A piece of bad news wrapped in protein
Jul. 6th, 2011 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solrosanNote: This is the fourth, and last, part in the series, recently named, Who's letting who down?. The name of this part is a quote from Peter Medawar, a British immunologist, which is more famous as the miss-quote: "a piece of nucleic acid surrounded by bad news".
If there is going to be another Sherlock fic, I hope it's going to be a happier one.
Summary: At the hospital, watching Sherlock until Mycroft can get off work, John take the opportunity to run a series of tests to establish Sherlock's health status after his years of drug abuse.
***
Sure, the main reason John had studied long and hard for his medical degree wasn’t to have a doctor-card to play when he wanted to do costly, tediously (and even unnecessary) tests on, what seemed to be, a random drug addict in a hospital where he wasn’t employed. It was a nice card to play though. Especially since the line: “Don’t you know that’s Mycroft Holmes’ brother?” didn’t really have the impact one might have thought, seeing Mycroft could make everyone in the U.K. unemployed if he felt like it.
Stupid puppet master, lurking in the shadows; making him no use as leverages to anyone.
When Sherlock had arrived at St Tomas’ Hospital – John had been told thanks to his doctor-card – he’d had a body temperature at just under 30o C. The paramedics who brought him in had reported a lowest temperature at 27o C. Four toes and two fingers were lost due to sever frostbites, one additional finger might follow. His nose was blackish-blue with necrotic tissue and John wasn’t sure what they could ever do to save it. There were very good nose prostheses out there now; they could be moulded to look exactly like the original, only really visible when the skin around it became tanned. Not that Sherlock would care.
John had trouble believing the doctor who had been in charge of Sherlock (until John came and demanded to take over) when she had assured him that there was no organ failure and that it had been a consistent blood flow to the brain. She had also assured him that Sherlock most likely would be fine – whatever “fine” was? – except for the lost digits and the sever frostbite on his nose. John knew he was better off believing his colleague, for nothing else so for professional curtsey.
The doctor-card hadn’t managed to get Sherlock in to a private room. Something about the walls being solid and if he thought rooms would magically appear behind broom closet doors, he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere around Hogsmeade. The reference was completely lost on John, but he was pretty sure the young female nurse was telling him off.
Waiting for the results of all the tests had earned them a twin room though. Now, a warm, but still not conscious, Sherlock shared a room with a snoring man, who’s medical records John had forced himself not to read. They were separated by a thin curtain, but John was irritated by the unknown man’s wheezed breathing.
Not knowing what Mycroft was doing to keep him from being here, John felt he couldn’t call Sherlock’s brother, asking him to pull enough strings to move the wheezing man. Not even if he really wanted to.
John had been sitting in this same chair next to Sherlock’s bed ever since he’d made sure that all possible tests had been properly taken and sent of to the lab. That was five hours ago; making Sherlock’s stay at the hospital almost eight hours. All of them without him ever regaining consciousness
John wished Mycroft would come soon. Not so he could leave – even though he probably would – but because he wanted to update him on Sherlock’s condition, maybe even comfort him. If a man like Mycroft Holmes could be comforted, or rather, if a man like Mycroft Holmes would allow a man like John Watson to comfort him.
In return for all that, John wanted information; he wanted all the hows and whens and whos and whys answered. The phone call he had received earlier that day had just had the keywords “Sherlock, St. Thomas’, Hypothermia” and the information he had been able to get his hands on while here had only been of medical character. It wasn’t even clear to John who had brought him in. Wonder how upset Mycroft would be when he found out that no one rode to the hospital with Sherlock….
“Dr. Watson,” the female nurse said while opening the door and knocking slightly. Talk about unnecessary multitasking. “I have most of the test results now, do you want to….”
“Yes please, thank you,” he said, reaching out to get the folder.
The nurse gave Sherlock a quick glance and John shot her a harsh look, following her with his eyes as she left the room. When the door closed he realised that he wasn’t going to make any friends here if he continued like this. He should act like the grown-up he was, even though it was hard, so very hard, when it came to people judging Sherlock.
So…he looked from the folder in his hands to Sherlock, and then back to the folder again. He had just enforced these tests to be sure there was nothing wrong, not because he thought they would find anything. Like the pregnancy test he had almost ordered. Good thing he had stopped himself before doing that, otherwise none of the tests had been taken.
He flipped the folder open and squinted. It was impossible to read! Where had he put his glasses? This was stupid!
He found them in his shirt pocket, where they always were when he didn’t use them, and with a slight annoyance he start going through the results, using his right index finger to follow along. Half way through the second page he halted – maybe there had been no need to order those allergy tests; it was a lot of unnecessary data –and he became cold from the inside out, before becoming furiously warm.
