Author: Regency
Title: Becoming Sherlock Holmes
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Spoilers: for series one and some passing references to season two.
Summary: John Watson has spent the last three years living as Sherlock Holmes, it's unsurprising he's forgotten how to be himself anymore.
Author's Notes: The first fic I ever started in the fandom and I don't even remember what inspired it. It also lives in a canon all its own. Basically, Sherlock and John lived together for some indeterminate amount of time before being forced apart for three years. Now, they're back together and learning how to deal. It's sort of a writing exercise more than anything, but there's some kind of plot in there somewhere.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Sherlock. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
It's perhaps their second case together since his return and it's…odd to say the least. He hardly feels at home in his skin, much less this city, but Sherlock, in a moment of bright sentiment, wanted to show the criminal world that his blogger had returned, so John has come along. Genius needs an audience and all that, though John's hardly complaining at ten in the evening, draped in his jumper and tolerance. He's been the happy audience in the past, he can certainly play the role again.
I've gotten pretty good at it anyway, this role-playing bit.
The hat he'd taken to wearing was lost in his other life and he feels naked without it. He feels smaller in the clothes of the man he used to be. They're the absent threads of an unobservant human being. It's one more indication of the smallness of John Watson's mind; he filled it with minutiae and detritus that couldn't solve a case, and only infrequently save a life. It's only fitting, then, that most of him is gone, locked away in a place where he can bask in his smallness, his normalcy undisturbed.
Ask anyone, ask Sherlock. Normalcy is boring.
They arrive on the scene with no more than typical fanfare: Sherlock is insulting. Lestrade is tolerant. Donovan is watchful. She doesn't call him a derogatory name to his face, but he reads the word in her pursed lips. She can't abide by what's become of him. It strikes him as disappointing that she'd have him settle for being so much less. Their once-fledgling friendship is dead on arrival and it's entirely mutual.
Sherlock sets to his task with gusto, derailing the police's assumptions without so much as a by-your-leave and erecting his own insurmountable facts in their place. These are the events as they occurred, they are not conjecture; or so the man will say if asked. John is once again filled with awe and envy. A few years of being Sherlock Holmes has accustomed him to the Herculean task of deduction, seeing it come so easily is galling and comforting: a balance restored. John Watson was never meant to be the prodigy; being forgotten is almost a relief.
"John, what do you think?"
The former ersatz consulting detective flicks his eyes towards his flatmate because naturally he's misheard. "What?"
"What do you think? About the case? You've surely developed a number of your own theories by now."
John straightens up from where he's been unconsciously kneeling to better see to a blood stain that found its way beneath Anderson's shoe. His fingertips are still pressed against the evidence marker he requested from the forensic technician. The whole routine is so routine he failed to realize he'd stepped away from the door at all.
"Thrill seeker, bow and arrow, through the open window. Two perpetrators." He hasn't closely examined the body yet, but he doesn't doubt the evidence will bear itself out. This is what he does to differentiate himself from the real Sherlock Holmes; he works his way from crime to the evidence. If the destination and the journey don't agree, there's either been an error in reasoning or an oversight in the facts.
"The window's painted shut," Lestrade notes in what he likely believes is a helpful fashion. Sherlock says nothing, watching.
John rises, moving purposefully toward the window in question. The flat is well-appointed, if small, but affords no particularly impressive view. There's perhaps twenty meters between this building and the next. The glass is intact as expected. Reaching into a concealed pocket, John flips open his Swiss Army Knife and takes the window frame's paint job to task. One steady stroke at the edges merits his truth. He holds the soiled blade up for the Yarders to see.
"Fresh paint, just dried on the surface but tacky underneath. It would probably melt if you exposed it to enough direct heat. They didn't even clear away the debris from mucking up the original paint job." Sloppy, he thinks.
John can feel the weight of Donovan's stare on his shoulders. It's lighter than the world he used to carry, so he's happy enough to leave her to it. Lestrade moves directly beside him to get a good look at what he means. He engages his brain for a change. Maybe the hiatus was good for everyone.
"You could smell the paint."
"Yup," he answers with a customary twitch of the lips. That and the victim had his back to the window when he was struck down. The arrow struck solidly between the L-2 and L-3 lumbar vertebrae at high velocity, most likely severing the spinal cord, leaving the man with neither musculoskeletal control nor feeling below the waist as a direct result. He wouldn't have been fit to sit upright much less put up a fight.
John has to admit he's a bit proud of this conclusion. Still got some uses, haven't you, old boy? His medical training had all but assured that the learning curve to properly imitating Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be steep enough to drive him to drink. It had been steep, regardless.
