Sometimes, John wondered what his life would be like if he'd never met Sherlock Holmes. And sometimes, normally when he's exasperated with the man who could never seem to take social cues the right way, he thinks his life would be a lot better if he had in fact never come into contact with the genius detective.
For a start, he wouldn't have to put up with fingers- bloody fingers- in the fridge, along with God knows what, all lying deceptively innocently alongside things like bread- edible things! Things that he consumed, that could easily get infected with some strange disease passed on from deformed body parts!
(Never mind that since he'd moved in, Sherlock had taken to putting only contamination-free limbs in the main fridge, and even then placing them in a separate container to where John left the consumables. After all, Sherlock had stated with his usual air of superiority, whilst food was simply a way of fuelling his own transport, John's body actually required things as mundane as food. John had to resist the urge to quip, 'You forgot air, too!')
And even when you didn't count the questionable safety of the food John, and occasionally Sherlock, ate, there were the long, insufferable hours of silence, accompanied only by the sharp trills of a bow slicing against a violin like a knife, or gliding against strings like a river- solely dependent on Sherlock's mood. John had been awoken more than once by the sound of Sherlock composing; if he actually thought that Sherlock believed disturbing his sleep would be productive, then John would have sworn that Sherlock sometimes composed with the singular intent of annoying him. But that would have been counterproductive, as John would have been irritated with the self-proclaimed sociopath, and an irritated John was a John that was less willing to help Sherlock with ridiculous little tasks that Sherlock himself was (purposely?) far too preoccupied to do.
So with an already traumatic combination of sleep-deprivation and the scarring view of body parts (that he supposed would be actually scarring if he hadn't already served in Afghanistan, hadn't been surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades for years), what else did he have to deal with? He had to deal with his brilliant, idiotic friend's refusal to eat or sleep during a case. Now, John was a doctor- and a damn good one at that. The facts related to bodily health, eating, and sleeping had been drilled into his head when he was a kid in Medical School. And John knew that what Sherlock did when he was on a case, or more precisely what he didn't do, was not healthy.
He'd tried goading his friend, at the beginning. Telling him that his mind would work better once his body had drawn energy from food, that it could deduce with more accuracy, at a faster speed. Telling him that maybe, instead of making unholy sounds in the middle of the night, he could try being normal and sleeping on the problem instead. ('The faster we finish this case," Sherlock had informed him, "the faster we can attempt to return to the normality we both know you despise." Because for all Sherlock claimed to not care about human emotions, he was very, very good at deducing them.) And so, John had decided to trust Sherlock in this matter; after all, to allow his transport to fall ill would be denying him the ability to go out and deduce, to see a crime scene, because John would undoubtedly either stay at home to look after him, or say he only had himself to blame and leave him with nothing but a few painkillers and a less than gingerly placed pat on the back.
Of course, that wasn't the last of it. The crime scenes, the murders themselves. The blood and horror and corpses and death that he'd thought he'd left behind. The stench of the Grim Reaper, bending with unnatural grace to steal the souls of people he'd eaten with, joked with, fought with. The adrenaline that coursed through his veins like pleasurable fire, leaving him with an after-taste of power and coppery scarlet liquid in his mouth. For all he would deny it- silently in Sherlock's company, rather vocally in others'-, John was an addict to the adrenaline that only came when he was in danger, and really, all he could do was sigh and compare it to Sherlock's 'I must prove my mental superiority!' complex.
And not only that, John mused, sipping lightly at a mug of tea whilst staring at his best friend's sleeping form, but he also had to put up with this brilliant, extraordinary man who both defied and embodied logic. Sherlock always crashed after a case, and this one had been particularly gruelling, simply from the state of the bodies alone.
It had been a serial killer (the knowledge of which had made an ecstatic smile spread over Sherlock's face, made him jump up and down like a five year old on sugar, before throwing a hasty "Grab your coat, John! We'll be out for a while, Mrs Hudson!" over his shoulder and practically skipping out of the door) who had done more than just mutilate bodies.
Driven by the belief that what he was doing, arranging bits of finger and toe into patterns, causing blood to splatter in the shape of a rose, a music note, was actually a form of art, their killer had brutalised and terrorised a small town in Hampshire for weeks. John, who was used to seeing death, used to seeing bits of friends missing, had been disgusted enough to almost throw up at the desecration of the bodies, and even Sherlock had turned a little pale, before distancing himself in the way that he always did and getting down to his job.
The local police had been convinced that it was the local pet shop owner, thanks to the hair of multiple animals lying on the victim's clothes, but a couple of well placed observations from Sherlock ("Considering that the only pets the shop owner keeps are of the relatively small variety, and the fact that these hairs are placed not only in a seemingly random pattern, but above the knee, we can combine this evidence with the certainty that if the pet shop owner were the killer, he would not, in fact, leave evidence relating to a high number of small, domestic animals.") had pointed the figurative finger of blame at a young art student named Hadrian Walker, who had had a more than slightly unhealthy obsession with both the human body and images of death and the devil.
John had taken a long, long shower after they'd returned, before curling up on the couch with a mug of tea and a book in hand, where he'd then proceeded to soak up the comfort of having a warm, kinda homely even with the odd body part or three flat, a good novel, and the two-in-one luxury of good tea and a comfy seat. And now he had gone from listing the reasons as to just why living with Sherlock Holmes was a pain in the arse, to once again mentally narrating their latest adventure and praising his friend.
Truly, John Watson thought, no matter how much he moaned and groaned about the quiet, uncomfortable life he could have had, with his limp and his maybe one-quarter of an apple for breakfast routine, he would never let Sherlock hear of it- or even deduce it from him. In the end, he was still an ex-Captain of the British Armed Forces, he had fought in Afghanistan, had seen horrors that would have disabled the ordinary man. He was a soldier who honestly missed the rush that came with a fight, and Sherlock gave that back to him. He gave that back to him, along with a friend, an highly interesting life, and the chance to see into one of the greatest minds that had ever come to exist. And John would take that over the life of a civilian any day.
Yes, John Watson was not an ordinary man. But neither was Sherlock Holmes.
The two complemented each other like fire and grass; the possibility was there, to put each other out, but there was always the chance of the flames just growing higher.
And John would have it no other way.