Chapter Text
This is the way John loves Sherlock.
His best friend is brilliant, acerbic, charismatic, eloquent, cold, arrogant, ruthless, maddening as hell. He is a man who frequently doesn’t take care of himself – a man who needs a steadfast companion, someone trustworthy upon whom he can rely. A man who throws himself in front of buses and taunts psychopaths. He is a man for whom John will do nearly anything, and has. He has lied, and cheated, and jumped over rooftops and crawled in gutters. He has nearly died. He has killed. For these things, he does not have any regrets.
He has made tea, and picked up the shopping, and done the washing-up, and entertained less interesting people to free Sherlock from their attentions. He has been on the receiving end of hurled insults (and glassware). He has been kept up nights by a wailing violin, and been woken too early by a case. He has been prevented from going to work, he has been interrupted during kisses, he has cancelled dates to be home with Sherlock when he was ill. Were he afforded the opportunity, he would not change these things.
He has been scared. Bloody terrified. He has been the subject of harrowing experimentation. He has been kidnapped by a madman. He has had guns to his head, a knife to his throat, he has gone hand-to-hand with giants and gangsters. He has gone out in public dressed as a ninja, which is still somehow the least of the indignities he has suffered in the name of Sherlock’s investigations. He has been lied to and manipulated. But he remembers the gray of his life before this, and is grateful even when he is furious.
After a difficult case, he puts a hand on Sherlock’s back and rubs, because it makes Sherlock relax just a bit. On danger nights, he stays awake just in case Sherlock doesn’t want to be alone. He listens and watches and steps in to tell him when something is not good. He sometimes does not want to, wishes his friend was a bit lower maintenance, wishes he could separate his own life out again, wishes that Sherlock would act more human, would show some compassion, would apply some of that genius to remembering manners, would exert some self-control and just shut his mouth sometimes. But in the end, he is there, and he does what Sherlock needs. Because he is the only friend Sherlock will admit to having, and this fills him with equal parts pride and concern.
He does what Sherlock needs.
So he listens to Sherlock’s voice, choked with tears, telling him to forget his faith, but John knows, with everything he is, that Sherlock is real.
So he stands and watches him fall.
This is the way John loves Sherlock.