Fic: A Medical Examination of One Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock)
Title: A Medical Examination of One Sherlock Holmes
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson mention of Mycroft Holmes
Rating: 18+
Summary: Sherlock’s habit of not mentioning injuries has pushed John’s temper to snap point with his flat mate. Written because of this discussion.
NOW WITH FANART! Picture of Sherlock texting by the lovely capaow
Warnings: Explicit sex. Medically described injuries or mostly superficial nature.
“I’ve had it, Sherlock! I am not putting up with this anymore!”
John was not angry. He had passed angry when he caught up to Sherlock and found him reeling and swaying on the ground, looking nauseous and clutching his neck.
He had gone way past angry when he went to check the injury and Sherlock pulled away, only to grimace and try to hide the bruise lower down, near the shoulder.
By now, after a tense cab trip home, John was furious.
Sherlock turned around to speak and John shoved him hard, back towards his bedroom. “No. Do not speak. Just get into your room. I am not in the mood, Sherlock, I’m sick of you putting your life on the line constantly and needlessly by refusing medical treatment!”
The new retort was also silenced with another push backwards. “Move, or I carry you.”
Finally, Sherlock gave up and went to his room, John following behind him until they were inside Sherlock’s room and he could kick the door shut and turn on the light.
Despite the state of the rest of the house, this room remained mostly untouched by the chaos. There were books, lots of them, but the bed was clear and the wardrobe neat.
Sherlock turned around and raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Strip,” John calmly.
“You must be kidding me,” Sherlock drawled.
“Strip, or I will strip you. One way, your clothes survive intact. Not naked, but down to your shorts.” John stayed in front of the door, arms folded over his chest.
“I admit, John, usually your motives are plain to me, but this time you have me at a bit of a loose end.” Wisely, Sherlock was removing his coat as he talked, hanging it on a bed post and his scarf joining it.
“You ignore injuries until they’re serious and debilitating. You don’t even mention half of them to me and I’m your closest friend and a doctor.” He took a breath. “So, you are going to strip and lie down and let me find those injuries and apply whatever treatment I feel is medically necessary and you are not going to fight me on this or so help me, Sherlock, I will walk out of this flat and go stay with Harry. If I want to see someone I care about self destruct, it might as well be a slow death of alcohol.”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment and then continued to strip. John watched as Sherlock’s jacket came off, then his shirt and belt, shoes, socks and finally pants until he was standing there, all pale skin and mottled injuries.
If John’s temper had cooled, this would have flared it up again. “Sit. On the bed. Feet on the floor.
Again, Sherlock was obedient, sitting down and watching John, to see what he’d do.
What he did was take off his jacket and roll up his shirt sleeved before coming over and kneeling down, finger tips tracing over Sherlock’s bony, scratched up knees.
“What do you see, John,” Sherlock prompted.
He glanced up to that pale gaze and down again, focusing his mind to his profession. “Old scarring, over twenty years old. Cluster puncturing, same age of healing, landed on your knees at speed on gravel, I’d say. The rest... scratches, grazes, there’s too many for me to categorise them all. Minor injuries in an area that scars due to require skin elasticity.”
His hands ghosted down one leg, hovering over marks. “Subcutaneous bruising, shape suggests a kick. Another subcutaneous bruise, parried blow with outer calf.” He stroked Sherlock’s ankle, feeling for lumps or hidden contusions.
Sherlock’s long toes curled into the carpet, white knuckled as John continued to gently touch his skin, working out along his toes one by one. John heard a hiss and paused, repeating the touch to the same result. “Pain in the third, fourth and fifth distant phalanges. Probable fracture, possible periosteal, bruising on the bone. No visible bruising, so it wasn’t a strike, more likely stubbing them or catching them in an awkward movement. Those bones can break fairly easily. No wonder you were slower off the mark than usual.”
Setting the foot down carefully, he picked up Sherlock’s left foot, looking it over. “Minor laceration to the side of the foot, some sign of healing... Entry isn’t consistent with stepping on something...” he looked up, trying to think what had caused the injury. He looked back down, lifting Sherlock’s foot to rest on his own knee while he examined it. “Signs of minor burning along one edge. You dropped a beaker, it shattered and one of the pieces embedded. Whatever was coating one side of the glass was caustic.”
