TITLE: In the Name of the Father
CHAPTER/TITLE: One/John H. Watson
RATING: T (language, violence, abuse)
A/N: From a prompt from Kura06 on Tumblr to me. "What if John hates his middle name because it was his father's?" Also for letswritesherlock challenge #10 of a missing scene. This is technically multiple missing scenes. We see the scenes from the clips in TSO3 where Sherlock is asking John about his middle name, but they get expanded on. Oh, and Melvin is my grandfather's name. Thought I'd throw that in there.
Please read and review, many thanks.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sherlock.
Chapter One: John H. Watson
John H. Watson.
John
Hamish
Watson.
John. "God is gracious." Biblical name. Jonathan. Johnny. Jon. John the Baptist. John Lennon. John F. Kennedy. John Travolta. John Wayne.
Named after his grandfather. A good man. A simple, strong name.
The name of a World War II veteran, and now of one from Afghanistan.
A name he could be proud to carry. A name he strove to uphold with respect and honor and dignity because it had come from another man of such noble qualities.
Why couldn't his parents have just stopped there? There was no need for a middle name. It wasn't law. Or they could have picked something else. Why not give him his grandfather's middle name too? Melvin wasn't the attractive or modern of names, but it wasn't as ghastly as Hamish.
But pure dislike for the quality of the sound of the title itself was not the only reason why John detested his middle name.
"Hamish" meant "supplanter". Scottish for James. Another biblical character.
Named after his father. Not a good man.
It was ironic, John sometimes mused to himself, how two of the people who he loathed more than anyone else in the world, and who had hurt him the worst, both bore the same forename.
Hamish George Watson.
James Moriarty.
It was also darkly amusing how both of the men never paid much attention to him, even when making him suffer. Jim's target was always Sherlock. John was just a pawn in that game. Leverage. Nothing more. Even when his father was branding John with his fists, it was never as though he minded the boy at all. It was about his rage and his problems. John was just the closest punching bag.
He recalled looking into his ancestry and names when he was a boy and coming across an excerpt on the detested title.
"People with this name have a deep inner desire to use their abilities in leadership, and to have personal independence. They would rather focus on large, important issues, and delegate the details."
Hamish Watson certainly preferred to focus on what he perceived as the large, important issues. Apparently, that didn't include his son. The man's priorities were work, work, and well, work. Sometimes shagging his wife. A lot of times alcohol.
"People with this name tend to be orderly and dedicated to building their lives on a solid foundation of order and service. They value truth, justice, and discipline, and may be quick-tempered with those who do not. Their practical nature makes them good at managing and saving money, and at building things in the material world. Because of their focus on order and practicality, they may seem overly cautious and conservative at times."
One Sherlock Holmes would scoff at such deductions about a person from merely their given name, but John couldn't help but see the similarities.
Order and service.
Discipline.
Quick-tempered.
Those were the kinder words John could use to describe his father.
And, oh, John had used some colorful terminology when it came to the man. Sometimes he had spoken the words straight in his abuser's face.
Hamish Watson was another military man. He worked his way up the ranks and in a short time had a fancy title that sat on a plague on a fancy desk in a fancy office. John, on the other hand preferred wearing his title on the tape inside his helmet and working in the not so fancy field.
His father probably had rolled over in his early grave when his son turned down the offer at a cushioned and comfortable, in both the physical and monetary sense, desk job.
Years later, when he met Sherlock Holmes for the first time and the man began spewing out John's life story right there for all to see, John had been internally panicking. He was sure the apparent genius or psychic - or whatever he was - was going to spill the metaphorical beans.
And then, he hadn't.
It was quite incredible Sherlock hadn't deduced John's relationship with his father yet. The soldier did dutifully try and hide the truth from all who knew him, but this was the famous detective and his flatmate. Surely after the sleuth saw the doctor day after day, something had to have given him away.
And yet there was never any mention. No questions. Nothing.
He could never be entirely certain as to what Sherlock didn't know, and what Sherlock pretended not to be aware of. Or just purposefully ignored. Or deleted. Or..well, he just could never be certain with Sherlock.
So whether his friend was avoiding the sentiment of it all, trying to give John his privacy, or just plain clueless, John couldn't tell. He prayed it was the last option.
No one was ever supposed to know. Not his mother. Not his sister. And especially, not his best friend.