Fic for Emerish: these are the reasons I think that we're ill

[holmesticemods]

Title: these are the reasons I think that we're ill
Recipient: emerish
Author: coloredink
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock, John
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: "No cases," says John. "We're on holiday."




Knock knock knock.

John's head jerks towards the door and he stares. They aren't supposed to get visitors here. But whoever it is continues to knock, as if unaware of that fact, and so John opens the door because he is courteous. There are two women on the doorstep: one of them is tall, with ginger hair and a double chin, and the other one is shorter, with her mousy hair in a fashionable bob, and a mousy expression as well.

"Hello," says the tall, ginger-haired one. "How do you do? I'm Donna, and this is my friend Samantha. We hear Sherlock Holmes is staying here."

"I don't know what you're talking about," says John, because the driver of the car that picked them up at the train station had a sign that said Stephen and Robert Grisham, and John has been very careful.

"Come off it," says the tall, ginger-haired one, who's apparently also the big talker of the two; John suspects he knows what their relationship is like. "We're not stupid, are we? We read the papers. You're John Watson, and if you're here then Sherlock Holmes isn't far behind, is he?"

John blinks, because he isn't accustomed to thinking of Sherlock as being behind anyone, much less himself. Sherlock is someone that is followed.

The man himself looms up behind John, then, looking more terrifying than usual: three days in the countryside, far from streetlamps and black cabs and his homeless network have left his hair a greasy nest, his skin sallow and baggy under his eyes, and his chin covered with patchy, unattractive stubble. It's possible he hasn't even changed his clothes in those three days. John leans away from him.

"What. Is it," Sherlock snarls.

The women, to their credit, don't flee, though the smaller one, Samantha, looks like she'd like to take a step back. But she glances at her friend and holds her ground. Donna draws herself up an extra inch or two--she's taller than John, actually, and she's not even wearing heels--and says, "We've a case for you."

"No cases," says John. "We're on holiday."

"Talk," Sherlock orders, at the same time.

The men glare at each other, while the women on the doorstep shift and look away.

"You're supposed to be resting," says John.

"I'm bored," Sherlock retorts.

John crosses his arms.

"I'll set the furniture on fire." When John does not reply right away, Sherlock adds, "You know I'll do it."

John sighs. He knows. "All right. But just for a bit." Sherlock flounces back into the cottage, and John says to the women, wearily, "Would you like anything to drink?"

-----

There's something nice about this, actually: the four cups of tea on the table, Sherlock in the armchair, and John leaning against the bookshelf, his notebook in hand. The two ladies sit side by side on the couch.

"It started a few weeks ago," says Donna. "Small things, gone missing."

"Be specific," says Sherlock. "Two weeks? Three?"

The women exchange glances. "Two, I think," Donna says, slowly, and Samantha nods. "It's hard to say, though, because they're such small things, it's not like everyone notices right away, and we don't know who was the first, and so on."

Sherlock makes an impatient sound, but John nods. "Go on. What kinds of small things?"

"All kinds. Underthings, bras and socks--"

"A pervert," says Sherlock. "You leave these things to dry by the window."

"But also shoes, flannels--"

Sherlock waves a hand. "Left outside on the porch, any child looking to play a prank or a neighbour with itchy fingers--"

"Toys have disappeared from the back garden," Donna continues. "A fenced-in back garden, Mr. Holmes."

"Then they must have gone over the fence."

"For a toy dinosaur?" Donna gesticulates, palms facing heavenward: for God's sake, why? "What for?"

Sherlock looks at Samantha. "What did they take from you?"

Samantha shrugs. She looks at her hands, curled neatly in her lap. "A sponge. From the kitchen sink."

Sherlock arches his eyebrows. "From inside your house?" When Samantha nods, he tilts his head and gives her that studying, sidelong look. "Not married. Never been married, and no children. But you have a pet. A small dog, but not too small. Cocker spaniel?"

