Archive of Our Own ^beta

John Watson was an anomaly among anomalies.

No, that’s not right. John Watson was in no way strange; he had no special talents so to speak… but he was normal. So normal, in fact, that people constantly forgot his name, casually brushed over his raised hand in class. He was defined, usually, by his lack of dust-giver: Unlike Lucy Stevanson, for example, dust-creation of Steven and Ann, he had no recollection of those from whom he was formed - he was an unknown, and the question had been asked many, many times - what was he the son of? Whatson? Watson? Watson, John.  

But his parentage (or lack of) and his devotion to medicine (an almost useless art, as star-children could not get physically ill, and infections were hard-found in the Sky) were the only things that made him special –

No, wait, wrong again!

John Watson did have one other thing - one actual aspect of his personality that people remembered him by. He had a fascination with the earthbound, those humans who held no respect for the universe or stars or giving yourself wholly towards the greater good. John Watson found something brilliant in the individual identity humans possessed, the separate personas that defined them as them. Star-children had none of that, you see, too content with enjoying themselves before their inevitable passing to bother about ambition and individuality. That was what made John Watson special.

(And how he hated it, that people would define him on his passion and on something that he couldn’t control, how they jeered at him for not letting loose and enjoying himself before he had to give himself up to the Stars. He hated that what made him stand out amongst a kingdom of martyrs was a fascination that labelled him a freak, and wanted someone, anyone who wasn’t obligated to love him – read, Harry – to recognise him and admire him and make him feel special. He wanted to do something that nobody else could do, but when everyone else was busy partying the rest of their lives away, getting noticed wasn’t exactly easy.

Humans were different in that way, more careful of their lives because what lay after was unknown, and they were scared of the unknown, a strange combination of self-indulgent arrogance and cautious curiosity that led to an unhealthy yearning to know everything. They all reacted to fear in a different way and they seemed so much more similar to John than the rest of his kind, a sense of self existed that he adored. Trying to explain this to everyone else, however, just landed him with slightly disgusted looks and an abrupt change of subject.)

But, in the simplest, shortest form?

Sherlock Holmes was the anomaly amongst the dull existence that was the human race.

There were other ways to put it, but this was the simplest; Sherlock Holmes was just strange. Stand-offish and cold and with an only slightly terrifying fascination for dead human bodies, but strange nonetheless. And it’s not like he denied it – the exact opposite, in fact. Sherlock was completely aware of the aura of mystery he projected, and he relished it; used it with his usual dramatics to intimidate and persuade people into getting what he wanted.

He was a manipulator of the most majestic order, switching personas and masks as if they were deerstalker hats, uncaring for the general populace and yet protective (even if in a slightly twisted and counterintuitive way) of the few people who had managed to wheedle their way into his self-proclaimed unfeeling heart.

(Well, hearts themselves as organs are of course unfeeling – feelings come from electrical signals in the brain. But in this case, we are speaking in the metaphorical sense, because one cannot understand Sherlock Holmes if you write in the clinical style he prefers, and understanding Sherlock Holmes, even just a little, is rather imperative for understanding this tale itself)

But, you see, Sherlock was rather bored. He’d given up on drugs as a stimulus – Mycroft had unfortunately cracked down rather hard on that little habit, and Sherlock himself had become rather averse to the act after realising how uncontrollable it made his transport. One can’t solve crimes when they’re curled up in a dark alley, stomach trying desperately to reject the poison that they themselves had opted to take, after all. And the cases, the work he lived for… at the beginning, they’d been a wonderful source of puzzles for his ever-curious mind. And yet, as the very same riddles and patterns were displayed, naked and as obvious as the knowledge that potassium reacted violently with sulphuric acid,  in front of his eyes over and over again, Sherlock found himself falling once more to the levels of boredom that had ceaselessly plagued his mind a couple of years ago. Playing his violin had quickly become repetitive, the detective not even able to lose himself in the swing of the rhythm that normally alleviated any such monotonous feelings.

Swinging his feet off the sofa with a dramatic sigh, Sherlock went to put on his coat. He wouldn’t go out in his dressing gown again, not after Mycroft had seen and teased him about it mercilessly for months, but there was no need to put on any other clothes, unless –

Sherlock smirked.

Unless, of course, he were to happen across a crime and need his tools. Mentally re-routing the roads he had planned to walk down to include the shadier areas of London, Sherlock quickly padded upstairs to grab a shirt and trousers. Brushing his coat jacket off in front of the mirror (it wasn’t vanity, not projecting oneself as an attractive male. It was a means of looking trustworthy and gathering information; presentation,  after all, was everything), he ran a hand through his hair to make it look decently presentable (again, not vain), before hurrying downstairs, mind alight with the thousands of possible crimes he might discover on his stroll. If he were lucky, maybe it’d even be a murder! Or, even better – the beginnings of a serial killer!

