I don't own those characters, as always.

Enjoy.

Nightly Disturbances

John sighed as he unlocked the front door to 221B.

The evening had been nice, really, meeting Harry's ex-wife Clara for a few drinks and a little bit of chatting, but as soon as he had got out of the cab, he remembered what awaited him at home.

They hadn't had a case for two days, and naturally, Sherlock was bound to be bored. Only that he wasn't. In contrast, he had been quiet the entire morning, lazily lying on the sofa, idly picking on a string of his violin now and then. But not complaining.

Lestrade had called shortly after noon, offering them a case. John had had to answer Sherlock's mobile, with Sherlock too bored to get up and retrieve it himself. By the time John had already worked his way into his jacket and his shoes, ready to set off in a hurry as usual, Sherlock had declined the case, claiming it too unimportant to require his presence.

When he had got up from the sofa only seconds later, hurrying towards the bathroom and emerging again after a few minutes, visibly paler than before and sweating, John had known what was wrong.

"Why didn't you tell me you're ill?" he had asked, already debating with himself if he should leave and go to the chemist's, to buy anti-nausea stuff, cough syrup, tissues…

"I am not ill," Sherlock had mumbled, flopping down on the sofa again, facing the wall. "Case not interesting," he muffled into the pillow.

John had huffed in both amusement and exasperation. "I am reasonably sure…," he had begun, "that I would find traces of vomit in the toilet bowl if I started looking."

"Do as you please," had been the muttered reply.

John had remained silent for a few minutes. "You need anything?" he had asked then, nonetheless.

Sherlock had turned around on the sofa, pressing a pillow over his face. "What could I need? Not sick, told you."

After three more journeys to the bathroom in the course of the next hours Sherlock had had to admit that maybe, just maybe, he was a bit under the weather today.

"Want anything now?" John had wanted to know, not looking up from his book.

"Hmpf," was all he got to hear from his flatmate, hidden beneath a multicoloured striped blanket and four pillows. "Turn the heating up," Sherlock then demanded, tossing again until he faced the ceiling. "Cold in here."

"It's not actually cold, you know," John had clarified teasingly. "You have a fever, and that's why your body's perceiving perfectly normal room temperature as cold. Because of your fever."

"No fever," Sherlock had corrected him lazily, not even bothering with removing his arm from his closed eyes. "Temperature's slightly elevated, that's…"

John had smirked as soon as Sherlock had cut himself off, realising what he just had admitted. "I thought you weren't sick," he reminded his flatmate.

Sherlock had given a dry cough and sneezed as if to prove John's point. "Not sick," he had nonetheless declared adamantly. Another toss on the sofa sent one pillow falling to the floor, bringing Sherlock face to face with John this time, a rather unhappy expression displayed on his features. "Although I might be… feeling a bit unwell."

John still chuckled quietly to himself while he as silently as possible was climbing the stairs to their flat now.

A bit unwell. The one time he was going to hear Sherlock say that he was ill, in fact, he made a mental note for himself, he would have to ring hospital immediately. If a bout of flu was 'unwell', then John rather wouldn't find out what 'sick' meant.

However, after having placed three different tablets - headache, nausea, fever - as well as a glass of water and a glass of juice and a few slices of toast on the table next to the sofa, bickered Sherlock into grabbing his mobile phone to call him as soon as he felt worse, after he had found two extra blankets and a bucket he had stored on the floor, directly in Sherlock's reach, and had asked Mrs Hudson to check on Sherlock once or twice in the course of the evening after having told Sherlock to take it easy, to just rest for a bit longer, John had left for his appointment with Clara, clearly looking forward to meeting his former sister-in-law again.

And now he was home again, hesitating in front of the door to the living room. His instinct told him to look after Sherlock again - he had received a few texts during the evening, all of them saying something along the lines of 'How do I fall asleep most efficiently?' or 'Something's wrong with my nose. It feels… stuffed', but no call which meant that everything was relatively fine (or that both his landlady and his flatmate had already died from some kind of plague). But then, on the other hand, he did not feel the need to deal with probable complaints about room temperature that late in the evening, being slightly intoxicated as he was, or with an experiment regarding the consistency of vomit depending on what one had ingested earlier.

Hovering in the hallway certainly wasn't what John felt like doing right now, and because the book he had been reading in was still lying on the table, too, he decided to take the risk.

After one step he had made inside the living room he realised that his worry - both types of his worry - had been unnecessary since Sherlock was apparently sleeping. And snoring, probably due to a clogged nose.

Smiling softly to himself, utterly aware of the fact that resting was the best Sherlock could do right now when he was feeling 'unwell', John quietly ventured further into the room, not switching on the light on purpose. There was no need to wake Sherlock now, in the middle of the night, when he was clearly sick and finally finding some sleep, finally after - going by the texts he had sent John - hours of tossing and turning, tired, but unable to fall asleep.

He only needed to grab his book, check on Sherlock and disappear again, heading for his own room and his comfortable bed.