Samantha nods again, her eyes wide. Even Donna looks impressed. John looks down at his notebook to avoid smiling.

"Where was the sponge?" Sherlock queries. "Inside the sink itself?"

"By the tap," she says. "I keep it on a tray by the tap."

"Has anything else gone missing?"

"A flannel."

"From the kitchen again?"

"Yes. I left it on the counter."

Sherlock settles back in his seat, palms pressed together as if in prayer to his own intellect. He rests the tips of his index fingers against his lips. "I'll need a list of what's been stolen, as accurately as you can, and--"

He starts coughing, holding his fist over his mouth as if that can contain them, only to give that up as a lost cause and turn to the side, gripping the armrest with one hand. They're deep, chesty, rattling coughs that wheeze at the end, and Sherlock gasps in a breath only to hack it out in pieces.

"Are you all right?" asks Donna. Samantha's rummaging around in her purse, muttering something that sounds like "I think I've a lozenge."

Sherlock pulls in another painful-sounding breath and this time succeeds in rasping out, "And I'll need addresses for each location that was stolen from." He picks up his cup of tea in a hand that just barely trembles and takes a few grateful sips.

The women stare. Sherlock scowls at them. "Did you get that?"

"It's all right," John says, quietly. "He's been ill. That's why he's supposed to be resting." He leans everything he's got on the last word.

"We can come back," says Samantha.

"No. I can solve it. Just get me the information." Sherlock closes his eyes, takes one last sip of tea, and puts the cup back down on the table. "Now go away."

-----

"You are supposed to be resting, you know," says John, after the women have left, after the cups have been cleared away. Sherlock's lying on the couch, which is too short for him, so that his feet hang over the edge, and John brings him his cough syrup: electric green stuff in its little measuring cup.

Sherlock curls his lip. He takes the cup, knocks it back as if he were downing a shot of tequila, and holds out his hand for the chocolate biscuit that John presses into it. He bites the biscuit in half and shoves both pieces in his mouth. "I thought you of all people would be beyond such quaint notions as the Victorian rest cure." Crumbs rain down the front of his shirt and onto the floor.

John sighs. "It's not a 'Victorian rest cure,' it's just that if you stay in London, well, you tend to get...distracted. You won't rest, not when there's work to do."

"Precisely. And you think there isn't work to do here, in this godforsaken country?" Sherlock waves his arm. "You look out over the countryside and see picturesque beauty. I see work to be done. These women have proven you wrong."

John's eyebrows hitch up his forehead. "What, you think something nefarious is going on here, with the stolen knickers and flannels?"

"I hope so," Sherlock sighs. He rests one long, white hand against his chest, the picture of the fainting maiden. "I really do."

-----

Twenty minutes later, Sherlock's eyelids slide shut. He snaps them open with a frown and a snarl at himself, but a few minutes later they flutter again. After another ten minutes he gives it up and slips into a drowse, his ankles still dangling over the edge of the sofa. The ensuing peace and quiet reminds John of that awful bedsit, where every day was flavourless and colourless and his dreams were filled with sand and bloodshed. But he doesn't dare turn on the telly; Sherlock needs to rest.

John's computer dings. He has mail. Sherlock jolts awake. "Huhwha?"

It's from Donna: the requested list of missing items.

7 flannels
2 bras
4 ladies' underpants
2 men's underpants
1 bathing suit
1 pair of sandals
8 socks
1 sponge
1 toy dinosaur
1 small ball
1 pair of wooden chopsticks

Followed by the addresses of all the houses that were "hit," and even dates when the items were noticed missing, if available. Sherlock makes a pleased noise and shoves at John's shoulder. "Move," he says, when John doesn't budge.

"Why? It's my computer."

"Yes, but it's my case."

"It's our case," John snaps, and Sherlock draws back, his expression closing like a book. John swallows down the sudden, sharp pang and says, "Just get another chair, we can both look at it."

