All is Fair in Love and War

The Gambit

An expression the doctor failed to place came over Sherlock's face. "Isn't it a human reaction to be concerned when one's best friend is poisoned?"

Feeling that he was skirting some abyss of uncharted territory, John nodded and slid forward on the hospital bed.

"Yes," he said slowly, "it is, but again, your tolerance for reactions bordering on 'human' is generally non-existent."

Sherlock's countenance turned, if it were possible, even stranger. "And you think that I would not be distressed by your loss." It was not phrased as a question, though there was a crease between his eyebrows that wrote confusion into the sentence.

"It's not that," John contended, though internally he wasn't entirely sure Sherlock would miss him in dying, either. "I was acutely poisoned by arsenic. Left untreated, yes, it would have been life-threatening, but you called an ambulance and knew I was going to recover. So I suppose I am surprised that, when there was no doubt of my being alright, you troubled yourself to be concerned."

"You would have been concerned if it were me."

John shook his head, not because it was untrue, but because it was utterly unlike the detective to say as much. "What's gotten into you? What happened to 'so much for this caring lark'? Has someone died? Is something going on that you're not telling me?"

Sherlock behaved even more oddly, then. His chin snapped down so that he met John's eyes directly, sidestepped the bed, and came to a halt right next to John. He took the doctor by the shoulders and turned him ninety degrees, staring him right in the face. John dimly registered his pulse flutter under the detective's strong grip. Time stood suspended as Sherlock's face hovered a mere inch from John's own.

"Uh, Sherlock?" John murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "What are you doing?"

With a snap that was almost audible, time sprang back into motion. Some impenetrable barrier in the detective's eyes slammed back into place and he turned around with as little warning as he had given when he had stepped forward.

His back very much to John, he spoke in a clipped, impartial voice far nearer his normal tones. "My analysis confirms what the instruments are showing; you are physically recovered from the ordeal, and time is ticking. I advise you get dressed, and then we can be off."

John's brow folded. "We can't just leave - there's paperwork to fill out, and -"

Sherlock waved him down. "I took care of it earlier."

"Don't you need to know my medical history for that?"

"Do you have a point?"

Sighing, the doctor swung his legs out of bed. "I suppose not."

Sherlock handed John his clothes from the day before and guarded the door to the over-small bathroom while his flatmate changed out of the cheap paper hospital gown. He started with the pants, wondering idly to himself about why the medical industry couldn't bother giving their patients a pair of trousers. Feeling rather more like himself, the blonde man pulled a sand-colored jumper on over his undershirt and strode out to where Sherlock was impatiently plugging search words into his mobile.

"No new crimes today that appear to follow Moriarty's line of business. It would seem that he's expecting us. Let's not disappoint."

"So - Rainham Marshes?" John asked as they stepped out into the hallway. Sherlock took the lead, following the exit signs, not to the front door but to the fire escape.

"Catch," he said, turning to John and tossing him his gun.

The doctor caught it, but frowned at Sherlock. "Don't you think you ought to have one, too?" he asked, looking skeptically at the detective.