“You bastard,” he mumbled, staring at where his finger had parked. Slowly he raised his eyes to the man in the bed. How could he be so stupid? So incredibly stupid? He was supposed to be the most brilliant man in the world (maybe except for his brother?). Sure, the last years of drug abuse talked against that, but John had still thought there was at least an ounce of intelligence left in the man.
In Sherlock’s defence, there were some very non-idiotic ways for this to have happened also, but John’s mind had already jumped to conclusions; passing of needles. The fact that he had formed an opinion without all information would probably upset Sherlock more than whatever of not it was a correct assumption. For some reason, that thought frustrated John even further.
Staring at the paper – somehow he didn’t have the heart to continue down the rest of the results – he started to re-evaluate what he had expected to find in the folder. If the friend, who was tired to the brink of despair of seeing loved ones break down in front of him, got a break and let the experienced doctor take control over the thinking for a while, then John wasn’t surprised, hardly even shocked, by the result. Because, who were overrepresented in the risk group of getting blood-transmitted diseases?
Intravenous drug addicts.
He suspected Sherlock to have been one for years, still John’s credence to Sherlock’s intelligence had made it possible for him to pretend that the risks weren’t there. Stupid as he might be, Sherlock was smarter than sharing needles…or at least that was what John had wanted believe. Had needed to believe. It was the thought he had comforted himself with, the one these tests was supposed to confirm.
“You utter, utter bastard.” This time he looked at Sherlock when he said it, almost breathed it. There was no point in prolonging the conversation since it was more of a monologue anyway and frankly, John was lost for words.
Not to mention lost for actions. What could he possibly do about this? It wasn’t even close to his field of expertise and even if it had been, what would he be able to do at this hour and without Mycroft there?
Treatment was…well…he should call Tom, he was better at virology than he. And immunology. It was hard to keep up to date on all the advancements that happened in the field of medicine and things outside one’s own specialty often fell short due to lack of time. Surely, the whole world would know if a final cure or vaccine had been developed, but sadly that was not the case yet.
All John could decide as a course of action for now was that the personal who had worked with Sherlock needed to know. Not for Sherlock’s, but for their sake. Then he realised that the nurse had probably already seen the results and precautions were most likely taken even as he was sitting there, cursing Sherlock quietly in his head.
John made sure to read through the rest of the results before closing it, wishing he could have a lobotomy. Life seemed so much easier after one of those.
Some minutes after 1 o’clock at night three nurses moved the wheezing man from the room. John, who had fallen asleep in the chair around midnight, was too drowsy when woken by the quiet disturbance to ask any questions as for why. When he slowly woke to life, yawning and rubbing his eyes, he realised that this could only mean the arrival of Mycroft Holmes to the hospital. Finally.
It still took a good half an hour before the door opened again and an impeccably dressed Mycroft Holmes entered. John didn’t notice the clothes though, but how much less – and at the same time so, so much more – tired Sherlock’s brother looked, compared to the last time they’d met. It was really odd and John wished he had the Holmes brothers’ ability to deduce things about people to understand why, and how, this even was possible.
“I think we might be at war with the Netherlands,” Mycroft stated weary, placing his suit jacket on the empty chair next to John.
John stared at him. What did you answer to such a statement? Sure, when John screwed up at work bad things happened – people died – but that was just ridiculous! A bad day at the office didn’t end in war between two nations! What was it Mycroft did for a living? Juggling nuclear heads?
“I was joking,” Mycroft said when he saw the horror in John’s face, “but the tulip prices has most likely exploded.”
“I can live with that,” John nodded, feeling greatly uncomfortable. From what John could recall, Mycroft had never joked in his presence before. Not that this one had been a particularly good joke to tell a former soldier. Wonder if Sherlock would’ve appreciated it? Probably not.
The part of Mycroft that looked less tired than before, John realised, was the same part as the one making the (attempted) joke; it was something around his mouth, resembling a smile brought on by a happy memory, a pleasant evening or the victory after a match. The rest, the eyes and the body, looked completely drained.
John made these observations in silence when he gave Mycroft some moments to take in the sight of his brother. Seeing the older man standing next to the bed, almost reaching out to take Sherlock’s hand, John could imagining the Holmes brothers being to the whole EU what Mycroft alone was to the U.K.. If Sherlock would have straightened out earlier that was. World dominance was out of reach for them now.
“Did the test revile anything of interest?” Mycroft asked, without taking his eyes from Sherlock and without sitting down. John wondered if Mycroft refrained from looking at him when asking, afraid to read something in his eyes before he had said it.
“He has HIV.”
