Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Elementary. I just felt the need to stick in my own two cents for some reason. Also, this is only sticking to canon until about halfway through season three, as that is as far as I've managed to see so far.
Happy Valentine's Day, by the way! Here's this thing. Sorry if it's not so good. I'm not all that well versed in the story itself - I just started watching and got inspired. With that said, please enjoy!
Sherlock Holmes is a man of numerology, calculation, intrigue and intelligence. He is a pleasant, chaotic contradiction of terms; orderly yet brutally and rather unfortunately oblivious in matters of personal space, completely cynical yet empathetic to the common man, ingenious yet enclosed in his own violation of the world's rules. He's spent the entirety of his life trying to escape the ordinary at all costs, to finally find a place or stage or time in which he is happy, possibly in love, or at the very least, content.
As in all aspects of his existence, ever-changing though they may be, his unconscious state is no less strange.
You see, he doesn't dream.
Peculiar, of course, but dreams are the manifestations of loose thoughts flitting through the idle brain, trying to be made sense of, but he's not used to having ends that are not neatly tied off, thoughts left incomplete or unpondered. He's Sherlock Holmes, and hasn't he always done what he wanted to? Isn't that what the tattoos and the investigations and the fleeting fascinations were all about? Filling the hours?
It doesn't matter. Dreams are foreign, and he doesn't have them. Not even once, not even as a child.
Instead, he experiences memories on repeat, running through his mind like film reels left in a movie theater. He relives select moments again and again and again until they fade to static and he reawakens. Sometimes the return is disappointing, or sometimes it is a welcome reprieve. In any event, it is one of the few areas of his life he has absolutely no control over.
Tonight was no different.
Tonight was her and himself, their first meeting. He holds out his arm, prepared to distinguish art forgeries from authentic masterpieces, and she takes it, eyes shining with mischief. Her hair falls over her shoulders, her hands slotting around his jacket like puzzle pieces.
He hates himself, most nights, for dreaming about Irene. If he could relive the moment for real - the static air, the pleasant lighting, the witty banter - he would walk out immediately and never come back. Falling in love with someone was stupid - she could still be alive if it weren't for him.
Falling in love. Irene was the only one who really took a fall, wasn't she?
When he wakes up, startlingly alert and upright, he remembers that Watson is also within the Brownstone.
Sherlock shouldn't find that comforting, the thought of another person, even if it is his sober companion, being only a few steps away.
That thought, odd as it is, is almost more disturbing that seeing Irene again. At least the dead tend to stay dead, even if all they leave behind are the memories.
Watson is . . . surprisingly tolerable. She's fairly clever, quick on her feet, and has a decent eye for detail. She doesn't seem to hold him down during investigations and even has the occasional spurt of usefulness.
He's not going to relapse. Really, he isn't. He doesn't need a sober companion.
But perhaps an acquaintance wouldn't be so bad. Or, maybe with the right mentor, a student. Joan Watson has . . . well, potential may sound slightly juvenile, as she's already a grown adult capable of her own choices, but she is different.
He dreams about the in-between moments often, now. The times she knits her brow when looking at crime scenes, as if she is actually interested in what he does, or whenever Joan insists on accompanying him to meetings with the authorities, as though she wants to be informed.
It's nice, almost, being believed in. Even if it's coming from Joan Watson.
He cannot quite recall when they became friends, when he started to trust her.
He's combed his subconscious a million different ways - for once, there is no logical, clean-cut answer. He's Sherlock Holmes, and he has baggage that stretches to the moon, and she's Joan, who's stuck here with him yet somehow not running for the door.
He's wondered, occasionally, why people have things such as 'best friends'. They don't last very long, and most cannot fathom how hard it is to stick around once things get hard. When they experience a death, or a trauma, or a disability, or an unfortunate drinking problem, others tend to leave. This is just the nature of the beast, and Sherlock has never expected anything different.
Joan, though. She sees his job and knows about his addiction and understands his mind, and she's not going anywhere.
Sherlock can't remember why they are friends, but she is the best of his, somehow. His only real friend, most days.
There is little in life that is more terrifying than Joan Watson leaving the Brownstone for something as insipid as dating.
