Fic for alafaye: The Effects of Therapeutic Massage on a Concerned Physician, H/W, PG

[spacemutineer.livejournal.com]

Title: The Effects of Therapeutic Massage on a Concerned Physician
Recipient: alafaye
Author (we will redact until reveal):
Rating: PG
Characters, including any pairing(s): Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Warnings: light canon-level violence, described retroactively
Summary: Watson can’t stand it when Holmes deliberately endangers himself; Holmes tries to make it up to him.

Thanks are due to [REDACTED] for beta reading and suggestions.

"You're not going to be able to do this to yourself forever," I said, looking up from the paper as Sherlock Holmes eased himself into the seat across from me at the breakfast table.

"Oh, to hell with you," Holmes muttered, wincing as he reached left-handed for the rack of toast.

I closed the paper with a snap and slammed it down on the table, making the cutlery rattle. Holmes blithely ignored me, buttering his toast as though his eye was not ringed with purple and his claret-colored dressing gown did not cover a swathe of bandages and bruises.

"Holmes, I haven't seen you in this much pain since that fiasco with the Friesland; you cannot pretend all is well."

"I'm not in pain," Holmes said, putting the toast down and pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Some mild discomfort, yes, but I dare say I have endured worse."

I snorted. "You certainly have, and what a fat lot of good it has done you."

"Sarcasm does not suit you," he said. The annoyance in his voice meant I was starting to get through to him, so I persisted.

"Well, a black eye does not suit you, as much as you appear to enjoy having got it. You look like a street fighter, not a detective. Who, in their right mind, would trust their worldly problems to a ruffian like you?"

The coffee in his cup sloshed over onto the saucer when he set it down. "Watson," he snapped, starting to get up, but his injuries brought him to a dead halt halfway out of his chair, a spasm of agony crossing his face. He sank back, bracing himself on the edge of the table, and all the indignation I had built up about the issue drained out of me. Asking Sherlock Holmes not to endanger himself was like asking the wind not to blow.

"At least let me minister to you," I said, more softly.

He picked up the coffee cup again, and the coffee in it trembled. "You did so last night," he reminded me.

"You do me a great disservice, as a doctor, by refusing my attentions."

His smile was sardonic. "Those are the only attentions I plan to refuse, mind you."

"Do shut up," I said, reaching for his hand and interlacing our fingers on the table. "I know you think being black and blue is terribly masculine and therefore irresistible, but it's actually rather alarming."

"I'm not made of glass," Holmes muttered.

"No, but you are flesh and bone, and you're lucky you don't have broken ribs or massive internal bleeding."

He sighed deeply, giving my hand a squeeze, and pulled back to pick at his toast anew. "What would you have me do, Watson?" he asked. "Stand back and let my client come to a nasty end? When I can prevent such a thing from happening? When I've been engaged to do exactly that?"

"I would have you wait for the police," said I.

"They came too late!" Holmes cried.

"You called them too late."

"I would not have called them at all, if I'd had my way."

"And I might've scraped you off the ground and carried you home in a cart," I said. Breakfast was all but forgotten now. My throat was closing up at the thought of what I could have found, if Inspector Lestrade had not arrived with his wagon full of constables when he did. When the dust had settled, the whistles had quieted, and the boots retreated, Holmes had been pushing himself up on one elbow, grinning at me through blood-red teeth, already barely able to see out of one eye. He had leaned on me heavily as he stood up, and he could not hide the way he held his right arm (dislocated shoulder, and not for the first time) nor the way he curled himself over the bruises blooming on his side. I'd held my tongue last night as I'd set his shoulder, iced his ribs and face, bandaged his knuckles, and washed blood off his collar and shirt, but in this cold light of morning I could be silent no longer.

He did not answer me then, nor did he deign to answer me the rest of the day. He allowed me to tend to him that afternoon, to check his shoulder in particular, and to apply ice once more to his battered torso. Once I had satisfied myself that he was not in any further danger, he had shaken me off and stayed just out of arm’s reach until late in the evening. At that point I was again permitted to look him over, but only as much as could be done between his disrobing from the day and dressing in his nightshirt. When he lay down beside me, he did so with a painful slowness that seemed to crush my heart in my chest.

For three days I avoided touching him beyond seeing to his injuries and helping him in and out of his shirt. His shoulder required a little extra care, some exercises that made Holmes roll his eyes as he did them, but it too began to regain its strength. Then came a period of particularly bad weather that kept us—and, it seemed, the criminal classes—indoors for an intolerably long stretch. I worked on a manuscript that was overdue, and Holmes spent the time hunched over his desk, peering at bloodstains through a magnifying glass and then scribbling away about his findings.

I kept waiting for the black mood to descend upon him, especially as I had made him turn down a case that would have required a great deal of legwork, concerned about his healing shoulder. After some token protestations he had agreed, but now I was beginning to wish I hadn't insisted.

But he appeared to be very content. I listened to him mutter to himself and exclaim under his breath, watched out of the corner of my eye as he took page after page of notes. My own notes swam before me, and the sheets of foolscap for my story barely shifted. The ink dried in my pen. When I wasn't watching Holmes, I stared out sightlessly at the rain running down the window panes. I thought about spring, wishing the weather would break so that we could get the few days of sun and growing season we were due. I missed flowers and cloudless skies; the interminable grey weather was beginning to drag me down.

I jumped at the weight of Holmes's hand upon my shoulder, and heard him chuckle softly.

"Forgive me, old boy," said he, resting his other hand on the other shoulder. "You were quite lost in thought." He gave me a squeeze, and I couldn't suppress the sigh that escaped me.

