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The first time John noticed it was at crime scene. Sherlock was bent over a body, folded nearly in half to see the palm of the man’s hand, when he straightened suddenly.
“Alright, Sherlock?” He asked.
Sherlock shook his head jerkily. “Just blood to my head, John, nothing to concern yourself over.”
But John noticed he brought his hand up to touch the spot beneath his ear subconsciously. For all the Sherlock said he didn’t observe, John noted this for future investigation.
A day later, case solved, Sherlock was laying on the couch, arms bent to hold his phone up over his head. John had to pee, but had been staying in his armchair in the hopes he’d get to see the moment when Sherlock dropped it on his own face. “I’m hungry,” Sherlock intoned.
Knowing how rare it was that Sherlock deigned to eat, John looked up. “Right. What do you want? I could order us some takeaway.”
“No.”
“We have beans and toast?”
“No.”
“Uh… I think we have some leftover roast chicken?”
Sherlock huffed.
“Fine, princess, what exactly do you want?” John said, the exasperation hidden behind the laughter in his tone.
Sherlock snapped his head over, iphone still dangling over him. “I’m not a princess!”
“You are.”
“And I want soup.”
“We don’t have soup.”
Sherlock turned his head back up toward the phone.
“Go get some, then.” He replied distractedly.
John, despite his sigh, got out of his chair to get his jacket and wallet. “See, ordering me around like a servant, demanding a feast,” John pulled his jacket off the hook and shrugged it on. “Reclining on your throne all day-- all you’re missing is a--”
A sharp grunt sounded from the other room. John raced to the doorway, but Sherlock had already retrieved the phone from the couch next to his neck.
***
“You have a fever.”
“I don’t.”
“You do, Sherlock, look at the thermometer.” John held it in front of his face, displaying the 102 symbol.
“I can’t read it, my eyes hurt.” Sherlock said petulantly.
“Because you have a fever!” John retorted loudly. Sherlock squinted against the noise. John sighed. “Okay, c’mon, I’m taking you into the clinic.”
“No!” Sherlock said, eyes snapping open. “I don’t want to go to a clinic.”
For just a moment, Sherlock’s wide eyes and pleading voice made him appear as a scared and desperate child. Then his eyebrows descended and he said, “You’re a doctor, at least in name. Do something about it if you want to prove your competency.”
John felt his hackles raise for a moment before he realized what was going on. “Nope, you’re not goading me. We’re going to the clinic, princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“I’ll stop when you leave your ivory castle and go down to the clinic like the rest of us peasants.”
“It’s ivory tower,” Sherlock grumbled, but raised from the couch and started toward the door.
“Sherlock, what are you-- you’re in your pajamas! You can’t just go out like that, you need a coat.”
Sherlock looked at John like he was dumb. “Why would I need a coat when my own body is--” he cut off suddenly, reaching out to grip the doorjamb. John rushed over to quickly support him.
“Just sit down for a minute if you’re dizzy.”
And that’s how John ended up waiting in the clinic plastic chairs will Sherlock walked to an examination room, wearing only his pajamas and his long coat over. He really did look like a child.
They came back quite quickly. Sherlock, when he had appointments of any sort, seemed to go through the process much faster than most. John suspected it was due to him annoying people into doing their jobs faster.
The doctor, a short, round black woman that John hadn’t met around the clinic yet, escorted Sherlock back with a firm arm around his bicep.
“He refused a wheelchair.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair,” Sherlock growled. “I am only a teensy bit,” he swayed on his feet here, and the doctor pulled him back against her. “Lightheaded.”
John gently guided him over to a plastic chair. He turned back to the doctor. “Hi, Doctor Watson, I actually work down in,” he gestured toward the general practice area.
“Oh, right! Well, we haven’t met yet, I’m Doctor Robinson. I just started on Monday.”
“Good, yeah! You’re going to love it here. Great cafeteria, actually.”
Sherlock groaned, but John recognized it as less a groan from pain and more from having to listen to pleasantries. “So what’s the problem with princess?”
Doctor Robinson laughed. “Oh, that’s the perfect title for him. You should’ve seen him trying to glare at the tongue depressor in his own mouth.”
John smiled at her. Nice woman. “Sounds like himself.”
