Remedy
part elevenIt didn't take long to move in. Most things stayed in their boxes--medicine, plastic wrapped foodstuffs from the service station lobbies, an overabundance of haircare products and razors--while the basics were still offered up by the late but increasingly great Peter Wilks. He'd been John's size if a bit rounder going by the clothes left in the wardrobe. At least one daughter had been long-legged and willowy. John made use of belts while Sherlock suffered floodline hems above his ankles and rhinestone accents along the pockets with minimal fuss. It was just the two of them either way. Though they'd found a decent amount of attire in their sizes along their nomadic journey, it was hardly enough to keep them clothed outside a week's rotation. John hadn't laughed so hard in all his life as when Sherlock had unwittingly worn a pair of yoga pants with the word "gorgeous" scrawled across the arse. It hardly mattered but it was still funny. Their needs were met and then some and that was what counted in the end. John himself had had to make use of one of the other girl's things to find pajama bottoms with drawstrings as Peter's elastic bands hung far too loose. They were a fine pair in pink plaid and heart print in their humble mansion abode. They were happy. They were safe. The violin played on at three a.m. and John rolled over in his bed with a smile as the sound carried from next door as a welcome intrusion on his night's sleep where so much silence had come before.
It had taken John almost three days to work out most of the remote controls for the television set and accompanying surround sound. He'd never been particularly techno savvy but was quite sure there was a great deal wrong in a society that required a man to master not one but three different remotes to engage his entertainment set-up in a call to service. The Wilks had Jurassic Park on Blue-Ray. If John didn't get to hear the damn T-Rex as it chased behind them on the couch in front of a telly it could literally walk through then what was the point of surviving humanity? It was absolutely imperative he got to watch the film in his own mini cinema. Sherlock hadn't seen it. Sherlock deleted dinosaurs. It was going to be epic and John was going to enjoy the fuck out of every second of the classic film in all its cinematic glory. If he ever got the remotes figured out.
John was quite sure Sherlock was humoring him in his acceptance of their evening plans. He'd taken over one of the bedrooms and converted it into a mini laboratory filled with the diagnostic machines they'd stolen. He'd shut himself up for hours at a time with calibrations and fixes to equipment malfunctions the bumpy ride had caused. John left him to it for the most part, pleased to have a bit of time to himself now and then in the wake of their rather cramped existence in the jeep. He brought up food and customarily nagged if he came back to find the plate still full. Sherlock hadn't honestly changed in the least. John could very easily live the rest of his life like this with the inclusion of movie nights and other signs of normalcy.
At half past ten with the sunlight gone and the den plunged into darkness, John sat on the sofa with the main menu on the screen and plenty of room for Sherlock to sit and settle in beside him. He had his remotes labeled and a hand-written cheat sheet for reference if anything were to happen between pressing the selection key to play the film and the roll of the credits. His pink lounge wear was always a bit cramped in the crotch when seated but Sherlock's delay of the film offered the bonus time to adjust himself and sprawl with his legs out on the ottoman to keep the knees from pulling the material too snug. That was perhaps his greatest complaint in the wearing of woman's bottoms. Low-rise was really just high-crotch and made for the uneasy decision of just how much pants was too much and how little scrotal room was too little. He felt like a teenaged hoodlum with his boxers showing several inches above the tops of his pink plaid pajamas with the silver tinsel accents. It didn't feel right to just sit about in his pants, though. Not yet and maybe not ever. There was a certain type of relationship involved in pants lounging in a co-habitated space and in connection to that a certain type of respect shown in not doing so. Sherlock could lounge around naked and sheet swathed like the baby all he wanted but John still felt more comfortable--in some respects--in trousers.
"Sherlock, I'm pushing play," John warned, the detective taking too long in joining him and the sounds of the start menu starting to grow repetitive and annoying. Of what he remembered of the film there was plenty of reason to offer ones' full attention from the very start. Nothing Sherlock couldn't deduce on his own or that wouldn't be better explained later on, though. On the count of three John made good on his threat and let the first chapter begin to play. The sound still worked. The video looked good. He let out a contented sigh and relaxed into the plush cushions as the spoils of his effort surrounded him in brilliant megapixels and thundering jungle sounds. Oh, this was going to be a treat. This was going to be amazing.