“Excellent,” Sherlock breathed out. “Your deductive reasoning improves substantially when you’re in your element, John.”
“I’m still not happy with you, Sherlock,” John pointed out. “You should have treated this. It could have infected.”
“I washed it with water.”
“Not helping your cause, Sherlock.” He stood up. “Lie down, on your stomach. I’ll be back. Do not do anything else, you can survive a few minutes without being entertained.”
He headed out, shutting the door behind him and going up to his room, fetching his medical kit and bringing it back down.
Sherlock was lying on his stomach, feet waving in the air like a child might do, texting away on his phone.
“Who are you annoying?” He sat on the edge of the bed, catching the injured foot in his hands and guiding it down to his lap.
“Mycroft.” He closed his phone and put it aside, resting his cheek on his folded arms. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning this and putting a dressing on it.”
“It happened three days ago.”
“I know. Feet are particularly susceptible to infection, especially when you’re an idiot and don’t properly treat the injury when it happens.”
Sherlock hissed as John rubbed iodine over the injury, careful to not disturb the healing scab more than he had too but there was a redness to the injury that he wasn’t happy with. “Stop being a baby,” he murmured. He smoothed a cream on with one thumb, a single stroke to evenly apply it to the laceration before he plucked out a water proof dressing and sealed it over the area. “Leave the dressing until it comes loose on its own, it should keep the scarring down, let it heal cleaner.”
“I don’t care about scars,” Sherlock said dismissively.
“I figured, but it will still heal better if you leave it alone.” He set down Sherlock’s foot, running his eyes up his legs for more injuries but saw nothing but old scars. Older than their friendship.
“Are you done?”
“I’ve barely started,” he snapped back, feeling that rise of heat. Sherlock’s cavalier attitude about his health might suit him, but it made John angry. “Stay.”
Even Sherlock managed to grasp that John was not joking about this. He settled down again, stretching his spine out.
John’s gaze lingered, for a brief moment looking past scars and marks to just the simplest lines. The definition of muscle with too little body fat overlying it, the latissimus dorsal over his ribs strong, but doing little to conceal the curve of ribs and the prominence of his scapula.
Then he let himself adjust back to rest of it. The anger bubbled back, not all of it aimed at Sherlock.
He started low on Sherlock’s back, where the waist of his trunks did a poor job concealing an old bruise. His fingers brushed over cool skin, but Sherlock didn’t flinch. “Bruising healed to superficial discolouration, probably two weeks old from the rate of healing and colour fade. Relatively even distribution, no lacerations... impact, through clothing. no object pattern. You landed hard, probably thrown. You didn’t tell me about this.”
“Nothing to say,” he mumbled into his arms.
“How about, ‘John, I was in a fight today and I’m a bit sore from it, would you make sure I don’t have any serious damage’, hm?” He pushed down gently and felt the knotting in the muscles. “Lingering trauma in the thoracolumbar fascia.” He pushed firmer and Sherlock made a pained sound, arching and unable to escape the relentless press of John’s thumbs.
He released and Sherlock melted with a happy sound. “You also have an impressive amount of chronic tension in your spine, probably in your shoulders and neck. You need to relax sometimes.”
“You don’t,” he mumbled.
“I’m your doctor, I’m allowed to live by the maxim ‘Do as I say, not as I do’. And I’ll relax more once you start taking care of your health and safety.” He ran his hands up the cool skin of Sherlock’s back.
Sherlock sighed and bent his head down a little more.
“You wouldn’t get so cold if you ate enough,” he murmured. He ran his hands over Sherlock’s skin lightly, hovering over a lump. “Contusion, blunt force trauma.” He circled the injury lightly, with his fingertips alone. “Applied through an even area, sharply. No discolouration. Something was thrown at you and bounced off your middle back.” He trailed up higher.
“Scar. Uneven laceration with evidence of ripping in the dermis. Blade, sharp at the tip but blunter further down, it tore rather than cutting. Slashing action, caused damage to the infraspinatus fascia and trapezoid muscles from the atrophic nature of the scar. Evidence of professional suturing and removal of stitches, you were treated in a hospital. The scar is at least twelve months old, more likely two years but no more than five.”