It wasn’t as even close to the death sentence it had once been. Not in Britain. Most people lived long enough to die from completely different things (like cancer or obesity or something equally fun), but these people weren’t usually drug users.
Maybe that was why the words sucked the air out of the room, why Mycroft had become so visibly tense that even John noticed it and why the bottom fell out of John’s stomach when he heard the letter combination spoken out loud.
Or maybe it was because they weren’t immune to the stigma that still surrounded the infected. Since both of them remembered the AIDS outbreak in the 80th, maybe they still couldn’t believe that it was a manageable disease, even though they both were highly educated, intelligent and logical men.
Maybe it was just because it was yet another problem, yet another setback, yet another unnecessary thing they had no control over.
“You bloody…” Mycroft started to say low under his breath, but then he seemed to remember that John was in the room and cut himself off. So he turned around instead, trying to look unmoved by the news. One look at John must have told him it was no use because he sighed and that hint of positivity that had been there when he arrived, vanished.
“Other than that?” he asked and finally sat down.
“In my tests? No…apparently he’s allergic to birch pollen, but….” John shrugged, “I assume you know what Dr. Patel found and did before I came?”
“Yes,” Mycroft underlined his answer with a nod, “Anything to add?”
“No…no, I think she’s good. Don’t know her, but haven’t heard anything bad about her,” John hoped that his personal doubt wouldn’t show, because that was all that they were, personal, not professional. He had no professional doubt that Sherlock had been given the best possible care. The best possible care for an ice lolly-hobo, but still, the woman had looked like a humanitarian and not a money-vampire.
“I really appreciate you doing this for him,” Mycroft said, looking at Sherlock rather than John.
John thought about admitting that he was truly doing it for Mycroft and not for Sherlock. There were just no good words for a confession like that, not that wouldn’t lead to other conversation subjects that John didn’t feel like having.
“No one should be alone with something like this,” he settled on, it was vague enough to mean whatever Mycroft wanted, or needed, it to.
“Would you object to becoming his doctor?”
“He’ll be the one with the objections,” John said, moving his eyes from Mycroft to Sherlock, “And, really, HIV treatments aren’t my area. I’m sure there are so many people, much more suitable than me.”
“Would you do that to someone else?” Mycroft wondered and when John looked back at him, the hint of a smile was on the older Holmes’ lips again. Tired, hopeless, worried, but a smile none the less.
John mirrored it. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Sigh.
Silence.
Just like when he had spent long periods of silence with Sherlock, John wondered what went on in that brilliant Holmes’ brain that was working so close to him. The years living with Sherlock had taught John the art of not needing small talk. Still, the silence with Mycroft felt more pressing. He wanted to ask about the memories that made Mycroft stand by Sherlock’s side; he wanted to know if Mycroft had any idea of why Sherlock had started using; he was interested in if Mycroft had any other family – he knew embarrassingly little about the man’s personal life; then there was the all the questions of how this particular situation had occurred. The only thing he didn’t felt like asking about was actually his job, which he was very interested in during normal circumstances.
“I put a fortune into perfecting the London syringe exchange program.”
It was an odd way to break the silence John thought and gave Mycroft a look. When he did, he saw an enormous amount of guilt and inadequacy. It didn’t suit Mycroft at all.
“It’s not your fault,” John was quick to ensure, encouragingly continuing with: “And the program is a very good thing.”
“I know…but, thank you,” Mycroft voice was sincere, but John was sure he thought he could have done more. John always did.
“Do you want some tea?” John suggested after a glimpse at his watch; it was a good bit past 3 o’clock.
“Yes please…one sugar” Mycroft accepted and John got on his feet; he felt stiff and a bit dizzy, but not at all as tired as he thought he should.
It was a relief to leave the room. Seeing something else than Sherlock’s frostbitten face, getting some distraction. It was also about time to leave Mycroft alone with his brother, if for nothing else, so that he could finish the sentence he had started when he had gotten the HIV notice. The tea was more a reason to leave than something John had wanted.
Nothing was open at this time. The night nurse showed him to a vending machine, even gave him a bit of change, and for the longest time John just stared at it. Unable to make a decision. Unable to perform the simple activity of pressing a button. Maybe the shock just hit him, maybe the severity of the situation came crushing down or maybe he was just tired beyond what a human mind could bear.
When the first cup finally filled up with a see-through, brown liquid, he realised he couldn’t bring the puppet master of the government tea from a vending machine. Half a second later he came to his senses, Mycroft wouldn’t care where the tea came from.
