Hey everybody! I sincerely hope all is well with you and yours. :) I've begun a journey with this new fic, and I don't really know where exactly it's going to take me yet, but I'm excited for it.

I couldn't get the phrase steel upon silk out of my head in relation to Sherlock and his idiosyncrasies. So I turned it into a character study and it all kinda ran away from me after that.

So...just so you're aware... there will be rather lengthy character studies in this fic, and they will be interspersed with action shots taken from the studies (some ACD/BBC canon, some from my own WILD imagination). You don't necessarily have to read the character studies (but I worked really hard on them so it'd be nice if you did!).

Okay, you've been warned. ;) On with the show!

Iron—the most common element by mass in the Earth as a whole, existing in a wide range of oxidation states. Pure iron is soft, but is unobtainable through the process of smelting. The iron itself is hardened and strengthened by the impurities that come with the smelting process, usually carbon. When fused with the right amounts of carbon, iron produces steel. Steel is one of the most common metals used in industry. The carbon molecules keep the iron bonds from fraying, and a number of other elements contribute to the hardness, ductility, and tensile strength.

Silk—a popular luxury textile; made from a natural protein fibre composed mainly of fibroin. Silk is used primarily in clothing (shirts, ties, blouses, dresses, lingerie, suits, robes, etc…). It is also used in upholstery, rugs, bedding, and wall hangings. Silk is renowned for its lustre and smooth, soft feeling that is not slippery, unlike synthetic fibres. Silk is also one of the strongest natural fibres, but it has poor elasticity and does not conduct electricity well.

Sherlock Holmes is an enigma. I suppose it's unavoidable when you refuse to let other people into your mind and your heart. Even the people that are closest to him have often found themselves scratching their heads in puzzlement (and often annoyance) at the mysterious man with his razor-sharp cheekbones and biting intelligence. Yes, he's an enigma alright. One minute he can be languorous and still, drifting in the space between waking and sleeping even though his brain is being ravaged by the stillness of tedium, and the next minute he is racing around like a prized greyhound, eagerly set upon the trail of another wrong-doer, that same great brain burning now with the thrill of the chase. The duality of his spirit is something that philosophers will muse upon for ages to come. His vivaciousness is offset by his lethargy. His passion is offset by his indifference. His intelligence is offset by his preposterousness. Many people see a paradox when they see Sherlock Holmes. But I think in all honesty… Sherlock Holmes is not a paradox. He is not a mystery. He is not a riddle or a puzzle to be solved.

Sherlock Holmes is merely an unbalanced formula.

Sherlock at his very core is like pure iron. Contrary to popular belief, pure iron is actually a soft metal (softer than aluminium). It is only when the pure iron ore is mixed with the impurities of the smelting process that it becomes harder. Although Sherlock's childhood was by no means ordinary, there were a lot of steps in between that carefree youth and the terrible reality of adulthood. As the smelting process introduces impurities and other elements into iron ore that harden and strengthen it, so the people and events that surrounded Sherlock Holmes transformed him into the cool, calculating, and wickedly intelligent being that prowled London and points beyond looking for stimuli to keep him from going mad.

He'd always been different, make no mistake about that. The Holmes family was neither uncaring nor unkind, but two children such as Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes were bound to introduce some… eccentricities into their daily lives. The Holmes children had been taught from early ages to observe the world around them and make the connections between things. The transfer of knowledge was valued by both parents and they encouraged their children to not only see their world…but to observe it as well. They were taught to not only understand…but comprehend as well. In that kind of an environment, it was not surprising when the siblings began to read people's lives in their shirt cuffs, left thumbnails, and shoelaces.

For Mycroft, the observations and deductions that coursed through his mind at any given moment were just background noise. No doubt it helped him to do his job most thoroughly, and as a minor official in the British government, his skills had proven to be useful in more than one situation. However, the well-tuned mind of Mycroft Holmes was simply that; well-tuned, a machine that works without hiccups. It runs efficiently and quietly and Mycroft is perfectly content to do what he does. It is not that he lacks drive or passion, because one could hardly become the British government without either. Mycroft is simply content to do without the legwork.

