Chapter Text
John got home to an empty flat.
The sitting room was empty, barren of any signs of intelligent life. A nest of blankets settled on the couch, their center empty save for a mound of equally fluffy pillows, and there was a mug on the floor, but those were the only signs that Sherlock had even been here at all today.
Wherever he was now, though, it certainly wasn't here.
And that only meant one thing.
"Oh, thank god," John said to the empty space, and grinned ear to ear.
This was going to be the best night he had had in days.
Sherlock had been having one of those weeks, again. The sort that made John feel as if he lived with a hormonal teenage girl, instead of a full grown man(-child). Snipping, sulking, pouting, and yelling; all the way to the level of a tantrum. Last night, he'd pushed a mug onto the floor, seemingly just to see it break. Then he'd sat there glowering at the mess as if it had personally offended him. John had made the terrible mistake of telling him to clean it up, and been immediately shouted at to shut up, make himself useful, and go away.
A night to himself, wherever Sherlock was, and whatever the hell he was up to, was really for the best. Best friend or not, if Sherlock had been here now, and still in the same mood he'd been in this morning, then John really might have ended tonight by strangling him.
The worst part of it was, he knew what was wrong.
Sherlock Holmes was sick.
Not that he would ever admit that; god, no. Not before hell itself froze over. Not with anything serious, either. John suspected the head-cold that was working its way around London- it'd have been enough to make anybody cranky, and Sherlock was not just anybody. Sherlock had spent the past several days alternatively wolfing down Mrs. Hudson's food like a hungry dog, sulking about like John had kicked his puppy, pouting into the back of the couch, and in general complaining that the universe ought to implode, and still, John hadn't figured out until this very morning, when Sherlock had- get this- slept in.
And it wasn't even the day after a case!
The man was definitely sick, whether Sherlock even realised it or not. And what he needed, rather than an all-nighter on a case, was a night in, with tea, blankets, and crap telly. It was just what the doctor ordered.
John just wasn't insane enough to think that that would be a winning argument on Sherlock. Ever.
At this point, all he could hope for was for the whatever had Sherlock so under the weather to hit hard and fast, and turn him into a tissue-infested feverish ball of blankets. Get it over with, sweat it out, and John could alternately make him tea and inform him that this was why you listened to your doctor when you took a swan dive into the Thames after a suspect and then refused to so much as let anyone listen to your breath sounds.
But for tonight, he had tea, and just being delivered takeaway, and peace and quiet.
And he was going to enjoy it.
Three bites into Chinese takeaway, peace, and quiet, someone threw up.
Someone threw up, very loudly, painfully, and unmistakably, from the loo, just three feet away.
Oh, no.
John closed his eyes, clasping his fingers together, and let out the longest, most exhausted sigh of his life. He counted to ten, and spent those very important seconds saying goodbye to the rest of his night.
Then, he dragged himself up to his feet, and turned to face the music.
"Sherlock?"
The sounds stopped. The heavy breathing did not. Worry caught in John's throat.
He'd been home almost half an hour, now. Had Sherlock been in there this whole time?
"Sherlock," he called again, "are you-"
"Fine." His flatemate's voice was muffled, a low and wrecked growl; the sound of someone who had been vomiting without water for a while, now. "Get rid of your dinner and leave me alone."
"My dinner?"
"Lo mein!" Sherlock snarled, his voice cracked. "Sweet and sour chicken, lo mein, and a disgusting amount of soy sauce, I can smell it and it's horrid, get rid of it and go away!"
Was that why he had thrown up? Never mind that John was certain Sherlock could not smell soy sauce from that far away- he'd gotten his order right, and that was enough for John to pull a retreat and quickly stow the containers in the fridge.
Then, back to the loo.
He could follow the first command, but he wasn't going to follow the second.
"Sherlock, are you okay?"
No answer. Eh, he could hear this one on his own, thanks, no need for Sherlock to say it aloud. Obviously not, John. Use your senses! And then go away.
He tried again. "Do you have a fever?"
No answer. He'd take that as a yes, then.
"What about water? If you're throwing up, you need to stay hydrated."
The detective stayed silent again, just for a moment. Then: "John, please go away."
His stomach lurched. Sherlock sounded awful. His voice was low and in pain, barely more than a choked whimper, and even worse than that, he sounded desperate. Desperate to get John to leave him alone.
Sherlock usually wasn't shy about being sick. Quite the opposite; a sick Sherlock was a whiny, over-dramatic attention hog, a little sniffle turned about to demand John as his personal, bedside, tea-fetching physician, on call to prevent death twenty four hours a day.
Putting his concern and confusion aside, for the moment, John trudged back to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. "Look, I'm sorry you're feeling poorly, and I'll leave you alone if you want. But first, you need-"
"Stop it! John-" His voice hitched higher, close to panic. "Just give me- I'm... I'm not dressed!"
