Training Sherlock

John's fairly sure one of the most simple bits about actually being alive and being a human being is knowing how to take care of yourself.

Now, he gets it: not everything is that simple. Trying to stitch up a nasty gash with your non-dominant hand isn't simple. Digging a splinter from the bottom of your foot isn't simple. Trying to have a fancy dinner over slow cases and little money isn't always simple. But whatever works, John thinks.

Bottom line: there's base things that you have to do as a living, breathing human being and it's really not a huge deal for a proper adult.

Except, apparently it is.

Sherlock seems to forget that he's actually alive sometimes, that he's bound by the same rules that all of humanity is, however dull he may find them. It boggles John's brain. Irritates him at first, then boggles him, and, after this long, just makes him sigh.

It's a bit like training a dog. Or teaching a child.

... Both applicable, he supposes. He's called Sherlock both a bloodhound and a child on more than one separate occasion.

Breathing's easy.

It's the most normal thing that a person can do.

Except, it isn't.

Apparently.

John isn't sure what exactly makes him look up and over at Sherlock, but he does, the detective sprawled luxuriously across the sofa. There's a nicotine patch stuck on his arm, which dangles off the sofa lazily. Sherlock's head is propped up on the armrest, his eyes closed, hair mussed as the ratty, old t-shirt he's wearing falls off his shoulder.

John doesn't know what, but... He narrows his eyes. There's something.

Then he realises. Sherlock isn't breathing.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock doesn't respond. Not with so much as a twitch.

"Sherlock!" John ditches the newspaper - does Sherlock have more patches on he doesn't know about? If he had passed out from overdose right in front of him - and jolts to his feet to go check on him.

Sherlock's eyes snap open just as John bounds over. "... What are you doing?" he intones, curiosity flaring up in his eyes.

John stops. "Wait, you... you weren't breathing. I thought..."

"Oh, breathing." Sherlock rolls his eyes and turns his head. "Breathing's boring."

Irritation swells up in John, prompting him to step forward to rip the nicotine patch from Sherlock's arm. "Damn it, Sherlock!"

"Ow!" Sherlock nearly comes up off the sofa, clapping his hand to his arm.

John crumbles the patch and throws it at him. "You don't even have hair there. I thought you overdosed on them."

"That would be stupid," Sherlock retorts, sinking back into the sofa cushions.

"Well, why wouldn't you be breathing?" John gripes, mostly under his own breath. Now he's irritated and exhausted, abruptly, and he turns back to his chair. "That's the stupid thing."

"I don't know, I forgot."

"How do you forget to breathe?" John demands.

"I don't know, I'm bored, John!"

John sighs in exasperation and grabs the newspaper. "You're going to be the death of me."

"Ugh." Sherlock's head falls back against the armrest. "At least I'd have something to dissect."

John glances up when he thinks he hears something, but there's nothing amiss. Nothing out of the ordinary, considering the usual. Sherlock's even planted on the sofa, book in hand. He seems genuinely intrigued by whatever he's reading, eyes rapt with attention, licking his lips contemplatively every so often.

It's a good day.

John goes back to typing up an old case.

He hears it again.

This time, he sighs and looks up, determined to figure it out. If Sherlock wasn't so bloody intrigued in his book, he could probably figure it out ten times faster, but he wasn't paying any attention. So... this is John's case.

The third time he hears it, he realises that it isn't a what, or rather, more of a who.

It's Sherlock. Or Sherlock's stomach, to be precise.

John busts out laughing, which earns him a startled look from the detective in question.

"What?" Sherlock glances around when he realises John is laughing at him. "What? What are they saying?" he continues, narrowing his eyes slightly. "What are you typing?"

John shakes his head, pressing his lips into a thin line. "Nothing, I heard your stomach. It's growling like mad."

Sherlock frowns. "Is it?" He glances down at his stomach.

"... Seriously?" John chuckles. "You didn't notice. When's the last time you ate?"

"Uhh..." Sherlock glances at his book, then the clock, and then John. "... Nope, I don't remember." He buries his nose back in the book again, conversation apparently over.

"Go eat something, Sherlock," John says, shaking his head. "Please. Before you pass out."

"... Need something," Sherlock mutters distractedly, licking his thumb to turn the page.

"I'll get you some toast." John pushes away from the desk. "Need a break, anyway. Jam or Marmite?"

"... Mmm."

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock waves his hand dismissively - which John takes to mean whichever, and he'll chew him out if he complains afterwards about the choice.

Sherlock's growling stomach seems to reach new heights as John goes to get the toast.

He's really too good of a flatmate. He really is.

He deserves a medal.

John isn't sure that many flatmates walking into the kitchen to find their co-flatmate alternating between squirming and sitting stock-still at a microscope, hand jambed between his legs, clearly desperate for the loo, would stick around.

John figures, at the very least, a normal flatmate would be annoyed, right? So, then, why is it that it's just... bewildered acceptance?

He briefly contemplates leaving Sherlock there - it wouldn't be the first time Sherlock had lost himself in one thing or another, albeit if it is the first time that John's caught him like this - but then he figures it'll probably end up being his mess to clean up, not to mention the havoc that Sherlock's probably wreaking on his bladder and kidneys-

"Hey." He brushes his hand against Sherlock's shoulder, trying to draw him out of the experiment gently. Startling him isn't probably great in his state, although that nagging voice does say scare the piss out of him (mostly in a twelve year old's tone. Mostly). "Break time."