Nothing had changed when he returned with the tea. After Mycroft had thanked for the tea – even though John had forgotten about the sugar – they didn’t speak for the rest of the night. A plan had to be made for Sherlock’s treatment, they had to find a way to force (or trick) him into getting clean, but all that could wait until tomorrow. The whole world could wait until tomorrow.
John’s plan of going home disappeared, as he had said, no one should be alone with something like this. Not even the silent ruler of the United Kingdom.
***
“Satisfied?” Sherlock was sitting in John’s desk chair, spinning back and forth as if he was seven years old.
John was walking from the door with this month's test results in his hand; reading it over the edge of his glasses.
“Almost,” he said, with a small sigh, “Your virus levels are undetectable but…”
The sentence was in no need of finishing; Sherlock knew the rest, John had said it out loud every other time. There was nothing to say about the HIV treatment; from what John could tell, Sherlock followed it with the same determination as anything else he put his mind to. When it came to the addiction that had caused all this though, John still had much to wish for.
Sherlock was, if you asked him, clean now. If you asked John, he could go so far as to admit it was better than it had been in years. A close examination of Sherlock’s body had finally convinced him that Sherlock really had stop taking the drugs intravenously -- the same examination had proved that he had changed back to snorting. John imagined this being because both he and Mycroft had pointed out that passing needles around when one knew one was HIV positive was a criminal act. Sure, John only knew about people who had been found guilty of reckless inflicting of grievous bodily harm due to having unprotected sex with HIV negative individuals. He couldn’t see passing an infected needle around would be any different though. Seeing how Mycroft didn’t contradict him, he was pretty sure he was right.
It was a bit hard to believe Sherlock would stop doing something because it was illegal, but John could easily see how he would stop to protect the people around him who hadn’t a Mycroft or a John to see them through.
Yes, John still had some high thoughts left about Sherlock.
“You know,” Sherlock said, pausing intentionally to make John look at him, “You could just trust me.”
“Yea, well, you know,” John handed over the test result to Sherlock, pushing his glasses back in place, “You could just start being trustworthy.”
“Touché,” Sherlock smiled, looking through the paper he was given with the same mask of disinterest as usual. John was pretty sure he cared though; otherwise he wouldn’t demand to see it every time. On the other hand, the tests were simple and Sherlock might very well performed them all himself before coming here.
Sherlock coming to John once a month – much more often than necessary, really – to check his virus levels was a part of the deal though; Mycroft (through John) provided Sherlock with the necessary medication as long as Sherlock could prove he took them. Closest thing they could come to prove it was to check regularly, but it was far from 100 % certain. Virus levels could stay low without medication and they could be elevated even with medication.
It had been suspiciously easy to convince Sherlock to take this deal. For the first two-three month after Sherlock had been hospitalised with hypothermia John had thought it was only to get Mycroft off his back, but now Sherlock had been living with HIV for fourteen month and he still kept on coming to John. Without complaining. Without trying to worm his way out of it. The first seven month without even rolling his eyes or talking back to John.
Realists as both John and Mycroft were when it came to addicts, “getting clean” had not been a part of the deal. They wanted Sherlock to have access to the medication and they didn’t want to have to compromise and change the deal if Sherlock couldn’t hold his part. The cutting down on the drugs had all been on Sherlock’s initiative, of course neither John nor Mycroft complained.
“Done?” Sherlock asked, tossing the paper on the desk.
“Yea, yea….You’re free to go,” John said, waving him out of his chair.
No result.
“Get up,” John ordered in a pretend strict voice.
“Yes sir,” Sherlock said, saluting John, but not obeying.
John pretended to be irritated, but in all honesty, these short, silly arguments very the closest thing they had to “the way it was before”. John liked these sessions, but at the same time he hated them, since they reminded him of what he had lost.
It was hard, close to impossible, for them to socialise in any other way. The silences were uncomfortable; the serious conversations they forced were shallow. John dreaded this appointment every month, but if nothing else, it calmed his conscience and he felt he helped Mycroft. When he really needed to motivate himself to do it, he assured himself that keeping Sherlock healthy kept the country’s economy stable. Silly.
“I have other patients,” John informed.
“Yes, yes, you’re very important,” Sherlock said, jumping on his feet.
Finally.
“See you next week,” John said, seating himself in the chair before Sherlock could take it again.
“Next week?” Sherlock looked surprised, “But everything looked fine.”
“Did I say next week? I meant next month,” John corrected himself, feeling just a small sting of shame. Would it be that horrible seeing Sherlock next week already?
Yes.
“See you in March John,” Sherlock said with a smirk, leaving the room.
John wondered what was worst, seeing Mary die though she had fought to live, or to see Sherlock live such a self-destructing life. Perhaps it was seeing Sherlock throwing his life away when Mary always had taken such good care of hers?