Now he was just being ridiculous. "Sherlock, I'm a doctor. I've seen way worse, and what's more, I've seen way worse from you. Stop wearing a sheet around the flat, and I'm coming in."
He pushed open the door, and almost dropped the glass.
"Oh my god-"
"Stop it, John," Sherlock whined, looking distinctly miserable and defeated. Whatever fight had been in his voice from outside the door, it was all already gone. "I'm fine-"
"You are not fine!"
Sherlock was stretched out on the floor, all long and loose limbs entangled in towels and sweat and blood. Sherlock was bleeding. He couldn't tell from where, but wet smudges were on his face, his hands, his stomach, and the messy sprawl of towels about him was stained, too, and it became very clear when John tried to reach for him that the towels were all he had on. He was milk pale and soaked with sweat and ice-cold, hair still drying from a recent shower, and his piercing eyes squeezed shut in anguished defeat.
Sherlock had been lying in here, bleeding, for half an hour. At least. Definitely not a severe bleed, but he was still bleeding, and he looked absolutely dreadful. "Come on, Sherlock, talk to me-" John reached for for the lowest towel, his mind racing. Where the hell had he run off and gotten himself hurt?! This morning, he hadn't even had a case!
He got no further than lifting the towel one inch away before Sherlock smacked him straight off.
"Sherlock! What's gotten into you?!"
"Stop it," he croaked. "J-just... stop it, John."
He wouldn't look him in the eye. He wouldn't even open his own eyes at all, his face still turned severely away, so shrunken and small and... and defeated. The look on his face was pure agony, and if Sherlock had been anywhere but sagged on the floor, slick with blood from an unknown source, that would've been enough to make John give in. He had never seen Sherlock look like this before, and he never wanted to see him look like it again.
But he was bleeding, and John was his doctor.
"Listen to me," he snapped, and then snapped his fingers, too, right over his face. "I will take care of you, whatever this is, but you have to let me." Sherlock wasn't typically shy about injury, either, but he was naked, and the stains of the blood suggested the injury was underneath the towel wrapped around his waist. Granted, modesty and Sherlock Holmes really didn't belong in the same sentence, either, but...
"Sherlock," he tried again. "Whatever it is, I can promise I've seen worse, but if you don't allow me to see, I will call you an ambulance right now."
The detective inhaled in, starting to talk, but a sharp whimper pierced his voice and suffocated him straight back into silence. He shook his head, craning away from John's hand, his arms wrapping around his stomach, and John nearly went for his phone right then and there. Something was wrong, and if Sherlock was in this much pain, it almost definitely needed treatment beyond a paracetamol and a heating pad.
"...it's normal. It's a..." Sherlock swallowed, his throat spasming. He still would not meet John's eyes, so uncharacteristic it made his stomach drop. He looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. "It's a medical condition, John. I'll be fine."
Oh, please. "There is no medical condition that would give you spontaneous bleeding and pain this severe and not require immediate treatment."
But his friend merely shrank further away, clutching his towels like a lifeline. Blood smeared all his fingertips and both his palms, bright red and wet, and the splash pattern of it on his skin was just short of alarming. What the hell had happened here? John tried to free one of the towels again, but even in this state Sherlock's grip was like iron, and the look on his face-
He really didn't want John to see what was under that towel.
"There is a condition. Mycroft... text Mycroft, ask him, just leave me alone, John, John-" He hissed through gritted teeth, jaw clenched and throat jumping and, oh, god, he was crying. His eyes were wet, his face slicked with sweat and blood and fever and now tears-
"Sherlock-"
"There is a condition. One that afflicts approximately fifty percent of the population of London."
"One that..." John stopped, his brow furrowing. "Okay, now you're just being ridiculous. You don't have anything to be embarrassed about, but unless you're trying to tell me you're secretly a woman-"
"John-"
John sunk his fingers into the towel, and yanked it free from Sherlock's desperate grip mid-whimper without room for any further delay.
He gaped.
The source of the blood clearly was between his legs. His inner thighs were stained the worst, even squeezed tightly together as he fought to hide, to squirm away from John, but curled up there on the floor, cold, exposed, and bare, there was nowhere to hide. Hide his- utter lack of a penis.
He was bleeding from his genitalia.
His female genitalia.
Numbness settled in his throat.
"Sher... Sherlock..."
Sherlock's clawed grip on his wrist fell, dropping down to the floor to curl hopelessly back around his stomach. The look on his face was the sheer personification of defeat.
Without a word, Sherlock snatched his other towel downward, lowering it from his chest to wrap around his waist instead. The one John had grabbed slipped from numb fingers, pooling over Sherlock's thighs, but the detective stayed with his head turned away and his jaw clenched tight and his knuckles bone-white.
