mustbethetruth | doctor, doctor, gimme the news

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doctor, doctor, gimme the news

It's been four days since the criminal responsible for the theft of a lady's necklace -- by means of disguise, distraction, and a stuffed dodo bird -- and Holmes hasn't moved from his chair except to obtain more tobacco (and then he moved his Persian slipper nearer to him, and he wouldn't have gotten up at all except it was four in the morning and Watson was asleep). He hasn't eaten anything of consequence, nor had he a few days leading up to the utter failure that was the end of that case.

The criminal had gotten away. The fact that he'd stabbed Holmes in the thigh during the fight doesn't really even mean anything to Holmes; the bleeding's stopped, he bandaged the wound, and he doesn't really feel it -- not over the feelings of loss and defeat, anyway. He hasn't mentioned it to Watson, but honestly the thought hasn't even crossed his mind. His mind is too dark a place, at present, to entertain such thoughts about what his lover would like to know, or what his doctor might like to know.

When Holmes starts to turn ill, he barely notices. It's only when he starts to shiver does he notice that he's broken into a sweat; even still, he barely pays it any mind. The dizziness is almost welcome. He leans into his fever and leans his head back against his chair, letting his eyes fall shut.

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Holmes nods, aware he's being a little bit of a child, but he's been in a fog for so long now, and now the fog physically hurts, and he doesn't really care. He falls asleep for the first time in days, and though it's a good sleep, he drifts closer to awareness at times and finds himself hot or shivery or in such pain from his wound that it's difficult to fall back into a hard sleep. Watson's comforting beside him the whole time, though, which helps.

His nap ends, however, when he moves in his sleep and his leg jolts in pain and he starts awake. He's still hot, still miserable, and still dizzy, especially now that his body's flushed with energy after he jerked in reaction to the pain in his leg. He groans and pushes away from Watson, heat radiating off him, and he shoves at the blankets.

"Damn -- infection, damn fever. Damn blackguard. Damn everything," he declares darkly, and he gropes around for that cloth so he can put it over his eyes.

Not quite so tired himself, Watson had been trying to distract himself -- mostly unsuccessfully -- with a novel, but he had laid it down in a moment to roll after Holmes, restraining himself from immediately catching him up in his arms and holding him close again. Instead, he sought out the cloth, and held it out for him to take.

What he wanted to say was to demand to know why Holmes hadn't told him, before things got to this state, but he knew all too well that this was not the time nor place to have that conversation.

"Should I meet the chap who did this to you?" he asked, casually. "I'd almost like to do him a similar turn."

His eyelids feel thick and heavy. That's always been one of his least favorite things about being sick; they feel thick and heavy and slick, and it's the kind of heat that seeps back into his eyes and then to his head and it's extraordinarily unpleasant. The cloth isn't cool anymore, but it's soothing to put something over his eyes anyway, to feel the cloth there instead of just the heavy heat.

"You'd have to wait your turn," he says, cranky, and sighs through his nose. "He's surely lost himself in the Continent by now." Discussing this doesn't really seem like the best path to him feeling better, and he pushes the blankets further off him, feeling ready to suffocate from how hot he is.

A failure? That explained... well, a good deal, actually. Watson dropped the subject. Not a good time. "I don't mind only being second," he said mildly.

He ran a hand over Holmes's shoulder, part reassuring, part a caress, part a test to see how hot or dry his skin might be.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked. It would be good for Holmes to stay hydrated, to be certain.

"I'm sick," he gripes in return, but he considers Watson's question. "Sitting makes me dizzy," he grumps, deciding that water is pointless and won't do anything very useful for him right now. Not unless it's magic water that would make his leg stop throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

"I'll take a cigarette," he says, managing to sound imperial even through the fever.

Watson considered for a moment, debating the wisdom of this. "You ought to have a drink," he advised, but he reached over to the bedside table, lit a cigarette, and passed it to Holmes. He didn't much feel like one himself, not now.

"Did the paracetamol help any?" he asked, hardly daring to hope that it had. "Perhaps a cool bath might make you more comfortable."

He was fussing, just a little. He knew he was. He couldn't help it. He was frightened -- and he was not a coward, very little in the world honestly frightened John Watson -- and he would have given his own right arm, his own life to ensure Holmes's well-being, just now.

"I'm not sure; I slept through it." But probably it hadn't, and Holmes thinks again of his Moroccan case. Watson would never say yes to that, and Holmes doesn't know if he should. A fever plus cocaine doesn't seem the best idea. He takes a drag off the cigarette instead and simply smokes for a moment, as he attempts to wrestle some control over his overheated thoughts.

"A bath requires movement. Having no fever would make me more comfortable," he snaps, and he turns his head away from Watson.

"I am trying to help," Watson said crossly. "You may feel free to snap at me for my stupidity when I'm not following the mad flights of your brain, but this particular subject is my specialty."

