In which Sherlock reads the Kama Sutra and John questions Sherlock's sexual orientation.
A/N: I've always been a huge Sherlock Holmes fangirl so when I discovered (achingly late) that Sherlock existed, I was over the moon! This oneshot is an attempt to convey Sherlock's asexuality as well as his friendship with John Watson. I consider myself asexual so this ficlet means more to me than you can imagine. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
oOo
John Watson does not consider himself a nosy man. Not Sherlock's standard of nosy, anyway. He's inquisitive when he wants to be, needs to be, but he's long since adopted the philosophy that if he has to ask, he doesn't need to know. Polite, some might call him. Considerate of other's feelings. To each their own.
However.
John looks over the centerfold of his paper. Sherlock is lounging opposite him, thumbing through the Kama Sutra. John isn't sure if Sherlock's study of the notorious sex book has something to do with a case or something to do with his sexual orientation. Or lack thereof. Or maybe in-between. Sherlock once told him he was married to his work, proclaiming boyfriends and girlfriends were not really his area.
So what, then? What, exactly, is his area?
John has never been inclined to pry. Don't ask, don't tell. That sort of thing. But Sherlock is baiting him on purpose and damn it all if it isn't working! Why else would he loaf not but two feet from where he sits, skimming pages of advice on intercourse, lackadaisically, his normally attentive visage as vacant as John's bank account?
He wants me to ask, John thinks. He hunches his shoulders, hides behind his paper. Reads the same article for the nth time before he throws in the towel. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Sherlock drones, his derisive tone of voice catching John unawares.
This is why I don't meddle, he muses. Because now, rather than acknowledge Sherlock's pointed insinuation to drop it, he considers Sherlock's hedging a challenge. "It looks like you're reading the Kama Suta," John quips, folding his paper over the arm of his chair. "But why?"
"Why not?"
"Why not?" John almost laughs. "I thought you said you didn't have a girlfriend."
"Yes," Sherlock answers him in the same manner he admits, bingo, that is a severed head in the fridge. Aloof, indicative, and it pisses John off to no end.
"Or a boyfriend."
"Quite right."
John tries a different approach, remembering his conversation with Mrs. Hudson on the landing pertaining to Sherlock's previous (Nonexistent?) relationships. "Have you ever, you know, had a significant other?"
"What does it matter?" Sherlock cradles the Kama Sutra in his lap.
It doesn't, but it does. John is shocked to realize his failed attempts to wheedle information from his flatmate, while inconsequential, annoys him. Sherlock is shutting him out and not in a fashion John finds acceptable, seeing as he continues to flaunt the ambiguousness of his proclivities in the middle of the room. He's toying with him. Daring John to go deeper.
"Didn't you declare it was all fine?" Sherlock sighs. And now John is certain this is nothing more than repartee.
He can't help but smile. "I did. I meant it."
Sherlock steeples his fingers. As if to say: Well?
"Were you in love? With Irene?"
A hint of a smirk on his face. "Hardly."
John isn't surprised, which surprises him.
"There is love and there is...admiration. Learn the difference."
That Sherlock Holmes has confessed he admires anyone, especially a woman, is altogether groundbreaking. John glances at the book in Sherlock's possession, guesstimates to the best of his ability. He supposes that Sherlock's interest in love and all its trappings he eschews is primarily scientific in nature. Love is a vicious motivator, the bit of wisdom he offered Jeff the cabbie in A Study in Pink. So a basic understanding, unconventional though it may be, is beneficial to his processes of deduction. Sherlock has academically accepted the fact that crimes of passion are vast in nature and while he may not fully comprehend their logic, he is capable of solving equations of the heart, however prejudiced. Which is why he was able to ascertain Jennifer Wilson was a serial adulterer. Why he was able to determine Irene Adler was attracted to him as a man. Love is a code to crack. Nothing more, nothing less.
John leans forward in his seat. "Have you ever been in love?"
Sherlock taps his fingers in perfect syncopation. He opens his mouth, hesitates, and the dawning realization in John's eyes mar his face with subtle frown lines. "I don't know," he says blithely. Like he doesn't care. But it's obvious he does. Incapable of knowing something is, surely, Sherlock's idea of hell. If he believes in hell. Regardless of his religious convictions, the notion he doesn't know something. Can't know something. Because of his biological dispositions...because he's Sherlock and he would fall in love, have sex, to better understand chemical reactions, lust, attraction, attachment, forsaking the means to his end.
"You would know," John assures him.
"So what can you infer from the answers I've given you?"
"Asexuality, maybe." John can't help but feel despair. Never knowing the desire, the beauty of love? He knows his sympathy is unwarranted, of course. Asexuality is, by no means, a bad thing. Isn't a disease to be cured. Some asexuals, John recalls, are just as capable of falling in love as the next sexual individual. He wonders if Sherlock has a sex drive, but feels no attraction. If he feels romantic attraction, but has no sex drive. If he experiences neither. John is aware that the subcategories of asexuality are diverse and multiple in number. And the student in him in curious. So which is Sherlock? He takes a breath, searching his mind for the correct term. "Aromantic?"
Sherlock chuckles, deep and poetic. "You flatter me, John. Aromantic."
John isn't sure if he's making fun of him or not. "Are you?"
"Asexuality is like any other identity. It's just a word that people use to define themselves. You are a doctor. A soldier. My friend." Sherlock offers him the rarest, the warmest, of smiles. John returns it. "The question is how do I define myself? Not how other people define me."
"And how do you define yourself?"
Sherlock turns a page of the Kama Sutra and his voice is ripe with pride when he elucidates, "I'm Sherlock Holmes."