a restless half-slumber. It was hard to judge the passage of time, but using the ever-changing light from his window, John guessed he spent the better part of three days mostly asleep.

Every time he woke, Sherlock was there.

The detective seemed to be occupied with the full gambit of his own daily tasks, from running experiments and updating his website to typing frantic text messages, and – God help them all – reading John's old dog-eared copy of Frankenstein. How he'd known where to find the book, nestled as it had been between medical volumes in the anatomy section of John's bookshelf, was anyone's guess. John had long ago given up questioning Sherlock's occasional brushes with telepathy.

For the most part, the detective seemed engrossed in his work, barely taking noticed when John groaned and blinked his eyes open, or coughed himself awake. It almost felt like he was in John's room by happenstance, or, perhaps more accurately, like John's room had magically become Sherlock's normal workspace, and John's presence in it was merely a coincidence.

There was something inherently unfair, John reflected wryly, about a world where a man could feel like an interloper in his own room while his invading flatmate sat cross-legged on the foot of his bed, perusing his literature without permission.

Still, Sherlock's constant presence was somehow strangely comforting.

John kept expecting to wake and find him gone. There were almost always dastardly crimes committed, fascinating cases to solve or intricate experiments in the lab that required Sherlock's attention. When they weren't in one of their dry spells, Sherlock rarely remained in one place for more than a handful of minutes. He was a constant flurry of activity, whipping from one destination to the next, usually dragging John along in his wake.

True, in the painful stretches between cases, when Sherlock sunk into one of his interminable funks, he'd take up residence on their sofa and refuse to move for periods nearly long enough to merit ass-to-cushion bonding. But this current spate of self-confinement lacked that usual petulant immobility.

Instead, there was an odd kind of focus to Sherlock's manner. He was in constant motion, just in a much tighter orbit than usual. Rather than running around London, he paced John's carpet. Rather than going to the lab, he used John's nightstand as a dissection table. Rather than heading over to the Yard when summoned, he simply texted Lestrade. It felt like the scene of London's biggest crime – and all the clues, equipment and resources Sherlock needed to solve it – could be found in John's bedroom alone.

John wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

He was accustomed to the confusion of chasing after Sherlock and his lightning quick deductions. He wasn't sure how to deal with this caged, concentrated version of the man.

Worse, when John reviewed the hazy scenes he'd glimpsed in his scattered moments of lucidity, he got the distinct impression that there was a pattern to Sherlock's confined movements. From bedroom door to dresser, dresser to bedside, bedside to foot of his bed…

Sherlock was moving slowly and inexorably closer to John himself.

It probably should have been disturbing.

John hoped it was true.

I've gone insane, he thought with tired resignation before slipping once more into a restless slumber.

~6~

John woke slowly for what seemed like the millionth time, not eager to leave the liquid darkness of sleep for the unpleasant realities of his flu-tinged consciousness. He floated, fuzzy-brained, breathing slow and deep as he tried to figure out what had roused him.

His dreams had been…unpleasant. But then, John was used to nightmares. He revisited battlefields in Afghanistan and dying patients' bedsides so often in his sleep that bombs and bloodshed, shattered bones and splintered bodies had become a nightly ritual right alongside showering and brushing his teeth.

But those normal bedtime wanderings were nothing compared to the twisted dreams that had plagued him most of the night. In his fever-riddled mind, the war and all its casualties loomed larger and louder and twice as ugly. Worse, the nightmares had meshed with the winding streets of London and the cramped quarters of his childhood home and John could still feel the horror of it in his bones.

But those violent dreams had tapered off at some point during the night, replaced by something all together warmer, more solid and welcoming. He couldn't recall the dream, but he did remember the echo of a hauntingly familiar baritone voice.

Slowly, like floating up through deep water towards distant sunlight, John became aware of his physical body. His muscles still felt weak, but despite the cold sweat coating his skin, the bone-deep chill that had plagued him for days was finally gone. The burning in his throat was gone, too, and he could actually breathe through his nose.

My fever must have broken, he realized distantly. At least that would explain the vivid ferocity of his dreams. I'm finally getting over this bloody flu.

As he shrugged off the last vestiges of sleep, he noticed a disorienting dichotomy. Most of his skin was cool and clammy, but a solid line down his back and patches of his legs were inexplicably warm.

Curious, John craned his neck around, and caught sight of one high, moon-brushed cheekbone.

He froze.

…Sherlock? John thought frantically, mind racing despite his body's refusal to move. No, it can't be. He would never…It must be another fever dream. John blinked, but the image remained stubbornly in place.

Sherlock.

In his bed.

And, if the warm line of heat down John's back was any indication, the detective was, oh dear God, actually spooning him, long knees tucked in tight behind John's own, and one arm wrapped securely around John's waist.

Jesus. Christ.

John wasn't sure how long he laid there, completely frozen, staring at his flatmate's sleeping face, but when the burning in his lungs finally grew painful enough to register past the shock, he wheezed out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Sherlock," John choked, shifting enough to jab the taller man in the ribs.

Sherlock grunted in his sleep and shoved the offending elbow away without budging an inch.

"Sherlock, what are you doing? Wake up." John tried to jab at him again, but Sherlock twisted away from the blow, his free hand snapping out to grab hold of John's arm.

The detective sighed, his breath ghosting over the bare skin of John's nape in a warm gust. "Be sensible, John. How could I possibly still be asleep after you so thoughtfully dug your elbow into my diaphragm? Besides, I woke up a few minutes ago when you stopped breathing."

