Fic: The Switch (4/?)
Title: The Switch
Author: metaphlame
Alternate Links: AO3
Rating: R
Summary: Some handle the sudden global switching of gendered bodies better than others.
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock
Warnings: AU, Genderswap
Chapter Notes: For science.
It was a damp day, unseasonably cool, when John thumped up the stairs and set the groceries on the counter with rather more noise than was strictly necessary.
"You could do it yourself sometimes," he growled at Sherlock's back. The silk-clad man was hunched over his laptop on the sofa, in the same bathrobe he'd been wearing when John last saw him the night before.
"Did you get milk?" Sherlock did not look up.
"Of course I did. We're out."
"Only one bottle though. Go back and get another one."
John scowled. "We're not going to go through two bottles of milk in a week; it will spoil."
Still Sherlock did not look up, or even cease typing. The frenetic tapping filled the space between them. "Did you know, John, that a woman is four times more likely to develop osteoporosis over the age of fifty than a man is? Go fetch that second bottle of milk."
John snapped his gaping jaw shut with an audible clack of tooth against tooth, and attempted to renew his scowl. "Since when do you look after yourself? Or think about your health, at all?"
"It's not for me."
"Since when do you look after my health, then?"
Tap, tappity tap. "Since it became painfully obvious that you're so uncomfortable in your own body you'd rather let it die out from under you than learn the first thing about it."
"I know lots about women, Sherlock. Probably a good deal more than you," John added, bristling.
"Yes, because women are all the same."
Had the circumstances been anything other than what they were, the dryness of the remark, given its origin, would have elicited a snort from John. As it was, he balked.
"Are you an expert now, then? What do you know that I don't?"
Sherlock looked up, then, from his laptop, eyes piercing and very much focused on the conversation at hand, no matter that he'd seemed completely occupied not a moment prior.
"When was the last time you got off?" he asked, fixing John with a level stare.
John's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
"Exactly. While what you understand about human anatomy could fill medical textbooks, John, your willingness to extend that knowledge to yourself is woefully lacking. And we're not even talking about your inability, or more correctly your refusal, to fill the holes in the knowledge--which are rather more pronounced now, by the way, given the general loop for which this whole thing has thrown the medical community--with experimentation performed upon the nearest subject to hand, namely yourself."
Sherlock's eyes blazed, even from across the room, and John resisted the urge to shift his weight, steady his ground.
Which was how he came to be standing directly before his flatmate, silhouetted in the doorway of the kitchen, when Sherlock threw open his silken dressing gown, beneath which he wore not a scrap. The robe slid to the ground with a barely audible hiss, landing in a shimmering blue pool around his ankles.
Sherlock's ankles.
“Jesus, Sherlock!” John yelped. “The hell do you think you’re doing?” Assiduously he diverted his eyes to the wallpaper, to the chair, anywhere but at Sherlock standing there with-yes, he could see out of the corner of his eye-his hands on his hips.
“Acquainting you, John.”
“With what, for godsake?!”
“The reality you seem so bent on ignoring.” Sherlock straightened, thrusting his chest outward as a consequence of the motion. “Were you in your former body, such a sight wouldn’t come without consequences, correct?”
“If I were in my old body you would be too!” John snapped.
“That is beside the point.” Sherlock’s voice oozed patience. Infuriatingly so. “Naked women have that effect on you, correct?”
“Yes, but-“
“But you haven’t the first idea how to proceed, with the most relevant body part in absentia.”
John felt his face heating. “It’s none of your business what I-“
“On the contrary.” Sherlock took a graceful step forward, exiting the heaped robe like a nymph exiting a fountain. “It is very much my business. Such a deficiency of endorphins is bound to affect your ability to serve as a competent assistant.”
“Sherlock-“
“Not to mention as a doctor. Think of the patients.”
“Sherlock!”
The long-limbed creature that was Sherlock took another step forward, and John stepped backward into the kitchen.
“I’ve seen your internet search history, you know. You can’t deny you’re aroused by such things.”
“Yes, but-“
Pale eyes squinted slightly over a smirk. “That much hasn’t changed. I can read you like a book.”