He felt the scar slowly, where the skin puckered down, smooth and pale for such a nasty injury. He could see Sherlock’s skin tense and prickle with the touches, though the man himself remained still and quiet.
John passed some nearly healed grazes and bruises and came up to Sherlock’s right scapula, gently pressing. Sherlock arched against his hands.
“Minor displacement of the scapula.” He felt the muscles, drawing small hisses from his flat mate. “Muscular aggravation, inflammation... Sherlock, how long have you had have this?”
Sherlock made a sound which probably meant ‘longer than I want to admit to’. John sighed and carefully felt for the correct place. “Deep breath in.”
He felt the grind under his fingers as Sherlock breathed. “Hold it.” He moved to another position, to get his weight behind his hands. “Exhale.”
As he did so, John pushed and slid the bone back into the right place, rubbing the tender spot. “Set. You’re a bloody idiot, Sherlock.” He kept massaging to work out the worst of the knot.
Sherlock grumbled incomprehensibly into his arm and pillow.
John sat down, tucked in against Sherlock’s ribs and examining his shoulders and neck, which had inadvertently set this off.
The mottling covered a large length of skin and a multitude of sins. John bit back another surge of anger, at Sherlock for saying nothing, at himself for not noticing sooner, at every arsehole who had put one of these on Sherlock’s pale skin.
“You never ignore injuries again.” He examined the older mark, a cold knot in his stomach. “Manual strangulation. Blunt force object, rob, similar to a nightstick or broom handle. Compression of the jugular briefly, main damage on the trapezoid muscle. Evenly applied force, they had a hand on either side and were pulling back. Strongest way to apply force.” He shifted Sherlock’s head to face away from him, head tipped back to bare his throat, pressing softly along his throat to feel for anything suspicious.
Sherlock made the faintest whimpering sound and John leaned down close. “Breathe. I need to hear if you have any internal damage.”
He listened as Sherlock breathed, no wheezing, but his breath shook slightly. John took another breath. “And again.” He breathed out slowly as Sherlock did, taking in another shudder and shiver from his flat mate. “Does it hurt?”
“No,” he said gently. “Breathing doesn’t hurt.”
He sat up, fingers lingering on Sherlock’s larynx. “Minimal damage, minor discolouration, no visible contusions. You managed to take most of the blow on your jaw and neck rather than your throat.”
Sherlock looked up at him, eyes wide and pupils dark.
“What,” he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.
For a moment, it looked like Sherlock was going to say something, but instead he shook his head and closed his eyes.
John let it go, moving along Sherlock’s left arm and find nothing more than spot burns and grazes he already knew about. He leaned over his flat mate’s body, both hands on his arm and pushing along skin and muscle until Sherlock made another noise of protest.
“No contusions, no discolouration. No dislocation. Strain. You’ve put too much on your arm, probably in the tendons, not the muscles.”
“Your deductive skills-” Sherlock’s voice was raspy briefly, until he swallowed. “Are proving to be more developed than I had thought.”
“Are you sure your throat is okay?”
He nodded.
“If you’re lying to me...”
“You’ve checked me out. Am I lying to you, John?”
He leaned back, hands gently stroking Sherlock’s throat again, checking once more. Sherlock swallowed.
“No. You’re not lying.” He ran his hands back, pressing into tensed and knotted muscles. “Your splenius capitis and servicis muscles are in terrible states.”
Sherlock made a small noise.
“You need to go to a massage therapist.”
“I don’t like strangers touching me. No.”
“God, you’re a pain.” He patted his back. “Roll over.”
“You’re done more than enough, John.” Pushing himself up onto his elbows, Sherlock shook his head to ruffle out his hair. “I don’t think I want to be touched anymore.”
“Tough. You’re getting touched.” He laid a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “I can’t trust you with your health.”
“My body is my concern, I will treat it as I see fit,” Sherlock bitched.
“You could be injured,” John snapped.
“I don’t care,” Sherlock yelled back.
“I do!” He grabbed and flipped Sherlock onto his back, pinning him with an arm across his shoulders, putting his weight onto the weak right arm so he couldn’t be thrown. “I am sick of this cavalier attitude towards your health and well being, Sherlock Holmes! I have seriously had enough and you will not be doing it anymore because as of now, I am revoking your right to judge on your own physical health! You’re incapable of assessing your own needs so I am going to do it for you and you will listen to me, or I will make you listen! Do you understand me?”