"What?" John demanded. He knew his voice sounded strangled, but couldn't bring himself to care. It was impossible to ignore the warm spots of pressure where Sherlock's long frame curled protectively around his own. He felt his heart beating faster, felt the flush of arousal searing its way across his cheeks, past his neck and all the way down his chest.

The Sherlock-box in his head rattled more violently than ever before, and John was sure that, given a minute or two, it would splinter like cheap plywood under the pressure regardless of all his careful padlocks and labels.

He couldn't stay here, pressed up against the man. It was too much.

He twisted again, glaring at Sherlock over his shoulder. "What the hell are you doing in my bed?"

"You were thrashing in your sleep," Sherlock replied simply, as though that was any kind of explanation. "You nearly threw yourself off the bed." Though the words were mostly mumbled into John's shoulder, they still somehow managed to sound like an accusation.

"So, what, you thought you'd crawl in here with me and physically prevent me from falling out?" John asked, still trying to wriggle away from the madman. For some reason, Sherlock's arm around his waist refused to budge. There was no need for the restraint when he was clearly awake and no longer thrashing. Still, it remained a solid, warm pressure wrapped snug around his middle like some ridiculous parody of a seatbelt. John shoved at it ineffectually. His watery, flu-weakened muscles were no match for Sherlock's lean strength.

"Let go," John demanded, pushing at Sherlock's arm again.

Sherlock made a suspiciously grumpy sound, but reluctantly released his grip.

John immediately heaved himself as far away from his flatmate as physically possible without falling off the bed, flipped to face Sherlock, and instantly regretted it. Even balanced at the very edge of the mattress, there was almost no space between them. Their knees still bumped and John could feel the feathery gust of Sherlock's breath on his face. His mouth was disconcertingly close. John silently cursed his twin mattress.

"Sherlock, why are you in my bed?" He asked again, glaring at the taller man. It was completely unfair, John reflected with some distress, that this mad genius could look so soft, with his sleep mussed hair falling in disheveled curls over his forehead and a crease from John's pillowcase marring one cheek. No padlocks or barriers could be expected to hold against that kind of sleepy vulnerability, no matter how well crafted.

"You could have injured your shoulder. You haven't thrashed like that in months." Sherlock said, as though it completely excused crawling into John's bed uninvited. Despite his rumpled, sleep-softened appearance, Sherlock sounded completely awake.

John glared at him incredulously. What right did his flatmate have to judge his sleeping habits? Sherlock was the insomniac that stayed awake for countless nights on end until his body, taxed beyond endurance, finally gave up on diplomacy and bludgeoned his brain into unconsciousness. Whenever that happened, John would inevitably discover him draped dramatically over the sofa, curled up catlike on the coffee table or, as on one rather memorable Monday afternoon, sprawled on the kitchen floor in a haphazard pile of awkward angles and long limbs with his head under the sink his feet in the fridge.

Sometimes just watching Sherlock sleep was enough to wear John out.

Suddenly, something else about what Sherlock said set off a warning blip on John's radar. "Hang on…months? I haven't thrashed like that in months? Sherlock, have you been watching me sleep?"

The mattress shifted as Sherlock shrugged. "Only when I can't."

"But..." John stared blankly at his flatmate, "you're an insomniac. So that means…That means all the time, doesn't it?"

"Mmmm," Sherlock hummed noncommittally.

John ground his teeth together and manfully resisted the urge to strangle the detective. "What, do you sneak into my bedroom at night and stare at me?"

"It's hardly sneaking. You leave your door open sometimes. I just walk in."

John gaped. "An open door isn't an invitation. That's just…" John wasn't sure what it was, exactly. Mortifying? Scary? Alarming? Certainly not arousing, he told his body firmly. Unfortunately, his body was having none of it, especially with Sherlock still pressed so close. "Creepy, Sherlock. It's creepy. Are you using me in some sort of behavioral experiment or something?"

"You do realize that you jump to that conclusion with alarming frequency, don't you?" Sherlock smiled. The bloody man smiled, as though being suspected of illicit experimentation was something to be proud of. Then, he closed his eyes like he fully intended to go to sleep. In John's bed. Again.

And he hadn't actually denied the accusation about experimentation, John realized.

"Sherlock," John said, fighting to make his tone more stern than exasperated. "You can't sleep here."

"That is patently untrue." Sherlock said, brows drawing down sharply as they did every time he encountered what he considered to be a particularly heinous inaccuracy. "I was sleeping here just fine until four minutes ago. I only woke up because you stopped breathing and decided to use the power of your incredibly pointy elbow for evil."

"That's…No, Sherlock. That's not what I meant," John floundered helplessly. Specifics. Sherlock understood specifics. "You can't sleep here because we're both grown men. Grown men who aren't involved don't normally share a bed."

"Since when has our relationship ever entered the realm of normalcy?" Sherlock asked indifferently.

John glared back at him in consternation. The man had no idea, absolutely no bloody idea what his proximity was doing to John. Of course he didn't know. Sherlock wasn't like other men. He analyzed people, and he understood their motivations, but he rarely seemed to act on any rational motivations of his own. Food, sleep, sex…he did without these basic necessities on an alarmingly regular basis.

