Work Text:
“Bring me a drink, would you? Pub’s just down the street.” Harry grinned despite the blood sluggishly trickling from the half-sewn gash on her forehead.
John exchanged a brief look with the doctor stitching up Harry; the doctor frowned but kept silent. “You’re not funny,” John said, calmly as he could.
“No, I’m thirsty,” Harry rejoined. She winced at a particularly painful jab of the needle and shot the doctor a baleful glare. “Oi! I’m not a shirt that’s lost a button there, House.”
“Harry—”
She poked her finger in John’s direction and cut him off. “I see you still have no sense of humour, little brother.”
“How can you see anything through the fucking mess you made of your face?!?” John paced from the door to the bed and shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from hitting something. “It’s a bloody riot watching my sister get pieced like a quilt,” he bit out. He was thankful his clenched fists were hidden. “Jesus, Harry, driving drunk? You’re such—”
“A cliché,” said a bored voice from the direction of the doorway.
John swiveled round. “Sherlock.”
Harry groaned. “Oh God, it’s the boy wonder.” She leaned slightly forward to catch Sherlock’s eye. “Sorry, mate, all my organs and limbs are still attached, I’ve nothing for you to play with. Kindly take your contempt and go away.” She tugged John’s sleeve to direct his attention back to her. “He’s right, though, you know, I’m an awful cliché,” she muttered. “The least you can do is laugh at me.”
“I’m giggling on the inside,” Sherlock said as he moved to stand behind John.
“Why are you here anyway?” Harry scowled. Well, as much of a scowl as she could manage while in the midst of having a needle threaded through her forehead.
John felt Sherlock shift a bit closer, and he was tempted to lean into warmth of Sherlock’s chest.
Harry smirked. “Oh, that’s right, you’re pathological. Hospital’s your natural environment.”
“Once again, Harriet, you demonstrate with startling clarity why I’ve never liked you,” Sherlock said.
“Sherlock—“John began, his tone full of agitated pleading.
Harry cocked her head after the doctor finished his stitch and stepped away to dispose of the needle. “I thought it was because I took John’s attention away from you. I know how you hate to share your toys.”
Sherlock sighed. “You’re actually going to persist through this entire encounter with your ‘Sherlock-is-a-spoiled-child’ metaphor, aren’t you?”
Harry raised her chin and pretended to consider. “I might let it drop if you fetch me a pint,” she finally answered.
“Again, Harry. Not. Funny.” John turned to Sherlock and looked up at him. “And you—” God, what John wouldn’t give to bury his face in Sherlock’s neck and just inhale for a few moments to calm the ire still bubbling beneath his skin. He swallowed and closed his eyes instead.
“I know, I know,” Sherlock said, and when John opened his eyes Sherlock raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t provoke the wild animals.”
John squared his shoulders, pushed past Sherlock, and marched out the door and into the hall. He made it only a handful of steps before a long-fingered hand caught his wrist and jerked him sideways then pushed him into an empty room. He heard the click of a latch behind him and turned.
Sherlock’s gaze never wavered as he stalked toward John. When they were standing only inches apart, Sherlock cupped John’s jaw, threaded his fingers through the short hair at John’s nape. Sherlock lowered his head until their foreheads touched, and John shut his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said quietly. He dropped a soft kiss on the bridge of John’s nose.
John inhaled sharply and shuffled closer, wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s slim waist. Sherlock’s lips skimmed over the rise of John’s cheek and the curve of his ear then returned to his forehead. John tilted his face up and pressed his mouth against Sherlock’s, and Sherlock kissed back briefly before pulling away and staring at John.
“Your sister,” Sherlock said as he brushed his thumb along John’s mouth, “is absolutely awful. But.” He sighed. “She is your sister. And since your stance on sibling relationships is vastly less mercenary than mine, I shall endeavor not to make the current situation worse by responding to her frankly paltry attempts to start a row.”
John smiled tightly. “Thank you.”
“Besides,” Sherlock continued, “She’s only doing it to draw attention from her drinking problem. She would much rather argue with me than you.” His mouth quirked up at one corner. “Can’t say I blame her. You are a formidable foe, John Watson.”
“You stop trying to distract me, too, you wanker,” John said, but he ruined the warning with a grin that couldn’t help but escape.
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “I am merely trying to comfort you. Isn’t that what people do?”
John thought of his sister, ragged and bleeding in a hospital bed down the hall but breathing, alive and alert and annoying as she’d always been. He tightened his arms around Sherlock. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s what people do.”