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John was panting, his vision was nearly spinning as he sped through the automatic doors of A&E. Lestrade stood from his seat in the waiting room, having been waiting for John or Mycroft or anyone to help him understand what was wrong with Sherlock. Why he’d been wheeled into the hospital, zoned out on a trolley.
“Where is he?”
“He’s getting checked out, but,” he wrenched a tag from his breast pocket, “make sure they know you’re there with him.”
“Thanks.” John left without another word.
What on earth was Sherlock thinking?
“If you were anywhere near this kind of thing again, you could have called, you could have talked to me.”
“The siren call of old habits.”
“I'm at the bottom of a pit and I’m falling and… I’m never climbing out.”
It was too much, too scary to think what could have turned him so quickly. John would have noticed, John would have done something to keep his dear detective off the sweeties.
Feet planted outside the curtain. With a breath that fixed the length of his spine, John marched forward.
Sherlock was slumped, sitting on the edge of an examination table, lazily nursing a glass of water. Mellow as ever. Brief flashes of panic glossing over a dead, pink stare; over the flush on those cheekbones.
Flush?
“Sherlock?”
Sherlock’s attention delayed, but followed John nonetheless. “Mm?”
“What’s happened to you?”
Sherlock’s face fell, something of pity and grief and guilt, too. “Oh, John. I’m a mess. Please don’t give up on me,”
John gawked.
“I can’t lose you, too.”
“…Sherlock? What have you taken?”
“Biscuit. Mrs. Hudson had a special biscuit.”
A sigh fell from John’s lips as Sherlock recalled his morning. And he laughed. A deep laugh from his belly. Maybe more from relief, from exhaustion than pity. But perhaps Sherlock being unwilling to place the thickly rich scent of oil— found in the biscuits he stole from Mrs. Hudson’s pantry after she’d failed to provide such necessity — with tee-hache-cee was the funniest thing John had heard all week. All year, maybe.
John closed the space between them, hugging Sherlock. “You absolute idiot,” he kissed his ear. “Practically scared me half to death.”
“I’m tired.”