anarion | Fic: Taking care (prompt fill)

Title: Taking care
Words: 1286
Pairings : Sherlock/John

Disclaimer: Sadly the characters are not mine and no money is made (that would be sooo cool!).

Summary: Fill for this prompt on Make Me A Monday "Need some hurt/comfort with John and Sherlock. Maybe one where Sherlock is a bit inept at the comfort bit but won't be dissuaded from trying to take care of John?

There are days when John feels really down.

Today it started with the weather. The sky was heavy with dark clouds, splashing rain on the pavement, and a cold wind was rattling at everything that it could get a hold on.

Such weather meant that John's scar was hurting badly, which entailed that he started thinking about the time he spent in limbo (as he calls the time between his life as a useful and very good army doctor and the life with Sherlock) and sometimes it even meant that he began limping again. Today was sometimes.

All in all the day already started bad before he even reached work. It did not improve afterwards. Everybody it seemed was in a bad mood and two of his colleagues actually got into a fight.

By the time he was ready to go home, John was rapidly approaching a depression. He declared the day a complete loss when he got drenched on the way to the tube station and then had to sit for 40 minutes in a train that broke down between stations.

When he finally opened the door to 221B, he felt the fever already starting and his head was killing him. Don't get him started on his shoulder. Or his mood.

Sherlock, who was in the kitchen doing some kind of experiment, looked up and took John's sight in for about three seconds before he dropped his pipette and walked over.

"John. You are developing a fever, because you got soaked by the rain and then sat in a train that stopped because of flooding for…" he checked his watch, "about 40 minutes. You need a hot bath or you will be seriously ill tomorrow. Get out of the wet clothes, I'll run you the bath."

John, who already had opened his mouth to start a rant about his day, suddenly found that he had no energy left for that. And Sherlock had probably already deduced everything anyway.

So he went up to his room, where he had to sit down, because his head was spinning. After a while he noticed that he could not hear the water running.

"Sherlock? The water?" he shouted downstairs. He got no answer, but something crashed to the ground and then the water started running into the tub.

John began to undress, got dizzy again and lay down to close his eyes for a few seconds. When he came to again he stumbled down to the bathroom just in time to turn of the water and save Mrs Hudson from a flooding.

Sherlock was kneeling on the floor, inspecting something under the sink. He turned to John with a broad grin.

"John! Did you know that we grow a rare species of fungi imperfecti called cladosporium mucor under the sink?"

"No, I didn't. And I absolutely do not need to know now…"

He shooed Sherlock out of the room and got into the tub. After ten minutes Sherlock's head appeared in the door again.

"Do you need anything else, John? A cup of tea maybe?"

"A cup of tea would be lovely. I'll be out in about 20 minutes."

He heard Sherlock walk away into the kitchen but he never got the tea.

When he left the bath 20 minutes later he almost stepped into a tea cup though. He frowned and picked it up. The tea was luke-warm. He turned around and tried to find out what had distracted Sherlock that close to his goal. The only thing he could see was a post-it on the wall in Sherlock's handwriting. He shrugged and went on to the living room.

And then he nearly doubled over with amusement. Spread throughout the room were several cups of tea in different states of evaporation, each clearly indicating what Sherlock was doing when he was trying to get the tea to John. One stood near the latest case files, one beside his latest experiment, one near the laptop and one on the mantelpiece close to the knife. Hu, important things to discuss with the skull then?

Sherlock was in the kitchen again, carefully measuring some kind of pink liquid. He looked up when he heard John enter.

"I put the last cup beside your bed a few minutes ago, should still be hot. You should lie down. Call me if you need anything."

John watched him turn back to his experiment and grinned. Then he remembered his headache and went to lie down. He had to sidestep two more cups on the way to his bedroom, but there the promised tea was.

He felt a little better, Sherlock and the tea cups had at least lifted his mood, but he still was in too much pain to sleep. He called for Sherlock and asked him to get some paracetamol from the kitchen.

He listened to him descend the stairs and walk into the kitchen. Then there was a bang and Sherlock exclaimed something like "HA!" and stormed back into John's room.

"I found the scorpion that escaped from my experiment last week! It was in the medical cabinet."

"There was a scorpion on the loose in our house??? And you didn't mention that to me why?"

"Ah… I'll get you the painkillers." And he did. John decided to drop the matter of the scorpion.

He slept for some time, but when he woke up again, he felt worse. Not so much in pain, but the fever seemed to be higher. He thought that he should maybe take his temperature. He called Sherlock again and directed him to one of the boxes in his cupboard where he thought the thermometer should be.

While Sherlock searched, John drifted in and out of sleep. The next time he woke up it looked like the content of the box exploded all over Sherlock, who was sitting on the floor examining John's teddy bear.

"You played piano as a child, were a swimmer and your first girlfriend was cheating on you with her math tutor."

"What? How do you…? Never mind. Did you find the thermometer?"

"No. It's not here. I'll go ask Mrs Hudson."

When Sherlock was gone, John tried to sleep again, but found that he was so cold that his teeth were chattering. He needed another blanket. He was about to shout for Sherlock then he let the evening pass before his eyes and decided against it. Who knew what would happen if he send Sherlock to get a blanket for him.

He grabbed his dressing gown and pulled it over his bed spread. That helped enough to let him get back to sleep.

He did not wake the next time Sherlock came into his room. Therefore he did not notice Sherlock taking in his shivering body on the bed, thinking about the problem for a few seconds and then deciding on the best course of action. Which was to strip down to his pants and shirt, get into John's bed and wrap himself around the other man until he stopped shivering and finally fell into a deep sleep of recovery.

It turns out that Sherlock actually was pretty good at taking care of John. Because… (well, John doesn't know yet, but I know. And I think you deserve to know too). Tomorrow, when he wakes up, John will feel fabulous. The fever will be gone, as will the pain and the dark thoughts. Sherlock on the other hand will not be gone. He will be lying beside John, sleeping peacefully. He will be beside John forever if John lets him. Which… (well, John doesn't know yet, but I know. And I think maybe you deserve to know too.) But he will. Of course.

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AN: Thanks to mrv3000 for the prompt and to ladyprydian for the image of 15 different mugs of slowly evaporating tea scattered around the flat! :)

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