No. In Sherlock's mind, this forced closeness probably was just an innocent attempt to prevent John from injuring himself. He sat there in John's bed, breath ghosting across John's skin as his body heat radiated through the knees of John's pajama pants, apparently completely oblivious to the distress he was causing. All the while, it was all John could do to stop himself from lunging forward and closing the few inches between their lips.

"You know," John said finally, exasperation getting the better of him. "Considering your status as a genius, you can be a completely blind idiot sometimes."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "And why should my chosen sleeping arrangements have any impact on your perception of my intelligence?"

John ran a hand through his hair. He briefly contemplated pulling it out at the roots. Instead, he sighed and met Sherlock's eyes. "You can't do this," he flailed his free hand between them in a gesture meant to encompass the whole 'you and me, in bed, being platonic' thing. Judging by Sherlock's blank expression, he clearly didn't understand. "You and me," John ground out, frustration finally driving the words from him. "In bed. Being platonic. It doesn't work for me."

"Ahh," Sherlock said softly, eyes wide and face curiously immobile as he stared straight ahead, past John and out the window.

It was a familiar, adored expression that John had glimpsed a thousand times or more. He could see the gears clicking into motion in the frighteningly efficient engine of Sherlock's mind. John would happily wager his half of a year's rent that he'd never get tired of watching those mental acrobatics write themselves across Sherlock's face in tiny little ticks and tells: the tightness of his jaw, the drawing of a brow or the smallest twitch of an eyelid.

John saw them now and winced.

"No," He backpedaled in a rush, "No, no, no." What had he done? Sherlock might be socially stunted enough to miss some pretty damned obvious signals of attraction, but had John really just come out and said that? What good were all his careful self-restraints and denials if Sherlock deduced everything now? If he realized what John wouldn't even let himself feel?

He'll leave.

The thought was enough to send a jolt of panic through John. He felt his breath catch, felt his body's natural fighting instinct set in, kicking a shot of adrenaline through is veins. His heart was beating too fast, but his hands were rock steady.

Sherlock blinked, eyes refocusing on John's face, full of an all too telling clarity.

He knows, John thought, desperately, He knows and he'll be disgusted, and then he's going to leave. John raised a pleading hand towards his friend. "No, that's not what I – Sherlock, wait…"

Sherlock arched one dark eyebrow and cocked his head slightly on John's pillow. "So this would work better for you if it wasn't platonic?"

Christ.

John closed his eyes to block his view of Sherlock's face.

This wasn't happening.

It couldn't be happening.

After all John's mammoth efforts at self-control…

No. The world could not possibly be this unfair. It was just another miserable nightmare of a fever-dream. John just had to weather the worst of this particularly cruel hallucination, then he'd wake up to find Sherlock mucking about with bits of corpses on Ms. Hudson's antique furniture, and everything could go back to normal. Everything would be ok.

"John?" Sherlock prompted, "John, look at me." There was something odd about his tone; something unexpectedly…whimsical.

John opened his eyes.

And Sherlock was still there, face barely a foot away. Smirking.

"Oh, God," John said incredulously, surprised when his initial feelings of relief were almost immediately burned away by a hot flood of frustration. "You're joking, aren't you? You think I'm joking."

"No," Sherlock said, self-satisfied smile still firmly in place. Clearly he wasn't taking John seriously at all. "I just find this whole situation somewhat amusing."

He did sound amused, John thought with vexation. No. Not just amused. Sherlock sounded smug, like a scientist who'd discovered a particularly juicy piece of data, one that might win him the Nobel Prize. Maybe he really was cataloging John's reactions for some undisclosed behavioral experiment.

John knew he should have been relieved. He should have felt glad that, apparently, Sherlock was even denser about Normal People Feelings than predicted, and that the secret he'd worked so hard to hide was still safe, dismissed as nothing more than a joke.

Instead, he just felt pissed.

The insufferable idiot, John though as something inside him snapped.

He fisted a handful of Sherlock's shirt and pulled him forward. It was remarkably easy to close the distance between them, press his mouth to Sherlock's and kiss the smirk right off his lips.

John had one blissful moment to think: so warm, so soft, oh thank god, FINALLY…before Sherlock stiffened against him, his whole body going ridged and unyielding.

John jerked backwards like he'd been burned.

Shit, he cursed silently as the rational part of his brain finally caught up to his impulses. What was I thinking?

The answer was simple, of course. He hadn't been thinking at all. He'd acted on an impulse born of pent up emotions and repressed desires and that stupid, stubborn sliver of hope that that he'd never been able to completely contain in the thoroughly-abused padlocked box in his mind.

I'm the idiot, John told himself savagely.

Sherlock was staring at him with an unreadable expression, muscles taught and his whole body still.

John floundered. He didn't know what to do with his hands. He'd let go of Sherlock's shirt, but he could still feel the ghost of fisted cotton against his palms, the phantom warmth of Sherlock's chest against his knuckles as he'd pulled him in.

Why did I cross that line? John wondered, mind curiously numb. Sherlock doesn't do closeness. I ought to know that.

Sherlock always surrounded himself with high walls of cold aloofness and deep moats of condescension. And when those were insufficient, he could also wield words like weapons to drive people away. John had seen him do it countless times, and he flinched preemptively, waiting for the first blow to fall.

Why couldn't I just be satisfied with our friendship and leave it at that?

"I'm sorry," John said unsteadily when Sherlock didn't immediately break the silence. "Just…Just forget that ever happened." He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, not wanting to see condemnation on Sherlock's face. "Delete it from your hard drive, or whatever it is you do." A terrible hollowness seemed to have cored John, leaving a jagged, gaping hole in his middle. Shame leaked into it, filled it, and John pinched his eyes closed tighter, horrified at what he'd done.