Sherlock drags over another chair, and John ends up ceding control of the laptop anyhow, so that Sherlock can type. His fingers fly over the tiny keyboard as he begins to plug little red balloons into place on a Google Map. The first few are within blocks of each other. John cocks his head. If it were anywhere else John would think it some kind of odd neighbourhood prank, but Sherlock is here and Sherlock has taken an interest, so it must be unusual. Right?

"The most trivial of things can lead to much deeper waters," Sherlock says. "The smell of fresh paint can hide a corpse. A burglary of a ball of twine, a candlestick, and a paperweight once led to a man's death."

John props his head up on his fist. "What are you thinking, then? Murder?"

"I think it's curious about the dog."

"What dog?"

"The cocker spaniel." Sherlock pins the last balloon in place. Fourteen houses in all: some of them were burglarised more than once. The cluster of balloons resembles a scarlet flower. It appears that all the crimes took place within a ten block radius.

"Samantha's dog," John recalls.

"Yes. It's a rare dog that won't bark at an intruder in the middle of the night."

"Perhaps it's very well trained," John suggests.

"Perhaps," Sherlock replies, and doesn't speak for the rest of the afternoon.

-----

Sherlock covers the table with sticky notes. He paces back and forth and mutters to himself. At one point he disappears into the study for a long time, only to emerge with a pile of books about cryptography and codes. (And why are there books in the study about cryptography and codes? The answer is Mycroft, because it is always Mycroft, although surely there are whole books about cryptography and codes stored in Sherlock's memory palace anyhow.) Sherlock hunches over John's laptop, scribbling frantically into a notebook, frowning and sometimes grabbing his hair, as if pulling it out by the follicles will enhance his thinking.

John makes himself a salad for supper, and a peanut butter and banana and honey sandwich for Sherlock. Bananas contain potassium, which is one of the few elements of the periodic table that Sherlock deems important enough to supply to his body, and he eats honey because he actually has a surprisingly sweet tooth. The peanut butter is John's addition, because it is an efficient source of energy, and Sherlock does not disagree with this. Sherlock likes things to be efficient. Hence, the sandwich: it is an efficient container for all of these things, even if it gets his fingers all sticky.

He leaves the sandwich on a corner of the table uncovered by sticky notes, by Sherlock's elbow. Sherlock ignores it because he's on a case. John takes his salad out the back door and into the orchard behind the cottage. The light is dimming, but the air is still humid with summer, and John can hear the low drone of crickets or frogs or bees or who knows what all those sounds are. He stands barefoot just a few feet away from the door and crunches iceberg lettuce between his teeth and watches darkness fall.

His salad gone and the fruit trees nothing but tall patches of black amongst the shadows, John goes back inside the cottage. Sherlock still hasn't touched his sandwich, but John passes him by to drop his bowl in the sink. He marches up the stairs, gets Sherlock's cough medicine out of the cupboard, and pours a dose into the little cup. He takes it downstairs and puts it on the table, next to the sandwich.

"No," says Sherlock. "It'll make me sleep, and I need all my faculties for this."

"Fine," says John. "If you want all that mucous to stay in your lungs, it's your lookout."

John goes back upstairs and into his room, where he digs out the latest John Patterson novel he's been reading. He loses himself in that for several hours, until he decides it's time for bed. Then he lies awake for a long, long time, listening for the sound of Sherlock coming up the stairs that never comes.

-----

He rises late the next morning, the world outside the window already bright and teeming. He showers, brushes his teeth, shaves, and dresses, all without peering into Sherlock's room. The door is open, which means that Sherlock isn't inside.

Sherlock is in the kitchen, still standing over the table. The sticky notes on its surface have not multiplied, though the floor underneath has grown a layer of crumpled notebook pages covered in Sherlock's spiky handwriting and slashed through with accusatory lines of ink. The sandwich has disappeared, its plate in the sink, along with the little cup of medicine. Sherlock himself has changed into a pearl-grey shirt and black trousers, though his feet are still bare. His hair is wet, and he smells of his own aftershave and John's shampoo. John smiles and sets the kettle boiling for tea.

