Work Text:
(I) Partita in Holmes Minor
Sherlock was thoroughly trained in Why Caring Is Not an Advantage (by Mycroft, by Mummy -- by example, he supposes, by his father). It’s important not to get attached to people; it’s equally important (Mycroft is terrible at this) (always apologizing for Sherlock) not to care what people think of you. It’s been a long time since Sherlock let anyone else’s opinion affect him in any way.
So nobody is more surprised than Sherlock to discover that John Watson’s opinion does, in fact, affect him.
Sherlock is not someone who tidies the sitting-room in a (probably futile) attempt to make a good impression. He does not necessarily think before he speaks. He does not mind when Donovan addresses him as “Freak” or Anderson calls him a psychopath: except that when they fling these barbs at him in front of John, suddenly he does mind, he minds fiercely, because John was impressed, John almost seems to like him, and this rare, intoxicating feeling is already, after no time at all, becoming an addiction.
He fights it, of course he does, but by then it’s too late. He suspects it was already too late when the knife went into the mantel; he knows it was too late by the time John said, “Extraordinary!” and turned to grin out the window of the taxi.
(II) Return on Investment
John Watson is a doctor and a soldier. He is also an almost pathologically honest man. Some honest people simply refrain from telling lies; John tells a great many of them, but he does it badly, transparently, as though trying to be caught out.
Mycroft wonders what John would say if he asked him, straight out, “Are you in love with my brother?” He imagines the sharp, audible inhalation, the pursed lips, the nervous throat-clearing, before John (not quite looking at him) says … what? “I’m not actually gay.” (True.) “It’s not like that.” (Less true.) “He’s my best friend” (true), “that’s all” (not true). How successfully is John still deluding himself about this? (One type of lying he’s good at, it appears.) What epiphanies might that question prompt?
As one of the very few people who have ever loved Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft knows what a thankless pursuit it is. John seems incapable of not caring for people, but this is something more than his reflexive baseline concern, and Mycroft knows it will somehow, eventually, end badly. There is no point in loving Sherlock, there is no return on that investment, and though Mycroft of course (he assures himself) doesn’t care about John’s feelings, is above caring about anyone’s feelings, he does dread the inevitable mess.
So he doesn’t ever ask.
(III) Do the Right Thing
Molly doesn’t regret helping Sherlock. She has always helped Sherlock, always got him whatever he asked for, and it wouldn’t have been right to stop helping just when he truly needed her. He was afraid, he needed her help: she did the right thing.
She knows that. It’s perfectly clear in her mind.
Which is why, when she happens to see John Watson one afternoon a few weeks after … after, she forces herself to look at him, to speak to him, to give him a friendly, sympathetic smile, even though what she wants most is to run away.
Molly knows all about being hurt by Sherlock Holmes. It became a bit of a hobby of hers, actually. Inadvertently. He never meant to be cruel, she knows that, sometimes he was actually trying to be kind, but the things he’d say – so often both completely true and completely wrong – Molly knows how much Sherlock can hurt you. She thinks she knows what to expect, when she makes herself meet John’s eyes.
She’s wrong.
There is no preparing for this, for the bleak unspeakable agony she sees in John’s eyes. He was protecting you, she wants to say. And, He’ll come back to you. He promised. And, The heart of him is you.
But she made a promise, too. So she doesn’t.
(IV) This Isn’t What It Looks Like
Norah Hudson considers herself a good judge of character, although she admits she was mistaken about the late Mr Hudson. Well, and Mr Chatterjee downstairs. But she’s not prepared to believe she was wrong about Sherlock.
He was odd, Sherlock, but his heart was always in the right place. When the police told her what Sherlock had done, she didn’t believe them – not until they brought John home, glassy-eyed with shock and painkillers. Then she got angry.
Being angry with Sherlock is a familiar state – much as she adored him, he was also the most infuriating person she’s ever met – but making John watch him jump: that’s unforgivable.
It’s this that makes her think there’s something wrong with the picture. Because Sherlock was thoughtless and rude, he made messes and destroyed property, but he was never deliberately cruel, and he thought the world of John. She remembers him bringing John to Baker Street, showing him off; remembers how he was always scheming and plotting, always ten steps ahead of everyone else. Cruelty is unlike Sherlock; deception … isn’t.
Then John moves out of the flat (I’m sorry, Mrs Hudson, but I just can’t) but Mycroft Holmes keeps quietly paying the rent.
So Mrs Hudson is less surprised than she ought to be when it turns out Sherlock wasn’t dead after all.
(V) Terms of Endearment
The Holmes-Watson ménage-à-whatever has never been much for terms of endearment, unless you include in that category You’re an idiot and Not good? and You’re being a pillock, which Greg decides maybe you have to when they’re delivered with that particular mix of affection and exasperation. So it’s a bit of a shock the first time he hears John – crouched beside the body of a woman (pink wig, yoga clothes), nudging Sherlock with one shoulder so he can get a better look at the really baffling ligature marks on her throat – say, “Budge up, love,” in the same tone of fond exasperation.
John doesn’t seem to notice he’s done it, and Sherlock (being Sherlock, and intent on The Work) gives no sign of noticing it either, but DS Bradstreet catches Greg’s eye and, looking horrified, mouths the words What the hell?! Sherlock’s sex life (if that’s what this is) being something that Greg very profoundly does not want to discuss with his subordinates, he gives her a get-back-to-work look and, thank God, she does.
And the very next thing John says is, “Get out of my light, Sherlock,” and Sherlock huffs in annoyance at how slow John is being (but does as he asks, instantly), and everything seems perfectly normal again. So Greg decides he’s just not going to mention it.
(VI) He’s Come Undone
John Watson doesn’t think he’s particularly vain. But Sherlock is absurdly beautiful, unmarked alabaster skin and silky curls, those ridiculous lips, those eyes, and John is short and plain and utterly unremarkable except for the ugly scars (physical, mental, emotional: they’ve all sort of blurred together). John not only doesn’t own a swooshy thousand-quid coat but wouldn’t know what to do with one if he did; Sherlock finds John’s clothes appalling and has never hesitated to say so. (It’s almost worse when he adds, “but it suits you.”) Sometimes John catches a glimpse of how the two of them look side by side – reflected in a shop window, say – and honestly wonders whether he’s not just the comic relief in the melodrama of Sherlock’s life.
So it’s maybe not so surprising that John develops the habit of deconstructing Sherlock’s physical perfection as much as he can: tousling and tangling the extravagant hair, tugging the expensive clothes askew, scattering possessive love-bites over the perfect skin. Everything about Sherlock astonishes and delights him – even, if he’s honest with himself, the things that simultaneously make him want to hit Sherlock in the head with a brick – but the most astonishing and delightful thing is this: the way Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, professionally aloof and callous, can be completely and joyously undone in John’s hands.