First fill from 'send a number and a pairing' prompts list (the themadkatter13fanfiction tumblr, post/92086512818) originally sent 2014-12-22.

Cross-posted from AO3 same-day.

To exactly everyone's surprise, it wasn't some criminal organisation or a mercenary to put the Holmes brothers in the hospital, but a simple lorry driver who'd ingested the entire contents of his liquor cabinet after walking in on his wife playing host to the entirety of his rugby team. He had run his vehicle through a red light, going far above the speed limit, and the lorry had impacted on the passenger side of the vehicle.

Anthea knew that Mycroft always sat in the middle for this exact reason, and Sherlock directly across from him, and it was that forethought alone that prevented their immediate death upon impact. It still didn't prevent any of the massive head trauma or broken bones they endured, but hospitalised life was infinitely more acceptable than death. Especially if Greg and John were asked. They barely slept or ate, and the wouldn't have done the latter at all if Anthea hadn't resorted to calling Mrs Hudson on the both of them.

As Anthea sat in the back of the hospital room, ruling the country with her mobile while keeping an eye on the steady spike-and-blip of the machines of her employer and his younger brother, Anthea wondered how much different the scenario in front of her would be had any of the four idiots actually confessed their love prior to the accident. She imagined that Greg would be sitting up in Mycroft's bed with her boss reclined back against the detective inspector's chest. She imagined that John would be curled up, a human blanket over Sherlock's legs with his head resting against the consulting detectives hip. She imagined that they would sneak silent hand- and blowjobs with nothing but the privacy screen between them, or perhaps the uninjured men would be so relieved that they would risk riding their bed-ridden lovers. She imagined that, normally, the sex would not be so vanilla, not with the way control came so effortlessly to both Mycroft and Sherlock. She imagined a lot of things, always with a perfect poker expression, which was why she'd been hired in the first place.

There was a sharp inhale of breath and she peeked up from below her eyelashes, intrigued in the way that John's spine straightened slowly into and tension built in his limbs, his eyes glued to Sherlock's vitals monitor. Behind him, Greg startled to wakefulness, lurching forward and then contorting his torso as he turned to see what had alerted his friend so.

"What, what happened?" the DI croaked, eyes darting back and forth between John's face and the glowing numbers that likely made no sense to him.

"Sherlock's vi-" John cut himself off with a sharp gasp, lurching forward in his seat, his hands moving to the rail on the bedside and clutching so tightly that even Anthea could see the way it bleached his knuckles.

There was a low croak of "John?" at the same time there was a low groan of "Gregory?", and both men leaped to their feet so quickly that she thought they were going to jump on their respective others' beds.

Greg was clutching Mycroft's rails, leaning forward as he said on repeat, "Can you hear me?"

Behind them, in his own world, John was busy checking Sherlock's wounds, opening his patient's eyes wider than the patient probably thought necessary and shining a light into them. His mantra was a whispered, "I'm here with you."

Anthea thought it most amusing, how much the brothers railed against being similar. They couldn't see it, but everyone around them could. It was especially evident now, when both Holmes lifted a hand to curl their hand around the back of their loved one's neck, yanking them down for a kiss she could hear with the way four sets of teeth clacked together. Twin groans were followed by two bodies clambering up onto hospital beds, and Anthea could see one of her outcomes begin to unfold.

Silently, she stood and removed herself from the room, leaving the men to their relief and confessions. No one noticed she'd left, and she doubted they would remember that she had been there at all.

FIN

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