“Right well, from what I can tell, his wisdom teeth came in and became infected. His lymph nodes are swollen to high heavens, but I suspect if they just take them out, he’ll be right as rain.”
“Okay, ehm, do we…?” John said.
“No, we don’t, but there’s a dental surgery down on Bridgeton, can’t miss it.” Doctor Robinson bent around John to say goodbye to Sherlock, who was now slumped across the chair next to him, eyes closed and clearly exhausted. “Better to take a cab, I think.”
***
John was starting to get a headache from all of the paperwork he had to fill out. Every question he asked Sherlock was dismissed (“How would you rate your pain on a scale from one to ten?” “How can I possibly know the values of each level of pain?”) and nurses kept giving him the runaround once Sherlock was finally through triage.
A dental surgeon came through the waiting room doors a short while later, looking pained.
“Mister Watson?”
John stood quickly. “Doctor Watson, actually, is Sherlock okay?”
The ginger surgeon nodded. “Fine, yeah. Came through alright, he’s resting now. We had some problems with dosage, unfortunately. Does he have any history of drug use?”
John nodded. “I think heroin and cocaine, yeah,” and then remembering that with the recent news, Sherlock was still a public figure. “When he was younger, not recently.”
“Well it does damage the receptors permanently. We had to use a bit more laughing gas than we normally would, so he may be a bit loopy when he comes to. We’d rather he have a familiar face in the room, and since you’re here, we’ll make an exception on the family rule.”
John’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, yeah that’d be wonderful, thank you.”
He was led back to a small recovery room where Sherlock was reclining in a hospital bed. His eyes were closed, but he didn’t appear to be asleep.
“You should be able to take him home in about a half hour. We just want to make sure his temperature goes down first.” John nodded, and the doctor left and closed the door.
John sat down in the chair by the bed, and unthinkingly put the back of his hand to Sherlock’s forehead. His cheeks were swollen, a sight made even more incongruous by his long and narrow face. He reminded John of a bowling pin.
Sherlock’s eyes opened when he felt John’s touch. “Water,” he croaked after a moment of blankly staring at John.
“Right,” John said, grabbing a plastic cup from the sideboard. “No straw, sip gently,” John handed it to him, wrapping a hand around his fingers to make sure he could hold it. He smiled at Sherlock’s first word upon waking being a demand. “There you are, princess.”
Sherlock’s eyes refocused on John. It was strange, seeing the way they narrowed like they normally do when he was deducing something particularly hard. John knew his brain must be quite foggy from the drugs right now, so it was like watching gears struggling to turn.
He wondered if this is how Sherlock felt when he watched everyone else trying to follow his reasoning.
“Doctor,” Sherlock slurred with confidence.
“Yes, good, Sherlock, I’m a doctor. An army doctor, in fact,” John smiled like he was explaining things to a child. He couldn’t wait to relay this all to Greg later.
“Mmm, army, soldier,” Sherlock said in a low tone. His mouth pulled up at the corner, the effect somewhat ruined by the cotton shoved in his cheeks. “All the nice girls like a man in uniform.”
John blushed, trying desperately to hold back a giggle. “I’m sure they do.”
“But you’re not interested in the girls, are you, doctor?” Sherlock said. John’s head snapped up, and Sherlock, after another look with the gears-turning face, amended, “Or not only in the girls, I think.”
John raised his eyebrows at Sherlock. “What are you saying precisely, princess?”
Sherlock full on grinned now, cotton showing through his lips. “Oh, I don’t know if I’m a princess,” He paused for what John assumed was dramatic effect. “Queen, yes.”
John couldn’t help it. He giggled. “Oh I really cannot wait to tell--” He stopped. Sharing this with Greg didn’t seem appropriate now, actually.
“I heard the doctor, earlier, the other one. You’re to take me home?”
John nodded.
“Lucky me. I’d been wanting to go home with you anyway.”
John was so close to bursting into laughter, heat rising in his neck. “Sherlock, we live together. You come home with me every day.”
Sherlock gasped. “Oh god, very lucky me then. Coming home to a sexy soldier every night.”
“Sherlock, seriously,” John gasped out, holding his side where a stitch was forming from holding in laughter.
