I don't know what's happening, I keep sitting down thinking, 'ok, now for the funny developing relationship stuff' and all I get is angst and cuddles WTF?!
Ah well here you go, more 'fun'.
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The following morning John woke with trepidation, he was worried that their conversation would have negative effects on their friendship, not to mention their lives. He knows he actually fell asleep encircled in the long-armed embrace of his flatmate, the emotion draining all energy and caution away from him. He also knows Sherlock managed somehow to get him lying down comfortably, as well as a vague memory of the detective maneuvering his broken leg without causing him any pain.
He lies there staring at the back of the sofa, bare centimeters away from his nose, for a long time, wondering if everything, or nothing has changed. Eventually, the protests from his bladder make him start the long process of getting himself up.
"Would you like some assistance?" John's heart rate spikes through the roof at Sherlock's casual question. Given he'd been awake for at least twenty minutes, and had heard nothing, he was fairly certain he had been alone.
"Damn it Sherlock, you near enough gave me a heart attack just then, why are you sitting there silently this morning. Usually after unraveling a complex puzzle you sleep like the dead for half the day." Clenching his eyes shut tight John suppresses the urge to smack himself in the forehead. Here he was trying to figure out where they would go from last nights conversation and now he's brought it all up without thinking, before he had a concrete plan to cut losses!
"I was in my mind palace John, going over things to see where else you may have led me to understand your situation before last night."
John risks a glance over his shoulder, Sherlock is sitting in his chair his fingers poised in a contemplative position, each fingertip balanced on the opposite hand's fingertip, the two index fingers resting back against his lips, tapping restlessly against them as Sherlock's eyes flit through halls and doorways no one else can see.
"That and," the genius continues, "while I arranged you in a much more comfortable position to sleep, it is three times more tricky to get out of, so I stayed in case you needed to use the facilities. Which," his hands come down to rest on the arms of his chair, "brings me back to my question, would you like some assistance?"
John nods his head, "Yes, please." and waits for his flatmate to come over and begin helping him unravel his limbs. Suddenly a thought strikes him as Sherlock is about to lift him to his feet, "Wait, you mean you sat there all night?"
Sherlock spares him one look, which is neither searching, nor dismissive, just something... "Yes, now if you'll shift I can go lie down and get some sleep." And with that the detective sets John on his feet and withdraws to his room. Leaving the poor doctor staring after him in mild confusion.
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John's confusion lasts a few days, he keep expecting Sherlock to burt out an inappropriate request, like: 'Can I have a look at your genitals to compare them to hermaphrodites I've found in my research?' or something of the like.
What he gets is Sherlock returning to his roll as nursemaid and carer quite adeptly; completely ignoring the salacious line of questions he could be pursuing. To say John is confused is putting it mildly, everything he knows about his friend is up in the air as the detective desists in his relentless pursuit of data.
Finally the next Tuesday, Clara is back in town and he begs her to come over, just to have some normality back again. That's not what he gets.
For starters she arrives with Harry in tow an Sherlock immediately concludes that they have gotten back together and that Harry has been dry for months. His diatribe is met with silence for a few seconds and then Harry starts laughing, "My GOD Johnny you should SEE your face!"
After that there are smiles all around and John is shifting down the settee to make more room. "I'll go make tea, shall I?" Sherlock demurs and after he gets a nod from John and smiles of 'please' from Clara and Harry, he saunters over to the kitchen and starts arranging a tray.
Clara turns immediately to John, pulling a boots package out of her purse and passing it furtively, "I feel so bad about not being able to help you the other day and I knew you'd be running out soon, so..." she trails off with a grin.
John shakes his head, "Keep them, I don't need any."
Harry, who was maneuvering to sit beside his foot on the divan, looks up at him in distracted shock and misses her spot, managing to slip, just, off the edge and fall with a thunk to the floor. Not reacting to falling she grabs John's hand, "But Johnny, Clara said your period had started and you didn't have anything? It can't be over yet?"
"He didn't give it a chance," everyone's heads whip around at Sherlock's baritone being suddenly right in the middle of the room. Obviously he had gathered a few things and put the kettle on, coming back in the room to wait, 'watched pot' and all that, catching the end of their conversation, "John asked me to fetch his progesterone pills from the chemists and now his cycle is behaving nicely. As of this morning he's been much less stiff, so I concluded the encumbering sore muscles have abated as well."