“I’m sure you can, but this isn’t-I can’t-“
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Of course you can’t. You can barely look at yourself in the mirror, let alone touch yourself. I, on the other hand, have researched the topic exhaustively.”
“…Exhaustively?” John’s voice echoed faintly among the pots and pans.
“As has next to everyone else you know, I guarantee you,” Sherlock replied dryly. “Not everyone is so abjectly committed to ignoring their new body’s basic needs.” He took another step forward, and John’s attempt to retreat ran right up against the kitchen table. “How long did you intend to hold out?”
“I, ah…hadn’t thought about it…”
“Indefinitely, no doubt.” Sherlock placed his hands his hips again, deliberate in his movements. John could not help but notice that Sherlock had shaved.
His flatmate saw him notice, and grinned viciously.
“I told you I did research.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Apparently, this is the style now.”
John licked his lips, having cemented his eyes firmly to the stainless steel of the refrigerator door. Away from all this.
“A fact which you appear to have failed to retain.”
“There wasn’t any reason to-and how was I even supposed to-without nicking-“
Sherlock barked a laugh then, and stepped closer, many more than one step’s worth. The tips of his breasts, hardened in the chill of the flat, pressed against John through the thin cotton of his shirt.
“It’s quite easy, really. Probably easier than for men, I except.” Sherlock’s voice was sinuous and low; a snake in the shadows.
John was conscious of a number of things. The uncomfortable press of the kitchen table against his spine. The whuff of Sherlock’s breath striking the pores of his face. A flushing heat, what felt like a fierce blush but deeper, down between his legs where there should have been a raging hard-on. He had no idea what to do with this feeling, and trembled, to his shame. Even setting aside the unknown territory of his body, there was the fact that this was Sherlock to consider. Sherlock.
“I’m lost,” he whispered, barely, hating the quaver in the voice that wasn’t even his. Not even his voice was his anymore.
The face framed by tumbled curls, so close to his, shook once. Severe. “I told you I did research. Stand still.”
John felt the button atop his fly being unzipped. “But, Sherlock-“
“It’s for your own good.”
The purr of the zipper coming undone.
“Sherlock-“
“Hush.”
John fought the rise of the flush from his legs onward, upward and down. Slammed his eyes shut against the arc of leg and curve of throat, and threw the words out into the darkness.
“But it’s you, Sherlock. How am I supposed to think about you?”
A pause. The hands at his waist stopped moving. When the silence began to take on an icy tinge, John risked peeping one eye open.
Sherlock, tall womanly Sherlock, stood frozen before him, fixing him with eyes like chips from a glacier. One beat, two, and then a flinty smile.
“Think of me however you want.” The smile deepened. Dangerous. “Imagine I’m someone else.”
He moved his hand then, without warning, and John’s eyes widened and then slammed shut.
Someone else, someone else, someone else.
The words held steady in John’s mind, one after the other, to the fluttering beat of the fingers deep inside him. Held steady, that is, until a mouth closed on his own, sending the words tumbling after each other into a meaningless abyss of lips and tongues. Someone…someone… when he gasped, it was through his nose, because his mouth was blocked. He convulsed, in a way a distant part of his mind marked as familiar, and opened his eyes.
Sherlock drew his face back, blue eyes narrowing, before nodding firmly.
“You will be better now, I think,” he pronounced, withdrawing his hand from John’s slippery warmth. “Plus you can tell your colleagues that one’s former predilections, in spite of the prevailing skepticism of the medical community, remain intact.”
John’s mouth opened and closed on the words he didn’t say.
“For science, John,” Sherlock said flatly. Flat as a board. “It was for science.” He spun around then, back toward the shimmering blue robe on the floor. His long hands grasped the silk and flung it behind him with a flourish, donning it like a cape.
John remained pressed against the table, unmoving.
“I need to record the results.” Sherlock did not look over as he settled himself on the sofa, retrieving his laptop from where he’d left it. “You might consider going to fetch that extra bottle of milk, if you’re just going to stand there.”
John barely managed to fumble his fly closed before stalking out the door.
