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Being a doctor, John had been used to being around sick people. The most irritating of them was Sherlock Holmes if, heavens forbid, got ill.
Of all the years that John knew Sherlock, the man barely got sick. He took care of himself surprisingly well, besides the little that he ate or slept; John couldn’t complain that the man was ever really ill. This made any sickness seem like something from the pit of hell.
John had been around a fair amount of children in his years of training, and even in the army, but never had he met a bigger child when it came to being sick than his lover, Sherlock Holmes.
The man would do nothing but mope. Dressed in a light grey shirt, plaid long boxers all draped under the flurry of his blue bathrobe that hung loosely around his thin frame. His face was buried in the couch, groaning with misery everytime that he cough (that admittedly, John would wince everytime—it sounded very painful, but the man would accept no help from the doctor. Of course.)
It had been days that Sherlock was camped on the sofa, making john wonder if the man would ever even try to get up or accept his help.
One particular time, John was passing by and Sherlock’s hand had grabbed the back of John’s trouser pocket making John stop in his tracks and arching his eyebrow at the man who was in another fit of painful sounding coughs. “John,” the groan finally erupted from somewhere in the pile of pillows. “Joooooohn,” it was almost like a whine, pulling the man closer.
“What is it, Sherlock? I've got my hands full of tea, you know. You’re going to make me—” It was too late. Sherlock was already reeling John in, causing his white jumper to get drenched in very hot tea. It took John to conjure every amount of patience he owned to not scold the man, but instead set down the tea and sat on what little room was left by Sherlock’s side.
Finally, Sherlock turned, revealing his snot-covered face, glossy eyes and wild hair( that likely also had snot in it from the time Sherlock spent in that certain position.) “John,” Sherlock sniffed, which was entirely useless as snot only returned a second later. “John I need you to do something for me.” John blinked. This wasn’t exactly new, but he tilted his head slightly.
“If you think you’re going to solve a case like this, you’re wrong,” John guessed, but got a head shake from Sherlock. No? Well, he must have been sick, John thought to himself with a deep frown.
“No, John,” his voice was thick like his throat was sore from all the coughing that he’d been doing, and John wagered that i Sherlock would let him look, the throat would be red-hot with irritation. “I want you to get that book over there,” he waved his hand towards the book shelf, “read me the one about the pirates.” He slumped and looked at John pathetically, pleading with his large, sick eyes that John couldn’t say no to.
Sighing, John got up and grabbed the book that he knew that Sherlock had been referencing to and waited for Sherlock to sit up so that he could plant himself next to him.
A warm, heavy head on his bad Shoulder, John opened the book and started to read: “ I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow—a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”"
Before too long, snot had met the cook of John’s neck as he read on, and no more than a chapter in the book, Sherlock had finally fallen asleep to John’s gentle croon, and even then, John read on so that Sherlock might be able to live his dream of being a pirate, if only in his dreams.