One thing was clear to John though, every time Sherlock left, a small part of him wished that he wouldn’t come back.
If there is going to be another Sherlock fic, I hope it's going to be a happier one.
Summary: At the hospital, watching Sherlock until Mycroft can get off work, John take the opportunity to run a series of tests to establish Sherlock's health status after his years of drug abuse.
***
Sure, the main reason John had studied long and hard for his medical degree wasn’t to have a doctor-card to play when he wanted to do costly, tediously (and even unnecessary) tests on, what seemed to be, a random drug addict in a hospital where he wasn’t employed. It was a nice card to play though. Especially since the line: “Don’t you know that’s Mycroft Holmes’ brother?” didn’t really have the impact one might have thought, seeing Mycroft could make everyone in the U.K. unemployed if he felt like it.
Stupid puppet master, lurking in the shadows; making him no use as leverages to anyone.
When Sherlock had arrived at St Tomas’ Hospital – John had been told thanks to his doctor-card – he’d had a body temperature at just under 30o C. The paramedics who brought him in had reported a lowest temperature at 27o C. Four toes and two fingers were lost due to sever frostbites, one additional finger might follow. His nose was blackish-blue with necrotic tissue and John wasn’t sure what they could ever do to save it. There were very good nose prostheses out there now; they could be moulded to look exactly like the original, only really visible when the skin around it became tanned. Not that Sherlock would care.
John had trouble believing the doctor who had been in charge of Sherlock (until John came and demanded to take over) when she had assured him that there was no organ failure and that it had been a consistent blood flow to the brain. She had also assured him that Sherlock most likely would be fine – whatever “fine” was? – except for the lost digits and the sever frostbite on his nose. John knew he was better off believing his colleague, for nothing else so for professional curtsey.
The doctor-card hadn’t managed to get Sherlock in to a private room. Something about the walls being solid and if he thought rooms would magically appear behind broom closet doors, he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere around Hogsmeade. The reference was completely lost on John, but he was pretty sure the young female nurse was telling him off.
Waiting for the results of all the tests had earned them a twin room though. Now, a warm, but still not conscious, Sherlock shared a room with a snoring man, who’s medical records John had forced himself not to read. They were separated by a thin curtain, but John was irritated by the unknown man’s wheezed breathing.
Not knowing what Mycroft was doing to keep him from being here, John felt he couldn’t call Sherlock’s brother, asking him to pull enough strings to move the wheezing man. Not even if he really wanted to.
John had been sitting in this same chair next to Sherlock’s bed ever since he’d made sure that all possible tests had been properly taken and sent of to the lab. That was five hours ago; making Sherlock’s stay at the hospital almost eight hours. All of them without him ever regaining consciousness
John wished Mycroft would come soon. Not so he could leave – even though he probably would – but because he wanted to update him on Sherlock’s condition, maybe even comfort him. If a man like Mycroft Holmes could be comforted, or rather, if a man like Mycroft Holmes would allow a man like John Watson to comfort him.
In return for all that, John wanted information; he wanted all the hows and whens and whos and whys answered. The phone call he had received earlier that day had just had the keywords “Sherlock, St. Thomas’, Hypothermia” and the information he had been able to get his hands on while here had only been of medical character. It wasn’t even clear to John who had brought him in. Wonder how upset Mycroft would be when he found out that no one rode to the hospital with Sherlock….
“Dr. Watson,” the female nurse said while opening the door and knocking slightly. Talk about unnecessary multitasking. “I have most of the test results now, do you want to….”
“Yes please, thank you,” he said, reaching out to get the folder.
The nurse gave Sherlock a quick glance and John shot her a harsh look, following her with his eyes as she left the room. When the door closed he realised that he wasn’t going to make any friends here if he continued like this. He should act like the grown-up he was, even though it was hard, so very hard, when it came to people judging Sherlock.
So…he looked from the folder in his hands to Sherlock, and then back to the folder again. He had just enforced these tests to be sure there was nothing wrong, not because he thought they would find anything. Like the pregnancy test he had almost ordered. Good thing he had stopped himself before doing that, otherwise none of the tests had been taken.
He flipped the folder open and squinted. It was impossible to read! Where had he put his glasses? This was stupid!
He found them in his shirt pocket, where they always were when he didn’t use them, and with a slight annoyance he start going through the results, using his right index finger to follow along. Half way through the second page he halted – maybe there had been no need to order those allergy tests; it was a lot of unnecessary data –and he became cold from the inside out, before becoming furiously warm.