Unfortunately, John's plan had not considered that there might be a blanket lying discardedly on the floor. Promptly, his feet got tangled, and before he had realised it, John stumbled and fell, face first. Desperate to grab anything, anything at all, to slow his disgraceful descent, John's hands gripped whatever they could find - which turned out to be a pile of books on his right side and a mug and a teapot, formerly placed on the table, on his left, all of it crashing to the floor together with John, causing a rather horrifying noise.

And a loud one, of course.

The snoring stopped, being replaced by the sound of shuffling.

"Fuck," John cursed under his breath, trying to untangle his feet without slicing his wrists on the shards of the teapot. Once he had succeeded, he threw the blanket away, panting heavily. Throwing things in the dark, however, was never a good idea, because this time, John managed to hit Sherlock's music stand with the blanket, knocking it down, too, causing another loud sound upon hitting the floor.

"Fuck," he repeated without thinking, listening for a few seconds.

Only to hear an exasperated sigh, lacking vehemence, however.

"John," Sherlock's voice said from the dark. "What the hell are you doing?"

Seconds later, the lights flickered on, revealing Sherlock on the sofa, propped up on one elbow, his hair in disarray, and John on the floor, rather breathless, increduously staring at the chaos around him.

"Trying not to wake you," he finally answered, scrambling to his feet. "Isn't it obvious?"

Sherlock looked honestly confused for a moment before his lips curved into a frail smile. "Terribly obvious," he mumbled, then cleared his throat. "My voice is hoarse, John, why is it?"

John chuckled quietly to himself. "You're ill, remember?" He paused for moment, staring intently at Sherlock. "Sorry for waking you," he then said. "Want a cup of tea?"

"Tea," Sherlock rasped. "It's hot, why should I want tea?"

Putting up the music stand again, John allowed himself to smile. "It'll do your throat good. Besides, it wouldn't be that hot if you would get rid of your blankets. But not on the floor," he added quickly. "Almost broke my neck there."

Slowly sitting up and swinging his legs to the edge of the sofa, Sherlock huffed. "Certainly made enough noise. Hope you didn't wake Mrs Hudson," he muttered under his breath. "Tea, then?" he added louder.

Haphazardly tossing his jacket at his armchair, John made his way to the kitchen. Sherlock followed him a bit later, yawning, one of the blankets - the horribly striped one - draped across his shoulders, additional to his dressing gown hanging loosely around his body. "Had a good evening?" he wanted to know, sounding rather disinterested, flopping down on the one chair.

"Mh," John confirmed, counting spoons in his head. "You, too?" The question was out before he had thought about it.

"Brilliant," Sherlock replied, yawning again loudly. "Something's wrong with the heating, the temperature… not steady. Too warm, then too cold. And I didn't need your bucket."

"Good," John told him. "So you're feeling better?"

"Mh," Sherlock made, yawning for the third time. "Until you woke me, yes."

John grimaced at that. "Sorry, Sherlock. Didn't intend to. But then, you should rather sleep in your bed instead of the sofa…," he couldn't help to add.

Sherlock sighed lazily. "If you hadn't been that loud…," he mumbled.

Five minutes later, John was able to present his flatmate a cup of tea, carrying it to the living room and setting it down on the table, Sherlock following behind, yawning and sneezing.

"Than' you," he mumbled, taking a first gulping sip.

"No problem," John replied, grinning.

Seconds later, Sherlock almost spat out the mouthful of tea. "What's that?" he asked, confused. "It's too sweet…"

"Honey," John explained patiently. "Helps your sore throat."

Sherlock stared at him disgustedly. "Really," he rasped, taking another sip, more careful this time. "Doesn't taste too fine," he announced.

John chuckled. "Drink it," he demanded nonetheless.

Sherlock almost nodded off with his mug in his hand, jerking awake only seconds before he could spill the tea - and then sneezed. "Uagh," he made with distaste, snuffling. "Why does it have to be so nasty?"

"Go to bed," John told him softly. "Tomorrow morning, you'll feel better."

"… be asleep if you hadn't woken…," he heard Sherlock mumble as he made his way to the kitchen, placing the two mugs in the sink.

When he returned to the living room, he found a certain lump on the sofa again, a lump with two blankets, three pillows and ruffled hair, facing the wall.

"Bed, Sherlock, I said bed," he mumbled to himself while fumbling for the light switch.

"Goo' night, John," it whispered from the sofa, followed by a sneeze. "Try not to break my violin."

John succeeded, and everything went dark. "Good night, Sherlock," he echoed. While he was carefully making his way towards the door, walking slowly and fumbling for everything that might be in his way, the snoring began again, making John smile.

By the time he had reached his room, he realised that he had forgotten the book he originally had intended to fetch. Going downstairs again? Disturbing Sherlock again? Nope. Not worth the risk. Instead, John went to bed right away, dreaming of broken violins and cups of tea in the night.

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