Sherlock, on the other hand, is the perfect embodiment of organised chaos. We have discussed before the duality of his spirit and his seemingly paradoxical existence. Here is a man with a keen intelligence that surpasses everyone he knows except for his brother and the one or two vexing criminals that have escaped him in the past (and they're not necessarily smarter…but maybe…quicker). Sherlock is a master of a great many areas of knowledge, both theoretical and practical. He lives for his work as a consulting detective, a career that he himself invented…ever the pragmatist. Whereas his elder brother despises the legwork, Sherlock yearns for it like a hound after a fox. His mind is in constant need of attention and maintenance; the work provides that for him.

But the work wasn't always around. It had been some time before Sherlock realised that he could manage to make a living doing what he does best. But there were other distractions that fed his mind before the work came along to be his mistress. As I said, the people and events in Sherlock's life are like the impurities of the smelting process that harden and strengthen the iron ore. Sherlock had once been like the soft iron ore. He still is, I suppose, but he is not easily extractable.

The first element to strengthen him was his education and devotion to learning. Here was the child who had learned to speak at a very early age and had become trilingual by age five (in English, French, and Latin). Here was the child that made his own chemistry set using bits and bobs from his father's older sets. He would spend long hours in the gardens and the forest sketching plants and animals and then spend more hours bent over encyclopaedias learning everything there was to know about them. Sherlock's thirst for information carried him through his school years and into his adulthood, and even now, the man has a consistent desire to learn and study everything and anything that he wishes. Over time, he has learned to filter out the trivial information, the great brain working like a sieve. Even so, the impact of his constant accruing of information on every level makes him stronger.

The first impurity to harden him was the bullying. Sherlock would never in his life admit it, but the bullying hurt him deeply. With his keen mind, he could laugh it off or deduce something scandalous about the bully(s), which would temporarily take care of the problem. Sherlock was always chanting a mantra about how it didn't mean anything and they were merely jealous of his intellect. Because he was intelligent, he knew that his tormentors were just deflecting their own esteem issues on to him in an effort to gain control over their feelings and actions. It was simple psychology. And yet…understanding why his bullies were bullies didn't make it any easier to endure their onslaught. When Sherlock was alone and the memories of his distress came flooding back to him, it was everything he could do to not drop to the floor and weep like a toddler. I'm afraid he did actually cry, and more than once at that. But as the years progressed, nothing changed. Sherlock changed grades faster than anyone and attended several schools in order to keep up with his need for higher learning. But the people never changed. They cringed in the sight of his then unassuming intelligence and muttered awful things about him, sometimes without even the decency to do it behind his back. And so, as he grew older, Sherlock also grew harder. He kept everything that he was inside a shell, only letting out his biting intelligence, sarcastic wit, and sharp deductions. He was determined that vulnerability was a weakness…and he would not be weak.

University changed virtually nothing. The work was more difficult, which was a welcome challenge. The people around him seemed less concerned with him and more concerned with their own workloads and degrees, a change that suited Sherlock Holmes just fine. However, there was something decidedly different about Sherlock's years at the university because of one simple thing; it was that place of higher education in which Sherlock began to use his deductive powers to solve puzzles. It all started with a missing Bunsen burner from the lab and he'd been able to prove that an idiot in his lab named Victor Trevor had taken it in order to roast marshmallows with his friends in their flat. Victor had returned the burner with sarcastic shame, but he'd genuinely taken an interest in the tall, curly-haired man who had ratted him out. Victor stopped Sherlock in the courtyard and asked him how he'd figured it out. I imagine that their conversation went something like this:

Victor: "Hey… hey, you! Stop, I want to talk to you."

Sherlock: "What do you want?"

Victor: "How'd you know?"

Sherlock: "How did I know you'd taken the burner?"

Victor: "Obviously…"

Sherlock: "Simple. You work in that lab, so you're automatically included as a suspect. As I recall, Professor Wellsey instructed you and your lab partner to clean the lab after class was dismissed, seeing as how you two had created that mess with the fluoride that day, so you had the opportunity to take it unobserved, since Wellsey doesn't have the propensity to stick around after class. Furthermore, you have a bandage around finger where you accidentally burned it and a corresponding scorch mark on the cuff of your jacket."

