Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, seems to have come down with a cold, or worse.

John Watson, flat mate, friend, or more, is charging himself with the choice to care for Sherlock.

Will he be able to? And will Sherlock wear John's sweater?

[[Fluff piece; Light; SherlockxJohn. Rating: Everyone. Warning: Illness]]

Sherlock and Pancakes

(Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. I constructed the situation, dialogue and words. I do not own the characters below. They belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and their interpretation is owned by BBC Sherlock&Co.)

It was strange, to notice that Sherlock woke up late. John was used to his long, late night working hours, and the bright early mornings that often followed. But, unused to such a lifestyle himself, John always found himself to be the first to bed and the last to wake.

"John," his voice came first, a strange announcing of the end to Sherlock's reverie.

"Yes?" John called back, unsure if Sherlock had actually said his name at all, as nothing had followed the exclamation.

There was a thick coughing sound that erupted from the other room and John turned his head slightly to see in his peripheral that being that was Sherlock, hunched over slightly, hand over his mouth.

"You are making pancakes?" as customary, the statement was neither a question nor a pure observation, but a clear indication of his skepticism.

Frowning, John looked again at his roommate, immediately wishing he hadn't given it another thought and looking away with a red heat rising to his face. Sherlock, was wrapped up in a thin white sheet but was hardly making any effort to conceal himself. Or perhaps he had dropped his cloth shroud a bit during his fit, John didn't know.

"Please Sherlock, put something on."

"John, it is too hot for pants," Sherlock grumbled in response, shuffling his feet slightly.

"What-" it wasn't until that moment that John really looked at his friend, and looked at him long enough to make a few doctoral observations and the conclusion was that Sherlock Holmes, was ill.

John looked down at himself, warm and cozy before the stove he was cooking over and wearing a thickly knit green and red sweater. Across the flat though, away from the kitchen, it was colder and Sherlock should not have been warm, dressed as he wasn't. Additionally, even from where he stood, John could see the dark hollows of his eyes, the running of his nose, just slightly red, and the specks of sweat on his forehead.

"It's hot," Sherlock repeated. "It was cold and it is now hot. Which, likely signifies ill–"

John stepped over to him, cutting him off mid sentence by placing one practiced hand on the taller man's forehead. It was burning to the touch and damp. Closer inspection of his face proved that that too was sweat splotched, and his face had taken on an ashen hue.

"John stop, I'm not one of your patients," Sherlock protested, pushing John's hand away. He had just began to slink his way back to his bedroom, to avoid further inquiries, but John stepped in his way.

"Open your mouth," the doctor demanded.

Sherlock, nose twitched in disgust, lifted his chin, ever so slightly, his face no longer at an inclination in which Watson could see properly, before he uttered a singular, No.

His triumphant and smirking face would have remained several inches above Watson's head if it weren't for the turn of a sudden and stubborn coughing fit.

"A cold. Just a cold," he explained through gasps as he gripped the back of a chair, trying to regain his breath and balance.

"Just sit down. Let me get you some tea or something."

Sherlock sat in his chair, wrapping the blanket around him again, tighter than before, and pulling a second blanket from the couch over him as well.

"Hoo hoo," Mrs. Hudson announced, popping her head into the door before John could return to the kitchen. "That does sound terrible Sherlock, are you all right?"

"Fine," was his singular answer, before he pulled up his laptop and began to work.

"How was your holiday, John?"

"Good, good. Harry and me got on just fine."

"No you didn't," Sherlock countered, but the other two ignored him.

"I'm glad to hear it. Sherlock's been so noisy while you've been gone. Coughing and pacing and then all those canes."

"Canes?"

"I was testing the impressions of cane points in various substances."

Explains the broken tile bits in the bathroom, John noted to himself.

"Well now, I just popped in to see how you were getting along, I'll be making some soup this afternoon, if you'll be wanting some."

"That would be nice, Mrs. Hudson. Thank you."

A few more pleasantries were exchanged between them while Sherlock continued to work at his computer, but once she had gone, John closed the door and turned a full bitter circle on his heel.

It took two attempts at gaining his attention before there was a slight inclination of Sherlock's face toward John.

John watched and waited for Sherlock to pay him more attention than that and while he did so, Sherlock continued to cough, often now stifling it with pursed lips and hunched shoulders, too busy to lift his hands form the keyboard, let alone give John his attention.

"When was the last time you ate, Sherlock?"

"When was the last time I wasn't working?"

"Have you been working since I left?"

"Probably."

"Are you meaning to tell me you haven't eaten since last Thursday?"

"Likely."

"Today's Tuesday, Sherlock."

