Author: Regency

Title: A Brief History of House Calls

Series: The Fight On Your Hands (I)

Rating: high PG-13 to mild R

Spoilers: Loads for series one, vague ones for series two and three

Pairings: John/Sherlock (main), John/Molly, John/Jim, John/not!Anthea, John/Lestrade, John/Sarah, John/so many people who are not all from this fandom

Summary: John returns from Afghanistan, racks up a huge gambling debt and sells his body to make up the money. He enjoys his work as an escort enough to keep it up even after his debts are paid. But things become a great deal more complex when Sherlock Holmes enters the picture. (A series of 'meetings' and the complications that arise when Sherlock gets involved.)

On warnings: A lot of content has been edited to keep well within the margins of content policy. Some of the redacted bits may be posted on Ao3 at a later date (some already are). I haven't decided. The warnings for what will be posted here are as follow:

Warnings/Contains: Non-graphic sex, light humiliation kink, implied mild D/s, bondage (kinbaku and otherwise), breathplay, sensation play, bloodplay, drug use/talk, light BDSM, bad BDSM, questionable medicine, gun violence, crossdressing, implied transphobia/homophobia, references to hate crimes, semi-graphic violence, references to dub-con/non-con, prostitution, underage (US not UK), POC characters not having any white knight bullshit, sugar daddy/sugar baby or mutually beneficial relationships, jargon. It's actually not that bad. All the unfortunate implications are intended. (Unless they're not, so ask if you're unsure.)

Author's Notes: Inspired by the prompt here: John returns from Afghanistan, racks up a huge gambling debt and sells his body to make up the money. This is a bit Secret Diary of a Call Girl meets Sherlock. Straddles the lines a bit between crack and straight drama, but we mostly play it straight. Also, a lot of this stuff comes from net research, so let me know if you feel anything's been misrepresented terribly. Otherwise, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Sherlock or any of the other fandoms featured in passing. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun. Any dialogue lifted from any source material is borrowed with love.

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PROLOGUE

Addiction runs in the family. That was what John told himself as increasing amounts of his pension check disappeared into high-stakes poker games and cheap daily horse races. All right, so the races stopped being so cheap once he'd done them near every day for a month and stakes didn't get much higher than having four kinds of beans for every meal because he'd gambled the rest away. And what he'd borrowed when that wasn't enough? John didn't want to think about the kind of people he owed money to now. He wanted to think of them even less now that the Army was turning him out and he was in need of a new place to live. Temptations and all, he loved London and would give his useless left leg to stay, but with his almost non-existent income and the debt that was sure to follow him just about anywhere he went, he couldn't see his way to keeping afloat on her tab.

John needed help, badly.

Funny, though, he hadn't actually expected to get it.

Apparently, his plight had made itself heard to the right ears and one very hungry night in London, he received a phone call from his old friend Bill Murray, still stationed overseas. The man gave him a number and said, "Everybody's been there, mate. No shame in making money doing what you're good at."

John hadn't asked what people thought he was good at. He hadn't got the name "Three Continents Watson" shooting tin cans.