Sherlock stared up at him, eyes wide and dark and breath shallow.
John stared back.
“I have never found anyone as sexually attractive as you when you were mapping me like I can map the world,” Sherlock breathed out.
Whatever John had been about to say died from his lips as he realised the other things he could do with his mouth instead.
He didn’t let up off Sherlock’s shoulders as he leaned down and kissed him, hard and deep like he seemed to be inviting with that heavy gaze and those parted lips.
Sherlock’s hand came up to grab his arm, holding onto his arm as he tilted into the kiss, teeth sharply nipping John’s mouth. John heard one of them moan softly an shifted to cup Sherlock’s head with one hand, fingers tangling in the mass of dark curls.
Then he was hitting the bed on his back, Sherlock landing on him with barely a pause in the kiss, biting harder before shoving his tongue into John’s mouth.
John rolled them back over with some effort, Sherlock kept them moving, John flipped them once more and they landed side by side, Sherlock’s back against the wall and John flush against him.
All the anger and fear and frustration that had been bubbling through John found voice in their kisses, in the way they surged against one another, Sherlock occasionally trying to shift, John pushing him back against the wall again. His shirt was ripped open by Sherlock’s eager hands as his own buried again in those thick locks, guiding him into a deeper kiss.
He could feel the tiny ulceration of bites in Sherlock’s mouth, spots that made the younger man moan as he licked them, made them both shudder as Sherlock’s hands ripped open John’s pants and John’s shoved down Sherlock’s trunks. Their legs wrapped together; John was careful not to let Sherlock get him in a lock to flip him over again.
Sherlock’s hands came up to grab and push at John’s chest, ducking his head to nip along the jagged scar on John’s shoulders. “Massive trauma,” he murmured against John’s skin, breath damp and hot. “Field dressing. Evidence of operation with a military blade, bullet extraction.”
“You already knew all that,” John gasped, moaning as Sherlock’s tongue wiggled around the edge of the scarring. Long fingers framed the scar, stroking and then pushing quickly.
John grabbed Sherlock’s hands, lacing their fingers and pushing Sherlock’s hands over his head to pin them against the wall. “Stop it,” he whispered against his mouth. “I’ll take care of us both, just stop being so needlessly aggressive about it.” He nipped Sherlock’s mouth, squeezing his hands and shifting his body to rub their cocks together.
With their legs tangled, Sherlock’s hands in his and the wall there, John had Sherlock firmly held in place to grind their bodies together, a hard grind and rock together. He could taste his moans and the tint of blood as his mouth has bitten again, in frustrated want and lust. Sherlock’s toes flexed and gripped onto his legs and the sheets as he bucked against him and John badly wanted to let his hands go, to grab his body and pull them hard together but he didn’t, wanted to make Sherlock understand that his body had needs, like sleep and food and fucking and John was going to make sure he saw to those needs.
The next kiss was tongue to tongue and chest to chest and their bodies rolling and grinding in a heated rhythm. Sherlock broke it to gasp and groan. “John-”
“I know,” he whispered. “Increased respiration and heartbeat. Flushing of the face and chest, tangible muscular, fuck, Sherlock, contractions of, Christ...” Sherlock was sucking on his earlobe, moaning and bucking as he spoke.
Nails scratched over his back as Sherlock pushed as hard off the wall as he could, body jerking as he came, heated and beautiful as he gasped for breath. John held on still, grinding against Sherlock’s tense body until the coil of knotted tension snapped and released and he was coming with a low, breathless groan.
They sank down together, John letting Sherlock’s hands go and Sherlock promptly buried them in John’s hair and kissed him slow and deep, like he could taste the difference between John pent up and John relaxed.
John kissed back, relaxing against Sherlock. He expected Sherlock to shove him onto his back and pin him, or scramble to go and get up and get back to doing things.
He didn’t. He cuddled in closer, pushing John’s trousers all the way off and tangling their legs.
“I was serious before,” John murmured, kissing the top of Sherlock’s head. “I’m revoking your right to make health based decisions. You might not care about your body, but I do. It keeps you alive, despite the way you punish it.”
“So long as you promise to do it like this every time,” Sherlock purred.
