This one's a bit mixed up and confused, definitely not my usual style. For some reason, I really like this though. I think it reflects the confusion that is John's life.
Written for the OTP Bootcamp (34. "Don't make people into heroes") for the BBC Sherlock Fanfiction Challenges forum.
It's the whispers that get to him.
"He's an angel, really."
"It's a gift from god, the way he can handle Sherlock."
"A real life hero, did you know? Used to be an army doctor, now he runs around catching the worst criminals London's ever seen."
He's no angel. And he's the furthest thing from a hero there ever was.
The screams he still hears in his sleep are proof of that. The memories of gunfire and yells and men begging him to kill them still linger in his mind.
There is blood staining a desert far away that he wasn't able to stop, and there are gravestones at graveyards because he wasn't good enough.
Heroes are better than he will ever be.
Maybe that's why Sherlock and he get along so well. The two of them, they're battered and bruised by the harshness of life.
It's a constant, reoccurring question he faces from everyone in this new life he's carved out in London.
Why do you put up with Sherlock?
Sherlock is the only one who understands, the only one who doesn't deify him for events he isn't proud of. The only reason Sherlock thinks he's good is because he makes him tea, makes sure he hasn't destroyed the floor of the flat with caustic acids and smoothens things with Mrs Hudson on the rare occasions when she loses her cool with Sherlock.
Those are things he doesn't mind being known for.
He's not the hero the world thinks him to be, and Sherlock knows this and still accepts him. Sherlock's the only one who accepts that part of him, and it's intoxicating, knowing that he doesn't want to change him.
John doesn't put up with Sherlock, he enjoys being with the other man.
It's no surprise, the way Sherlock seems to slowly seep into John's every pore, the way he becomes everything that John ever was, is and will be.
Because when the two of them are together, John can forget the demons in his past and the expectations of society and what he should be and just be the crazy adrenaline junky he is.
(That's part of the reason he kisses Sherlock. And the adrenaline it causes combined with the love he feels for the detective makes it impossible for him not to get addicted.
He doesn't think he can ever stop kissing Sherlock now.
Anyways, it's not like Sherlock wants him to.)
John Watson isn't an angel. He's just another human being. John Watson isn't a hero. He's battered and bruised, just like every other person in the world.
John Watson is many more things than just a hero or an angel. He's Doctor Watson, he's Sherlock's blogger and assistant and boyfriend and keeper.
John Watson isn't Sherlock's astounding, magical keeper that most people think him to be. In fact, John Watson isn't astounding in the least. But then, that's what makes him so amazing.
He's just an ordinary, boring man living an extraordinary, interesting life.
There are a lot of thing that John Watson thinks he isn't, and there's only one thing he admits he is.
As far as he's concerned, there's only one thing he is that is worth being.
The world can go on calling John Watson a hero and an angel and extraordinary. Because John knows that there's one word that describes him better than anything anyone else can come up with.
Sherlock's.