“You bastard,” he mumbled, staring at where his finger had parked. Slowly he raised his eyes to the man in the bed. How could he be so stupid? So incredibly stupid? He was supposed to be the most brilliant man in the world (maybe except for his brother?). Sure, the last years of drug abuse talked against that, but John had still thought there was at least an ounce of intelligence left in the man.
In Sherlock’s defence, there were some very non-idiotic ways for this to have happened also, but John’s mind had already jumped to conclusions; passing of needles. The fact that he had formed an opinion without all information would probably upset Sherlock more than whatever of not it was a correct assumption. For some reason, that thought frustrated John even further.
Staring at the paper – somehow he didn’t have the heart to continue down the rest of the results – he started to re-evaluate what he had expected to find in the folder. If the friend, who was tired to the brink of despair of seeing loved ones break down in front of him, got a break and let the experienced doctor take control over the thinking for a while, then John wasn’t surprised, hardly even shocked, by the result. Because, who were overrepresented in the risk group of getting blood-transmitted diseases?
Intravenous drug addicts.
He suspected Sherlock to have been one for years, still John’s credence to Sherlock’s intelligence had made it possible for him to pretend that the risks weren’t there. Stupid as he might be, Sherlock was smarter than sharing needles…or at least that was what John had wanted believe. Had needed to believe. It was the thought he had comforted himself with, the one these tests was supposed to confirm.
“You utter, utter bastard.” This time he looked at Sherlock when he said it, almost breathed it. There was no point in prolonging the conversation since it was more of a monologue anyway and frankly, John was lost for words.
Not to mention lost for actions. What could he possibly do about this? It wasn’t even close to his field of expertise and even if it had been, what would he be able to do at this hour and without Mycroft there?
Treatment was…well…he should call Tom, he was better at virology than he. And immunology. It was hard to keep up to date on all the advancements that happened in the field of medicine and things outside one’s own specialty often fell short due to lack of time. Surely, the whole world would know if a final cure or vaccine had been developed, but sadly that was not the case yet.
All John could decide as a course of action for now was that the personal who had worked with Sherlock needed to know. Not for Sherlock’s, but for their sake. Then he realised that the nurse had probably already seen the results and precautions were most likely taken even as he was sitting there, cursing Sherlock quietly in his head.
John made sure to read through the rest of the results before closing it, wishing he could have a lobotomy. Life seemed so much easier after one of those.
Some minutes after 1 o’clock at night three nurses moved the wheezing man from the room. John, who had fallen asleep in the chair around midnight, was too drowsy when woken by the quiet disturbance to ask any questions as for why. When he slowly woke to life, yawning and rubbing his eyes, he realised that this could only mean the arrival of Mycroft Holmes to the hospital. Finally.
It still took a good half an hour before the door opened again and an impeccably dressed Mycroft Holmes entered. John didn’t notice the clothes though, but how much less – and at the same time so, so much more – tired Sherlock’s brother looked, compared to the last time they’d met. It was really odd and John wished he had the Holmes brothers’ ability to deduce things about people to understand why, and how, this even was possible.
“I think we might be at war with the Netherlands,” Mycroft stated weary, placing his suit jacket on the empty chair next to John.
John stared at him. What did you answer to such a statement? Sure, when John screwed up at work bad things happened – people died – but that was just ridiculous! A bad day at the office didn’t end in war between two nations! What was it Mycroft did for a living? Juggling nuclear heads?
“I was joking,” Mycroft said when he saw the horror in John’s face, “but the tulip prices has most likely exploded.”
“I can live with that,” John nodded, feeling greatly uncomfortable. From what John could recall, Mycroft had never joked in his presence before. Not that this one had been a particularly good joke to tell a former soldier. Wonder if Sherlock would’ve appreciated it? Probably not.
The part of Mycroft that looked less tired than before, John realised, was the same part as the one making the (attempted) joke; it was something around his mouth, resembling a smile brought on by a happy memory, a pleasant evening or the victory after a match. The rest, the eyes and the body, looked completely drained.
John made these observations in silence when he gave Mycroft some moments to take in the sight of his brother. Seeing the older man standing next to the bed, almost reaching out to take Sherlock’s hand, John could imagining the Holmes brothers being to the whole EU what Mycroft alone was to the U.K.. If Sherlock would have straightened out earlier that was. World dominance was out of reach for them now.
“Did the test revile anything of interest?” Mycroft asked, without taking his eyes from Sherlock and without sitting down. John wondered if Mycroft refrained from looking at him when asking, afraid to read something in his eyes before he had said it.
“He has HIV.”
It wasn’t as even close to the death sentence it had once been. Not in Britain. Most people lived long enough to die from completely different things (like cancer or obesity or something equally fun), but these people weren’t usually drug users.