She 'needs her own space', fine.
She 'wants to get out of the house for a little bit', okay.
But dating?
That very notion is somehow unacceptable. She's his best friend. She's his protegee and partner.
She's not someone else's date.
Sherlock needs her available at all times, and that means he needs her here, where she is safe and at home and not dating. It's a waste of time, anyhow - coffee, dinner, drinks, and going home. Not so imploring, not so fascinating, and certainly not as whirlwind spurring and intriguing as the modern media imagines it is.
He dated, once. And now he's alone, as is to be expected, and Irene with stars made of freckles and gold in her irises is gone with the wind. People aren't supposed to enter relationships with eachother - they are destined to end badly. Nothing lasts forever.
Sherlock would like whatever he has with Joan, though, to last. She . . . grounds him, when he takes off from the ground. It's something nobody, not even Irene, had been able to do, and nobody seems to get that. No one they know understands what she does for him, what strange sort of friendship they have cultivated. Joan makes him strive to be better, and this is what has made him greater - before now, nobody had ever cared what he did, and now he was making decisions for two. It forced him to be accountable for her, to accept responsibility to someone else for the first time.
She's good for him.
A small, selfish part of himself doesn't want her to be good for anyone else. She helps him remain sane, and if he ever lost Joan because of dating . . . Well. It would be unthinkable.
When he finally collapses, he recounts the first day he met Joan, all down to the last detail; there is the squeak of soles on the worn wooden floorboards, the lingering sunlight streaming inwards, the brightness of the starched walls, and the glare of screens from the background, and in the center of all of the old is a single outlier of the new. She has no idea that she is about to become the voice in his head, and that she is going to be embarking on a trip into criminal justice in a mere number of hours. Joan is, so to speak, fresh off the boat.
He watches, introduces himself rudely, and wonders if, given the chance, he would change anything about that memory considering how they have turned out today.
Probably not. Joan should have known about the worst of him from the very beginning, and that entails his sharp tongue.
Sherlock relives a thousand lifetimes, stuck in a loop, before awaking slumped over in a chair. Around his shoulders is a blanket, and over in the kitchen the unmistakable sound of eggs sizzling can be observed.
He smiles, inexplicably, because Joan is here at the Brownstone and not on a date.
There is something so irrevocably wrong about Joan and Mycroft as a couple.
First of all, Sherlock must note, he's Mycroft. In his mind, that name stirs up a variety of definitions: lazy, petulant, annoying, boring, burdensome, and several more inventive, colorful phrases. Dependable, honest, patient, kind - those things are not anywhere near the image he has managed to cultivate for his older brother. And yet, Mycroft and Joan are out having a meal together.
You know, alone.
Like a date.
He's always detested her dating habits, naturally, but Joan+Mycroft+romance is a level above foul. It is revolting, and utterly unacceptable. Mycroft is Mycroft, and he was not what Joan should need or want or think about shagging. Joan wasn't lazy or petulant or boring - in fact, she was the exact opposite.
Joan Watson was exceptionally devoted to everything she did. She persevered despite all manners of rigor and tribulations, enduring even the immense task of coexisting with Sherlock Holmes, recovering addict. She was clever, and though it wasn't his particular brand of smart, she possessed a stroke of genius all her own and a decent talent for observation. She had good instincts and a way with the vast majority of people. She was endlessly driven, rather charming, and decidedly not dull.
She was also pretty, what most would call 'beautiful', but that was of little consequence, of course.
Joan was simply . . . wonderful, maybe. Bright, as strange as it sounds. She provided some semblance of meaning, of balance, to his life.
Now Mycroft, on the other hand. He was not luminescent like Joan, and he was a right prat used to keeping to himself. He couldn't possibly deserve her.
"He's your brother," she says. "You should spend some time with him," she reminds him constantly.
Sherlock doesn't need friends. He already has Joan, after all, and Bell and Gregson, in a sense.
What he needs is for Mycroft and his meddling self to get away from him and Joan. They were partners, and there was no place in their delicate relationship for a troublesome sibling.