He tried to turn his back to Sherlock, determined to hide his face, as though that could somehow diminish the wretched embarrassment burning in his stomach.

Sherlock – damn the man – moved faster. As John tried to turn away, the detective slid forward, throwing a narrow thigh over John's hips and a long arm across his shoulders, pinning him in place.

John froze, eyes popping open as he started at the unexpected contact.

"John," Sherlock said softly against his skin, the low rumble of his voice vibrating down the whole length of John's body. He shifted, as John tried to shrug off his weight, slim hips pressing John more firmly against the mattress. "You should realize by now that I only delete unnecessary information. That was," Sherlock cocked his head, regarding John through heavy lidded eyes, "Very necessary information."

John blinked up at the ceiling, heart pounding traitorously fast. "What?" He asked finally, a small seed of hope frantically scrabbling to take root, despite the shame still pooling uncomfortably at the base of his spine.

Then John remembered how Sherlock had stiffened at his touch – an undeniable instinctive rejection.

He crushed the tiny optimistic seedling, grinding it to dust with an imaginary boot heel. He'd acted the fool enough for one day. What he really needed was time to think, a place to scream and the flexibility to kick himself in the ass. If he was really lucky, he might be able to figure out some way to salvage what was left of their friendship before it became any more unbearably awkward. But he couldn't do that with Sherlock so close, clouding his thoughts.

He shoved at the taller man again, desperate to put some distance between them. The army had taught John any number of ways to get out from under an assailant in hand-to-hand combat, but between John's flu-weakened muscles and the fact that he didn't actually want to hurt Sherlock, the proposition became a little more difficult. Besides, Sherlock was a lot heavier than his wiry frame suggested. John cursed and twisted again, determined to slip away.

"Don't go," Sherlock said. That wasn't the normal imperious tone he usually used to order John about. He spoke in a softer voice, one John wasn't sure he'd ever heard before.

It was a request, John realized slowly, not a command.

Sherlock shifted his weight again, this time moving to give John the exact amount of space he needed if he really wanted to get away.

John started to scramble off the bed, then hesitated when the loss of contact left his skin feeling oddly cold.

"John," Sherlock repeated in that same low, almost-whisper, "Stay."

John had never thought himself a coward. He'd fought in a war, killed murderers and faced down London's most dangerous criminal masterminds, all with completely steady hands.

Still, it took every bit of courage John could muster to stop fighting for escape, look up and meet Sherlock's eyes.

What he saw made his breath hitch.

Dark lashes, blown pupils, and stark, unfettered want.

John blinked, unsure whether to trust what his eyes were telling him. He'd risked too much already to take anything for granted.

"Sherlock?" he asked, not breaking eye contact; afraid that if he looked away, the detective's expression would change, and John would lose this miraculous window into a possibility he'd been too afraid to consider.

"Stay," Sherlock repeated, and there was the hint of that familiar command in his voice. John shivered, electricity chasing its way down his spine as Sherlock braced an arm on either side of his head and leaned forward.

Boundaries, John thought in wonder as his flatmate sprawled across him and, Christ, slid a knee between John's thighs, a look of intent in his stormy blue eyes. Who needs them? And he leaned up, meeting Sherlock halfway.

As their lips met for the second time, the barrier in John's mind – that precarious box he'd shoved Sherlock into almost a year before – gave one final groan, then splintered into a thousand tiny pieces. All the affection John had been hiding away, all the desires and hopes and urges to touch washed over him like a wave bursting its dam.

John meant to go slow, meant to take his time and make sure that Sherlock really wanted this, really wanted him, because, honestly, even with Sherlock kissing him, he still found it all a bit hard to believe. But suddenly, Sherlock's sharp hips were pressing down, and John arched up, and the flood of warmth flowing in his chest flashed bright and hot and just a little painful. His heart clenched around the sudden surge of emotions so long denied. He gasped into their kiss, like a drowning man fighting for breath.

And was that a growl low in Sherlock's throat? Whatever it was, John felt the vibrations of it all the way to his toes. He fisted both hands in Sherlock's shirt, pulling him farther down, wanting to feel the solid warmth of his weight; needing him closer. Long, demanding fingers on the back of John's neck tilted his face up, up, up, like Sherlock wanted John closer, too.

Somehow, in the year he'd known the man, John had more than half convinced himself that Sherlock wasn't interested in sex; that he would probably find it all distasteful and distracting and beneath him. It made sense, because, in Sherlock's somewhat twisted version of reality, the physical needs of his body were almost always outweighed by the vastly complex and superior workings of his mind.

Now, with Sherlock's hands tracing his ribs, and his tongue between John's teeth, John could finally admit that he'd needed to believe in Sherlock's professed asexuality. Because if Sherlock had wanted sex, but hadn't wanted it with him…

But, oh dear God, that didn't matter now. There was no denying the heat in this, in the slick slide of skin against skin where their shirts had rucked up, the hot brush of lips and bright sting of teeth as Sherlock nipped his way down John's neck, the shirt collar digging, gently abrasive, into John's skin as Sherlock tugged it down to expose his left shoulder. The one with the damage. The one with the scar.