Maybe that was why the words sucked the air out of the room, why Mycroft had become so visibly tense that even John noticed it and why the bottom fell out of John’s stomach when he heard the letter combination spoken out loud.
Or maybe it was because they weren’t immune to the stigma that still surrounded the infected. Since both of them remembered the AIDS outbreak in the 80th, maybe they still couldn’t believe that it was a manageable disease, even though they both were highly educated, intelligent and logical men.
Maybe it was just because it was yet another problem, yet another setback, yet another unnecessary thing they had no control over.
“You bloody…” Mycroft started to say low under his breath, but then he seemed to remember that John was in the room and cut himself off. So he turned around instead, trying to look unmoved by the news. One look at John must have told him it was no use because he sighed and that hint of positivity that had been there when he arrived, vanished.
“Other than that?” he asked and finally sat down.
“In my tests? No…apparently he’s allergic to birch pollen, but….” John shrugged, “I assume you know what Dr. Patel found and did before I came?”
“Yes,” Mycroft underlined his answer with a nod, “Anything to add?”
“No…no, I think she’s good. Don’t know her, but haven’t heard anything bad about her,” John hoped that his personal doubt wouldn’t show, because that was all that they were, personal, not professional. He had no professional doubt that Sherlock had been given the best possible care. The best possible care for an ice lolly-hobo, but still, the woman had looked like a humanitarian and not a money-vampire.
“I really appreciate you doing this for him,” Mycroft said, looking at Sherlock rather than John.
John thought about admitting that he was truly doing it for Mycroft and not for Sherlock. There were just no good words for a confession like that, not that wouldn’t lead to other conversation subjects that John didn’t feel like having.
“No one should be alone with something like this,” he settled on, it was vague enough to mean whatever Mycroft wanted, or needed, it to.
“Would you object to becoming his doctor?”
“He’ll be the one with the objections,” John said, moving his eyes from Mycroft to Sherlock, “And, really, HIV treatments aren’t my area. I’m sure there are so many people, much more suitable than me.”
“Would you do that to someone else?” Mycroft wondered and when John looked back at him, the hint of a smile was on the older Holmes’ lips again. Tired, hopeless, worried, but a smile none the less.
John mirrored it. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Sigh.
Silence.
Just like when he had spent long periods of silence with Sherlock, John wondered what went on in that brilliant Holmes’ brain that was working so close to him. The years living with Sherlock had taught John the art of not needing small talk. Still, the silence with Mycroft felt more pressing. He wanted to ask about the memories that made Mycroft stand by Sherlock’s side; he wanted to know if Mycroft had any idea of why Sherlock had started using; he was interested in if Mycroft had any other family – he knew embarrassingly little about the man’s personal life; then there was the all the questions of how this particular situation had occurred. The only thing he didn’t felt like asking about was actually his job, which he was very interested in during normal circumstances.
“I put a fortune into perfecting the London syringe exchange program.”
It was an odd way to break the silence John thought and gave Mycroft a look. When he did, he saw an enormous amount of guilt and inadequacy. It didn’t suit Mycroft at all.
“It’s not your fault,” John was quick to ensure, encouragingly continuing with: “And the program is a very good thing.”
“I know…but, thank you,” Mycroft voice was sincere, but John was sure he thought he could have done more. John always did.
“Do you want some tea?” John suggested after a glimpse at his watch; it was a good bit past 3 o’clock.
“Yes please…one sugar” Mycroft accepted and John got on his feet; he felt stiff and a bit dizzy, but not at all as tired as he thought he should.
It was a relief to leave the room. Seeing something else than Sherlock’s frostbitten face, getting some distraction. It was also about time to leave Mycroft alone with his brother, if for nothing else, so that he could finish the sentence he had started when he had gotten the HIV notice. The tea was more a reason to leave than something John had wanted.
Nothing was open at this time. The night nurse showed him to a vending machine, even gave him a bit of change, and for the longest time John just stared at it. Unable to make a decision. Unable to perform the simple activity of pressing a button. Maybe the shock just hit him, maybe the severity of the situation came crushing down or maybe he was just tired beyond what a human mind could bear.
When the first cup finally filled up with a see-through, brown liquid, he realised he couldn’t bring the puppet master of the government tea from a vending machine. Half a second later he came to his senses, Mycroft wouldn’t care where the tea came from.
Nothing had changed when he returned with the tea. After Mycroft had thanked for the tea – even though John had forgotten about the sugar – they didn’t speak for the rest of the night. A plan had to be made for Sherlock’s treatment, they had to find a way to force (or trick) him into getting clean, but all that could wait until tomorrow. The whole world could wait until tomorrow.