Author: metaphlame
Alternate Links: AO3
Rating: R
Summary: Some handle the sudden global switching of gendered bodies better than others.
Characters/Pairings: John/Sherlock
Warnings: AU, Genderswap
Chapter Notes: For science.
It was a damp day, unseasonably cool, when John thumped up the stairs and set the groceries on the counter with rather more noise than was strictly necessary.
"You could do it yourself sometimes," he growled at Sherlock's back. The silk-clad man was hunched over his laptop on the sofa, in the same bathrobe he'd been wearing when John last saw him the night before.
"Did you get milk?" Sherlock did not look up.
"Of course I did. We're out."
"Only one bottle though. Go back and get another one."
John scowled. "We're not going to go through two bottles of milk in a week; it will spoil."
Still Sherlock did not look up, or even cease typing. The frenetic tapping filled the space between them. "Did you know, John, that a woman is four times more likely to develop osteoporosis over the age of fifty than a man is? Go fetch that second bottle of milk."
John snapped his gaping jaw shut with an audible clack of tooth against tooth, and attempted to renew his scowl. "Since when do you look after yourself? Or think about your health, at all?"
"It's not for me."
"Since when do you look after my health, then?"
Tap, tappity tap. "Since it became painfully obvious that you're so uncomfortable in your own body you'd rather let it die out from under you than learn the first thing about it."
"I know lots about women, Sherlock. Probably a good deal more than you," John added, bristling.
"Yes, because women are all the same."
Had the circumstances been anything other than what they were, the dryness of the remark, given its origin, would have elicited a snort from John. As it was, he balked.
"Are you an expert now, then? What do you know that I don't?"
Sherlock looked up, then, from his laptop, eyes piercing and very much focused on the conversation at hand, no matter that he'd seemed completely occupied not a moment prior.
"When was the last time you got off?" he asked, fixing John with a level stare.
John's mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
"Exactly. While what you understand about human anatomy could fill medical textbooks, John, your willingness to extend that knowledge to yourself is woefully lacking. And we're not even talking about your inability, or more correctly your refusal, to fill the holes in the knowledge--which are rather more pronounced now, by the way, given the general loop for which this whole thing has thrown the medical community--with experimentation performed upon the nearest subject to hand, namely yourself."
Sherlock's eyes blazed, even from across the room, and John resisted the urge to shift his weight, steady his ground.
Which was how he came to be standing directly before his flatmate, silhouetted in the doorway of the kitchen, when Sherlock threw open his silken dressing gown, beneath which he wore not a scrap. The robe slid to the ground with a barely audible hiss, landing in a shimmering blue pool around his ankles.
Sherlock's ankles.
“Jesus, Sherlock!” John yelped. “The hell do you think you’re doing?” Assiduously he diverted his eyes to the wallpaper, to the chair, anywhere but at Sherlock standing there with-yes, he could see out of the corner of his eye-his hands on his hips.
“Acquainting you, John.”
“With what, for godsake?!”
“The reality you seem so bent on ignoring.” Sherlock straightened, thrusting his chest outward as a consequence of the motion. “Were you in your former body, such a sight wouldn’t come without consequences, correct?”
“If I were in my old body you would be too!” John snapped.
“That is beside the point.” Sherlock’s voice oozed patience. Infuriatingly so. “Naked women have that effect on you, correct?”
“Yes, but-“
“But you haven’t the first idea how to proceed, with the most relevant body part in absentia.”
John felt his face heating. “It’s none of your business what I-“
“On the contrary.” Sherlock took a graceful step forward, exiting the heaped robe like a nymph exiting a fountain. “It is very much my business. Such a deficiency of endorphins is bound to affect your ability to serve as a competent assistant.”
“Sherlock-“
“Not to mention as a doctor. Think of the patients.”
“Sherlock!”
The long-limbed creature that was Sherlock took another step forward, and John stepped backward into the kitchen.
“I’ve seen your internet search history, you know. You can’t deny you’re aroused by such things.”
“Yes, but-“
Pale eyes squinted slightly over a smirk. “That much hasn’t changed. I can read you like a book.”