In the other room the kettle clicks off and Sherlock turns about face and strides off having left the rest of the occupants staring at him blankly, John's face blazing scarlet, high on his cheeks, embarrassment flaring to life, as Clara slips her arms around him embracing him lightly. After a moment of hysterical deafness John realises Clara is talking in his ear, "Oh god let that not have been it, I told him to tread softly..."
He pulls sharply out of her arms and looks at her in horror, "You?"
Clara, confused for a beat, and then shock washes her face of colour, "Oh no John, I didn't tell him, but he knew something was going on. I just admonished him to be careful of how he reacted should it come to light, given it's a secret you've carried your entire life."
Already calmly relaxing against Clara again John watches Sherlock through the open doorway, "It's fine Clara, he's known for a few days now, it wasn't just now, I... I just blanked a bit at the blunt manner of Sherlock's delivery."
Gently placing the tea tray down on the coffee table, Sherlock looks into John's eyes, "Bit not good?"
"No, it's fine, it's all fine, I just..." John twists his head to the side slightly, "it's just not something I've ever imagined you saying and of the two of us, I have to admit you've accepted my deformity faster than I've gotten over telling you about it."
Harry and Clara both inhale sharply at John's derogatory comment and simultaneously voice sounds of disagreement, but it's Sherlock, who pauses in the process of pouring tea, to pin John with his gaze - eyes narrowed, focusing on John unflinchingly, who voices a reprimand. "John Hamish Watson, you having two (mostly) functional sets of sexual organs, makes you a wonder, NOT a man with a deformity. If you do not understand that, at least except my word on it as I am the resident genius."
John scoffs at him, "Really Sherlock, all that trite, 'you are unique' crap is far too sentimental for me let alone you!"
Clara, Harry and Sherlock exchange glances over the bowed, greying-blond, head; silently they agree: something has to fix the complete wrongness of John's logic. Sherlock finishes pouring, settles the pot and reaches over to pull his best mate's chin up so he can look him in the eye.
For a long moment no one in the room speaks, Sherlock just keeps looking into John's eyes, letting him see how much he cares for his flatmate, his blogger and ex-military man. As the time draws out Clara's fingers come up to wipe subtly at the corner of her eyes in response to the feelings of self loathing, reproach and nurturing love filling the room.
Sherlock, having gone into his mind palace has drug out memories of when John was brilliant and impressed him, hoping some fraction of his pride in his friend, some modicum of his feelings for John, would come to light on his face and shine through his eyes. That done he moves on to expressing it directly.
"You once told me that I was the best man, the most human person you had ever known and you'd believe in me till the end. I have paraphrased a touch, but hopefully you still agree that this is true." Sherlock pauses, even though his phrasing is that of a statement, till John nods in confirmation, "So you have no choice but to believe me when I say you are the exception that proves the rule. You ARE unique and there is nothing deformed about you."
Harry, watching her little brother's shoulders twitch slightly, catches Clara's eye and nods her head slightly to the stairway, indicating a need to retreat. Clara understands her ex-wife's gesture and slowly the two reconvene at the door.
"We could use some sandwiches, there's no bread, or anything but biscuits really." the calm baritone voice follows them out the door and they scarper down the stairs for a quick run to the shops.
Sherlock stands slowly and steps over the coffee table, coming to rest beside John, all the while holding his chin and looking into his eyes. "go on then John," he advises sliding closer, a shoulder on offer, "the lines at Speedy's this time of day will keep them down there for a bit."
It doesn't happen right away, but gradually they move into a light embrace and the tight twitching in John's shoulders modulates into heaving as he lets go of the horrible feeling that's been carried about so very long, that awful feeling of not being 'right'.
Sherlock quietly holds onto his best friend and blogger, gently rubbing circles between John's shoulder blades as the sobs wring out his pain. Even more so now Sherlock is focused on finding out who this mystery woman was that snubbed John so badly he sees himself as deformed.
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There is thunderous crash, with a tinkling accompaniment, from the front room and Sherlock is instantly on his feet and running, as he enters the room and begins cataloguing what is out of place he hears a low moan of pain. John is not on the sofa, "John?" he calls out quietly trying to see in the muddy light slipping past the curtains from the street lamps.
A lump of darkness on the floor moves slightly and moans again, "Oh, ah-ah, oh-owch-ho, Fuck! I'm over here Sherlock, I just fell off the sofa."