As utterly thunderstruck as John was, he couldn't stop himself from staring at Sherlock's chest, now. His narrow, bony chest, with two very distinctive scars.
"You're-..."
"-transgender," Sherlock finished, and that final word, he spat as if it were an oath so foul it made him sick just to have it in his mouth.
Seconds ticked by in silence.
John continued to gape.
"Well, then," Sherlock said flatly, when John did not go on. "If you've an apoplectic fit scheduled, then I invite you to hold it in the sitting room. Because, as you can see, I'm in a fantastic amount of pain, and somewhat lacking in the ability to handhold you through at the present time."
John had no idea what to say.
Looking down at Sherlock then, then, down on his knees on the floor and staring at the consultant, all that could really make it through his current haze was how... pitiful he looked. It struck him in a gut punch, but god, it was true- that was Sherlock Holmes, and there was no other word for it. He looked pitiful. So slumped and defeated and pale, one arm still wrapped about his stomach in sheer misery while the other draped over his face, shrouding it from view, his each and every breath short and painful. It felt like he was witnessing something intensely personal and intimate, suddenly, and- wasn't he? Sherlock, naked and smeared with blood and sick, curled up on the bathroom floor. He had explicitly and expressly wanted John to go. He had told him to leave, but John hadn't listened, and he couldn't take that back. He couldn't take this back.
John sat there, still thunderstruck and limp, and he looked down at his stricken and furious friend, and all he knew was that he only had one chance to do this right.
Oh, god.
Okay. This was- okay. John took in a deep breath, slowly, in and out, willing down the numb squirming in his stomach, the dumbstruck shock flooded through every bit of the rest of him. Okay. The rest of him was too shocked to function, so he was left to just default down to his medical training. Yes. He could do this. Transgender patient: severe menstrual pain, vomiting, fever. Simple. Textbook, even. Sort of. It was- oh, fucking hell-
"Okay," John said aloud, scrubbing a hand over his face. Sherlock still wasn't looking at him, eyes shut and expression pinched, and after a moment of thought, he settled a hand down on one achingly thin shoulder. "Just- taking a step back, for a moment. Okay."
Sherlock still did not look at him, piercing eyes fluttering. For once, John couldn't blame him.
He'd really messed this one up.
"Sherlock." He rubbed his shoulder, but it felt distinctly uncomfortable and awkward, and Sherlock looked so miserable he shot his hand back to himself. "Everything- everything else aside."
He'd hoped no longer touching him would make him stop looking so... like that. The ice-cold anger across his shadowed face right now did not look as if John had been all that successful.
Come on, Dr. Watson. Just a patient. Just a standard patient. That's all.
"This level of pain isn't normal, Sherlock, and neither is being this ill-"
"It is for me."
"I really think you should get-"
"I've been to A&E, John!" Sherlock cried, and his next attempt to reach for him got his hand smacked like a buzzing mosquito. "I've been twice! I'm not crawling into a cab just to have an ultrasound shoved up inside me, wind up being told there's nothing wrong with me, and to either deal with it or seek my morphine elsewhere!"
As if on cue, Sherlock then shot up from the floor, hurtled upwards to clutch the toilet, and threw up for the second time.
John winced in horrified sympathy. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the shock swelled in his throat and he could do nothing at all but just rest a hand on his lower back, running it up and down with each shuddering heave.
Sherlock continued making those horrible noises, and John felt about as useful as a lump of wet clay.
He remained adamant that Sherlock should see a doctor, but Sherlock clearly did not want to go, and for once John was hesitant about overruling him. He was obviously in too much pain to walk, and too sick to have a cab stop for them- they'd have to call an ambulance or one of Mycroft's cars, and even then, what would A&E even be able to do? Once they'd ruled out something urgent, like appendicitis, they'd just send him back home with NSAIDs and a referral to a specialist. Sherlock had probably already all but overdosed on every NSAID in the flat.
"John..."
John started back into the room, discomfort still lodged in his throat. "Yeah," he assured, rubbing his back again. "Yes?"
Sherlock's grey eyes were half-lidded and wet, watering in unadulterated misery. He didn't follow it up with anything, just his name, but the way he was looking at John- he was waiting for something, he realised. For John to do something. He waiting to see what John would do.
Well, so was John.
He had to do this right. He had a hundred questions, and he felt betrayed and shocked and dumbstruck and had no idea what to do, and really just wanted to go lay down for a bit with a stiff drink, to be quite honest- but the look on Sherlock's face said he had to do this now. He had one chance to handle this right.
"...Okay," John landed on, finally. Sherlock seemed done throwing up, for the moment, so he helped his friend back to lying down in his nest of towels. "Sherlock, how bad is the pain right now, on a scale of one to ten?"