"The thefts clearly aren't for monetary gain," Sherlock says without taking his eyes from the table. "They're too small, too mundane."

"Mmm," says John. He opens the refrigerator and takes out the carton of eggs and the milk. He gets a bowl from the cupboard.

"I thought maybe the objects served as some kind of code." Sherlock drums his fingers against the wood. "First letter of each stolen item? Second? But I've spent hours analysing the list, and if it is a cipher, it's one that I can't break. There is no discernible pattern to the houses themselves. Perhaps if I had the complete order in which the items were stolen, but I don't." He makes a fist, grits his jaw, and then relaxes.

John slices a bit of butter into the pan and lets it melt as he beats the eggs and milk together in a bowl. He adds a dash of salt and pepper. The pours the eggs into the pan and lets them heat up slowly, pushing them this way and that with the spatula.

Sherlock claps his hands and whirls around. "No time for breakfast." He seizes John by the elbow. "We need to look at the crime scene."

"It'll take the driver at least ten minutes to get here." The button on the kettle clicks, and John pauses in his ministrations to fetch down the teabags and two mugs and pours the hot water.

Sherlock eyes the eggs. They're nearly done, a pile of soft golden curds that smell of butter and salt and pepper, crying to be piled on toast. "Are those for me?"

"No. You don't eat when you're on a case, remember?"

Sherlock hovers for two and a half seconds longer, then declares, "Right," and whirls into the sitting room, calling for his phone as if that'll make it leap magically into his hands. John slides the eggs out of the pan and onto a plate.

-----

An explosion of barking rocks the front of the house as soon as John shuts the car door behind him. He glances at Sherlock, who looks unfazed as he mounts the front steps; he raps his knuckles against the wood four times. The barking only intensifies as behind them, the car pulls away from the kerb and vanishes down the street.

Samantha flings open the door, still clad in house slippers and pyjama bottoms, though her hair is mysteriously free of tangles. She grasps the collar of a brown cocker spaniel, who lunges at them with deep, booming barks. "Sorry!" she shouts over the ruckus. "This is Oliver, he's just loud, would you like--"

Sherlock bulls past her, his head swinging from side to side like a predator's. Even the dog halts his barking, blinking his large, dark eyes in moist surprise. Samantha lets go of his collar, and he galumphs after Sherlock, still emitting low woofs, paws thumping against the rug. Samantha shuts the front door and gives John a stricken look, teeth bared and eyebrows raised in grimacing apology. John shrugs. "Sorry about the short notice."

"That's all right but--"

"Agh! There's always something!" Sherlock wails, somewhere from the back of the house, and erupts into a frenzy of coughing.

John and Samantha exchange alarmed glances, and John all but sprints down the hall, feeling for a gun that he left behind in London. He skids to a halt on linoleum: the kitchen. It's startlingly white: white tile, white cabinets, off-white countertops. A window over the sink offers a view of the back garden, which appears to be fenced, and a door off to one side presumably leads to the same garden. The dog stands by the door now, wagging his tail and staring up at Sherlock. Sherlock has one hand against the back door's frame, still bent over with his fist in front of his mouth, shoulders shaking at the tail end of his coughing fit.

Sherlock spins on Samantha, eyes still watering. "You didn't say you had a dog door," he croaks.

Samantha shrinks back, eyes wide. "Was I supposed to?"

Sherlock swerves back to the door, seizing his hair in both fists. "I can't believe it. It can't be. But it has to be! Stupid, stupid, stupid." He punctuates his self-directed insults with yanks to his hair, then lets go and drops to his knees by the dog door. It's one of the ones with a soft, flexible flap tacked up over a square cut-out. He examines first the flap, then the cut-out with his magnifying glass, his mouth set in an unhappy line.