Instantly Sherlock is hovering over him, helping him lift himself up off the floor. "You hit your cast on the coffee table on the way down didn't you John?"
"Jesus fuck, I did yes." John is pale and a sudden prickling of sweat is showing on his upper lip and brow. "Oh dear God it's throbbing up my leg to my hip for Christ's sake!" his hands are knotted into the material of Sherlock's jacket spasming with every swell of agony ripping up John's left side.
Sherlock's eyes flit about, looking for something to help, as his friend moans in pain. Finding nothing he pulls a bit at John's arms to get his hands free and finishes unzipping the side of John's trackie bottoms. The material opens on the outer seam, ankle to hip, Sherlock shifts it out of his way so he can begin massaging the muscles that are clenching in differed pain. For a few minutes there is nothing other than John's tormented breaths and the almost not there whisper of Sherlock's sure hands using a combination of friction, muscle manipulation and reflected heat from his body to soothe his friend.
As he steps back from the brink of misery, a cold chill runs through John, something is wrong. Sherlock is just wringing out the last knots in the main muscles of his thigh, one hand on the top of the muscle-mass one underneath, working in tandem, kneading into the muscles and working upwards inch by inch. On a sharp inhalation, John freezes up, a sense of dread combating the wonderful release from pain, which has blurred into passion, and he can feel the main muscle masses tugging, 'Iliacus muscle*' pulling and connecting with the 'Psoas* major and minor muscles'. The effect of this has heat and warmth pouring into his groin, further highlighted by the gentle friction of the already moist lips of his labia.
'Oh god no!' flitters through his mind as John fights his own body's reaction to his friends well placed, strong fingers.
Sherlock's fingers slow as his friend tenses in a completely different manner to the agony beforehand, he draws back and away from his position on the floor between the coffee table and settee. "Alright, I have had enough of this silliness, John. Almost two weeks now you have been sleeping on the sofa getting more and more stiff, while I have felt constricted and frustrated that you are taking up the sitting room and I can do nothing about it!"
John looks into his flatmates green-gray eyes, "And what exactly am I to do about that, your Highness?"
Sherlock doesn't respond, just levers him up and helps him toward the loo. "Need to stop?" John looks at him oddly, having assumed he was headed for a bath or something, "Er, yeah, I'll just..." he enters the room and closes the door on Sherlock.
When he re-emerges having washed up, Sherlock doesn't lead him back into the sitting room, but rather takes him into his own room and peels back the fresh sheets and deposits John on the edge, deftly removes the soft trackie bottoms off his right leg and effortlessly maneuvers him up under the blankets. All of this done to a sound track of: "Er Sherlock, what are you on about?" "I sleep on the settee!" and "What are doing to my trackies?!"
Sherlock finishes fussing over John then levels a deductive stare at his friend, "You have not been sleeping well, this is not the first nightmare, though definitely the worst so far. It is completely illogical for you to NOT be sleeping in my bed as it gets so little use." He pulls the blankets up over John's chest and tucks the sides under his shoulders, "You will stay here, forget this embarrassment and rest."
John, still confused, as his nerves are still surfing the complex sensations from both erogenous zones, he nods, tries to shut his eyes and relax. Only to pop upright again a moment later eyes wide, "What embarrassment?!"
The detective who had been almost through the door doesn't turn back around to face John, instead he explains to the empty hallway. "You had a physical reaction to the massage, which is perfectly normal given the area I was manipulating." Sherlock looks at him over his shoulder now, eyes glinting with that deductive mischief, "Your clearly NOT the kind of man who indulges in a massage," holds up a hand to forestall interruption, "yes you did have several while you were convalescing, but the overwhelming pain of that time would have kept a tight rein on your more base reactions."
John just stares at him blinking.
"I also believe that the context of your nightmares being tangled up in your own body image and past experiences, it is not surprising for you to wake to find your body's reactions at a higher level of stimulus than otherwise would be normal." The tall shadow in the doorway turns away again, "In any case it is all horrifyingly normal and in no way odd. So please just go to sleep... or whatever, just rest."
John just blinks.
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*Iliacus and psoas muscles connect the pelvis and the femur. The two run along the inside edge of the thigh and are responsible for protecting the nerves, veins and arteries leading to the lower half of the body, as well as being responsible for supporting the cradle of the pelvis and in men is directly connected to the penis. In women it also houses the 'round ligament' which supports the womb during pregnancy.