And John was going to kill him for that later. This was his favorite nightshirt, just the right sort of soft cotton, and he didn't want it to get all stretched out and saggy. But it was hard to remember exactly why he should be upset when Sherlock was licking his collar bone, tracing along the line of it with his tongue, starting at the hollow of John's throat all the way to the smooth indent before the healed bullet wound.

John cursed, a fluid stream of incoherence, as Sherlock sucked a kiss into his skin hard enough to leave a mark.

"Mine, " Sherlock growled, and John was suddenly very glad that that he was already lying down because at that moment, there was no way his legs could have supported him.

His hands skittered across Sherlock's shoulders, his back, his waist, wanting to be everywhere at once, frustrated by the thin layer of material separating his searching palms from smooth skin. Sherlock was warmer and softer and closer than he had any right to be, and it was all enough to drive any sane man mad.

John didn't care. Couldn't make himself care. Sanity was relative, anyways, and at this point he thought he might prefer Sherlock's special blend of lunatic and genius, no matter how bizarre and frustrating it could be.

Without warning, Sherlock sat back, straddling John's hips, and John hissed through his teeth at the unexpected friction. Then, with the manic expression of a kid on Christmas, he started tugging on John's shirt.

"That's a bit disturbing," John managed to get out before Sherlock pulled the fabric far enough up to muffle his voice. There was an awkward moment when Sherlock botched the angle, and John's arms got tangled in the sleeves, his head stuck somewhere in the tight stretch of cotton. Then Sherlock muttered something that sounded like a mathematical formula, re-adjusted his pull, and John slipped free.

"Disturbing?" The detective asked, an inquisitive eyebrow raised as he grabbed the hem of his own shirt and jerked it over his head in one sharp, efficient movement.

John stopped, mouth open on a reply, all thought completely overthrown by the sight of the man before him.

John had worried, sometimes, after watching Sherlock fast for days, that under his perpetual coat and scarf and proper button-downs, he might be too thin, might be only skin and sinew and sharp protruding ribs. Apparently, there had been no need for concern, because Sherlock was gorgeous,all slim lines, and lean muscle, and smooth, pale skin, and John's hands itched to trace the planes and dips of his body, to map the anatomy of this incomprehensible man.

"John?" Sherlock prompted, that elegant eyebrow still arched.

John blinked, groping around inside his skull for his derailed train of thought. "That expression," He finally managed, swallowing thickly when his voice came out unnaturally hoarse, "The one like a five-year-old unwrapping presents. I've only ever seen you that excited when Lestrade rings about a homicide. I'm not sure how I feel about being the same in your head as murder."

"Not the same," Sherlock said firmly. "Better. You're so much better than murder," and he leaned down and took John's mouth again.

John suspected that a year ago, 'better than murder' would have sounded a bit disturbing. But Sherlock had smashed into John's life and uprooted all his old measures for things like 'disturbing' and 'alarming' and 'scary,' and now somehow being superior to homicide in this mad sociopath's eyes sounded a little bit like the best compliment in the world.

Sherlock curved around John, one hand cupped at the back of his head, the other exploring his now naked chest with curious, probing fingers. It probably should have worried John more how warm and comfortable and right it felt to be sheltered under his friend's wiry frame. But this was Sherlock, and John trusted him entirely.

John's pulse was thrumming too fast, his skin growing too hot and too tight and he knew Sherlock, lying on top of him as he was, could feel his body's reaction to the electric friction of sweat slicked skin. His muscles, still weak from their protracted battle against the flu trembled slightly as he clutched at Sherlock's waist, straining to keep up with the adrenaline in his veins.

Sherlock muttered something into their kiss that that John didn't have the wits left to decode, but suddenly the impatient slide of tongues and teeth slowed and John could breathe again.

And Sherlock was right, John realized with surprise. Breathing was boring. He didn't want the air. He just wanted more of this man, right here, right now. He reached up to pull Sherlock back down, and the detective chuckled against his lips, throaty and deep and a little like everything John had ever wanted in this world.

"I…" John tried, and had to stop to swallow when his voice wouldn't quite work, "I want…"

"Anything," Sherlock promised against his lips, "But tomorrow." He slid his weight off of John, and curled in around him again, tucking his chin into the crook of John's neck.

John made a noise in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a whimper even to his own ears. "Tomorrow?" He asked weakly.

"You're tired," Sherlock said, running a hand through John's hair, and sounding only the slightest bit breathless. "And you've been sick. Besides, I need to do some research."

John gaped at him. How did the man sound so in control? John was more than a little hard just from the kissing, and judging by the warm firmness pressed against his thigh, he wasn't the only one. "Seriously?" He asked, dazed. "You're thinking about research?" John asked, fairly sure he was entitled to feel a little pissed off. "Now?"

"You need your rest," Sherlock said, matter-of-factly, as though he wasn't at all responsible for the way John's heart was trying to beat right out of his chest.

"I…Sherlock, you…" John glared at the savant idly petting his hair and groaned in frustration. A very large, very loud portion of John's brain – the part directly connected to all the delicious patches of warm friction between them, wanted to protest that no, he was feeling fine, and Sherlock should just ignore the way his limbs were shaking because he hadn't even really noticed it himself until Sherlock had stopped kissing him. But the small scrap of his mind that was still rational knew Sherlock was right. As usual. The bastard.

Besides, John thought, grinding his teeth as he tried to get himself back under control, they probably should be taking things a bit slower than light speed. This was all so new, and John still wasn't sure he quite believed it was happening. Also, it appeared that Sherlock was actually attempting to be patient, which was probably a behavior John should try to encourage in his flatmate, no matter how much it made him want to strangle the man at the moment.