John smiled to himself.
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson mention of Mycroft Holmes
Rating: 18+
Summary: Sherlock’s habit of not mentioning injuries has pushed John’s temper to snap point with his flat mate. Written because of this discussion.
NOW WITH FANART! Picture of Sherlock texting by the lovely capaow
Warnings: Explicit sex. Medically described injuries or mostly superficial nature.
“I’ve had it, Sherlock! I am not putting up with this anymore!”
John was not angry. He had passed angry when he caught up to Sherlock and found him reeling and swaying on the ground, looking nauseous and clutching his neck.
He had gone way past angry when he went to check the injury and Sherlock pulled away, only to grimace and try to hide the bruise lower down, near the shoulder.
By now, after a tense cab trip home, John was furious.
Sherlock turned around to speak and John shoved him hard, back towards his bedroom. “No. Do not speak. Just get into your room. I am not in the mood, Sherlock, I’m sick of you putting your life on the line constantly and needlessly by refusing medical treatment!”
The new retort was also silenced with another push backwards. “Move, or I carry you.”
Finally, Sherlock gave up and went to his room, John following behind him until they were inside Sherlock’s room and he could kick the door shut and turn on the light.
Despite the state of the rest of the house, this room remained mostly untouched by the chaos. There were books, lots of them, but the bed was clear and the wardrobe neat.
Sherlock turned around and raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Strip,” John calmly.
“You must be kidding me,” Sherlock drawled.
“Strip, or I will strip you. One way, your clothes survive intact. Not naked, but down to your shorts.” John stayed in front of the door, arms folded over his chest.
“I admit, John, usually your motives are plain to me, but this time you have me at a bit of a loose end.” Wisely, Sherlock was removing his coat as he talked, hanging it on a bed post and his scarf joining it.
“You ignore injuries until they’re serious and debilitating. You don’t even mention half of them to me and I’m your closest friend and a doctor.” He took a breath. “So, you are going to strip and lie down and let me find those injuries and apply whatever treatment I feel is medically necessary and you are not going to fight me on this or so help me, Sherlock, I will walk out of this flat and go stay with Harry. If I want to see someone I care about self destruct, it might as well be a slow death of alcohol.”
Sherlock was quiet for a moment and then continued to strip. John watched as Sherlock’s jacket came off, then his shirt and belt, shoes, socks and finally pants until he was standing there, all pale skin and mottled injuries.
If John’s temper had cooled, this would have flared it up again. “Sit. On the bed. Feet on the floor.
Again, Sherlock was obedient, sitting down and watching John, to see what he’d do.
What he did was take off his jacket and roll up his shirt sleeved before coming over and kneeling down, finger tips tracing over Sherlock’s bony, scratched up knees.
“What do you see, John,” Sherlock prompted.
He glanced up to that pale gaze and down again, focusing his mind to his profession. “Old scarring, over twenty years old. Cluster puncturing, same age of healing, landed on your knees at speed on gravel, I’d say. The rest... scratches, grazes, there’s too many for me to categorise them all. Minor injuries in an area that scars due to require skin elasticity.”
His hands ghosted down one leg, hovering over marks. “Subcutaneous bruising, shape suggests a kick. Another subcutaneous bruise, parried blow with outer calf.” He stroked Sherlock’s ankle, feeling for lumps or hidden contusions.
Sherlock’s long toes curled into the carpet, white knuckled as John continued to gently touch his skin, working out along his toes one by one. John heard a hiss and paused, repeating the touch to the same result. “Pain in the third, fourth and fifth distant phalanges. Probable fracture, possible periosteal, bruising on the bone. No visible bruising, so it wasn’t a strike, more likely stubbing them or catching them in an awkward movement. Those bones can break fairly easily. No wonder you were slower off the mark than usual.”
Setting the foot down carefully, he picked up Sherlock’s left foot, looking it over. “Minor laceration to the side of the foot, some sign of healing... Entry isn’t consistent with stepping on something...” he looked up, trying to think what had caused the injury. He looked back down, lifting Sherlock’s foot to rest on his own knee while he examined it. “Signs of minor burning along one edge. You dropped a beaker, it shattered and one of the pieces embedded. Whatever was coating one side of the glass was caustic.”
