A/N: Now that I am reading the Sherlock Holmes books (all of them; I bought two volumes that, together, make up the entire collection of all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works), I am seeing all the slash and finding all sorts of inspirations for fanfiction, as well as all the little details and phrases (albeit modernized) that are slipped into the BBC's series, as well as all the cases adapted well for it. It's all amazing, really.
And as you will tell by the following quote, here is where some of that inspiration comes in. ;D
This is post-Reichenbach drabble, but that will be explained. And yes, I do fancy using Mary, even though we haven't met her yet. And somehow, that's the beauty of it, isn't it?
EDIT: Now improved thanks to my lovely dear incessantbeat on Tumblr! :D
Mary Morstan just left 221b and Watson watched her go. After she was out of sight, this is what transpired:
"What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed, turning to my companion.
He had his pipe again and was leaning back with drooping eyelids. "Is she?" he said languidly. "I did not observe."
"You really are an automaton – a calculating machine," I cried. "There is something positively inhuman in you at times."
He smiled gently.
"It is of the first importance," he cried, "not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client to me is a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their inheritance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor."
"In this case, however –"
"I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule."
The Sign of Four (final page of chapter 2); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Rule of Thumb: Never get emotionally attached, particularly to a case or its client(s), and never make exceptions.
John seems to think this rule of thumb is rubbish, because here he is, not six months following Sherlock's return from the grave, and he's becoming emotionally invested in their new client, a young woman by the name of Mary Morstan.
She just left their flat after explaining their problem. And, being as bored as he is, Sherlock decided to give it a go. A missing father is interesting, although he is pretty sure he has it worked out that the man is dead. He's been gone for years, after all. But as to the how concerning his disappearance and death is precisely what Sherlock is interested in.
"God, she was attractive, wasn't she?" John remarks after he glances out the window, watching her leave Baker Street.
"Was she?" Sherlock says idly as he moves for his nicotine patches; only a single-patch problem, nothing serious. Some investigation necessary in a moment, after he's worked out a plan. "I hadn't noticed."
"Hadn't – hadn't noticed? Are you blind, Sherlock? I mean, I know dating and whatnot isn't your area, but can you honestly sit there and tell me that you didn't at all see how beautiful she was?" John says, clearly baffled. "You know, sometimes I wonder about you, I really do. You're like a machine."
"And this is news to you?" Sherlock replies with a slight smirk. "I've told you many times that my brain is my harddrive, and I can delete or add information to it at will. That's the defintion of a computer, John, and – shocker! – computers are machines."
"Yes, but – even in this case, can't you –"
"I never make exceptions. Clients are units of data, like file folders, and their cases go inside them; nothing more," Sherlock answers swiftly and casually. He leans back in his chair, patch in place on her forearm, and closes his eyes as he touches his fingertips together and raises his index fingers to lightly press against his lips. "Exceptions disprove the rules in science, and they also do so in life. It's common sense, John."
"…Honestly," John scoffs, turning away again, unsure for a moment of what to do with himself before deciding to make tea.
But as he walks away, Sherlock peeks one eyes open, just halfway, and sighs out through his nose when he closes it again, because he is being a hypocrite.
When he had opened his eye, he watched John walk into the kitchen, watched his every move. So when he closed it again, he sighed disappointedly at himself, because John will forever be an exception to every rule Sherlock has laid out for himself.
Sherlock doesn't have friends. Never has, and never thought he would. Allies, yes, but friends? Never. Allies are useful; they are people he can use as aid in whatever field necessary; as examples, Molly Hooper in the medical field, and Greg Lestrade in the police force. Two people who can gain him access to what he needs for his cases. And they are two people he would call, surely, if he needed a favor for things like his cases. But friends? He would never deem them to be 'friends,' even if they've had Christmas get-togethers at his flat, and even if Moriarty threatened their lives (because Molly was, Sherlock discovered, on the list of "everyone").
However, Dr. John Watson is his friend. A true friend, someone who can be safely deemed so, because he would go to John not just for cases or about his cases, but for anything. He would ask John for anything, because he trusts John completely. And unlike having Molly or Lestrade wounded or killed, Sherlock would seek revenge for John. And he did; because of John's sake, for his protection, namely, and not solely for the protection of others (because John came first to mind; he thought John would be Moriarty's only target, until Moriarty elaborated), Sherlock went after every last assassin until he found John's, a sniper named Sebastian Moran, whom Sherlock discovered was Moriarty's own right-hand man, like John is Sherlock's.
And then there are other exceptions John fulfills, ones Sherlock doesn't bare thinking about often, but when he does, he quickly denies it and moves on, because that is what he does best.
As John returns to the living room with tea, Sherlock accepts a cup – two sugars, like he likes his coffee – and raises it to his lips. He doesn't open his eyes. He keeps right on thinking about exceptions and how John is one, and how he can understand why Mary is John's. He is only thinking of these things distantly, of course; the rest of his mind is focused entirely on the nature of this missing person's case and how it can be puzzled out.
Sighing again as he peeks open one eye and sets down his teacup (glancing briefly in John's direction, where his flatmate is holding up a newspaper and reading it), Sherlock can't help but feel like a fool. To say that John is his only exception, the lone one that defies the rules, it still enough to irk him. Even if there is but one exception in a sea of possibilities to exceptions (Irene Adler another whole person who comes to mind as part of that sea), it doesn't excuse the fact that there is an exception.
Sherlock wonders, sometimes, if he is truly a sociopath, or if the label was slapped on prematurely or incorrectly, by himself and Mycroft's nosy therapists over the early years of Sherlock's life. Because don't sociopaths also not have exceptions? Don't they refuse to ever compromise? Aren't they incapable or very poor at secreting certain chemicals in the brain associated with social recognition with things like friends and the like?
And yet here Sherlock is with an exception, a compromise, an anomaly, an incriminating factor. Because he is guilty; this does constitute as evidence, like a crime, of Sherlock's own betrayal to his precious rules. Fucking John Watson, an army doctor, a humble man, a generous soul, a strong heart, a brave companion; he somehow has all of the qualities of someone who is just the perfect sort to worm their way into Sherlock's heart like an apple and stay snugly there, becoming a bloody exception.
Sherlock's eyes pop open. He has it all worked out, Mary's problem, and it's time to be off to go about proving it and fixing it. The majority of his mind has gone through it, and he was simply entertaining the more A.D.D. portion of it with wild musings about exceptions. "Come along then, John! We need to get ready to meet that fellow with Miss Morstan. I know precisely what to do."
"Good, good," John shrugs as he sets down the newspaper and stands from the sofa, stretch his arms and twisting to crack his back. One of his needs pop subtly as he finishes stretching. "Thought you would figure it out quickly. You always do with these things."
"Then let us be on our way," Sherlock remarks, and if part of him watches out of the corner of his eye as John slips on his jacket and shoes, Sherlock doesn't own up to it. Instead, he loops his scarf, slips it on, and buttons the top of his coat, the rest left open and flaring, as he and John fly out the door.
As they do, Sherlock makes a mental note, caving in to what seems to be so insistent:
Rule of Thumb (EDIT): Never get emotionally attached, particularly to a case or its client(s), and never make exceptions, unless the case at hand happens to compliment you when you tell him his entire life story, looks good smothered in jam, Is a hedgehog, and looks cute in jumpers.