Sherlock approaches him swiftly, a worryingly eager look taking up residence in his eyes. "You said there were two perpetrators. Why?"
John suddenly realizes that he's the mystery now. Sherlock's worked out the facts of the case, but he wants to peel back the layers of John's new intellect. He wants to crawl inside him and solve him out. Polite as you please, John opens the door to let him in.
"Someone had to paint the window closed afterward, someone who was covering tracks for the archer. An arrow to the back is more than slightly damaging but not immediately fatal. Someone made it easy to kill this man without doing the killing themselves. "
"The torturer has a minder." Sherlock's eyebrows draw together as he turns to view the body again, pale eyes flickering from the shattered head of the still body to the fluttering fletching of the arrow. Inexpensive, yet well-engineered. Lacks any identifying marks, but the shaft appears to be constructed of lightweight aluminium alloy. John isn't sure which of them thinks it.
"Probably a flunkie, underpaid but loyal."
"Likely terrified, possibly a victim of blackmail."
"Probably." Their eyes meet and John can feel their minds syncing, a disquieting click signalling the return of their camaraderie. He's missed it. "Moriarty." It isn't a question and that leaves him slightly furious.
"Why this man," the consulting detective asks him, indicating the well-dressed corpse that is their victim. An everyday genius, John thinks but doesn't say. Rounded shoulders, pronounced limp; it's a window to his former self. He makes an effort not to think what the gunshot to the temple reflects.
For want of anything to confess, he shrugs. "I can't tell you why him, but I can say why this injury."
Sherlock manages to look positively intrigued, a feat for a man who lives a half-life of boredom most days.
"You've seen his legs, he's got a prosthetic. Wouldn't have left him bedridden, but it would have greatly impaired his mobility, given the nature of the injury. Probably extremely painful, since it's a relatively recent injury. I can only guess at the psychological implications, but with Moriarty involved, I'd say he was a man of above average intellect being courted for his organization."
"And he refused." Another non-question.
"For what Moriarity decided was an unsatisfying reason."
"Thus, he shot him in the spine, leaving him paralyzed."
"To add one final insult to the injury." Now, you're as useless as you feel, Moriarty would have quipped. It's the sort of human poetry Moriarty would not consider himself above.
"Nobody rejects Jim Moriarty."
"And lives? No."
"Interesting," Sherlock says in the same way someone might say, Fruitcake? I'd love some. It's clearly insincere. Jim Moriarty stopped being fun years ago. "It looks like you've got your answer, Lestrade. I do hope we've simplified the matter enough for you."
The detective inspector doesn't manage more than a half-hearted glare before waving them toward the exit. Anything Moriarty touches is destined for the cold case archives. While John is happy to go, there's just one more thing.
"The can of paint's in the closet. It'll have been bought with the victim's credit card online post-mortem, so it won't be much use to you. It's a dead-end, but you may as well have it."
Lestrade orders Anderson and Donovan to handle the collection with a tip of the head. "Thanks, John."
"Cheers."
His flatmate's lips are quirked in a smile as they walk away. John pretends not to notice.
They step silently out into the midnight air, falling easily into step with each other as they head back toward Baker Street. John can feel the John Watson he was before unfurling in his head. He doesn't have to be the clever clogs in this city, certainly not in their flat. He can just be John again, the slightly more than ordinary ex-army doctor. It's a startlingly depressing revelation.
"You couldn't be ordinary if you tried," Sherlock tosses omnisciently back to him while waving down a taxi. "And I've seen you try." He catches one on his first effort and John follows him into the spacious interior as in the days of old.
"It is a bit pathetic, isn't it?"
"Terribly."
They share a clever smile that's hidden by the dark.
"So, tell me, how did you go about 'becoming Sherlock Holmes'?" His interest exceeds levels that anyone would consider safe for their continued health and sanity. Lucky for John, he's been mad as a hatter and fit as a fox since Afghanistan; he can take whatever his flatmate can dish.
"It was like being in uni again, or medical school. I read everything from the weather to the want ads—daily. I deleted all the nonsense about people who weren't important and who I'd never see again. I scaled back on the niceties. They were distracting." You don't have to be nice if you're effective. John had discovered that quickly. Nice people get handshakes, not job offers.
"I've always told you that."
John glares at the taller man balefully. "There's such a thing as flat-out rude, and there's a time and place for that, but it isn't everyday and under every circumstance. Even superficial politeness goes a long way toward getting people to do what you ask."