“Excellent,” Sherlock breathed out. “Your deductive reasoning improves substantially when you’re in your element, John.”
“I’m still not happy with you, Sherlock,” John pointed out. “You should have treated this. It could have infected.”
“I washed it with water.”
“Not helping your cause, Sherlock.” He stood up. “Lie down, on your stomach. I’ll be back. Do not do anything else, you can survive a few minutes without being entertained.”
He headed out, shutting the door behind him and going up to his room, fetching his medical kit and bringing it back down.
Sherlock was lying on his stomach, feet waving in the air like a child might do, texting away on his phone.
“Who are you annoying?” He sat on the edge of the bed, catching the injured foot in his hands and guiding it down to his lap.
“Mycroft.” He closed his phone and put it aside, resting his cheek on his folded arms. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning this and putting a dressing on it.”
“It happened three days ago.”
“I know. Feet are particularly susceptible to infection, especially when you’re an idiot and don’t properly treat the injury when it happens.”
Sherlock hissed as John rubbed iodine over the injury, careful to not disturb the healing scab more than he had too but there was a redness to the injury that he wasn’t happy with. “Stop being a baby,” he murmured. He smoothed a cream on with one thumb, a single stroke to evenly apply it to the laceration before he plucked out a water proof dressing and sealed it over the area. “Leave the dressing until it comes loose on its own, it should keep the scarring down, let it heal cleaner.”
“I don’t care about scars,” Sherlock said dismissively.
“I figured, but it will still heal better if you leave it alone.” He set down Sherlock’s foot, running his eyes up his legs for more injuries but saw nothing but old scars. Older than their friendship.
“Are you done?”
“I’ve barely started,” he snapped back, feeling that rise of heat. Sherlock’s cavalier attitude about his health might suit him, but it made John angry. “Stay.”
Even Sherlock managed to grasp that John was not joking about this. He settled down again, stretching his spine out.
John’s gaze lingered, for a brief moment looking past scars and marks to just the simplest lines. The definition of muscle with too little body fat overlying it, the latissimus dorsal over his ribs strong, but doing little to conceal the curve of ribs and the prominence of his scapula.
Then he let himself adjust back to rest of it. The anger bubbled back, not all of it aimed at Sherlock.
He started low on Sherlock’s back, where the waist of his trunks did a poor job concealing an old bruise. His fingers brushed over cool skin, but Sherlock didn’t flinch. “Bruising healed to superficial discolouration, probably two weeks old from the rate of healing and colour fade. Relatively even distribution, no lacerations... impact, through clothing. no object pattern. You landed hard, probably thrown. You didn’t tell me about this.”
“Nothing to say,” he mumbled into his arms.
“How about, ‘John, I was in a fight today and I’m a bit sore from it, would you make sure I don’t have any serious damage’, hm?” He pushed down gently and felt the knotting in the muscles. “Lingering trauma in the thoracolumbar fascia.” He pushed firmer and Sherlock made a pained sound, arching and unable to escape the relentless press of John’s thumbs.
He released and Sherlock melted with a happy sound. “You also have an impressive amount of chronic tension in your spine, probably in your shoulders and neck. You need to relax sometimes.”
“You don’t,” he mumbled.
“I’m your doctor, I’m allowed to live by the maxim ‘Do as I say, not as I do’. And I’ll relax more once you start taking care of your health and safety.” He ran his hands up the cool skin of Sherlock’s back.
Sherlock sighed and bent his head down a little more.
“You wouldn’t get so cold if you ate enough,” he murmured. He ran his hands over Sherlock’s skin lightly, hovering over a lump. “Contusion, blunt force trauma.” He circled the injury lightly, with his fingertips alone. “Applied through an even area, sharply. No discolouration. Something was thrown at you and bounced off your middle back.” He trailed up higher.
“Scar. Uneven laceration with evidence of ripping in the dermis. Blade, sharp at the tip but blunter further down, it tore rather than cutting. Slashing action, caused damage to the infraspinatus fascia and trapezoid muscles from the atrophic nature of the scar. Evidence of professional suturing and removal of stitches, you were treated in a hospital. The scar is at least twelve months old, more likely two years but no more than five.”
