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John didn’t just hate her, he loathed her.
He loathed her small red lips and her long dark hair; her wide blue eyes and her absolutely fantastic arse. He hated her shapely thighs and supple breasts, her teasing voice and her whole treasure trove of puzzles more than capable of keeping Sherlock occupied for a few lifetimes.
But more than anything, more than his own biological sex, more than his father and Moriarty, more than anything that ever had been or ever would be, John hated her hands. Her long pale hands, full of a strength unbecoming of a lady, her whip hand, more than capable of pulling lines of blood and scar tissue to the surface. Her fucking hands. Hands capable of not only bloodshed but gentleness, he could see it in the way she caressed his lover's cheekbones, hands skilled (though such skills earned through unconventional means) of stitching Sherlock back up after a case the way John’s did. Hands of complete capability, hands that could do all John’s could and more.
This is what John had always feared, this was everything his soul ached to be rolled into one. This beautiful, dangerous, clever, mysterious woman. This hand-crafted companion for Sherlock Holmes.
John felt his heart break the day she showed up in his home, he felt his soul drag across glass when she kissed his lover's cheek and Sherlock reacted like he’d been struck by lightning. He used to do that for John. John used to kiss him, and he could physically see Sherlock's mind colliding like a thunderstorm. Every piece of a case suddenly clicking into place.
But more than all of that, John hated how Sherlock acted like nothing had happened. They still kissed and fucked; John still woke in the morning with Sherlock wrapped around him like an octopus. Then she died. She fucking died, the stupid fucking bitch, and left the detective that god damned phone.
John hated her.
He hated Mycroft for putting her in their path. (not their now though, eh? No, now it was just Sherlock and the pathetic son of a bitch who crawled after him, begging for scraps.)
Sherlock reacted in a way John had never seen, melancholy, playing his violin day and night, not even original scores. The love of his life just stood by the window, like a dog waiting for its owner to come home.
Months they carried on like this, Sherlock's sex drive seemed to have evaporated overnight. John couldn’t even blame him. When he looked in the mirror he cowered from his own reflection. What was he compared to her? The little worm writhing about on the ground, hopeless and helpless. Where she had beauty and grace, he had scars and snarled skin. He was but a sexless and undesirable mockery of a human. Not woman, not man, just a pathetic little thing clinging to the legs of those far better than he. He understood, suddenly, why Sherlock had fallen into such a pitiful excuse for a relationship with him.
In the beginning, when they met her, John had whispered to himself over and over “he’s gay, he’s gay, he’s gay.” Like that would prevent chemistry, like that would stop the unstoppable forces that were Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes from colliding. No, John saw it now, Sherlock wasn’t gay, or bi, or anything really, just endlessly curious. Of course Sherlock fucked him, he was neither male or female, he was something new, the dickless, titless wonder. How exciting for the great Sherlock Holmes, something new and rare! A toy with three holes, a man’s face and a woman’s pussy. Like a god damned circus freak.
He was just a passing fancy. Of course Sherlock bored of him when the puzzle was solved. How could he have ever thought…
Then the fucking woman came back. John almost felt hope in his chest, oh not for himself. He knew he was doomed. He knew he would never have Sherlock's attention again, but maybe, maybe, if she was back… Maybe Sherlock could be happy again. That’s what you do when you love someone, right? You put your own happiness aside for them. John could do that. For once in his god damned life, he could do that.
Then she turned around and stabbed them all in the back and died. She just fucking died, for real this time. Mycroft looked guilty and saddened as he sat across from John at the café below their flat.
“John-“ he opened and closed his mouth, before taking a deep breath, “I understand these last few months have been hard for you-“
“I hate you.” John interrupted. There was no inflection in his voice, just a matter of fact statement. Mycroft flinched minutely.
“Come now, you don’t mean-“
“I. Hate. You. You put him in her path. He went and fell in love. Now I have to live with him, heartbroken over the woman he can’t have. I hate you. You took him from me, and I hate you for it.” John took a sip of his tea.
“John,” Mycroft started, his words halting, “there are… different kinds of love. Surely you know that. Sherlock loves you-“
“Shut the fuck up.” John snarled, slamming his teacup down. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding, as he tried to regain his cool. Finally, he breathed deeply and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest, suddenly far too conscious of it (was his shirt bunching in the front? Did he need his binder again? It seemed impossible but…) “Shut the actual fuck up, before I punch you, and say what you came here to say.”
Silence again. The rain pattered against the glass window. Mycroft looked lost and confused before finally furrowing his brow and pulled some papers from a case. He asked John to lie. He asked John to lie in order to save his brother some heartbreak. Didn’t that tell John enough? Didn’t that tell John all he needed to know?
John agreed. For the same reasons Mycroft asked him, he agreed. To save the heart of Sherlock Holmes. What did it matter that Johns own had been pulled out, carved into pieces and tossed into a volcano? As Sherlock asked him “please”, all over a fucking phone, a souvenir of her time in his life, John had to bite his own tongue to stop from crying.