John’s plan of going home disappeared, as he had said, no one should be alone with something like this. Not even the silent ruler of the United Kingdom.
***
“Satisfied?” Sherlock was sitting in John’s desk chair, spinning back and forth as if he was seven years old.
John was walking from the door with this month's test results in his hand; reading it over the edge of his glasses.
“Almost,” he said, with a small sigh, “Your virus levels are undetectable but…”
The sentence was in no need of finishing; Sherlock knew the rest, John had said it out loud every other time. There was nothing to say about the HIV treatment; from what John could tell, Sherlock followed it with the same determination as anything else he put his mind to. When it came to the addiction that had caused all this though, John still had much to wish for.
Sherlock was, if you asked him, clean now. If you asked John, he could go so far as to admit it was better than it had been in years. A close examination of Sherlock’s body had finally convinced him that Sherlock really had stop taking the drugs intravenously -- the same examination had proved that he had changed back to snorting. John imagined this being because both he and Mycroft had pointed out that passing needles around when one knew one was HIV positive was a criminal act. Sure, John only knew about people who had been found guilty of reckless inflicting of grievous bodily harm due to having unprotected sex with HIV negative individuals. He couldn’t see passing an infected needle around would be any different though. Seeing how Mycroft didn’t contradict him, he was pretty sure he was right.
It was a bit hard to believe Sherlock would stop doing something because it was illegal, but John could easily see how he would stop to protect the people around him who hadn’t a Mycroft or a John to see them through.
Yes, John still had some high thoughts left about Sherlock.
“You know,” Sherlock said, pausing intentionally to make John look at him, “You could just trust me.”
“Yea, well, you know,” John handed over the test result to Sherlock, pushing his glasses back in place, “You could just start being trustworthy.”
“Touché,” Sherlock smiled, looking through the paper he was given with the same mask of disinterest as usual. John was pretty sure he cared though; otherwise he wouldn’t demand to see it every time. On the other hand, the tests were simple and Sherlock might very well performed them all himself before coming here.
Sherlock coming to John once a month – much more often than necessary, really – to check his virus levels was a part of the deal though; Mycroft (through John) provided Sherlock with the necessary medication as long as Sherlock could prove he took them. Closest thing they could come to prove it was to check regularly, but it was far from 100 % certain. Virus levels could stay low without medication and they could be elevated even with medication.
It had been suspiciously easy to convince Sherlock to take this deal. For the first two-three month after Sherlock had been hospitalised with hypothermia John had thought it was only to get Mycroft off his back, but now Sherlock had been living with HIV for fourteen month and he still kept on coming to John. Without complaining. Without trying to worm his way out of it. The first seven month without even rolling his eyes or talking back to John.
Realists as both John and Mycroft were when it came to addicts, “getting clean” had not been a part of the deal. They wanted Sherlock to have access to the medication and they didn’t want to have to compromise and change the deal if Sherlock couldn’t hold his part. The cutting down on the drugs had all been on Sherlock’s initiative, of course neither John nor Mycroft complained.
“Done?” Sherlock asked, tossing the paper on the desk.
“Yea, yea….You’re free to go,” John said, waving him out of his chair.
No result.
“Get up,” John ordered in a pretend strict voice.
“Yes sir,” Sherlock said, saluting John, but not obeying.
John pretended to be irritated, but in all honesty, these short, silly arguments very the closest thing they had to “the way it was before”. John liked these sessions, but at the same time he hated them, since they reminded him of what he had lost.
It was hard, close to impossible, for them to socialise in any other way. The silences were uncomfortable; the serious conversations they forced were shallow. John dreaded this appointment every month, but if nothing else, it calmed his conscience and he felt he helped Mycroft. When he really needed to motivate himself to do it, he assured himself that keeping Sherlock healthy kept the country’s economy stable. Silly.
“I have other patients,” John informed.
“Yes, yes, you’re very important,” Sherlock said, jumping on his feet.
Finally.
“See you next week,” John said, seating himself in the chair before Sherlock could take it again.
“Next week?” Sherlock looked surprised, “But everything looked fine.”
“Did I say next week? I meant next month,” John corrected himself, feeling just a small sting of shame. Would it be that horrible seeing Sherlock next week already?
Yes.
“See you in March John,” Sherlock said with a smirk, leaving the room.
John wondered what was worst, seeing Mary die though she had fought to live, or to see Sherlock live such a self-destructing life. Perhaps it was seeing Sherlock throwing his life away when Mary always had taken such good care of hers?
One thing was clear to John though, every time Sherlock left, a small part of him wished that he wouldn’t come back.
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Date: 2011-07-07 04:38 am (UTC)