He felt the scar slowly, where the skin puckered down, smooth and pale for such a nasty injury. He could see Sherlock’s skin tense and prickle with the touches, though the man himself remained still and quiet.
John passed some nearly healed grazes and bruises and came up to Sherlock’s right scapula, gently pressing. Sherlock arched against his hands.
“Minor displacement of the scapula.” He felt the muscles, drawing small hisses from his flat mate. “Muscular aggravation, inflammation... Sherlock, how long have you had have this?”
Sherlock made a sound which probably meant ‘longer than I want to admit to’. John sighed and carefully felt for the correct place. “Deep breath in.”
He felt the grind under his fingers as Sherlock breathed. “Hold it.” He moved to another position, to get his weight behind his hands. “Exhale.”
As he did so, John pushed and slid the bone back into the right place, rubbing the tender spot. “Set. You’re a bloody idiot, Sherlock.” He kept massaging to work out the worst of the knot.
Sherlock grumbled incomprehensibly into his arm and pillow.
John sat down, tucked in against Sherlock’s ribs and examining his shoulders and neck, which had inadvertently set this off.
The mottling covered a large length of skin and a multitude of sins. John bit back another surge of anger, at Sherlock for saying nothing, at himself for not noticing sooner, at every arsehole who had put one of these on Sherlock’s pale skin.
“You never ignore injuries again.” He examined the older mark, a cold knot in his stomach. “Manual strangulation. Blunt force object, rob, similar to a nightstick or broom handle. Compression of the jugular briefly, main damage on the trapezoid muscle. Evenly applied force, they had a hand on either side and were pulling back. Strongest way to apply force.” He shifted Sherlock’s head to face away from him, head tipped back to bare his throat, pressing softly along his throat to feel for anything suspicious.
Sherlock made the faintest whimpering sound and John leaned down close. “Breathe. I need to hear if you have any internal damage.”
He listened as Sherlock breathed, no wheezing, but his breath shook slightly. John took another breath. “And again.” He breathed out slowly as Sherlock did, taking in another shudder and shiver from his flat mate. “Does it hurt?”
“No,” he said gently. “Breathing doesn’t hurt.”
He sat up, fingers lingering on Sherlock’s larynx. “Minimal damage, minor discolouration, no visible contusions. You managed to take most of the blow on your jaw and neck rather than your throat.”
Sherlock looked up at him, eyes wide and pupils dark.
“What,” he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.
For a moment, it looked like Sherlock was going to say something, but instead he shook his head and closed his eyes.
John let it go, moving along Sherlock’s left arm and find nothing more than spot burns and grazes he already knew about. He leaned over his flat mate’s body, both hands on his arm and pushing along skin and muscle until Sherlock made another noise of protest.
“No contusions, no discolouration. No dislocation. Strain. You’ve put too much on your arm, probably in the tendons, not the muscles.”
“Your deductive skills-” Sherlock’s voice was raspy briefly, until he swallowed. “Are proving to be more developed than I had thought.”
“Are you sure your throat is okay?”
He nodded.
“If you’re lying to me...”
“You’ve checked me out. Am I lying to you, John?”
He leaned back, hands gently stroking Sherlock’s throat again, checking once more. Sherlock swallowed.
“No. You’re not lying.” He ran his hands back, pressing into tensed and knotted muscles. “Your splenius capitis and servicis muscles are in terrible states.”
Sherlock made a small noise.
“You need to go to a massage therapist.”
“I don’t like strangers touching me. No.”
“God, you’re a pain.” He patted his back. “Roll over.”
“You’re done more than enough, John.” Pushing himself up onto his elbows, Sherlock shook his head to ruffle out his hair. “I don’t think I want to be touched anymore.”
“Tough. You’re getting touched.” He laid a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “I can’t trust you with your health.”
“My body is my concern, I will treat it as I see fit,” Sherlock bitched.
“You could be injured,” John snapped.
“I don’t care,” Sherlock yelled back.
“I do!” He grabbed and flipped Sherlock onto his back, pinning him with an arm across his shoulders, putting his weight onto the weak right arm so he couldn’t be thrown. “I am sick of this cavalier attitude towards your health and well being, Sherlock Holmes! I have seriously had enough and you will not be doing it anymore because as of now, I am revoking your right to judge on your own physical health! You’re incapable of assessing your own needs so I am going to do it for you and you will listen to me, or I will make you listen! Do you understand me?”