"What, you think they came in through the dog door?" says John. "It's too small for a person--what, unless you think it was a child?"

"Don't be preposterous. Only a toddler could fit through there, and he wouldn't be tall enough to reach the sink where the sponge was."

Yes, of course. That's the only reason it's such a preposterous idea. John crosses his arms. "So you think it was an animal?"

"I know it was an animal. There was a very famous case in America not too long ago, and countless more in the UK besides." Sherlock jams the magnifier back in his pocket and unfolds himself into a standing position. His shoulders are stiff with impatience. "I need you to leave."

Samantha opens her mouth, but John catches her by the elbow and pulls her from the room, the dog trotting behind. There's no door to the kitchen, so John takes her all the way back to the sitting room. He feels a little foolish guiding the woman to her own couch, but there they are. Oliver comes up to their knees, wagging his tail, and pushes his nose into Samantha's hand. Samantha pets him, although she still looks bewildered. "What was that?"

John thinks he really ought to make a blog entry about this, just so that he can stop having to explain. "He's got something called a memory palace. It's where he's stored all the things he needs to remember." That's not entirely correct, and if Sherlock were here he would have corrected John three times before he even got a sentence out. But he's not here, so John continues, "He might be looking up whatever case he was talking about, the one in America. So he needs it to be quiet, so he can focus."

Samantha stares. "And you just...leave? Whenever he needs you to leave?"

"Usually. If it's for a case." John blinks several times, rapidly, and brushes the top of his hand across his mouth. "If it's important."

They sit quietly for a few moments, petting the dog. "How did you know we were here?" John asks.

"I saw you in the market," says Samantha. "Recognised you from the papers."

"Ah."

An angry march of footsteps announces Sherlock's imminent presence. He whirls into the living room, and the dog turns and starts barking again, as if they weren't friends in the kitchen just moments before. "We're leaving," he announces.

"Already?" That was faster than usual for one of Sherlock's trips into his memory palace.

"No sense in lingering." Sherlock wrenches the door open and holds it open, looking at John as if to say, Well? Hurry up, we haven't got all day. John thanks Samantha for her hospitality and steps outside, and Sherlock slams the door behind them before Samantha can even muster a reply. He looks as if he's been sucking lemons; he's not usually this sour about the end of a case, although this one's been exceptionally short. Sherlock doesn't like it when they're too easy.

"Should I phone the driver?" John asks as they reach the pavement.

"No. It's not far from here." Sherlock glances around, up and down the street, and starts walking.

"What's not far?" John nearly has to trot to keep up with Sherlock's long strides. "You mean the thief?"

"Yes."

John blinks and looks around. It's a lovely little neighbourhood, all well-kept cottages with lovely front gardens. There's a woman pruning her rosebushes, and children playing across the street. It's difficult to imagine a thief living here, poaching sponges and sandals from the neighbours. Then again, Sherlock seems certain that it's an animal. A weasel or a ferret? But the way Sherlock's been talking, it seems that the animal lives in one of these houses, so...

They come to a brick-red cottage with quite a few weeds in the front garden. Sherlock makes straight for the front door and knocks four times, just as with Samantha's house.

It's opened by an old man who was clearly once quite tall, as tall or taller than Sherlock, though age has made his shoulders stooped and he leans on a cane. He's dressed in a blue jumper despite the warm summer weather, and brown trousers. His skin is very fair, his thinning hair very white and poorly combed over, and he peers at them through thick-lensed glasses. "Yes? What can I do for you?"

"Mr. Jameson?" says Sherlock. When the old man nods in surprise, he says, "Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and this is my colleague, John Watson. Have you recently acquired a cat?"

"Yes?"

"And has this cat brought home a number of odd presents for you?"

Mr. Jameson's jaw drops. So does John's. He looks at Sherlock, then to the old man, then to Sherlock again. Mr. Jameson says, "I suppose you'd better come in, since you seem to know all about it," and shuffles backwards to give them enough space to enter.

