Author's note: Chapter 2 of "The Thing Is" is coming, but I had to get this out first so it would leave me alone and let me work.
Why John Isn't Gay
1.) Because Harry got there first, and there's a law: only one gay per immediate family.
2.) Because John is a doctor and knows about these things, and having an erotic dream about your flatmate does not make you gay.
Nor does four a week.
Consistently.
3.) Because he was in the Army, for God's sake, and...okay, strike that one.
4.) Because he'd have known by now, wouldn't he? Before this? He was a doctor and a soldier, and he'd seen a lot of naked male bodies, and he'd never taken a second look, except for the ones everyone looked at twice. And everybody would admit that after a few pints with friends, yeah? Everybody's done that if they're honest about it.
5.) Because he doesn't want to be Harry. Harry's life is a shithole, with the drinking and cheating and lying, and who knows where it all started? Harry walked out on Clara, on the best thing that ever happened to her, and John doesn't ever want to be stupid enough to do something like that, to have fucked up his life that badly, and who knows how much like Harry is too much? If Harry is a drunk, John can't be. If Harry is faithless, John can't be. If Harry is gay, John can't be. He can't.
6.) Because, if he's gay, does that mean all his relationships with women were lies? That they didn't count? Because there were women who mattered, who changed him, did things to his heart, and he hadn't been lying to them. If he's gay, is what they meant to him deleted?
Marian, his first, who had been impossibly sweet after what he now knew was far too short a time but all the longer his adolescent self could last, and who he'd ever afterward regarded with overwhelming love, wonder, and gratitude. Does that get erased, if he's gay?
Anne, at Uni. About a year in she'd thought she was pregnant, and he remembered how his heart had stopped and all he could think was shit shit shit this can't be happening. It had been a false alarm, and he'd been so glad about that, was still so glad about that, because it would have been a right disaster then. But in that interminable night he'd lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, brain caught in an endless loop of shit fuck no please no, he'd become aware that they were bound forever now no matter how it turned out, because even if it didn't happen there was a place in their heads where it might have done. That wasn't a lie. What he'd had with her, it hadn't lasted, but it wasn't a lie.
Lauren. He'd be married to her now, living in some little house with a big garden, a couple of kids, a private practice in a sleepy market town, if she hadn't been so much smarter than he'd been and seen what a train wreck that would have ended up. You need more, John, she'd said, tears not quite falling. You'll die inside, trying to be peaceful, and I'll hate you because I'll never be enough to make you happy. She'd saved the both of them with her No, darling, I can't, and he would not ever let her become nothing in the history of the man he was now.
7.) Because it did not matter what form the brilliant, incandescent, attractive force that was Sherlock wore. The heart within that body had been calling to John's since the beginning of time, and he could no more refuse it than he could ignore gravity, and with the same consequences.
8.) Because at the end of it all, if Sherlock were a woman, John would love her still.
For anyone who hasn't ever had to question their sexual identity, I'd just like to quietly mention that it's not as simple as getting over "Ew, that's icky! I can't be that!" and then shrugging and being fine with it. Identity is complicated, and by definition, issues of identity go to the core of a person. Discovering that who you are is different from who you thought you were can be excruciating, confusing, joyful, dizzying, overwhelming, exhilarating, frightening, and liberating. What it's not, is easy.
And my darlings, if you're questioning who you are and you're scared, or you know who you are and you're alone and hurting and need help, please, please look up the It Gets Better Project and/or the Trevor Project. I swear to you that you are loved and cherished by people you don't even know, and I promise you on my heart that it does get better. It does. Be brave.