The couch dipped as the Velociraptor threw itself against the back of its crate, Sherlock settling in, body curling up along the cushions with his head, uninvited, finding a home on John's lap. John tensed and stared down at his curly scalp to the rata-tat-tat of gunfire and screaming. Sherlock said nothing, as though calling attention to the fact he'd chosen to lounge in extremely close proximity was unnecessary. Maybe it was but John wasn't exactly comfortable with that level of presumption on the detective's part. This wasn't a date. They weren't lovers. They hadn't even had their scheduled kiss yet and if the way John felt about Sherlock's head in his lap was any indicator, that kiss was not going to be the most advisable move they'd ever made. He tried to ignore the awkwardness, give himself a minute to see if it was more surprise than anything else that made him want to push the other man up. The screen faded out to the slipping of a hand and Sherlock shifted only to get more comfortable, quite set on his choice of body placement.
It was... it was too different. This wasn't them. Sherlock hadn't cuddled up to anyone in all the time John had known him and to have him cuddled up to him now was not a feeling of reward or exclusivity but mild repulsion. Whether Sherlock was simply trying too hard or misinterpreting the situation, it was just... wrong. John liked the behavior from girls but from Sherlock it was just a bit too familiar--a though process that made little sense but explained the fight-or-flight sensation in his gut at having the back of the other man's head just inches away from the junction of his trousers.
John licked his lips, drumming his fingers on the back of the couch where his arms were spread out to either side. "You, ah... you want to sit up?" he asked--less a request and more of a kindly expressed order.
"I'm fine here, thanks."
Sherlock had grown selectively deaf to subtext it seemed. John scowled, eying the faceless lump on his lap. "Okay... Probably not really appropriate is all."
Sherlock shrugged his top shoulder but made no effort to move. "Perhaps not. I'll stay, though, if it's all the same."
It wasn't. John hadn't actually expected opposition if he'd laid the hint out there. Sherlock had put him in the rather awkward dilemma now of deciding if it was worth the argument to set some boundaries or let him lounge seeing as he wasn't really hurting him just by simply being there. There was certainly a principle to be upheld in the matter so far as respecting John's wishes but it was late, the film had just started, and an argument would either take ages or explode with no time to reconcile till morning. John sighed, letting one hand fall to Sherlock's head to at least pull his bangs back and let him see what sort of mood Sherlock was in--looking for a fight or simply a victim of his own particular ignorance. His head was warm, though. Even without touching it directly, John could feel heat radiating off his skin. Sherlock had a fever.
Sherlock had a fever.
John's arm came down around Sherlock's chest, hand splayed over his heart as his other one fell to press to the clammy skin of the brunet's forehead.
"Just ignore it," Sherlock requested, his own hand curling to press against the back of John's at his chest. "We're watching this."
John was having a hard time keeping his limbs from shaking as his own heart raced with fear and adrenalin. It could be the last time he ever touched Sherlock's skin with uncovered hands, the last time Sherlock could be close enough to another human being to feel their own body heat, listen to the blood in their veins, feel the expansion of their breath. John breathed through his mouth as the air trembled too harshly in his chest to escape slowly through his nose. He wasn't ready. He'd never be ready. This wasn't supposed to happen. "Maybe it's a summer cold," John offered. Sherlock's chuckle rumbled against his palm.
"Maybe," he said, offering no complaint to the way John's hand touched at his face, obscuring his view of the film as archeologists swept at old, dead bones.