There were very few people who would get actively excited about murders.

Sherlock Holmes was one of them. Indeed, Sherlock was often one of a few; In fact, one could say:

Moving with a choking air of urgency, John sprinted across the Plain. A large and open field, the Plain was where those who didn’t stay up all night came to in the day, and those who did came to at night to look up at what they would one day become. It was a place of long-bladed grass that rustled in the breeze, of a summer heat that burned neither too hot nor too cold, at a perfect temperature for relaxing and reading a book or holding a picnic with friends. But at that exact moment, John held no interest in resting. John held far more interest in the glowing rock that he had seen falling from the window of his cosy room, held far more interest in what it could mean and what it was. And while other people may have chosen not to approach the decently-sized, possibly radioactive lump of hardened earth that fell from the Above, John honestly had no real regard for his safety.

He’d heard the tales.

Star-children, because of the sacrifice they’d be eventually forced to make, had pretty easy lives. They had free food, free water, a place to stay, and a beautiful world in which to live. They could educate themselves if they wanted, and some people (those who claimed to have come from the First Ones, and so had better privileges) even managed to transport things from the earthbound realm for their own amusement. Unfortunately, John was not one of those people, so his interest in humans could never really have been fulfilled.

But – but! That glowing rock, John thought he knew what it was. Growing up on the idea of being a hero, he had an almost instinctive knowledge of at least the general idea. The Wish Rock, as it was uncreatively titled, was said to appear for one person in every generation (these claims could never be ascertained, as each generation only came about when the previous one gave themselves to the Above, and the Above-One only ever told them their purpose and names, nothing more), granting a need that couldn’t be fulfilled if they had remained in the Sky until their Giving Day. And hopefully, it was meant for him.

Uncaring for the fact that he was clad in nothing but his sleeping attire, a pair of trackies and a ratty old top, John finally came to a stop in front of the shining object, after at least two minutes straight of running as fast as he could, breathing heavily as he peered down at it. To be honest, it looked as if someone had simply dropped it in a can of luminous paint, but John had never been all that great at art. If he was very lucky, maybe this would be the tool to finding something that made him feel like his life was worth more than just something to wait out until he was called to his Giving. With perfectly steady hands, John reached out and quickly pulled the rock towards him, as if scared that it would disappear by his touch. It didn’t, of course, and John found himself holding his breath for a full 5 seconds before realising that he had absolutely no idea how this thing worked. Also, the niggling feeling of cold was just starting to set in (For God’s sake, he wasn’t even wearing shoes!), and the man was slightly worried he wouldn’t be able to feel his toes soon. Sighing self-pityingly at his more than slightly-dashed hopes, he shoved the useless rock into his pocket (with a little bit of force, it had to be said – the fabric now had a little tear in the corner) and began to make his way back home, thinking wishfully of how wonderful it would be to actually be able to visit the earthbound.

The seedier parts of London were being irritatingly quiet tonight, Sherlock reflected. There were no screams of panic, no crunches of fists meeting faces. He hadn’t even been able to catch sight of a drugs-deal taking place! As it was highly improbable that every criminal in London had suddenly learned to outwit and hide from him, the consulting detective was forced to draw his rather grim conclusion.

Apparently, even evil took a break for the half-term holidays.

Sherlock brushed his coat off as he stepped away from the dark corner he’d been lurking in. If he returned to Baker Street quickly then the entire night need not be wasted; there was a particularly interesting experiment with noses and hydrogen peroxide that he’d been meaning to start. In fact, at the same time he could start on that other experiment with the water retention of the human body and how it affected bile production rates, too – yes, this night might even become productive! Sherlock immediately set to work on recovering the plans for these experiments from the depths of his Mind Palace, allowing his body to walk on auto-pilot. He knew the way back well enough, having stalked his current location periodically in both good and bad times. For both good and not so good things.

Sherlock frowned. Those memories were supposed to be locked up in the bottom draw of Mycroft’s desk in his Mind Palace, and they certainly weren’t supposed to be rampaging about in his thought process. He’d have to fix that the moment he returned. The delay of the experiments by about 147 seconds (the time it would take for him to place those memories back in the chest and lock it thoroughly) shouldn’t affect anything, but…

Sherlock faintly registered the repeated sound of flesh hitting earth amidst his thinking, and all mental procedures were immediately drawn to a halt. Mental appointments with various bits of human flesh were cancelled, and for a very important reason. Flesh meeting earth meant injury, injury would mean trouble, and trouble meant finally something exciting!

With a vicious grin on his face, Sherlock set off towards the noise. His feet pounded on cobblestone, and his coat flew behind him in the very way he’d hoped for when he’d purchased it. His face had just the slightest tinge of insanity, brought about from dirty, wrong, raw excitement, and within a half minute Sherlock skidded to a stop. Breathing hardly laboured, he assessed the situation slowly. (Well, in about 7 milliseconds. But compared to his average of 5.5, that was quite slow indeed.)