Victor: "How do you know that wasn't just from class or perhaps an accident in the kitchen?"

Sherlock: "It wasn't from class because your lab partner always turns on the burner when we work with them. If it had been an accident in the kitchen, you wouldn't have the scorch mark on your jacket, because who wears their jacket when cooking?"

Victor: "Well…how about that."

Sherlock: "You also have dried marshmallow in your goatee and I have the habit of listening in to the campus rumour mills. It's not exactly accurate, but one tends to find news items of note amongst them. Your escapade was…listed, as it were."

Victor: "You're good."

Sherlock: "I know."

Victor: "Humble too. Have you ever considered doing this for a living?"

Sherlock: "….. and how would you expect me to do that?"

Victor: "I dunno… maybe be a detective or something… work with New Scotland Yard or the Met."

Sherlock: "Dull….too much paperwork. But I will… consider you proposal."

Victor: "I suspect you shall. No hard feelings, then. Maybe I'll see you around then?"

Sherlock: "Perhaps you shall."

Victor: "Victor Trevor, by the way."

Sherlock: "Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."

As I said, that's how I imagine it all began…with an innocent suggestion and a moderately civil exchange. I don't really know how it happened in reality, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. However it happened, Sherlock began to see that his deductive abilities could carve new pathways for him. His knack for solving little crimes and puzzles continued throughout his affair with higher education. By the time he graduated, he'd solved several disappearances, a few thefts, and even one attempted murder. It was during this last that Sherlock first made his acquaintance with a younger sergeant in Scotland Yard, a smart and sympathetic man named Greg Lestrade.

Most people were simultaneously startled and terrified when Sherlock would reveal his great insight into people's lives from the clues they presented without ever knowing. It was one reason why Sherlock tended to keep to himself; as much as he loved an audience, one could only take so many metaphorical tomatoes to the face. Victor Trevor had been the first one to not run away from Sherlock's deductions screaming into the night…he'd even given Sherlock praise for his actions. It was almost unsettling. Greg Lestrade had been the second person to not shrink away in the light of his deductions. His exact reaction had been "How the hell did you know that?" and "Holy buggering… you got all that from the window sill?" It had stimulated a burst of pride in Sherlock that I'm afraid never went away. In fact, it could be argued that it only worse as time passed.

Yes, Greg Lestrade saw potential in the young man who saw and observed. Here was a young man who could tell you the most intimate details about your life simply by looking at your shirt cuffs or your left pinkie finger. Lestrade remembered how the young man had sidled up to him at the crime scene at the university and told him in a totally deadpan manner that the person they were looking for would be roughly 1.8 metres in height, left-handed, was a high jumper or a pole vaulter, and worked as a mechanic. When the raven-haired man had continued to explain how he'd reached his conclusions, Lestrade hadn't been able to keep his shock/amazement to himself. He'd pestered the young man for a business card, but the man had simply stared at him with wide blue-grey eyes and said, "Sherlock Holmes, I'm sure you'll remember it," and then walked away without another word. Lestrade did indeed remember it when he became a detective inspector several years later and found the same young man lying in a gutter strung out on a hit of cocaine.

Cocaine. In the idleness that followed university, Sherlock found his mind wanting for distraction. The tedium of everyday life that so many find relaxing and re-energizing was toxic for Sherlock. In the absence of studying, experimenting, or solving little crimes, his mind was laid waste by boredom and lack of stimulation. The humming of his overactive mind whirred and clicked and roared like an angry mechanical beast. The buzzing filled him like a constant barrage of static white noise and made him restless and anxious. Sherlock didn't really remember how he had reasoned that artificial stimulation would be the best balm for his ills, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. The cocaine he secured was like a white-hot iron in his mind and damn it all if it didn't feel so good. It made everything bright and shiny and blissfully quiet and Sherlock was able to escape, if only for a few hours.