He sat up, and lit himself a second cigarette, feeling all to pieces and exhausted, not to mention guilty for losing his temper with a sick man.

"I could," he said, calmer, "bring the bath to you. A tub of water and a washcloth. Would it help?"

"My own body is a specialty of mine as well," he snipes back, aware that fighting is probably not the best thing they could be doing right now. He hurts, though, and can't really stop the snapping; besides, stumbling out of a dark mood and landing in a fever doesn't really leave one in the best moods for socialization.

"Fine," he relents after a moment, sighing heavily, and he takes a long drag. "If it will make you be quiet." He gives Watson a very small, teasing smile.

"No, not because it will make me quiet," Watson protested, though he rose. "Because just perhaps, I might know better than you on this one subject. Just perhaps. At the very least it might cool you down. Don't go anywhere."

He slipped out into the sitting room, and down the hall to the washroom to fill a basin with cool water. As soon as he was out of Holmes's sight, he sagged a little, let his anxiety and fear wash over him, his exhaustion. By the time he returned to the bedroom, he had schooled himself back into calm.

He didn't know what to say; for lack of anything else, Watson stepped up to Holmes and kissed him on the forehead, basin and cloth balanced in one hand.

He's a little disappointed Watson only kisses his forehead and doesn't hang around for a proper kiss. Though he's still irritated, he finds comfort in Watson's presence, particularly touches to parts of his body that currently aren't crawling with pain. Watson could use some comfort too, he sees, but he currently isn't quite sure how to offer that. He lifts an eyebrow imperiously and draws from his cigarette, exhaling slowly.

"Very well, then. Have at me," he teases, and he only wishes he was feeling well enough for this to be a much different endeavor.

"I think you do seem in slightly better spirits," Watson observed, smiling a little. He set the basin on the bedside table and knelt on the bed. He wrung out the washcloth, and began to sponge Holmes down, starting at his chest.

It was a bit strange; this was an act he had done many times before, but never for someone he loved, and it was a strange mix of professionalism and tenderness. He ran his fingers over Holmes's abdomen, sighing.

"Does it help?" he asked.

He shivers when the sponge first touches him, but soon calms down, and he nods at Watson by way of his answer.

"Even sick, it seems I can't deny the appeal of being bathed by you for very long at all." He smirks faintly and lets his eyes close, for his eyelids are too heavy at present to keep them open for very long. He takes a long drag and tries to focus on Watson's presence rather than the pain in his leg.

"Is the fever very bad?" he asks, voice soft.

Watson sighed a little, trying to choose his words carefully. He didn't cease sponging Holmes gently, not even slow down. "It's enough to be worrisome," he admitted, his voice quiet. "I plan on seeing that you get no worse."

Truthfully, he knew that he had little control over such things, but that didn't mean, either, that he could not try. Holmes's chance for recover were good, assuming the infection spread no further.

He sighs through his nose and stills, smoking while Watson works, and he absorbs this information. He has no doubt he'll recover, but the length of time he'll be sick like this, he can't exactly estimate. His leg twinges, and he grits his teeth before he reaches for Watson's free hand and brings it to his lips.

"Anything else I ought to know about my prognosis?" he asks, trying to sound cavalier, but that black mood is creeping back over him; he wills it away as best he can and fixes his gaze on Watson, being attentive and sweet, and he holds onto it to keep him steady.

Squeezing Holmes's hand closely, Watson did pause for a moment. He bent down to kiss Holmes, rather chastely; the idea that he might somehow lose Holmes to this was far too real, and far too horrifying to consider.

"Rest would be advisable," he said. "Plenty of it." He sighed again, shifting on the bed. Lying by omission was not something he was good at, not with Holmes. "I won't lie," he confessed. "This has the potential to be serious. If it gets no worse you should recover. You absolutely must tell me if you begin to worsen in any way."

Is that a partial rebuke for his silence up until now? He frowns to himself; he'd barely even given that any passing thought whatsoever, had barely registered as important, because he'd seen to it and was rather lost to himself. He ignores it though, not wanting to fight, not sure if he has the energy for it.

"Very well. I hurt," he puffs again instead, and he reaches for Watson to pull him down into a more substantial kiss. "My thigh seems to be throbbing with my heartbeat. I'm miserable. Shall I remind you every hour or so?"

Though the kiss was pleasant, Watson wasn't at all sure he should be encouraging that sort of thing. After all, it might lead to things that Holmes wouldn't be physically up for, in the category of excessive exertion.

"I was thinking," he said, rather wryly, "more along the vein that if you begin to slip into delirium and start hearing voices, you ought to inform me." He smoothed his hand over Holmes's brow, and kissed him again, gently. He hated seeing anyone suffer -- he knew suffering too intimately for that -- but seeing Holmes suffer was far more difficult. "Or if you begin losing feeling in your leg, for that matter."

