Chapter Text
Everyone has a talent.
Whether it's music or art or intelligence, everyone is good at something. Dad was good at drinking. Harry was good at hiding. Mum was good at hoovering the carpet. On the flip side, I never thought I was very talented or gifted; not like most people. I always thought I was generic - a blank slate, blank merely because there was no plausible way for me to carve anything in. But what I would come to learn eventually was that I had one talent that was both extremely powerful and blatantly obvious.
I was damn good at lying to myself.
"Mum?" I asked as she drove me to the other side of town in her new car that we could barely afford. It was night, and the streets were dark and somewhat serene.
"Yes, John?" she asked, turning left on to a new street and waiting for my question.
"Do I really need another job?"
She pursed her lips and stared at the road ahead of us. "Sweetie, don't start with this."
"I'm already going to be balancing my studies on my shoulders," I said. "I'll be going to uni in two months, Mum. I don't want to work any more than I need to."
"John Hamish Watson," Mum said, parking in front of a small children's hospital and turning to face me. She always used my middle name when she wanted to have power over me. She likely knew I hated it. "I don't want you to end up like me. Every day I worry about not being able to keep our flat and not being able to pay for food. What if you suddenly end up needing specs? Hmm? What will we do then?"
"Mum," I said, "I, for one, don't have a drug habit. The reason you're not doing well off is because you snorted heroin for five years straight."
Mom closed her eyes and sighed. "Get your arse into that building," she snapped. "I set up an interview for you. Take it." She unlocked the car door and practically shoved me out of it, driving off as soon as my feet touched the Tarmac-infused floor of the car park. I put my hands into the pockets of my grey rain jacket and went inside.
The automatic doors rolled open for me, and I stepped into a room full of bright light, constant phone ringing, and crying children. I insecurely stepped forward to the front desk, where a middle-aged man stared me down.
"May I help you?" he asked groggily, and I nodded.
"John Watson here for an interview."
He flipped through some papers and crossed my name off from a list. "Down the hall to the right. Room 110."
"Right," I said. "Thank you."
He merely grunted and went back to his work, pushing his thin glasses up the bridge of his greasy nose. I turned and headed down the hallway, stopping at the designated room and knocking at the heavy, white door.
"Come in."
I pushed the door open, stepping awkwardly into the room and sitting down in a chair in front of my interviewer. She was a girl about my age, and she shook my hand. "Nice to meet you," she said. "My name is Molly."
"John," I said. "Watson. John... Hamish... Watson." I stiffly sat back in my seat as Molly looked down at her sheet of paper, her thin lips bright red and her eyelids tinted blue.
"Let's begin, shall we?" she said. "So you're here for an extra job?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm going to university in a few months, and my Mum wants to make sure my finances are..." I sighed. "...extra stable."
"Okay," she said. "And do you have experience with children?"
"Lots. Buckets and buckets," I said, remembering looking after my baby cousins with my sister Harriet, wincing as I thought of the screaming and crying and endless loads of poo.
"And what about medical experience?" she asked. "Not like you'd need it in the job you'd be taking anyway."
"I've taken four safety classes and three first aid classes in the past few months," I said, "not like it's important."
It really wasn't important, which was confirmed as the young girl sighed and raised her eyebrows in mock enthusiasm.
"Okay," Molly said. "Your mum gave me all the other information I needed. You may leave now."
"Oh," I said, surprised at how quick that had been. "Um... Thank you." Perhaps she just wanted to get rid of me. Perhaps things would turn out and they wouldn't hire me, after all.
"Sure," Molly said, smiling at me. "You're a lot better than the last candidate."
"The last one?" I asked. "What was wrong with the last one?"
Molly opened her mouth to speak, but the man from the front desk came in and leaned on the doorframe, alerting the both of us with a quick cough.
"I'll need those blood vials and their analyses in fifty-five minutes," he said. "You can leave, Watson."
I had always found it strikingly odd when people called me by my last name. Harry had told me that people do such things in instances when they're far too formal and therefore afraid of intimacy. Even though it was Harriet who had said it, I had to admit it still made perfect sense. This man looked like he hadn't even seen intimacy in thousands of years. Maybe even millions. He was a celibate fossil, to be frank. An absolute incel.
I stood up promptly and headed outside. It had become apparent that my mum wouldn't be driving to get me, so I knew I had to walk home. Dad was definitely drunk, and who knows what Harry was up to. But this was fine, because I liked walking. The air always smelt good at night as well, especially being cold and crisp with the season.
I slowly made my way down the street and to a small outdoor park lit with streetlights and lined with benches. I breathed in the fresh air as I made way down the dirt path, step by step. My old, worn trainers scuffed on the surface of the loose gravel, and I slowly came to a smooth halt as I noticed someone on the nearest park bench.
He was lying on his back, a thick, long and black wool coat draped underneath him. His full, heart shaped lips held a cigarette in his mouth, his cheekbones becoming even more defined than usual as he inhaled.
He was... odd.
"Are you alright?" I asked him, and he slowly turned his head to me. Expressionless. Seamlessly coy.
"I mean," I continued, afraid that I'd offended him in some way, "it's not very often that you see someone flat on his back, smoking in the centre of a park near the middle of the night."