They waited until the movie ended as Sherlock had asked, the subtleties of close contact set to the timer of the film's running time. He had selected a guest room with an en suite and taken the door off its hinges, hanging instead the clear plastic sheeting of a bath curtain to create a transparent barrier in the face of quarantine. John felt something in him lurch as the curtain fell between them. John brought medicine for fever and a draught to help him sleep and while Sherlock curled up in the pillow-top bed, John sat sentry in the hall with his back against the wall. John didn't sleep; couldn't sleep. A watched pot never boiled so he watched Sherlock all night, willing for the only change to be a breaking of his fever. He spent the night praying to any deity watching, begging and bartering with all he had left. And in the morning, as Sherlock shuffled to the toilet, John saw the cysts that had broken out against the once flawless skin of his back. He swallowed a sob as Sherlock paused at the nearly inhuman sound of a heart breaking, neither turning nor offering comment as he continued through the door and out of sight.
Hope died that day.
John outfitted himself with silicon gloves and took the medicine out of the boxes. Anything that passed between the curtain took a one-way trip, both men gloved against any contact during meals and the exchange of drugs. Day one was hard in the face of disbelief and a profound numbness to reality. Sherlock's pained cries dispelled most of that by that first night of surety. The medicine could only do so much, the safe measures of dosage only recommended at certain intervals. The detective gasped and writhed in his bed, searching for some way to lie that did not hurt, some magic position that would offer relief from his own skin and bones. And John watched, unable to go to his side, stationed permanently on the other side of the plastic sheeting in his own hell of uselessness. This was what the gun had been for. His promise to Mycroft had been to not let him suffer and John did not deserve the peace of quiet so long as Sherlock still lived. Sherlock did not sleep. John did not sleep. Breakfast came with a nearly lethal dosage of pain killers and still John listened to him cry, out of sight, under the spray of water from the bathroom as he tried to keep his wounds clean.
Stage one was fever. Stage two brought the sores. Stage three saw empyema of the lung pleura. Sherlock would drown in puss, gargling for breath even as his body eroded away his flesh with cysts that swelled his tongue and blinded him. John listened to his cries for the gurgle of fluid even as Sherlock tried to keep quiet--seemingly for John's sake rather than pride. Sipping from the cup, a tablespoon or more of Oxycodone slurped down and licked up from the sides of the vessel, Sherlock gave a shaky exhale of imminent relief as he tossed yet another plastic cup into the corner of abandonment. His lungs, thankfully, still sounded clear.
"You'll throw it up if you don't eat," John warned him, nodding to the thawed out bread on the plate he'd slid under the curtain as well.
Sherlock nodded mechanically, obeying doctor's orders for the first time in his life in the off-chance it helped him survive. He ate slowly, the sores on his face oozing as his jaw moved with every bite. Puss trickled down his cheeks like tears. John swallowed thickly as Sherlock dabbed at his face with a wince and a soapy wash rag. "Bit crap this," Sherlock said, eying his sliced bread with a pout. "Couldn't bother to spare some cheese?"
The attempt at humor was a nice gesture but John was having a hard time even forcing a smile. "Could have, I guess. Figured the last thing you needed was to get all bound up inside on top of all this."
"Fair point," Sherlock conceded. His own smile was retained in his eyes rather than his face as cysts of varying sizes tore through the alabaster skin. He'd been a beautiful man once. John regretted never telling him so. The proud man would probably have liked the compliment even if he professed to not really care. Sherlock sat as close to the curtain as he'd allow himself, taking a few deep breaths as he tried to finish eating despite his body's attempts to make him stop. "Don't get this, John," he said, tearing his bread into tiny pieces and squishing it flat between finger and thumb to swallow whole. "No risk is worth it, you understand?"
John nodded, watching him with acute interest and eyes red from unshed tears of concern. "Yeah, I understand." He screwed the lid on the medicine bottle tight, tempted to leave it within arms reach should a desperate man decide the effort was too great and find a need of eternal release. It would be so easy to leave it there in hopes for a moment of weakness, John's own cowardice tempting fate where he stood to guard instead. "You still.... you still think you can do this?" he asked, asking permission in the same breath as he wished for strength.
Sherlock closed his eyes as he let a flat square of bread melt on his tongue. "In for a penny," he said as his sores continued to weep.
John watched his face and nodded again, powerless to do much else.