Chapter Text
John wakes up in the hospital, although he doesn't quite know that. He had a particularly nasty infection that had set in after gaining a deep gash on his head. The amount of drugs the doctors administered into John's system made Sherlock green with envy. It also made John quite loopy. He was convinced that the nurses were cats and the doctors were large floating heads. Sherlock was the sole exception. John saw Sherlock as Sherlock. John began muttering random phrases about five minutes ago and Sherlock was still trying to decipher them.
“Robin honey snow buzz,” John murmurs.
“John, do make sense. Even if you are under the influence of various drugs, I can't have you falling to the intelligence level of the utterly mundane.”
“Buzz. Buzz.” John giggles.
Sherlock is utterly confused. John does not giggle. He laughs. He smirks. He chuckles in the blokish way military personnel do, but John does not giggle. Buzz? What is John implying? Buzz can stand for the haircut John used to sport in his military days. It could be the sounds of the monitors hooked up to him. It could be-
“Robinnnnnnn.” John sings at Sherlock, interrupting Sherlock's thought process.
Now Sherlock is beyond baffled. Robin? Is it a reference to one of the ridiculous movies John insists on watching? The bird? Robins aren't special creatures, they serve no purpose, bees are much more interesting. Sherlock waits for John to start speaking again. He's chanting something rather mutedly, therefore Sherlock leans closer to John in hopes he'd speak up.
“Hmmm. Snow. Brrr.” John laughs at his own apparent inside joke.
“It's 75 degrees in this room, John. You can't possibly be cold.”
“Brrr. Brrr.” John exclaims, his lower lip trembling with the sound effects.
Distracting, Sherlock thinks, too distracting.
John doesn't stop his charade of being cold so Sherlock gets up and places his hand on John's forehead to see if the fever actually went down or if John's brain had started it's infinitesimal decaying process. John's forehead was moist with sweat and as Sherlock pulled his hand away, John's little pink tongue darted out and caught one of the knuckles on Sherlock's hand.
“Honey, Sherlock. Honey. Hahaha!”
Sherlock had seen in John's eyes when he made the decision to lick Sherlock, but intrigued and curious, he had let John do as he pleased- a serious miscalculation for Sherlock's heart was doing funny things to him and the room felt much hotter than it had before.
“John, do explain what the rubbish you're speaking means,” Sherlock manages to croak, turning slightly pink.
“Say please,” John taunts.
“I refuse to fulfill such a childish request.”
“Says the child himself,” John retorts, his eyes gaining their usual spark as the heaviest drugs seemed to have worked it's course.
“Do explain. Pl-”
“Robins have the nicest blue eggs I've ever seen, Sherlock. The blue is like spun silk and muted storm clouds. Honey is great, Sherlock,” John pauses to glare at Sherlock who was going to comment on John's lack of descriptive words, “Honey tastes warm. It's like home on your tastebuds, a nice cuppa after work. Snow is cold. Alone, but beautiful. So very beautiful. It's graceful and capable of danger, but it's a wonderful thing. Buzz is-”
“John, this is nice and all that you seem to have regained the ability to speak full sentences, but if you're going to have the intelligence and wit of a ten year old, then do shut up. This talk of such worthless things is taking up space in my mind palace. ”
John glares at Sherlock with the ferocity of a tiny kitten.
“What?”
“These things aren't worthless.”
“And why ever not? How are robins, honey, and snow important?”
“They're you, you tit.”
“What? If you are comparing my intelligence to a bird and my sociopathic nature to snow, I might just leave you here all by yourself, Jo-”
“No. Robin eggs remind me of your eyes. They're silky and soft looking, but they can also be hard and tough to protect the young inside. Honey reminds me of how you taste. You are velvet warmth, liquid home, and a soothing melody to a hard day. Snow is cold, yes. Snow also surrounds people. It encompasses them in it's natural glory, it's beautiful fall. You are all-consuming, Sherlock- like fire, but like snow too. You're snow fire.”
If Sherlock wasn't so overwhelmed by John's sudden declaration he would've cracked a smile at the oxymoron. Snow fire. Only John could come up with something so ridiculously mundane and cliché, yet still manage to ignite flashes of warmth within Sherlock.
“Then what is buzz, John? If you call me a bee, I might be flattered, but disturbed nonetheless.”
“You are the sound, the activity of bees, Sherlock. The buzzing signifies action, life. You are much the same. You are always there, calling me to danger and dragging me into unpleasant situat-”
“You enjoy the danger and adrenaline rushes. I don't drag you into anything you don't truly want. So what you are saying is, I'm an annoying bee who gets you in danger?”
“Yes and no. What I'm saying is, you're the buzzing. You are constant, always there. Don't change, Sherlock.”
Sherlock feels the ludicrous urge to cry, it's been six years since he last felt the urge, the last time was at the death of a particular strain of poisonous mushrooms that he painstakingly cultivated only to have Mycroft kill it in an angry fit when Sherlock commented on his rather rotund belly.
No one has ever said so much to Sherlock. There was never much truth when people spoke to him. People always wanted him to be normal, to fit in. John didn't want him to change, his mind sang. He's never felt this, this...loved. If this is even love, he reminds himself. Consequently, Sherlock decides he doesn't like the feeling of love. It was too warm and invading, it paralyzed and froze crucial parts of his mind palace.
“What you said, John. It was um...good, very good, but sentiment is not what I desire.”
“Can't you just say you're chuffed because I can tell you are.”
How did John know that? No one, besides Mycroft on certain occasions, could tell what Sherlock felt. John knew from a glance that Sherlock was secretly satisfied. Sentiment made one weak, Sherlock theorizes. It makes him feel weird. His cheeks are kinda hot and there's a heavy feeling in his gut. This feeling is...he deleted it long ago, why did it resurface now?
Sherlock was feeling embarrassment, too much in fact. Having divorced himself from the obnoxious feeling years ago, feeling so much at once was giving Sherlock a migraine. His mind palace was falling apart and his world was spinning- he couldn't intake information at his usual speed.
This must be what dying feels like, Sherlock thinks.
John has managed to nearly kill Sherlock with embarrassment.
How embarrassing.