Six weeks later Sherlock came to his room. John hadn’t yet migrated everything to Sherlock's room when she appeared, and after she had slept in their bed, John wasn’t able to find rest there anymore. He had just finished moving everything back to his own room that night. Why it took so long, he couldn’t say. Sherlock had been shooting him pitiful looks, sneaking out of the house at all hours, always on the brink of something.
Maybe that’s why John stalled, maybe he wanted Sherlock to fall over the brink. Maybe he wanted to be told that he was still loved. Maybe he was waiting for Sherlock to feign innocence so John could get angry enough to leave for good. John had thought Sherlock was back on the drugs when he noticed the younger man slinking about. He had to admit, some dark part of him wasn’t opposed to the idea. A high Sherlock meant a detoxing Sherlock, and a detoxing Sherlock needed a doctor. Maybe something would rebloom when Sherlock saw how well he could care for the detective? But alas, Sherlock's arms were the same as they’d always been, pale, strong, so wonderfully masculine and devoid of new track marks..
John was slowly settling back into their uneasy friendship. They snapped at each other a bit more, the tension palpable, but it was…ok. John was ok with it. He still got to laugh with Sherlock and make him dinner and watch movies. So what they didn’t fuck or share a bed? He didn’t need that. If he was horny, he’d go pick someone up, if he wanted someone in his bed, he’d buy a damned body pillow. With such grim determination, John forced himself to move the rest of his things to his old room.
But that night Sherlock approached him like a shadow. Not that John cared about being interrupted. He hadn’t been sleeping. He hardly ever slept anymore. It was hard without Sherlock next to him. The nightmares where horrific. Though they had shifted. The war faded into images of that night over and over and over. Except now Sherlock was directing “Sebby”, but he was also a puppet, his strings pulled by Irene, whose strings were ultimately pulled by Moriarty. And Colonel Moran had shifted into James Sholto, crying and begging his forgiveness. A hellish landscape of tangled webs and broken hearts John had no desire to revisit.
“John?” Sherlock asked hesitantly and quietly, his voice thick. He sounded broken in the same way he had since she vanished.
John wanted to cry, he wanted to roll over until Sherlock left his room and sob into the pillow at the unfairness of it all. He hated himself, he hated his body, he hated what made John Watson, because it would never be better than Irene Adler. He was too twisted, too almost something to ever be Sherlock’s everything. But Sherlock was hurting. So, John shoved his own pain aside. This was his life’s calling, after all; he’d known since the first day he met Sherlock. He’d known he’d spend the rest of his life watching after this man.
“What’s wrong?” John asked, trying to stay emotionless because otherwise he would tear up, his voice pitching higher than it ought to (since when did it do that? He hadn’t sounded so feminine since his voice dropped during the HRT) and his pain becoming more than obvious.
“I- I can’t sleep.” Sherlock fiddled with the sash of his dressing gown nervously.
“Want me to make you a cuppa?” John asked, exhausted, his eyes not staying on Sherlock silhouetted against his doorway for long. Sherlock just shook his head and collapsed into John’s bed, snuggling into his side.
“Sher-“
“I’m sorry.” The detective cut him off. John realized, with some surprise, that Sherlock was crying.
“It’s all righ-“
“No is not!” Sherlock sobbed, “It’s not alright! And I don’t know if anything I say will make it alright. I’m sorry I let you believe what I did. I’m sorry I loved her, but it wasn’t… It’s not like I love you and I don’t know what’s happening.
You don’t touch me anymore; you didn’t even try to argue when she came into our lives and I thought maybe you had been looking for a way to just get rid of me? But that was so out of character for you. I thought maybe it was the connection to Moriarty, that you were slipping backward, but it’s not, it’s about her and I don’t understand. And you’re so sad, John I’ve never seen you like this and I’m scared and don’t know how to fix it.” John hesitantly laid his arms across Sherlock's shoulders. He too was crying, but when he spoke, he didn’t hear it in his voice.
“I didn’t fight because I know when I’ve been beaten, Sherl. It’s ok, you know. I’m not mad, I still love you, I’ll still be here for you. You don’t have to-“ John couldn’t continue.
“But I want to,” Sherlock said in a small voice. He hesitantly laid a small kiss on John’s bare shoulder, his bad one.
John jerked away abruptly, standing from the bed. He crossed his arms stiffly over his chest, suddenly not wanting to be touched. The flesh were his breasts used to be felt tight and hot, like there were ants under his skin, biting at him. He wished for a moment that he still had his binder.
“What’re you doing?” he demanded. Sherlock just gaped for a moment.
“I- I thought. I was just trying… but this is what you wanted?!” he finally cried in exasperation. John felt the knife in his heart twist.
“Not like this.” He whispered, too scared to yell. “I’m not going anywhere. It’s ok for us to just be friends. It’s ok to be heartbroken over her, it’s ok that you fell in love with her. I- I know falling in love with someone new while you’re with someone else doesn’t always mean you stop loving the first person but…. God, Sherlock.” John sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands and his back to his love.
“I can’t…. I can’t be with you like this knowing I wasn’t enough. If I wasn’t enough once, it’ll happen again. We’ll find someone just as lovely and clever as her and you’ll fall in love all over. I can’t- I can’t do that, ok? I can’t… I- I can stay, I can take care of you for as long as I’m able, I can be whatever else you need, but… but I can’t be that.” John took in a shuddering gasp, trying to wipe the tears from his eyes, but they fell too fast.