The interior of the house is all grey and brown and smells vaguely and undefinably of old, like dust and prescription medication. No paintings hang on the wall; no photographs of loved ones line the surfaces. John feels solemnity press in against him from all sides. Mr. Jameson leads them to the sitting room, where a small brown puddle on one of the armchairs sits up, revealing a pair of pointed, dark brown ears and a pair of blue-green eyes. It unfolds into a cat, which leaps up onto the back of the armchair, the better for petting.

"This is Sammy," says Mr. Jameson. He rubs Sammy's ears, and Sammy purrs and regards Sherlock and John with bright, curious eyes. "I got him from the RSPCA two weeks ago. They didn't say he had a problem with stealing things."

"Meow," says Sammy.

"Why didn't you just return them?" John asks.

Mr. Jameson lowers himself onto the couch. Sammy slithers down from his perch and collects himself in Mr. Jameson's lap. "I didn't know where he was getting them from. What was I supposed to do, go from door to door asking if anyone had lost a flannel? And half of them were ladies' underthings!" He shakes his head. "I'm at my wit's end. I don't want to keep the poor thing penned up inside, but I can hardly let him go on stealing."

Sherlock looks bored. "Bell your cat," he suggests. "I believe that will help. And now John and I will be going."

John looks up in surprise. So does Mr. Jameson. "You're not going to tell the police?"

"I don't believe I have any obligation to," says Sherlock. "And it's not as if there's much for them to do. We'll see ourselves out, then."

"Thank you!" the old man calls, or at least John thinks he does, because before he knows it, they're outside again and Sherlock's just shut the door behind them.

-----

John rings the driver, who says he'll be there in less than ten minutes. That leaves them with nothing to do but stand on the pavement in the mounting heat. Sherlock's hair curls more than usual, and his collar looks a little wilted. All of Sherlock looks a little wilted. John thinks maybe they should have waited inside, with Mr. Jameson, who could've offered them a drink of water. But Sherlock stands at the very edge of the kerb, hands in his pockets, looking cool as a cucumber--until he coughs.

It's a short burst. John waits until Sherlock's finished. "How'd you know it was a cat?"

Sherlock takes a deep breath in through his nose and sighs it out. "Kleptomaniac cats are unusual, but not unheard of. There was one in Leicestershire last year, and Southhampton the year before that. And those are only the cats that are picked up by the BBC, as human interest stories. Imagine how many dozens more there must be that are never reported."

John stares. "I can't believe you know that."

"I make it my business to know unusual crimes," Sherlock says, in total seriousness.

"And how did you know the cat lived here? In this house?"

"The thefts all occurred within a fairly close range. It seemed reasonable to believe that the thief lived near the centre. This house," Sherlock nods back towards it, "has fresh scratches on the window sill, where the window is habitually left open for the cat. My research of the neighbourhood indicated that a single elderly man lived here. Such people are likely to adopt pets."

John shakes his head. "Remarkable."

The car rolls up; John doesn't think it's even been five minutes. Mycroft's men have been trained to be conservative. Sherlock dashes for the nearest door and dives into the backseat without so much as a by-your-leave, leaving John to round the car to get in the other side.

-----

As soon as they're back in the cottage, John fetches Sherlock's medicine from the cupboard and pours him a dose. Sherlock drinks it down without complaining and crashes down onto the couch, slumped down so far that his chin nearly touches his chest and his knees stick out a foot from the cushions. He doesn't even whine when John takes a while fetching him a banana to chase down the medicine.

"You've been sounding better." John sits down on the couch next to Sherlock.

Sherlock grunts. He kicks off his shoes so that they fly off and hit the underside of the coffee table, one after another; one of them bounces away to land in the centre of the sitting room. Then he uses his feet to pull off his socks. He wiggles his bared toes. John makes a face and gets up. He heads into the kitchen, thinking vague thoughts about sandwiches and lunch.

"This whole thing is absurd," Sherlock calls after him.

