Waking You Up

Wake You Up XXI

"How'd you know I popped a few stitches?" John asks. 

"Statistical probability," Sherlock says. "As I said before, knowing you, you were in here before you should've been moving about."

"I was," John admits. 

"These chairs are not designed for someone recovering from a stab wound," Sherlock says. "With you moving about, and not maintaining a position conductive for healing even when you were sitting still, upsetting your stitches was highly likely." He frowns. "The real wonder is why the staff allowed you to do this. Isn't it their job to ensure you heal? They should be fired."

John chuckles. He's nuzzled back against Sherlock's neck, now, and his breath huffs against Sherlock's skin. "I didn't give them a choice. And one did get fired." His eyes close. "Wish you could've seen it. One of your nurses, hated coming in here. Think he had you as a patient before. Think it was also partially because I was here, and he was one of those nurses that hates having doctors watch them work. Could see why, he was just doing the bare minimum. I was going to ask for him to be transferred, but then he mouthed off about you. Almost punched him, but Sally and Dave took care of it. Lucky for me they happened to be here, or I might have lost my ability to charm the other nurses into letting me stay in here."

Sherlock frowns. "And they fired him for this?"

John yawns and shifts closer. "What? Oh, no, he was fired because it was found he was fudging his break time and work hours, but I'm pretty sure Mycroft only told them about that because Lestrade mentioned what happened to him." 

Sherlock stares at him. "Lestrade and my brother are talking?"

"Mmm-hmm," John murmurs. "They've been here as often as they can, which isn't much, you know, with their schedules, and it coincided a lot. They cornered me the other day, together, to force me to leave long enough that they could each have five minutes alone to talk to you. Was terrifying. Longest ten minutes of my life." 

"My brother and Lestrade did something together?" Sherlock is vaguely horrified. 

"We really need to call them, Sherlock, they've been so worried," John tells him, but as his eyes are closed and his breathing is slowing, Sherlock doesn't feel the need to act immediately on his words. 

"I'll call them soon," Sherlock tells him. "Go to sleep, John, I've got you." 

John does, and Sherlock spends a long time listening to John breathing, feeling his heartbeat, basking in the warmth of John snuggling up to him. He never wants to move. 

Except no, not really, he doesn't want to lie there forever, even though the prospect is much more appealing than lying there alone. He shifts slightly to press the call button for a nurse. 

Sherlock's got a lot of people to thank, he thinks – though only one of them will likely ever get it, and he'll wait until he convinces a nurse to give him painkillers so he can blame it on them, should Lestrade ever bring it up again. 

But the biggest person he needs to thank, of course, is the one curled up next to him. While he waits for the nurse to arrive, Sherlock presses his lips to the top of John's head. "Thank you, John," he murmurs. It's a cop-out, Sherlock knows it is, but maybe he'll be able to say it again, one day, when John's actually listening. 

But later, much later, after John's woken up and everyone's come and gone and only John is still there, John looks at him and says, "You're welcome."

And Sherlock doesn't have to say it again, because John's already heard.