Warning: Sexy times ahead.

()

Life doesn't change much after that.

There was a moment in the second day after the reveal when John came downstairs still dressed like a man. Sherlock gave her a quick look over, almost pouting in disappointment.

John nearly scowled at him. "What? Were you expecting me to come downstairs in a dress?"

Sherlock huffed and turned away. "No," he said, clearly lying.

He never called her Joan. Never referred to her as 'she'. And most importantly, he kept his hands to himself.

Though it was quite clear everything he did was forced. John could see he wanted to call her by the proper pronoun, by her proper name, from the way he would hesitate just the slightest when he called her. He got better with practice, yet he never could keep himself from staring when the occasional transvestite would walk past them in a dress and heels.

The big things didn't change. There were, however, a million little changes to certain aspects of John's life.

She no longer had to time her showers, a luxury she thought she had long kissed goodbye.

When it came to her monthly cycles (birth control long since been extinct for over six years now) she no longer needed to be so deathly careful about the disposing of her feminine waste.

No longer did she have to waste money on things like aftershave, or even waste time to use aftershave in order to give the illusion she had grown whiskers in the morning and needed to shave them off.

And finally, finally no longer she had to stick a folded sock down the front of her trousers. At least not around the flat, anyways.

Sherlock didn't act so differently around her. John didn't act so differently around him. Something had changed, though, and it took John nearly two weeks to realize what it was.

Relief. The large rock that sat on her chest for months (years?) was gone. The constant fear of discovery gave her frequent stomach aches, headaches, and she hadn't slept without a knife under pillow in years. Having Sherlock know her secret made her breathe so much easier.

()

John had always liked Lestrade. She thought of him handsome, reliable, smart -despite what Sherlock said- and were John still Joan, she wouldn't have hesitated in showing him a good time.

Today, she was having a hard time looking at him straight in the eye.

"Look at you two idiots," he said, crossing his arms. Both Sherlock and John sat on the hood of Lestrade's cruiser, ducking their heads like they were troubled school children. They looked like troubled school children from the way they were smiling stupidly, uncaring they were covered head to toe in wet mud. "Exactly what the hell were you thinking?"

Sherlock spoke up. "Well, I was thinking I was catching you a murderer-"

"You shut up," Lestrade snapped at him. He turned to John. "I expected more out of you. I had hoped you would keep him out of trouble."

John couldn't help it, she started giggling. "Sorry, sorry," she sobered when Lestrade glared at her. She pushed back her hair and it made a horrific wet noise as John dragged out two handfuls of mud. "Sherlock's right, though. We couldn't let this guy get away. It was just damn lucky the mud slowed him down."

Sherlock piped in, "Yes, Lestrade. In fact, I take back my previous statement. The mud caught you a murderer. It just goes to show, even wet dirt does a better job than your whole team."

John jabbed him in the arm. "Don't be so callous."

"Don't smile when you're saying that."

"Tool."

"Idiot."

They giggled.

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose. "God, you two are like three year olds."

"Is this all you have to say to us?" Sherlock asked as he stood. He was still grinning. "If not, then we're going. The mud is cold and I would like to have a hot shower."

"Nuh-uh!" John hissed. "I call dibs. You always take all the hot water."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Fine then. You can have it… if you can beat me there." He suddenly took off running.

John gave the DI an apologetic shrug, threw off the blanket they had given her and took off after Sherlock.

Lestrade was glad to not have been witness for the next ten minutes. He would later get reports talking of two strange men, ducking and weaving through the back streets of London, dripping mud and giggling wildly.

The bandage around John's chest pulled tightly, making it hard for her to breath and yet she still ran faster. Once or twice she caught the lapels of Sherlock's coat, pulled on it with enough force to make him stumble, giving her a chance to overpass him.

John's sneakiness and Sherlock's long legs enabled them to arrive at Baker Street at the same time, and they both fought trying to get through the front door first. The fighting continued through the door of their flat, up past the door of the bathroom.

"Mine!"

"Mine!"

Sherlock held himself up with two hands on the sink, gasping for air. Twice already he tried to pull off his soiled gloves, failing each time when he realized he couldn't stand up without holding himself.

John thought she won because she had one hand on the shower curtain, yet she leaned against the wall, unable to more than just that. She couldn't breathe properly, the stupid binding suffocating her. Without really thinking about it, with one hand she reached up underneath her jumper, grabbed the binding and pulled it loose.