"You never do anything the usual way, do you?" he grumbled finally, scrubbing one hand over his face as he tried to rein in his hormones.

"It's for your own good," Sherlock replied, nodding like he was agreeing, although John was fairly sure that wasn't what he'd just said. "You shouldn't be exerting yourself at this stage in your recovery. It would be quite unfortunate if you had a relapse."

"You started it." John accused, resignation slowly edging out frustration. He should probably feel flattered that Sherlock was thinking of him. Empathy wasn't a skill the detective practiced very often, and the fact that he appeared to think John was worth the effort...well it should count for something. John wasn't quite sure what, though.

"You kissed me first," Sherlock reminded him mercilessly.

"You climbed into my bed," John shot back, not sure why it came out sounding more amused than perturbed. And then, because he had to be sure, "You're not angry?"

"I'm not angry," Sherlock confirmed, pressing his cold nose into the crook of John's neck and inhaling. At some point, he must have slipped a hand under the waistband of John's boxers, because it was getting harder and harder to ignore the distracting, ticklish sensation of fingertips slowly exploring his hipbones.

"You're not worried? Not freaked out?" John said to distract himself.

"John," Sherlock said, sounding more impatient than he had any right to when he was the one with his hand inside John's pants, "I know your deductive skills aren't nearly as sharp as my own, but even you can't seriously believe that I didn't enjoy what we did just now." He arched his hips slightly to underline his still readily apparent interest, and raised an eyebrow as though daring John to contradict him.

John swallowed and blinked at the ceiling. That kind of evidence was rather hard to deny. Still…

"You stiffened," John pointed out with dogged stubbornness. "When I kissed you the first time, I mean."

Sherlock sighed and withdrew his hand, lips quirked slightly. "Yes," He agreed. "I do remember becoming quite stiff."

John choked back a surprised laugh and smacked Sherlock's arm. "God, you know what I meant." He was never quite sure what to make of the occasional innuendos Sherlock slipped into their conversations, phrases that seemed expressly designed to throw John off balance. "I meant, you went all tense and ridged, and not in the good way, so stop smirking," He finished, glaring at is flatmate.

"I wasn't being facetious, John," Sherlock said evenly, though John thought he still detected a hint of mischief in his friend's eyes. "Or at least, not entirely. My…stiffness was, in fact, the root of the problem."

John quirked an eyebrow.

Sherlock sighed and flopped back onto the pillows, adopting a characteristically melodramatic pose and gesturing vaguely with one long-fingered hand. "I'm not exactly accustomed to reacting to that kind of physical stimuli." From the tone of his voice, he might have been discussing the weather. Except…was that a blush coloring the pale skin of his cheekbones?

"Really?" John asked, half curious, and half disbelieving.

Sure, Sherlock was painfully abrasive at the best of times. But he was also absurdly beautiful and brilliant and likely due a hefty inheritance if Mycroft's posh posturing and his own upper-class accents were anything to go by. There were plenty of people in the world who were willing to overlook almost anything for someone who was rich or attractive or smart, not to mention all three.

Certainly someone at some point in Sherlock's life had been thick skinned enough to withstand his sharp tongue and cutting wit and try to get into his bed? And now that John thought about it, wasn't Molly at the morgue always batting her eyelashes in Sherlock's direction?

But no, John thought, that wasn't what he said at all, was it? He hadn't said that no one had ever been attracted to him. He'd said that that he wasn't used to reacting. Did that mean…?

"I don't do relationships, John," Sherlock said, too-sharp eyes trained on John's face. "I tried once, on purely experimental grounds." His smile was a bit strained.

"Experimental grounds?" John asked weakly.

"Of course," Sherlock replied. "When I attended college, it became readily apparent that there was a large area of social interaction in which I lacked accurate data. It seemed only reasonable to expand my base of knowledge."

"Only you," John sighed, "Could possibly enter into a relationship looking for experimental data. You're not right in the head. You know that, don't you?"

Sherlock remained silent, though the hand that had resumed tracing patterns on his skin was gradually moving up to ghost over John's ribs.

"What where the results, then?" John asked to distract himself from Sherlock's fingers, "Of the experiment, I mean."

Sherlock was silent for long enough that John wasn't sure he was going to answer.

"Disastrous," he offered, finally. "I had researched the topic thoroughly, picked an appropriate subject, a third year physics student with an interest in behavioral psychology. Things progressed rather well, and I thought I was fairly close to proving my hypothesis, but then we made it into the bedroom," Sherlock hesitated, eyes narrowing. "Apparently, I was insufficiently responsive."

"Uh," John blinked, struggling to reconcile that image with the man who had literally pinned him to the mattress minutes before, "Insufficiently responsive? Are you sure she didn't mean overly responsive?"

Sherlock moved his head in one sharp shake of denial. "He," Sherlock corrected, "And I'm sure. I believe the exact phrase he used to describe me was 'an unfeeling robot.'" Sherlock's brows drew down sharply. "It was a heinously inaccurate metaphor, of course."

"You were insulted by the language?" John asked, "Of all the things that could have bothered you in that situation, you took issue with the metaphor? "

"Of course," Sherlock said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Inaccuracies of language lead to misunderstanding, misunderstanding to confusion, and confusion to misinterpretation of the available data."

"That's true, I suppose. But you compare your own brain to a hard drive all the time. How is that any different?"