A moment passed in silence. The detective worked his mouth, chalk pale and sweating. "Eight," he croaked. "Appendicitis was a six."
Christ. John squeezed his shoulder again, watching him curl his arms back around his stomach and revert back to his miserable shell. His shoulder and the resultant physical therapy had ranged from a three to a seven. "And it's localized where?"
"Abdomen," Sherlock rasped. He traced on the right side of his stomach- over what he knew to be an appendectomy scar, funnily enough. "Right thigh. Lower back."
That wasn't normal, either. Was it? It had been a long while since gynecology- hell. Just the combination of Sherlock and gynecology in his head, this was too much, what the hell was he supposed to say-?
"Well... at least we know it's not your appendix, mate."
Sherlock managed a wry smile back. But it was a near thing, and it crumbled back into a flat line of misery all but immediately.
"Already've taken a double dose of paracetamol," Sherlock went on, eyes half-lidded. "Fucking sugar pills."
"You shouldn't h-"
"Oh, shut up, John!"
The detective lapsed back into silence after that, shivering madly and his face stricken, and John let him. He now wanted to take Sherlock into A&E even more than before, he wanted to call Mycroft and get a car down here right now, even if the only treatment he could have was IV morphine and overnight observation. This was not normal, throwing up from pain was not acceptable, not for John's best friend.
But this was clearly not Sherlock's first rodeo. And if Sherlock didn't want to go this badly, then John really didn't feel right about forcing it.
After all- he wasn't really Sherlock's doctor, was he?
He'd thought he was. And he was pretty sure Sherlock marked his name down as such on every form that crossed his path.
But if Sherlock actually trusted him as his doctor- as a friend- then this never would've happened.
John settled back down onto his knees, and made his decision.
"All right, Sherlock." He reached back for the glass of water he'd first come in with, what felt like a century ago, now, when Sherlock had just been sick with flu and everything had still fucking made sense. "You need to stay hydrated. If you can keep water down then we won't go to hospital, not right now, but at a certain point, we will have to go down there even if I have to call the ambulance myself. Agreed?"
"You're not asking for agreement. You're not giving me a choice."
"You want me to call for an ambulance right now?"
Sherlock groaned mightily, sagged back as limply as a sack. He dropped his arm over his face again, wheezing through his nose, not looking at him again, never looking at him, but his face was again back close to defeat.
It wasn't at all what John had wanted to see.
"Fine," he muttered, huddled back up under his towels like a kicked dog. He didn't shake off John's hand on his shoulder, but he didn't lean into it, either.
He made no move at all to take the water. John wondered if he might not be able to even sit up.
After several minutes, Sherlock's low murmur spoke up again.
"John?"
He rubbed his shoulder again. His skin was cold and wet, and John had to resist the urge to fetch a third towel. "Yeah?"
He thought Sherlock might be trying to broach the earlier bombshell. For a moment, he looked as if he actually would, his throat moving in a low and gravelly cough and his eyes clouded, preparing to speak up, to explain. To just open his mouth and be all Sherlock Holmes about it and make everything make sense in the blink of an eye.
Then the moment passed, and the fight issued out of him as easily as blood from a wound.
"There's a chance that I'm going to pass out soon," he murmured instead. "If I do, it's normal. If you call an ambulance or try to wake me up, I will disembowel you and feed your entrails to Wiggins' dog."
What. Sherlock thought he was going to pass out? And that was normal, for him? No. Fuck no. This was not normal, no matter what Sherlock said, and the moment this was over, John was scheduling him for an appointment with a specialist, no protests taken, the end, no arguments allowed. Hiding his gender was one thing, but this was a serious medical condition and if Sherlock wanted him to be his doctor, then John was going to act as his doctor.
Part of John still thought it'd be best to take him to A&E right now.
"One hour," he said, holding up a finger for his friend to see. "You get one hour. If I can't wake you up then, then I'm taking you in."
Sherlock rolled his eyes, though it didn't come out looking like all that much, with his face still flushed and half-hidden under his arm. He said nothing, which was John's cue to force the glass of water into his free hand and then nudge Sherlock onto his side, as sitting up really did seem beyond him, and watch with a careful eye as he finally got something down.
He waited until his mouth was fully occupied, to add on his last decision.
"And when you feel a little better, we're going to have a talk, Sherlock."
Sherlock once again said nothing. He just lay there, drinking his mandated gulp of water in silence, and when John let him stop he slumped to his back and shivered back under his towels.
"Fine," he muttered. "...Fine."
He sounded resigned. Not gearing up for a Sherlockian strop. Not a lecture, not an argument, not a tantrum, not a fight. Not preparing to eviscerate John alive and turn him inside out and drop him on his head with his words alone.
He was expecting-
John wasn't exactly sure what.
But by that ice-cold, defeated look on his face, he didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes, to guess what exactly it was that he was afraid of.