John turns to stand in the doorway of the kitchen. "Maybe so, but you have been getting better."

"I would have got better in London. The amount of bedrest has very little to do with shortening the actual timespan of an illness."

"Yes, but in London you would have climbed out of the window to chase a murderer. And coughed during a crucial moment, probably, and got shot in the head."

"Don't be ridiculous," says Sherlock. "You would have been there to stop it."

John bites his tongue. Sherlock's gaze is bright and blue and guileless.

"Stop what?" John asks. "Stop you from climbing out the window, or stop you from getting shot in the head?"

"Either. Both. The latter, probably," Sherlock allows. "You wouldn't have noticed me climbing out the window. Not if I didn't want you to."

John squeezes his eyes shut. "But in this hypothetical situation, you know that I'd notice that you were missing and follow you just in time to keep you from getting your head shot off?"

"Yes."

He opens his eyes. "Sherlock, that's crazy."

"It's probability. It's worked so far, hasn't it?" Sherlock wriggles himself into a more horizontal position on the couch, knees scrunched up and head propped up on one of the armrests.

"And if I didn't get there in time?"

Sherlock shrugs. "Then I'd be dead, and it wouldn't matter anymore."

-----

Two months ago, Sherlock said to John, come, we're going to France.

What? said John. France? Why? When? For how long?

Now, said Sherlock. I don't know for how long. There's a very exciting case. It might be a long time.

Come off it, said John. I can't just pick up and leave whenever you want me to, and especially not if you don't even know how long it's going to be. I have a job. I have a girlfriend.

Quit your job, said Sherlock. You don't need it anyway.

Don't tell me I don't need my girlfriend, said John, and his voice was very dangerous.

And Sherlock didn't, but they both knew he was thinking it.

So Sherlock went to France without John, and he stayed there for two months. John had hardly any work to do and was bored out of his mind, and he broke up with his girlfriend anyway. Which was all to the good, because Mycroft called him at the end of those two months and said John, you need to pick up Sherlock. John went without even asking. He found Sherlock in the Hotel Dulong shaking with fever, his ribs practically sticking out through his skin. He had Sherlock taken to hospital, where they dripped fluids and electrolytes back into his body overnight. John held his guilt in his mouth all the way back to Baker Street, where it picked up the phone and dialed and asked Mycroft if there was some way he could secure a vacation for Sherlock, somewhere far away from anything that ever happened.

Yes, said Mycroft. Yes, of course.

-----

In the present, John sags against the doorframe. He holds onto it until his knees stop feeling quite so watery, then stumps into the sitting room and sinks into the armchair. "Sherlock. It. It matters to me. If you're dead."

Sherlock waves an arm. "Yes, perhaps, but you'd move on."

"Move on--" John pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Sherlock, you can't just, can't just tell me how I feel. Or will feel. In a hypothetical future."

"Why not?" Sherlock twists his head round to glare at John sideways. "You do it all the time, saying that I ought to care--"

"What I'm saying is, I, I wouldn't just get over it." John presses the tip of his tongue between his teeth and considers his next words. "I think you seriously underestimate me."

Sherlock's gaze narrows. "I never underestimate you."

John blows out a frustrated breath. "And it's not just me. Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, your brother--" Sherlock snorts. "I dare say Molly. We'd all be devastated if you got yourself killed in such a stupid, utterly preventable way. I'd never let myself live it down, and." He stops, wondering how this conversation got so out of control. What were they talking about again?

"And so your solution to disagreeing with my hypothetical actions is to make me a prisoner of boredom." Sherlock crosses his arms over his chest and goes back to staring at the ceiling. "Bravo."

"Sorry if it's offensive that I want you to get better," John snaps.

"This isn't about me getting better!" Sherlock snarls. "This is about you thinking that you can control me. God, you're as bad as Mycroft."

John thinks that should sting, but he has a great deal of sympathy for Mycroft at the moment. "We just want you to be well."