He chuckled a bit, sarcasm lingering in his throat, his voice rich and deep as his thick, black curls fell back off of his forehead. "I didn't think anyone would ask."
"Oh," I said. "Well, I did." I watched as he exhaled a breath of smoke into the air, watching it float away from him in a wispy cloud. "Should I be expecting an answer?"
"It takes one to know one," the boy said. "Or, at least, that's what my mum says. She exaggerates everything." He rolled his eyes dramatically as he stuck the cigarette back between his teeth. The action was hypocritical; ironic. But I didn't mind. In fact, I understood.
"So you have a home to go back to, then?" I asked. Sure, it was borderline small-talk, but it was a legitimate concern of mine, observing his apparently disastrous mental state.
The boy sat up. "Do I really look homeless?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "I honestly can't remember the last time I ate." He dropped the remains of his cigarette on the ground and stomped on it with his right foot. I sat down next to him and put my hands on my knees.
"I'm, um," I said, offering for him to shake my hand. "John Watson."
"Sherlock Holmes," the boy said, accepting the gesture and leaning back against the bench. His hand was sturdy and firm as it shook mine. It seemed impossible to wriggle out of it, even though we both wore gloves. "How was the interview?"
He looked at me expectantly, and it took a few moments for my mind to process what he had said.
I leant forward in my seat. "How... my — What?"
"Your interview just now," Sherlock said, motioning with his head in the general direction of the hospital. "How did it go?"
Who was this boy? A stalker? What was he? Maybe he wasn't even real. Was that possible? Was I asleep?
I cleared my throat, hoping that along with it I would have a chance at clearing my head. "It went... well, thank you."
"They always like the normal people," Sherlock said. "Molly says they're better for the workplace. But how would she know? All she ever does is examine some dying children's blood and freshen up her lipstick an average of every seven minutes and thirty-four seconds."
Trying to keep a conversation going and ignoring the weirdness of the boy I was sitting with, I said, "She never freshened up her lipstick when I was there."
"Did she not?" Sherlock asked. "How odd."
I furrowed my brow, looking him straight in the eye. "Not really," I said. "She probably just likes you."
"People don't like me," Sherlock snarled, wrinkling up his face. "At least, never the right people. It's always the psychopaths or the maniacs. Never normal people. And never anyone I'd like back."
"How many psychopaths and maniacs have you met?" I asked.
"Seven this last month," he replied. "See, I was trying to find someone to share a room with when I went off to university in a few months. The person I was assigned to called the school and demanded someone else, and Molly wasn't on my list of good-"
"Which university?" I interjected, hoping he wouldn't mind. He didn't seem to, and I wasn't surprised. He didn't appear to be one to believe in social constructs such as manners or discipline-induced courtesy.
"Oh," he said, "Just the one a few kilometres off from here. Westborough ring a bell? My brother went there, so he helped me wriggle my way in. He's kind of the government."
Ignoring the last sentence, I did something my logical mind would soon regret. I, John Hamish Watson, offered to be the flatmate for Sherlock Holmes.
"I'm going there, too!" I said. "I could share your room."
Sherlock looked a bit taken aback. Sensing that I wasn't wanted, I went back on my offer with embarrassment. "If you wanted. I mean, I'm sure you have other-"
"No, no," Sherlock said. "Thank you, John. I... wasn't expecting that. I would be honoured."
Having not a clue what I should do next, I nodded my head.
And right then was the moment I suddenly realised that living with Sherlock Holmes would be a bad idea. As if his personality traits and smoking habits weren't enough already, at that moment there was a deep, foreboding rustle in the bushes, and the boy sighed with what looked like a feeling of sarcastic dread.
"Oh, get it over with," he groaned towards the bushes, and anxiety crept into my chest as I began to fear what was going on. And it was an appropriate reaction indeed, because, in reply to Sherlock's welcoming comment, a man with a gun jumped out from behind a tree.
Startled, I raised my hands in the air, my heart thumping as I closely watched the end of the handgun. Was this a trick? Had it been set up? I couldn't risk anything either way, and I reminded myself to stay calm. I focused on my breathing and observed, knowing panic would only make things worse.
The reason I knew that living with this boy was a bad choice was apparent when I looked over at him to see that he was completely placid in his seat, as if not bothered at all. As if this sort of thing happened to him all the time.
"Are you Sherlock Holmes?" he demanded, to which Sherlock calmly said, "He can't come to the door right now. May I take a message?"
"Get your bloody hands up in the air, Holmes!" he shouted, waving the gun aimlessly between us. Sherlock crossed his legs instead, looking the man dead in the eye.
"I think you're doing something very illegal, Jim," he said, his hands still casually resting in his lap. "See, firearm weapons aren't exactly allowed-"
"Shut up!" the man hollered. "Shut up now!"
I could hear blood pounding in my ears, adrenaline surging through me so fast I was afraid I wouldn't be able to breathe. Sherlock calmly stared down our attacker, a half-smile dressing his lips.
And then the gun was fired.
Harry told me later that the police found Sherlock Holmes tending to a gunshot wound on my shoulder, and that he claimed I had hit my head on the metal bench as I had been thrust backwards.
Harry also told me that I had forgotten almost my whole entire childhood - permanently - because of it. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not prove her wrong. And, in a sick, twisted way, I was relieved.