"Sound deduction John, but it has no bearing on the work I'm doing now, thank you."

"No wonder you're sick," John frowned and paced over to his companion, snatching the laptop from his hands.

"John! I was working! My case–"

"Can wait. Your case will wait," John responded with a glare, stepping away from Sherlock's long spidery arms and dropping the laptop back on the couch across the room.

"Fine," Sherlock pouted. He stood with a huff, but almost immediately fell back into his chair, eyes closed and hands grasping the support he didn't realize he needed.

Once again, John placed a hand on Sherlock's forehead, but the other man didn't flinch away this time and John could only assume that it was because of the dizzy spell he was obviously experiencing.

"You have a fever," John explained, although he knew Sherlock didn't need to be told. "Have you had anything to drink at least. Any water? Today?"

"I..." Sherlock's nose scrunched and his eyes tightened against some unknown thought or pain and apparently his mind found that a further argument was useless. "No."

"I'll get you a glass and something for your fever. And you should get some clothes on."

"Mm...thanks..." Sherlock murmured, resting his face on his pointed fingertips.

John stepped into the bathroom, avoiding the broken tiles and opened the medicine cabinet to retrieve his things. If possible, he hoped to convince Sherlock to let him listen to his breathing just to make sure there wasn't an infection, or water in his lungs, or something.

When he returned to the kitchen, Sherlock was standing, dressed now, in flannel bottoms and a tee-shirt, staring at the mush of pancake that John had only started cooking before Sherlock had awoke.

"Here Sherlock, take these with a glass of water..." he paused as Sherlock was taken by another coughing fit that left him gasping for air. "And for god's sake either eat something or go to sleep."

Sherlock took the medicine and a glass of water without argument but after swallowing it all, directed his attention back to the pan.

"Chocolate chips, banana bits, ground walnuts, honey, and pancake batter. You've never made this before. Did your sister teach you the recipe?"

"No one said you had to eat it," John retorted, pushing past Sherlock so that he could continue cooking.

"That's not what I meant John. It... it smells good?"

John held his tongue's eager response about Sherlock's stomach finally overcoming his brain and asked, with a side glance, if Sherlock wanted one and he nodded, his face filled with a childish curiosity.

"Oh," John's voice spoke, without his conscious agreement.

"Oh?"

"I forgot that you don't cook."

"For your information, I do cook. But not when I'm working," he stepped closer to the stove, holding out his hands toward it, in an effort to warm them.

"Put a sweater on, if you are cold," John criticized, but he couldn't help noting with mild concern, the slight quiver of Sherlock's limbs.

"Can't."

"You... can't? No. No. Never mind. Don't tell me," John quickly recovered. He had learned, long ago that it wasn't good to ask about the strange experiments Sherlock was up to.

"Fine, here. Take mine." John pulled off his red and green sweater, it's Christmas colors abhorrent to the generally noir clad Sherlock. He stared at it for a moment, his fingers tracing over the white looped design with a disgusted frown.

"Just put it on."

So, several minutes later, Sherlock was sitting across from John wearing a sweater that was too short on the sleeves and obviously not his and eating food that, had it not been for John, he never would have considered consuming.

For a moment, it was peaceful in the flat. Calm and pleasant. Sherlock had a fit of coughing now and again, for which John stared at him with piercing brown eyes trying to determine how serious the condition was. But it wasn't until Sherlock's eyes flicked up at him, pale blue, and slightly panicked, that John even contemplated the possibility that Sherlock wouldn't be capable of holding down the plate of thick, overly rich, pancakes.

His face green, Sherlock leapt from the table, his feet stumbling on his path to the bathroom. John pushed his plate aside, suddenly far from hungry, and a little alarmed by the continuous coughing and heaving intervals that were echoing toward him. He walked to the bathroom and knelt beside his friend, resting a hand on Sherlock's back.

"They... tasted good... before," Sherlock commented between spitting the toothpaste he was using to clean the bile flavor from his mouth.

He sunk down on the floor a moment, clutching at his chest as he tried desperately to catch his breath.

John sat down beside him, uneasily and wishing he could give Sherlock some mite of comfort.

"You've got to get some sleep," he offered, but Sherlock glared. "No. Don't argue with me. I don't care if the Mycroft is at the door waiting for you for orders of life and death. You are going to bed."

"What if the Queen is waiting?"

"She'd wait too," the scowl on Sherlock's face diminished and he laughed until the coughing overwhelmed him again.

"My body is betraying me," he grumbled.

"That's what happens when you ignore it. Come on." John stood up, pulling Sherlock to his feet.