It was tiring work, trying to unwind it from her torso. Once done, she let it drop heavily to the floor.

"John," Sherlock breathed, watching the whole proceeding. He seemed confused, his eyebrows pushed together, creasing lines on his mud-covered forehead. "Your breasts…"

It took a few seconds for that to get through John's head. She looked down. With the binding gone, her sullied jumper formed perfectly to her wet skin as if it was vacuum sealed. Her jumper didn't shape her breasts perfectly, but it was quite obvious they were there. The cold made her nipples tighten painfully, and they poked gently against the fabric, making the littlest of indentations.

"Oh…"

John slowly raised her head, making no effort to cover herself.

Sherlock's expression was not lustful, merely observant. The man had not seen a natural pair of breasts for ten years and it was understandable the sight of them would be surprising. It was as if he forgot.

John licked her lips. "Do you want to see them?"

Self-preservation was screaming at her, telling her to shut the fuck up. The voice was small though, squashed underneath the sound of her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

Sherlock blinked up at her, eyes wide. He nodded once, curtly. He turned around briefly, pulling off his soiled gloves, tossing them into the sink.

It was not an invitation to touch, yet Sherlock took it as one, coming close and crowding into John's space.

John pressed her back against the wall, flattening her hands against there as well. Sherlock's fingers were cold against her stomach as he slipped his hand inside to get a grip of the wet cloth, and slowly pulled it upwards.

John turned her head, suddenly embarrassed, ashamed of the state of her once-glorious breasts. She was never so self-body conscious.

"Was this the result of weight loss or testosterone pills?" Sherlock asked quietly, still pushing the jumper up further.

"A little bit of both," John admitted, though the weight loss was not a personal choice. Food was scarce during the first year of the Gendercide and John herself lost nearly two stones from the result. She seriously doubted she would ever regain the weight.

She gasped as Sherlock's cold fingers carefully touched her nipples, pressed against them with his thumb in a firm, even manner. Not pinching, not teasing, merely observing as he kept rubbing them to warm them.

John knew it was an impossibility, but a small part of her thought all of her nerve endings in her breasts had long died. It was wonderful to be touched like this again, to feel her chest tingle and tightened in the most delicious of ways. Sherlock only touched her for less than thirty seconds, but she craved. She denied herself for so long and fuck it to hell if she was going to let this opportunity go.

Sherlock was momentarily confused when John slapped his hands away from her breasts, then cried out in surprise when she grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and dragged him to the ground.

"Is this okay?" She gasped, leaning over him, but not touching. "Please tell me this is okay."

His eyes kept shifting between her face and her still exposed chest. He nodded.

She didn't need to be told twice. "Take off your pants," she demanded, grabbing her own belt and undoing it with ferocious speed.

Sherlock's trousers were barely past his hips as John straddled him, tugging down his boxers, freeing his cock. The man raised an eyebrow. "No foreplay?"

"We're way past foreplay," John breathed, positioning herself. And in one smooth motion, sunk down.

"Christ," Sherlock hissed, jerking. John gave him no time to adjust, not when her own body was crying for more, more, more. It been too long, and with every pull and tug, pleasure sparked through her like flashes of lightening. Sherlock gripped her thighs, trying to gain some control. She was going too fast for him. By the time he tried to move his own hips upwards, John was already down on him. At some point he gave up, tossing his head back, panting. The idiot didn't take off his coat, and now he was paying for it.

Doing this on the bathroom floor was such a bad idea. The hard, cold tile pressed against her kneecaps painfully, and they were getting mud everywhere. She wouldn't count on Sherlock to clean this all up when they were done.

John didn't care. Her senses were spiraling upwards as the rest of the world slowly faded away into background noise.

Suddenly there was a thumb pressed against her clitoris, rubbing in delicious circles. A small part of John hoped Sherlock had the smart idea to clean his hands because she wasn't looking forward to cleaning mud off her clit and-

Oh God-

She thought she would never have this again. This connection, this freedom of her own body. She hidden it away, and she can't believe she got to a point where she wouldn't even look at herself in the mirror.

By the time she came back to her own senses, John realized she was crying. She barely held herself up with her hands, leaning over Sherlock with each arm on either side of his head. Most of her weight bared down upon his hips as his cock softened inside of her.

His hands were cupping her face, swiping away tears and sweat. He was looking at her like he had never seen anything like her in his life.

"Joan," he said, breathing so hard it sounded painful.

John smiled down at him. And for the first time in ten years, she felt like a woman.