The hoarse shouts had broken off around 10 seconds ago – but now he was close enough, Sherlock could hear hushed murmurs and restrained moans of pain. There wasn’t an overly strong smell of blood. Therefore, only one or two blows would have been traded. Minimal injury, but why? The multiple groans meant that several – actually, to be more precise, two – people had been on the losing side. One man wouldn’t have attempted to attack two people at the same time, so the assailants had been on the losing side. The single man, and it was statistically more likely to be a man but Sherlock needed to confirm it, couldn’t have looked too intimidating – the kinds of thugs that hung around here went for either extremely wealthy or extremely weak, and the former wouldn’t be in this part of town at night.

It was just rather upsetting that his first meeting hadn’t gone as well as he hoped it would. He’d appeared in the middle of a dark road, stumbling slightly. Only just managing to not fall on his behind, he had stared around in a daze until the blinding lights of an automobile had threatened to run him over, at which point he had made a hasty escape into an alley. Unfortunately he must have behaved in some rude manner thanks to his lack of cultural knowledge, because two guys had made for him like sharks to a corpse. And, well, he had just…reacted. Twisted one of the lads’ arms behind his back, swung him into the other guy when he’d tried to pounce on John. They were now in a little heap in the corner, groaning pitifully, and John felt a little bit guilty.

“Sorry, I’m, uh, I’m new to the area, and got a bit surprised, that’s all. I didn’t mean anything by it.” One of the teens glared up at him weakly, shifting and whispering to the guy who was underneath him. They got up. John glared back, certain that his behaviour hadn’t deserved that much. “Look, I’m not too up to date with your culture and all, but there’s no need to glare either. I’ll just. Be on my way. I haven’t actually injured you, you know. Your arm might be a bit sore tomorrow,” spoken to the idiot, sorry, guy, who’d tried for him first, “and you might have some bruising tomorrow,” to the one that John had dubbed ‘the other guy’, “but it’s not anything serious at all. So.” He nodded, not really able to think of anything else to say. He stood awkwardly for a few moments, not sure of what to do, before clearing his throat and turning around on his heel. He began to walk briskly towards the alley-entrance, heading towards something that wasn’t drenched in shadows. Reaching out with his stardust instinctively (okay, so he had been lying about the other guy having just a little bruising. It was a moderate amount of bruising, after he’d checked), he jerked to a halt at the feeling of another life-form beside him, mere milliseconds before a hand placed itself on his shoulder. Reacting, he spun, pinning the other body to the crumbling brick wall.

John blinked.

Sherlock blinked back.

And then, he opened his mouth.

“Your quick reactions scream training somewhere, but you don’t have the roughness of learning from the streets and you lack the finesse that martial arts training gives. You knew I was there before I moved despite my superior skills in avoiding detection, and you acted on instinct, since you’re somewhat surprised. But again, there was no finesse, and no lack of it either. It’s plausible to think that these things were ingrained into you from a very young age, then. Furthermore, you’re wearing clothes suitable to sleeping. Not the type to flout conventions, are you, not with that hair… so you’ve ended up here without too much choice, possibly trying to find something but you lack a sense of urgency, and you’re not panicked enough to have been sleep-walking or forced here.

So, you didn’t come here from choice but you weren’t forced. You fight like someone with professional training and yet haven’t had much, if any. You’re on adrenaline, probably from your tiff with those people, but you’re not experiencing any sort of crash now that the danger’s worn off – but do you know it has? The danger’s worn off, by the way, I have no intention of harming you.” Sherlock took a breath in, and John stepped back, quite bemused by what was going on. He hadn’t had such singular attention focused on him in quite a while, and it was slightly staggering. Plus, this guy… he was slightly awe-inspiring. Out of this world and yet very in this world.

And also right. Star-children were all born with fast reactions, had to be to stop themselves dying before their time, because if they died early then they wouldn’t become proper stars. But nobody on Earth knew that, did they?

“Who are you?” John asked, amazed.

“Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. I’m the only one in the world.” He grinned, a layer of pride hidden underneath snootiness. John was impressed.

“I’m John Watson. Don’t have any special titles, but I know how to heal people.” He put his right hand in front of him, remembering the books he’d read on human introductions, and felt a pleasant excitement when Sherlock shook it.
“Well, John Watson,” Sherlock began, “Tell me why you’re such a contradiction.”

Huh. He wanted John to talk about himself? Well, that was… different. And not entirely comfortable. John wasn’t used to being the very centre of attention, and whilst he was loving it, it was also slightly nerve-wracking. But, John remembered, this was what he loved about humans. Their diversity, their curiosity, their need to know and to further themselves.

So John started talking.