Title: Football
Author: Pompey
Universe: BBC Sherlock
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Word count: 275
Summary: John hates feeling useless.
A/N: I thought this was going to be a simple "John got hurt in sports" story until I gave him the sports injury. And then the ending came.
Prompt: July 16 – picture prompt, word I used was "Watsoninan" and I got a pic of a rugby club in Scotland called Watsonian FC
It was a point of good-natured contention between the Brits soldiers and the Yank soldiers stationed in Afghanistan as to what properly constituted "football." The Yanks, rather forcefully, kept using the term "soccer" for the game where you used your feet to propel the ball and the Brits, with cheerful maliciousness, kept referring to American football as "not-football" or "hand-egg."
During some downtime, they decided to settle match by playing a game – not of football/soccer nor football/handegg – but of rugby. (The Brits had rejected baseball and the Yanks had scoffed at cricket. Just as well, as there were no bats of either sport to be had.) Winner would claim the right to the games' names.
John had been a decent three-quarters center in his school days and volunteered himself for that position. Unfortunately, as he dove in for a tackle, he felt a searing pain with an odd "pop" just above the right malleolus bone. One of the fibularis muscles, likely the brevis. John dared to hope it was only a strain and not an outright rupture.
"Look, it's not that bad. I can still help play," he insisted but Gordon Grant shook his head.
"Come off it, Watson. You can't walk without limping. Hit the bench."
"I can still do surgery shift tonight," John insisted, finishing off his ankle wrap. "It's just a strain."
The head surgeon shook her head. "So you can spend hours on your feet straining it more? We'll figure out the schedule without you. Go rest."
Ella tilted her head sympathetically. "So you have no idea why this psychosomatic disorder is manifesting as a limp?"
"No," John lied.