A/N: Well… not sure what exactly to say about this. I love BBC's Sherlock so much but for a long time I've been too intimidated by the sheer perfection it seems to have to really bring myself to even try and characterize John and Sherlock into a story of any length or type. But, with the help of my wonderful beta, I got over my fear and here is the result! Please enjoy. If you do, let me know, and there will be more stories like this to come!
Disclaimer: I do not own any variation of Sherlock Holmes or John Watson
Title: Compassion
The thing about Sherlock Holmes is that it's not very often that things ever really surprise him. His deductive reasoning skills more often than not led him to be able to reason his way to most any conclusion.
On the contrary, the thing about John Watson is that most everything comes as a surprise to him; especially in regard to the world's only consulting detective. But on the other hand, he never really tried to over-think anything Sherlock did. He had a sort of blind sense of trust in the detective, that he always knew what he was doing. It was something that everyone else usually called foolish.
But that was just how John Watson was.
The world and all its people became that much more interesting when he stopped trying to look for the result and motive behind everything people did, something that he knew Sherlock would never understand. As a doctor, that is to say, a man of science who was well-versed in the methods of experimentation and observation, he found it all very interesting, which is perhaps why, ultimately, he found Sherlock very interesting.
Considering the amount of time the two spent together, John liked to think that he knew Sherlock pretty well, perhaps better than anyone. Because no matter how much longer everyone else may have known Sherlock for, there was always times that they were too blinded by biased opinions that they were not able to see the detective's true nature.
While on the contrary, John's only bias was through how particularly extraordinary he found Sherlock's skill to be.
It was everyone else who, he felt, never really saw the things Sherlock did and said for how they really were. They saw, but never observed, as Sherlock would say.
Detective Lestrade and Donovan saw a sociopathic freak with a skill they could never hope to have. They never saw beyond that, the quiet musings of a genius at work, behind the closed doors of 221B, the moments at all hours of the quiet London nights, where the flat would be utterly silent except for the momentary rustle of papers as John turned the page of a newspaper he'd been reading. When suddenly Sherlock, from the couch on the other side of the room, would begin to speak.
Not to the doctor, specifically, or even to the skull on the mantelpiece, although John would always look up and watch him stare and mutter to the ceiling. Sherlock spoke only to himself. Playing out a hypothesis, and then throwing it away just as fast as he'd uttered them, and almost as quickly as he'd began to speak, it was gone and the silence took over again.
Sherlock wasn't merely a genius who was a hundred steps in front of the rest of the world. He was just as everyone else was, spending his days pursuing something he found an immense interest in and played it all out from beginning to end. Only simply a little faster than everyone else.
Then there were the people like Mycroft Holmes, who hinted that Sherlock's mystery solving were all simply a distraction tool, for Sherlock, to keep himself from searching for anything else that might slow or quicken his trail of thought, depending on the day.
But, for all Mycroft's snooping and surveillance, John knew Mycroft could not see the sparkle and the fire behind those liquid mercury eyes. The surefire mark of passion. The mark of genuine interest. All blind because of some age old feud between two quarreling brothers, which John had to wonder, did they even remember the reason for the quarrel, beyond that one was daft and one was a git?
Despite it all, John often felt like the simple bystander. A voyeur into it all. A wall for Sherlock to throw his ideas at and have them actually bounce back. Regardless of his purpose, or lack thereof, the experience was something he was glad to be a part of, something that made him feel like he was part of something just a bit bigger than his simple, ordinary, and mundane existence.
In the end, wasn't that all anyone was ever really looking for?
Sherlock was babbling on again, speaking at but not quite to John as he grabbed his coat and tied his scarf. John was playing the part of the wall, once more, as he stood from the chair and slipped his shoes on. Another day, another murder. So it goes, as Vonnegut would say.
Exiting from the flat they headed off towards the end of the street, to better hail a cab to take them to the other side of London. John was listening intently, as he always did, trying to follow the quickened words of Sherlock without over-thinking it and becoming lost in the moment that he let his thoughts mull over what Sherlock had said a moment ago, thereby losing focus in what was presently being said.
"Sherlock, you're not making any sense. What would be the point of that?" He finally stammered out, shoving his hands down into his pockets to fight the bitter cold.
"The point, John! How is it not clear? How do you not see!" Sherlock shook his head, but continued looking straight ahead, those melding eyes focused and burning with a goal just out of his reach. John observed the look and felt the same fire beginning to burn inside him. The feeling was addicting, to say the least.
Regardless of his inability to see Sherlock's point at that moment, he let it drop, knowing Sherlock was going to have to recount his epiphany again as it were, once they got to the crime scene that was continuing to be investigated. If there was one thing he knew Sherlock hated, it was repeating himself, after all.
They were just about to the busy street corner, where numbers of people were filing in and out of cars, all of them wrapped up in their own world, either heading off to other parts of the city or just arriving back from their exploits. John's eyes darted around at all the people, wondering what Sherlock was seeing in all of them, what he was able to deduce from just looking at them and finding himself trying to do the same thing, as Sherlock did.