Still, they were out having dinner. Though he had no desire to go, Sherlock finds himself wishing he had. Then, at least, they would have had a chaperone, and there would be no reason for this prolonged discomfort.
When she arrives back, she mentions something along the lines of 'it was good, Mycroft's great at cooking' and 'he wants to get to know you again' and 'you should have come, we talked about you a lot'. He knows he can't hope to control her outside friendships, but all he's hearing is Mycroft and I, swimming through his head.
It's not his place to decide who she talks to. He's nobody but her colleague.
Still, the next several nights after, he dreams of Joan, how she smiles at the prospect of the Holmes brothers bonding again. About how 'nice' of a time she had, and how sincere in her analysis Joan had been.
A week later, though, he relives a day spent with Irene, and it leaves him with the oddest feeling of guilt.
Whenever Joan does anything particularly endearing, he remembers Irene, and the days after her.
In dreams, he keeps stabbing needles into skin, experiencing the rush of endorphins for the first time. The drugs act with rapid speed, sending him into a temporary vision of clarity, away from the remorse. Suddenly Sherlock doesn't need to ponder every insignificant detail in every single intake of sight - he is free, away from his own mind, and the result is staggeringly welcome. It's much like settling into a new skin, feeling the prickle of detachment between the world and its mortality.
So this is what it must be like, to be a god.
So. This is what it must be like to be normal, then. It's an exemplary place to visit; perhaps he would like to relocate, then.
It is relived on loop, the ecstasy of being okay again, or at least not drowning in sorrows and regrets. Each time, blonde hair and teasing smiles would come to mind, a blur of luminescence on the horizon, before he squeezed the needles harder and braced for the highs.
Each time, when he woke up, he thought of Watson, and wondered what she would say about him.
Irene was not Irene. She was Moriarty.
She was never a painter, a visionary trying to search for the right inspiration.
She was never the bright spark he had assumed her to be, the clever and brilliant patch of light in a dark world.
She was never his, as she never loved him in the first place, did she? And, even if she had, Sherlock was her assignment before her lover, and in the end she choose her criminal empire over him.
Damn, it shouldn't hurt this much.
Joan gives him sideways glances, toeing around him now that he's out of the hospital like he's made of glass. She's not pushing him to talk, not pressuring him into revealing his feelings on the subject.
She says that he has every right to feel sad and lonely and betrayed. You don't get over someone you love so easily, no matter who they are.
Sherlock will survive. He always does, and he did the first time. Most days, he is fine, and he can shove Moriarty into a mental drawer.
He doesn't need her. He has a life.
He does. Really.
Sherlock and Joan have a very good thing going for them. It's . . . home.
The only signs he shows of cracking are the ones found in his nightly visions. It's Irene, at a windowsill, watching the rain through rippled curtains. And then, there she is, raising a haughty eyebrow at something trying he managed to say. She's cooking eggs on a lazy golden morning and burning toast in a toaster, a quality that he had always found endearing for some inexplicable reason. Irene is here, she is there, she is laughing at clever jokes and sipping tea and throwing her arms around his neck. She and her terribly pretty memories are everywhere, and suddenly they are smothering and inescapable and he wants to light all of those fond moments on fire and watch them blaze to ashes.
He sorts through them, observing each one with a trained eye, and he attempts to weed out which events were genuine and which were all make believe. He finds, with a start, that even the great Sherlock Holmes cannot deduce the difference between reality and pure fantasies anymore.
He hates her, he thinks. But not nearly as much as Sherlock hates himself for not noticing how wrong he was for loving her.
So. Mycroft and Joan shagged.
Well. That's . . .
He can't even think about it. Joan and Mycroft put together turn his stomach.
So, as a result, he thinks about it all the time.
Mostly out loud. Mostly in the form of a vicious barb.
Joan deserved better. Joan deserved the world.
(You are better than Mycroft, says a little voice in the back of his head. He's rather fond of ignoring it.)
Sherlock gives it up, eventually. But not before numerous nightmares involving Joan and Mycroft together. How horrible.
Joan has been kidnapped and he is falling apart at the seams.
He's furious, and terrified, and so worried he's going to tear himself in two.