Sherlock raises his head from the eyepiece. "Huh?"

John clears his throat softly, flicking his gaze briefly, but pointedly, down to where Sherlock's hand is still wedged between his legs. "Break time," he repeats, with much more patience than he ought to be capable of with a thirty-three year old. "Now."

"... Oh!" Sherlock straightens up, scrubbing his palms across his trousers. "Sorry, I meant - I got distracted." He swings around on the barstool and gets to his feet, doubling over almost instantly. "Ah-"

"Sherlock!"

"No, no," Sherlock returns. "No. I'm fine, just a, a, redistribution of pressure." He clears his throat and straightens slowly. "Back in a minute, don't touch that- yeah." Sherlock staggers off to the bathroom, already fumbling with the zip on his trousers.

John's fairly sure that, if Sherlock could right now, he'd be running to the toilet. He sighs. "If you make a puddle, you're cleaning it up!"

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm fine!"

John snorts. It's not funny, really. It's just ridiculous. Honestly.

"Why do I have to tell you to go to the loo?" he asks absently, when Sherlock comes back, no worse for the wear. He pours himself a cup of tea. "Seriously, why?"

"I said, I got distracted." Sherlock slides back onto the barstool and returns to the microscope.

"How do you not notice that you're about to wet yourself like a two year old?"

"The mark of a good experiment." Sherlock's voice is layered with sarcasm.

"Right," John replies, and rolls his eyes.

"Pour me a cuppa, yes?"

"No," John says immediately.

They aren't going to do that again.

"Sherlock."

"I know there's something. I know there's something here, and I'm just not getting it. How? How can I not get it? What am I not seeing? There has to be something here and we're all missing it! I don't understand -"

"Sherlock..."

"Scotland Yard, I can understand. They're stupid; they're all idiots. Of course they aren't going to see the connecting factor here, that's obvious. Even Lestrade, or you, you're both more intelligent than the average idiot because you work with me, but it's still acceptable. But me; I should be able to see it, I'm always supposed to be able to see it, everything -"

"Sherlock!"

"What?"

Sherlock spins around, all wrinkly pyjamas and flyaway hair. His voice cracks on the word and his eyes are rimmed red, and the glare that he's clearly trying to direct towards John wilts under the onslaught of whatever's going on in his head.

John smiles sadly. "You need sleep."

Sherlock gives him this weary-eyed, pathetic look. It's one of those looks that John is fairly sure that he's never, ever supposed to see Sherlock giving him.

"I can't," Sherlock says softly, like it's the most easy explanation. And maybe it is, but it isn't true, because Sherlock's health is a whole hell of a lot more important than a murder. Sherlock's still alive; the victim's been dead for over a week.

"Yes, you can." John pushes himself to his feet tiredly. He's exhausted, and he's slept since the case began last week. Sherlock has barely slept.

"No."

"Yes." John reaches forward and plucks the file from Sherlock's fingers. Except he doesn't let go. "Sherlock..."

"No," Sherlock repeats stubbornly. "I just need... I just need some more time, I just need to think some more-"

"No, you need to sleep," John retorts as he pulls on the file. Sherlock's got a surprisingly good grip on it for being so exhausted. "Sherlock, let go."

"No."

"Sherlock." John's trying to put just the right amount of military voice into his tone. It's worked before. No reason why, but it has.

"No."

"Let go."

"I can't!" Sherlock exclaims again, his voice cutting through the silence of the flat.

John knows he's meant to flinch; he doesn't. Instead, he just stares back at Sherlock, trying to communicate that this isn't want anymore, it's need. You need to sleep.

And Sherlock's entire demeanour changes; his shoulders slump, he curls in on himself, eyelashes brushing his cheeks incessantly as he blinks rapidly, looking, briefly, for all the world like he's about to burst into tears.

"Sleep," John enunciates, reaching up to steady his shoulder in case he just collapses on the spot.

"... Yes," Sherlock mumbles, voice muffled by either emotion or exhaustion.

He's really overtired when things get to this juncture, and John's able to easily get Sherlock into his own room - not just sprawled out on the sofa. He follows him the whole way back to the bedroom to make sure he doesn't pass out on the way, and Sherlock's out before John even pulls the blanket out from under his feet to cover him up with it.

By the time that John's up the next morning, Sherlock's already showered, had breakfast, and invariably solved the case.

John doesn't know.

Sherlock's a genius. Clearly. But some things... well, John doesn't know if Sherlock's just too put out with the normalcy of it all that he tries to ignore it or if he is just, incredibly, that thick about certain things. Like breathing and bathroom breaks.

"I'm parched," Sherlock announces, flinging his coat aside. "It's so hot."

"Wool coat," John mutters, going to turn on the fan.

"Iced tea," Sherlock replies, just as dramatic as his entrance into the flat, and, mindless of John's mumbles, goes to pour himself a drink.

"Right," John mutters, sighing as the fan blows hot air into his face. "Pour me a glass, too!" he calls, deciding to follow Sherlock's path into the kitchen.

Don't pretend you lot haven't done all of this at least once in your life xP (Well, maybe not the breathing thing... that would be a bit bad!) But staving off normal, human, inane things because you've got something better to do... screamed Sherlock at me. I'm in a domestic mood with the boys; there's household chores in a story to come. :p

I do not own Sherlock. Thanks for reading!