But I'm afraid that when Lestrade found him hunched in a back alley, pale and thin and strung out, he realised that the cocaine was a vulnerability—a chink in his armour. His dependence upon the drug to shut out the screams of his overtaxed mind would surely haunt him. What would happen if he someday was unable to find his fix? What if the next time his ego got the better of him, he ended up comatose or dead from an overdose?

But like every person who has ever been addicted to anything, the temptation of sweet release was beckoning every second that his mind didn't have a problem to focus on. It was then that Detective Inspector Lestrade offered the young man a deal. If he could stay clean, he would share some of the Yard's most baffling cold case files with him. Sherlock had agreed and the rest, as they say, is history. Sherlock found lodgings on Baker Street when he'd helped the landlady, a charming older woman named Martha Hudson, deal with an irritating ex-husband issue. Sherlock stayed clean (for the most part) and worked tirelessly through the cold case files. Eventually, he took Victor Trevor's advice and offered his services as a consulting detective.

Being a consulting detective suited Sherlock Holmes like Royal Albert Hall suits the London Symphony Orchestra. At first, the cold case files just provided exciting little puzzles for his eager mind to chew on, keeping him away from the cocaine and the temptation. However, there came the inevitable junction when Detective Inspector Lestrade saw before him two things; the genius (and madness) of Sherlock Holmes, and his need as a DI to get answers to a horrifically violent and mystifying case that had him and all of his officers stumped. Sherlock knew this…he'd read it in Lestrade's face and posture. He'd offered to take a look at the crime scene and the evidence, and Lestrade had allowed him. The younger man had been at the scene for all of five minutes before he rattled off a string of impressive deductions that had amazed and terrified everyone gathered. Sherlock had ended up chasing the criminal down himself like a hound chasing a fox, and from that moment, he was hooked. The thrill of the chase and the satisfaction of solving the mystery was more addictive than any substance he'd ever taken. And so, he became the world's first consulting detective, assisting the detectives at New Scotland Yard with cases that are out of their depth (which is always). He was the lone hunter on the prowl. He is the first and last of his kind.

And so we have a fairly tenable summary of the genesis of Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective and deductive genius. You yourself have witnessed his incredible tenacity when in pursuit of those who choose to commit heinous crimes. The iron ore that was Sherlock Holmes had been tempered by that point into fine steel, hardened and strengthened by the people and the circumstances of his life. He is persistent, passionate, perceptive, and powerful, tempering the unquiet of his mind by solving crimes that Scotland Yard cannot. He finds relief in the bizarre and excitement in the inexplicable. He is the self-proclaimed sociopath of Baker Street, seemingly content to live out his days in the face of unidentifiable danger. He has "friends", but the more accurate definition would probably be "people he cares about but will never admit it to their faces". So I think it is safe to say that Sherlock chose to live his life in solitude with only his brain and a skull for close company.

Which is why the sudden and seemingly random appearance of one Dr. John H. Watson into his life is such an interesting and unexpected junction.

And Sherlock loves the unexpected.

In many ways, John Watson is Sherlock's antithesis, the warm to his cold and the light to his dark (but more on that later). Sherlock does not believe in anything remotely connected to spirituality, but even he cannot scientifically explain what exactly pulled him towards John Watson that day in the lab at Bart's and consequently what pulled John towards him. In truth, they were almost complete opposites…with only a shared love of danger, adrenaline, and Earl Grey tea joining them together. And yet, whereas the polarity of their spirits might lead you to think that they would drive each other away, it only brought them together and bound them in perfect balance. It is here that we discover that Sherlock is not only steel- impure iron ore shaped and strengthened into a perfect reasoning machine—but also silk.

Silk is a luxurious textile made from the natural protein fibres woven by silk moths and other insects of the sort. Silk is smooth and soft and renowned for its sheen and lustre. It is also a strong fibre, but it is not elastic or very giving, tearing quite easily. I have commented before on the duality of Sherlock's own being, and I say here that John Watson's introduction into his life made the duality implode and soften around the edges. To most people, Sherlock was iron and steel. But to John, Sherlock was silk—soft, strong, and unyielding in his protective, possessive nature over the good doctor.