He felt like he was trying to hold his body together at the seams. And every time he looked at Sherlock and every time he thought of her, he thought about what real people looked like. Real women and real men, whole and perfect, maybe that’s what this was about. Two perfect specimens of masculinity and femininity, two perfect halves of a whole. Something John, as an almost specimen, a lab rat gone wrong, could never be for Sherlock.
“But I didn’t love her like that,” Sherlock whispered shyly. John let out a snort.
“I’m not a fucking idiot-“
“Yes, you are!” Sherlock snapped, he sounded desperate. “You are, you are, you are! For god’s sake John! She’s alive. I saved her, I got her back to London, she’s here, a different name, hair color, and face, but she’s here in London. She’s working as a secretary at a bank. That’s where I’ve been going! Haven’t you noticed?” John sucked in air through his teeth. Sherlock jumped on the bed behind him, setting a hand on his shoulder.
“N-no no John, not like that! That’s not what’s happening, we just talk, we get coffee and dinner and talk. Please, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s not like what I have with you. It’s not… I don’t want to have sex with her, she’s beautiful but I don’t want her body. It’s not, God John I don’t know. She clever and interesting and we have good conversations. It’s almost like what I had with Victor before we were together, but not. That was childish and this isn’t that. I haven’t felt this before; I don’t understand it.
Every time I ask her what’s going on, because let’s face it she understands these things better than me, she just looks at me like I’m a fool. I- I keep asking her why you’ve been doing this, and she said I should just talk to you, but then you started moving your things back in your room! And tonight you moved you gun cleaning kit back in here and-“ Sherlock went quiet, like all the air had gone out of him.
“Just tell me how to fix it?” Sherlock pleaded. John just sat for a moment, trying to process. But of all the things to process it wasn’t that Sherlock did, still, in fact, love him in a romantic way. Rather, John was trying to process that Sherlock had never had someone who was just a friend. It had always been a friend verging on a lover, or an acquaintance. The idea of Sherlock Holmes loving someone platonically and in a friendly manner was so foreign that even John didn’t see it.
“John please? I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner I should have; I know I should have but you know how I get with cases and this one was so big John! And- and I got distracted, then by the time I wasn’t distracted you weren’t touching me so I just, god I don’t know. I just thought you were done. I thought you’d gotten fed up with me seemingly forgetting you during a case a-and it was over.”
“A friend.” John finally said.
“What?” Sherlock asked.
“She’s a friend, Sherlock. That’s what you call it when you’ve no romantic interest in someone but still care for them. You love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, but as I said-“
“Not sexually.” John cut him off. “God, Sherlock, have you never had a friend?”
“I had Vic and you?” Sherlock asked shyly.
“No, you fell in love with us, it doesn’t count.” John chuckled, turning back to Sherlock. As he looked at the younger man, he felt a little bad. Sherlock had lost nearly half a stone and his eyes were drawn. John had done his best to ensure Sherlock ate and bathed regularly but he’d been so consumed with his own inner turmoil he hadn’t noticed.
“Oh love,” John breathed, laying a hand on Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock hungrily leaned into his touch.
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock whispered again.
“I’m sorry too. I just… she’s so beautiful and clever, I just thought-“
“But I don’t want that,” Sherlock hastened to add, grabbing John’s hand, “I don’t want that all my life. I want someone I can trust fully; someone I know will be here when I need them. I want someone I can see myself growing old with. I want someone who will make me want to grow old. I want safety and comradery and honesty and loyalty.
I want you; John I want you, not her. Not some woman with interesting puzzles and a vicious tongue who had no qualms working with the man who hurt you. I can’t forgive her for that, John. I can forgive her for what she’s done to me and to Mycroft, and, hell, all of Britain, but not for that. Why on earth would I be in love with someone I can’t fully forgive?”
John grabbed Sherlock tight, pulling the younger man into his chest. John rested his cheek against Sherlock's head and sighed. “We’re both idiots.” He finally breathed out after a moment.
Sherlock grunted in response, “I resent that statement.”
“It’s true though.” John chided lightly. “We could have avoided all of this nonsense by just talking.” He fell back into the bed, dragging Sherlock with him.
“That’s it?” Sherlock asked in a quiet voice, “Just like that everything is ok? We’re ok?”
“Yea,” John breathed, “we’re ok.”
They clung to each other that night. The day after was awkward, fleeting touches whispered, “is this ok?” and slowly coming back together. John still felt foolish for letting what he now realized was his own dysphoria and jealousy cloud his vision. But more than that, he was heartbroken that Sherlock had never had the pleasure to experience a platonic friendship.
There was something magical about having someone who was connected to you by nothing but loyalty, to whom you owned nothing but the same. Something special about a friend who would die for you and yet never expected anything in return, a person separated by blood who still shared the title of brother. That Sherlock had never felt this broke John’s heart for him just the tiniest bit. Enough that he almost was able to forgive Adler’s in repayment for her offering such a thing to Sherlock.