"It's manipulation."
"You're one to talk. I may have been gone for three years, but I haven't suddenly come down with amnesia. I remember you."
Sherlock gives an indignant sniff. "I don't deny that. I simply mean to say that it's very…Mycroft of you to use societal expectations against other members of society."
It was John's turn to sniff. "Whatever works."
"My brother will be so proud."
"Oh, piss off."
"And here I thought your vocabulary had grown beyond petty, childish curses."
"Just as soon as you grow beyond petty, childish everything."
They sneer at each other. There's something to be said for too much too soon. John did the only thing he could possibly do to survive as Sherlock Holmes. He used his gift for understanding human motives as well as his experience in the army to compensate for what he lacked in ready forensic trivia. That alone only got him so far before he was forced to attack Science and Nature with more gusto than he had in years, in addition to any other relevant journals he could find. Mycroft had been a godsend in his willingness to have Anthea—Cassiopeia, Calliope, Desdemona, Esmeralda, or Nymphadora during a particularly coy week—fetch him any research material he might need. He made a busy woman of her.
Comprehension was easy, John's always been a quick study; it was retention that continually thwarted him. He's understood from the very beginning that Sherlock's, and even Mycroft's, mind works differently from his own: There's more space, perhaps more order; there's all-around more. He knew he couldn't hope to compete. So, John consulted the master—Sherlock will kill him if he ever finds out how John sees his brother now—and learned to forget.
Sherlock is giving him that look again.
John is updating his blog for the fifth time since returning home two months ago. His posts lately have alternated between recollections of their recent joint work and the work he did abroad. It's good stuff, if written a little differently than his readers are accustomed to. Sherlock's already applauded the slow death of his sentimental side. John laments it but knows there's nothing for it. That part of him will either return in time or not at all; he's made peace with either outcome.
He's also made peace with his friend's keen interest. Sherlock wants to play, constantly. He slides old case files at John when he is tired, when he is bored, when he is otherwise occupied and asks him to solve them. Sometimes he can't, sometimes he can, and sometimes he just gets stuck on the cusp without ever falling. His is not a young mind, he's taught it what it can be taught as well as it can be taught. Sherlock disagrees.
"John, I'd like to conduct an experiment—if you agree."
The ex-army doctor, and he tries to think of himself as that more often than anything else and it helps, finishes proofing his latest post and submits it to the blog queue. It should show up in the next hour. He expects it to cause a fuss; that's the part he likes.
"What sort of experiment?"
"Nothing too extreme."
"I don't know what that means." With Sherlock, it's likely related to unavoidable mortal peril. John already has plans to retrieve his gun.
"Just a friendly competition."
"What sort of competition?"
"Of deduction. I want to see what you've taught yourself in your time away." His glance is assessing, calculating. John thinks he'd make a fine evil genius had Moriarty not already filled the niche.
"You know what I've taught myself, you've read the case files."
"Indeed, but I'm also aware that you tend to greatly understate your abilities to satisfy some perceived societal bent toward modesty."
John sighs and reaches up to ruffle his hair. "No one likes a know-it-all, Sherlock."
"Why does it matter?"
"What?"
"Whether anyone likes you. You're smarter than them by leagues. Why do their feelings count?"
"Because, without clientele there is no work. We live to satisfy the Work and if there is none, what have we got? What are we?"
Sherlock purses his lips, and then nods. "Bored."
"Exactly." John knows that he talks like Sherlock, now, and it only bothers him when he breathes.
"You hate it, too, now? Being bored?" A glimmer of understanding creeps into his expression.
"It drives me mad," he smiles painfully. He can feel all the parts of himself he discarded to make room for Sherlock Holmes when he's bored. Everything he deleted yawns to be restored. That's something he can't allow. The madness of monotony in his own mind would overpower anything that boredom can mete out.
"Then, let's play a game."
"What sort of game?"
Sherlock grins, delighted it seems to have a near-equal he can trust. "A great one."
Sherlock hands him a set of handcuffs, origins unknown, and tells him to find the owner.
"Limitations?"
"For starters, within London proper."
It's a gift. John doesn't quite feel up to tramping across the whole of Britain on a lark, even if it keeps the boredom at bay. His hand and leg hardly bother him at all now; his rushes are intellectual and physical at once.
He slips out of 221B Baker Street at seven in the evening with plans to work all night. He's grown used to insomnia, he has caffeine pills that sharpen his mind when desperate measures call for it. Keeping Sherlock amused most certainly qualifies.
He doesn't return for days.