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It had all started that fateful day. The day John Watson met Sherlock Holmes at the lab in St. Barts hospital. A head of dark curls and captivating ideas that left John gasping for breath in the best way possible.
The way the man in front of him had been able to peel him apart, piece by piece, like he was a kid with a puzzle they had done so many times it wasn’t even a challenge anymore.
Like all beautiful things, Sherlock had not asked for attention, no, he had very simple demanded it.
John felt a flutter in his stomach he had long since thought to have died out. The wings of hope, of the desperate craving for approval. He wished to show Sherlock all of him, to show Sherlock, that he was not some simple puzzle he had figured out a million times before. He wanted Sherlock to try and solve him, and find he had but a mere fraction of the required pieces.
John wanted like he had never wanted anything else in his life, so when the man asked him to share a flat with him, he couldn’t refuse. Oh, but if he simply said yes, how mundane would he be? No longer of interest. No longer a toy that was fun to play with.
He wanted to be useful, so he did as asked of him, no matter what he thought of the tasks. John Hamish Watson, always eager to please. The soldier, always willing to obey commands.
He felt his hands shaking as he looked at them. They were stained red, a red only John could see. It was bad. Very bad. He saw his face in the mirror, but did not recognise it. The world experienced him, yet he did not experience the world in return.
A simple command rung in his head, and he leapt to follow it. No matter how strained his eyes were, no matter how unreal his life felt, no matter what else happened. This would make him full, help him feel right.
He heard the whispers in the corners of the rooms. The quiet complaints that he so desperately tried to rid from the minds of others.
“He’s so good at kissing ass, someone should give him a medal.”
“He infuriates me to no end, and I have no idea why.”
“Run along now puppy. Go tend to your master.”
He always acted as if they didn’t exist. If they didn’t exist, they couldn’t hurt him after all. He would show them how nice he could be. He just had to show them he could do whatever they wanted him too, and they would like him, and be nice to him. They would praise him… right?
A pen was borrowed and never given back, a book taken without asking for permission, cat sitting dumped on him, a complaint about Sherlock here and being used as a verbal punching bag there. He did it all for them, and he clung desperately to the praises they sprinkled on him from time to time.
“You’re so nice.”
“You’re such a good listener.”
“You’re a great friend!”
For some reason, the praise always came with a bitter after taste. The initial sweetness would fade, and he would remember how he had wanted to keep that book, about how that pen had been his favourite, he would remember that he had planned to spend that weekend on relaxing after a tiring week. His throat would tighten and his brain would be overloaded with regret.
He never asked for any of the things back, nor did he ever say no to the requests. The consequences were too unbearable.
“Wow, I thought we were friends.”
“Seriously? So much for inviting you to my party next week.”
“Why can’t you just do it? Honestly, it’s not like you have anything better to do, and I can’t afford to hire someone.”
He hated it…
He talked to Ella about it. She asked when it had started, and he informed her that was simply how he had been his entire life. That only seemed to make her more worried.
She had asked him where his hard line was, something he absolutely would not do if someone asked him to. A feeling told him that the fact his first thought was “nothing”, was a bad sign.
Sherlock had sat on the sofa when he had made the request for John to kiss him. He had made it very clear that John did not have to, if he didn’t want to. John decided to kiss him. It felt wrong, to kiss Sherlock just because he asked John to. John could say no more, say that he wanted a little more time to think things through. He decided to keep kissing Sherlock.
When he told his therapist, she was far from thrilled at the news.
John realised he had a need for approval, but hadn’t realised just how deeply it ran before he saw a movie. A man that loathed himself and was hated by those around him. No one liked a people pleaser, but everyone liked to use them.
John had an addiction. Not an addiction to alcohol like Harry, and not an addiction to drugs like Sherlock had struggled with before. His addiction was not physically harmful, yet it was still likely that it would kill him. Either through another person or himself.
He was exhausted, and even if he was on the brink of breaking he would do anything for a fix, anything to hear those words of praise, to be told he was good.
Ella wanted to blame his parents. His mother and father for being emotionally violent towards him, his father for being neglectful as well. She said he had been trained to desperately cling to any traces of love or approval, because of how few and far between they had been during his childhood.
Perhaps she was right. John didn’t much care though. John just wanted to be a good boy. That was why he had lent away all his pens, that was why he had cat sat for the weekend, that was why he had kissed Sherlock and that was why he was, inevitably, going to kill himself.
For as his mother had told him once, the best possible thing he could do, was disappear, and let everyone move on with their lives. Peaceful.
Yes.
John was a very good boy.
...Right?