"Yes, and miserable." Sherlock flips himself over so that he's facing the back of the couch, shoulders hunched and knees tucked in.

"Then that makes two of us!" John barks.

There doesn't seem to be anything more to say, after that. Sherlock remains frozen with spite. John gets up and goes back into the kitchen, but he's lost his appetite.

-----

That evening, John feels like standing in the kitchen not doing much of anything for a long time, so he makes risotto for dinner. Sherlock's plate stands cooling on the counter; the man himself is in the sitting room, wailing away with his violin. John eats standing over the sink, since the table is still covered in Sherlock's notes. He does the washing up and takes his tea out to the orchard, watching as the shadows of the trees lengthen and become grasping limbs, yearning for something distant and unreachable, before fading away into the gloom. John sips his tea and listens to the faint strains of music emanating through the open back door.

He's surprised when, a few minutes later, the music stops, and he discovers that Sherlock has joined him, barefooted and clad in his dressing gown. It's on the tip of his tongue to ask what Sherlock wants now, but then John realises that the expression on the other man's face is pensive. And that he's eating a plate of what must be revoltingly cold risotto.

"Are you really that miserable?" Sherlock asks.

John takes a sip of his tea. "Well, I'm stuck babysitting a lunatic who's been caterwauling away on his violin for days on end except for when he took a brief break to solve the case of the cat burglar." Sherlock winces. "And who seems to think that the world revolves around him. So no, I am not exactly having a grand old time." After a pause, he adds, "But thank you for asking."

"You're welcome," Sherlock says, gravely.

They stand together in the gathering dusk. The apricots will be ready in another day or two, but they'll probably miss the plums. Sherlock's health has greatly improved in the last few days. His coughs sound less wet and abrasive than they did a few days ago, and he's gained colour and weight. And, truth be told, John misses London, too. John grew up in the city, with the sounds of the Tube and late-night traffic and the neighbours' telly and drunks on their way home from the pubs. Nights here in the countryside are too much like Afghanistan for his liking.

"Even if you'd been there," says Sherlock, "it wouldn't have mattered."

"I know," says John. "But if I'd been there, you wouldn't have been alone." He goes to take another sip and discovers his cup is empty.

Sherlock takes another bite of his cold, gummy risotto and chews. "We'll go back to London soon."

"Yes. In a few days."

"Good."

"Yes," says John. "It is."

---end---

Comments

[yeomanrand.livejournal.com]

Sweet. And lovely in-character.

[numberthescars.livejournal.com]

I loved the cat burglar story! Very clever and funny. And the bit with John + Sherlock in the garden was sweet and melancholy and searching. So wonderful.

[mundungus42.livejournal.com]

Aaah, the curious incident of the cat and the night-time :D So many clever little touches in this sweet, winsome story. I particularly love the insight into John's feelings about the country in the last scene- he's definitely not there for HIS health, that's for sure. Poor petulant Sherlock (though I LOLed when he threatened to set the furniture on fire). I'm glad he's on the road to recovery, if not just so John won't have to save him from getting shot in the head. This was absolutely delightful, anon- thank you for this! Brava!!

[talimenios79.livejournal.com]

This was so lovely.

[innie_darling]

I really liked this.

[musamihi.livejournal.com]

Reigate is one of my favorite stories, and this is a lovely modern twist. The way you make mundane, everyday actions and observations beautiful - especially the garden and orchard imagery, which is gorgeous and suggestive and subtle - makes this a really quiet, intimate, charming read. It's fun and bittersweet at once, and I very much enjoyed it. Awesome.

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

The various canon touches here are deftly handled and make for a remarkably organic story. (Hotel Dulong!) I like how you show John attempting to pick his battles -- with mixed success -- and the very in-character blend of doggedness, guilt, and laissez-aller that results; I find that more convincing than full-on nursemaid mode. Altogether, a lovely twist on standard h/c tropes, equally in the spirit of ACD and BBC.