Sherlock cannot pinpoint the exact moment he realised that his doctor had become just that; his. He was fairly certain that the seed was planted during the encounter at the pool, when John's life was hanging on a delicate precipice directly in front of his eyes. After that moment and in all the subsequent aftermath of Moriarty's plague in their lives, Sherlock found himself to be even more protective of John—sometimes in secret and sometimes not in secret. It was a feeling that he fought with at first. Caring was not an advantage…it left you open and vulnerable and vulnerability had never sat well with Sherlock. He wrestled with his need to care for John and his need to remain quasi-objective in the face of his doctor, blogger, and friend. Oh yes, I'm sure he fought it tooth and nail, because Sherlock is nothing if not a fighter. And yet, his steeliness bent under John Watson. There was something in the doctor's own protective nature that warmed his heart and something in John's smile that made him sit straighter and breathe deeper.

As such, he fought to always keep John Watson in his line of sight. He always felt more at ease with the doctor around, even if John was sassing him about the body parts in the fridge or if Sherlock was sassing John about…well, everything. Sherlock moaned and groaned about John's tedious string of dull girlfriends. Sure, they were pretty and smart as far as average humans are concerned, but John was an extraordinary person! He could do so much better than the relatively uninteresting women he paraded around with. As such, Sherlock did everything in his power to land a case during one of John's dates, requiring him to call the doctor out. Sherlock knew it was sneaky and underhanded and that was the whole point of it. But John came without question every time it happened. He would tell Sherlock off in some way, but he always came and he never questioned it.

As they spent more and more of their lives in tandem with one another, Sherlock found that his secret possessiveness of the doctor had become an instinct, even though it was an instinct he buried deep in his soul. Sherlock's distaste for such things as emotional labels prevented him from calling it love, but he couldn't deny that it was…something like that. A love-like instinct. It was this instinct to protect what was his that led Sherlock to step off the roof of the hospital and unwillingly and unknowingly break John's heart. It was simultaneously the hardest and the easiest decision Sherlock had ever made. The choice to save John and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade had been easy. He was no good at demonstrating his affection towards them in reality, but he hoped that they would understand his actions more than his words. He would step off a hundred buildings if it meant those three people could live to see another day.

It had been the most difficult thing Sherlock had ever encountered to leave John and make him believe that he had died. Truth be told, he wasn't prepared for the level of emotional wreckage his heart faced because…well, he'd never really felt anything for anyone like he felt for John. Desire wasn't a strong enough word. Lust didn't even scratch the surface. Affection crumbled to dust in the sight of what Sherlock felt for John. It was friendship and mutual respect and recognition. It was trust and admiration and complete acceptance of quirks and idiosyncrasies. It was utter tenderness and care and devotion as well as anger, irritability, and impatience. It was foot chases through London, endless cups of Earl Grey, ice packs on bruises, cab rides, insults, praises, and feet in the refrigerator. It was unlike anything Sherlock had ever experienced and something he had no wish to leave behind, no matter how imperative it was that he did. For the first time, he had… a someone. He had a person…his person. And he had to leave him.

Coming back to him was probably the true catalyst that sparked his shift into a creature of dualistic spirits—steel on silk, softness acting upon hardness. John had been furious and hit him rather hard, blacking his eye and damn near breaking his nose. His outrage had lasted for an agonising six days—and they were the longest days of Sherlock's life. John had screamed terrible things at him and he'd sat there and taken it all, drinking in every foul word and every curse that John flung at him, his penance for his deception. After John had fled their flat, Sherlock waited there for six days, twitching at every sound, hoping that it was the door and his doctor had come home.

It was during that tortuous six day wait that Sherlock came to realise that he loved John Watson. As he sat alone in Baker Street, he wondered if John's three year wait had been as agonising as this. If it was… well, Sherlock was already being eaten alive by the monstrous guilt of having to leave John in the first place. That additional thought just made it grow. If John had felt this every day for three years… Sherlock owed him so much more than he already did, probably more than he could ever give back. What if that was the case and John couldn't and wouldn't accept his apology? What if John would not come back? What if Sherlock had honestly and irrevocably blasted apart any chance at the friendship they'd had before? The what ifs cut a swath of fire through the core of Sherlock's soul. John was his light and his warmth… John was his heart. And if John would leave… there would be no way he could survive without his heart now.