He snorts and closes his eyes, and he strains to tap the ashes out in the ashtray; he hisses slightly when the movement has repercussions in his leg, and he settles back with a sigh. "I wouldn't mind losing feeling in it, just now."

He can feel sleep pulling at him again, and he takes a last drag of his cigarette before he strains to put it out, steadfastly doing his best to ignore his leg. Relaxing again, he closes his eyes.

"I may fall asleep," he murmurs, his breathing already slowing.

Watson put cloth and basin to one side, and he resettled himself alongside Holmes, curling protectively around him. "Go ahead and sleep, then," he answered in a whisper. He stroked his fingers over Holmes's skin. "I shall be right here."

He pressed a kiss into Holmes's hair, resisting the urge to pull Holmes against him like an overprotective and smothery mother.

"You'll be fine," Watson murmured, admittedly half to himself. "At least if I have anything to do with it."

If he had to get horribly sick, he's glad it's after he and Watson have reached the point where Watson cuddles him like this without needing to be asked. Doubtless it's to do with Watson's desire to smother Holmes to him and somehow keep him from being ill, but he enjoys being held, regardless. It makes drifting into sleep a little easier.

The next thing Holmes is aware of are dreams -- terrifying, dark dreams, full of policemen and thieves in the night, men in masks with knives, and then guns, distant screaming, and soldiers falling, being torn to pieces. Somehow they're both in Afghanistan and on the Holmes property, and Holmes has a toy gun in his hand; he can't tell if he's a child or an adult or somewhere in between, but it doesn't matter. There's heat, unending and incredible heat, and Holmes starts to look for the source of the fire.

His drift back to semiconsciousness is confirmed when he settles on the source as himself. He's hot, uncomfortable; he seems to be burning a hole beneath him in the bed, and he feels smothered, suffocated. There's a roaring in his ears and a pounding in his temples as blood pulses; maybe it's trying to escape, maybe that's why his head is throbbing unpleasantly too, but he thinks that's because of the voices, chattering back and forth.

He asks them to stop, but his words only come out as a garbled moan, and he doesn't have the energy to try again.

Though he had dozed off a little, Watson was too light a sleeper to continue long with Holmes moaning. As he woke, he fixed his gaze on Holmes, and he felt the blood drain from his face. No, no, no. He knew this too well, both from living it and treating it, and seeing Holmes like this now was horrifying behond all words. It wasn't fair, not nearly; he loved this man, and he wasn't ashamed of it -- not really, not honestly -- and to lose him now would be the worst sort of sin against the natura of love.

He pressed his hand lightly against Holmes's chest, feeling the fresh flush of fever. "Holmes? Holmes, can you hear me?" He didn't hold out much hope for that, but he had to ask. He felt positively ill with terror, wished vaguely that he could take himself off somewhere and vomit away the fear.

He didn't know what to say. "I love you" ad infinitum seemed woefully inaccurate.

One of the soldiers seems to be talking to him; his voice is thick and difficult to make out, probably because, as Holmes watches, his shoulder becomes bloodier, seems to explode in slow motion. It's fairly horrifying, and Holmes ought to recoil in terror, but he doesn't feel afraid, only exceedingly sad. There's a name rolling around in his brain, and it's difficult to hold onto it, but it finally breaks through.

Watson.

He struggles for the clarity that Watson's name tries to bring with it. Watson isn't really hurt, but that fact spins away from him before he can really grab onto it. He groans again and tries for Watson's name; that he manages, but beyond that he can't really say anything else.

Watson stared a moment, feeling lost and torn. His own name had never sound so beautiful and so sad, he thought. How lucid Holmes was was hard to tell.

"I'm here, old boy," he said, breathless. "Hold on for me." Reluctantly, he rose and all but ran to his medical bag, where he retrived a powder. His hands were still, miraculously not shaking, as he mixed it with a glass of water. Anything to bring the fever down, provided he could get some of it into Holmes.

At Holmes's side again, Watson slid his arm behind him. "I need you to drink this," he said, trying not to beg. "If you can."

Watson seems to be speaking to him at the end of a tunnel, and Holmes struggles to comprehend. Drink something. It's concerning to be propped near Watson's shoulder, and now Holmes can see his leg, in the same shape. He wants to drink this thing, whatever it is, for Watson's sake; he shouldn't be too troubled when he's hurt like this.

He parts his lips and lifts a hand, but his arm is heavy; he swallows down the drink when Watson tips it into his mouth, and he's disconcerted when some of it dribbles out. He coughs, tries lifting his arm again, and manages to wipe at his face.

"Sorry," he mumbles, but his head's throbbing now from the coughing, and he groans again, reaching for a kind of oblivion to fall into.

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