“Oh I am very serious, doctor.” Sherlock tried to wink, but through the haze of drugs, it came out more like a convulsive blink.
“You are going to die of embarrassment when you sober up.”
“Mmm, I feel like I could die in your arms anyway,” Sherlock said, reaching a clumsy hand out to John’s bicep. “I’d do anything to be in these strong arms.”
John felt a bolt of discomfort through his stomach at Sherlock squeezing his arm. He was starting to feel guilty, like he wasn’t supposed to see Sherlock when he was so clearly not in control of his facilities. “Okay, Sherlock, stop it now, you have no idea what you’re saying.”
Sherlock shook his head slowly. “What’s so wrong? Is it illegal to flirt when a sweet little army doctor with gorgeous eyes crosses my path?”
John was stunned speechless. He stared at Sherlock with his mouth open. Again, trying to smirk through wads of cotton, Sherlock removed his hand and pressed his wrists together between them. “Well then, lock me up. I don’t think I’d mind it this time if you put me in the cuffs.”
Another clumsy, convulsive wink. John was over the discomfort now, overwhelmed by the hysteria of the situation. He was just along for the ride now.
“Oh is that so? You into that sort of thing?” John grinned.
“I could be. I could be into whatever you like.”
John shook his head. “Jesus, Sherlock, where did you learn to flirt? Softcore porn?”
Sherlock reclined back on the bed, clearly dizzy, now addressed his harassment to the ceiling. “Not the only thing I learned.”
“So you are gay, then?” John asked, realizing a moment later that now was not a good time to satisfy his curiosity.
“I don’t have much interest either way, but for you, I could make an exception.” He turned his head toward John. “You’re just too irresistible.”
John smiled, blushing despite himself. He saw an opportunity. “Well, I am very flattered but you should know… I consider myself married to my work.”
“Oh, trust me doctor, I am a lot of work.” Sherlock slurred, starting to drift back to sleep.
“Don’t I know it, princess.”
***
It only took a week, seven days of which Sherlock complained nonstop about the pain in his head, the boredom of waiting for a case, or every single meal or drink that John brought to him, for Sherlock to recover.
It was still too early for Sherlock to be running around, in John’s opinion, but it was that or suffer another boredom tantrum, so John tagged along when Greg gave them a call.
John and Greg stood to the side, watching Sherlock happily flit around the body.
“So what was it that put him out, again?”
“Mm, wisdom tooth came in, cut off something or other, caused an infection. When they took him in for surgery, he was running 104.”
“Jesus,” Greg said.
“Yeah, the worst part was waiting while he recovered. Sherlock bored and on forcive bed rest? Not a good combination. I wanted to tie him up just to stop him tearing the flat apart.”
Greg chuckled. “Well if you ever need to borrow a set of cuffs, just let me know.”
Sherlock froze. He straightened, and then turned to Lestrade. “What did you just say?”
Lestrade looked down at John, who was rapidly approaching ‘internally screaming’ levels. “Uh, if you ever need to borrow a set of handcuffs, you can?”
Sherlock stared hard at him, and Lestrade looked down at John in confusion. John could just watch Sherlock’s synapses firing as he tried to connect some deja vu of John putting him in cuffs. John had hoped he’d never remember what he said on the laughing gas, but clearly Sherlock’s mind was trying to connect the dots.
Sherlock’s eyes flashed from Lestrade to the handcuffs on his waist, and then back up to his face, then back to his waist.
“If you’re not too busy, we’d really like to get on with it,” Anderson’s voice droned from the other side of the room. Sherlock ignored him, as Lestrade started to look a little uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
Sherlock’s eyes flashed to John’s body, roving up and down, then back at the cuffs. His eyebrows were intensely furrowed. Finally, when he looked down at the cuffs, and then right into John’s eyes, the memory clicked in place. Sherlock’s face flooded with color, and his ducked his head.
“Sorry, uh, must be, uh, something I saw on television.” Sherlock stuttered out, quickly turning back to the body to finish his deductions.
Lestrade looked askance at John, who just shrugged. And then smirked at Sherlock’s back, confident in the knowledge that he was a sexy, irresistible army doctor with gorgeous eyes and strong arms.