Sherlock stared up at him, eyes wide and dark and breath shallow.
John stared back.
“I have never found anyone as sexually attractive as you when you were mapping me like I can map the world,” Sherlock breathed out.
Whatever John had been about to say died from his lips as he realised the other things he could do with his mouth instead.
He didn’t let up off Sherlock’s shoulders as he leaned down and kissed him, hard and deep like he seemed to be inviting with that heavy gaze and those parted lips.
Sherlock’s hand came up to grab his arm, holding onto his arm as he tilted into the kiss, teeth sharply nipping John’s mouth. John heard one of them moan softly an shifted to cup Sherlock’s head with one hand, fingers tangling in the mass of dark curls.
Then he was hitting the bed on his back, Sherlock landing on him with barely a pause in the kiss, biting harder before shoving his tongue into John’s mouth.
John rolled them back over with some effort, Sherlock kept them moving, John flipped them once more and they landed side by side, Sherlock’s back against the wall and John flush against him.
All the anger and fear and frustration that had been bubbling through John found voice in their kisses, in the way they surged against one another, Sherlock occasionally trying to shift, John pushing him back against the wall again. His shirt was ripped open by Sherlock’s eager hands as his own buried again in those thick locks, guiding him into a deeper kiss.
He could feel the tiny ulceration of bites in Sherlock’s mouth, spots that made the younger man moan as he licked them, made them both shudder as Sherlock’s hands ripped open John’s pants and John’s shoved down Sherlock’s trunks. Their legs wrapped together; John was careful not to let Sherlock get him in a lock to flip him over again.
Sherlock’s hands came up to grab and push at John’s chest, ducking his head to nip along the jagged scar on John’s shoulders. “Massive trauma,” he murmured against John’s skin, breath damp and hot. “Field dressing. Evidence of operation with a military blade, bullet extraction.”
“You already knew all that,” John gasped, moaning as Sherlock’s tongue wiggled around the edge of the scarring. Long fingers framed the scar, stroking and then pushing quickly.
John grabbed Sherlock’s hands, lacing their fingers and pushing Sherlock’s hands over his head to pin them against the wall. “Stop it,” he whispered against his mouth. “I’ll take care of us both, just stop being so needlessly aggressive about it.” He nipped Sherlock’s mouth, squeezing his hands and shifting his body to rub their cocks together.
With their legs tangled, Sherlock’s hands in his and the wall there, John had Sherlock firmly held in place to grind their bodies together, a hard grind and rock together. He could taste his moans and the tint of blood as his mouth has bitten again, in frustrated want and lust. Sherlock’s toes flexed and gripped onto his legs and the sheets as he bucked against him and John badly wanted to let his hands go, to grab his body and pull them hard together but he didn’t, wanted to make Sherlock understand that his body had needs, like sleep and food and fucking and John was going to make sure he saw to those needs.
The next kiss was tongue to tongue and chest to chest and their bodies rolling and grinding in a heated rhythm. Sherlock broke it to gasp and groan. “John-”
“I know,” he whispered. “Increased respiration and heartbeat. Flushing of the face and chest, tangible muscular, fuck, Sherlock, contractions of, Christ...” Sherlock was sucking on his earlobe, moaning and bucking as he spoke.
Nails scratched over his back as Sherlock pushed as hard off the wall as he could, body jerking as he came, heated and beautiful as he gasped for breath. John held on still, grinding against Sherlock’s tense body until the coil of knotted tension snapped and released and he was coming with a low, breathless groan.
They sank down together, John letting Sherlock’s hands go and Sherlock promptly buried them in John’s hair and kissed him slow and deep, like he could taste the difference between John pent up and John relaxed.
John kissed back, relaxing against Sherlock. He expected Sherlock to shove him onto his back and pin him, or scramble to go and get up and get back to doing things.
He didn’t. He cuddled in closer, pushing John’s trousers all the way off and tangling their legs.
“I was serious before,” John murmured, kissing the top of Sherlock’s head. “I’m revoking your right to make health based decisions. You might not care about your body, but I do. It keeps you alive, despite the way you punish it.”
“So long as you promise to do it like this every time,” Sherlock purred.
John smiled to himself.