Sherlock made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "It's entirely different. A hard drive is a tool, John. It's a place to store data, a place for information to be organized and mapped and inventoried. Calling my mind a tool isn't insulting. It's the truth. Calling someone a robot, on the other hand, implies that they lack humanity, that their consciousness is governed by the most basic circuitry, and that the scope of their mind is limited to programmable parameters." Clearly the idea that his brain was limited by any parameters at all was some sort of blasphemy in Sherlock's book.

"Alright, yes. I can see where you'd find that insulting." John conceded. He rubbed at one temple, trying to digest what Sherlock was implying. "So you've never had sex before?"

"I do lack a certain level of practical experience," Sherlock agreed. "And apparently, a rudimentary knowledge of the theory was insufficient to prepare me for the volatility of the baser bodily instincts."

"Wait," John blinked, a little bubble of worry expanding in his chest. "When you said research, earlier, did you mean…"

"I've heard that sodomy, when executed improperly, can lead to injury," Sherlock said nonchalantly.

John sputtered.

"Clearly, it's an area that will require extensive research, both theoretical and practical." There was a familiar, manic spark in Sherlock's eyes, the first warning sign of an oncoming obsession, and John felt his brows knit at the sight. He ran a hand through his hair, wondering what he'd gotten himself into.

"Sherlock," He said, not quite sure how to phrase his concern. "If this is just a…a fling for you…" He started, then shook his head. That was too nebulous, too abstract. He wanted Sherlock to understand, and for that, he needed examples; concrete, Holmsian-Obliviousness-proof examples. John closed his eyes and tried again.

"If this is just a passing obsession, like that time you discovered bad telly and spent a whole week not sleeping and watching re-runs of rubbish American talk shows," He swallowed, "Or like that time when you first discovered Legos and spent three weeks building replicas until the living room was completely full of tiny, scale models of London and Cardiff and the Death Star…Well, you got tired of the TV and cannibalized it for parts. And the Legos went into the dumpster, too, eventually." John winced, remembering the acrid smell of the charred, mostly melted plastic blocks; messy victims of one of Sherlock's more incendiary experiments.

"What I mean is, if this is just a diversion for you, like the telly and the Legos, then that's fine," John said, surprised at how steady his voice sounded; so steady he almost believed the words himself.

Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. This was, after all, just another kind of battlefield, and John never felt more solid than he did when staring down the barrel of an enemy's gun. He forced himself to soldier on. "If it's just an experiment, that's ok. I'll be alright. But I think you'd better tell me now, before I get too involved, because I can't let go of things as easily as you do. It's harder for me to…"

"John," Sherlock broke in firmly. "Although I usually like to encourage your forays into deep thought, in this case, I rather think you're over-thinking things. You should take your medicine," Sherlock reminded him, reaching out and grabbing the bottle off the nightstand. He handed it to John, then stood up and headed to the bathroom, completely unselfconscious in his boxer briefs.

As an answer, that response hadn't exactly been illuminating. As a distraction tactic on the other hand… Well, for such a slender man, Sherlock really did posses an amazing rear end.

John glanced down at the bottle of flu pills in his hand. "Oh right, that reminds me," John called over the sound of the running tap, "Where exactly did you get this medicine? Sarah said you hadn't been by."

"Don't worry," Sherlock replied smoothly, sidling back into the room. "I didn't do anything untoward." He handed John the glass, and slipped back under the covers, waiting just long enough for John to swallow his medicine and set down the cup before pressing in close, pillowing his head on John's shoulder and draping an arm over his waist. "One of the pharmacists at Bart's owed me a favor,"

"Is there anyone in London who doesn't?" John asked with a smile. "Really, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised to find out the Queen owed you a blood debt or something."

"Actually…" Sherlock quirked a mischievous grin, hooking an ankle around John's calf and tangling their legs.

John stared at him. "You're kidding."

"I'm kidding," He conceded, burrowing closer under the covers, wriggling his free arm around so he could run long fingers through John's hair. "Although the Duchess of Wessex is rather grateful that I located her poodle after he'd been dognapped three years ago. I could probably call in a favor or two with her if necessary."

John blinked. "You went hunting for a poodle?" Perhaps that wasn't the most important point, but it seemed more farfetched than the extended Royal family owing Sherlock favors.

"No. I went hunting for her nephew who had killed his sister's fiancé, then fled to the countryside. He'd taken the dog along for company."

Sometimes, late at night, when his mind was drifting off to sleep and his defenses were down, John had imagined what it would be like to curl up next to Sherlock, to slide into the small empty pockets on the couch left open by his artistic sprawls. He assumed it would feel a bit like snuggling up with a wooden chair – all thin, hard lines and awkward angles. But this…he never would have imagined this. The detective felt completely boneless against him, fitting around John like a tightly woven Celtic knot. John shifted and Sherlock shifted with him, as though they were oppositely charged magnets, continually drawn together.

"Ah." John breathed, trying to focus on their current conversation. "I think I remember reading something about that in the papers, actually. The Duchess appreciated the poodle rescue, did she?"

"Quite," Sherlock answered, voice a lower rumble than usual. John could feel the vibration of it where Sherlock's chest pressed against his side. "Apparently she'd never had any real use for the nephew."

"So the Duchess of Wessex, a pharmacist at Bart's and about half the population of London owe you favors. Why am I not surprised?" John asked, barely smothering a grin.