But suddenly John stopped, realizing that Sherlock was no longer beside him. Instantly assuming that the detective had run off without bothering to tell the doctor, John sighed, "Oh for the love of…" But just as he turned to try and track Sherlock, he stopped in his place.
Sherlock stood just a few paces back, frozen in place.
"What are you…" Just as John stepped closer to Sherlock once more and turned to see what he was looking at, he stopped.
Off to the side of the sidewalk, a man stood in dark, worn and torn clothing, juggling three white batons up into the air. Every few moments he would lose his focus and drop them onto the ground, but almost immediately he'd pick them up and start again.
He was a homeless man, just one in an increasing number of them around London. They were nothing out of the ordinary. John's eyes trailed down, to a board beside him that had scribbled on it, 'Trying to get by'.
"Sherlock?" John wondered, looking back up to the detective, who said nothing in response, simply narrowing his eyes and staring over towards the man.
"Trying to get by?" Sherlock questioned, his head held high, his hands folded behind him. There was something in his eyes, now, something behind it all that he couldn't read and had never seen before. He wondered if perhaps Sherlock was going to call the man out on a fraud of some sort. What else could have held the detective's interest so?
The man stopped, catching his batons, the look in his hazel eyes a man who had lost all his pride and full of desperation. "Yes, sir," he said simply. John looked between Sherlock and this homeless man, trying to pick out some motive behind it all. "Hard to make it by in London when you barely have any skills."
Sherlock gave the man a once over. "How did you get to London?"
"I came with my girlfriend. We were going to try and make it, here. Artists. She got commissioned, and I got the street." He said with a small shrug.
"And you've yet to make the money to sufficiently get by." Sherlock's look was on the contemplative side. Judging income, judging the amount of time, and many other factors all within a split second.
"This 'job' doesn't make much. I'm lucky if I make enough to get a bite to eat a night, let alone trying to make the money to sufficiently get by. Not many people are willing to help a recovering addict." Again he shrugged, the look in his eyes deepening with desperation. It was only after he said something that John happened to notice the fading track marks on the young man's arm.
Sherlock simply nodded.
"Sherlock? Isn't there a place we're supposed to be?" John insisted.
As if breaking from a trance Sherlock's eyes returned once more to their fixed, determined look. "Right, John." He turned his head as if to make to leave, but remained solid in his place. Something was holding him back, but John couldn't quite put his finger on what.
Suddenly the detective walked over and pulled fifty quid from his pocket, dropping it in an open bag at the man's feet. Without a word, he turned and continued on his way towards a waiting cab as the homeless man stammered out multiple thanks to him over and over.
John continued to look between them, shocked as he followed Sherlock down the street and into the awaiting cab, which took off into traffic once Sherlock gave him the address. "What was all that about?" John asked as they took off, leaving Baker street and things became quiet.
"What was what about, John?" Sherlock asked, as his eyes moved around their car, eyeing up the people passing on the street.
"That man. What happened there?"
"Hm?" Sherlock looked over, merely momentarily, to show that John had his attention. "Nothing happened. I was simply helping someone out. Isn't that part of what constitutes a decent human being, John?"
John paused, momentarily mulling this over in his head before he stammered, "Well, yes. But, no, Sherlock. That was different. You don't do things to prove you're a 'decent human being'. You only do things when they interest you. So why did you do that? We see enough homeless people all the time and you don't go around asking for their stories!"
Sherlock didn't meet John's eyes as he continued to eye up the passers by, "No, I don't," he said, and for a long moment that was where it ended.
"Perhaps I related to him," the detective said quietly, almost a whisper that was barely audible over the rumble of the cabbie amidst the bustle of the outside London traffic.
John's eyes widened a fraction. "Related to him? How?" he asked, trying to imagine Sherlock in any sort of state relative to that man's. He found it impossible to imagine Sherlock as anything less than he was now. Confusing. Silent. Deadly. Robotic. Unemotional. How could it be that someone like that could ever relate to someone like that?
He chuckled a moment, opting to let go of ever trying to figure it out. Sherlock was a mystery to him in so many ways. He let on to the things he wanted to share with John, and kept the rest under strict lock and key, away from everyone. So perhaps he was trying to share something more with John. Or something he couldn't help but share.
A compassionate side. A side that actually cared for his fellow human being. Compassion for the people that perhaps shared at least part of the same story as he did.
John gave a small smile, leaning back in his seat and looking at their reflection in the glass. It was always the small and the simple things that were the most interesting.
The End
A/N: Nothing too Earth-shattering here, I don't think. Though maybe it is to you. I don't know, I'm just the writer! You're the reader! Anyway, if you enjoyed this little piece of work, please be sure to drop me any length of a review and let me know! Anything you have to say would be a great help! And if you'd like more Sherlock fics from me, then please let me know and I can get to work on them!
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-Forbiddensoul562