Sherlock clung to John all the way to the bedroom, which, admittedly wasn't far, but his half closed eyes and the way he clutched at his chest with every step, pushed John far away from a place of complaint. They made their way to Sherlock's room, to his bed, and Sherlock sat down on it, yet another fit pulling his air away.

John, helplessly, watched him as he clutched at his shirt, a pained expression on his face, but with every cough, it seemed to get worse.

"John... ah, my chest..."

"Hold on," John bounded out of the room, leaving his counterpart in an unfair fight for breath. He took to the bathroom to grab cough syrup and to his own room to grab a stethoscope.

"Not pneumonia. Please not that," he murmured when he returned. "He'll never let himself rest long enough to recover from that."

Of course, he knew that it was more than likely that that was exactly what Sherlock had, especially if he had been sick and untreated for days.

When John got back down to Sherlock's room, Sherlock had nestled himself under his sheets, eyes closed, but chest heaving.

"I'll take care of you, Sherlock."

"I know. That's why I have you," he smiled just slightly and John suspected that the sick man was highly aware of the effect those words had as they fell, first on John's ears and then into his heart.

"Will you let me give you an exam then?"

"For what John. It is a cold."

"Or pneumonia."

"Impossible," Sherlock wheezed stubbornly, his face vanishing beneath the blankets.

"Why is that?"

"I don't get pneumonia."

John couldn't help the annoyed sigh that escaped his lips and he punctuated it by turning away again.

"Fine. Take some medicine. Get some sleep," but before he could go, Sherlock's voice beckoned him again, and then became swallowed by a suffocating cough which was accompanied by a pained cry.

"John, it hurts."

In an instant, John was perched on the bed, legs folded and his hand in Sherlock's. The coughing tore through Sherlock's body and he gripped John's hand with every shuttering attempt to breathe.

"I'm here," John murmured. With one hand, he managed to open the cough syrup and pour a dose out for Sherlock to take, which he did without complaint, but John wasn't positive it would help.

When the fit had died down again, John forced Sherlock out of the covers and out of the sweater so that he could listen to his lungs and Sherlock watched him with panic in his piercing blue eyes and pain obvious from his balled up fist.

"Your diagnosis, doctor?" he asked calmly but he already knew what it was that John heard.

"Infection, I should think. Can't be certain without an x-ray."

"I'm not going to get an x-ray."

"Sherlock, if you keep going on like this you'll be hospitalized."

"Two days. If I'm not better in two days," Sherlock began, pulling John's sweater over his head. "I'll go."

"Fine. But you're on strict bed rest until I say otherwise."

"Tch, dull. I have work to do," he murmured, voice at half it's normal strength.

John tried not to glare, but he knew that his face was betraying him, "Then you'll be doing it, from your bed."

"John, don't tell me you're... concerned?" he mocked, but the sarcastic smile was stolen away by his lungs' straining attempts to breathe. His thin fingers clutched at the pain in his chest and at the blankets on the bed and John, for the first time, noted the dark, oxygen and sleep deprived circles under his eyes, the jutting angle of his cheek bones and wrists, more prominent now than ever before and before he before he realized exactly what it was he was doing, he had sat himself down on the bed again, beside Sherlock. One hand resting on Sherlock's hand, and the other, wrapping around his frame John pulled the taller man close to him.

"Please Sherlock, get some rest. Try to get better. For me," he murmured into the curly tufts of black hair. He held him steady, as the wheezing shudders and coughs barraged Sherlock's body, but when he had finally caught his breath he pushed himself away from John's clutch, silently maneuvering himself beneath the blankets again, eyes slowly closing.

John climbed off the bed and the reached over, his hands deftly fixing the sheets for the feverish man. Before he pulled away though, Sherlock grabbed his wrist.

"Could you–?" but he cut himself off. "Never mind."

For a moment, John was going to let it go, was going to turn from the room but the "never mind" froze him.

"What is it, Sherlock?"

Sherlock buried his face under the hem of the sheet for a moment, childishly.

"Please, stay with me. Until I fall asleep."

John smiled softly, climbing into bed beside him.

Sherlock curled against John, his head resting on John's chest.

It was quiet for a moment and John, snuggled warm next to Sherlock, wrapped his arms around him.

"A pity. Those pancakes," Sherlock murmured suddenly, making John jump, just a bit.

"What about them?"

"They were good." John chuckled in response. "Will you make them again for me, when I'm well?"

"Anytime, Sherlock."

One hand clutching John's and the other against his chest, Sherlock closed his eyes to the world, his face relaxed but for the lingering sentiment of a smile on his lips. It was a trace left from a single kiss John left on his head before another silent moment passed and Sherlock fell asleep.