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.