It could have been worse, John supposed. Drugs illegally prescribed as a favor by a legitimate pharmacist was probably the best he could have hoped for, all things considered. John knew Sherlock was perfectly capable of buying the pills on the black market or stealing them from the Yard's evidence locker, or, god forbid. producing them illegally himself. Not that there was likely to be a raging underground market for flu pills, but if there was, John had no doubt that Sherlock could find and infiltrate it. A worrying thought.

It did, however, remind John of something that he'd been meaning to ask the detective for quite a while. "Why do you hate Sarah?"

Sherlock's hand stilled. "She's an idiot," he said, after a moment of silence.

"Alright. But according to you I'm an idiot, and you still put up with me."

"Don't be ridiculous, John. I don't merely put up with you. I enjoy your company. The world is significantly less dull when you are around."

"Um. Thanks." John blinked, rather taken aback. "That's. Well. Thanks, I think. You still didn't answer my question though. About Sarah. It can't just be that she's an idiot. Which she's not, you know. She's clever. Really clever for someone who's not a genius. She's a doctor. A good doctor. And she's nice."

"I'm not well versed in the social nuances of romance," Sherlock said, tracing the line of John's hipbone with his index finger, "But I do believe it's considered bad form to praise an ex-lover while in bed with a new one."

"Christ, you're right. Sorry," John said, more than a little appalled that it had been necessary for Sherlock, of all people, to remind him of his manners. "It's just…I don't get it. I want to understand."

"She's an imbecile," Sherlock said in the emphatic tone he used when stating indisputable facts. "She had you and she let you go."

"Wait. You're basing your assessment of her intelligence on the fact that she dumped me?"

"Yes," the detective replied simply.

"That's not exactly a fair scale, Sherlock. You realize we nearly got her killed about seven times, and that's not even counting the whole affair with the elephants. Breaking up with me was just self-preservation."

"Breaking up with you was pure, undiluted idiocy," Sherlock said stubbornly. "I, on the other hand, am a genius."

John cocked an eyebrow, "So you're planning on keeping me around for a while, then?" he asked, flippant.

"Forever," Sherlock confirmed.

John's breath caught in his throat. "I thought you were married to your work?" he asked, cursing the hope that laced his voice.

"Yes." Sherlock shrugged. "That hasn't changed."

"Oh." John tried to keep the disappointment off his face, but he wasn't sure he managed it.

"But I do I find myself rather enamored with the idea of polygamy," Sherlock said dryly, running a possessive hand down John's back.

John snorted. "Polygamy?"

"Mmmm." Sherlock hummed contentedly into his shoulder.

"I'm not sure what I think about being the other woman in this relationship," John sighed, wondering if he should be more worked up about that. For the moment, though, the little ball of happiness inside his chest was too bright to let a shadow of real worry in. He leaned over and kissed Sherlock's forehead, breathing in the scent of his skin as a mass of dark curls tickled his nose. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Sherlock agreed, saying the word like a promise. "Now go to sleep. You need your strength."

"Right," John smiled. "And you have some research to do, I suppose."

Sherlock's grin was purely wicked. "Indeed."

~Epilogue~

"This is insufferable," Sherlock rasped. His nose was bright red and it whistled a little every time he breathed. "And it's entirely your fault."

"I warned you," John said cheerfully. "I told you I was contagious, but you wouldn't believe me."

Sherlock regarded John through narrowed eyes. Weeet-woooo, weeet-woooo went his nose.

John handed Sherlock the tissue box and tried very hard not to laugh. "No cases until your fever breaks,"

A violent sneeze destroyed Sherlock's mutinous glare. He dabbed at his nose with the tissue, glowering at everything in the room. "Impossible. I can't stay cooped up here that long. It could be days. I'll go mad!"

"You seemed perfectly content to be cooped up here while I was sick," John pointed out. "that was days, and you're not mad. At least you're not any madder than you were to begin with."

Sherlock crossed his arms. "That was different," he said, petulantly. "Where were you this morning when I woke up? You're barely healed yourself. You shouldn't have been up and about yet."

A pout was coming on. John could feel it in the air. If he didn't head it off now, they were in for a miserable few days.

He cleared his throat a little nervously. "I..." John hesitated, coughed and tried again. "I went to the library and got you some books. I didn't realize you were sick. I'm sorry. But, you know, maybe they'll help distract you. While you recover." He placed the bag of books on the bed and waited for Sherlock's reaction.

"Books, John?" Sherlock drawled. "You think books can keep me entertained for days?"

John remained silent, waiting, and eventually Sherlock gave in and opened the bag, spilling its contents across John's bed. His eyes widened.

"You found these at the library?" Sherlock asked incredulously.

"Not all of them, no," John admitted, cheeks flaming as Sherlock's dexterous fingers traced a rather explicit picture on one of the covers. "I thought they might help you. With your, uh…research."

Sherlock flipped open one of the books at random and stared down at the rather detailed picture. Next to it was a diagram with labels and instructions. Someone had helpfully highlighted a few key words, circled part of the picture and made additional annotations in cramped letters along one margin.

"Hmmm…" Sherlock said, contemplating the page. He flipped through another book, then another and finally smiled. "Laptop," He said imperiously, holding out one hand, palm upwards, eyes fixed on the pages of John's illicit books.

John smiled. The promised 'tomorrow' would have to wait a few days, but that was alright. They had all the time in the world.

He went to fetch Sherlock's laptop.