Sherlock is all chaos and brilliance and flash, bright and burning. Joan was reliable, stable, grounding, the one that made sense and was organized and created plans and could think like a normal human being. She's always been his other half, his order, and now she is gone, and he is loosing it badly.
Mycroft is there, stupid and useless and not-Joan. This is all his fault. This is all his troublesome brother's fault.
It should be Mycroft. Mycroft should be gone, being tortured or beaten or god knows what.
Not Joan. Not his Joan Watson.
If she dies, he will never forgive Mycroft. Sherlock will hate him until the end of time and even beyond that.
"I think she's the person you love most in this world," his sibling tells him, saying the words softly as though Sherlock is a wild animal he is trying not to alarm. His eyes reveal all the guilt he is harboring, and it occurs to the consulting detective that perhaps Mycroft is just as torn up about Joan's vanishing act as he is.
But that doesn't change the fact that she is still not here, and Mycroft is the reason why.
Sherlock wants to kill him.
He won't stop wanting to kill him until Joan is back where she belongs, back home, and tucked away in her room, sleeping like there is no tomorrow. She will wake up to fresh breakfast and warm coffee and then proceed to go on her run. She'll come and take a shower, change again, and head up to the station to look at cold case files or a new investigation, if she's up for either. Then, they will return, and she'll be safe and happy and busy again, and he'll watch her read a book or type on her computer or walk back upstairs to nap. That is their life, their life together. That's what is meant to be.
Bloody Mycroft.
He tries to refocus, as being pissed beyond belief won't get back Joan Watson from her kidnappers, and formulates new strategies.
All the while, he thinks of what his brother said: I think she's the person you love most in this world. Mycroft is right, for once in his miserable existence. Joan does mean the world to him.
He wouldn't survive another day without her there.
When she is brought back to him, she's exhausted but mostly unharmed. She's feeling betrayed, and rightfully so, by Mycroft, and Sherlock seriously considers tearing his older brother's head off of his shoulders. It is one thing to toy with Sherlock, but it is another entirely to mess with Joan.
She goes upstairs, sleeps, and in the morning she mentions leaving the Brownstone to find her own place.
She can't be serious, of course. It's just stress and panic and loose emotions, drifting around.
She's confused, obviously, because she still has to want golden afternoons and beekeeping on the roof and heading out for work together like he does. If she doesn't want that life, he has no idea why he's even there.
So. It's not real.
It's not.
"You have this pull about you . . . it's like gravity," she explains, smiling in a bittersweet manner. And, she continues to say, if she doesn't move out, she'll get trapped in his orbit and she'll never experience an existence apart from his again.
She really means it, doesn't she?
The only problem is, he doesn't want Watson to leave. He wants to be closer still, to know every single secret and be able to read every single line on her face with practiced ease. He wants her to pass out over the table while shifting through case files and he wants her to be woken up every morning in a new way, preferably with a turtle involved. He wants her to be the first person he sees every morning and the last face he passes when he goes to sleep. They're partners, and he never thought all that would change.
Joan is right, though. If she didn't leave now he'd never let her go. He'd request, rather vocally, that she never leave his side.
He understands. He's a bit of a wreck, isn't he?
Sherlock starts preparing for the beginning of the end.
He dreams and reminisces before finding himself, years younger, roaming the dusky streets of London.
London's lovely this time of year. Perhaps he'll stay a while.
Hey, so this is the beginning of a new mini series. Again, it's going to be following canon for the most part up until midway through season three, which is about as far as I've watched.
So, hope everybody enjoyed this. It was going to be a long oneshot until I decided to break it up into parts, and I'm forecasting about three or four sections. Joanlock will grow.
Also, if you care about Transitions or Elementary, My Dear Rosie, don't worry, they're close to getting updated, I promise. I'm just a procrastinator, but I've got another 12k down for EMDR and about 6k for Transitions, so they have been worked on. I appreciate your patience.
I don't know what I'm doing, clearly. I just do this for fun.
Meh.
Anyways, thanks for reading and be sure to leave a comment, follow, or favorite if you liked this. I thrive off of validation.
See you next update!