"I would have thought you'd be depressed by the rain," I admitted, "and yet I fear it is my mood that is suffering after all."

"Oh, my dear," he said, squeezing again, more firmly. "I hope that isn't so. Shall I play something for you?"

"Actually," said I, half-turning to look up at him, "what you're doing now is rather nice."

He smiled. "Do you know, I learned a bit of Eastern massage while I— that is, in Tibet." Although his voice had faltered, his hands did not, and they were now working slowly up the back of my neck. I lay my pen down on the desk and let my head fall forwards as he rubbed.

After a moment, he said, "This would be a little easier if you weren't wearing your jacket."

I shrugged it off immediately and draped it over the back of my chair. "This isn't hurting your arm, is it?" I asked.

"Quite the opposite," said he. "A little extra exercise goes a long way."

"I think you're lying for my benefit," I muttered, and he laughed his warm, soft laugh.

"Nonsense, Watson. I feel quite strong."

Without the jacket, it was now possible for Holmes to reach quite a lot of my shoulders and neck, and he wasted no time feeling out all the tender spots and sore places. His hands were warm through my shirt, his fingers strong and dexterous, and his approach to my anatomy was anything but unsystematic. I groaned aloud when his thumb found pressure points between my scapulae and my spine, and I felt my whole body going slack with the mingled pain and relief.

"You," he said, "have been stationary too long."

"It's bloody raining," I complained.

"Does your leg hurt?"

I hesitated. It did, aching deep down in the bone, and I didn't trust it at this moment to bear my weight.

"No wonder you're restless," Holmes said. He bent and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "Sit still a while longer, and I'll see if I can't do something about that."

I reached up and patted his hand. "I don't see how rubbing my neck is going to help my leg, however hard you press. You might do the off shoulder, though, if you feel like it."

"We'll see," said Holmes, and he went back to carefully and firmly massaging my upper back. He worked his way across to my old injury and, almost preternaturally aware of my reactions, tiny winces, and sighs of approval, massaged it until the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I was in danger of folding myself onto the desk and going straight to sleep.

When Holmes and I had first begun our our romantic affair, falling into the gravitational pull of one another after his return, I had expected him to be as I remembered him: an aloof, chaste genius with no time for the messier emotions. Either he had changed in his time away or I had been granted access to his warm interior: rather than dismissing my affections he sought them out, embracing me unexpectedly from behind and planting kisses on my shoulders, resting a hand on my hip or elbow as we spoke, or curling into me after a session of lovemaking and tucking his head beneath my chin. I suspected he was starved for touch and that it had gone on longer than our three year separation. I wanted nothing more than to make up the difference.

Holmes had now begun to card his fingers up through my hair, his short fingernails scratching against my scalp. I sucked in a breath, the tingling sensation sparking its way down my spine. Holmes closed both hands into fists and pulled gently. I nearly knocked the inkwell off the desk.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, letting go instantly.

"No, I—" I lifted my head and sat up straight. "You surprised me, is all. Please, could you— rather—?"

"Do it again?" I heard the smile in his voice.

"Yes," I breathed.

I closed my eyes in anticipation, and when he dragged his fingers through my hair once more I did not stifle the sigh of pleasure.

"I'm sorry about last week," he said quietly, stroking his hands behind my ears and down my neck. "You were worried about me, and I told myself I would try not to worry you so."

I tipped my head back into his hands and said nothing. I suspected our relative positions made this easier, and I was not about to interrupt a rare apology from the world's most self-assured man.

"I cannot neglect my clients," Holmes went on, still caressing me, his hands creating ripples of pleasure across my scalp, "but I will try to… that is, you were not wrong. I was not expecting to have to fight my way out, and so I did not ring Scotland Yard when I should have."

"Thank you," I said, my eyes still closed. "I'm sorry I called you a ruffian."

Holmes snorted. "No, you're not."

"I'm not," I agreed, "but I do actually find you terribly attractive regardless of the state of your face."

"Bruises and all?"

"Despite how it frightens me."

We were silent for a moment, and then Holmes let go of my head to wrap his arms around my shoulders. His cheek was warm against mine, and I relished the faint scrape of his afternoon stubble against my jaw. I reached up to curve my fingers around the base of his skull.

"My leg still hurts," I said.

"Blast," he muttered. "I'll see to it, you mark my words."

See to it he certainly did. He went back to massaging my shoulders, working in some sort of pattern that I couldn't discern, and then he pressed very hard on a nerve cluster in the middle of my lower back. I stifled a shout of pain, ready to be furious at him for it, but a moment later the pain was gone and my ruined thigh no longer ached so deeply.

When he let me go, I stood up on steady feet, took Holmes by both arms, and propelled him onto the settee to have my way with him. My leg held up very nicely, despite the vigorous activity, and I showed Holmes both my appreciation for his massage and my frustration at his continual reckless endangerment of his person.

"I'm afraid I must insist that you drink some water now," Holmes said afterwards, getting up and padding naked across the sitting room to fill a glass on the sideboard.

"I didn't think it was quite that athletic," I said.

He came back and pushed the glass into my hands. "I know it wasn't long," he said, ignoring my appreciative smirk, "but the massage releases natural toxins in your body, and you have to flush them out. No liquor tonight or you'll make yourself ill."

"You're the expert," I said, and finished the glass. He took it back with a smile.

"No," he said, "I’m quite a novice, but you know how I am about that sort of thing."

"I suppose you’ll want to practice all the time now," said I.

"I hope it won’t trouble you."

"No." I slid my hand into his hair and leaned in close to kiss his healing cheek very, very softly. The bruising was yellow under my lips, and Holmes didn’t wince. "I think I could stand it."