“I’m sure you can, but this isn’t-I can’t-“
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Of course you can’t. You can barely look at yourself in the mirror, let alone touch yourself. I, on the other hand, have researched the topic exhaustively.”
“…Exhaustively?” John’s voice echoed faintly among the pots and pans.
“As has next to everyone else you know, I guarantee you,” Sherlock replied dryly. “Not everyone is so abjectly committed to ignoring their new body’s basic needs.” He took another step forward, and John’s attempt to retreat ran right up against the kitchen table. “How long did you intend to hold out?”
“I, ah…hadn’t thought about it…”
“Indefinitely, no doubt.” Sherlock placed his hands his hips again, deliberate in his movements. John could not help but notice that Sherlock had shaved.
His flatmate saw him notice, and grinned viciously.
“I told you I did research.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Apparently, this is the style now.”
John licked his lips, having cemented his eyes firmly to the stainless steel of the refrigerator door. Away from all this.
“A fact which you appear to have failed to retain.”
“There wasn’t any reason to-and how was I even supposed to-without nicking-“
Sherlock barked a laugh then, and stepped closer, many more than one step’s worth. The tips of his breasts, hardened in the chill of the flat, pressed against John through the thin cotton of his shirt.
“It’s quite easy, really. Probably easier than for men, I except.” Sherlock’s voice was sinuous and low; a snake in the shadows.
John was conscious of a number of things. The uncomfortable press of the kitchen table against his spine. The whuff of Sherlock’s breath striking the pores of his face. A flushing heat, what felt like a fierce blush but deeper, down between his legs where there should have been a raging hard-on. He had no idea what to do with this feeling, and trembled, to his shame. Even setting aside the unknown territory of his body, there was the fact that this was Sherlock to consider. Sherlock.
“I’m lost,” he whispered, barely, hating the quaver in the voice that wasn’t even his. Not even his voice was his anymore.
The face framed by tumbled curls, so close to his, shook once. Severe. “I told you I did research. Stand still.”
John felt the button atop his fly being unzipped. “But, Sherlock-“
“It’s for your own good.”
The purr of the zipper coming undone.
“Sherlock-“
“Hush.”
John fought the rise of the flush from his legs onward, upward and down. Slammed his eyes shut against the arc of leg and curve of throat, and threw the words out into the darkness.
“But it’s you, Sherlock. How am I supposed to think about you?”
A pause. The hands at his waist stopped moving. When the silence began to take on an icy tinge, John risked peeping one eye open.
Sherlock, tall womanly Sherlock, stood frozen before him, fixing him with eyes like chips from a glacier. One beat, two, and then a flinty smile.
“Think of me however you want.” The smile deepened. Dangerous. “Imagine I’m someone else.”
He moved his hand then, without warning, and John’s eyes widened and then slammed shut.
Someone else, someone else, someone else.
The words held steady in John’s mind, one after the other, to the fluttering beat of the fingers deep inside him. Held steady, that is, until a mouth closed on his own, sending the words tumbling after each other into a meaningless abyss of lips and tongues. Someone…someone… when he gasped, it was through his nose, because his mouth was blocked. He convulsed, in a way a distant part of his mind marked as familiar, and opened his eyes.
Sherlock drew his face back, blue eyes narrowing, before nodding firmly.
“You will be better now, I think,” he pronounced, withdrawing his hand from John’s slippery warmth. “Plus you can tell your colleagues that one’s former predilections, in spite of the prevailing skepticism of the medical community, remain intact.”
John’s mouth opened and closed on the words he didn’t say.
“For science, John,” Sherlock said flatly. Flat as a board. “It was for science.” He spun around then, back toward the shimmering blue robe on the floor. His long hands grasped the silk and flung it behind him with a flourish, donning it like a cape.
John remained pressed against the table, unmoving.
“I need to record the results.” Sherlock did not look over as he settled himself on the sofa, retrieving his laptop from where he’d left it. “You might consider going to fetch that extra bottle of milk, if you’re just going to stand there.”
John barely managed to fumble his fly closed before stalking out the door.