On the seventh day, just when his despair was making his insides raw, John returned to Baker Street. He'd come in the door with wrinkled clothing and eyes ringed with dark circles and that old military stance that he pulled when he was trying to keep himself together. He'd walked very slowly up to Sherlock, who had been standing in the window with his hands clasped behind his back. They'd stared at each other for several minutes without saying a word…maybe it was days…months…millennia. To this day, neither one of them is sure how long they stood there before Sherlock had uttered "I'm so sorry, John," his voice raspy and low and choked with dreaded sentiment. No, they might not have known how long they stood there in silence, but they definitely knew who had made the first move.

John had swept a gentle hand over the bruises on Sherlock's face that he'd put there himself, gently caressing the small cut on the bridge of Sherlock's aquiline nose. Sherlock had felt his heart push the blood through his veins faster and faster under John's touch, like a conductor urging his orchestra towards their accelerando. He'd leaned into the touch but kept his hands to himself, not wanting to intrude into John's presence without his permission. His obedience hadn't lasted long, however, when John pulled Sherlock's face down and proceeded to smother him with a kiss that reduced his nerve endings to crumbled ash. His whole body felt electrified as he leaned into John's embrace and sent traitorous limbs to wrap securely around John's back. Sherlock discovered that the effect of John's mouth on his own produced a silence in his brain that was infinitely more effective than the work or the cocaine. In fact, when he felt John swipe his tongue over his bottom lip and then proceed to tangle the organ with Sherlock's, the detective's brain most definitely short-circuited. The feeling of John's strong fingers twined in his hair and pressing his face even closer gave him a high that lit the insides of his mind like a nuclear explosion. John had always been his conductor of light, but this…oh this was a glorious feeling, a broken hallelujah sobbed by a chorus of stone angels in the dying fire of an atomic collision.

It was a slower process than you might imagine, settling back into their old ways. Their newfound physical yearning for each other helped to ease the transition, certainly, but trust is not so easily regained, even if John Watson never gave up on Sherlock Holmes during his three year sabbatical. Their transition from partners to lovers was simple enough—their mutual respect for each other and indeed their love for one another made that a fairly simple process. No one was surprised (even though Mrs. Hudson tried to be, for their sake). Even so, there were fights. There were many apologies on both sides, some accepted and some not. There were compromises made and tantrums thrown by both parties. It was difficult…but they were nothing if not determined. And throughout the entire process, no matter how big the fight or how sharp the words were, they never stopped loving, and that made all the difference in the end. They went back to being partners. They went back to solving crimes and blogging about it. It was a long and arduous process, but eventually the wrong was forgiven and everything settled back into its rightful place in their world. The only difference was that now they got to kiss each other and sleep in the same bed and whisper sweet nothing into each other's ears when no one else was looking. And, to be completely frank, once Sherlock learned the ropes, the sex was mind-blowing.

And so now we see the silken side of Sherlock Holmes—the side that belongs to John Watson and John Watson alone. The side that loves and feels and cares, even if it is hidden beneath miles of arrogance and snarkiness. Sherlock is steel upon silk, and the properties of both those elements are on display to those who not only see but observe. He is a scientist, a philosopher, and a problem-solver. He is a tenacious detective and an unrepentant lover. He is a demon with a halo…an angel on fire. He is fire and ice, black and white and all the shades in between. He loves and hates, he sees but is blind. He is the day and the night. He was an unbalanced equation before; only the dark and the ice were his domain. John Watson entered his life and brought him equilibrium. John has never tried to cage his intellect, but instead has softened the edges and blurred the angles and made him…better. John has given him balance and showed him that vulnerability is not a disadvantage, but instead power…power to do things you might never have done or to see things the way you've never seen them before. And when John moves his lips and his body over Sherlock's in ways that make his brain fizzle and hiccup, Sherlock surrenders to the power of vulnerability.

He no longer sees it as a paradox and the result is glorious.